I think people are making mountains out of molehills a bit here. The game isn't that long if you don't try to do absolutely everything, and appears to be balanced enough around a single-route run.

That took me about forty hours and if you're wanting to avoid spoilers, or just the worst of the discourse, it can absolutely be done blind.

Also, it's structured in a way that you won't need to repeat a lot of virtually identical chapters if you want to go back and do the things you missed. That's a distinct improvement over Three Houses.

That's not to say that anyone is playing it wrong. You do you, by all means. Still, if you're complaining of burnout after spending a hundred hours on part 1, you could just push on and finish it.

Honestly, once checking supports starts taking longer than choosing the battle, the UI has lost the plot a bit. With 60-plus characters, even a simple “unseen supports” filter would take a lot of the busywork out.

@VoidofLight the romance mechanics in three houses were more noticeable from the beginning of the game and did play a major part in the first part of the game:

The Goddess Tower Event in chapter 9, byleth could invite any character, the player chooses to the goddess tower and view a specific scene which would be fully voiced and have unique dialogue for each character,

Its been since fire emblem 17, that romance has been removed or saved for the final chapter of the game, since fe awakening on 3ds, romance has played a major role in fire emblem's gameplay, to long term players the method fortune's weave handles romance is identical to engage,

In addition the anime cutscenes in three houses were produced by Sanzigen and they aren't in the credits for fortune's weave per mobygames, this is why it feels different.
Also meals in three houses would have unique dialogue for characters depending on who the player who invite,

Despite not having romance or unique dialogue in meals, I do think fortune's weave is still one of 2026's best games and the dlc should have a orchel route that is based in Morfis.

I wish there was quick way I could check which characters gave gifts to during the week. I missed giving Tialla her Birthday gift because I already gave her a gift at the start. For a game with so many characters, it's kind of hard to track your relationships with them.

@uncleMike Not a dude, but thanks. I do appreciate it.

Life sucks and then you die. Sometimes you get to play a video game that makes you forget you're alive for a bit.

@TerribleTerabytes I wish the map section would tell you who you have bonds with, who you have a gift to. And what the current support level meter is. There's no reason the screen could not tell you everything you need to know.

I also wish gifts were so bad this game. It's so much worse than 3H. There's so much illogical choices, so much wrong with the system.

And they need to go back to telling you loved, really liked, liked, and kinda liked it. And then it should tell you when you're at them or looking at your gifts if you discovered they like them or whatever.

I feel like I need a spreadsheet... Because none of the gift guides online are accurate rn.

@Matt_Barber ummm... Like I'm at 210 hours and not close to done.

The game is ponderous because they made the support system worse from 3H, not better.

@Matt_Barber And they could have hired someone to write them all. I'd have done it for minimum wage.

@XenobladeKisekiFan It would be great if they had an auto support mode. No picking up anything in town, no motivation, no gifts. Everyone just auto unlocks at an appropriate time and you just pop in town for gear and training. That would make the game more manageable for people who don't want to spend an hour every Sunday in game doing stuff and still struggling.

I'm so mad that I spent probably 100 hours managing town and haven't gotten past 20 characters in any path.

I'm in chapter 11 and realizing I'm not going to unlock most of these characters. WTF.

I had no problems in 3H.

@Misima I really hope intelligent systems do what you suggested and make all these endless tasks auto mode instead of manually

I have beaten Act 2 on Dietrich. I kept the two guests alive in Chapter 3 of Act 2 and they didn't join my party, so I dunno what on Earth I am meant to do to recruit them. But I feel like I am finally set free, I am just gonna skip Act 2 when I finish Cai's Act 1 and move to Act 3. Funny Cai was the first route I started and will be the final one I finish.

Also have to say, map knowledge, stronger boons, Dietrich being maybe one of the most OP Units in all of Fire Emblem all play a role (his Blaze Art is also the most useful out of them all for these missions), but actually, having a much smaller squad on Dietrich's route actually I think made his Act the easiest rather than the hardest. Act 2 has mechanics to help falling behind units catch up, but I dunno, I only really had like three or four bench characters in Dietrich's route, rather than like 10 on the others, so I practically rolled into Act 2 with this elite squad that were all levelled and geared like my units were at the END of Act 2 on the other routes. I think my worst Units on Dietrich's route are like 10 levels ahead my very strongest on the others by the end of Act 2 lol Honestly, I made Dietrich a Bardinger (however it is spelt) and gave him a Levin Sword, and I could just park him at the front and he could just clear the whole map himself with counter blows.