Recruitment is a important gameplay function throughout the Fire Emblem franchise.
Overview[]
A cornerstone of the Fire Emblem franchise is the need to bolster the player's army number with new characters throughout the game. There are seven main ways to recruit characters:
- Story Recruitment: Story characters are automatically recruited at a specific point during gameplay outside of battles. In most games, these are done during a cutscene with said character being available in the subsequent battle. They are sometimes a mandatory unit in the next battle or are merely an available option. Other times, they join at after a certain turn count has passed during a battle and will join without any other condition needed to be fulfilled. In either case, these are mandatory recruited characters. In Fire Emblem Gaiden, its remake, and the Tellius Series, some characters are recruited if the player talks to characters in the overworld or finishes specific camp conversations to the character. Unlike the previous example, some are not mandatory recruits and can be missed entirely if their conversations are not initiated.
- Talk Recruitment: These characters are recruited whenever a character, usually a specific one like the Lord character or an important character like Caeda, moves adjacent to the applicable character and uses the Talk command during a battle. This can be done to both Ally and Enemy Units. Even some Boss characters are Talk Recruits.
- Condition Recruitment: These characters can be recruited though they often require very specific conditions to be met to recruit and can be missed entirely. The most common method involves having a specific character move to a specific location to trigger a conversation without needing the Talk command or protect a specific chapter NPC in order to recruit at the end. Throughout the franchise, there are many notable examples of complex conditions that need to be met in order to recruit a specific character. For example:
- Sheena requires the player to not kill any Gra enemy soldiers before talking to her during her battle map.
- Zeke, who is an Enemy Boss, can be recruited only if the player completes an optional battle that rescues Tatiana before starting his battle. Upon fielding her, Zeke will immediately join the player's army.
- Beowolf requires a payment of 10,000 Gold.
- Karla is recruited only if Bartre is at least a Level 5 Warrior at the start of Hector's chapter 31(x) chapter. Batre must interact with Karla at an Arena and both must fight and survive their duel to recruit her.
- Oliver, who is as an Enemy Boss, requires specifically Rafiel to stand within his movement distance, which prompts Oliver to talk to Rafiel and recruit himself into the player's army.
- Severa, an NPC in her recruitment battle, needs to talk to Holland at a specific point in the map. If the player kills him, she becomes hostile and cannot be recruited.
- Replacement Recruitment: Exclusive to Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, if the player's roster total is below a certain amount, the player recruits generic, randomized, faceless characters with no story relevance and often poor overall potential compared to a fully realized character.
- Logbook Recruitment: Exclusive to Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates through StreetPass, SpotPass and Nintendo Wi-Fi, the player can recruit Avatars of other players as characters. These characters will have limited gameplay functions such as being unable to form Supports. Players can store a certain number of Logbook Unit information without having to add them to the army.
- Capture/Kidnap Recruitment: Exclusive to Fire Emblem Fates, Orochi and Niles can use their personal skills to capture enemy forces if the player has a Prison in their My Castle. Players can spend resources attempting to recruit them as generic playable characters, but with similar limitation to the Logbook Recruitment. Capture/Kidnap can also allow the player to capture certain boss characters like Candace or Nichol.
- Tutoring Recruitment: In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, after Byleth has chosen a house, the player may recruit students from the rival houses as long as Byleth has achieved a specific, personal subject proficiency and has reached a certain amount in a particular stat that a potential student prefers.
Themes[]
Throughout the series, a character's recruitment is typically accompanied with a common musical theme, though the theme varies between games.
- Story 5 - Theme of Encounter (Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, Mystery of the Emblem)
- Encounter (Fire Emblem: Gaiden)
- Joining a Group (Fire Emblem: Thracia 776)
- Join Us! (Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade)
- Together, We Ride (Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade)
- With Us! (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance)
- Come, Join Us! (Shadow Dragon and Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem)
- Arrive in a "killan" way (Fire Emblem: Awakening)
- Guest of Light/Shade (Fire Emblem Fates)
- Unity (Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia)
