The History of Fire Emblem Supports: From C to S

00:00 - Intro and Gaiden
01:05 - Mystery of the emblem
04:42 - Genealogy of the Holy War
10:24 - Thracia 776
11:40 - GBA FE
18:56 - Path of Radiance
22:48 - Radiant Dawn
26:21 - Shadow Dragon
28:14 - New Mystery of the Emblem
29:50 - Awakening
32:40 - Fates
35:28 - Echoes
36:57 - 3H
43:35 - Engage and Conclusion
Supports are one of my favorite parts of Fire Emblem games, but they've changed quite a bit since the series inception. I go through each games support system, talk about what I like and don't like about it, and what I would like to see in the future.
Jealousy: serenesforest.net/genealogy-o...
Twitter: x.com/ActualLizard
Discord: / discord
Patreon: / actuallizard
Music:
Beneath the Stars - Lord Sabre
Waltz of the Turnwheel - HarryZ
Flying Low, Gently but Proudly - Yackole
Lo-ver - icrawfish
Creative Commons Footage:
• Fire Emblem 6 The Bind...

[@CmdrKing]

One of the quirks I of 3H’s supports is because they felt every member of a house should support all the other members, but some of them just weren’t *that* compatible, they instead introduced the idea that some supports just cap out at B rank. Then others have c/b/a+ ranks because the relationship is more complicated and needed more fleshing out or more space to add time gates. And this addressed not just letting there be more sorts of relationships in the game relative to Awakening and Fates, but gave them space to mix up the content of those supports a lot more. Someone with just a C and B support has to get to the point in a way a stock C/B/A one doesn’t.

[@actuallizard]

I agree, not every relationship needs an A or S rank. I think *most* of them should have one, but I think it makes sense that some pairings are just never gonna get past a B, or don't need 3-4 conversations to show the interesting part of the relationship.

[@BigKlingy]

It worked especially well for Sylvain imo, tying into how much he dislikes being superficially flirted with: most of his supports with girls stop at B, the only ones that go higher are Ingrid, his childhood friend, and Dorothea and Mercedes, who he has a lot in common with ideologically.

[@lpfan4491]

@@BigKlingy Sylvain is unironically one of the best written characters in the game.

[@BigKlingy]

@@lpfan4491 Looking them up, I forgot he only went up to B with Dimitri. Meanwhile Felix, who appears to dislike Dimitri on first impression, goes up to A with him and reveals his animosity comes from a place of "I deeply respect and value you as a friend and don't want to see you destroy yourself". Which support ranks someone has access to says a lot about them. No idea why Seteth and Ingrid have an A+ support that's only on Azure Moon, though. I think it's the only route-locked support not involving a route-exclusive character.

[@ryuzaki-kun3457]

​@@BigKlingy On one hand I do like how it ties to Sylvain's characterisation, but on the other hand it's a reason why I could never really get invested in Sylvain's character. He has only 5 A/A+ supports which considerably cuts down his screentime and opportunity for character building. It really wouldn't hurt his characterisation if he at least got A supports with Annette and Marianne that could show he can like a girl that both doesn't care about his Crest and doesn't immediately look through his facade like Dorothea, Mercedes and to an extent Byleth do. By comparison Marianne has 11 A supports and something around that number tends to be a norm. Add to that Sylvain being almost completely absent from the post timeskip story and you could get a picture on why I think writers didn't give him enough time to realise his full potential as a character.

[@tampakc]

Shoutout to Faye from echoes for being afaik the only unit to receive a stat DROP from her support. Her support with alm gives her -avo (presumably because she's distracted by him) and +crit (because shes determined to strike down his enemies)

[@Blarglesnarfe]

Plue, Faye is the only support of Silque, an adored and beloved FE2 character. THANKS INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS

[@sigmundschwartz6434]

31:31 The Shotgun Wedding to Chrom is just one of the most hilarious bits of Awakening.

[@theghostcreator776]

I love how many supports there are in modern FE games, it feels like I can always have my fill of certain characters while also having more to see from them on subsequent playthroughs. It's a very unique experience that I don't see often in other games.

[@MysteryDisc]

I think it'd be interesting if Supports could also affect useable weapons types or growth rates, like whenever there is a support themed around characters in a mentorship scenario.

[@UltimateLink1]

Warriors and Three Hopes had their own litttle tweaks to the support system too. In Warriors, going up a support level gave you Silver, Gold or Essence character materials for the characters in question. The Essences could only be obtained this way, and are used to give characters access to other character's skills (e.g. Ryoma's Astra). Since all characters can go up to A rank with each other (or A+ instead if they have a support convo from maxing out), you could eventually get all skills on every character. Three Hopes on the other hand uses Three Houses system with a couple of additions. Similar to Warriors, all characters could get at least C rank with everyone (except the three Lords for what really feels like a bug, since they do technically have a C support convo with each other), but also not every rank had a support convo attached to it (notably, Byleth can A rank with everyone but has very few convos) because a lot of them would be repeats from Three Houses. The ranks have an additional use in letting characters teach specific Combat Arts and Spells - the closer someone is, the higher the chance of them learning those abilities when paired up. It also had a ring Shez could give to characters they A ranked. Rather than strictly affecting a paired ending though, you'd also get a unique accessory out of it that let you override a character's Primary skill with another's (though you unfortunately can't get Shez's or the 4 unlockable character's accessories).

[@BulldogPCs]

Adding on to the bit about Three Hopes, whoever Shez gives the ring to does give an extra scene after you beat the game where they get a letter from whoever the ring was given to. It's only a few sentences long but it's the closest the game has to a sort of paired ending for anyone. Unsure if there's a replacement scene if you don't give the ring to anyone as I never tried that.

[@17Master]

Bring back base conversations. The monastery conversations were great, but I really enjoyed how PoR had NPCs doing their own thing and their interactions would sometimes drop a useful hint on how to go about the upcoming battle. While Awakening did a lot of good for support conversations, my major hangup is how having free range to unlock everyone's supports in one go (minus S) is that sometimes characters regress in their growth or progression. For example, Cordelia's supports with Henry seem out of place if she's married already. I don't know if or how well other games handled this as I never got too deep in the supports weeds again, but that always stuck out to me.

[@TheKingNaesala]

PoR will always be my favorite system. I can't believe they abandoned it. I can understand the other systems theyve worked with but, cmon, PoR was so clearly the best for narrative pacing and balance.

[@actuallizard]

Yeah narratively I think PoR is pretty tough to beat support wise!

[@BigKlingy]

Was going to comment to this effect but you beat me to it. Tying supports to chapter count means they can acknowledge the story (some even have multiple variants: Mist and Jill's A have two As, one from before her dad dies and one after), but it also means you don't have to keep people adjacent to build supports. Just being deployed together is enough.

[@victorhundred8621]

​@@BigKlingyThe only problem I could see with this being used in a new game is that modern FE games will pretty much always give you a way to grind exp for your units which usually has been in the form of replaying older or additional maps, so for this system to work you would need to either take away grinding or to significantly change it (which is not something I can really imagine them doing), or just have so that your supports don't go up on non-story maps (which just doesn't feel right). Ps: English is not my first language, so sorry if there's any mistake in my comment

[@illusive-mike]

Corollary to the paired endings: bring back S supports. The Three Houses supports had an awkward issue that A-rank conversations needed to set up paired endings without locking them in. Considering that the precedent for platonic paired endings has been set as early as FE7 and that Three Houses itself had platonic S supports for Byleth, bringing the S rank back is a no-brainer.

[@actuallizard]

Yeah, I would be down for S ranks to return!

[@mihaimercenarul7467]

Nah screws s supports.

[@FereldenKrogan]

Excelent as always. Love your "History of" vídeos. I have a suggestion for the next one: history of personal weapons in FE.

[@Olimario34_]

i like having each FE7 Lord marry one of the Pegasisters and oh my god Hector and Farina's is so slow... How did they even let this get through? you literally have to end turn spam to get to A before the end.

[@Feraligono]

Only the finest ground flour.

[@merlinthetuna]

Whoever programmed Renault's support gains is a real bastard

[@lpfan4491]

@@merlinthetuna It is hilarious how you have to grind on the final map if you want to A him in Eliwood mode. "Oh yeah, fire dragon is standing over there. Let's just talk for 3 hours"

[@AlexArtsHere]

I’ve been wondering why I wasn’t seeing any essay content from you these past few weeks but holy hell it came back with a vengeance. Very much looking forward to getting through this.

[@actuallizard]

When I started my new job, I moved the cadence from 1/week to 1-2/month. It just wasn't realistic to keep them coming at the same pace while working! So there will still be video essays, just a bit slower :P

[@SawyerGreenfield-hl1rh]

I love supports as they give units so much character, they talk about their own goals and motivations, and just have funny interactions with other characters.

[@Olimario34_]

i think FE4's system is my favourite but that's probably because FE4 is my favourite FE game and has my favourite cast rather than how the system actually works. I hope a remake keeps it mostly the same and just adds a few more convos and allows same sex pairings. Let Oifey and Shannan Kiss!!

[@Olimario34_]

also would be nice if marriages didn't happen automatically and you have to confirm it so you don't get stuck with a pairing you don't want or don't have to kill everyone in gen 1 to do a subs run

[@hajoeijgenraam295]

41:30 I mean there is a part in the character screen that shows their closest allies. I've never felt the need to only unlock A supports with the characters you want to pair and i've never heard of anyone doing that. There is a maximum of support points by the way, and if that happens for several units it is decided by unit order which one will go first. I think unit order is something like black eagles, blue lions, golden deer, church, and house leaders are first in their faction and males tend to be earlier than females.

[@AJ-zi6ry]

Supports are my favorite parts of FE games. I’ve only played Awakening-Engage but they have some of my favorite systems for learning about characters!

[@_jerry]

Engage units only give support bonuses to adjacent allies, not allies within 3 spaces!

[@BigKlingy]

Warning, long comment incoming. I've got my thoughts on each section individually, but first I TOTALLY GET YOU when you say at the end that you prefer to pair units based on which supports you want to read and it's annoying when one you like doesn't give good bonuses. This is why, as interesting as Fates' system is, I prefer supports to be de-coupled from major mechanics. In Awakening it was okay because children were always broken, and in FE4 the pairings with bad children got no dialogue at all, but in Fates it really sucks when a relationship you like doesn't give optimal classes or inheritance (some A+ supports, like Azura and Sakura I think, don't give ANY classes). Dimitri and Felix's B Support in 3H gives you the Sword of Zoltan, and I believe that's the ONLY time in that game a support gives an item. So it kinda returned from FE4, but not to a great extent. Just in case anyone thinks Finn has massive feelings for Brigid or something, their growth is so massive because she joins right at the end of the chapter he leaves in, so that's mostly a courtesy to make sure pairing them is POSSIBLE. Tear Ring Saga's support system takes after Thracia, mostly. Supports range from +5 to +15 hit/avoid/crit/crit avoid, and can be one-way. Characters have special events and on-map conversations that increase these, and some are mutually exclusive. Some also affect the epilogue. I fully agree on the variety of relationships in the later GBA games, including platonic endings. I've never shipped Amelia with anyone because her ending with Duessel is so good. It should also be noted that, while supports are still slow, FE7 and especially FE8 sped up support gains. Compared FE6 (67 +1s, 58 +2s, 14 +3s and Roy/Lilina as the only +4) to FE8 (Tethys/Rennac as the only +1, 43 +2s, 35 +3s and 4 +4s) You touched on this, but my main issue with the GBA support system is the 5 support limit, which means if you get an A with someone you're limited to Bs at most with anyone else, and that means many supports will end with no closure. e.g Neimi and Artur in FE8 has them looking for something valuable that belonged to her mother. They'll never find it if she A Supports Colm. Or the infamous Marcus/Lilina support in FE6, where their A has him encourage her to confess her love to Roy but oops that's not possible now unless you kill off Marcus. This was necessary to limit stat boosts and ensure only one romance per character, but later games had ways around this. PoR support system is peak, you said enough. I never realized that RD's support system was probably the way it is because of the army switching and availability factors. I also didn't realize the "different things build supports" mechanic that was used in later games originated here. But it does suck that people like Aran and Edward don't get much development because of it. I just realized that the most interaction Cain and Abel get together is probably... Tokyo Mirage Sessions, of all games. So... Awakening's support system. On the one hand, letting you get any number of As solved the GBA issue of supports ending unresolved. On the other, the flexible marriage system meant every gen 1 male/female support (besides family members) had to be written with romance in mind, and that means you miss a lot of the platonic relationships from FE7 and 8. It also leads to some awkward moments, as ship-teases still happen if one or both parties involved is married. (Look up Gregor/Cordelia for the most awkward example. A decent support if you're shipping them, but if not...) There's also an obvious bias towards heterosexual romance that's been pointed out in a few places. One of the biggest standouts of Echoes' supports to me is it's a rare example of one giving negative bonuses (i.e penalties). Feye loses Avoid from supporting Alm, hinting at her unhealthy dynamic with him. Three Houses would be my favourite support system if it weren't for the awkwardness of getting the paired endings you want. There's a lot of cool details like time-gated supports, some stopping at B, some characters' field dialogue changing based on support rank (Mercedes and Annette getting cold with eachother after their B), to some supports changing based on other factors. E.g in Claude and Ingrid's C, she'll say a friend of hers is annoying her. If Sylvain is recruited into the Deer, Claude will specifically ask if it's him. Something that bothers a lot of people is some supports are time-gated negatively, the game will tell you "it's too late to deepen this bond". While it can be a pain, I see why it exists because most of Dimitri and Edelgard's Cs wouldn't make sense post-timeskip. (Rhea's A needing to be done pre-timeskip threw me for a loop though) Engage's support system is pretty good (also fully voiced, including the avatar!), but the weird part is battle is the slowest way to build supports, which is probably why the activities got patched in. I don't mind the lack of paired endings, there was too much romance in the post-Awakening era and it's nice to see platonic relationships back, but we could've used a few (coughAlcrystandLapiscough) I also feel most recruits, even the late ones, had a good number of supports, but not too much, with a good mix of people they logically should support (siblings, Mauvier with Veyle) and surprises.

[@mysmallnoman]

" obvious bias towards heterosexual pairings" It's almost as if most people are straight or anything

[@BigKlingy]

@@mysmallnoman I don't want every character to be bisexual, but it'd be nice to have at least one same-sex romance that DOESN'T involve the Avatar for once. So far it's been limited to just Avatar characters.

[@mysmallnoman]

@@BigKlingy it's almost like they're pandering to an audience of something

[@jierdareisa4313]

I love ALL ActualLizard videos!!!! ❤

[@aleisterleopold6229]

Base conversations also give hints on the upcoming chapter

[@mc.type_guy]

Something that I like about the romhacking scene is that some hacks will make it so you get stuff when you reach some A supports. It makes getting supports exciting on a first playthrough and planning them out really fun on subsequent playthroughs. That + supports gained depending on chapters deployed together is peak

[@MenwithHill]

I will forever be mad about the support limit in Tellius games. Just cap the bonuses FFS

[@Feraligono]

That's honestly an interesting way to rebalance it.

[@actuallizard]

Yeah I would agree, capping the bonuses but not the support conversations would be a plus in my book,

[@rofea7301]

Kaga did it first. Already in Tear Ring Saga(2001).

[@killerfudgetastic]

Honestly, with the introduction of additional ways of building support, I think it would be cool if there were multiple types of support built off of those that gave their own bonus and had their own conversation. So, gaining a support from eating together would be different from gaining it from sparring. This would allow the conversations to be more tied in to what is going on, and allow the same duo to explore more than one dynamic to their relationship.

[@VeXJL]

What I think is really smart about Fates is that its support bonus specifically works only at 1-range and works in tandem with Attack Stance. And if you're using Guard Stance, it switches to pair up bonuses.

[@DARKMalice9000]

What do you think if supports gave items and other things? This is from how I would have changed the Somneil but what if they gave you Items based like on their kingdoms? For example Firene are clothing that is based on their fashion and the produce from there Brodia the same with clothes and produce as well as upgrade materials Elusia same but Accessories that have stats or skills on them or both Solm same

[@Pystoria]

I like having some supports end at B, and when the conversations happen outside of battle. It's way too goofy when I'm supposed to imagine the characters feel comfortable enough to talk casually in the middle of a fight. Platonic S ranks should also be more common imo, but I do like them being much more limited or at the very least not about marriage when they are romantic, since getting married during a war between what could be major chapters is really dumb imo

[@kelvinnoodles]

Supports are a large reason why I fell in love with the series when I played my first game (awakening) getting a strategic bonus for my emotional attachments just really sold the series for me

[@mihaimercenarul7467]

Wow you are sad

[@ivanbluecool]

Best supports for gameplay. Awakening fates genealogy as they come with a lot for the kids passing down skills powers or points giving you more options. Play it smart you can get an army of galeforce users in awakening or build an entire army with enough replays for fates to have the best skills for the kids(if we didn't count the online mode to get all the best skills free) Worst probably 3 houses echoes and how ok the gba ones. I don't really like being locked out of getting them as soon as possible and 3 houses really doesn't give you the room to grab them all unless you grind and renown doesn't fix that as it's more useful for just getting the students early which is all just more complicated than it needed to be. Plus you can get locked out of a route. Engage felt boring as most are just friend supports at worst since nobody actually can get with someone as we see with Chloe finding someone later. Felt the weakest one overall. Gba just basic. A few lines that could use more work.

[@silvershine2261]

While I disagree on the 3H part, I realized a thing with engage supports. There is very little conflict between units. Everybody is basically best friends and there is no real unlikeable character at the baseline (I might eat my words on this one, Goldmary could be the one but I have to play it again to confirm). But even if that is the case, the most you get is either a misunderstanding, (one party profusely excusing themselfes and the other saying "All good you are precious") or it gets solved in an arbitrary way without actually resolving the conflict (e.g. Yunaka Merrin).

[@ivanbluecool]

@@silvershine2261 engage supports feel very off key since a lot of their rulers should be in conflict with each other in one way or another. I mean the two princes father is a conqueror who started this entire problem as hortesia and co were attacked. The dessert group being called out for trickery and even the first royal siblings on how being meek left them an easy target for attack. You could honestly get a lot of conflicting moral conversations on how to rule and see if anyone of them changes their views or changes another. I mean even fates did this with Xander and Elise where Elise showed compassion that could have backfired with the brigades but managed to save the town through healing while Xander sees learning more about people could help his cause as king. We see it happen in the hoshido path of xander being broken up inside Elise is gone and still fighting because corrin needs to be able to strike down garon. And that's just one example

[@silvershine2261]

​@@ivanbluecool Exactly, there is so much missing nuance in those characters. Not to mention that they way too often tell others what they are about, instead of acting like it

[@midnalight6419]

At the end, Andaran saga has a lot of these. The mage can teach his peg knight sister anima

[@r.c.3813]

Supports really are such a important part of the popularity of fe in my opinion hack it's one of the reasons o got into it with fates. I know some people say they only care for gameplay have to agree thatevery fe game should probably have Support convo's right? Like something feels like it's missing without themand it's not like it's hurting anyone i still don't know why there weren't any at all in rd.

[@nikolayrodriguez272]

The whole support thing makes me think like from example caeda: cheering with pom poms to both guys ogma and marth when they are near those 3 spaces, funny to imagine

[@novanIV]

Hello. Watch your back in this battle!

[@mysteriousnarratorx4864]

Oh cool first; thanks for the content! Inspires me to play more FE

[@lpfan4491]

Bond Supports are kinda based. I wouldn't put it in the same conversation as the actual support system since they are essencially entirely diffrent mechanics besides "stand around each other for stats", but they are a cool story-integration for gameplay.

[@exclamation744]

18:35 This is actually a problem I sort-of had with Fates Conquest. By the time I had wrapped up the game, I had exactly two child units and I think two other support pairs at B-rank. It is extraordinarily tedious to get Fates Conquest supports, meanwhile, in my one Awakening playthrough, I had many more support conversations to read and young people to bench.

[@m.l.1320]

how about a video were you talking about your favorite supports.

[@mercenarybdu]

Paired endings would only make sense if it is on par with FE4, and as long as the game its own adventure. It is hard to do when there is some sort of prequel or sequel that follows up on said game. FE7 has a lot of oversights when it comes to paired endings, when a mass number of them are set in stone. Lyn and Rath, Hector and Florina, and Eliwood and Ninian. Marcus gave away the answer in his support with Lilina in FE6 that Roy's mother is not Lyn at all. We know Louise and Pent are always a default pair with Bartre and Karla. Then there are some paired endings in FE6 for which the devs didnt have time to program in due to time constraints. Roy and Lilina, Rutger and Clarine, Noah and Fir, are all the ones I know for certain. There are some others, but its hard to determine as of this point.

[@nodot17]

For echoes Faye and kliff desperately needed like a celica route support or something for the off chance you recruit them with celica. Also a FayexCelica support might of helpped her character a little bit

[@FrogPrinceMichael61]

something you forgot to mention is that Bonds do exist in PoR as well. including ones like if Ike, Geoffrey, Bastion, Kieran, and Lucia are standing next to Elincia, then they are immune to critical hits

[@hariettemilson844]

what song is playing at 40:30 please someone help :C ! ! also nice video

[@Xertaron.]

Finn has more support points with Bridget (and Tailtiu) because the latter joins halfway through the chapter at the end of which Finn leaves and support points only accumulate until turn 50 so they needed very high base and growth to make it even possible, not because they're more compatible - Finn doesn't have any conversation with them or their kids and they can't inherit anything from him - while Ayra joins early in ch1 and both she and Naoise are available for the rest of gen 1. RD technically has paired endings, but very few and it only changes for one character - for example if Bastian and Lucia have A support, Lucia's ending changes, but Bastian's stays the same. What's even more stupid is that getting endings between Elincia and Geoffrey, Leanne and Naesalla or aforementioned Bastian and Lucia you have to bring them to the tower, because they join so late that there aren't enough maps to get their support to A beforehand. I would scale down support conversations considerably, since they're completely disconnected from everything else, and make more base conversations or on map events that change based on support level characters currently have. That way, you can give characters with prior history a higher starting support rank and have them interact through those events. Pretty sure Pent and Louise as well as Sothe and Micaiah are the only characters in all of FE who start with any support rank, not counting some dlc chapters, and they have their conversations during certain chapters instead, which makes them relevant to what is happening. This would also avoid having to grind supports and require a little more consideration as to who participates in any given events - I would make it so on first playthrough it's likely to unlock S support and 2 to 3 A supports per character if events are evenly split between the cast - not as restrictive as gba or Telius, but also not as overwhelming as 3DS games. On subsequent playthroughs you could unlock more or even all of them if you plan ahead.

[@spiderzsonic6581]

20:56 I think you got confused here with Radiant Dawn, because Path of Radiance does not have individual endings. The most that changes is some dialogues in the epilogue if they have A support with Ike

[@General12th]

Hi Lizard!

[@gothphoebe]

it makes me a lil sad the only time that I can think of a support has given an item since FE4 was the Felix/Dimitri B conversation giving a Sword of Zoltan

[@jierdareisa4313]

Wait, I cannot seem to find the link about jealousy in the description 🤔

[@actuallizard]

That would be because I forgot to put it in there lmao, I added it now thanks for the heads up! serenesforest.net/genealogy-of-the-holy-war/characters/jealousy/

[@ivanbluecool]

I get what they tried in 3 houses but I dislike it especially in demitris route where everything is left for the last few chapters to get him to talk to anyone. It's not new since awakening had Cordelia talk about being sad chrom was married in the Henry support since he appears after the timeskip but also how you can get locked out of stuff if you don't grind supports early for that and edegard Awakening and fates are best especially with the dlc getting more conversations and especially with Selena and tsubaki getting a special support for caeldori and Selena. Wish we got the fates dlc where we get the true supports. Awakening wise awesome ones on the tiles like emmeryn saying how she blames herself for Morgan getting amnesia but happy she is her mother. It goes hard when you read your favorite support parents so I usually just see the basic ones as the start and real ones in the future past and child day event in fates. They give a ton of character and development to each pairing

[@sindrisuncatcher653]

There's definitely both pros and cons to every era of Support. The GBA games made each conversation feel really meaningful and impactful and the 3-7 people that each unit was compatible with felt like really significant relationships... but that's kind of ruined by being locked to five total ranks, so unless you replay a dozen times you only get a fraction of the story and characterization. Awakening is mostly great... except that the devs felt obligated to make support conversations for every possible pairing of units that could theoretically produce children to allow for your custom baby building, which led to the writers struggling to come up with something to say between characters they didn't have any good ideas for a relationship between, which often seem to fall back on very shallow things where they assign a single trait to each character and default to hammering it over and over. Fates's reclassing system tying into supports is great, but trying to repeat the child unit system really doesn't work for me. Awakening did it well because the story is all about time travel, people from a dark future coming back to the past to try to prevent the worst from happening. Fates' version felt like they just saw a thing people liked in a different game and insisted on doing it again in a story that didn't allow for the mechanic to make sense. The Three Houses supports do sometimes have conversation tracks that felt forced/unnecessary, since every member of every house is required to talk to every other member of their house, but even that serves a purpose to the story sometimes, when characters that get along great at first glance never really connect on a deeper level, or characters who initially hate each other have a "secret" A+ rank waiting. I also like how the system locks several support ranks until after major story events have happened, to allow more discussion of dramatic revelations, and sometimes even changes the script depending on what has or has not happened so far.

[@NosferatuMonty776]

Yippee!!!

[@joeyjose727]

I definitely enjoyed paired endings in 3H but I didn’t miss them too much I engage, mostly because I didn’t feel like a lot of the characters had a super deep romance or stuff like that. But the paired endings could’ve strengthened those bonds a bit lol

[@Rezkeshdadesh]

Sad to see them gone, just like Alfred if you don't give him the pact ring

[@captainprivate320]

Okay no complaint or critique I just gotta know, are you the #1 Eirika stan or something? I can’t go a video of yours without her showing up somewhere

[@lpfan4491]

Eirik >

[@actuallizard]

Yeah she's my favorite FE character

[@maddylchannel]

An odd quirk of support conversations is that the only characters that can form supports are those that the writers made supports for, which can sometimes feel arbitrary. This also biases towards characters that have interesting things to talk about with each other rather than characters that would get along well or fight well together, although there is usually a lot of overlap there. On top of that, in Awakening and Fates, the child system heavily biases this towards male/female pairings. There's also just odd omissions, like how Chrom has a surprisingly small number of supports despite being the game's lord unit, and he for example doesn't support Ricken. Ricken's secondary classes are the same as Chrom's because he looks up to him just that much, but they can't support for no discernible reason. This isn't necessarily a big problem, but it's noticeable sometimes.

[@flintlocke1344]

My headcanon for why only Alear has S-supports and paired endings is that they’re so aroace that they just don’t notice any romantic relationships going on around them. Is this projection? Almost certainly, but I think it’s funny. Not a fan of how most of the paired endings in Engage are just stapling together Alear and their partner’s solo endings though, that was very disappointing to discover when I finished my second run.

[@nicocchi]

I support this video with a comment

[@iamthehobo]

Supports are nice

[@wingofshu]

Im not a fan of infinit supports but say 12 (on an a max basis with extra s ranks for paured endings but ill double down on paired endings, yunaka, diamonte and zelkov could have a triple paired endings of managing an orphanage system oost war for example

[@crystalqueen9711]

I think the best system was Path of Radiance, but a few additions I'd make to it would be to let units have an S and an A+ support, and giving paired ending for each, and if we HAVE to stick to an avatar, then they get to choose between an A+ or S support with anyone in the roster, except for the child soldiers, they only get A+ supports

[@SharurFoF]

From a characterization standpoint, and talking strictly about supports, Echoes has the best system. Give me "I wish there were more" over "well, at least some of them were good" any day. That's how you know you've done a good job. It's also totally feasible to unlock all the convos on your first playthrough. But I'd honestly be fine dropping supports as a characterization tool entirely in favor of base convos, participation in the main plot (or side stories like paralogues), and battle dialogue (selection quotes, crit quotes, map convos, etc.). It's not so much that I think the modern version of supports can't be done well (it is done well in Echoes, and 3H manages to have a bunch of good convos even though it has a lot of chaff as well), but all the trendlines point toward FE supports continuing to be largely a waste of my time. It's so, so bad in Engage, and there's really no excuse for that when they've had a good decade to learn the lessons from Awakening, Fates, Echoes, and 3H. At least with the other options I mentioned, there won't be this built-in incentive to have every character interact with every other character and pull all the quality downward as a result.

[@spiderzsonic6581]

I think a perfect system would be Path of Radiance but with the freedom of current games

[@hectorlackless]

Today I learned all my time positioning Mia and Ilyana next to each other was a waste

[@electricserge8302]

44:00 Minor correction: supports require you to be adjacent to your partners in order to get the bonuses, it’s not 3 spaces Also no mention of Three Hopes support system 😔

[@princephantom1294]

Once again, tellius comes out on top. Well, fe9 at least

[@Vigilanteblade]

I'll say something unpopular. I'd be okay with no traditional supports at all... but with a twist. I love base conversations from Tellius. They give far more contextual information than a normal support would. I would focus on this far more. Instead of actual supports needing to be built up, base conversations could unlock bond supports, and would only happen at specific points in the games. However, maybe for some characters, you need to make a choice in some base conversations, which lead to a few characters getting paired endings. Some relationships don't give you a choice. Say a main character and another having a canon relationship. In the end, Fire Emblme should steer away from the social sim aspect a lot more, and not be afraid to tell a story, establish relationships, and make them canon. For example, Roy should just be with Lilina. There's zero sense in him being with anyone else narratively. Also no kids. Let me pair who I want together without feeling like getting an inferior unit as a reward for my efforts.

[@crowhaveninc.2103]

What you talked about with Amelia and Duessel is also an interesting way of how you could do Trainee units well. Training up Amelia the normal way? Cool unit, but not worth the investment. Train her up with the correct supports? OP god tier MF. A free bonus here and there could make a huge difference, and do so in a way that makes sense narratively .

[@SpadeTheOtt]

Love the video as always, but I found it very distracting when multiple songs were overlapping during the video, especially during the Fates and Echoes sections. It made it hard to really listen to what you were saying since I was trying to process 2 or even 3 songs at the same time as you. Hope that doesn’t come off as rude, I’m a fan of your content so it’s more of a minor gripe!

[@halcyon_echo42]

Love them, especially the better written ones, but I do wish they were quicker to get in FE6 & there were more per character per run in FE6 through FE10. The benefits have always been great for building the team in a meaningful way though.

[@condlaeirkrsrma7069]

Great video! Though I get the impression that lot of the FE video essay content is geared towards people who played most of the games multiple times as opposed to casual fans so to speak. I became a FE fan fairly recently and FE8 was my first game, next one being FE9. From the games I played before Awakening I got the conditioning that supports were side content that can be safely ignored and wasn't at all necessary to complete the game(at least in difficulties I played in). But when I got to playing Awakening it felt very baffling to me that the game essentially punishes you for not engaging with the matchmaking aspect of the game by locking maps and a good amount of units behind it. This is espacially bothersome to me as I don't really like shipping characters unless its a queer pairing. I get that most FEtubers grew up with FE and these games and its possible shortcomings might be nothing new to them but I wish there more emphasis on how a lot of games mechanics and changes to them came off to players that aren't as familiar to most of the series

[@lpfan4491]

You do not need the kids to beat the game. It's not a shortcoming for the game that you do not like making pairings.

[@condlaeirkrsrma7069]

@@lpfan4491 all the previous games had dozens of units for you to use, if you let your female characters die or don't pair them up you're stuck with characters that join in the first half for the most part(and I played on classic). In any other FE the rest of the playable roster would've been recruitable naturally throughout the game. I can't really say that its objectively a shortcoming of the game but I can safely say that I don't like that aspect of the game

[@actuallizard]

I think this is a fair perspective, but for me personally, I don't think of missable chapters or characters as like a "punishment" if you don't get them. For me it's ok to miss things on a playthrough, but I could understand not loving that if you're only going to play the game once. I Do agree these games could use more queer pairings, though!

[@patentpending7016]

the unofficial gay awakening mod solves the lack of queer pairings issue

[@basiltheleafeon]

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[@dewi2658]

I can live without support bonus, It's ridiculous to be forced to use characters that have affinity for each other.

[@Alban_Blade_Memer]

Support are always welcome. Giving depth to a character or just trying to make the player laugh. Even when they failed its better than nothing

[@drum1801]

In 3 houses you can see who has the most supports for a paired ending by going to a character's page in the roster. One of the tabs has a close allies list, which shows the 3 characters they have the most support points with in order. No numbers though, so it's still better to delay other A supports a bit to guarantee a paired ending.