Nintendo is usually pretty good at keeping followers of their various IPs on the same page, but the fanbase for the Fire Emblem franchise is unusually fractious. It's hard to find agreement about what the best game in the series is, with there being a particular friction between fans of 2019's Fire Emblem: Three Houses , with its unique combat mechanics and greater focus on between-battle extracurriculars, and the more traditional Fire Emblems that take a more combat-focused, tactical approach. Enter the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave , which is definitely leaning a bit more toward the Three Houses approach, albeit with plenty of its own changes and features thrown in for good measure.
Does Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave have what it takes to ignite fans' passions? I've had the opportunity to go hands-on with the first several hours of Nintendo’s latest strategy RPG, so venture onward for my early impressions.
Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave gets off to a rather discombobulating start , as you’re plunged into a grim apocalyptic world overrun by the possessed. It seems this is the work of some sort of demonic force known as Balor, although how this baddie managed to bring the world crashing down is unclear. The Progenitor God, Sothis, decides to do something about this and calls down a soul to confront the forces of evil.
You awaken in an incubation vat and are informed you had previously died, everything but your heart destroyed, and are now being placed into the body of a Mediator , a genetically engineered servant to the gods (you can name and customize this avatar to a limited degree). You're then informed that you're going to be teaming with the time-traveling goddess Fortuna to jump back five years into the past so you can ensure that four key heroes, The Flame Lords of Dagda , survive so they can help you take down Balor in the present.
It's kind of a lot, isn't it? I really didn't know what to think when I first started playing Fortune's Weave . Not only is a lot of not-terribly-well-explained info thrown at you, but the whole tone of this prologue is quite explicitly sci-fi. Or sci-fantasy (is that a thing?) Thankfully, once you get through the prologue, the story returns to more familiar ground, as you're given the option of jumping back in time and taking on the role of one of four different protagonists. Each of these characters has their own unique campaign, although they all find themselves drawn to the Heroic Games, a grand gladiatorial tournament held in the capital city of Dagsion.
Don't worry too much about which character you pick at first: after a certain point, you can switch freely between them , with your progress on each character's campaign being saved. I started with Leda, a young woman from a high-class family who witnesses her father's death during the Cydonia Massacre, a major event that seems to factor into a lot of characters’ backstories. Now all grown up and aided by a seemingly-possessed vihuela (a type of six-string guitar) she poses as a dancer as she tries to unravel the conspiracy that led to the Cydonia Massacre, and, as it turns out, one of the key culprits is a competitor in the Heroic Games.
While I didn't have time to test all four paths, I also delved into Cai's story to compare and contrast. I was happy to find that his campaign was completely different than Leda's, with a unique story, battles, and quests . The tone was also quite different. While Leda's story is fairly dark and a bit edgy by Nintendo standards, with lots of time spent in seedy taverns, Cai's story was more upbeat. Granted, there was still some darkness to Cai's story, as he needs to save his father, who's going to be executed for mysterious reasons, but it's treated with a lighter touch.
As Nintendo has revealed in their own trailers, completing each of these four characters' stories will allow you to take them with you into the endgame. You can also skip ahead and go without them, but that will make things significantly more difficult . That said, I don't think playing through all four stories will be too much of a grind, as each campaign is, again, entirely unique. In fact, skipping between them regularly may be the best approach.
As for where the story might go, the preview cutoff point is right after the first big Heroic Games showdown for each of the four protagonists, and I haven't played far beyond that. I really don't know how this is going to all tie together in the end. How is all that sci-fi-flavored weirdness from the prologue going to be paid off? Thus far, just the basic writing (dialogue, characters, worldbuilding) is significantly better than 2023's somewhat juvenile Fire Emblem Engage , although it lacks some of the ethical and political complexity of something like Fire Emblem: Three Houses. We'll see if that continues to be the case.
But hey, enough about the story, how does Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave play? As mentioned, Fortune's Weave definitely leans more toward the style of Three Houses on the battlefield . Of course, battles take place via an overhead grid with the player and their opponent moving their entire armies in turn, but this time around, the rigid rock-paper-scissors weapon triangle has been kicked to the curb . In its place is a more logical and grounded set of strengths and weaknesses. Armored units are resistant to weapons, but susceptible to magic; bow wielders are effective from afar, but vulnerable at close quarters, etc.
Combat Arts, powerful attacks that degrade a unit’s weapons with each use, return from Three Houses, and they're now joined by Blaze Arts, particularly impactful moves only certain units have that cost health points to use. Three Houses' Battalions also return, although in a more limited fashion , as only the character Theodora uses them as far as I know. Additional buffs and helpful effects can also be earned and deployed in battle by completing certain achievement-like tasks or assigning party members to work in temples between battles.
While battles feel a bit looser than the traditional weapon-triangle-focused combat of most past Fire Emblem games, there's still plenty of depth here . Individual battles also often throw you curveballs, with, for instance, Leda's first Heroic Games match being against opponents who carry stat-boosting "pure water," the effects of which can be dispelled by activating various switches around the map. Even early on, gimmicks like these are fairly common during battles.
Oh, and Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave also has another type of combat completely separate from the tactical battles the series is best known for. Lifted from the rather obscure 3DS game Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fortune's Weave also has dungeon crawling sections, which feature turn-based battles similar to what you might see in Dragon Quest or an old-school Final Fantasy game . These dungeons are an interesting change of pace, although the turn-based combat is really very simple and the dungeons are almost impossible to get lost in. The dungeons aren't bad by any means, but I probably wouldn't miss them if they weren't here.
Much like Three Houses, there's an almost overwhelming amount of stuff to do between your major battles . Players can make their way freely around Dagsion, where there are shops to peruse, sidequests to pick up, and occasional story scenes to encounter. The inn lets you auto-level up units, while the colosseum allows the player to train units in specific weapon proficiencies (Fortune's Weave has an open-ended class system, where units can become any class you want with some work). And as mentioned, party members can be assigned to temples devoted to specific gods in order to earn helpful blessings that can be used in battle.
And that's just inside Dagsion! You can also explore the world map, where you can hunt for food and crafting items, take on sidequests, explore dungeons and villages, and more . Each of the game’s four main characters also has their own unique side activities they can do, with, for instance, Leda being able to dance at different village taverns to boost her fame. The end goal of all this is to pump up your party members' levels, weapon proficiencies, and classes, but also to boost your leaders' Renown, which will unlock various things. Most notably, Dagsion is overrun with dozens of potential party members, but they all require a certain level of Renown and personal connection to be recruited.
And yes, building relationships between specific units in order to unlock support conversations is still very much a thing . While I haven't unlocked anything particularly spicy yet, there have been some hints of romance, and the general level of writing is much better than Fire Emblem Engage's infamously inane support convos.
Honestly, I'm glossing over some of the stuff you can do, because there’s a lot . Perhaps a bit too much sometimes. Unlike Three Houses, which mostly kept the extracurriculars on a tight weekly schedule, Fortune's Weave gives you a ton of in-game days to spend on different actions in between major battles. Between all the side stuff and this game’s sometimes lengthy cutscenes, there were times when I spent 90 minutes or more without seeing a traditional Fire Emblem tactical battle. Messing around can be fun, but if you're spending more time on the side stuff than on what's supposed to be the core of the game, is it really still side stuff?
These impressions are based on a copy of Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave provided by publisher Nintendo.
I'll admit, often when I write a preview, I already have a fairly solid idea of what my final assessment of the game will be, but that's not the case with Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave. This is pretty clearly the most ambitious Fire Emblem to date , with features plucked from the entirety of the series’ long history, with plenty of new stuff added on top, but there are still a lot of outstanding questions. Will the game's somewhat odd time-hopping story coalesce in a satisfying way in the end? Will the game's heavy focus on non-combat distractions make for a richer overall experience or eventually become tiresome? Make no mistake, the game holds a lot of promise, and while there's a chance it won't all weave together in the end, I'm eager to see the full tapestry .
Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave arrives on Nintendo Switch 2 on September 17 . Expect a review from Wccftech closer to launch!
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