Is Fire Emblem a Dating Sim?

As we approach the release of a new Fire Emblem game, I have seen fit to ask the question that is on everyone’s mind: are the Fire Emblem games actually just dating sims but with extra steps? The short answer to this question is of course, yes. They absolutely are. 

This may then lead you to ask, how? How are these tactical combat games about fighting in fantasy wars actually just dating sims with slightly more risk of death? To answer this, let's first go into: what is a dating sim?

A dating sim is a type of game in which you, the player, pursue various romantic entanglements with a variety of characters. Often you will be operating on some type of time limit, choosing which characters to spend your limited time with and strengthening those relationships. In these conversations you will get to choose what to say and how you say it, or potentially engage in some type of minigame, improving or worsening your relationships with the various characters. Eventually, you will typically end up with one (or more if the game is made by people of strong moral fiber) of these various partnerships and get an idea of what your life looking forwards will be like. This can be seen in games like Hatoful Boyfriend, Dream Daddy, and Date Everything. 

So, how does Fire Emblem fit into that structure? To the uninitiated, the Fire Emblem games are tactical rpgs in which you control a squad of various characters in a bunch of different fantasy settings in gridset turn-based combat. In between and even during these combat missions, you can bond with your various squad mates as your protagonist character, such as Byleth from Three Houses or Corrin in Fates, while also furthering the bonds between those squad mates themselves. You can do this by giving gifts to people, performing activities with them such as eating a meal or having tea, or by being in combat with them. 

As you strengthen these relationships you can unlock various scenes of the characters interacting further, showing you how they develop their relationships as they move forward through the game. In fact, in some games, they can even have children, who you can then recruit into your forces as the game continues, providing you with a gameplay advantage for pursuing these relationships. These relationships serve as an integral part of the gameplay loop, to the point where, in my experience, they almost became the main focus of my gameplay. 

Now, for reference here I have only played Fire Emblem: Three Houses so my experience is going to be colored mostly by that particular game. What I began to notice, especially on my second playthrough, was that by the end of the game, I was not really struggling with combat or leveling up my characters any more. It is a game that, like many in its style, suffers a fair amount from a reverse difficulty curve. Instead of planning my tactics out to have the best chance of victory in the face of overwhelming odds, I instead realized that I was probably capable of winning most of these combats with just a bit of focus. So my tactical plans switched. Rather than plan out combat based on efficiency and efficacy, it was time to plan out who was going to kiss who.

While Byleth (your protagonist) has a lot of options to increase their relationships with the various characters in the game, you are left with far fewer options to foster the relationships between the various npcs. Your main recourse for this is to have them on the battlefield together, whether that is accompanying a character as an adjutant (a sort of in-built follower) or by literally having them next to each other on the battlemap. In this way, your combat scenarios have become your dating sim dialogue trees. Rather than trying to figure out the correct thing to say to endear yourself, you are instead planning out how you can get the right characters to stand near each other so as to foster their budding romance. 

Frankly, by making this the primary method for relationship building, Three Houses creates the ultimate motivation for rotating through more characters in combat. Technically, you could go through the entire game with the same nine or ten characters and just let everyone else you recruit languish at low levels on the sidelines. Sure it might make a few of the paralogues where you are required to use those characters a little harder but that’s ultimately fine. But now combats aren’t just a source of experience points; they’re a source of smooch points. You want all your characters to have a happy ending of smooching with their ideal partner? You better get them on the battlefield pronto. 

By the end of the game, I’m no longer concerned with the goings on of the Adrestian Empire or the Church of Seiros. I just want to make sure that Ferdinand and Constance are getting together! Sure the game still has its RPG elements and its tactical combat, but really, all of that is in service of the grand design of making your characters kiss like dolls. The entire ending sequence of the game is just a series of slides that tell you what the characters do in their lives with their respective partners after the events of the game! Fuck the plot and Those Who Slither in the Dark, we’re concerned with who’s slithering into whose bed! And I will not apologize for that sentence! 

To be entirely real for a second, there are of course major differences in how a typical dating sim, which are usually visual novel/visual novel adjacent type games, plays and how Fire Emblem plays. But, this just makes Fire Emblem all the more interesting! They’ve managed to make a dating sim where rather than just have conversations, you also get to shoot fireballs! It’s sick! If anything, the fact that you get to decide everyone’s relationships and not just your own makes it a Super Dating Sim! But so that we can differentiate, I propose a new genre name for Fire Emblem: The Romantical Tactical Role Playing Dating Sim Game. Or the RTRPDSG. Really rolls of the tongue.

Also, Edelgard did nothing wrong.