4 hours ago
8
Published Oct 11, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT
Regrettably none of them include Fabio
Image: Intelligent Systems/Nintendo via PolygonSign in to your Polygon.com account
It's been several weeks now since Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave was released for Nintendo Switch 2, and fans around the world are still exploring this massive game. While you could easily sink hundreds of hours into playing through every Flame Lord's story, you may be wondering what to play after your adventures in Dagda are through. Worry not: we've compiled a list of our games like Fortune's Weave to keep your strategic skills sharp while you wait for Intelligent Systems to reveal their DLC plans.
1 Final Fantasy Tactics
If you enjoy negotiating tricky terrain and periodically swapping your character classes in Fortune's Weave, the 2025 remake of Final Fantasy Tactics will be right up your alley. While it's not quite as difficult as the 1998 PlayStation original, FF Tactics demands that you engage deeply with its job system and figure out which team compositions are necessary for a specific battle. You are very much expected to grind via "optional" skirmishes, even on normal difficulty, and that challenge leads to a satisfying sense of mastery. A surprisingly grim yet moving story about the exploitation of common people by the nobility makes this one worth revisiting again and again.
2 Fire Emblem Engage
Image: Intelligent Systems/Nintendo2023's Engage didn't manage to inspire a thousand ships like Three Houses, mostly because the story is pretty flat and forgettable. But it's still well worth playing, because the combat and maps are extremely fun. The central gimmick, Emblem Rings, allow you to equip anyone in your squad with the skills of a past Fire Emblem hero, allowing for some truly bonkers synergies and limitless possibilities for customization. Build a strong enough bond between a character and an Emblem, and they'll be able to inherit some of that Emblem's skills permanently. Engage has plenty of social-sim elements and overworld exploration, but for some reason I feel far less remorse about ignoring them here than I do in Fortune's Weave.
3 Wargroove
Image: ChucklefishAre you the type of Fire Emblem player for whom permadeath is the only option? Then you'll vibe with the tough battles in this 2019 strategy game from indie developer Chucklefish. Wargroove features 12+ unique Commanders, each with a special ultimate ability called a "Groove" that charges during combat, like healing powers or building walls. My favorite commander is Caesar, a golden retriever in stately silver armor that's festooned with a plume of red feathers. In one mission, he and his troops enter an abandoned stronghold, only to find that it’s been overrun by rogues. These ruffians soon learn a harsh lesson: underestimate the dog general at your own peril. He's a beautiful boy and I will murder anyone who lays a finger on him.
Free sign-up
Get Polygon’s Wishlister newsletter
A weekly cheat sheet to what you’ll eventually love to play. No buying, no commitment — just saving for later.
Sign up freeFree. Unsubscribe anytime.
4 Shining Force 2
Image: SegaSega's entry into the strategy RPG genre hasn't enjoyed the decades-long success of the Fire Emblem franchise, but this 1990s rival still has plenty of memorable maps to enjoy, including a giant chessboard and a series of floating rafts. The story is bare-minimum hokum, even by '90s RPG standards: think "the magical seal has broken on ancient evil." But an assortment of truly unique characters — including a werewolf, a phoenix, and checks notes a flying jellyfish with ice magic make Shining Force 2 well worth checking out for retro game fans. If all the social sim elements and calendar management in Fortune's Weave stress you out, you'll find none of that here: just sweet, sweet grids punctuated by the occasional town. If you have Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, you can find it in the Sega Genesis library.
5 Unicorn Overlord
Image: AtlusIf you enjoyed gradually unlocking the world map in Fortune's Weave, Vanillaware's 2024 tactical RPG takes a similar approach to exploration as you liberate towns and gather resources. The main story is pretty standard — you're tasked with assembling an army to overthrow the evil empire — but the optional adventures and character-driven missions have more meat on the bone. Like Fortune's Weave, Unicorn Overlord features more than 60 characters to recruit across a variety of classes. In a fun riff on the typical tactics formula, you'll combine those characters in squads of up to five for turn-based combat. You can even customize the order in which your skills and passive abilities trigger to maximize their damage-dealing potential. Vanillaware's painterly environments and character designs help make the experience easy on the eyes, too.
English (US) ·