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On July 17th of this year, I started my first time Maddening Mode run of Golden Deer with no new game + and with a twist..... NO DIVINE PULSE!! What a journey it has been. I always been quite casual when it came to playing Fire Emblem. but I have learned a lot on this journey. The struggles, to the restarts, to the hard as heck paralogues, to our blessed Ignatz!! All of it was quite the experience and has made me an even better Fire Emblem player. Join me today as I take on the final map of Golden Deer in the FINALE of my Maddening Mode run!! My hardest experience and greatest challenge with Fire Emblem thus far!! Ending it with a grand finale to remember.... Let's do this!! Live right now!!

Note that this topic is not about whether or not Fates should have had a turnwheel-like mechanic, nor if MyCastle should return. This discussion is simply about if a future Fire Emblem game has MyCastle-like building mechanics, whether or not you think the turnwheel should be integrated into it. As generally well-received as the turnwheel and divine pulse mechanics have been in Shadows of Valentia and Three Houses respectfully, two common criticisms I have seen towards being able to rewind to an earlier parts of a battle is the the player is given a few too many uses to do so, which can allow for some reckless strategies. The other critique I've seen is that despite being easy to ignore, there is no official way to turn it off if the player wishes to do a full-fledged Ironman run. When playing through Conquest for the first time, there were a number of moments where I wished the game had a turnwheel-like mechanic (albeit one HEAVILY toned down when compared to Echoes and Three Houses, as I feel that having more than 5 or 7 uses and being able to go back to the very first turn would reduce quite a lot of the well-constructed challenge the game has), largely whenever I encountered typical Fire Emblem bullcrap (I.E. enemies critting with single digit crit rates, or someone missing a 90% chance to hit leads to a units death via the butterfly effect, and so on) or when I found out the hard way that a mechanic/gimmick/skill/weapon/etc. did X when I was expecting it to do Y. I especially would have liked such a mechanic near the end of the game, where levels could often take an hour or two to complete, and having a unit die in the last stretch could be extremely frustrating. While it's a mechanic I'm okay with not appearing in every game, I did enjoy MyCastle. Even if I have a few reservations towards the handling of certain buildings, I liked how the player had to prioritize what facilities to buy and upgrade. After some thought, I believe that making the turnwheel/Divine Pulse a building that the player could buy and eventually upgrade would be the better alternative than simply handing it to them early on in the story. This way, the player would have to decide whether they prioritize being able to rewind in battle over obtaining something like the armory or mess hall first, or if they'll risk a unit dying permanently (or having to reset the level) to equip their army with more well rounded weaponry and items. Since being able to upgrade buildings only appears after the player is a certain distance into the game, this would also prevent having to many opportunities to turn back time early on. It would be in the players hands rather than the games for how much utility they would get out of the turnwheel/Divine Pulse mechanic, and add to the already interesting conundrum of what faculties the player wishes to gain first.