It’s only been a handful of days since Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave launched, and most fans of the Japanese role-playing game franchise have only just scratched the surface of what this newest entry offers. With three parts, four paths, and hundreds of hours to explore, fans will uncover new things about the game for months to come.
Even after gamers finish Fortune’s Weave, plenty remains to explore. Namely, a Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave manga series by mangaka Kazurou Kyou, which debuted on the Nintendo Today app on Sept. 16, a day before Fortune’s Weave’s official release on Nintendo Switch 2. Based on the first issue, the new manga appears to follow the prologue leading up to the Heroic Games — while also addressing one of the game’s biggest missteps.
Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave manga follows the protagonists cut from the game
The manga’s first chapter follows Seteth (who fans will recognize from Fire Emblem: Three Houses) and Orchel as they arrive in the city of Dagsion to meet with the gods. However, their journey to speak with the Divine Sovereign is interrupted when Cai sweeps in to stop a would-be thief. After a brief interaction between Seteth, Orchel, and Cai, the manga goes on to introduce all the Flame Lords, including Dietrich, Leda, Cai, and Theodora, as well as the sub-lords Talimun, Bertrand, Anatolia, and Orchel, and their factions.
The manga prologue ends before we can get into the meat of the first part of the Heroic Games, but the introduction of the factions and sub-lords does pique our interest. One of the biggest complaints about Fortune’s Weave right now is the lack of supports (bonds between characters through which they can gain bonuses) for certain characters, particularly between the sub-lords and their retainers, such as Talimun and Ursula, Orchel and Diego, as well as not getting enough time to get to know said sub-lords. We know from the Intelligent Systems AMA that Fortune’s Weave originally had eight protagonists, but it was cut down to four, with Eshmel added to help tie the chosen protagonists’ paths together.
However, that doesn’t mean the protagonists who were cut — Talimun, Anatolia, Orchel, and Bertrand — don’t play a part in the game’s narrative. The prologue of Fortune’s Weave includes them as Flame Lords right alongside Leda, Dietrich, Cai, and Theodora, making it pretty obvious that Intelligent Systems had huge ambitions for these lords, but just not enough time to see those plans fulfilled.
That said, even if Intelligent Systems doesn’t address the strange situation with its sub-lords through DLC, the manga adaptation of Fortune’s Weave has the chance to do just that. It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened, either: Fire Emblem Engage‘s manga expands on background stories for certain characters the main game didn’t linger on, such as Yunaka and her terrible past as an assassin.
It’s impossible to tell now where the story of Fortune’s Weave manga will go, but it would be a missed opportunity not to explore the sub-lords and their relationships with their retainers in more depth than Fortune’s Weave has. Fingers crossed, Kyou and Nintendo take that criticism to heart, and fans get to learn more about Talimun, Anatolia, Bertrand, and Orchel and their retainers — if a DLC doesn’t expand on them first.
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