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Fire Emblem Heroes is the Best Phone Game
By Anorak • 5 years ago

Fire Emblem Heroes is celebrating its two-year anniversary since it fully released on February 2nd, 2017. I have been playing it since a bit after that and I want to say, after two years, this game still stands out as the best mobile game I have ever had on my phone.

The game is developed by Intelligent Systems, the Nintendo first party team that made the previous entries in the series. It was announced with the Animal crossing mobile game in April of 2016. Now the title is up to version 3.1.0 and even with a rocky start it has risen to be Nintendo's most profitable app, as well as the game I play more than any other.


It really is a great mobile game. Main line entries are absolutely going to have more in them, but this game does a very good job adapting it to mobile. The director of Heroes, Shingo Matsushita, compared a normal Fire Emblem game to a movie, and Heroes to a television series; “there would be a constant demand for new ‘episodes’, but there would also be a feedback loop between the producers and the players that could affect the initial vision of the product.”

 


The gameplay

In typical Fire Emblem style, the app is a top down turn-based strategy game based around finding and training new combat units to clear successively harder missions. Enemies start low level, just as starting units do, with limited skills and minimum stats. Most missions are just straight forward “Defeat all enemies” while some may entail holding out or fighting against waves or reinforcements in a set number of turns.

As you progress, your units level up, gaining powerful abilities and overall higher stats to contend against similarly strong enemies.

Units are acquired through “summoning” which uses the in-game currency of “orbs”. Each regular story mission awards one orb and a new unit costs five. Each day one logs in also (usually) rewards at least two orbs. It incentivizes regular play as well as bulk play to build a good team to get through some of the more complicated missions.

There is even a ranked mode where you can fight the teams of other players.

 

What makes it different?

There is a constant stream of changes and updates that add new systems, units, and story chapters. Each major version change has added a full story with characters unique to Heroes. New versions of classic Fire Emblem characters come out a lot as well.

The gameplay is very conducive to the mobile platform (It has been a handheld game for most of the series) so having the ability to stop in the middle of a mission to get off the train or something is a big win for me. Titles like Hearthstone are fun to play but suffer from matches being impossible to pause and come back to. Heroes is a great mobile fit.


Money, Money, Money…

The game offers microtransactions in the form of purchasing orbs for real money. Those orbs are mainly for summons but can also be used to upgrade your castle (A cosmetic item that increases EXP gain) or refresh stamina.

The microtransactions are always a big issue in the mobile market with so many games using the dreaded stamina system to limit how much you can play. This game even uses the gatcha system of chance to acquire units, with the best units being hardest to get and the pity rate increasing as you don’t get a good unit.

Both are usually the kind of “features” I hate about mobile games, but Heroes has added a lot that makes paying money not something you need to do. Every log in awards the stamina refresh item to a point where I have a stockpile I never use. Orbs are handed out often and are very easy to acquire making buying them almost worthless.


 


The takeaway?

If you want a fun and well-made mobile game to play, get this game. If you want something casual to kill time on your phone, get this game. This article is on an anime focused platform, so I already know you have some interest in the artistic style of this thing.

In the insanely saturated mobile market it is nice to have a well-crafted time killer there when I want it.


Have you played FEH before? Love it and still play? Hate it and stopped? Talk about it in the comments!