New Fire Emblem Title ‘Bansenkou’ Splits Opinion — Scenario Praised, but Save System Sparks Backlash

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The story

Opinions split on 5ch’s hardware/industry board over how reception to the new Fire Emblem title “Bansenkou” shifted after the Silver Week holidays. The thread’s OP claimed that as more players tried the game, positive reviews increased, but replies included an image showing the opposite — a rising share of negative reviews — sparking arguments over which was true and whether review manipulation was at play. Meanwhile, many posters praised the main story and character depth, while also raising concrete complaints about the game’s systems, such as having only a single save slot and the punishing scheduling demands of side-quest (“Gaiden”) deadlines.

What people said

1AnonymousSep 24, 2026 09:19
・A lot of old-school FE fans are absolutely losing it, raging that this is a garbage game.
・Still, pretty much everyone agrees the story is great.
・Theodora, the dark-skinned character — turns out she's adorable and the most popular one, of all things.
3AnonymousSep 24, 2026 09:33
Silver Week's over and now negative reviews outnumber positive ones?
11AnonymousSep 24, 2026 09:56
Re: #3
Reviews swinging to both extremes like this is proof of manipulation.
Not saying which side, though.
31AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:12
Re: #3
They're already review-bombing it with zero scores on user-score sites,
so of course they're doing the same thing on Amazon too.
6AnonymousSep 24, 2026 09:47
This isn't a tough tactics game, it's a tough scheduling game.
Which is fun in its own way, honestly.

Hurry up with Lunatic mode already.
9AnonymousSep 24, 2026 09:53
Re: #6
The scheduling itself actually has a fair amount of slack, so it's not really that brutal.
37AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:20
Re: #6
It really comes down to how you look at it.
If you go in blind and just build up whichever skills seem obviously useful, you actually end up with some pretty interesting battles.
Also, Gaiden chapters pay out a ton of gold so they feel mandatory, but the deadlines and same-day recruiting make scheduling tough.
Either way, you can redo a battle from any point, and even reset all the way back to the start of the chapter, so you might as well just take it slow and retry as many times as you need.
(And of course there's a story-skip option too.)
99AnonymousSep 24, 2026 11:46
Re: #6
Just give us the DLC for the other 4 clans already.
15AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:02
Actually, I'm in the camp that finds it comforting that the voice is Conan's (the Detective Conan character).
I'm just too used to hearing him yell "Ikkee!" ("Go for it!").
20AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:06
Re: #15
I'm the opposite — I don't like Conan, so it's really hard for me to take.
24AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:08
Re: #15
I'm pretty sure they're doing it on purpose, having him yell "Ikkee!" whenever you use an Art, lol.
26AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:09
Re: #20
Same here.
No matter how hard I try, all I hear is Conan.
28AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:10
Re: #26
I think I finally get how people who dislike Char's or Wakamoto's voice must feel.
39AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:23
If you want to recruit everyone, does that mean you're stuck endlessly redoing chapters at the bird part forever?
Is that the reasoning behind making it a single save file?
44AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:32
Re: #39
Each of the 4 routes has different characters who are easier to recruit, and everyone ends up together at the end anyway.
I don't think you need to recruit everyone in a single route.
41AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:31
I get that the calendar and school-life sections will be love-it-or-hate-it.
But making it a single save file, I really question that.
The devs are pushing their own vision way too hard and it just makes things inconvenient for players — let us play how we want.
46AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:34
Re: #41
Just relax and enjoy it as ichigo ichie (treasuring a one-time-only encounter) — no take-backs needed.
48AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:36
The save system is fine as it is.
No need to cater to people who reset over and over to complete every character or min-max their playthrough.
62AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:52
Re: #48
No, it is NOT fine.
In the Dietrich arc, I advanced time to do a Gaiden quest, then tried to head to the main quest afterward — didn't make it in time and had to redo 160 turns.
The timing design around Gaiden quests is way too sloppy, and even if the saves were separate, it autosaves right before you go do the Gaiden, so you can't even go back.

Calling this design insane would be an understatement.
67AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:54
Re: #62
I hit the exact same thing.
And in that particular chapter, you can't warp anywhere until you go to the main quest location and sit through the dialogue, so depending on where you are when the autosave hits, you can get permanently soft-locked. That's brutal.
54AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:45
Yeah, this game's trash.
61AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:51
Something about this one has the paid negative-campaign crowd working way too hard.
It's so obvious, too.
65AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:52
Re: #61
This is just how it goes for Xenoblade and FE.
And of all things, there was that Wolverine thing too.
68AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:55
It's rough if you're a completionist who can't stand missing a single thing.
Persona's the same way — once one part of your plan falls apart, you get that "oh no, I messed up" feeling.
Still, this game's a bit more forgiving since you can redo each chapter afterward.
69AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:56
Re: #68
Except that means rewinding several hours, though.
71AnonymousSep 24, 2026 10:57
Re: #68
Persona has way more save slots, so if you save strategically you can actually recover from mistakes.
76AnonymousSep 24, 2026 11:16
Re: #73
I'm enjoying it every day, and yeah I got mad about getting soft-locked and redid it, but this really isn't something you should be defending.
84AnonymousSep 24, 2026 11:25
Re: #76
Locking yourself out of a Gaiden chapter because of your own mistake has been a thing since the Binding Blade days.
Is a game with no penalty for mistakes even fun?
97AnonymousSep 24, 2026 11:45
Well, FE is basically the only SRPG franchise still standing at this point.
100AnonymousSep 24, 2026 11:48
Re: #97
There's a legendary-tier series that's still alive.
https://youtu.be/O7xhqvrK074?si=2r4ocb0Mzodq-GZs
98AnonymousSep 24, 2026 11:46
Setting aside personal taste in the story, almost everything's been improved over Three Houses, which was already well-received, so I don't see how this could end up rated poorly.
101AnonymousSep 24, 2026 11:49
Re: #98
Three Houses had good writing but the story's presentation was kind of mediocre in places.
This time that's been massively improved, and it honestly surprised me.
108AnonymousSep 24, 2026 11:58
Re: #98
No, no, no.
The exploration sections are even more of a slog now, and that's tanked how comfortable replaying the game is.
And on top of that, the support conversations — the thing Three Houses got praised for the most — have gotten noticeably worse too.

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

“Bansenkou” is the newest installment in Nintendo’s Fire Emblem tactical RPG series, and the thread repeatedly compared it to the previous entry, Three Houses. The debate centers on two main points. The first concerns how the game is actually being received: the thread’s OP claimed reception had turned positive, but an image was immediately posted showing a rising share of negative reviews, splitting opinion on which was accurate. This kind of user score is often suspected of being skewed by coordinated positive or negative posting (“review bombing”), and speculation about “paid negative campaigns” or “manipulation” circulated on 5ch as well — though it’s worth noting this is all posters’ personal speculation, not official aggregated data or third-party analysis. The second point of contention is the game’s systems: the single save-file design and the tight scheduling demands of Gaiden (side) quests drew criticism, backed by concrete examples like having to redo 160 turns after a scheduling mistake. At the same time, the story and cast were widely praised, making this a discussion that doesn’t fit neatly into a simple “masterpiece” vs. “trash game” framing.

*This article is compiled as an excerpt/summary of the 5ch (Hardware & Industry (Gehard)) thread “[Good News] FE Bansenkou: More Players Weighing In After Silver Week, Reception Turns Positive.”

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