Game: Fire Emblem Fates
Genre: Strategy RPG
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94CCxVMltQY
Follow these links to understand how I review games:
How my Scoring System works
The 3 Elements of a game
Overview
Fire Emblem Fates is a 3 part Strategy RPG developed by Intelligent Systems. It is split into 3 different games; Birthright, Conquest, and Revelations. The first two were released physically, while the third is a DLC Expansion available on the eShop. Birthright and Conquest can be bought for $40 each, while Revelations can be bought digitally for $20. However, if you have either Conquest or Birthright already, you can buy the opposite digitally for only $20!
Quick Disclaimer
While I know each game can technically be played individually without ever touching the others, I am reviewing them together as one full experience. It will become apparent why I am doing this throughout my review. That said, both Conquest and Birthright can be purchased and enjoyed without ever touching the other 2 games, as they are each full fledged games!
Content
Let's get the easier of the two sections out of the way first. To start off with, Fire Emblem Fates' art style is very fitting to the game. There's three levels of character designs; 2D Flat and semi-static images, full 3D models, and 2D sprites. I personally think the 3D models are fairly low quality. The animations feel very rigid and the models feel incredibly lifeless. On the other side of things, the 2D Images used in text based cutscenes are exceptional. You can really see the emotion in the characters. As for the 2D spires during actual missions? Well they serve their purpose well. You can tell characters apart by looking at this sprite and generic enemy characters are well defined by the sprites. You can easily tell their classes by a quick glance, and that's a good thing. The three dimensional art in this game (Ie.: Character models and environments) look fairly blurry, but everything else looks crisp and clean.
Now what about the music and sound? Well, it certainly hits its mark. There's a wide variety of musical choices, ranging from epic battle songs to ambient and peaceful melodies. The tunes are well placed, and I can't think of anything that just simply didn't fit. There are a few songs that actually gave me goosebumps, most notably Azura's Theme. That said, a good majority of the music was fairly forgettable. Don't get me wrong, it's a good OST, but I simply can't remember more than half of their melodies or themes. The sounds themselves are very good. Walking, swords clashing, and even text scrolling sounds, are well done. They aren't jarring and they fit well within the game, conveying a good sense of the world surrounding it.
Score : 31 : Good
While the 3D environments and character models feel a bit low on the quality scale, the rest of the graphics convey enough emotion and detail, thus outweighing the negative. As for the sound, it's well done. Everything fits and gives a strong sense of world building. Most songs aren't memorable, but that doesn't mean they aren't good!
Progression
The most prominent form of Progression is the story. Before we get into the story, however, I want to discuss leveling and characters. Between all 3 games, there are 47 playable characters, not including children, capturable characters, amiibo characters, and DLC characters. You get these characters as you progress throughout the game, and honestly, this is a big drawback. There is simply too many characters. This is a problem on two fronts. For starters, no matter which path you play, there is no feasible way to keep every single character at the same level and usable. There's simply not enough battles going on for this to happen, thus making a bunch of characters practically useless. This leads into the second problem; Lack of character. You see, each character has dialog options for the support system (will be explained in the Gameplay section) and this is a problem. The characters, while characterized, don't have any personality! Not a single one! Never will you feel attached to a character personally, and will usually draw ties purely because of battle prowess. For a game that touts being story-centric, I found the characters incredibly dull and flat. There was just nothing to them! Had there been less characters, I believe there would have been significantly more room to fully develop those characters.
As for difficulty, this game presents you with a load of customization options to suit your difficulty needs, which is very much appreciated. Even better is that there seems to be a very natural climb in difficulty over the course of each game. I never felt as though a specific point was unfair, but there were definitely later maps that were hard!
So, now on to the story. The whole theme of Fire Emblem Fates is a theme of choice. Do you go with your birth family (Birthright), your adoptive family (Conquest), or neither (Revelations)? And this is where the issues start. Because of the earlier sentiment of the characters being dull and flat, this will inevitably leak into the story. There's no motivation to side with anyone, as you'll simply not care. On top of that, the Conquest side is characterized as just straight up pure evil. It doesn't make sense when they are trying to make it an unbiased opinion, as why would anyone CHOOSE to be associated with these psychopaths? That aside, the 3 separate story-lines feel absolutely pointless. Everything you do in both Conquest and Birthright are made null and void in Revelations. It has been said in many interviews that Revelations is the true story, and both Conquest and Birthright set that story up. However, the parts in Birthright and Conquest that set up the story in Revelations, are featured in Revelations! Once I finished Revelations, I felt as though I wasted my time with Birthright and Conquest. Without spoiling anything, I truly feel as though they could have easily combined all 3 games into one. The stories weren't so vastly different that we needed the 3 re-tellings. In fact, Conquest and Birthright were simply the same story, but backwards, with a few differences.
In addition, the stories in all 3 were fairly weak. A lot of the plot wasn't really full fleshed out. It felt like motivations were rushed and unexplained. For example, without any spoilers, Azura's story in Conquest and Birthright simply makes no sense. Even with the knowledge gained in Revelations, I still question why a few things happened.
Score : 22 : Just OK
Overall, I enjoyed the ability to customize the difficulty of the game. It made it easy to play the game how you want, and the game was never frustratingly difficult. That said, the story was bland, the characters were flat, and it made absolutely no sense that we needed 3 separate games to understand the story.
Gameplay
Ok, so we talked about the background elements of a game (sound and graphics) that create a world, and we discussed how the game progresses as you play it. But how does it play? Well, pretty simply, it plays well. There's nothing overly wrong with this game, in terms of gameplay mechanics. In fact, it's just straight up average in terms of Strategy RPGs. There is one small problem I have with the gameplay and that is the map selection. Between the 3 games, there is enough of a variety in map locations and map objectives. However, I felt as though individually, each game stuck too close to similar objectives. Conquest had a lot of "Rout the enemy", while Birthright had a lot of "Seize". It was an interesting design choice and actually made later maps a fair bit stale. That said, there is a semi-unique feature in this game, and that is Supporting. There are two types of supporting in this game; Pairing Up, or Side-by-side. I'm unsure if there's an actual term for the latter, but what I'm calling it should work just as well. Basically, if 2 units are paired up, the secondary unit can block attacks for the primary. If the units are side-by-side, both units will attack, even if only 1 unit initiates, or is initiated upon. What's cool about this system is that it really opens up strategic options. You can either Pair Up for a stronger defense, or lay your units side-by-side for a stronger offense. However, the ranks themselves don't really add anything. On one hand, the higher support rank a pair has, the strong the buffs they get. On the other hand, outside of a small buff and children, there isn't much use to these ranks! As far as I know, it doesn't increase the chances of either support option working, as they function without any level of support.
Score : 32 : Good
The gameplay of this game isn't bad. There's nothing overly broken about it. However, I find the support system a bit tacked on. That said the gameplay itself is solid. It isn't exceptional in anyway, but it's definitely enjoyable.
Final Disclaimer
I know a few people out there may question the lack of children and re-classing in this review. While they are a part of the game, they are both fully optional and do not add anything to the game, outside of more characters (which you already know my opinion on). Re-classing and use of children tends to be something that more experienced players take advantage of, and is usually coined "Min-Maxing". I didn't feel like it was necessary to include in the review, as the game can stand without those features, but they aren't a negative feature.
Final Score : 28 : It's ok
While the gameplay itself is enjoyable, it feels like a slog. There is no motivation in the game. The story and characters are flat, and the choice to make 3 games harms the story more than it does to explain.
+Gameplay is solid
+Sound and Graphics fit
-Story is bland
-Characters have no personality
-The 3 separate games feel pointless
Recommendation
Do I recommend this game? No. I honestly feel weird saying this, but I truly don't recommend it. While each game but Revelations could be bought and played separately, there's just way too many plot holes in Conquest and Birthright that simply make it unenjoyable. While the gameplay can be fun, the rest of the game makes it a slog just to get to the ending. The choice to make 3 separate games has, in my opinion, marred what could have been a good, or even great, game. There's so much going on between the games that it suffers. As a consumer, you're paying a minimum of $80 USD in order to experience a very fragmented story.
Genre: Strategy RPG
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94CCxVMltQY
Follow these links to understand how I review games:
How my Scoring System works
The 3 Elements of a game
Overview
Fire Emblem Fates is a 3 part Strategy RPG developed by Intelligent Systems. It is split into 3 different games; Birthright, Conquest, and Revelations. The first two were released physically, while the third is a DLC Expansion available on the eShop. Birthright and Conquest can be bought for $40 each, while Revelations can be bought digitally for $20. However, if you have either Conquest or Birthright already, you can buy the opposite digitally for only $20!
Quick Disclaimer
While I know each game can technically be played individually without ever touching the others, I am reviewing them together as one full experience. It will become apparent why I am doing this throughout my review. That said, both Conquest and Birthright can be purchased and enjoyed without ever touching the other 2 games, as they are each full fledged games!
Content
Let's get the easier of the two sections out of the way first. To start off with, Fire Emblem Fates' art style is very fitting to the game. There's three levels of character designs; 2D Flat and semi-static images, full 3D models, and 2D sprites. I personally think the 3D models are fairly low quality. The animations feel very rigid and the models feel incredibly lifeless. On the other side of things, the 2D Images used in text based cutscenes are exceptional. You can really see the emotion in the characters. As for the 2D spires during actual missions? Well they serve their purpose well. You can tell characters apart by looking at this sprite and generic enemy characters are well defined by the sprites. You can easily tell their classes by a quick glance, and that's a good thing. The three dimensional art in this game (Ie.: Character models and environments) look fairly blurry, but everything else looks crisp and clean.
Now what about the music and sound? Well, it certainly hits its mark. There's a wide variety of musical choices, ranging from epic battle songs to ambient and peaceful melodies. The tunes are well placed, and I can't think of anything that just simply didn't fit. There are a few songs that actually gave me goosebumps, most notably Azura's Theme. That said, a good majority of the music was fairly forgettable. Don't get me wrong, it's a good OST, but I simply can't remember more than half of their melodies or themes. The sounds themselves are very good. Walking, swords clashing, and even text scrolling sounds, are well done. They aren't jarring and they fit well within the game, conveying a good sense of the world surrounding it.
Score : 31 : Good
While the 3D environments and character models feel a bit low on the quality scale, the rest of the graphics convey enough emotion and detail, thus outweighing the negative. As for the sound, it's well done. Everything fits and gives a strong sense of world building. Most songs aren't memorable, but that doesn't mean they aren't good!
Progression
The most prominent form of Progression is the story. Before we get into the story, however, I want to discuss leveling and characters. Between all 3 games, there are 47 playable characters, not including children, capturable characters, amiibo characters, and DLC characters. You get these characters as you progress throughout the game, and honestly, this is a big drawback. There is simply too many characters. This is a problem on two fronts. For starters, no matter which path you play, there is no feasible way to keep every single character at the same level and usable. There's simply not enough battles going on for this to happen, thus making a bunch of characters practically useless. This leads into the second problem; Lack of character. You see, each character has dialog options for the support system (will be explained in the Gameplay section) and this is a problem. The characters, while characterized, don't have any personality! Not a single one! Never will you feel attached to a character personally, and will usually draw ties purely because of battle prowess. For a game that touts being story-centric, I found the characters incredibly dull and flat. There was just nothing to them! Had there been less characters, I believe there would have been significantly more room to fully develop those characters.
As for difficulty, this game presents you with a load of customization options to suit your difficulty needs, which is very much appreciated. Even better is that there seems to be a very natural climb in difficulty over the course of each game. I never felt as though a specific point was unfair, but there were definitely later maps that were hard!
So, now on to the story. The whole theme of Fire Emblem Fates is a theme of choice. Do you go with your birth family (Birthright), your adoptive family (Conquest), or neither (Revelations)? And this is where the issues start. Because of the earlier sentiment of the characters being dull and flat, this will inevitably leak into the story. There's no motivation to side with anyone, as you'll simply not care. On top of that, the Conquest side is characterized as just straight up pure evil. It doesn't make sense when they are trying to make it an unbiased opinion, as why would anyone CHOOSE to be associated with these psychopaths? That aside, the 3 separate story-lines feel absolutely pointless. Everything you do in both Conquest and Birthright are made null and void in Revelations. It has been said in many interviews that Revelations is the true story, and both Conquest and Birthright set that story up. However, the parts in Birthright and Conquest that set up the story in Revelations, are featured in Revelations! Once I finished Revelations, I felt as though I wasted my time with Birthright and Conquest. Without spoiling anything, I truly feel as though they could have easily combined all 3 games into one. The stories weren't so vastly different that we needed the 3 re-tellings. In fact, Conquest and Birthright were simply the same story, but backwards, with a few differences.
In addition, the stories in all 3 were fairly weak. A lot of the plot wasn't really full fleshed out. It felt like motivations were rushed and unexplained. For example, without any spoilers, Azura's story in Conquest and Birthright simply makes no sense. Even with the knowledge gained in Revelations, I still question why a few things happened.
Score : 22 : Just OK
Overall, I enjoyed the ability to customize the difficulty of the game. It made it easy to play the game how you want, and the game was never frustratingly difficult. That said, the story was bland, the characters were flat, and it made absolutely no sense that we needed 3 separate games to understand the story.
Gameplay
Ok, so we talked about the background elements of a game (sound and graphics) that create a world, and we discussed how the game progresses as you play it. But how does it play? Well, pretty simply, it plays well. There's nothing overly wrong with this game, in terms of gameplay mechanics. In fact, it's just straight up average in terms of Strategy RPGs. There is one small problem I have with the gameplay and that is the map selection. Between the 3 games, there is enough of a variety in map locations and map objectives. However, I felt as though individually, each game stuck too close to similar objectives. Conquest had a lot of "Rout the enemy", while Birthright had a lot of "Seize". It was an interesting design choice and actually made later maps a fair bit stale. That said, there is a semi-unique feature in this game, and that is Supporting. There are two types of supporting in this game; Pairing Up, or Side-by-side. I'm unsure if there's an actual term for the latter, but what I'm calling it should work just as well. Basically, if 2 units are paired up, the secondary unit can block attacks for the primary. If the units are side-by-side, both units will attack, even if only 1 unit initiates, or is initiated upon. What's cool about this system is that it really opens up strategic options. You can either Pair Up for a stronger defense, or lay your units side-by-side for a stronger offense. However, the ranks themselves don't really add anything. On one hand, the higher support rank a pair has, the strong the buffs they get. On the other hand, outside of a small buff and children, there isn't much use to these ranks! As far as I know, it doesn't increase the chances of either support option working, as they function without any level of support.
Score : 32 : Good
The gameplay of this game isn't bad. There's nothing overly broken about it. However, I find the support system a bit tacked on. That said the gameplay itself is solid. It isn't exceptional in anyway, but it's definitely enjoyable.
Final Disclaimer
I know a few people out there may question the lack of children and re-classing in this review. While they are a part of the game, they are both fully optional and do not add anything to the game, outside of more characters (which you already know my opinion on). Re-classing and use of children tends to be something that more experienced players take advantage of, and is usually coined "Min-Maxing". I didn't feel like it was necessary to include in the review, as the game can stand without those features, but they aren't a negative feature.
Final Score : 28 : It's ok
While the gameplay itself is enjoyable, it feels like a slog. There is no motivation in the game. The story and characters are flat, and the choice to make 3 games harms the story more than it does to explain.
+Gameplay is solid
+Sound and Graphics fit
-Story is bland
-Characters have no personality
-The 3 separate games feel pointless
Recommendation
Do I recommend this game? No. I honestly feel weird saying this, but I truly don't recommend it. While each game but Revelations could be bought and played separately, there's just way too many plot holes in Conquest and Birthright that simply make it unenjoyable. While the gameplay can be fun, the rest of the game makes it a slog just to get to the ending. The choice to make 3 separate games has, in my opinion, marred what could have been a good, or even great, game. There's so much going on between the games that it suffers. As a consumer, you're paying a minimum of $80 USD in order to experience a very fragmented story.