Barely an hour into Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave and I’ve already been confronted with an impossible choice: Which of the Four Flames of Dagda do I start my journey with? Theoretically the choice shouldn’t matter. This isn’t Fire Emblem: Three Houses where the choice of one faction locks out the others and the developers have spoken at length about how you can switch between the Cai, Theodora, Deitrich, and Leda at any time.
But it feels like whoever I choose first, I’m going to imprint on like a baby duckling seeing its mother for the first time, wanting to follow around them around to the near exclusion of everyone else. I’ve thought about choosing characters I’m less interested in like Dietrich to merely get him out of the way, like eating your vegetables first so you earn your dessert later. Or do I follow my heart and choose Theodora, knowing that I’m likely to abandon any serious play-throughs of the other three?
The premise of the story is that you, as the herald of the pale raven, are sent back in time to change the fates of these four heroes so they can assist you in saving the world from the ravenous undead in the future. I don’t know what shape the game will take or how much time it will require to go through one complete story, but dedicating myself to one person feels like I’ll be kneecapping myself in the later hours of the game. Alternatively, hopping between all four characters, progressing each of their stories simultaneously feels like I’m signing myself up for over 120 hours of game time and Nintendo, I just don’t have that in me.