Developers Foresight / Fire Emblem

• Genealogy of the Holy War:
  • In Chapter 1, the boss of the final castle you have to seize is the Dark Mage Sandima, who pelts your party with the mighty Fenrir spell from many tiles away; something the player isn't especially well-equipped to deal with yet. The "intended" way of dealing with him is to have Sigurd find and recruit Deirdre, a Shaman, and have her use her Silence Staff on the boss so that you safely approach and engage him. However, there's nothing stopping the player from either walking over Deirdre's recruitment tile^Note Deirdre is recruited in a section of the map covered in dense forest, and Sigurd will automatically recruit Deidre by stopping on a single open forest tile near its exit; the tile is blocked off by impassable thickets on both sides. As Sigurd is a mounted unit, his movement in the forest is sharply reduced, so trying to bypass the tile is harder than it seems. or having Sigurd stay behind and having other units handle Sandima. If you do this, you'll find that there exists an entirely different scene for recruiting Deirdre after defeating Sandima - in fact, this alternate recruitment scene actually spells out more about her backstory than the pre-defeat dialogue does.
  • In Genealogy of the Holy War, the Final Boss appears on a map at a time far before the cast is supposed to be able to beat him. If the player somehow can, he'll laugh it off and leave the battlefield, tossing a snarky remark of "Playtime is over — I'm going home." over his shoulder.
• Eyvel in Thracia 776 has Plot Armor rigging the RNG to make sure she always lives in battle. Get her captured and the dialogue changes to reflect that she was taken to Mareeta and Nanna.
• In Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, the Silence status doesn't just prevent spellcasting, it's true to its implications of preventing speech: Silenced characters also can't trigger support conversations, or recruitments that require talking. This is carried on through all GBA games. similarily, any character that is asleep can't be talked to either.
• In The Blazing Blade:
  • In some chapters, there are levels in which there is a door which opens automatically after a specific number of turns, usually by an NPC. Under normal circumstances at the points in the game which they occur, it is effectively impossible to get to the door before it automatically opens. However, if the player somehow manages to reach the door and open it themselves, an otherwise inaccessible cutscene is displayed to accommodate the situation. Chapter 16 is an example of this.
  • In the penultimate level, The Value Of Life (32x in Hector's Story, isn't in Eliwood's), the mission is to kill the Magic Seal Kishuna, whose chamber is closed off by a door and who summons reinforcements when said door is opened. Using the Warp Staff to send a unit into Kishuna's room on turn 1? Not such a great idea: those who try had better be prepared to go right after him rather than wasting time so the other units can pick up the treasures in the level. Sending a unit to the space directly above the door while it is still closed causes it to not only open on its own, but four Berserkers that wouldn't otherwise be in the level show up as reinforcements. ^note The Snipers and Generals that populate the level in Normal Mode are replaced with Berserkers in Hard Mode, but using the Warp Staff is the only way to make Berserkers appear in that stage on Normal.
• Path of Radiance:
  • If Ike fights the Black Knight when he appears in Chapter 11 (he's unbeatable at this point) and Ike somehow survives, there are a few extra lines at the end of the chapter where Ike's sister Mist gives him an Anger Born of Worry-fueled What the Hell, Hero?.
• Radiant Dawn:
  • The game has many scenes of dialogue which are incredibly hard to see, like characters on opposing armies having a unique conversation before they battle where it's incredibly hard to get them to fight (like Micaiah and Soren, where the former cannot cross a specific line which she must defend and the latter is an NPC which rarely moves) and the Black Knight having a unique death quote if he dies on the chapter where he's player-controlled and none of the enemies can kill him.
  • One chapter has Lekain on the map. While he is supposed to flee when someone shows up, the player actually can get over to him and beat him, causing a scene to play where he retreats.
  • During the final level of Act 3, Micaiah is the initial enemy general, but will leave a few turns in once the death counter reaches 30. While getting to her is hard and very unlikely, if you somehow do, the game makes sure to give her dialogue reacting to be attacked, especially if Ike does.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening
  • Chrom's promoted class' battle model uses the Fire Emblem as a shield. The Fire Emblem is first given to him in Chapter 7, but if the player manages to do a ton of Level Grinding and get Chrom promoted before then, the shield won't appear on his model until he receives it in the story.
  • Owain mentions in his Support conversations with his dad that he witnessed his father's death in the Bad Future, specifically noting that Owain saw the event. Because it would create a plot hole if his father is a male Avatar, Owain's dialogue is instead changed to only say that "[he] never saw [his father] again". This is the only case in the game where the events of a Support are altered to fit the storyline.
  • The game recognizes if the birth date of the Avatar overlaps with another character's, in which case it will say "Today is Avatar and (other character)'s birthday." instead.
  • Validar in Chapter 23 is behind a barrier, preventing anyone in your army other than Chrom and the Avatar from reaching him. He has special boss quotes for both of them, so you normally won't get to see his "generic" boss quote, but he does have one: the only way to see it is to use the long-range tome Mire.
    Validar: Destiny is your master, one way or the other!
  • In Chapter 7, Cordelia normally arrives as a friendly reinforcement on turn 3. If the chapter is cleared in 1 or 2 turns, the ending cutscene will change to show Cordelia arriving after the battle's conclusion.
• Fire Emblem Fates:
  • One of the big things about Conquest is that the players have limited ways to gain experience. If DLC-abuse is attempted, no new experience is granted. (Does not apply to the Boo Camp experience map, since the entire purpose of that map is to grind experience.)
  • If the players manage to rush to Takumi on Chapter 10 of Conquest before he uses the dragon vein against the Nohr army on the seventh turn, then he actually won't do it anyway. In fact, there is dialogue for this.
  • Garon appears on Chapter 12 of Birthright. It's pretty clear that he is not supposed to be approached, since the objective is for the Avatar to escape. But, following the example from Genealogy of the Holy War, if the characters actually do attack and defeat him, there are lines for this.
• Three Houses
  • Group Tasks and meals together will often have unique interactions between characters, namely those with supports with each other. These can range from friends motivating each other, to some characters flat-out questioning why you would pair them up together (such as Edelgard and Ferdinand). As they go through support interactions, some of their lines change during mealtimes and group tasks to account for the support conversation. For example, after Annette and Mercedes's B-rank support, which ends with them arguing, if you eat a meal with them together, they are both uncomfortable in their dialogue. After their A support, though, they're back on good terms with each other.
  • Students poached from the other two houses in the first half will have unique dialogue after the timeskip to justify why they've remained with you, fighting against their country of birth, including their families and former friends, or in the case of the Crimson Flower path, why the more devout students like Mercedes or Marianne would turn against the Church of Seiros. They'll also comment on events in the storyline when talked to in the months between battles. Sometimes there will also be battle dialogue when they're forced to fight against a former friend or family member, like a Crimson Flower path Felix having to fight his father Rodrigue during the siege of Arianrhod, which wouldn't happen on a playthrough of their native house. The game will even acknowledge several things you did, such as Dimitri calling out Felix for killing Rodrigue. This also extends to the knights and professors on Crimson Flower who may sometimes have choice words against each other, most notably Catherine and Shamir.
  • In the second battle at Gronder, several characters have different lines of dialogue depending on what you do. Whether you immediately gun for the Empire, advance toward the central hill, or (against all in-story logic) go for the Kingdom/Alliance will be commented on by Hubert and/or the Lord of the "allied" faction, who will direct their troops accordingly. Even if you leave the Kingdom/Alliance alone and spend the chapter tangling exclusively with the Empire, either Claude and his forces will charge in anyway because they can't tell friend from foe, or Dimitri will order his troops to attack indiscriminately because his rational mind has been long gone.
  • In the second-to-last fight of the Crimson Flower route, if you kill Dimitri before the other enemy commanders, not only Sylvain, Dedue and Rhea/Seiros (who most players would defeat before reaching Dimitri in the northeast corner of the map) will have unique quotes reacting to it, it will also slighly modify story dialogue later on to account for their premature fall in the battle.
  • In the same fight, Sylvain has a unique battle quote if fought with female Byleth, even though it's all but impossible to not recruit him in that circumstance.
  • Characters that reach level 99 will say a unique line upon leveling up. Typically, by the end of a playthrough, units will be around their mid-40s; 99 is impossible to reach unless one grinds on the auxiliary maps on Normal.
  • Completing paralogues often changes dialogue when necessary in the main story and monastery. For example, if you complete the "Silver Maiden" paralogue, then at one point in Azure Moon's main plot, Dimitri will reference how you liberated Arianrhod, while in Crimson Flower, completing "Foreign Land and Sky" before a certain point in the story can make Bernadetta mention both in monastery and support dialogue her brief visit to Brigid.
  • Doing Catherine and Ashe's Paralogue has you executing the bishop of the Western Church. After, if you do Seteth's and Flayn's Paralogue, where the Western Church occupies a shrine to St. Cichol, Seteth comments that this group was separate from that Bishop. If you do them in the opposite order, Catherine will bring up the incident from Seteth and Flayn's paralogue.
  • When checking a character's profile, it will display the house or faction they belong to. Byleth's will default to the Church of Seiros, as they are an instructor, and will only change when you reach the timeskip. During the first level of the game, however, since Byleth and Jeralt are not part of any faction, their faction will instead say Mercenaries.
  • Some of the support conversations will have altered dialogue depending on if you got them pre- or post-timeskip, as well as the route. For instance, Linhardt pre-timeskip in his C Support with Caspar will have him wonder why their fathers hate each other so much, but if achieved post-timeskip, Linhardt will instead muse they are likely bickering in the Empire. Some even go a step further and actually make sure to account for time differences ^note such as Seteth and Hanneman's C Support where Seteth adjusts the amount of time they've known each other from 16 years to 21, or whether or not you've unlocked certain other Supports yet or not ^note In Byleth's A Support with Catherine, she'll talk about how Lady Rhea saved her when she was a student. Normally she doesn't remember exactly what happened, save for a few details, but if her C Support with Seteth is achieved beforehand (where he jogs her memory of that event), she'll recall exactly what happened.
  • Several paired endings will be different depending on the route and who are being paired together. For example, a paired ending for Ingrid and Felix always states that they got married regardless of the route, but on the Azure Moon route, Felix gets injured protecting her and gives up fighting after, something that doesn't happen in the other routes. Byleth's S supports also are all different depending on the route; male Byleth romancing Lysithea, for example, will all be different due to each route having Byleth in different positions after the war.
  • On the night of the ball, the player can meet a prospective Love Interest at the Goddess Tower. On the Azure Moon route, there's a scene right before that where you and Dimitri talk privately; if you pick him, at the end of the scene, you'll walk to the tower together instead.
  • If a character is on low health and scores a Critical Hit, they will wince and look pained instead of looking triumphant like they do when critting on full health.
  • Some of the students have hidden quotes that activate when they achieve a Critical Hit against an enemy playable unit or if their health is low. For example:
    Lysithea: I don't want to do this!
    Mercedes: You may want to move!
  • Several support conversations change context in accordance to which support was done before it. For example, in Ferdinand and Edelgard's A-Rank support, the support conversation opens with Ferdinand drinking and complimenting on the taste of the tea he drank, but if you open up Ferdinand and Hubert's A+ support beforehand, this opening changes to Ferdinand drinking coffee. Another example is Marianne and Ashe's B Support, if the player has completed her support with Sylvain, she mentions the outcome of it, and Ashe will comment on it as well.
  • Weapon animations will change to match the specific subtype of weapon you're wielding — for example, if you give a Crescent Sickle (considered a lance type of weapon) to someone, rather than stab with it, they will swing or chop with it.
  • Duscur (a once-autonomous region in Kingdom territory that was annexed by them after a terrible tragedy) and Almyra (a massive kingdom east of the Leicester Alliance) are home to people with darker skin. The models for Duscur and Almyran-affiliated enemies (or allies, regarding Chapter 18 of the Verdant Wind route) all have dark skin to reflect this. You encounter these models in Dedue's paralogue on the Azure Moon route, Chapter 14 of Crimson Flower, Chapter 18 of Verdant Wind, and two Paralogues (Edelgard's on Crimson Flower; Cyril and Hilda's on all other routes) set at Fódlan's Locket (a massive fortress hidden deep within the mountain range that separates Leicester and Almyra). In a similar vein, enemies affiliated with those who slither in the dark will have models with stark white skin, as this is a signature trait of both them and their ancestors, the Agarthans.
    • To take this even further, in Shamir and Alois' paralogue, you are deployed to defend Derdriu from what is assumed to be solders of the Almyran navy...except the models aren't dark-skinned. That's because they aren't Almyran at all, they're petty Fódlan-born pirates posing as Almyrans.
    • Another for Shamir and Alois' paralogue: If you chose to lead the Golden Deer House and bring Claude with you, he has special dialogue that the other house leaders don't get. He reacts very negatively with what the pirates are doing, and even has Boss Banter with the leader noting how they're adding more fuel to Fódlan's wariness and prejudice towards the outside world. This is also one of the earliest hints you can get outside of Supports that Claude himself is not only half-Almyran, but was also born there.
  • The final map of Crimson Flower has Gilbert as an enemy. If his daughter Annette is not recruited, then she will also be on the map. Should you decide to kill one of the two before the other, the game will acknowledge that you have pushed them past the Despair Event Horizon and they will break AI patterns and charge straight for your army.
  • Several support conversations can change context or be unlocked differently in different routes. For example, Lysithea's A-Rank support with Byleth won't be opened until the second battle of Gronder field is cleared in the Golden Deer route. And if you unlocked Seteth's A-Rank support late into the game in the Golden Deer route, specifically, after the opening of chapter 22, where Rhea told Claude and Byleth about Byleth's own origins, you have the option to mention that you have already heard it from Rhea.
  • If you chose the Golden Deer house, Claude has a special comment when facing the bosses in certain paralogues if he is brought. Namely, the "Tales of The Red Canyon" and "The Forgotten Hero" paralogues. This fits the fact that the Verdant Wind route is one of the routes where the characters are not Locked Out of the Loop. ^note Dimitri does not have any special dialogue in those paralogues when he faces the bosses, while Edelgard is flat out not available for the "Legend of the Lake" paralogue.
  • If you poached Lorenz into one of the other houses, he will remark on this for his paralogue, citing that even though he's no longer a part of the Golden Deer house, he will still eventually have a leadership role in the Alliance.
  • Should a character die in battle pre-timeskip, the epilogue accounts for this by stating they either perished during the battle at Garreg Mach, or gives them an excuse to justify why they are not playable, such as Marianne flat-out leaving. If they die post-timeskip, they instead are listed as killed in battle.
  • Seminars will adjust their flavor text to account for the character teaching it and what they are teaching. Characters like Petra will usually say she teaches a lesson about Brigid tactics, while others will use the characters' personality as the basis for their lesson, such as Caspar.
  • If Felix and Dorothea's B-support is obtained after the timeskip on any route besides Azure Moon, he dismisses her by saying that as he abandoned his family, she won't gain anything by marrying him.
  • If Felix's C-Support with Mercedes is done during Part II right after the latter's paralogue on non-Crimson Flower routes, Felix will acknowledge that Mercedes' lost brother Emile is the Death Knight.
  • If the player chooses the Black Eagles, sides with the church, and their birthday falls between 3/14 and 3/31, Rhea (or Flayn, after the timeskip) will write the birthday letter instead of Edelgard, and instead of receiving the Black Eagle Pendant, they will receive the White Dragon Scarf, a one-of-a-kind item, which can also be received if the player's birthday is between 4/1 and when the player chooses a house, and the player rescues Flayn in the first week of Chapter 6. Similarly, if the player chooses the Blue Lions and their birthday falls between 1/1 and 4/30, post-timeskip, Gilbert will write the birthday letter instead of Dimitri.
  • One that was added retroactively via the Wave 4 DLC for free: If you play the Verdant Wind route on Classic Mode and marry Claude and Flayn, their ending card will now differ depending on whether or not Seteth lived or died.
  • Constance of the Ashen Wolves switches personalities depending on if she's in the light or in darkness. Her portraits and dialogue during battles, tea-time, and other events will change depending on the situation. In addition, if she's deployed in an outdoor map but with clouds blocking out the sun (for instance, Lake Teutates), her "indoors" personality is applied.
  • If Anna happens to be killed while playing in Classic Mode, her exclusive shop in Part II will be run instead by a small girl who wishes to follow her footsteps. This also means the quest which unlocks it will be given by that same girl in such case. A similar case happens with Hapi and the quest she gives to unlock the Wayseer DLC facility, as a mercenary will deliver her quest instead if she had previously fallen in battle.
  • If you have any of the Knights of Seiros recruited when you get to the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, the game prevents them from being used for said level since the battle is supposed to be between the students. Similarly, while you can ask another house's student to help you out in most story missions, they will not help you in this one. (The person you ask will still be replaced by a generic in the battle though)
  • While playing in Classic Mode, most of the story scenes take into account the possibility the non-plot important characters might have fallen in battle previously, either by having someone else say their line or just by simply omitting their contribution altogether, interactions and all. Special mention goes to the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes, as each contain a story event which will simply never come to pass if the character that the scene focus on had already fallen before then.
  • Scenes where characters (usually students) have discussions with each other are either changed drastically or simply don't happen if some or all of them were defeated in Classic Mode. Some noteworthy examples can be found Crimson Flower's Chapter 12 & 16, and Azure Moon's Chapter 19.
  • Petra's death quote mentions how she's dying on foreign soil, but this will change if she dies during her paralogue since it takes place in her homeland of Brigid.
  • Cindered Shadows' penultimate map requires you to stand on four vortexes at the same time with units besides the Ashen Wolves. If you lose too many people on Classic mode, it's possible that you might not have enough units left to complete this objective, and in this case the game will give you three controllable NPC units to ensure you still can.
  • If you have the Chalice of Beginnings equipped on a unit during the final map of Azure Moon, its counterattack ability will not trigger when hit by the boss' long range attack, preventing the player from easily whittling down the boss' HP from a safe distance.
• In Warriors: Three Hopes:
  • The game has numerous voice lines when the player uses certain characters to fight other characters on the same route (such as having Flayn fight Seteth, either of those fighting or being fought by Rhea, Felix fighting Dimitri, etc...), which can only be seen when replaying missions via the Record Keeper.
  • Speaking of the Record Keeper, there are voice lines for deploying some characters that normally cannot be deployed together, such as Edelgard and Rhea.
  • In Classic Mode, if a character dies, they disappear from the base camp. While this usually does not apply to "Other" characters (as in, Secret Characters and characters from past playthoughs who were not yet recruited in-story), having the Gatekeeper die does remove them from the base camp.
• Fire Emblem Engage:
  • The Break status cannot be afflicted on a character that receives zero damage, as it wouldn't make sense for someone to drop their weapon if the incoming attack was shrugged off.
  • If you manage to complete Anna's paralogue with Anna still hiding in the chest (requiring you to reach the chest before any enemies do and have a character block it off), you'll trigger special dialogue with Anna reacting to this that leads to her joining the party. Similarly, unique dialogue exists for when Anna is killed during the course of the map.
  • Chapter 6 features an enemy at the start of the map you have to kill to obtain an Emblem Ring. If you ignore him and instead try to kill the boss of the chapter without getting the ring, if he would take a fatal blow, he'll suddenly become a superhuman ninja that dodges everything, even 100% accuracy and Engage attacks.
  • In Chapter 11 where you're running away from Veyle and the Four Hounds, while Veyle is invincible, the Hounds are not; they all have defeat quotes if you can take them down. Sadly they offer no rewards outside of EXP, so this is mainly for bragging rights, or if you really just want to linger around for more EXP.
  • Also from Chapter 11, if you manage to escape with Alear on turn 1 (through the use of Warp staffs and Emblem Edelgard's Raging Storm), Ivy and her retainers will not appear to save the day, but pop up messages will indicate that they've still joined and that the Draconic Time Crystal is made available again.
  • Fogado, Bunet and Pandreo all have unique tooltip descriptions during Chapter 12, which don't refer to them as the prince of Solm and his retainers, as you don't learn this until after the chapter.
  • Given it's possible to clear the Fell Xenologue DLC at any point during the main story, the Four Winds will always have an unique conversation with their respective counterparts from the Four Hounds the first time they fight each other.

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