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The latest entry in Nintendo’s long-running turn-based tactical RPG series, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, has only been out for a short while but has already received a lot of praise. In our review of the game we awarded it a full 10/10 score, calling it a “massive epic”. As many players are finding out, the game is indeed quite huge in its scope and length. At least in terms of a single playthrough, it’s the longest Fire Emblem game yet. While some are managing to reach the end just under the 100-hour mark, others are soaring past that total before all is said and done. There’s a good reason for that, but is it too big of an ask for the average player?
Branching paths are not a new feature for the Fire Emblem series, but true to its title Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave places a strong emphasis on weaving those different routes together into one whole. Rather than have players go through different routes as bespoke playthroughs on separate save files, Fortune’s Weave stitches all of those stories together. Whereas you may have played Fire Emblem: Three Houses three times to see how each story played out, you really only needed to do one of them to get a complete story. In Fortune’s Weave there are four routes and you’re meant to do them all in one run. Each one on its own is almost as long as some entire Fire Emblem games, and they all feel virtually essential to the main plot.
You don’t have to do every route, of course. As in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you have some freedom to decide when enough is enough. If you don’t want to do all four routes, you can proceed to the climax after you’ve reached a certain point. In doing so, you’ll be going in with less power and will miss out on quite a bit of story. Certainly handy for those who want an extra challenge or simply want to get things over with, but I suspect most players will feel obligated to sink in the time to see all of the main scenarios through. That brings us back around to that rather chunky time investment.
To an extent this is an issue some have with many modern games in the RPG genre. By nature they’ve always been among the lengthiest games of their respective eras, and as the general playtime tide has risen in gaming RPGs have seemingly been trying to meet the challenge. We’ve seen developers grappling with how to provide for those who want as big a bucket of popcorn as possible while also accommodating more casual needs. The recent reveal that Final Fantasy VII Revelation will feature an option that will allow players to automatically raise their party’s levels to meet the current story mission’s needs caused some controversy in gaming communities, but it speaks to the difficulty of trying to hit two very disparate targets. Many players skip optional content because they simply don’t want such a large experience, but balancing story and gameplay around that possibility can be a challenge.
In the case of Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, the only real option the player has to significantly speed things up is to skip critical story and gameplay material. It’s better than nothing, but in a way it’s making a bold statement. If you really want to experience Fortune’s Weave, you’d best be prepared to lock in for the long haul. Will that gambit pay off? If it does, what does it mean for Fire Emblem going forward? If nothing else, fans surely aren’t going home hungry this time around.
Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is available for Nintendo Switch 2.
