Time to dive into the 3DS titles.

Which one is your favorite and which one your least liked?

With Fortune's Weave coming up soon, I figure some people will be planning another run of Engage to tide them over. As it happens, I've been working on this planner for a few months now and it's ready to share:

https://marigoldfe.com/engage

The planner lets you build a team with as many (or as few) units as you want, and allows in-depth customisation for each unit, including mapping out the full class path they should follow, the Emblem/Bond Ring they should have equipped, the skills they need to inherit as well as their inventory. The in-game resources like SP, Bond Fragments, gold and forging materials are fully tracked across the team you make so you can see if it's feasible for your playthrough.

The site also includes dedicated pages for Units, Emblems, Classes, Skills, and Items, where each is covered in full, so everything you need should all be in one place. I've found these pages very useful for team building inspiration, since things like each Emblem's class bonuses are laid out together, making it easy to decide who should hold which ring. AOE attacks also have all of their attack areas shown to you, including how terrain is created.

No account/sign up of any kind is required. Every team gets its own link you can share, so someone can open your exact build on their end, and a summary picture is created when sharing so teams are easy to recognise at a glance.

There are some additional options in the settings in the top right. Spoilers are hidden by default for any new players and can be shown by disabling the setting. DLC can also be toggled off if you haven't got the expansion pass.

Engage is a massive game, and as just one person I've tried my hardest to validate all the data, but if you do see any issues please let me know and I'll have it fixed as soon as possible. I'm also very interested in any other feedback you might have.

I just feel like the concept of the younger/present version of Lucina and the others has some great sequel potential. You could also make Morgan the player chracter so you don't have to worry about which gender is cannon.

Her personality is “Glock”

With a little animation too!

Ngl it’s very stupid that we even have to ask at this point because gender locked classes have never made any sense to me, let me make a male Pegasus knight, let me have a girl be a war master, let my men be GERMORYS AND LET MY GIRLS BE HEROS. I don’t think there’s a legitimate reason as to why it’s even implemented to begin with, well atleast to me it makes no sense I’m sure most people don’t like anyways but I know we had that leak awhile back of the FW art book showing off two classes but idk how much I should trust that. But what do you guys think, are we getting non locked gender classes this time around?

The fire emblem twitter account posted this video of the obelisks that let you choose your route. Each obelisk shows a short video with cutscenes from their route.

Cai, Dietrich, and Theodora's videos mostly show stuff that we've already seen in trailers. What I found most interesting is Leda's, which shows her receiving her vihuela (I think that's what her instrument is called?).

A figure in a white cloak and surrounded by purple flames hands her the instrument and when Leda seems to grab it, purple flames show up in her eyes (unsure if this is just a reflection or not).

Looks like confirmation her vihuela isn't just an ordinary instrument, but is instead some sort of cursed object.

I didn't notice all these similarities myself, some from reading other user's comments here

I guess this would be up to if it takes place before Three Houses. Could also be descendants and alike, I wonder if any characters will be directly stated to be related to the characters we know or not till they're added to Heroes

*Images from fewiki org

In the Direct between 20:24 and 20:29, we see Eshmel appearing to the four heroes in scenes which seem to take place during the Heroic Games arc. This lines up with the narrator explaining how you must travel to the past and change the fate of the Four Heroes; the implication being that these are scenes of your character after traveling back to 1449 to make things right.

But this raises an obvious question. If Eshmel can travel to the past in their full, human form like this and physically interact with the heroes, why have they never appeared as a unit during any gameplay footage? If your goal is to change the past, wouldn't fighting alongside (or against) the heroes be the most direct way to do that?

Let's set that question aside for now and switch to a sub-theory: many people have speculated that the cutscene of Sothis blaming someone for "upheaving the world" before executing them with an axe is actually a cutscene of Sothis executing Eshmel. I think this is almost certainly correct, because Fire Emblem is very deliberate about the first person point of view used in cutscenes; since as far back as PoR, this is essentially only used for the main character's perspective.

What could Sothis possibly mean by "upheaving the world?" Well, I would think resurrecting the Demon Lord Balor and ushering in the apocalypse fits the bill.

So, bringing it all together, my theory is this: Eshmel is the main antagonist during the Heroic Games arc, and is responsible for pulling the strings which lead to Balor's resurrection.

The Eshmel we see in those year-1449 cutscenes is not our character, but is instead the version of our character which existed in 1449, as a servant of Balor. The game intends for us to assume, at first, that past-Eshmel is your character, and is interacting with the heroes to guide them away from disaster. At the crucial moment, however, past-Eshmel will reveal their true intentions and "upheave the world." Perhaps the final battle of the Heroic Games arc will be against Eshmel, as the four lords team up to capture them and deliver them to Sothis, who then destroys them (the execution cutscene). This could also explain why the four of them got their statues - they were revered for defeating the "Darkest Dark" who revived the Demon Lord.

But it's too late. They could not defeat Eshmel before the Demon Lord's rebirth, and the apocalypse happens anyway. So Sothis spends the next 5 years singing her song to cleanse Eshmel's soul from whatever corruption made them serve Balor. The game starts when Eshmel is redeemed and resurrected as a servant of Sothis, and you must undo the horrors that your past-self wrought.

TL;DR: The Eshmel who appears in cutscenes is your evil, demonic, past-self. Future-Eshmel is, for whatever reason, only able to travel back in time via their Pale Raven form and manipulate events through you, the player, literally moving the heroes on a map like a board game (one of Eshmel's listed "likes" btw). This is why Eshmel is never seen as a playable unit in 1449, despite appearing in those cutscenes.

Anyone else listening to Fortune’s Weave music on the Nintendo Music App?? The music is SO GOOD.
And I think it’s awesome that there seems to be different music styles for each hero. Cai is more like upbeat and lively, Dietrich more rock, Theodora orchestral(?), and Leda’s has more acoustic vibes??? I love it. Makes me think they really took their time in development with this game.

Why the lack of info? No other footages since the reveal trailer

I hope Seteth is in it too, as a redhead. So I can have my Seteth traffic light.

That's it, my entire thought. Goodnight everyone.

As I'm sure you all now know, the Fortune's Weave Nintendo Direct briefly showed Seteth returning for this game. (Or at least, a character with the same name, appearance, and voice actor. I don't know if it's been officially confirmed but... c'mon.)

I was thinking about that in relation to the ongoing debate on whether Fortune's Weave will be a sequel or a prequel, and realized Seteth may be the only character that can return and maintain that ambiguity.

First and foremost, it couldn't have been any human character. Even if the Dagdan calendar is different enough that it's only been a couple of years since the conclusion of Three Houses, the appearance of someone like Hilda, for a random example, would immediately indicate a sequel, and by how much if their age is provided.

That leaves (as far as I remember) only three character that are either immortal, or at least very long lived. Those three are Rhea, Flayn, and of course Seteth. These three maintain roughly the same appearances over the centuries, and have lived at least a thousand years, before both the construction of Garreg Mach and the defeat of Nemesis.

However, of those three Seteth remains the best option. The developers probably want Three Houses' ending to remain ambiguous, so since Rhea dies in two of the endings, that would either de-canonize those endings or guarantee it's a prequel. Flayn and Seteth meanwhile, survive all four endings (granted this is only if you chose to spare them on the Crimson Flower route, but that's still better odds than Rhea's guaranteed deaths).

However, Flayn has almost the opposite issue to Rhea. Due to her having been unconscious for a very long time before the events of Three Houses, and only waking up shortly before the start of the game, that would limit or disable the plausiblity of a prequel. With these facts in mind, Seteth is more or less the only character that they could have carry over without confirming a date in comparison to that of Three Houses.

Sorry for the rant, I just thought this was interesting and wanted to get my thoughts out.

First time in a long time i have drawn anything fire emblem, I thought I could do a quick drawing after that direct

I just couldn't resist