I feel like over the course of the last year I’ve been getting a lot more active readers to my website. First I want to say thank you because it is always appreciated, but more than that I think it helps to remind my readers that I am first and foremost a Fire Emblem fan. It’s my all time favorite franchise and so naturally an online event celebrating all things Fire Emblem gets my attention. This is the sixth year of the event and it’s consistently delivered on a lot of amazing things so I went into this year equally excited and the results were interesting.

Starting off with the vendors there was a fun mix of new artists, but for the most part it felt like it was the same as last year. Which of course isn’t a problem as it includes some favorites like Burntgreentea, Mistiousstar and more. As you can expect I made sure to buy some of their merch as it’s started to become a yearly tradition for me. I bought a few more Fire Emblem: Engage rings from Gizmoforge, a Dimitri play mat from Bards Cipher Central, because I’m a Blue Lion at heart, and a lot more. I had a great amount of success spending a lot of money, but what I was hoping was to spend that money on something that took me by surprise and honestly my experience yielded less of that this year. Part of that is where I go every year and splurge I’m naturally going to hit a wall when it comes to merch. So while I’m not upset by it as I just ended up buying amazing stuff that I couldn’t budget for last year with a few new to me vendors. I also can’t help but wonder if I should take this into consideration for my budget for next year’s event.

I also think that where the number of artists feels like it’s on the rise the system of primarily using discord as a means to get the fans to the artists might not be enough anymore. Right now each vendor has a discord channel dedicated to them. Some vendors will have a dedicated side area for conversation but there were many that didn’t and it left a lot of scrolling to get to their merch. Oftentimes because of going back and forth I ended up seeing the same merch several times just struggling to remember who was selling what. It especially made participating in stamp events the vendors were coordinating to do when buying at select vendors challenging. Given that it’s all online you don’t really have an issue of time so it’s still very manageable I just wish it was more efficient. For example the Emblemcon website does a great job hyperlinking the socials of the artists participating but I think if they were to hyperlink the stores instead. Or making it mandatory to make a side channel for chatter and helping to reduce the clutter.

Moving onto the guests as always I’m usually happy with this as it’s all Fire Emblem voice actors. So it included amazing people like Sarah Blandy, Rachelle Heger, Kiba Walker and many more. An impressive roster of incredible actors but noticeably smaller than the one we got in 2024. Roughly 50% of the size of last years list. Nothing bad by any means but it did mean we got fewer actor panels and the difference was noticeable. With that being said the panels featuring the guests were as amazing as they have always been and it’s always welcomed to get to see actors, especially those that don’t do all that many in person events.

The panels outside the guests were fun too. Featuring a fun mixture of new and returning panels including video game playthroughs, cosplay Q&A panels, Fire Emblem Feud, and more. In all honesty this was the part of the convention that I spent the least amount of time with as a lot of the panels I wanted to see the most conflicted with my personal schedule but from what I did see it was very entertaining.

So what I want to stress is Emblemcon 2025 was an incredibly fun event. The thing is the reason for it being fun was for the same reasons it was great in 2024. That’s not a bad thing as this is a formula that works and will continue to entertain especially with it being an online format. The real thing to take note is where we’re seeing a lot of the same artists, guests but in fewer number, and panels I have to ask a question that I do not want to ask. Has Emblemcon peaked? I think at the very least Emblemcon has reached the pinnacle of what it can offer with the format it’s currently using and I think if we are to see it rise to new heights it is at a point where innovation is needed.

Where Emblemcon is a free online event there’s not really any need for the convention to innovate to be successful. As long as Fire Emblem has fans this will always be an incredibly fun event to find merch and see actors. I am confident that every year my wallet will find a way to lose weight by the time the event ends. If the goal is simply to be fun and entertaining Emblemcon is perfectly fine as is as I absolutely love it. If the goal is to grow and consistently be the chatter of social networks everywhere then this year is a clear sign that now is the time to change to reach the next level for Emblemcon. So that’s my thought process going into next years event. Will they settle for an already fun event that will continue to be fun if not a bit predictable? Or will they push the envelop further and reach a new class of online event? I’m excited to find out.