"This is the story's true protagonist." Yeah, that blew my mind and may have just potentially sold me on the game.
The Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Nintendo Direct went down this morning, and featured a ton of new info and news surrounding the latest installment of the beloved franchise. As someone with absolutely no prior Fire Emblem experience, I'll do my best to cover it, but bear with me cause I might end up saying something stupid and wrong as I simply don't know any better.
Alright, here goes nothing.
Let's start with the BIG reveal from towards the end of the Direct. Up to this point, the Heroic Games have seemed to be the primary focus of Fortune's Weave's story, and while that's still very much the case, it's been acting as a front for the game's TRUE story, which actually takes place 5 years after the Heroic Games.
The game's setting, the Dagdan Empire, is on the brink of annihilation at the hands of Balor, the revived demon god. The four characters you can play as in the Heroic Games are nowhere to be found, and so, with nowhere left to turn, the progenitor god Sothis, a returning character from Three Houses, calls upon a soul to save the world.
That soul is the story's true main protagonist, NOT the four heroes of the Heroic Games.
Yeah, this reveal genuinely blew my mind, as it makes for SUCH a cool setup for a story.
So, how does this story set 5 years later tie into the Heroic Games? Well, you're faced with the options of facing the threat all on your own, or travelling back in time to change the fates of the 4 heroes so they can fight by your side in order to save Dagda from collapse at the demon god's hands.
Again, that is such a cool setup for a story, and reminds me a bit of Breath of the Wild, where you could also face the threat alone, or recruit four heroes of the past to fight alongside you. I don't know if it'll actually work this way, but it would be really cool if it was possible, albeit very, very difficult, to beat the game without ever recruiting any of the 4 heroes.
And like I said at the top, my intrigue towards this setup has actually made me consider picking the game up because I just find it so cool. Still not sure if I actually will, I'll have to see where I am in life when the game launches in about a month and a half and if I'm willing to spend $80 and dedicate a whole bunch of time to the game. But, it's not a hard no anymore, so, that's something!
Anyways, while the true story is set 5 years later, the Heroic Games and the 4 heroes taking part still seem to be the primary focus of the game, and the Direct spent a lot of time detailing that portion of the game, so let's dive deeper.
The 4 heroes are as follows:
- Cai, a young boy from a peaceful village fighting to save his imprisoned father
- Dietrich, who competes in the Heroic Games to satiate his thirst for battle
- Theodora, who fights to restore honor to her kingdom's loathed goddess
- And Leda, who seeks revenge against her father's murderer, who is also partaking in the Heroic Games
These are all compelling setups in their own right, and each hero will have their own story to follow. The character you choose will impact how the narrative unfolds, but thankfully, you're not locked into the story of the hero you choose. You'll be able to freely change to a different story path while retaining your progress for the previous hero. This means you'll be able to play all 4 stories in parallel, which... yeah, that sounds pretty overwhelming. I'd probably end up focusing on one story to start, and see where the narrative takes me from there. But it's a great option to have nonetheless!
The matches of the Heroic Games, unsurprisingly, play out like traditional Fire Emblem battles, being turn-based, tactical battles on grid-based battlefields. Strategically maneuvering your units around the battlefield and taking advantage of various attack ranges to defeat your foes while minimizing risk to your own units will be key to victory. Probably. Again, I don't play these games so I'm just going off of what I know and the little experience I do have with tactics games.
There's much to do outside of combat as well, both within Dagda's capital, Dagsion, and beyond.
Within Dagsion, there are many facilities and establishments you can visit and activities to take part in to prepare for battle. These include an arena for training and spectating, a shopping arcade for purchasing and enhancing weapons, a temple row for gaining various benefits in battle such as stat buffs and damage reductions, and inns, where you can automatically gather materials and gain experience, as well as watch characters and party members converse with each other. There's also Certification Exams to take part in to grant units new classes, quests to complete for various rewards, and the ability to recruit warriors to your party, though they might need some convincing first.
You can also leave the walls of Dagsion and explore a world map, visiting towns, collecting information, engaging in battles to gain experience, and raiding dungeons to collect materials and treasures. In these dungeons, you battle enemies via "turned-based clashes", which look like traditional turn-based RPG battles, which I was not expecting to see. It's a neat contrast to the standard tactical battles that make up the core gameplay.
There's a lot more to consider, too, such as Classes, which are split between Beginner, Specialty, and Advanced, each tier seemingly offering more complex yet powerful classes than the last. At least, that's the impression I got. A couple other things worth mentioning are the Blaze Arts, unique special abilities that each hero has that cost health points to use, and Fortuna's Blessing, which allows you to turn back time to previous points in battle to rethink a strategy or restore a lost unit. That... seems a bit overpowered, to be honest. Hopefully there are some guardrails in place on that to prevent it from being abused, unless maybe you're playing on, like, the easiest difficulty if the game has difficulty options.
And... those are all the major things I felt were worth noting from Nintendo's own roundup post (which you can view here), which, yeah, I was heavily leaning on to put this recap together because, otherwise, I would have very little clue what I'm talking about.
I did my best to throw together a recap of the biggest information from the presentation despite my lack of Fire Emblem experience, but I recommend checking out the presentation yourself if you haven't already. It'll explain everything way better than I can.
That isn't everything, however, as at the very end of the Direct, we got some news on Nintendo Music and Nintendo Today.
On the music side, a Special Release containing 10 tracks from the game dropped on the app immediately after the presentation. So... Happy Nintendo Music Tuesday, I guess!
For Nintendo Today!, a new Fire Emblem theme will be available for the app starting tomorrow, which is honestly pretty cool. Most of Nintendo's major franchises already have themes, so seeing a more niche series like Fire Emblem get one is very welcome. I could totally see a Xenoblade theme next year accompanying Xenoblade Genesis, or a Pokemon theme in the lead up to Winds and Waves. There's a lot they can still do with the themes in that app, so I hope this isn't the last new theme.
There's also going to be a new 'Ask the Developer' column on the game, arriving September 15th, 2 days before the game comes out. These almost always reveal neat behind-the-scenes tidbits, so if that interests you, keep an eye out for it.
That should about do it for the Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Nintendo Direct. Even if I'm still on the fence, the game does appear to be shaping up as another excellent entry in the franchise, and a great Switch 2 debut for the series!
At least, from my perspective as an outsider. For all I know FE fans might think it looks like ass, in which case, uh... my bad! I don't know ball, so I'm doing my best, man!
...
...oh my goodness I almost forgot about the gun.
They put a gun in Fire Emblem. Well, technically, it's supposed to be 'gauntlets that look like a firearm', but... even if it's only a gun in spirit, it's still a gun in Fire Emblem, which is hilarious to me. The next Fire Emblem character in Smash should 100% wield this.
