i have never been a huge of turn-based strategy game with childish graphics. And the first images of the game were not very promising…I decided to give try Fire Emblem, the latest and 3rd game after Miitomo and Super Mario Run released by Nintendo and available for free on IOS and Android since February 2nd.
I don’t regret trying it. Yes, graphics are for a 8 years old but Fire Emblem Heroes is quite fast paced and I do feel the action, especially when my preferred Hero (at the moment) Tiki transforms into a dragon and kills in one attack! And I’m quite pissed of when this useless Commander Anna dies in 2 minutes.. Fun and frustration, perfect elements to make you addicted to a game.
To give you some context, the story takes place in a imaginary medevial fantastic world in which two nations from the continent Zenith are at war: Askr kingdom and the Empire of Embla, whose Princess, Veronica, wants to extend its domination. You will control 2 main characters, Alphonse and Sharena, prince and princess of Askr whose objective is to stop Veronica. In addition, you will have the possibility to control other heroes from previous Fire Emblem episodes.
GAMEPLAY
From what I read, Fire Emblem Heroes is somewhat similar to the previous episodes of the saga (minus few necessary changes according to the developers). It is a turn-based strategy game where 2 teams of maximum 4 heroes fight each other. I understood the previous episode were quite tactical, I haven’t Heroes was really tactical, but more casual with some tactics.
Your team is composed of different types of heroes (archer, warriors, mage,…) Who have their own skills and weaknesses as well as their own way to move and attack on the map. Then, the game rely on a strength triangle, whereby blue is stronger than red, stronger than green, stronger than blue. With that in mind you need to compose your strategy to get ride of the invaders.
You can create various team combinations to be ready for various encounters. For you can have a team focus on long range attacks with bow and mages. You can have a focus on red, green, blue,…Then if you need more heroes, you can summon them or have them join the Order of Heroes by playing special missions.
Like in all RPGs on IOS and Android, you can edit your team to combine different skills and improve your heroes, by increasing their stats and learning new special attacks.To increase your heroes stats, you need to fight in missions and for each character you defeat you received points that are aleatory associated tons category: defense, attack, speed,…You can also merge similar heroes you collected to combine their stats or use crystals to quickly increase their levels.
Game mode
There are different types of missions, such as Story map, Special map, PVP (the arena duel), and one of the best ways to get quick XP, Training Tower.
Story maps: this is main story, divided in chapters. Princess Veronica is trying to invade Askr with her army of Heroes. You are the great summoner of the Order of Heroes and your job is to stop her. Each mission you play cost stamina ( which refills quite quickly) and you earns Orbs for each victory. Orbs are used to summon new heroes or to revive your team when you lose a mission, so you don’t lose any XP you would have gained.
Special maps: This is an extra mode that let you take part in other missions not related to the main story. In this mode, you will for instance rescue heroes, etc.. and have them to join your team. This is a great way to build your team.
Arena Duel: this is the PVP mode in Fire Emblem Heroes. You play versus other player’s Team controlled by AI. You can select between Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced opponents. The Dual Arena propose Season that last 1 week, and at the end of the Season, player that have ranked higher will receive a reward
Training Tower
Training tower is a great more to boost your heroes XP and level. Compose different team and quickly build their stats.
Conclusion
Fire Emblem Heroes is a pleasant Casual RPG on IOS and Android. Even though it is a free to play, I haven’t felt the need to spend any dollars to speed up my progression, which is great, even tough some time I would have really loved to get more Orbs to purchase Heroes and merge them to increase my Heroes stats. So if you are a massive mobile gamer, you might get tempted to spend some cash, especially in the Arena as with my current Heroes level, which I thought was quite good, I got beaten up quite bad… And I believe this is the issue for Free to play games: you can progress slowly in the story mode, but when it comes to PVP, there will always be players that will spend more than you in the game and if you encounter those guys, you might get beaten up like me!
You can download Fire Emblem Heroes for free on IOS and Android
Here you can have a look at some video gameplay of Fire Emblem Heroes
What do we think about Fire Emblem Heroes
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Gameplay - 6/106/10
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Graphics - 6/106/10
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Sounds - 6/106/10
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Story - 6/106/10
Summary
Fire Emblem Heroes is a fun RPG but not the massive hit we were expecting. You will have fun playing but it become quite repetitive. Graphics an d sounds are not crazy but the minimum we would ask for this kind of game. I would recommend to try but you won’t be missing out too much if you don’t.
