Fire Emblem: Heroes Review – A Worthwhile Experience

Fire Emblem: Heroes Review: There is depth to this version of Fire Emblem but don't expect it to be as deep as the 3DS versions.

Fire Emblem series has seen its ups and downs over the years but the franchise has always been the apple of Nintendo’s eye or should we say, one of the apples. Nintendo is slowly making its way into smartphones market and so far it has defied expectations.

Pokemon Go was a massive hit for both Nintendo and The Pokemon Company. Nintendo saw the opportunity and potential of this market and decided to bring more of its games to the platform.

One of the biggest Nintendo IPs to release on smartphones is Super Mario Run. Again, a hugely successful outing for Mario on smartphone and Nintendo couldn’t be happier. This has surely led to a confidence boost and more major IPs will come to smartphones in the future.

Among such massive names, a rather less popular IP also saw an outing on smartphones recently, Fire Emblem. Dubbed as Fire Emblem: Heroes, Nintendo has brought us a free to play title with microtransactions. Something that could be a reaction to community feedback over Super Mario Run.

Fire Emblem Heroes is a free to play action role-playing game out now on iOS and Android.

Fire Emblem: Heroes Review

Fire Emblem: Heroes gives a nudge to the entire history of this franchise as the player is able to unlock classic characters who are from hundreds of years ago.

Although it doesn’t really make any sense, story wise, to bring these characters but for those familiar with the series, this element will have the “catch em all” factor; hence, increasing the value of the game in question.

Once you boot the game, you will have access to low-level heroes as well as some orbs. Orbs are used to summon heroes and it should be noted that most of the time summoned heroes are far better than the ones you unlock. Orbs are hard to come by in the game but you get a few ones in the beginning.

Since there are microtransactions, you can pay for orbs which are usually 66 cents per orb.

The gacha is your primary source of getting the heroes you desire. It is basically an in-game machine that allows you to have the hero you want by paying it orbs. So of course, you need orbs to get the best out of the machine. Each hero has a different orb requirement for summoning.

You will get a go at the machine for 5 orbs, keep in mind that there is no guarantee that you will get the hero you want on your first attempt. It is like the slot machine so keep putting in your orbs to get more tries.

There is randomness involved with this system so you may not get the desired result. As always, spending money is the best way to go but there are ways to exploit the system and get more orbs, feathers etc.

The most you spend on the gacha machine the more you save. For example, spending 1 orb will get 5 tries but they may not be as effective as the 3 tries you get for 5 orbs.

There is also a star rating in placed which lets you know how powerful a character will become once you level up. Four star and five-star heroes are rare but spending more orbs on the gacha may land you one.

Once you finally jump into battle, you will realize the battle system has been simplifiedied with the map being just a 8 x 6 rectangle and armies of only four units per side. Heroes have a rock, paper, scissors style relationship and many of the issues and complications of the 3DS games have been toned down or removed completely.

A major change is that there is no-perma-death so if you make mistakes early on in the game, which you will, you beloved hero will not be punished for it. Each character is unique and comes with its own skill-set and special move that takes time to charge.

Anyone who played 3DS games will see there is  depth of this version of Fire Emblem but don’t expect it to be as deep as the 3DS versions.

Sarmad is our Senior Editor, and is also one of the more refined and cultured among us. He's 25, a finance major, and having the time of his life writing about videogames.