Dungeons and Clashes

Dungeons are optional locations found out on the world map of Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave. They hold materials for strengthening weapons along with other treasures, and encountering an enemy roaming inside one begins a Clash. Nintendo describes it as a turn-based clash that differs from normal battles, and one in which you can perform attack combos with your allies.

Exploring a Dungeon

Dungeon interiors are free 3D spaces rather than grids, and a party of up to five goes inside. The Y button swings the lead character's weapon: landing a hit on an enemy before it reaches you opens the following Clash with a pre-emptive strike, the same button breaks barrels, crates and crystals, and particularly weak enemies are defeated outright without any Clash starting at all. The equipped weapon shows on the model, and the attack motion changes with it. Health and magic charges drain across a dungeon run. Each dungeon has a single Rest Spot where the party can cook food to restore health and magic uses, though not the Link Points spent on combos.

The same accounts report that during arena and dungeon exploration the character you control is one of the four Heroes rather than Eshmel, whose presence in the past is otherwise the white bird.

Clashes

A Clash is the encounter type dungeons use in place of a tactical battle. Nintendo confirmed three things about it: it is turn-based, it differs from a normal battle, and allies can chain attack combos in it. Most of the rest was first reported from pre-launch hands-on sessions and has since been confirmed by guides and reviews written from the finished game; the table notes where each detail stands.

The shared health claim was flagged here as a single-source oddity, and it has since held up. Accounts written from the finished code describe a five-unit party in a Clash drawing on one shared pool of hit points, which is the arrangement that earlier preview window reported.

Accounts written from the finished game fill in the rest of the format. A Clash has no movement grid at all: units and their attacks are picked from a command menu, turn by turn, and the pool behind the combos shows on screen as an LP gauge. A fight can also be handed to the game to resolve rather than played out. The dungeon around it is not mapped either. The interface shows the path ahead, the direction the exit lies in and how many chests are still unopened, which is enough to decide whether to press deeper without ever drawing a floor plan. A whole encounter tends to run five to ten minutes.

Reception has been consistent. Writers working from the finished game converge on the same characterisation of Clashes: the weakest of the game's systems, and shallow next to the tactical battles they sit beside. The speed is the part nobody argues with, and it is the reason a dungeon run stays cheap in the time it costs.

Link Points are the named resource behind combos. Spending them freely clears early encounters quickly and leaves you short for the harder fights deeper in, so the pool is meant to be managed across a whole dungeon rather than per fight. Coordinating a link with a party member is also reported to raise the support level between the two.

What Dungeons Are For

Materials pulled out of dungeons feed weapon enhancement back at the shopping arcade in Dagsion, and the fights themselves are a way to raise units without spending a match on it. Because Clashes are short and can be skipped, a dungeon run costs comparatively little of the time available for between-match preparation.

Dungeon Rules

• Each dungeon is marked on the world map menu with a suggested average party level and the materials it holds.

• Treasure chests always hold the same items, and the number still unopened shows in the upper right corner. What breakable objects drop is random, and common items such as Thry Fruit or Roca can turn up even when the dungeon's listing does not mention them.

• There is no counter for enemies, but a pop-up appears once every enemy group has been defeated. Dungeon enemies return at the start of every chapter.

• A dungeon with a back entrance shows an Uncharted symbol in the upper right corner.

• The Show Path option, toggled with ZR, marks where the party has already been.

• If a character dies in a Clash resolved with Skip to Conclusion, the game immediately offers to restart the battle.

• Two Boons of Salvation affect dungeons: Dungeon Evasion shortens how long enemies chase the party, and Rich Deposits raises material drops from breakable objects.

List of Dungeons

A retail-build guide lists 32 dungeons, sorted here by the ideal party level given for Part I. Several can only be reached by some of the Heroes in Part I because of which regions each can travel to; World Map and Exploration covers those limits.

Dungeons in Part III

Part III reopens every dungeon with higher-level enemies and new chest contents, and enemy levels rise slightly with each Section. Every dungeon becomes a source of Warrior's Soulstones. Five of them hold a Key of the Diadem, a key item used at the Temple of the Diadem to unlock the game's Divine Classes: Heretics' Cave, Enno Isle, Cougar Woodlands, Sand-Shadow Fort and Giant's-Print Fort. Part III also adds a final dungeon at the end of the story.

One Japanese pre-release review adds that Cai is the only Hero able to freely enter a dungeon beneath Dagsion, which can be explored without spending turns.

Related Pages

World Map and Exploration puts dungeons among the towns, gathering points and Skirmishes they share the map with. The materials a run brings back feed the weapon enhancement covered on Weapons, and linking with a party member is reported to raise the support level between the two: see Supports.