Fire Emblem and the Retainer Problem

My friends, we have a problem. Fire Emblem has been getting a little too comfortable in giving us a boatload of royals, who all come with their own little friends known as retainers... And frankly, I'm getting a little tired of them. So, Youtuber that I am, I decided to make a little video discussing my gripes with this recruitment system and how I would fix it!

Footage may be courtesy of:
World of Longplays
Longplay Archive
FCPlaythroughs
Nintendo Utopia

#fireemblem #fireemblemthreehouses #fireemblemengage

[makohidari]

i would say the biggest problem with the large amount of royals and retainers is the fact it comes at the cost of more "random" characters that join you and how you recruit characters.
The amount of optional characters become less and thus less effort on the map to recruit them.
Basic goals in the old games like keeping a green unit alive, getting to a village before it's destroyed to get a character or doing certain things to have a character appear are much less likely to happen or made much easier. Also. "Random" characters tend to have a different loyalties and view on things compared to a retainer. Pretty much setting them apart more.

[jobo]

The chapter a character is introduced is their one big sales pitch moment. This is why retainers appear lacking. Their join chapter is inevetably focused on their lord and not on them. We don't get their strong character pitch. And without this, players are much less incentivized to use them and without use you won't unlock supports which would give further characterization.

[Gabe_]

Awakening is interesting. Frederick is both Chrom's and Lissa's retainer, when IS could have added one for Lissa. Emmeryn's does not join the player and instead dies in the line of duty. Basilio's (Lon'qu) is relieved from his duties while Flavia's guards the border and does not join your army. Another 10 points for Awakening being a masterpiece

[SvanEsch]

The Fates retainers I actually liked because they had their moments, and because there were quite a few non-retainer characters as well. Sure, you had Selena and Beruka, but a couple of chapter later you got Charlotte and Benny. For Hana and Subaki, you get Hayato and Rinkah. Not to mention Kaden and Keaton both are characters not even allied to your nation that join you. That makes for more variety.

During Engage’s promo when they revealed all characters one by one, I grew so tired to read “this character is [insert lord]’s retainer, but they also have this one character trope they fill!” When Bunet and Pandreo were revealed I was like “oh cool, a chef and a priest that must make for some interesting storytelling” only to then find out they were Fogado’s retainers was a bummer. Ironically, Fogado and his relationship to his retainers is actually one of my favorites in the game. Off the top of my head, Yunaka is the only non-retainer, non-lord that joins your army until you get Veyle all the way at the end. That’s way too many in an already one-note cast. The overflow of retainers in Engage is one of my biggest complaints of that game lmao, I really hope they remedy this in the next game. Or at least make them like Hubert or Dedue where they have very heavily explored reasons for being the way they are.

[lsrrr]

I really think the bigger problem is having a self insert that is expected to be able to bang everyone on the roster, it severely limits how the entire roster looks and age and such

[nlb]

Funny thing is, Fates seemed like it got retainers 'right' to the extent that it used a lot of them. They weren't always introduced as "here's a prince(ss) and their two sidekicks"; the retainers were often recruited, or at least encountered, while they were off doing things for their liege. Some of them were doing things *they* decided their liege would need done, or where doing it "my way", or had other minor disagreements.

[somedude]

One thing about Retainers in a game such as Fates is that a lot of the retainers join at way earlier points than their liege. Think of how Lazlow and Peri get a scene to themselves where they fend off Ryoma of all people without Xander being in sight. It was still a slight problem, but not as glaring as when retainers often join in Engage with maybe one line of dialogue while their liege is the focus of the scene.

Characters in Engage generally just have such non introductions its nutty.

[andrewshearsby]

Ironically asides from Alcryst, Celine and Diamant I dropped the lords and used their retainers more often than not.

they just seemed more interesting than their Lords most off the time.

[YellowNekro]

I miss individual characters.... or characters that would come up in pairs like Lute and Arthur idk

One of Engage biggest problems is that there would be so much potential in random characters (Yunaka, the dancer, Saphir, Lindon) but they are so isolated that they are forgotten (except for papaya girl)

[Yoshixandir]

I really hate how the retainers are implemented in the main story. Even in awakening and fates they may not have played a major role however you got enough information to figure out their personality about the character and usually the chapter gives you enough time to learn about them. Most of engage retainers don’t get that opportunity since they either waste it for the divine dragon or it’s very poorly implemented (kagetsu and zelkov only have 2 lines when you see them and it’s not even about themselves it’s just them wanting to do the generic help the main character)

[greninja]

So I took a few notes as I watched this. We can agree to disagree, but here's my take.

-I'll argue that Alm doesn't have retainers. His friends are exactly that-friends. All of them join the Deliverance for different reasons (excluding Faye, who's in love with Alm).

-Being a retainer does not entirely mean there isn't room for character growth. These characters work fundamentally as supporting characters-they're not the main focus of the game. It doesn't mean there can't be retainers with depth and intrigue, but remember that Engage specifically focuses on Alear.

-Young retainers aren't bad by nature. Supports work well for several of them and provide important depth to them. For example, Citrinne has a very unique support with Yunaka, Pandreo and Panette both have family issues that motivated them to being retainers, Kagetsu wants to see the outside world and constantly challenge himself (evident in his supports), and Jade, Bunet and Rosado all want to fucus on their respective talents.

-I agree that retainers do pose a problem recruitment wise. Considering how older FE has you recruiting enemies, spending money on mercenaries, meeting specific conditions to recruit them, and rare units with all of the above, Engage having a Noble + Retainer model hurts. It hurts even more since you only have a few ally recruits and a single enemy one.

-So Three Houses. The only real retainers are Hubert, who comes from an undying family of loyalty to Edelgard, and Dedue, who owes his life to Dimitri and the only person he's grown to genuinely respect. Everyone else has their own motivations and goals outside of the main lord. You even have some such as Lorenz and Felix who actively go against the grain and question the main lord (Felix more notably.) All of this was brought up though.

-I'll say just about nobody really dares to push back in Engage. Not a single retainer questions the decisions or actions their respective lord makes.

-As for why they use retainers more commonly, I couldn't say but I can take guesses. They definitely do learn from some mistakes, with Engage looking really well, a fun combat system, but as for characters, I'd say the reason they do this more often is because it's safe. What's easier; unorthodox recruitment methods, paying for certain characters to join, meeting conditions, route splits? Or having a royal and their buddies join? IS went with the latter, with only few exceptions for Engage.

It's a choice I don't agree with since I love recruiting people and feeling like I earned it. It's fun recruiting someone like Xavier, who has the hardest conditions in FE history-it's fun recruiting someone like Stefan, who randomly shows up with no warning and has impressive stats. It's fun recruiting enemies like Cormag or Dussel who have a change of heart, whenever it be their morals are challenged or because something happens in game that changes them. Retainers are fine when they're done right, but I heavily prefer the older games where you had to recruit stronger units.

[postapocalypse]

Retainers could a trope that's played with. The retainer serves heir lord but not necessarily you, but what we usually get instead is a crutch narratively

[username]

its so odd to me how engage focuses so much lens and characters on the non-alear lords, but then just stops caring about them. ivy, alfred, timerra, and diamant pretty much just stop appearing in 95% of cutscenes halfway through the game, and every cutscene from there on is about veyle and the four hounds.
its one of the many factors that makes engage feel so lifeless to me. at least fates bothered to give its characters screentime

[aidanmillow]

I think you've missed the forest for the trees here: imo the number of retainers is only a symptom of a greater problem; the number of lords. Most older FE games have one lord per path (or one lord full stop). Birthright and Conquest have five (four if you don't count Corrin, six if you count Azura) while Revelation and Engage have nine. Making time to introduce all of these characters is narratively costly and introducing other characters as their retainers is an easy way of making up for that. Unfortunately it causes the problems that you mentioned in the video (although I think you overstate how much worse the motivation of a retainer is on average than a non-retainer). I think someone at IS has come to the conclusion that more countries with more lords is more complicated and thus better when this isn't really the truth and FE would be well served with a plot with a single country as the perspective.

Three houses doesn't really fall into this imo, just because its narrative structure is so different to most FE games, especially when it comes to recruitment. I didn't feel like any of the problems exhibited with retainers were exhibited there.

[sam]

"Why are you fighting in my army?"
"Because the person who signs my paycheck told me to."
I don't see how that is a problem, in war, outside of conscription, is the reason people fight in wars

[StarshadowMelody]

I would honestly argue Three Houses has exactly _TWO_ retainers: Hubert and Dedue. Everyone else can be recruited away from their house, so pulling them away from whoever they'd theoretically be a retainer for isn't off the table, which I'd argue disqualifies them from retainer status.

This, incidentally, makes Hilda some sort of antiretainer for Edelgard, as Crimson Flower is the only route in which Hilda cannot be recruited, due to being unable to deal with Edelgard's authoritative nature.

I suppose I could be convinced that Gilbert becomes a retainer for Dimitri, since he's exclusive to Azure Moon, but I haven't finished that route yet and I honestly don't know if I ever will, Dimitri just does not interest me as a character.

[yoh]

Lords are generally inexperienced and very principled so having someone to advise them is important, especially for areas they're lacking in. Ike is a blank slate for a large portion of 9. Soren and Titania fufill the job of advising him and handling things he can't, like the overall bookkeeping of the company.
Retainers work best when they do their job, are restricted to the lord and a very small number of plot relevant characters who aren't the main lord (7 does this with Marcus/Oswin being the retainer for the non-main lord well enough), or when they're not even units that can fight (the old dude in 11, Merlinus in 6, Lewyn in 4).
They also serve for exposition by reacting to whatever our naive and uneducated lord, and conduit for the player, might not be know the finer points of

[Mijzelffan]

11:00 And yet Karla, one of the hardest characters to obtain in the series has some of the most alts in Fire Emblem Heroes right now

[eleonorepb]

Remember how a long time ago we had a single retainer for two nobles with Finn serving Quan and Ethlyn and Karin for Fee and Ced.

[Enjoysaeli]

No but seriously. Engage kept shooting groups of 3 recruits at you so fast, I couldn't even keep up, and at least on hard mode, there was no good way to go back and train the weaker units, so my bench just got bigger and bigger. Some of the retainers are really great (Pandreo and Panette were easily my best characters, and actually really cool in their supports), but SO many of them are just "I sure do love my liege and have very little personality outside of that!!!". Individually they were a little more interesting than the Fates retainers were to me, but you brought up a good point in saying that the Fates retainers at least helped flesh their liege out better.

Solid video! Subbed, definitely gonna watch more!