Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave's Support Conversations Are Terrific, Actually
Hear me out
Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave's support conversations are sparking a bit of unrest among folks who've dived into the massive RPG. Some are surprised and disappointed at how few conversation partners certain characters have and their relatively short support chains. Even Polygon's resident Fire Emblem fans are divided. As this blog's headline suggests, though, I'm firmly on the side of "it's a good thing." Fortune's Weave's support conversations are a case of Intelligent Systems cutting out unnecessary time-fillers and focusing on chats that matter most to the characters and to the player.
Aside from the four non-playable Flame Lords (that's Orchel, Talimun, Anatolia, and Bertrand), a couple of characters kept showing up in comments from the dismayed: Guzran and Catania. Guzran likes training promising young greenhorns, but has no supports with anyone in Cai's party. Catania lost everything in the Cydonia Massacre (a fact you learn from her character info sheet), but never acknowledges Leda's existence. After spending nearly two months with this game, I've noticed a couple of things about how it handles support conversations. One is that Intelligent Systems minimized filler material as much as possible. You see that mostly in battles, quests (completed quests in one cleared path are automatically completed in another), and dungeons.That applies to relationships and character development, too.
Minor character background spoilers for Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave ahead.
The other is the degree to which Intelligent Systems integrates small details from a character's background into their personality and role in the game. Take Goliath, for example. In one of his monthly dialogues, he says how he's given up booze so he can buy books for his adopted brother. If you give him booze as a gift item, he's not thrilled. But give a book to this giant, meat-loving goofball who you'd automatically assume doesn't read? It's not his favorite, but it makes him happy, presumably because he can send it to his brother.
In other words, Intelligent Systems is, it seems, thinking closely about quality and logical connections. Making sure everyone can talk to, or fall in love with, as many other people as possible is not the important thing here.
Guzran likes boasting to promising young greenhorns, yes. But what would that look like with Cai and his posse, a bundle of strangers Guzran doesn't know? He'd be boasting about his exploits, get ridiculed for it, probably annoy Tialla. None of them need his training. That's what Castor and Ultand are for. It's predictable filler and tells us nothing about anyone involved. So, Intelligent Systems put that boasting in his monthly dialogue and saved the meaningful conversations, the ones with worthwhile and new information, for people he knows, like Mikaela. The greenhorn he takes an interest in is Mu, Mikaela's daughter, which makes much more sense than boasting to a bunch of random 15-year-olds, given Guzran's connection to Mikaela.
Similarly, given Leda's close ties to the Cydonia Massacre, why don't she and Catania talk even once? The better question is: Why would they? Catania is six years older than Leda and was born to a knightly family. Leda spent much of her childhood training in Kalla's temple, away from Kassite. There's nothing to say Catania even knew Leda or, at least, knew her well enough to recognize her two decades later when she reinvented herself as a traveling murder-bard. Catania wants to build a life of honor for herself and serve a sterling lord. Leda is a wanted criminal whose true identity is sullied by the aspersions cast against her father. I can't imagine a scenario where either of them would be friendly, nor one that tells us anything new about either character. Catania's support conversations with Lysander make much more sense viewed through that lens, and we can see her disapproval of Io in their respective monthly dialogues. No need for fluffy filler support chats there.
You can take that logic and apply it to pretty much any other odd or truncated support trees, like Anatolia primarily talking with other White Egg characters. Who else would she speak to? I imagine someone in her situation would be more than a little afraid to talk with your average Dagdan citizen (if you know, you know, and have probably played a path that isn't Leda's). Or, to take another example, Nuzzuo. He has one support conversation, a single C-rank chat with Diego, and that's it, despite his fascinating background as former leader of a tribe that worshiped Balor.
Or, more likely, his lack of support conversations are precisely because of that background. The Har Hali, his tribe, are feared and mostly keep to themselves — and that's before even getting into the whole "revering the lord of hell" thing. Diego is the only Har Hali in Dagsion. It might've been nice to see their chat extended, but what would that tell us? That Diego was right, his parents disowned him, and he's alone in the world except for Orchel? I don't think we need to see that play out. His fear and certainty that this is how things would play out are sufficient.
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Sure, some of Nuzzuo's monthly dialogue could be support chats, like where he talks about being surprised how people don't like it when appears without warning from the shadows. I could see a silly support set between him and Halvin-the-scared-clown or Peter focused on that. It would just be filler, though, using their fear as a comedy device and ending, probably, with some twee little scenario where the big awkward scary man becomes the protector of the scared kids. Using Peter's fear of Ninae as a lens to explore her secret sadness and isolation is so much more effective and unpredictable, and their first conversation completely changed how I viewed Ninae.
Perhaps Nintendo could've advertised this shift in character development ahead of time. Though given the post-launch reactions, I'm not surprised it kept this part of the game quieter. Perhaps that attitude will change, as more people start delving into the actual conversations instead of just seeing who can chat with whom. Fortune's Weave is a better game for how it handles support, and I hope it's the start of a new trend for the series.