While it released for Japanese audiences in June 2015,Fire Emblem Fatesreceived its international release five years ago on June 18, 2025. In many ways the game felt like a victory lap, telling its story across three titles;Birthright,Conquest, andRevelations; in a strategy reminiscent ofPokemon. After weak performances on the GameCube and Wii, 2012’sFire Emblem Awakeningsaved the franchisefrom extinction, andFateswas to follow up that success. Intelligent Systems had high ambitions for the game, and while this didn’t always pay off it did set up ideas arguably elevated by 2019’sFire Emblem: Three Houses.
Fatesprimarily tells the story of Corrin, a player-insert protagonist who was originally born in the Japanese-inspired Hoshido to Queen Mikoto, but was stolen by the European-inspired Nohr at a young age; raised under its hardened King Garon. InBirthrightversion, Corrin sides with their birth siblings to stop the warmongering Garon as he attempts to take over the continent. InConquestversion, they side with their adoptive siblings and act as a commander for Garon’s army while investigating the nation’s evil.
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This dual story offered fans the chance to experience the same conflict from two perspectives, but also mechanical diversity.Birthrightwas structured to be easier with ample opportunities to grind for experience, whereasConquesttook notes fromolderFire Emblemgameswith tougher level layouts and more restrictive progression. In both respects,Revelationswas the middle ground, providing the opportunity to recruit most every character for the “true” narrative revealing a crazed ancient dragon from a hidden third land secretly drove the others into conflict.
DespiteRevelationsbeing the version meant to tie everything together, it is arguably where most of the cracks begin to show inFire Emblem Fates' interesting approach to game design. Most of the flaws emerge in its attempt to tell a cohesive story with an overabundance of characters.
ThoughFateshad a number of specific issues such as acontroversial support with Soleil removed from the Western release, its ultimate shortcoming was the promise of its narrative not proving justified. Rather than the choice at its core letting players see the same war from multiple angles, it pans out into three serviceable, yet largely disconnected stories that conflict with one another at times.Revelationsacts as a third “choice” for Corrin, so it tries to stand alone while putting forth information that explains what players saw in the other options.
Version differences in titles likePokemon SwordandShieldoften boil down to which monsters are available, and while many wish Game Freak went further,Fatesshows that telling radically different stories with the same characters can result in personalities fluctuating.Conquestis notably rocky for this, as keeping King Garon the primary antagonist leads the game to try and justify Corrin’s instinct that their siblings will side with good while also forcing them to blindly commit atrocities and decry the idea of “justice” for the sake of the plot.
Primary characters like Nohr’s Prince Xander suffer from being too extremely varied for plot purposes, but the game’s unwieldy roster also means many aren’t stretched far enough. There are eight noble siblings with two retainers each, as well as auxiliary units and child characters based onFatescarrying forwardAwakening’s relationship system. Because of this size, some characters get the short stick with one-note personalities. For example, Prince Ryoma’s retainer Kagero has a huge amount of dialogue revolving solely around her inability to paint non-terrifying art.Fire Emblemis built upon archetypes, butFatesfeels lazy with differentiating its castat times.
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Another token example of lazy character work is Scarlet, a tertiary character who joins Corrin inBirthrightas a freedom fighter from Nohr (inConquestshe’s killed as an enemy boss). Scarlet is minor enough that only male Corrin is a romance option, thoughFire Emblem Fatesadded homosexual romancesfor select units, but if players choose to marry her in theRevelationspath too they only have a short amount of time before she dies in the story.
While Scarlet’s death is not necessarily bad, as it gives her more plot relevance, the issue is a seeming oversight in providing the option to marry her in the first place. No dialogue is added to her death scene, and neither Corrin nor their daughter Kana bring it up when she returns as a zombified boss controlled by the mad dragon Anankos. This is in spite of the game letting Hoshido ninja Kaze die inBirthrightshould the player not have a certain support level; and inFire Emblem: Awakeningthere are unique scenes ifplayer-insert Robin marries Lucina. Thus, it is a bizarre exclusion given Intelligent Systems decided to increase Scarlet’s role.
All of this is not to sayFatesis an utter failure in its storytelling; it has some stand-out characters and an interesting mythology surrounding Anankos and the mythical weapons owned by Hoshido and Nohr’s royalty. However, the wayFire Emblem: Three Houseshandles its branching narrativefeels as though Intelligent Systems took a lot of lessons from its triple-game experiment.
Three Housesalso has three primary paths for players to send its protagonist Byleth down, but offers these choices in a more clever way. Regardless of which house Byleth teaches, the first half of the game is largely the same, offering players the opportunity toget attached to every character before the paths diverge.Fateshas a prologue before its choice, but it’s short and only gives a brief impression of each side.
After the time skip inThree Houses, every path follows the same war in broad strokes despite different sides coming out on top, but what makes every house more unique is they focus on different goals and offer different lore as a result. The Black Eagles route focuses on Fodlan’s class system and theatrocities of the Church of Seiros; the Blue Lions route focuses on rebelling against the tyrannical rule of the Adrestian Empire; and the Golden Deer route focuses on the continent’s mythology and tackles its evil secret society, Those Who Slither in the Dark.
Because every path inThree Housesuses its war as a set dressing to explore different goals and tell unique stories, it ultimately comes out stronger thanFates, which strained to turn the same war into three different stories entirely. Part of that is undoubtedly due to the more restricted cast of characters inThree Houses, and the less abundant support conversations. While this takes away some player agency in choosing who to pair together, it means every interaction exists to give new insights into its cast members.
Some ofFates' ambitious shortcomings pushed the series forward, but the games also defined an era of success thanks to its characters headlining titles likeFire Emblem WarriorsandFire Emblem Heroes- not to mentionCorrin’s addition toSuper Smash Bros. 4. Mechanical decisions like usingFire Emblemgames of the past to create tiers of difficulty built upon well-honed gameplay with options for players to further customize their units. Five years later,Fatesundoubtedly stands out, even if some may not look upon it as the strongest showing in the franchise.
