If you have been playing Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave this past week, then I’m sure you have already started stewing a favourites list for the four main heroes.
Be it their dazzling combat abilities or dashing good looks, these Flame Lords each cut a rather different figure, with enough gameplay variety that each of them is bound to be someone‘s favourite. Given that you can flip between the storylines at almost any time, I quickly started to form a ranking of my own.
So, I thought I’d leap in early and start to gauge who everyone’s fave is so far. I’m only sticking to the four main Flame Lords and Eshmel here — I’d be scrolling through a poll for days if I included all those recruitable heroes — but I’ve added a snap and a brief summary of each hero (plus some of my personal likes/dislikes) below, followed by a poll where you can place your own vote.
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Let’s meet the team, in descending order according to my personal ranking…
Eshmel
Sorry Eshmel, you fall at the bottom of the pile. It’s not to diss Eshmel’s skills on the battlefield — this is an immensely strong fighter with some kick-ass Blaze Arts for close combat — but there’s only so much character development that a mostly-silent player stand-in can have.
Part of me thinks that the whole story would hold together better if Eshmel was cut and we focused solely on the Flame Lords instead. But hey, perhaps that’s a hot take.
Leda
Leda’s storyline is one of revenge. Her father was murdered when she was little, and she’s on a quest to find the man who did it.
Despite featuring some of the more interesting conversations about magical powers and when to use them, the whole storyline felt a little one-note to me. And yet, Leda ended up being one of my most-used characters thanks to her wonderful support abilities.
Leda is a skilled archer, making her a great addition to any battles against flying enemies, but her support-based Blaze Art skills are where it’s at, letting her buff allies, weaken enemies, and otherwise tweak match-ups without landing many blows herself.
Put her on a team with some other big hitters and Leda’s abilities can really shine.
Theodora
Theodora has possibly the most interesting storyline of the bunch, one of shunned gods, sidelined nations and the weight of leadership. It’s all very dramatic, and it develops into the main thrust of acts two and three as things progress.
It seems fitting, then, that Theodora is another beast on the battlefield. Her lance is deadly in close-combat scenarios, but I mainly used her for her long-range Blaze Art abilities, chucking clumps of earth at far-off opponents before finishing them off with my melee fighters.
In short, she’s a badass.
Cai
The baby of the group, Cai sets out for the heroic games to free his father from imprisonment. He excels with a spear, and I quickly pushed him into a mounted class to boost his movement and dish out damage across the battlefield.
His Blaze Art abilities are all about area damage. Cai can send out mysterious projectiles that hit multiple enemies at once, or that lay down terrain effects to chip away at enemies in the long run.
Personally, I had a great time playing Cai’s storyline. His stakes are potentially a little lower than his companions in the grand scheme of things, but there’s a good amount of character development at play here, as he learns about his lineage and what he’s really fighting for.
Dietrich
What a beautiful boy. I knew that Dietrich’s good looks would be praised by players, but I never thought that the admiration would extend to seemingly every other character in the game too. Everyone knows this guy is sexy, and the game constantly reminds us of it.
Mechanically, Dietrich is a tank. The swordsman became one of my strongest heroes by the late game, capable of dodging almost every attack and dishing out heavy hits in response. His Blaze Art abilities are wonderful, too, allowing him to teleport across the battlefield and get into the action quickly.
Oh yes, and his storyline is as melodramatic as they come. ‘I want to enter the Heroic Games so that I can fight a big fish.’ Come on, that’s pure cinema.
After brief refresher, it’s time to cast your vote! You can let us know your favourite Fortune’s Weave hero in the following poll, but then take to the comments to give us the reasons why.
