You might have heard that Fire Emblem Fates is getting rid of the infamous ‘petting’ mini game for western shores. But even with that aspect of the game gone, much of the experience is still brimming with suggestive content.
As you might already know, Fire Emblem Fates has a feature that lets you build a castle. Within the castle squares, you can erect a number of amenities, like an accessory shop. That’s the storefront you’re looking at above. You can accessorize your character (or any other character) with all sorts of things. I for example have put an eye-patch on one of my coolest characters, Effie:
But, if you want, you can also strip a character down, like I did in the first screenshot. Fittingly, it costs 5 peaches to purchase a towel for a character, because of course it does.
It’s a part of a larger push, it seems like, to make a more vaguely sexual game. Characters say things such as...
Those are just a few of many, many lines that have jumped out at me, and other players are finding the same thing in their own games. But nowhere has this vibe been been more in-my-face than after building a hot spring in my castle. “Take a dip in the hot springs,” the game suggested to me. “You may run into some of the castle inhabitants along the way.” Sure, why not?
Sometimes, it’ll be just you in there. Other times, something like THIS might happen:
Pro-tip: finding the opposite sex in the hot spring is no good (though it can be amusing). Not that you really have any control over who you find when you enter. That’s part of the allure, really.
Honestly, I’m liking the change. Yeah—I’m one of those trashcan Fire Emblem fans that loves talking endlessly about potential romances and pairings within the game, so this type of pandering is way up my alley. I think, on some level, Intelligent Systems / Nintendo must know that fans obsess over that aspect of the game, too. So much of Fire Emblem Fates feels like the developers doubling down on that aspect of the franchise, as the new game gives characters way more opportunities to interact with one another than Fire Emblem Awakening did.
Just don’t be surprised if some of those exchanges are, ahem, saucy.