Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright review

by Piyoz on Jan 5th, 2017

Fire Emblem Fates is the latest installment in Intelligent Systems and Nintendo’s venerable turn-based military strategy series. Divided into three separate games (Birthright, Conquest and Revelations), Fates acts as follow-up to 2013’s Awakening by employing the same strategy RPG gameplay with some relationship building and online functionality. This triumvirate of games tells three different possible stories involving a large-scale war between two medieval fantasy realms: the war-mongering Nohr and the peaceful Hoshido. The Birthright version follows the royal family of Hoshido as they seek to defend themselves and their allies against an invading Nohr. The Conquest version gives an inside perspective on the kingdom of Nohr as the princes and princesses fight to repair their nation from the inside. Revelations follows characters from both realms as they uncover the truth behind Nohr and Hoshido’s war. This article will review the Birthright edition.

The game play of Fates involves the precise, calculated movements of units on a grid-based battlefield. Think of a huge chess board with trees, mountains, rivers, cities and castles. On your turn, you move all your units, all of whom have unique classes, levels, weapons, stats, skills and consumable items. To achieve victory (typically by defeating all of the enemy army’s soldiers) you must understand each unit’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to your foe’s strengths and weaknesses.

This requires a grasp of mechanics like the Weapon Triangle. In Fates, swords and magic spells are effective against bows and axes. Bows and axes are effective against spears and hidden weapons (shuriken and knives) which are in turn effective against swords and magic. It’s a rock/paper/scissors system that will determine how likely an attack is to strike. Also calculate in weapon proficiency, statistics like Luck, Speed, Defense and Skill, and Support relationships between specific units. And if an enemy slays one of your units in combat, that unit is gone for good. Yeah, this all sounds pretty complicated, doesn’t it?

Luckily, for those out there searching for a strategy game that won’t punish you relentlessly, Birthright has you covered. In terms of sheer difficulty, the melees encountered by Hoshido’s ranks are easier than those found in Revelations and Conquest. In fact, you even have the option to disable the permanent death of your units to avoid the headache of having to reboot your game. If you’re still feeling discouraged, you can even activate Phoenix Mode. In this mode, after a unit is slain, he or she will be resurrected on the next turn.

The first six chapters of all three games shows us the customizable male or female player avatar of Fates named Corrin. You see, Corrin was raised as the prince or princess of Nohr alongside his/her siblings: the Crown Prince Xander, the mage Leo, the childlike healer Elise and the voluptuous Camilla. Through the course of the game’s training chapters, Corrin learns that he/she is actually the royalty of Hoshido. Having been kidnapped in his/her youth and raised among Nohrian siblings, there is a dramatic moment partway through when Corrin must decide between his/her upbringing and his/her birthright. Or to defect from both and go rogue.

In Birthright, Corrin teams up with his new Hoshidan family: the fierce Prince Ryoma, the timid Sakura, the thoughtful Takumi and the fiery Hinoka. This royal family, their retainers and other warriors from all over the world form a troop that ventures into Nohr to confront the sinister King Garon. The story plays out less straight-forward than you’d think. Filler chapters abound. Totally obvious twists can be spotted hours away. Baffling and stupid military decisions are made on a regular basis. The only thing more questionable that Hoshido’s invasion strategies are the apparently-open front doors across the whole realm of Nohr. However, the individual characters are written solidly enough on their own to make the cut scenes engaging.

In between the turn-based combat segments and the story chapters, you and your army have the chance to relax and interact in the barracks. Your barracks take the form of a castle hidden within the Deeprealms, another dimension hidden from the material world by magic. Here, you can construct various buildings in your castle like item shops, a prison for captured enemies, an arena for betting on skirmishes, a tree house for building affinity between comrades, a bathhouse for meaningless dialogues and a variety of battlements for fighting off occasional invasions of weird spirits soldiers.

In the barracks, your characters can engage in character-specific dialogues earned by fighting together on battle. These dialogues may be simple, but they allow your fighters to talk, learn about each other and form bonds that will strengthen their interaction on the battlefield. The more they talk, the better they fight together (in the form of stat boosts). Better yet, when one applicable man and one applicable woman reach the fourth Support Rank, some of them can get married and produce one or two children.

These children, then, will be sent deeper into the Deeprealms where time passes faster. Before they know it, those children have grown up and can fight alongside their parents and unlock their own dialogues. The relationship-building in Fates is pretty in-depth. It’s a great diversion, really. Letting your army get to know each other and form these connections adds a whole new level of emotional meaning to the combat. After each chapter, I grew gradually more attached to my troops and their lives. By the end of the game, I felt like they were family. Anime-style brothers and sisters in arms confronting a corrupt monarch in a high-fantasy world of alternate dimensions, ghost warriors, a protagonist who can transform into a dragon at will.

The online functions of Fates are expanded a bit from Awakening. Aside from paid DLC chapters that Nintendo has been releasing since launch, Fates allows players to Streetpass in order to swap info about their castles with other players. You can invade other players’ castles and battle the AI of their armies. It’s a fun addition that’s also good for grinding.

The Birthright version of Fire Emblem Fates delivers on turn-based strategy role-playing that the series is known for albeit easier than most. This is enriched by the characters and their relationships informed by their writing and design. The game offers ample time for tutorials and the difficulty curve is well-crafted. The plot may be wiry and plain dumb at times but the characters are fun and likable enough to the point that I hardly thought about it.

Anyone looking for an interesting and memorable RPG experience on the 3DS should definitely look into Fire Emblem Fates. Birthright is the more accessible one of the batch. Conquest will likely give you a challenge is that’s what you’re after. And if you purchase one of those, you can download the other or Revelation for half-price! Each one will give you a full-length title with a different perspective on one war tearing the world to pieces.

4/5

Pretty Great

Categories: Reviews