Naturally, since Fire Emblem is my favorite video game series it doesn’t take too much to figure out what my favorite online convention is. Emblemcon is an event that I’ve participated in to some degree since its inception, but as some of you have seen I haven’t reviewed it in the past couple of years. This is because I find digital events to be much harder to review than physical ones, but in that time I’ve really developed my skills more and I think I can really go another year reviewing this event again and really doing it some justice.

First of all, Emblemcon sports a wide variety of Fire Emblem guests and what I really love about this event is you get to see guests that are either harder to find at in-person events or haven’t done appearances at them yet. For example Amber Connor the voice of Hortensia in Fire Emblem: Engage is an actress I’ve been a fan of for a while but haven’t had a chance to meet she had her own panel at this event and it was a lot of fun to tune in on Twitch and watch the whole thing. Another person on the list I hyperlinked, is Beau Bridgland, the voice of Kent in Fire Emblem: Heroes also had a phenomenal panel at the event.

While you don’t get the same in-person autograph experience that you do at in-person events many of the actors involved, and even many who weren’t, offered an online sale for autographed prints so it was still a nice weekend to get an autograph. While you can’t do massive collections on one item this way on the plus side you also don’t have to deal with incredible lines and the amount of time standing and waiting for your turn. It’s honestly nice to be able to just make a purchase and continue on with the rest of the convention experience. I’ve got a print from Rachelle Heger, the voice of Celine in Fire Emblem: Engage, on the way at some point.

The panels are also a lot of fun. They are your typical Q&A panels with the guests with some fan ran panels mixed in. The biggest thing is the staff at this event had to get creative with panels since it’s all done over Twitch. It’s interesting to see how a lot of the Q&A panels functioned so similar to how actors will live stream when they go live so it was like having a bunch of unique live streams to choose from. The fan panels were interesting which included cosplay panels, live music, and even a Family Feud panel which I may or may not have provided one of the survey answers.

Now all of that is great and wonderful and worth all the attention in the world but one thing that is truly amazing about Emblemcon is the artists. I mean you have tons of talented artists each with several artworks of your favorite Fire Emblem characters for sale. In fact, in previous years I’ve grown fond of the works of several of these talented individuals which I’ve added to my wall of art sitting around me right now such as Burnt Green Tea, Cat Crossing Art, and a personal friend of mine Loading Crew Crafts. I spent more money on art at this event than any other because one it was catered to the franchise I love the most and two it was all just so good I actually wanted to buy more.

Overall with it being a digital event, Emblemcon is a harder event to review because how it’s executed isn’t near as much of a factor. You don’t have admission prices, crowd control, autograph schedules to work with as most things run on time and if they don’t it’s easy to fix as you’re in the comfort of your own home and you just wait for Twitch to notify you when the panel is going on. So while you loose the in person thrill you gain a lot of things that are convinent to your time and your budget. At least till you see the art then the budget goes out the window. Another great year has come and gone for this event and I will soon have even less wall space to work with. I’ll be sure to participate again next year.