Fire Emblem Heroes Review

I wasn’t sure how Nintendo was going to pull off a mobile Fire Emblem game. There was no way Nintendo was going to release a game with the scale of Fates or Awakening. At the same time, I was hoping it wouldn’t end up being some trading card game or puzzle game. What have Nintendo and Intelligent Systems given us to chew on?

Fire Emblem Heroes takes familiar characters from multiple games in the series and puts them into your personal army. The gameplay is classic Fire Emblem, but stripped down to allow for quick battles. Skirmishes are typically four versus four encounters against AI on a vertical battlefield.

Acquiring heroes centers around drawing (called “summoning” in Heroes) characters based on percentages and by using orbs. You earn orbs through story missions and objectives or through daily login bonuses. Percentages for drawing specific heroes, especially ones with a five star rating, are ridiculously low but increase with each failed draw. Heroes have a star rating, from one to five, which decides their power in combat and ability to learn certain skills. You start out with a few heroes at your disposal, which you gain through the tutorial and opening missions. After you complete that, there are 5 battle game modes to test your heroes’ abilities. So far, only four of them are available: story maps, training tower, special maps, and arena duels.

Gameplay in Heroes plays out like it does in other Fire Emblem games. Each side takes a turn moving their units and killing the other side. Some of the maps may have special conditions for victory, such as keeping all of your heroes alive, but most just require wiping out the other side. The game uses a rock, paper, scissors attack triangle to determine effectiveness of attacks against other heroes.

Heroes level up through experience gained through encounters with enemies. They obtain valuable stat points with each level and unlock new skills which you can equip later. “Realize potential” is used to take a unit back to level one, but increase their star rating by one. This takes crests and a ridiculous amount of feathers, items you obtain through various objectives.

So that’s how Fire Emblem Heroes works, but is the game any fun? How does it fare against a game like Awakening for Nintendo 3DS? First off, you shouldn’t compare Heroes with any main entry in the series because they each serve their own purpose. Heroes is Fire Emblem in small bites and with a less sophisticated flavor. That’s fine! The game is incredibly fun to play and satisfies my thirst for the series on mobile devices. My biggest gripes are the low percentages for drawing special heroes and the high number of crafting materials you need for realizing potential.

I found myself enjoying this game more than any of Nintendo’s other mobile games. It’s a fresh take on the series and great for brief strategic encounters. It’s free, so go and grab it on either Android or iOS. Now it’s time to get back to leveling my five star Lucina.