Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - We Played Fire Emblem! - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

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of funny. What's up and welcome back to the kind of funny games casted. My favorite shade of red. Of course, it is a Nintendo day. I am your host Tim Gettys and I am thrilled to be sitting here with the Master of Hype, Snowbike, Mike. Tim Gettys, happy Friday to you. This is a weird one. Yeah. Because there was a dual embargo yesterday of Wolverine that Greg played and then fire them that you played. And there's a lot of desire from the audience for both. Greg, not here today. So he can only do yesterday. We got that one done, which means we're a little late. We made you wait.

Which maybe gave you some more time to play. Well, I was playing a lot. So I was going to play no matter what. I wasn't stopping. And yeah, it was odd, Tim, because I was so planned for Friday. Everybody was like, oh, man, they must be playing Fire Emblem yesterday. And I was like, who said that? Who would tell them

that? And I was like, I looked at my seat. I was like, oh, we could talk about it today, but Greg pushed me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm very excited to hear all about your thoughts on Fire emblem fortunes we've. Of course, if you are watching live, please be a part of the show by super chatting on YouTube.com slash kind at funny games. Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon.com slash kind of funny.

So shout out to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, Delini the Somm, Twining, and Lax, Nomad. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be topic of the show. Tats, dot, tuts, tuts, tuts, tuts. I love Barrett so much. Yeah. I just want to say. He's hustling all day. He's hustling.

And then, you know, like him, Kevin, Roger, whoever's running the show, they're doing so much in that control room. And sometimes when they have to leave the control, them to adjust a camera or something's going on, it's like, I don't see that happening. And I'm just here, just talking, just yapping. And I'm about to get to the part that they actually need to hit some button. I know, but then I'm like, I see him in here. And then I feel bad because I'm about to make him hustle.

No, never, never feel bad because I know it's on me. But when I notice, like, a camera is a little bit off. I'm like, I need to go fix it. I know I have probably 30 seconds to do that. Yeah, but it's like, you know, it's a push and pull between us. You know what I mean? We got to feel the end. And you're excited.

You're jumping right to top. I am jumping right into it. You know what I mean? We don't need to, though. Mike, how are you doing? Let's make them wait just a little longer. You know, how is your life? My life is great, Tim.

I, you know, I guess five. Yeah, well, my two children. Yeah, yeah, tell you ride and Alpine glow. Beautiful names. Yeah. Beautiful. I love them. These guys.

The service. No. Because they're going to be gone, but you saw that. Okay, you saw that on Reddit. They'll be gone sooner than you think. So everything is good. You know, shout to Dr. Ryan for getting me right. And shout out to this life being a whole lot of fun.

Back-to-back tactics games for me in the preview realm. I, of course, got off of Star Wars Zero Company. I talked about with that, Lucy James, very recently on the gamescast. You can go check that out. And I jumped right into my next tactics games, which is Fire Emblemen Fortunes Weave. And, Tim, I've been putting in a lot of time. So I've been very excited to tell you all about. it. You've been out and about this week. So, you know, I'm looking over at my desk and I'm like,

oh, man, I have to wait till Friday to talk to him about this game. Well, I'm excited for it because of course, tactical 2026. You now, fresh off of that Star Wars Zero Company preview. Now we are talking about Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave coming out September 17th, 2026 for the Switch 2, developed by intelligence systems published by Nintendo. Travel through time to gather allies and defeat the demon God Baylor. Test your tactical prowess in battle as you guide four here. on their interwoven journeys from past to present. Together, you'll save the future from ruin or fall trying. Mike, what have you done?

How long have you played? And what do you think of Fire and Moon Fortunes we've so far? Tim Gettys, take a deep breath with me really quick. We've got to center ourselves. Because this game is really big and really fun. And all I want to do is spend time playing it even more and talking about it. because my preview rocked. It was awesome, Tim.

I finished at 17 hours. I fell in love with one of the characters. Theodora played about 15 hours of that campaign. So hold on. Hold on. Hold on. We need to roll back a second. Okay. 17 hours.

Yeah. This is not a review. No, I could have put a lot more into it. This is a preview of this game. So 17 hours, that's not. I mean, that's a little, that's a little toss in the well of what a fire emblem game is. That's nothing. That's just scratching the surface.

And so, as I said, 17 hours during my preview program here, I put a lot of time into Theodore, really started to enjoy that story, that character. And then I said, you know what, Mike, let's slow it down. Let's go check out the weave features, I like to call this, which is you're able to jump between all four of the main character stories at any time. So I wanted to see that feature. I wanted to stop, jump to another. character, start that story and see how seamless it actually is.

And Tim, it's impressive because you can stop whenever you'd like. There's a couple moments where you can't. But really, you can stop at any moment and say, you know what? I'd like to jump to another character and pick up their story, maybe start their story, see how their stories weave in and out of what's going on with this character I'm already playing. And then when you say, you know what, I want to jump back to another character, you can do that. And it's really awesome. Give me a second, because I want to make sure I'm understanding this right.

when you weave back and forth between the characters, is it at that moment in time for the characters, or are you starting from the beginning? Yes. So you'll go back to, it depends on how far you've put into each character, but essentially you will go to the last spot that you played of that character's story.

So all of their stories will lead them to the heroic games. They all arrive at the heroic games at different times. When you're playing a certain character, you may see other characters that you know as the main cast in the heroic games that you're currently playing and go, oh, wow, that's awesome. I'm seeing Letter right now.

Oh, my God, it's Dietrich over there on my team or the other team, right? And so what you'll do is when you switch over to the next character, you'll pick up wherever you left off or the start of the game, and you'll be able to see how they get to the heroic games, what their story leads up to at certain plot points that you'll kind of share together. So, yeah, it just depends on where you're at with all their stories. Does it feel like the optimal way to play this game is like to kind of switch back and forth each character, get them to a certain point,

and then switch back and move. on to the next? I think it's up to the player on how they're going to want to do this. It did not feel like at first when I went into this I thought, oh, I'm going to play all four characters and just switch back and forth hour, hour, hour, and try to keep their stories in line. But as I said, I think

with the Fire Emblem Games and the tactics that they have, along with the big emphasis on the social side, you kind of get caught up with the I'm playing this character, I'm getting through the early game of the tutorial, now they're taking the training wheels off, now I'm in a flow that I really didn't

want to go, okay, hey, just got through this. Let's do the beginning all over again. Let's do the beginning all over again. So, yeah, it did feel like I was in a great flow and then stopped to go back to the tutorial of a new character, but it felt really fast and fresh. Each character has their own kind of unique opening. I'll say Theodores is kind of cut scene heavy. So there's a lot of story, a lot of dialogue. When I switched to Dietrich, he's on the hunt. Okay? He's searching for the next big bad. He wants, he's bloodthirsty Tim. He's. He's bloodthirsty, Tim. and God, he's good looking, okay? And his story, his story kind of kicks off real fast.

So each one of them had a different kind of vibe on the tutorial and how you get into it. And each one actually introduces mechanics a little bit differently, depending on timing and where you're at, which I thought was really cool to go from Theodora over to D-Trick and be like, wow, I got this part later on. This guy's already learning this right away. That's cool. Talk to me about the story.

There's a lot of story in these far. There's a lot of stories. in these games. I'm not going to spoil anything for all of you. I'll go over what Nintendo has already told you because I've really enjoyed the twist and turns of the story. If you've played Fire Emblem Three Houses, I think you know kind of that grand story that this team can tell. And most importantly, I think you expect something so big and that's what this is delivering on. But so far, the story, so far, of course, we have four main heroes. We have Kai, Dietrich, Theodora, and Letta. Those are going to be your main.

Ask your main characters. But we do know that the main story takes place five years in the future after the heroic games. And one soul has been chosen to stop the demon lord. And this soul has an opportunity. Two choices. You can either fight the demon lord by yourself or you can go back in time and nudge these four characters along their story to maybe get them to assist you fighting the demon lord. Question. Yeah.

Can you just start that story? No. Okay. Because I thought it might have been similar to, uh, Breath of the Wild where it's like the more of the guardian, not guardians, the beasts that you take down, then the more help you have.

I don't think, I didn't see where you could just play by yourself. I think you're picking one no matter what. Okay. And so, yeah, you will then choose one of the four, right? You have Kai, who's a young boy, his father was imprisoned in the main city of Daxian. And so on his 15th birthday,

he's on a goal to go out and so save his father. The whole main premise is, the leader of Dagda, the Dagsyan Empire. He has the heroic games, which is like the big gladiator games. And he is throwing out the challenge of whoever wins gets one wish. So a lot of these people are coming to that for their one wish or others. Dietrich is just a badass looking for a stronger opponent. He's out on the sea.

Giant sea monster destroys his ship. And now he's been washed ash ashore. And he's going to meet two people that will then lead him to the heroic games. Theodora is from the kingdom of the south Saramis, and she worships the god of death and night, and she's a badass, okay? Easiest way to describe her story? Think House of Dragons right now.

Our queen who is struggling at the throne to have people acknowledge her and understand that she's strong enough to give her all. That's what Theodore is going through a lot out there. So she's going to enter the heroic games to put on her city, her people, and let them know, I'm a good leader here. Mike, I got to let you know,

you're glowing. Tim? And you often do when you're talking about games and when you're playing through something. And I think specifically there's an energy you give to me when you're playing through Nintendo games or classic games that you know that I love, that you want to like share that with me. But there's something different about this one. How much are you putting on right now and how much is this game just like legitimately

you're like, oh fuck, this one's special? This one's special, Tim. This is legit special. This is giving me Fire Emblem, three houses on a grander scale. I think everyone knows Fire Emblem Three Houses if you're coming into this, if you haven't. That was a really special one for the series. It was one of the most recent ones that people really last onto because of the social features. But the big one was, is you fell in love with one of the houses.

You fell in love with one of the characters. But you couldn't go play the other characters during that, right? You would hear stories of your friends playing, hey, I was the Golden Dears. Well, I chose the Blue Lions or I'm over here with the Red Whatever's. And you're like, oh, what happened in that story? And then your friends will tell you. and they'll be like, well, you could finish three houses and then just go roll that. The coolest part about this is you'll never have to miss out if you don't want to.

And I really, really latched onto that and vibe with that. On top of the story they were telling, right, Theodora and the twists and the turns that go on with her trying to show the people of Sarah Miss and, of course, the heroic games that she is a badass. She deserves the throne. I really liked that. And then switching to Dietrich, who was completely different, right? This is just a badass vampire-looking dude. He washes a store.

This priest picks him up, and he's wacky as all can do. This guy's wild, okay, Tim, let me tell you. The casting crew around you, what colorful, awesome, unique characters that you will run into and fall in love with. Because D. Trick is straightforward. I got my mind with this giant sword, and I want to murder people. And he's going to be complimented by a crazy priest, and then a girl who got saved because she was going to be sacrificed to the sea beast.

okay and these two compliment him so well and it's so much fun. Theodora has her two kind of like Royal Guard members and they're Timoan and Puma. Pumba. It's so much fun Tim. It's so much fun Tim and so

yeah I fell in love with those characters of course the final one is Letta and her story or Lita Leda I'm not quite sure I haven't played that one yet. Badass story right. Her father was murdered and now she's on the hunt for revenge and she's got a list of names. She's going full Aria Stark on him, okay?

She's crossing your name out in blood as she murders people, and she heard that her father's killer could be at the Heroic Games, so now she'll chase them. Chuddin 2D2 says, do we have any idea how long each of the hero's storylines takes pre-time skit? I don't know.

I mean, like I said, I'm 17 hours in. I couldn't tell you story stuff, but I won't spoil anything. I don't know any time. I'm just putting in time having a blast. Let me ask you this. Say it takes a hundred hours to beat the five storylines. Okay.

Are you doing that by the end of this year? Yeah, I told you, Tim, when we watched the direct that I would do one or two, now that I've played it, I'm all in for all of them. I want to see all of them. It's awesome. Like, there's moments when I was playing Theodore's story in the beginning where you join the heroic games and you get this smile when you meet the other four cast members and they join your crew, right? You'll go into the gladiator arena and all of a sudden.

and you're teamed up with Kai. And it's like, you get this smile like, oh, snap, like there he is. And he's in my story and I'm in his story. And you'll take control of their units and you get teased with their abilities on the battlefield, right? Each one of these four characters has their, of course, combat arts, but they have now their own new unique moves called blaze arts. So all four of them have their own unique superpower. And so you'll get to see them and use them on battle, right?

And so I'm accustomed to Theodora. who has this magical arm and she can whip a rock in the earth across the battle map and hit somebody, right? But then I play as Letta or Lita, I'm still not going to confuse on that name, but she can, she's like a bard. And so she'll play music as a support character and buff up the people around her, right? And you go, oh, that's such a cool move. Like, I can't wait to use that. Right. And so I really enjoyed seeing the other characters along my story and then being interested and excited to go check them out.

So much of the trailers that I've seen, I didn't. see the direct, but so many of the trailers I've seen seem that this is in the Gladiator Arena and there's a lot going on there, even some of the footage bear it was just showing there. It seemed like a lot of the kind of missions were there. How much is outside of it? Like, is this still a traditional

Fire Move game where you're going around a vast land? Tim, there's so much outside of it. I tried to break my preview down into just the overall, giving you the characters and the story, what this game is. Then I win to combat and I win to social. And of course, if you're a

Fire Emblem fan. If you are a fan of the tactics genre, it's been fun. Me and Greg, this past week, have been talking about Marvel's Midnight Suns. We talked about Star Wars Zero Company, and there's this like big push for the social aspect inside of these games to deepen the bonds with the characters you love, to go from not just the grid-based tactics gameplay and have something off the battlefield. And of course, if you've played Fire Emblem Three Houses, you know the monastery, you know the school. There is a large part of this game that is off the battlefield. running around deepening the bonds, doing other stuff. Here now, you are complimented with a lot off of the battlefield,

but also still on the battlefield, right? I would say the main story plots so far are going to be on the heroic games. Hey, we're in the Gladiator Arena. We're introducing you to this world. This guy's putting on this show, you're going to battle. And for someone who grew up with the original Xbox and loved Gladius, the Gladiator tactics game, loves Russell Crow playing Gladiator, right?

Like, I'm all in on the heroic games. I'm pumped up every time. It's a tournament. It's the coolest, Tim. It's the coolest. But on top of that, right, you're going to go out on this giant world map, and then you're going to go explore different areas, and you'll have fights and unique areas from outside the world with beasts, thieves,

whoever. And then on top of that, we have a new fighting style for the combat style, which is the more turn-based line style, not the tactics game, called clash encounters. So you're getting hit with a lot of combat And I will say from three houses to this I've really enjoyed the new environments I like the use of the environmental obstacles In the way I think heroic games is a cool compliment

On how they do the Gladiator Arena I really enjoyed being outside and seeing different areas That weren't just from what I saw in Fire Emblem 3 houses So really positive so far in the combat side Obviously a lot of comparisons between the two games For after reasons but do you think that you need to play three houses to get into this? Or is this like there's never been a better time to jump into Fire Emblem?

No, just like Three Houses, there's never been a better time to give this a try. I'm sure all of your friends have hyped up some Fire Emblem to you before. Maybe they're the diehards and have played all of them. Maybe they're just a newbie like me who's just played three houses. But there has never been a better time, especially with these stories that are going to weave amongst each other, the opportunity to switch characters at any time. it's like the perfect onboarding for someone new. It's in a whole new area.

You're meeting brand new characters as a cast and crew. You're gonna love it. So I never finished three houses with all the different characters. When you play as the different ones, do their stories contradict each other? Like does one become like the winner of a thing?

Or is it more like they're, it's all, it's one canon? You know what? I haven't seen that so far. But when we did fight together, we were fighting together, not again. So I haven't had a moment where it's like, oh, I beat you in this one.

And that one. Then what about this one, though? For Fortune's Weave, it's like it being more of an arena, you know, the, what's it called the battle games? The heroic. Heroic games. Like with that concept, do you think that there's the one canon that? Oh, my apology.

Same answer for that. I didn't mean for three houses. I meant for this one, right? So for this one, no, so far I haven't gone up against another hero to be like, oh, in this one he's supposed to lose. I should go check that out. In this so far, they've only complimented me. Jeff Grubbs says they're alternate versions of events.

Yeah. Okay. It was not one. Yeah. As of right now, it's just me. They've complimented me on my side, which is cool. I have not recruited their team members yet, which I'm excited to see how that goes, because you can recruit almost anybody in this.

There's very little off-limits characters to recruit. And so right now I am trying to work somebody off of Dietrich's team to come over to my team. Three houses had that. You could recruit other class members from other classes over. So we'll see what that looks like with the story. I haven't seen it quite yet, though. Yeah. But I'm working it. Talk to me about the tactics.

Tactics are great, Tim, right? If you're looking for a turn-based tactics game where you set up and you are on the grid, you're on the chess board, as I like to call it, it's awesome, right? Like, it is the fire emblem that you know. You will put out a number of pawns or chess pieces on the board. You will adapt to what you see from your opponents.

You will complement one another with support characters with your blaze arts from your main character. Of course, there's also combat arts that you know that will, of course, main characters have blaze arts, which are their special moves. Every weapon has a combat art, which is another move that does more damage

than just a normal attack. That breaks down the durability of the weapon. So throughout the battles and throughout your journey, you'll be mindful of repairing your weapons because you're doing combat arts because those do a little more damage than your normal, right? On top of that as well, you'll have battalions.

If you're Theodora, she can recruit battalions. You saw that in Fire Emblem, Three Houses. It's like a support move where I call upon like a volley of archers to shoot at somebody that's flying, put them down and mobilize them, use them for that, right? So it is the turn-based, grid-based tactics that you know. And it's just a lot flashier, right? Of course, I think Fire Emblem is known for the really flashy presentation moments when you get into that awesome critical damage move or you do one of the blazerts and they have a whole presentation for it. And you get a little quick mini cutscene. It looks awesome.

the environment so far have been fantastic. I've really enjoyed everything I've seen. I have not seen an elephant rider yet that we saw in the trailer, but like I want that. And so far it's been like nothing but positive on the turn-based tactics side. So

are you overwhelmed? Because everything you just said, it just seems like systems over systems over system, but there's so much going on. Are you grasping it? Like is it making sense to you? Hour four, hour five, I was overwhelmed. There's a moment where you go from the beginning of the story to entering Dagcyon and starting the

heroic games to, hey, now, guess what? You can travel around this entire city. And now you can leave the city and go to the open world. And we're going to give you 30 days in between matches, aka like story moments, and you can do whatever you want. And at that moment, you are overwhelmed. The map of the city is much larger than the monastery. It has a lot of things to do from collecting sub side objectives to talking with almost every human being on there. They'll be just regular characters that have one-liners that add to just the theme and the story of it all to really deepen the immersion. But then every single character that you will meet in the heroic games or that are

just like side characters, they're all recruitable. So you're going to be hit with this map that has objectives. It's going to have locations from the stores, the goods, the ins, these temples you can go worship at to get stanchet. status buffs and bonuses and you can serve at them and you can work at them. So it's like your hit was so much. But then Tim, about about hour seven, I got into my second or third cycle. And I was using up those days to the very last one, right?

There was one I'll never forget. I used up 20 of the 40 days. And I was like, Mike, you've done it all. Like I'm bored. Let's get to it. And then the next one hit me with 70 days. And I was like, I'm going to use up every moment here. Right.

And so there's a couple things that go on to this. Let's talk about the city first. You are broken down into weeks. And so throughout that week, you can do training, you can deepen bonds, you can take people to lunch, you can do certain things with your characters to exhaust them. And so you're thinking about that in the city where it's like, oh, I should go down to the training hub. I should go train my sorcerers so they can be better in black magic and white magic.

I should train my Lancers or my axe guys. Let's get the training done. Or you can watch other matches from other characters. you watch those matches and then the whole team gets buffs, right? Which is awesome because really you want to level up. You want to get your characters more proficient at certain classes. So then you can go and take the test, get them from a beginner to an advance to the Supreme and then have new cool moves and abilities, right?

And so you're weighing all of that. On top of that, what's it called? It's not prestige, but like, or is it prestige? What's that they called where it's like the mastery or whatever? I think it's beginner advanced. And I think there's one more. I don't know. I think they...

She's always so sad. They might have reduced it to three this time. So I'm trying to remember what those classes go to. But then, of course, when you take the test, right, you'll have the different cool classes that you're going to clearly want to go to. Am I a gladiator with full big armor on? Am I a chariot rider?

Am I working towards driving the elephant, right? Of course I'm going to put this guy in an elephant. I got one of my guys. He's on a battle ostrich. It's one of the coolest things you've ever seen. The ostrich is freaking out all the time. It's awesome, Jim. It's awesome.

And so you're working. working them in that way. Then on top of that, you'll also inside of the city, you can go to these three temples. There might be six, but there's three so far that I'm talking with, and those you're going to worship at. And so these temples will give you status buffs and abilities that you'll work towards. And so you get hit with this giant screen. It's like, hey, there's seven levels at this temple. And so to earn more buff on that temple, you'll go work at it. They just like clean up around it. And then you'll get a little XP buff. And then you'll get closer to the next level and the next level, which will each give you something unique, right?

Then after that, Tim, you'll talk about the relationships and bonds. Of course. But we'll talk about that. Tim, after a quick word from our sponsors. Long live the king. Long live Portillo the weeder dog. We partnered with the good people over and make ship for this adorable king party to honor my late great pup,

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Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. Talk to me about love Mike. Let's keep going, Tim, okay? And then of course, to everyone watching live on Twitch on YouTube, If you have a certain question you want something that you want me to get after afterwards, please put them in the super chats. Get them ready because I will answer all of your favorite questions. I got so much to say.

So then let's talk about deepening your bonds and recruiting people, right? So now I got a squad of five. I got my two guys from the kingdom. Two people join my team so I can participate in the heroic games. Are you playing permadeath or no? No perma death on this one. No, Tim. I fell in love with these people.

I don't need them off the team, okay? Because if they die, I'm going to tweak out. Okay. And I've, you know, I got this lovely gal, lovely girl Abigail, she's my healer. She's gone down a couple times, okay? Misplaced tactical move. I put him on the wrong side. She was open.

They took her down. I would be heartbroken if she was gone, okay? So like, as of right now, no, no permadeath for me. Star Wars Zero company, I went perma death because they really pushed that. That was their goal was to get you to do that. This game, no, it's completely up to you if you want to do permadeth or not. that seems like a role that if I was on my second play-through, I would do, or if I was a little more confident in my tactics abilities, I would.

But my gameplay pretty nasty, but like, you know, you could always slip up. And you don't want to slip up. You don't want to slip up. And so, yeah, now it's all about deepening the bonds and adding new recruits to your team, which is the most fun part about this for me is like, who's going to be on my team, who are some cool classes? And the mindful of this, Tim, you can reclassify everyone. So I noticed a lot of people out there on the recruiting trail that I wanted were sharing similar classes.

And it's like, I can't just have five different swords people. I got to have some unique variety to this. So you can reclassify every person that you recruit and all of your people. So that's really, really nice because every single one of them is so unique. They're so cool. It's just like, what a flavor of the world when you walk around and see a guy that's seven feet tall and looks like a bear. you see a girl with blue hair. You see this archer who doesn't want anything to do with you,

but all you want to do is give her your love and call her every single night and just say, Andy play games with me. You know what I mean? It's like that, Tim, it's so great, right? And so there you'll go and meet them and you'll start deep into your bonds by giving them gifts, taking them out to lunch at the inn,

but at top of that, you're going to have to have renown. And so renown is a whole new level that you're going to have to work into. So you'll have the bonds and renown. So they won't talk to you unless you got a higher level of renown, right? They'll be like, hey, you're not ready to recruit me yet. Go work out there. But if you give me gifts and you take me out to lunch, we can deeper our bonds and that will help you.

Of course. Okay. Classic networking. Classic networking. So now we leave the city to go work on our renown. That's when we get to the world map. And so each one of the four characters all earn renown in a different way. Theodora, who is now the queen of Saramis, her goal is to send.

supplies back to the south and strengthen her city and her armies down there. So when she's... Game of Thrones. So she is out there exploring the map and she's going to just kind of... She will search locations and she'll send battalions to go out there and search for her, which then will gather a bunch of resources. Then I can go send them back with one of my ambassadors and I'll earn renown and respect, which will get you a number of things, but also be able to allow you to recruit.

Now, Dietrich, he doesn't want to send anything back. He's a man all by himself. What does he want to do? Murder things. And so he goes onto the world map, calls upon this giant red eye that spans across a certain large chunk of the map. And every time you use it, it gets smaller and smaller, right,

until he rests so he can go back. But what he'll do is he'll span out this giant red eye of saron and he'll look for a fight. And then it will pop up on the map like, here's a beast, here's some thief, go fight this. And he'll go over there. and that's how he upsets. That sounds awesome.

Why did you go Theodora? Because she's so badass. Oh my God. Look at the armor. Look at the cool magical arm. Look at the spear. She's the baddest. And like, because I'm watching Hot D.

It's like I feel for her, right? Okay. This girl just needs to prove to her family, to her city that she can be queen. And it's like, Theodora, you're the baddest on the block. You are the queen. We respect you, but it's not good enough. She got to work extra hard for that, you know? And so I just,

vibe with Theodora. I mean, I'm going to vibe with all of them, to be honest with you, Tim. We're talking about the girl who's now Aria Stark and she's out for revenge, murdering people. Like, of course that's going to be lit. What about the other guy? I feel like you haven't shown a lot of love to Mr. Bluehead. Yeah, Kai, the young 15-year-old. Kai is a certain vibe, right? Kai is a young boy who takes his childhood friends from their city and then it's going to go to the heroic games with the hope of saving his father who's just been imprisoned, right?

And so for me with Kai, I liked him on the battlefield. but I didn't vibe with the young boy arc right now, right? Hey, I'm a young boy. I'm going into a man. I want to be respect. I want to be stronger. I got to save my dad. It just wasn't my vibe right now,

especially when you got Dietrich the vampire who's just like, hey, I'm stupid sexy and I like to murder people. I'm like, that's my guy. Theodora, that's my gal. And so right now, Kai's going to be my last choice. Okay, okay. That's just me.

I haven't played any of Kai. So we'll see. That's just my impression so far of what I see. from him on the battlefield. But yeah, Tim, so you're working to get renown. And so renown is going to level up a number of things that you can do inside the city, what you can buy at certain things. It's like a good level up system for a lot of things,

but I'm using it to recruit so I can go recruit people. And so like I said, when we go to the world map, when we leave the city, which the city already has so much to do, you're going to leave the city and go to this world map. And it is massive, Tim. They're going to give you 30 days on the first one. And you'll go from spot to spot. Imagine a board game with little board game tiles, and you'll go from tile to tile, and there's tiles that have outposts, there's tiles that have cities, there's tiles that have dungeons, which I'll talk about in a minute, but you're going to go from tile to tile, exploring this map and opening it up as you go. And sometimes you'll go into a different, kind of like borderline, where it's like, hey, you've got to have renown three or four on this to go into this area of the map.

And so you'll work on your renown to go to those areas on the map. But yeah, as you continue to go through it, you're going to stop at different spots. When you're Theodora, you're going to be stopping at all these spots, whether you're putting a battalion to search for you or you're going to search yourself. You're looking for supplies.

Every city that Theodora goes to visit, cities are awesome, Tim. There's not much going on in the cities. You have two options. One, sometimes they let you go into the city, very tiny little village. You walk up and down. You can go shop at their goods.

But most of the time, you'll stop at a city, and they'll give you an option to talk with the villagers, and they'll have just like four lines of dialogue between three people. It's like, hey, did you hear? There's a temple up there to the north, and I hear there's treasure. And it will open up your world map, pop up, and you're like, oh, now there's a cool new spot for me to go.

Hey, did you hear such and such giving you a lore drop, right? Hey, did you know that I hear our local town vendor, he's got a really good sword. And you're like, okay. So essentially, like, talking to the people in the city opens up more to use your analogy here, kind of spots on the board game. Yeah, you'll get little hints. You'll get helpful hints.

And it's just building a little lore. But for Theodora, who can recruit battalion, she's moving fast. Every city that Theodore visits, she can then recruit. So for her, my goal, of course, was to gather as many supplies as I could to send back to Saramis. So I wanted as many battalions as I could to put out on the map as I visited so they would search for me. And I would get double the resources. So I'm at every city, I'm recruiting a new battalion, which can be used in back. which is really cool, but I'm putting them on spots of the map that I visited.

I've searched. I send them to search. I go to my next one because I'm looking for 30 fish. I'm looking for 15 spring rolls. I'm looking for garden greens. And so you're always going through the map with Theodore to work up that renown. And then on top of that, you'll visit the dungeons. And so now we have a dungeon, which will send you into that third person view that you see

running around in the city. But now you'll explore this very linear dungeon and you will clash. with certain enemies inside of them. They're just like 3D monsters that are running around and come up to you. And you have the opportunity to swing at them first to get the early hit on them, lower their health. And then we get into the new combat

that everyone's talking about. Classic turn-based battles. Bear, can you bring up the footage that you were just showing with the scorpion? Very interested in this. How alike to just the normal combat is this? Not at all, Tim. There's no grid here.

It is still turn-based, but it is more of a Final Fantasy character-by-character turn-based. And I know when I say Final Fantasy, you think, oh, I'm going to use the whole party at once. No, you will use one person at a time, and then they will attack, and then you will attack. And so you can swing between the five characters out there to do an attack. And so, of course, you're working this, right? Because whoever gets the final hit gets the most XP. And so for me, I was just level. up Theodora, right? And so she's going to swing out on it. It's also a very basic system,

is what I would say. It's pretty basic. It's not supposed to be the main combat. It's just a nice compliment to switch things up. But here's how it goes. Your five players line up in front of you, just like a classic turn-based style game that you're thinking of a JRP. In front of you is the monster, right? You'll take your turn. You have a couple of options. You can swing between the five characters to choose who you want to attack, right? Hey, I'm leveling up my archer I want them to get the final blow. I'm going to go over to them. Or for me, I was using Theodora a lot

because I wanted to build bonds as well so you can use team-up attacks, right? And so now I'm using Theodora plus the archer so we're deepening the bonds and they both get a lot of XP. Everyone will get XP after the battle, but it's one swing per turn. So no matter what, you'll choose one of those characters.

They'll do a basic attack. They'll do the team-up attack, whatever you want. You'll swing on that monster. Most of the time you're going to kill them. sometimes it might be two or three hits, you'll kill them, or they'll hit you back, you'll do it again. And so it's very basic

JRP, turn-based style combat that you would think. But are we still working within the kind of fire emblem rules of the different triangles of weapons and weaknesses and... You know, Tim, I didn't recognize that because it's like you're fighting a scorpion, you're fighting some sort of... You might be fighting some thieves. I didn't see it like that, no.

And most of the time, I think I was stronger than what I was seeing. Does it feel additive to the game or does it feel like just more, just to have more? You know, I think it is, it's a little bit of both. It's a nice switchup. It's fun. It's novel at first. There is an opportunity where you can just auto battle so you don't even do it. And then I got into one dungeon where I was so high of level, they were like, hey, every time you swing on them before they even approach you, you're just going to kill them.

So like one dungeon, for example, I'm so high. I would hit them in the little third person mode and they would die immediately. So it's like, okay, well, we're not even fighting anymore. So it's kind of novel at that aspect of like, this isn't going to change your life. This isn't going to be something where you're like, hey, I can't wait to get into that combat style. It's very much of like, oh, this is new, this is novel, this is different.

I appreciate that, especially because these dungeons, Tim, there's no mini map. And they're just big, kind of like circular mazes most of the time. And some of them are really dark. You have no idea where you're going. But they have this fun feature where they have like a footprint follower, So think like GTA or St. Row with the map indicator, but instead of telling where to go,

it just follows your footprints. So like there I am running through every corridor, because when you go into these dungeons, they tease you with, here there's four chests in here. You're like, of course, I got to get all these chests. I got to clear out the dungeon. Well, now you're getting lost between two, three, and four.

And now I'm looking back and like, well, my footprints came this way. So I got to go through that way that has no footprints. And then you're running circles. And then sometimes you'll go into a dungeon like Theodora and you'll walk up to a wall, which you think is the exit and it's like you don't have the power said and you're like all right I don't know what that means like sure and then you'll walk back to the entrance that you already

went in you're like well there's a lot of just zigzagging all over the place but I enjoyed every single one that's the thing you enjoyed every single one because like uh there were many types of gamers out there right this is already a huge game the previous games have been huge games just getting bigger and bigger and bigger this one sounds bigger than any before but how much of it's wasting your time how much of it did you feel was wasting your time no it it only complimented my time. It felt like a great evolution of three houses because I know a lot of people

really enjoyed the social aspect of that. They enjoyed getting off the battlefield, exploring the monastery, deeping the bonds, fishing to get higher levels so you can recruit other people. I liked every aspect of the outside part of this, right? I loved running around

the city of Dagason because I liked talking with all the characters. I liked to figure out who I'm going to recruit next. I of course was at the market's trying to buy new weapons. I was looking at the calendar to go, hey, if I buy things on a weekend, I get a discount. So I should make sure that I'm

either back in town on Saturday or be mindful that I want to buy here. Oh, training is cheapened on this day. I want to be there, right? And I think a big emphasis in Fire Emblem nowadays is that social side of things. And it feels like they crank that up to 11 here, right? These are things you don't have to do.

Mind you, if you're like, hey, I don't want any of that. I just want to stick to the story and keep it straight. You can click also you can click on your main objective and it will fast travel you right there and you can walk up to that person and say, I'm ready and they'll be like, hey, you got a hundred days to do something.

You're sure and you're like, I don't want to do any of that. Let's just battle. You can do that, right? As well, if you don't want to run around the city, you can fast travel to every location. I'm talking every marketplace, every inn, every temple,

every person you've met. So if there's somebody you're working that you want to go find and the map is too big and you can't understand where they're at, you can just click on their name on a menu, fast travel right to them, you're in front of them. So like everything is like super sped up if you wanted to, or you could just enjoy the time and run around, explore the city, get outside.

I fell in love with the open world map. I really didn't think I was going to vibe with that, especially day one. Your hit was so much and it's overwhelming. I'm like, what do you mean? I got to go from tile to tile and I'm using the days. I'm being mindful of that. The second time, third time around, I was using up every single day. I was in areas of the map so far away.

I was never going to make it back to the Capitol on a Saturday. I wasn't going to even make it back for the main objective. Thankfully, they just fast teleport you back over to. I'm so far gone. I'm having the best time because I want to, oh, what part of the map is there? Why can't I access that? What do I got to do? Loved it all, Tim.

Again, I keep saying this. You are glowing about this game, Mike. This clearly is a contender for you. But I'm going to take that further. Do you think this is your game of the year? Well, right now, it's Resident Evil and James Bond. After what I played here, this has a high chance of being my game of the year. It will definitely be a contender.

I mean, I'm sitting in a 2026 full of tactical games that I have enjoyed. Mugenics was tough as nails, a game that wasn't for me, but I really appreciate it and enjoyed. Star Wars Zero Company, I left that going, I can't wait to play this. This one, I'm leaving going, I need to play this right now. I want to play this nonstop. I haven't streamed in like three days. And everyone knows I love streaming. I got to get it out.

I got to see my friends. I got to play games. I don't care. Don't call me. I'm on my switch. You're in the Fee hole. I need help though, Tim. I hate holding this switch.

I miss the fixture S1. The switch fixed back in the day. I need someone to find me. Is your switch here? Do you have it with you? No, I left it at home for this one. Does anybody, do you have your switch to? here, Timmy? No. I need the

controller clip. I'm a pro controller with it somehow mounted perfectly clipped. So if you got a good clip out there, you recommend it for me. Because I'm putting hours in Tim. Yeah. I'm in the beanbag chair. I'm in the desk chair. I'm in bed. I'm in bed like this having the greatest time. Feet dangling up on my butt.

I'm having the greatest time, Tim. This was... Have you played it, Doc? No docked. Why don't you? I was just so caught up in the moment, Tim. I'm playing so hard. And yeah, another one is cool. Really quick, Mike. This was a Jeff Grub video from around when the Switch 2 came out.

Oh, yeah. Something that I do, he does it a little bit differently, but he uses the kickstand as kind of like a holder. I use, like, I bring it up like a lot and then I use my ring fingers to like come in and to hold it. And it feels like kind of natural. So like play around with that. I love that you do that because I slide my hand underneath it so it holds it. But then I don't have my thumb over here. What so?

You're wearing it like a glove? Oh, yeah. There's moments. You'll see me gaming so hard with this switch that I'm laying down and I'm dropping it on my forehead. But I can't stop playing this. Dang, man, you were that in. So I am very in.

I was really impressed by this. The presentation has really elevated and gone through the roof. I think Fire Emple Three Houses, which is my comparison, those cut scenes, that music, those character designs were all great. This is on a new level. The cut scenes are fantastic. They look great. The dialogue and voice acting are fantastic.

The music is killer. Every time they hit that beat, you're going to smile a little bit and go, that's a killer theme right there. Then all the character designs are so unique, so diverse, so awesome looking. And on top of this, Tim, the little, everyone loves the character portraits on the dialogue. They're so expressive. All of them giving different looks. They're smiling.

They're moving a little bit. Every character I was so excited to not only see their character model, but also to see their little character design for the dialogue option. It was awesome, man. I mean, Mike, obviously, there's not much more to be said. Like, you clearly love this game, can't wait to play more. What else do you want to say? Is there anything before we head out?

I mean, let's hit it with the high-low buffalo. You know that from Lucy James. Hit it. My high, my low, my buffalo, okay? My highs, it's Fire Embo, baby. It's real good. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's so much that I want to say, right?

my lows didn't see enough win objective variety right when we talk about this especially coming off of Star Wars which I felt like every other mission was something different hey run up to this crate you got to defend this location for three turns to win hey go save that R2D2 droid and run away with it

this one very much felt like from what I played a lot of just kill everybody or kill the main objective you got it move on yeah so I'm looking for on my side maybe the other characters will see it maybe deeper into the game. A little more win objectives are my low so far. And then my buffalo, my like, oh, wow, look at that buffalo. The world map.

I got to be honest, you, Mike. You said the high-low buffalo from Lucy James. I haven't heard about this. I missed y'all's episode, so I missed that. It's a little rosebud twist. I was waiting for your, for what is the buffalo. And I did not expect it to be the, whoa, there's a buffalo. But you know what?

I love it. I love it. Oh, snap. Sorry, what's your Buffalo here? My Buffalo is the world map. You would be surprised, I think people who are going to vibe with that and really get into it, like I did, where you start to see the moves and you're now weighing the days and how many steps it will take to get the certain spots, I think will really vibe with it.

Other people might just be like, hey, that was an afterthought. I'm out of there. But for me, I really loved playing the tiles. I loved playing. Where am I going to go? How am I into this next location? Get the most out of it. Loved it.

Hell yeah, Mike. We are a month away from Fire and Moon Fortunes Weave. Of course, Mike will be reviewing it here, a kind of funny. Oh, snap. I mean, I imagine. Let's do it. Right? Let's do it.

Why not? Maybe he won't. I don't fucking know. I don't control this man. He controls, maybe something inside of him is controlling him. You know? I don't know. But we're very happy to have him.

Mike, I love you. I love doing content with you. Thanks, Tim. So much freaking fun. Yeah. So much energy. And I just, I love the sheer passion. And I never in my life that I'm,

thought I'd hear someone's talk that passionately about fire a little. But that's so dang cool. So, and you keep talking for 30 seconds. Just keep talking for just a moment. Oh, okay. Okay, give me a second. Yeah, I could talk.

Don't stop. I'm not talking. I'm not going to stop talking. Mike just went running behind the video wall, which I don't understand what he could be doing. I guess, oh, man. I thought I just heard some music playing.

I thought this might have been a great bit. Oh, no. I am just so traumatized by stuff, but it wasn't. I don't know what that was. Burned it. It's been way too long. No, it hasn't. sure hasn't I'll tell you that

it's been way too long since I played a fire emblem and that's saddens me but it's just it's the sheer amount of time everything he's saying I'm so happy for y'all but it's just more and more stuff that I'm just like I'm excited to get in it's just this is gonna be yours yeah I think so because you know I've fallen in love with

the you know the persona series another turn based RPG's metaphor most recently a lot of what Mike is talking about outside of the column seem stuff a lot of that flow sounds a lot like metaphor specifically and I've been I've been inching for something I love to hear that

Tim I wanted to bring my gaming notebook of course you know my hero my number one Greg Miller he's big into the gaming notebooks and he got me on it and actually Tim when you open up my gaming notebook you were hit with holy shit of course Mike

the opening Mike's video game adventures with logos of special games that I fell in love with last year of the year before that. Final Fantasy 10. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Pokemon for my Nuslock. Expedition 33.

My humongous watermelon heads from, of course, backyard baseball and coach Mike. Luigi's Mansion, of course, the Puppergeist. Everybody loves him. Umbrella. Yeah, we played a couple of Resident Evil's in there. Resident Evil 3. First time playing. Okay.

Oh, and 4. Shout to Ann 4. I played 4. Half Life out there. And my Golden Deer. of course golden deer changed my life and so but hold on this might be the most impressive thing I've ever seen to my life am I my first fuck have you shown this before uh yeah I think I showed this a long time ago

so my first entry was Fire Emblem 3 houses because of how much fun I had with this journey and how much I loved and so we did a little something different with it I actually cut out this is your handwriting that is my hand those are your drawings well these are these are printed out ones you'll see no but the other one we'll talk about Tokyo scrambling in a minute. Tokyo Scampo! You did that. Yeah, we'll talk about that.

What the hell? And so here, Tim, we have the full story of Foldland and what went on during three houses and how much I love it. And so I printed out cool things. There's Hilda, my favorite, Hilda. Love you, Hilda. And then there she is all grown up because she was badass.

I put her in a full suit of armor. She was swinging that axe. And she's like, Mike, she's like, Professor Mike. I just want to chill. I want to talk about girly stuff. I want to nail polish. I want to chill and relax. I said, Hilda, let's get that big arm around and go kick some ass.

And she was down to kick ass, okay? And so, yeah, whole story there, what I liked, the goods, the bads, my star, Miss Hilda, my MVP. And then I got into Tokyo Scramble. You played Tokyo Scramble. You know about this big bird, okay? And you'll see the little text message popped up. Was Tokyo Scramble the dinosaur, like survival horrid? Uh-huh.

Mm-hmm. That deserved spot in the book, yeah? Tim, let me tell you about Tokyo Scramble for just 30 seconds, okay? You're in Tokyo. okay, out of nowhere, in the Scramble, of course, to Blue your Crossing. Oh, yeah. Boom.

Earthquake, you get sent down to the center of the Earth where there's dinosaurs still around, and you've got to make it back up. And you're also dealing with the dynamics of being a teenager and your friends who are like, in love with you, but not in love with you? And it's like, are you going to make the first move? Are you going to make the first move?

Are you dating that guy? Are you not dating this guy? And you're getting all these text messages, and you're like, hey, people, I'm in the center of the fucking Earth's core fighting off dinosaurs. And they're like, are you talking? talking to Brad still?

Because Brad's talking to me. It's like, I don't care about Brad. Somebody saved me. And this poor girl has to fight her way. Really, just kind of stealthily sneak around a bunch of diamonds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Until she gets to the one bad dino, okay? And that's this bird.

This is peacock. I forget his name. Somebody Google his name. He's got a name. Okay? And you've got to kill this peacock through the power of music. Okay.

Okay. Well, you actually technically shoot bombs, which are just broken pipes into the side of its body, but it's playing this crazy K-pop music at the same time, and it's like, you know, it's a whole thing.

It's a metaphor. We don't want to dive too deep into it. But that's just, you know, I just wanted to show off Fire Emblem and how much it means to me. Like, I want to let you know that I was impressed by the quality of the notebook itself.

And then you opened it and I saw the amount of words and I was impressed by that. Yeah, yeah. Then I saw your handwriting impressed by that. Then you're freaking drawings. I have some help, you know, I'm trying my best.

And so... stop what does that mean you have some help well it's like i have help i'm not the best drawers so like we draw together and it's like you go what does that mean okay okay that means you draw for me who's drawn for you i i'm drawing but i'm drawing it's like this a sexy draw we'll talk about it another time what you know what snow bike my gaming therapy comes out soon you can ask me that question then are there any super chats no god i love blowing not after that tim just so you know i am going in for hernia surgery

a couple weeks and now. Not the actual surgery. It's a consultation. We'll figure it out. Don't worry about it. I have never. I've worked with Greg Miller for two decades it feels like. And I don't think I've ever been more flabbergasted by a

series of words and events. Last few minutes has been a roller co-coaster. Go play fire or get ready for Fire Emblem's Fortune believe you're going to have so much fun. It is the next big step. in Fire Emblem, if you love three houses, you're going to love this. Mike, I love you. Tim, I love you so much.

I'm so happy you're in my life. I'm trying to make you smile every day, Big Do you. Oh, my God. Everyone, I am so lucky to say that Mike is not only in my life. He's in y'all's life. This is absolutely incredible. Check out Fire Emblem, Fortunes Weave. And, man, I can't wait to dive deeper into this book at some point.

You can die. You can read it all you want. I love you all. Check out today's Gregway as well. I'm going to do a, I'm going to do a 2026 tactics recap. I'm getting buried by tactics games, Tim. That's going to be the thumbnail. It's your total.

It's been buried by them, you know what I mean? We'll talk all about it. It's going to be a great time. Oh, man, I love you guys. We don't do thumbnails for Gregways. Bye.