BODY: What if you already knew how every hero's story ends, and it ends badly? That's the idea behind Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave (known in Japan as Fire Emblem Banshi Senkō). It's the first Fire Emblem game made for Nintendo Switch 2, and it comes out September 17. With launch a day away, GAME Watch put together a guide to everything revealed so far, along with notes from its early hands-on time.
The game is set on the continent of Dagza, which is ruled by the Dagza Empire from its capital, Dagsion. The story starts with a flight from a future that has been "reduced to ashes." You go back five years into the past and play through the lives of four main characters whose tragic endings are already decided. Your job is to change their fate. The four are Kai, Theodora, Dietrich and Reda. Each has their own story and their own goals, and those goals don't always fit together.
That tension is where the game gets interesting. GAME Watch's writer says the four storylines cross each other in ways that feel like a puzzle. What one hero does can undo what another is trying to achieve, and it's satisfying when the pieces finally fit. The game also adds several new systems to the usual grid battles. Blaze Arts are signature moves unique to each character that can change how a fight goes. There are also explorable dungeons, a Quick Battle option, a world map and a mysterious place called the "Obelisk Chamber."
The biggest surprise, though, is a character from another game. Sothis, the ancient goddess who was so central to Fire Emblem: Three Houses, shows up in this new world, and so does Seteth. The article doesn't explain why they're here, but it's a clear sign that Fortune's Weave is connected to Fódlan in some way.
The insider take
Tokyo fans have been arguing about the Japanese title since the reveal. 万紫千紅 (banshi senkō) is a four-character idiom meaning a field of countless blooming colors. It fits a story told from four points of view, and it's a much more poetic name than the English Fortune's Weave. The Sothis reveal matters even more here. In Japan, Three Houses is one of the most important entries of the Switch era, and fan theories and fan art about it are still going strong years later. Nintendo's spoiler-light marketing kept Sothis quiet until now, so expect busy launch-weekend lines at game shops in Akihabara and Shibuya, plus a spike in Three Houses rewatches on Japanese streaming sites.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).