I have little history with the Fire Emblem series. I have never played a game nor was I interested in the series. In fact the closest I’ve come to playing it is, “One Piece Pirate Warriors 3” on PC which I received in a Humble Bundle which was okay at the time but I didn’t stick with it. However for some reason this one piqued my interest.

STORY

As far as the plot goes, well, quite frankly, I have no idea who anyone is or what is going on. I had to copy and paste from Wikipedia to get this:

”During a routine sparring match between the royal twins of Aytolis, Rowan and Lianna, and their friend Prince Darios of Gristonne, monsters attack Aytolis. The three are separated from Queen Yelena during the attack, who gives them the Fire Emblem before being captured. The group learns Darios' father Oskar is seeking to revive the evil dragon Velezark, and that they must power up the Fire Emblem with Gleamstones created from the power of heroes from other worlds in order to stop them. Rowan and Lianna travel across Aytolis, rallying support from heroes from the otherworldly nations of Ylisse, Hoshido, Nohr, and Altea.”

All I know is when I was playing the game I heard “Outworld” and I thought, “Shao Kahn? Oh man, I can’t wait to see him come down and whup some ass!, Also, how many people made that deal with him to fight in that damn tournament?!”

Sadly that never happens which is exactly what the story needs as the first part of the story is fine for what it is. ACT 1: Castle is attacked “something bad happens, heroes must flee” But then when you get to ACT 2: when they start meeting the heroes of the other worlds it’s not special it’s rinse, wash, repeat. Example:

EXT. FIELD - DAY

The two royal twins are walking along the field when then see, HERO 1.

TWINS: GOODAY!

HERO 1: GOOD DAY TO YOU!

At that moment Hero 1’s brother shows up, HERO 2

HERO 2: HEY, GOD DAMN, IT! WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO THOSE TWO STRANGERS?! THEY MUST HAVE KIDNAPED YOU!

TWINS: UMM..NO, WE JUST MET.

HERO 1: YEAH, THEY ARE GOOD PEOPLE.

HERO 2: OH, YEAH?! WE’LL SEE ABOUT THAT! EN’GARDE!

CUT TO:

EXT. FIELD - LATER

3,000 dead soldiers lay on the ground. Half are the Twins men and the other belong to Hero 2.

HERO 2: I MAY HAVE....OVERREACTED. I APOLOGIZE.

TWINS: IT'S OKAY, WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES. HEY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN US?! YOU MUST BE A HERO FROM ANOTHER WORLD!

HERO 2: WHY, YES! I'LL JOIN YOU ON YOUR QUEST! SADDLE UP SOLDIERS! WE'RE GOING ON A QUEST!!!

THE END.

This happens like 4 times. Every hero the same thing. It’s so stupid. Every situation is just “well let’s fight” for no reason. There is really no story. Just fight. They really could have had something if they would have went deeper with it but they just went this bullshit Zack Snyder route. I have no idea how long this went on but it's bad storytelling and just lengthens the game for a stupid story reason.

GAMEPLAY

The controls were pretty basic. HULK SMASH. XXXXXY YYYYYX. YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY XXXXXXY, YYYYYYYYX A.

You can pair up with another hero and you can partner up with them for the mission and do a tag team move to them (fuck you, if you want the actual name go to a real site we don’t get paid and there are no pop up ads here deal with it) and it’ll do extra damage and switch back and forth with them during the fight.

PERMADEATH is in the game BUT you can turn it off. My understanding is that this was in some of the earlier games and then a few years ago they made it to where it is now - a character just gets knocked out for the mission and is back at the end of it. So I guess if you’re a purist turn it on; if you’re horrible at games like me or you cheated on your suicide run during Mass Effect 2 (AND YOU DID) turn it off.

One aspect of the game that turned me off when I was watching the Nintendo Direct was when they talked about the Strategy element to the game. I said, “I’m out!” but then the game director said, “...but we will put in the settings an “auto setting” so you can just focus on the action if you’re not a strategy player and like the action more.” I said “I’m in!”

Did they do it?

Well…yes and no.

There is an option before a mission where you can do “autobattle” and you can just say to all your heroes or just individual heroes “fight, guard” and also “auto heal” however during the battle there are times they will get into situations where you still have to go and save them or send them from one place to another, so autobattle works but you still kinda have to know what you’re doing. I'm sure by now there are some good walkthroughs and guides to help you pick the best ones before the mission. I probably should have done that.

Remember the lengthening of the game for the bogus story? One down side to the gameplay is the artificial lengthening of the game by extending battles for no good reason other that the reason I just gave. Here is an example:

The Mission Boss is there. You’re just about ready to fight him. You have done everything you need to do. You have captured every tower. Closed every portal or whatever the fuck they are. You’ve been playing this damn mission for 15 mins. That pussy Leo has gotten himself into trouble 2 times. You’ve had to save him once by running over and kicking everybody's ass and the second time you just moved him to an empty tower and told him to guard it. They just said, “MISSION COMPLETE! Lets go get the boss” So you pause the game and one by one you tell everyone to go and fight the boss because for some reason you’ll still have people who will just stand around with a stick up their ass guarding a tower with no bad guys left. You unpause the game. Take off running and then hear the words, “OH NO, HE’S THROWN OUT MORE ENEMY REINFORCEMENTS!”

GRAPHICS

I played the 3DS version and this is one of the few games that is only playable on the NEW 3DS. We do not receive review copies/codes so it was on the GameFly queue with the Switch version being first and 3DS being second. 3DS was the one that was sent. After playing it on the 3DS and watching some videos afterwards of it on the Switch I don’t think I would like it on the Switch. Yes, the graphics are greatly increased on the Switch but you’re also staring at a map on top right of the screen the entire game the whole time. The touch screen makes perfect use of the map by taking it off the screen and putting it at the bottom like it does with so many other games.

Going back to the graphics, only when I looked at Switch gameplay AFTER I finished my play through (12 hours) did I say, “Well, that would be nice," Aside from that didn't I have issues with it. During cut scenes you’ll seen some compression issues like you’re looking at old .wmv files but you’re not getting Metal Gear Solid IV length cut scenes and like we’ve been over what you’re going to get, “YOU KIDNAPPED MY BROTHER! WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT?!!!

SUMMARY

Overall it was a fun game that I don’t regret playing. It wasn’t an epic roller coster of emotions. There are those flashes of Final Fantasy when you do the little power move gimmick, and you get live out the power fantasy when you’re laying waste to 100 people at a time with a sword and you rack up a body count like you’re Anakin Skywalker if someone called your mother a "Tatooine whore."

Regrettably not even trying to have something special for the game when it comes to a story but just, “Hey I don't know you why are you talking to my, sister! Are you driving a white van with tinted windows?! Let's fight!” just drags the game down for far too long and what seems like artificial lengthening of stages seems like it's just there to for the grind train. If that is what all the games are in this series is like than that is on me. Perhaps they just want to get straight to the action and don't care about the story and think that "Eh, we need just enough to get there" is good enough, I get it, but I would like a little more meat on my bones and I thought this game was a supposed to be a big deal and they didn’t treat it like one in that regard. It feels like making the Avengers a TV movie. You know like we received with the InHumans and you know how that turned out.

FINAL VERDICT:

SCOTT AND PAUL SHOW RATING: RENTAL

Standard: 7/10

REVIEW BY: PAUL