The weapons are responsible for the best and funniest moment in Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, which comes just an hour into the game. It didn’t take me long to discover my favorite character in Fortune’s Weave and it’s not any of the game’s four main protagonists. His name is Troy. Not only is she an older woman, which instantly elevates her to the top of my “characters I’m obsessed with” list because video games tend to forget that older women exist; He’s also one of the first characters you meet who uses a gun. Guns are a new type of weapon for the series introduced in Fortune’s Weave. Mechanically, they are typed as gauntlet-type weapons, meaning that when equipped, they increase a character’s evasion, making them harder to hit. It’s hard to really say how powerful they are relative to other weapon types because I haven’t unlocked them in the main game yet, only seeing their use in the game’s brief prologue. The real appeal of guns comes from how they influence the narrative around their use. A key fact: Troy, like the infamous gun nun, is a priest. Healers, especially Fire Emblem healers, don’t use a Glock. The idea that guns seem to be the standard weapon of the healer class in this sword-and-board fantasy game is deeply hilarious. We’ve got armored soldiers, dagger-wielding rogues, and… is that Mercy from Overwatch? Troy is literally the embodiment of the “I’m a healer but” meme. And surprisingly, weapons aren’t just a tool that you equip and receive a brief tutorial before not being recognized again; instead, the narrative specifically highlights his power in what is the biggest scene in Fire Emblem history. After your party defeats the death god Balor’s evil lieutenant, he launches a surprise attack, taking the group by surprise and collapsing a building on top of them. Fortuna, the goddess of Destiny, intervenes and rewinds time to prevent the ambush. Surprised that his enemies have suddenly disappeared, the lieutenant briefly looks around before Troy unloads a bunch of bullets into his skull at point-blank range before joking, “That’s how much force it takes to put something through a man’s skull like that.” I can’t wait to see what other gun-related shenanigans this game gets up to.
