Turn Rewinding is a game mechanic that originated in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.
Overview[]
Fire Emblem games generally lack the ability to undo actions once the player has ended a command for a specific unit, attributing to the longstanding tradition of the franchise's permanent death mechanic for allied units. In most games, players must decided to move forward with the story in lieu of consequences of choices they made during battles or restart the battle entirely from scratch from the last saved file. Beginning with Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Mila's Turnwheel became the first method of Turn Rewinding available to the player and has been a feature in the succeeding two games, albeit under different items/names.
Narratively, the function of turn rewinding comes from specific items or abilities. The game keeps track of all sequential decisions from the start of the player's turn up until they activate the feature. Player's can freely choose at which individual action they wish to rewind to and continue forward from. This can allow them to recover a lost unit or utilize knowledge of upcoming battle events to better coordinate their units in preparation.
The number of times a player may rewind turns in a specific battle varies from game to game. Some restrict the number of uses to a set amount while offering the ability to expand that allowance as the game progresses, while Fire Emblem Engage offers infinite use of the feature on Normal difficulty and a hard cap of ten uses on Hard and Maniac.
History in the Series[]
Mila's Turnwheel[]
The mechanic was first introduced through Mila's Turnwheel in Shadows of Valentia, in which the in-universe explanation for the mechanic is a device granted separately to Alm and Celica. The number of allowed turnwheel usages per battle increases as the player finds additional gears while exploring different areas.
Divine Pulse[]
In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the protagonist Byleth acquires the Divine Pulse, the power to turn back time, through their connection to the goddess Sothis. The number of allowed usages of Divine Pulse increases as the player reaches certain milestones while restoring the statues of the Four Saints in the Garreg Mach Monastery cathedral.
Draconic Time Crystal[]
In Fire Emblem Engage, the protagonist Alear acquires the Draconic Time Crystal. It is a crystal Vander gives to Alear after finding in the aftermath of Chapter 3. Unlike previous time rewinding mechanics, there are points in Engage after the crystal's acquisition where its use is unavailable and the player is not allowed to rewind time. Also unlike Mila's Turnwheel and Divine Pulse, the player is allowed infinite uses of the Draconic Time Crystal per battle on Normal difficulty, and it can be used up to ten times per battle on the Hard and Maniac difficulties, with no method of increasing the maximum number of uses.