Fire Emblem Heroes

The graphics look amazing on Retina screens, the artwork for characters and battle sprites is well-done, the music and voice acting is incredible, and the controls for combat feel much more intuitive on touch screens. The game is also pretty generous with giving you the premium currency at a steady pace, but you can also purchase more if need be. The story is fairly captivating and there are plenty of other modes to keep you busy for a while, and overall the game is great for both newbies and veterans alike.

Fire Emblem Heroes is a streamlined experience that is made for mobile and it doesn't shy away from that fact. It’s the closest thing Fire Emblem has to a bite-sized experience. Don't expect a lot of depth or difficulty from Heroes, but they did make some fine compromises. It helps that it plays wonderfully on a smart device and that the amount of content here is impressive. With 45 main missions (and counting) and a host of other features, they want to continue welcoming people with open arms. The story is really the biggest bummer of the experience. It was a neat idea to bring the Fire Emblem worlds together, but they never really embrace it. That is strange, considering they gave all the characters voices and unique art. The characters still drive forward what this is free-to-play mobile game is all about, and that is gameplay.

This is Nintendo’s best mobile effort yet.

A free-to-play game ideal for quick matches. The simplified gameplay makes it even more accessible for new fans to try and get into the series.

If you're expecting to find a proper Fire Emblem you're going to be disappointed, but if you think of this as a free-to-play spin-off, it deserves a try.

Solid beginner game, but perhaps too casual. [Issue#105, p.85]

Fire Emblem Heroes is a watered down version of the traditional Fire Emblem experience. While it’s completely possible to enjoy the game without spending a single cent, it’s designed with the pay to win model in mind so that spending cash will ensure a quick and fast route to victory. Coupled with the extremely aggravating and excessive stamina system, those trying to play the game for free will encounter numerous roadblocks and turnoffs. If you’ve never tried Fire Emblem before, this is a quick and easy introduction, but if any of its concepts appeal to you, you’re better off abandoning Heroes and jumping into any of the other great entries in the series.

I'm in crippling debt. It's a Gacha that fleshes out the characters you already love with so much more. Plus the OC's go hard.

Fire Emblem Heroes is a game that I had been playing pretty regularly since it's launch around 7-8 years ago and I think it's one of the only gachas worth playing, but it's become harder to play in recent years. The gameplay is very true to Fire Emblem and I think they did a good job translating the gameplay of the franchise to a mobile platform. There are a couple aspects that may trip up fans of the series like no hit chances (everything has a 100% chance to hit) and triggerable specials instead of critical hits (to oldhead fans of the franchise, the ABC skills that are reminiscent of the types of skills you'd find in the 3DS era and beyond might trip them up as well). They have plenty of characters from across the whole franchise available at the point, so there's a solid chance at least some of your favorite characters will be available, and the art and voice acting for these characters are also very well done. It's also got plenty of events that it cycles through to keep the day (though it is starting to get to a point that some event types are nigh on abandoned because they have so many event types and they prioritize certain event types like Voting Gauntlet, Hall of Forms, and Heroes Journey, leaving the non-prioritized events on the shelf collecting dust). They also keep making additions that are nice quality of life changes, like items that can change your boons and banes, stat buffing items, allowing characters to inherit more skills at a time, etc. Like a lot of F2P games, they do have a buyable Pass that gives certain perks, but not having it is not a huge detriment and it's most of the time more for certain conveniences rather than giving certain players unfair advantages. From what I've heard from more regular gacha game players (to clarify, I do not usually play gachas and a lot of the others I've tried just didn't do it for me), the gacha system in this game is a lot more forgiving compared to most other gachas, so getting the rare 5 star exclusive character, while still left to chance, is not quite as much of a struggle on average as it is in other gachas. A couple years ago I probably would've given this game an 8 or maybe even 9, but there's one major aspect that has been plaguing this game as of recent years: powercreep. Now I've heard people whine and complain about powercreep since the game came out, and for the longest time I felt like it was overexaggeration. But nowadays the powercreep is very much real. Weapons and skills now have lists of effects that would put even the most wordy of Yu-Gi-Oh cards to shame, making it hard to keep up in your head what exactly are all of the effects you can activate. Also, now it's getting to the point where new units you may've picked up will become completely outclassed in a couple of months. If your using units more than a couple years old, trying to fight the new units coming out becomes nigh impossible unless you've pumped them with the most OP skills and arcane weapons, and even then it's still questionable whether you win the matchup. I tended to play beginner or intermediate Arena, so it wasn't a problem for me most of the time (though sometimes I would still come across a stray OP unit that could sometimes mess up my whole team), but when the new story chapters come out, I have to use whoever my most new units are to even stand a chance to even beat the highest difficulty (I can't imagine what the people who play high tier advanced arena have to deal with). I get that they do this to further incentivize people to pull on the newer banners, but it can be frustrating if you don't particularly care for that banner but then your newest units you picked up a couple months ago can hardly stand up to the newest units on the block. Plus certain annoying mechanics like true damage, true damage reduction (this one especially), veins, and self buffs in the high 20s-low 40s for most of their stats become aggravating to deal with. It's making the game a lot harder to enjoy for me personally. Also, if you don't have at least a good hour a day (if not more) to dedicate to this game, I probably wouldn't get into it. From having to juggle the plethora of events, Aether Raids, Arena, possible new story chapters if released, training any new units you may get, etc., it takes a long time on most days just to finish your daily activities. I personally have gone on hiatus on the game recently because I just don't have the time for it anymore. One other complaint I have is that they're adding so many unit types that it's hard to keep up with. Legendary/Mythics and Duos were acceptable enough, but then you have Harmonic, Ascended, Rearmed, Attuned, etc. Trying to keep up with what all these different hero types do is becoming a hassle (plus it doesn't help that most of these types can't be summoned unless they are a banner focus). As a whole though, I do find it to be a fun game if you're able to look beyond the powercreep andhave the time to put into it.

The game is very interesting, i liked the voice acting, how much characters are on it, is pretty addictive. The game can be kinda pay to win, you have to buy new summons or something like that, is a gacha formula, the problem is the game keep with this formula like, very seriously and can be a trouble of addiction, the game is neat but has some troubles, and can be repetitive sometimes, the story is decent at least.

Terrible gacha game that ruined Fire Emblem forever. If we let aside the minimalistic yet overcomplicated battle system, the ugly fanservice, the stupidest story ever written, the most basic and useless characters and the way the game tricks you into buying stuff, what do we have left? Nothing but an empty shell developers care more about than mainline game.

F*cking gachas. To think that this kind of game earns millions of dollars...