*Updated 05 Feb as Nintendo dropped a lot of newness to the game days after the initial review.
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OVERVIEW
This game has been out for a while. As of February 2nd, four years to be exact. Nintendo brought one of their larger IPs to mobile many moons ago, so let's dig into what this game's about, and how it still fares four years later. If you aren't familiar with the Fire Emblem franchise, this may be a good starting point for you as well. Nintendo has games across all generations of their systems, and no, you don't need to start from the first as each game tells its own story with all new characters.
STORY & GAMEPLAY
Fire Emblem Heroes actually does have its own unique storyline, not ripped from any other game in the franchise. It's divided into different books with each chapter in the book being levels to go through with the characters you've assembled. Fire Emblem games all have their own unique stories, but this one in particular had to come up with a story that would allow all characters from all Fire Emblem games ever created to partake in. This is where summoning characters comes in, as you pull them from their timelines to help you out.
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In the first book the antagonist is Veronica, Emblian Empire ruler trying to take control of all worlds and take over the opposing Askran Kingdom and its Order of Heroes standing in the way. You are Askran's Summoner, gathering these heroes to oppose alongside the likes of Anna, Sharena, and Alfonse. These three are your beginners guide to assisting you throughout your battles. (Don't rely on them as its impossible to upgrade these units since you can NOT summon them) As previously mentioned, there are multiple books, each with a different continuing storyline and set of characters. Lets move along here though, as the story is more of a trivial aspect of this game, the events and numerous activities are where you'll spend most of your time at.
Gameplay-wise Feh (Fire Emblem Heroes) is all about summoning, training characters, and taking on events. This is a gacha' game, and that does mean it'll want you to get the best characters even though at this point, there's quite a lot of them, 621 currently. Newer players will likely love that, older players, like myself won't as much. Experienced players will mostly care about what's new and what's the best. There's plenty here for both old and new, but not all characters are created equally, but the game does do a good job of allowing you to change that.
All characters can be changed in their skills via inheriting them from other characters. This makes any character you prefer viable if done well, as slapping the "best" skills won't necessarily build a character up well, but putting thought and planning out what strengths a character has, what their weaknesses are, how to address those or make characters set up for certain events only, all up to you. This is one great part that wasn't in the game at launch. It really changed it, as certain characters were unequivocally the best, and now that's not the case. I will say though, that certain characters are indeed way better from the start without needing much change, if at all. A lot to take in, but you'll learn as you progress, there's also a handful of websites and blogs that do go into great detail those exact things. No freebie promotions here!
Get ready to train, train, train. Every character you want to be good, you'll have to train them up to level 40. Then to be really good, push them to "50" or as the game will display 40 plus 10 through merging them with identical copy characters. Then also utilize "Dragonflowers" to increase stats even more so. Sadly this is the way to being elite in this game but is by no means a deal breaker as a vast majority of people won't/can't do that. The players that do the best have summoned so many copies of the characters they max this out. Quite frankly, just getting a single copy of a character is already hard when most banners place a 3% chance at acquiring a particular one. It's likely even less than that as a summon will be a randomly picked assortment of five total orbs with any varying amount of 4 colored orbs, characters being assigned a type of either red, blue, green, or colorless. If you want a red Byleth and don't get a red orb to appear, you just wasted 5 Summon Orbs (currency). This can be both grueling and fantastic if say all five orbs show up as red, increasing your chance to pull that character. This goes even deeper for chaining summons via only selecting (insert color) orbs each time you go to summon, also if you fail to summon a 5 star unit, the percentage rates increase by 0.25% after 5 units or a full summon have elapsed.
Like I said, there's a lot of technical mumbo jumbo for summoning, both good and bad. Didn't mention banners and how some are designed to be terrible, these are generally labeled "Focus" banners that have the lowest rates of 3% and aren't worth your money when there are banners that will have anywhere from 4% to 8% drop rates. "Legend" banners feature roughly 12 units and have 8%, typically having all excellent units out of the gate. Sadly new banners with the newest units are typically at 3%, bringing lots of pain, misery, and wasted money. Gacha' in its purest form.
That was a lot of talk for summoning, but it's the focal point of the game. Get the characters you want, and there's a lot. So what do you do with them? Events, Coliseum, Special Maps, and Aether Keeps. Lots of different things to do, I won't get too into detail on these, as these have all been in place since the beginning more or less. I'd argue "Events" feature the most unique collection of things to do, so we'll begin there.
Events feature a variety of time limited, well..., events. Each one being limited to a set amount of days you can attempt it, with new rewards given every time it reappears, which is monthly for most. Lets discuss some of them, there's a lot, and its all roughly do "X" event to get rewards for summoning or upgrading units.
The "Voting Gauntlet" (pictured right) allows you to take any single unit, and pair up with 2 random people or friends (controlled by AI) and go up against other teams for a hero of your choosing you want to support. This essentially is one big popularity contest, and typically ends up being guys vs girls on who wins. Usually the "sexiest" female with the most notoriety wins (a la Byleth, Edelgard, Lyn, etc.) as more males likely play this game compared to females. My theory is somehow bots come into play because I've witnessed some epic victories of millions of votes being needed hours before it ends, only to see the runner up win last minute.
"Hall of Forms" is like a training tower with four heroes provided to level up, each level gets progressively more difficult. This can be super nice as the heroes you level, you can keep if you spend $30 on the "Forma Soul Pack" to acquire one of them. May be a bit pricey, but they keep all skills you give them (minus the dupes if you merge). Wish this gave you all four units instead of just one of them.
"Tempest Trials" is akin to a rewards tower. Play it over and over again to get more and more items, which includes two copies of a brand new unit exclusive to the event, which I highly recommend as these new units are typically pretty neat and good to use. It's a free way to a 5 star unit. It does get old fast doing the exact same levels against the same enemies over and over, but the rewards make it worth while.
"Tap Battle" is an instance of trying something new, and having it be a complete let down. This is a very different event as it's more like a mini game than anything else in the game. You have your current team attack by simply tapping the screen when an enemy gets close to your unit. Numerous enemies will traverse as your stationary allies stand there. You will get tapped out playing this over and over. There's nothing else to it. Tap away. The rewards aren't very good either, more of a mindless lets get this over with to be done with it. This could be so much better if they revamp it. Sadly, it seems more like an old relic they don't care to change. There's several other events as well, most consist of taking one of your teams and fighting other units, you get the picture.
CONTROLS & PERFORMANCE
Gameplay-wise, this game is sort of a simplified Fire Emblem in the fact that those games are usually a turn based strategy game. That's still the case but it's toned down as the maps are much smaller and all units move only 1-3 spaces at a time (depending on unit). This game is more like small sized chess with customizable pieces than full fledged Fire Emblem.
In all my years playing, I've never experienced any performance issues, crashing, down for maintenance or anything related in bugs. This is prime Nintendo magic at its best.
4 Years In...
How are we still doing four years later? Overall I'd say still chugging along. I haven't witnessed vast change, but subtle things over the years. One of the bigger changes was in the quality of art and effectiveness of the units themselves. The whole reason "Resplendent Heroes" is a thing, is to fix old art and character skills. Mostly this has been pretty sweet for an addition, just unfortunate it's behind the Feh Pass paywall or an additional purchase of $4.99 per character. Makes sense it's DLC essentially, just don't love how they went about it and the cost for a cosmetic change still seems high at $5.
I mentioned the "Feh Pass" and that's a newer paid subscription feature that was added right around the 3 year anniversary. Up front it costs $9.49 per month. Featuring additional features that really should have been put into the base game. This made a lot of the userbase upset as features such as restarting a turn, Auto-Start for autoplaying maps repeatedly controlled by AI so you don't have to pay attention, additional summoner support slots, etc., all should have been without paying for. The costume changes I get, that's standard for a lot of games to pay for cosmetic changes and receiving a free copy of said character.
Gleaming over the 4 Year Anniversary news (video below + Update) does vaguely mention new things to come without really getting too specific. If you're satisfied with what's currently existing to their present catalog of things to do and consistent new units, you'll be right at home. If that's not the case and the game is dying out for you, doesn't appear to hold much new for you.
*Update 05 Feb
Nintendo added a handful of things during the anniversary that are new. You, the summoner, are now a playable and customizable character in the game, albeit playable only in the Mjölnir's Strike event at this time.
(to find the new tab in game click Allies > Interact with Allies > My Summoner).
This is free and fully customizable. The skills are entirely picked by you in every category except for your attack. Which is a predetermined attack that seems to be really good:
Dire Breidablik, "Grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 to allies within 2 spaces during combat. Inflicts Atk/Spd/Def/Res-4 on foes within 2 spaces during combat."
Tempest Trials also features a load of summon tickets for two different banners. This is a great way to get free units and while you grind this event, a new Veronica is also available for free that will be given to you taking on this event.
If you spend money on the game, instead of the usual rate of one dollar per point in the Google Play Store, you'll acquire 4 points per dollar as a bonus during this event. This won't matter to free-to-play players of course.
A live event video from Nintendo will also be available to watch to celebrate Fire Emblem's 30th Anniversary featuring numerous voice actors across the history of all Fire Emblem games. Check out the teaser on YouTube below.
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AUDIO
The soothing melodies from across the Fire Emblem universe reside here. The great thing Nintendo did was to bring in music across all generations, and allow you to put the music of your choosing where you want it. If your favorite game is Fire Emblem: Three Houses, there's music directly pulled from that game and put in here. Set the school castle hub audio as your FEH hub audio. This game also has its own unique music if that's more than enough for you as well.
All characters do have audio dialogue as well. Most of them match up to the voice actors you know. This is a nice touch, there is a lot of units, making a lot of dialogue to be present. Definitely appreciate the commitment to details Nintendo brought. It's everything you know and love, no improvements needed anywhere in the Audio department.
SUMMARY
Fire Emblem Heroes may be Fire Emblem lite. A simplified iteration, but filled with many different events to utilize the vast array of units in the game. It's truly great to see units picked from all games in the franchise and see a lot of the ones I never knew. This also helps make me want to play other games in the franchise as a bonus, as I'm getting to know the characters before trying out the game. As for Feh, it has almost any character you could want in it from all time periods, lots of things to do in it. It does get somewhat repetitive over time. Nintendo has continued to support this game and add things to it sporadically, hopefully they will continue to do so and expand upon an already great gacha' game.
If you love anything Fire Emblem you should love this game, and if Fire Emblem is new to you, this may be a great gateway into the franchise.
SCORE
9.0 out of 10.0
▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▣▢
+ Fantastic assortment of characters, animations pop and are fun, character
customization
+ Large amount of content to do, with hopefully more to come
+ Nostalgic music and audio that are inclusive of all games in the franchise
○ Summoning characters can be exciting, but being a gacha' game, makes it trickier for specific ones
- Small percentage rates to obtain characters designed to get you to spend money to get them
- Events mostly feel repetitive, could use some more unique ideas to branch out of the numerous Fire Emblem formula turn based tactics littered throughout doing a slight variation of the same thing over and over
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