Believe it or not, Fire Emblem didn’t always have the matchmaking and character bonding moments that have become a hallmark of recent entries. But the seeds of it were actually planted fairly early on in the franchise’s history. It’s one of the key things that sets Fire Emblem apart from other tactics IPs, and its continued presence is somewhat understandable given how popular character driven narratives have become, especially over here in the West.
It all began with the fourth installment, Genealogy of the Holy War in 1996, and the most innovative game in the series up to that point. On top of the weapon triangle and weapon skills as well as a sweeping historical epic of a story, this entry also brought marriage and child units into the fray believe it or not. The overarching plot is split into two generations, and characters you paired off in the first generation will directly impact the stats and skills of those the second one. You also had to make sure your paired characters survive until the end of the first arc if you wanted to reap all the benefits.
This was somewhat expanded upon in the sixth installment, Binding Blade in 2002. This entry, which introduced the world to Roy and his blazing red hair, also features the first instance of a support system. Wherein you can place units next to each other on the battlefield and have them talk to each other after a certain amount of time. Support levels ranged from C to A, and you could see how character dynamics grow and shift over the course of the story. This support system was how the series continued to operate up until the 3DS era.
And then the floodgates would be opened with the release of [Fire Emblem Awakening](https://youtu.be/vQ9074Kl3iY) in 2012. This was supposed to be the swan song for a dying franchise, but the developers packed in a ton of gameplay innovations from across the series to make this game work. And uh… yeah it did, judging by the millions of new fans this one ushered in. One of these innovations was combining the marriage system from Genealogy with the support system from Binding Blade onwards, dubbed “Waifu Emblem” by some fan circles. Now child units could be recruited into your current roster (explained via time travel) based on which characters you paired off, and their stats, skills, and even hair color would reflect those pairings. Children can be obtained upon reaching an S rank between two compatible characters, but that decision is irreversible.
Future titles would continue to tinker with the support system as they saw fit. Fates did more or less the same thing as Awakening but did introduce same sex romances to the franchise (albeit not without some localization quirks). Echoes removed marriages and child units altogether, since it was a remake of a much older game and thus would break established canon. And the Switch entries just went full on Persona with these elements: wandering around a massive hub area, letting you cook food and share meals with your squad, chatting with them one on one and giving them gifts, and only letting you S rank with someone in the literal last 5 minutes of the game. I suppose the one big difference between romances in Fire Emblem versus those in Persona is that Fire Emblem continues to offer same sex romance options to this day.
So that’s a brief history of Fire Emblem’s relationship mechanics over the last 30 some odd years. It’s become such a deeply rooted and cherished staple since its inception that fans would be disappointed if they were excluded, as was the case with Shadow Dragon DS. It’s come to a point where the same devs went on record saying they couldn’t figure out how to make a similar tactics series, Advance Wars, work in the modern age without these relationship elements. They ultimately passed the buck over to WayForward, who remade the first two Advance Wars titles for the Switch, relationship free. So if you were turned away by Fire Emblem’s support system, I highly recommend checking out Advance Wars for your tactical fix.
by Asad_Farooqui
29 Comments
I still liked it best in Awakening.
The child units and the storyline of time travel was my favorite.
It’s made me uninterested in keeping up with the series. I just want a fun tactics game.q
Personally not a fan. It’s like a dating sim and I find that genre a bit uncomfortable. Fortunately I can largely ignore those parts of the games since it isn’t required.
Total caca. Destroyed the games for me tbh. I don’t want to sit and have tea or sex with the prince, I want to crush his nation. Stop asking me for gifts and kisses.
Relationship sims being put into tactical games and RPG’s has pushed me away from a lot of popular franchises. Persona 5 being one that got way too tedious late game, I just wanted it to end.
Never liked it, never will. In fates, I never used it even though they make really good units. It’s ok in Three Houses but that game is a chore to play.
I’m a long time fan of the series. ***Genealogy of the Holy War*** is my favorite entry in the series followed by ***Awakening***. In short, I like the relationship building…when the characters feel like part of the broader narrative, the interactions are well written, and it contributes to worldbuilding/the narrative. I also like permadeath as a mechanic – a lot actually – and the relationship building really adds to the stakes of that.
Now, that leads naturally into ***Fates***… ***Fates*** was the first game in the series that bored me. (To clarify how notable that is, I’ve beaten ***Shadow Dragon*** multiple times and played through the original ***Gaiden*** in Japanese, which I can’t read.) The characters in ***Fates*** were shallow tropes and cringingly over the top. I know that the ***Fates*** characters are immensely popular so, I’m in the minority here, but I think this was the relationship building focus taken too far and every character turning into a dating sim trope. I can tolerate a level of cringe if it’s the cost of keeping the series alive but ***Fates*** is what happens when it takes over.
It would be fine if the actual strategy elements didn’t suffer for it.
The only Fire Emblem games I’ve played are FE7 (GBA), Awakening and Three Houses. I liked the first one a lot, but the latter ones were so braindead and focused on being dating sims that I quitted.
Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp has been basically what I want from a tactical strategy game.
I love it. A lots more fun with it than without.
It honestly made me enjoy the games a lot less, to the point where I haven’t even played the most recent ones.
I like getting to know a character more, but I also don’t need to spend so much time in relationships. I prefer the older style FE games, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the characters and their developments with each other in Awakening and Three Houses.
And relationships are such a massive part of what’s cultivated the new wave of FE fans that I can’t see devs straying from that too much in the next handful of entries of the series.
I’m not opposed to all the relationship building aspects of the series, but the implementation of such elements in the series has been mixed at best.
The key to including relationship-building elements in a series (and the thing that I think Persona got right and that a lot of other games got wrong) is that it has to be accompanied by good character writing. The fundamental purpose of these social sim aspects is to get the player attached to the game’s characters – and as such, the character writing in these games must be strong enough such that getting new character interactions should be satisfying even without an external reward. To put it simply, social sim elements only work when I’m invested enough in the characters to actively grind for supports otherwise.
In Three Houses, it worked to some extent because the characters in that game were for the most part interesting and well-written. Even though everything related to the monastery is tedious busywork on paper, it’s tolerable because the characters are layered and multifaceted enough such that getting to see new supports and learning about Three Houses’ characters was a reward in of itself. If the monastery didn’t exist, I would still probably be grinding for supports in that game.
I don’t think the character writing in Awakening is particularly strong (it certainly isn’t good enough to motivate me to grind for supports in that game), but I do have to give Awakening props for properly integrating the child units into that game’s storytelling.
I don’t think it worked at all in Fates or Engage, though. In these games, the character writing simply isn’t anywhere near good enough for me to get invested in them. The characters here are one-note tropes with little in the way of meaningful character interactions, and I have no real incentive to put in effort to get to know them better. It also doesn’t help that Fates forced in child units in the most contrived manner possible either.
On paper, the biggest element that differentiates Fire Emblem from every other SRPG in the genre is the games’ focus on its characters and how the games encourage players to get attached to its cast. Relationship-building elements in Fire Emblem can work – but it has to be accompanied by good character writing.
I actually hate that Engage has no paired endings. It’s a staple of the series
I think it’s a good example of gameplay/story integration and adds a layer to the strategy. It’s become an important part of the series’ identity.
The formations and team compositions you use cause story events, and those story events create stat boosts that influence your decisions on team composition and formations. Child units take that all a step further because either character builds emerge from how you already play, or you play toward certain character builds.
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To me, that’s all an interesting space. It adds long-term objectives and constraints on top of the main missions, and enhances both the tactical and role-playing experience. Of course, this all works a lot better if you aren’t just grinding supports.
But also can IntSys quit it with the weird lolli shit?
I’ve only played Awakening and a bit of Three Houses.
I liked it in Awakening and thought it worked well, but I felt like the social stuff/school stuff sorta bogged down Three Houses and made it harder for me to get into the game. Having since played Persona 5, it really does feel like that’s what they were going for in Three Houses, but I just don’t think they executed it as well as Persona did.
I am a huge fan of the relationships between characters, but am frequently annoyed by relationships between characters and the player character. 3 houses is the only one I played since the GBA titles and the attempt to create “dialogues” between two characters one of which is (by design) silent was annoying.
A player character is very frequently thrown into a new situation, like Beyleth’s role as a teacher. This creates a situation where both the player and the character are unfamiliar with the situation. While I like this concept in general, it has the unfortunate side effect that the player character has little to no backstory with any of the other characters which means that the dialogues can’t flesh out the world as much as would be possible with two well developed characters.
I think Awakening did Child Units best, it made plot sense as to why they existed and could be used in your army, unlike Fates with the whole pocket dimension where time flows wrong thing.
Though I do not like the player avatar being able to marry and procreate with the children units, even in Awakening (maybe outside of like, Lucina due to the extra scenes, but I find it works better with Daughter Lucina).
I find it interesting that you title this thread as romance, but Three Houses and Engage have very little of it. In TH houses you can choose a character at the end of the game to have a romantic ending with. In Engage it’s even less present.
The social aspects of the series continues, support conversations have been around for a while, but the two switch games did expand some of the additional activities you can do.
I think they’ve hit a good balance now of having these social features available, but not mandatory or especially in the way. They haven’t had true romance/children since Fates, but I’m okay with that. If there’s going to be children, there should be a time skip. I don’t want anymore of this time travel nonsense.
My opinion is pretty surface level. I like the idea of them. I like that there is an incentive to keep certain units together, but I like romances in games where the characters develop well together in a more organic tone, rather than the mechanic of “hey you are near me during this life and death battle, do you wanna bone later?” I think three houses did this okay from what I watched of my wife playing, since there is a hub world between the battles.
I have memories of blazing blade just grinding the arena as there was no incentive not to do it. so I got to play around with many romances. Many of those were not written well, despite some being real cute.
I’m assuming Awakening is the start of the modern FE era, correct?
-Awakening had the best overall support conversations in the series. Many (not all) characters stood out all the more because they had good interactions.
-Fates tried to mimic Awakening’s success but the support system didn’t feel as genuine. The child system was forced. Corrin and the royal siblings hog all the glory making everyone else feel less special in comparison.
-I only played the Golden Deer in 3H so maybe the other 2 houses had better support conversations? Half the group was rude or bullied the other half and the other half had some sort of sad background story. Hilda was the only one that got along everyone. The support kind of made me feel depressed.
-Engage cranked the cheesyness up to an 11. I do prefer the more light spirited tone in comparison to 3H but some of the conversations were borderline cringe/creepy. The VA does make a difference though.
I never played the GBA games but I thought Path of Radiance had a good common ground for both people who like or don’t care for the support. Being 3 square spaces away is less of a hassle the 1 square. The support conversations were shorter and more consice which could be either good or bad depending on how much lore you want from the story or if you even care.
Radiant Dawn threw the support conversations out the window. “If you want to see the support conversation go watch Path of Radiance. You should already be familiar with theses characters”. Some people kind of took that with a middle finger but managing the support buffs was easier.
it’s just part of the deal that Fire Emblem made with Awakening. Save the series from obscurity and a likely dead-end (like Advance Wars) or add in some cute anime girls, casual options and relationship elements and find a new audience.
i like the directness of the old games too, but i like the series developing and growing over time even more. if i want a static highly-structured fire emblem i can always go back and play the older games, but if i want something new and modern Three Houses and Engage are right there. and even Engage toned down a lot of the “dating elements” in favour of a more straightforward approach.
Awakening was cool because the child units made sense for the story and added a lot of replay ability and customizations.
Plus it gave us the Chrom/Olivia pairing
I quiet like it. Im am not super into shipping or anything but I just like getting these little interactions between the characters every now and then where I get some snippets of characterisation and small development , I think that structure meshes really well with the broader gameplay loop and it is a good way to get a bit more invested in your units as a whole group.
Personally I dont really get when people get annoyed by it. In my opinion the whole relationsship stuff is pretty subdued and easily ignorable. But I have only played the modern games since awakening so my perpective is fairly limited.
I think character writing in Fire Emblem games is always awful, yes even in Three Houses. Everyone has a one note personality trait, so i find it hard to take the relationships seriously, and it feels like the player is meant to insert themselves in them, which is weird creepy and unnecessary.
But it helps sell the games, so it’s here to stay.
Disclaimer: I am massive Fire Emblem fan, with it ranking only behind Zelda and Metroid as far as Nintendo franchises are concerned for me.
I think, overall, relationships being an integral part of the FE experience moving forward is a good thing. Awakening certainly opened the floodgates for the emphasis relationships were given in the FE franchise, and although there are certainly occasionally cultural differences that raise some eyebrows with the match-making elements (particularly when manakete units are involved), overall, the relationships are at worst an additional mechanic you can engage with as much as you want. The impact on gameplay is minimal on everything but the highest difficulties, and numerous tools have been introduced to streamline forging bonds for those higher difficulties (such as skipping support conversations).
That said, there are some increasingly glaring issues – namely with support conversations – that I feel need to be addressed if they are going to continue being emphasized. Primarily: Nintendo and IS desperately need to shell out for at least *some* motion capture for these support cutscenes. At present, all support scenes feature all characters cycling through about a half-dozen stock “anime” poses. Aside from looking completely unnatural, it becomes increasingly obvious that there are so few animations when you see every female-presenting character grab their wrist and bashfully sway a bit and every male-presenting character exasperatedly put their hand on their forehead. Even if shelling out for some motion capture is off the table, at least add some more variety to these stock animations.
Beyond the animations, like, actual cutscenes need to be developed. Most every support conversation features the two characters standing – completely still – and exchanging words. They will cycle through the aforementioned stock animations and that is largely the extent of what can be expected. If the scene features two characters sparring, they *might* recycle their static battle pose before the screen cuts to black to weapon-clashing sound effects. If the scene features food or drink, the dishes in questioned will be referenced but never shown. If the scene features any sort of physical interaction between the two characters, the screen will literally cut to black during that interaction and fade back in after the interaction occurred so the static conversation can resume (and this cutting to black is occasionally really awkward because it leaves some vague actions up to interpretation).
This is saying nothing about the actual writing of support conversations, which varies wildly, and the much larger issue of how FE’s permadeath mechanics literally disallow any real character development during support conversations (and truthfully, support conversations kinda themselves disallow meaningful development). Those are big issues as well, but for the time being, I would be content to see improvements on the animations and support scenes themselves, with the content being improved down the road.
I love the mechanic. Only downside is how much time I invest into determining who should max rank with who. It’s more a time sink than before, where I would otherwise just whack shit and grind. I think it was a positive move for the series.
I could take it or leave it really, as someone who has played all of them. It doesn’t stop me from buying the newer games and the romancy parts occasionally entertain me, but I’m buying the game for the strategy gameplay and there’s a lot of fat in modern FE that needs trimmed to get down to the good stuff. Imo romance, focus on complicated rpg mechanics, and the “every unit needs to be usable because they have a character attached to them” mindset all need toned down.
Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn felt like the perfect balance of interesting strategy and enough plot/writing to create breathing room between maps. The only issue with them are aged visuals/voice acting and lack of skipping/speed up functions.
Like… the fourth entry introduced the character relationships aspect. Before that there’s only two games and one remake, and they’re both NES games. I’d say it’s a core element of the franchise.
Hate it. Having to buy gifts and have tea parties is absolute cringe I can’t stand, I dropped the series.
Imo it’s fine as long as it doesn’t overdo it. This is a tactical rpg franchise with an emphasis on character writing and a really good interaction between the gameplay elements and the character writing. Imo the romance stuff shouldn’t be more than just a small subset of the character focus of these games. Even just paired endings is enough. It doesn’t need to be more than that.
Never understood why so many fans put such disproportionate emphasis on this thing. Out of all the series-defining features, this is probably the least interesting…