Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Is Way Easier If You Play a Second Route

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave lets you clear the whole game by playing just one route — or none at all if you're a real sicko and ignore the Flame Lords. But you really, really should do at least two routes before tackling the final campaign against Balor. Clearing a second route is faster and slightly less grueling than your first route, and you've got more opportunities to recruit more characters, which you'll need in the final battle.

And you shouldn't start it until you finish at least one extra route.

Should you play more than one route in Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave?

In short, yes, you should definitely play a second route in Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave.

Whoever you pick first, you'll be up against it in terms of money, renown, and balancing free time with exploring the map to find better weapons and gifts. Some characters can get more money or renown than others thanks to their unique subquests, but regardless, the number of quests in each chapter is limited. Every character has a handful of potential allies they can recruit at a lower level of renown, but "handful" is the operative word there. The rest require a renown level of seven or higher.

Act 2 expands the number of characters you can deploy in each mission to 15. It does supply a few of them if you don't have enough, but these are guest units, and as such, you have no control over their equipment and class. And sure, you can go up against the seemingly endless horde of foes that act throws at you, though having 12 to 15 characters makes managing the pressure much easier.

Image: Intelligent Systems/Nintendo via Polygon

This is where playing a second route after you've cleared another one comes in handy. When you complete a route and start a new one, all of your map progress shows up in the new one. You don't have to explore areas for a second time or try to remember which town stocks which weapons. You can just see it all from the start. At the start of a chapter, it also automatically clears subquests you already completed in that chapter during your first route and gives you the gold, renown, and other items you earned then in one lump sum. (Leda is one exception, as she has to repeat the "Monster in the Night" quest for plot reasons.) That's a regular influx of several thousand gold and a few hundred renown each chapter, plus you get new subquests to clear for even more rewards.

It doesn't really matter whose route you do as your second. However, if you want more gold and an easier time recruiting characters, Cai has an edge. In addition to subquests, he has "kindness" quests each chapter that reward you with extra gold and renown.

In other words, recruiting more characters, earlier on, is so much easier in a second (or third, or fourth) route. Having them earlier means you can train them better, too, which is critical. One thing I discovered is that you have a better chance of higher stats the earlier you recruit a character. I recruited Ultand near the end of Dietrich's route, for example, and she struggled to keep up with Dante, whom I recruited a few chapters previously. She joins Cai automatically, though, and by the time I cleared his route, that version of Ultand had higher stats across the board despite being at the same level.

And the unique way Fortune's Weave handles its characters meant that the Ultand who showed up in Act 3 was an amalgamation of the Ultands from Dietrich's and Cai's route. It mashes stats together so every version of a character you recruit contributes to their final, best version. The more you get and the more you train them, the better they end up. This is good, since Act 3 is gigantic in scope with many, very intense battles. You need all the help you can get.