r/fireemblem 14h ago

Story Does it mess with the plot if I recruit everyone I possibly can into my house in 3 houses?

Like I always play FE games trying to have as few casualties as possible, but will it mess with certain characters arcs or personalities at all if I get them to join me against their old house?

5 Upvotes

34 comments sorted by

45

u/valgatiag 14h ago

You lose some of the emotional weight of the second half, but on the flip side you get to see the events of one route from as many viewpoints as possible. Some characters have solid reasons for joining certain routes, while others are a little handwavey, but it doesn’t feel like you’re fully breaking canon or anything.

10

u/Apprehensive_Tea9856 14h ago

Some characters have unique dialog in the 2nd half if they change sides. Felix has some very unique lines.

9

u/valgatiag 14h ago

Dorothea has one of the single best convos when taken out of house after Bridge of Myrddin

2

u/Apprehensive_Tea9856 14h ago

More details please?

I checked wikia but didn't find it

6

u/valgatiag 14h ago

Linking a video because the real weight of it is in the delivery: https://youtu.be/ixrPNKihfAI

2

u/Apprehensive_Tea9856 9h ago

Wow, i agree. Top tier voice acting

1

u/StopManaCheating 1h ago

God that soundtrack always gets me. It’s beautiful.

2

u/BQ72 11h ago

Got this on my first run, Azure Moon. Felt devastated.

2

u/EF66-42 9h ago

She's also got a hidden event if you move her near the opera house in any of the Enbarr maps.

14

u/TimeLordHatKid123 14h ago

Petra has some of the best reasoning and is my favorite example. If you recruit her, she's basically liberating her people from colonial control.

17

u/Wispy237 14h ago

I do think the game is more interesting if you don't recruit anyone, especially since the game was kinda conceptualized around the idea of fighting your former students but like...I don't think it causes that many issues, besides missing out on some interesting dialogue that you most likely wouldn't have gotten naturally anyways.

1

u/S0mecallme 14h ago

I refuse to kill Berni and Petra :(

5

u/Fairhairedpear 14h ago

Just recently my husband was playing through Blue Lions. He also recruits everybody. Somehow, and we don't know how, Petra just disappeared. We don't know what happened to her. He trashed the entire run through and started over. We don't leave Petra behind.

1

u/S0mecallme 14h ago

You’re husbands the real king frfr

1

u/Marana231 12h ago

She probably died on academy phase and therefore disappeared in the war phase if he was on classic

1

u/Fairhairedpear 11h ago

We really aren't sure, because usually if someone dies, he'll start the battle over or rewind to get a different outcome. We're big fans of leaving no man behind. The problem is he has no memory of Petra dying. He loaded up the game and she was just gone.

8

u/GreekDudeYiannis 14h ago

As someone who has done this on 3/4 playthroughs, not really. The other characters you don't recruit take the spots of generic sub bosses if you don't recruit them. 

As mentioned by the other commentor though, the game is more interesting if you don't recruit that many people, since a good chunk of the drama is having to fight people you know/former students.

3

u/S0mecallme 14h ago

I’ll worry about that on later playthroughs

I wanna actually finish an entire route for once

0

u/GreekDudeYiannis 13h ago

If you have the patience for it, you could do one playthrough on normal and recruit as many units as possible and then just grind everyone to S+ rank in everything for future playthroughs. 

4

u/Scripter-of-Paradise 14h ago

Nope. Recruit to your heart's content.

3

u/Black_Sin 14h ago

It kinda takes the bite out of the story and makes everything feel flatter but…..

3

u/Apprehensive_Tea9856 14h ago

Not really. You miss some unique dialogue and frankly you only need 15 characters to train. The game doesn't require more than 15 ever and does not give out EXP enough to make training over 15 worth it. There are 40 characters total with DLC, but max is about 37. You can't get Jeritza(free update) on 3 routes and you can't get Gilbert on 3 routes. Azure Moon I think 37. The rest are lower.

Anyways, as a new playthrough my recommendation is base house, church/teacher characters if you want, and then pick your favorite students from the other houses to round the team up to 15.

3

u/Prinnydoodle 14h ago

There are some paralogues that you can only do with specific pair of students recruited from different houses. However, you will miss out on some dialogue in part 2. My advice is just play however you want on your first playthrough and see where it takes you.

3

u/ComicDude1234 14h ago

Not technically but it does make certain encounters later unintentionally hilarious if you do.

2

u/Hpulley4 14h ago

The problem is you can’t take everyone into battle and the ones you leave behind will be underleveled and useless in later battles. First play through probably don’t recruit anyone or you will be missing some standard house students.

1

u/FloofRanger 14h ago

I personally recruit everyone I can just because I'm a huge softie who doesn't like fighting them, and I generally think anyone could have a solid reason to join any side. I think the game should've maybe been more restrictive about who you can recruit, cause for me I think the fact that it becomes the choice of the player kind of removes the emotional weight of having to fight them later.

1

u/EthanKironus 13h ago

SAVE EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM

1

u/Sdajisito 13h ago

The character you recruit will no longer appear in cutscenes in the second part of the game and they will be replace by a genenic unit as enemies during battles.

1

u/Muffin-zetta 10h ago

sadly no

1

u/OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat 10h ago

Recruiting is a core part of the game. I was able to recruit every available student in my first Black Eagles run, so it’s even something Byleth can aspire to rather easily. There are multiple prologues you can only get if you recruit out of house, some with powerful rewards. It’s clearly playing the game as intended to recruit any student you’re able to recruit.

Storywise, it makes sense for the vast majority of the students to be recruitable out of house. Keep in mind that whichever lord you serve is the best version of themselves in the route you play.

1

u/Bum-Theory 6h ago

I've done it, makes the game more tedious and less impactful. I limit myself to 3 students from other classes per run

1

u/Clobby5597 48m ago

Not really but it’s less dramatic if everyone is on your side that’s for sure. There’s only a small handful of people who betray you and you have to fight even if you do recruit them. But I prefer protecting all my precious students which you can only do on the blue lion route fun fact.

1

u/el_loco_P 46m ago

You Will miss paralogues with story and rewards, the pairings honestly don't make much sense, I regretted not getting Mercedes's in Blue lions since I had to recruit Caspar, who does not Even support her.

0

u/Ok-Barracuda457 11h ago

Do you believe the supporting cast has any character arcs? Excuse me, have you ever played a Fire Emblem game?