I Hate Warriors Games But Loved Fire Emblem Warriors (Fire Emblem Warriors Review) – Switch

June 27, 2019 Frank Duran One comment

Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat. Warriors games or in the Dynasty Warriors series or style (Musou) are boring. You button mash your way through faceless enemies, collecting new champions and basically grinding your way through a game right from the get go. I’ve tried a great many of these games as I have friends who love the series. So, I gave them a shot, but never get very far. The best one for a bit was Hyrule Warriors. I am a huge Legend of Zelda fan and you would think that would make it my favorite but it got repetitive real quick and I can’t recommend it to fans of traditional Zelda games. Fire Emblem Warriors is literally a pegasus of a different color. They baked the core elements of Fire Emblem into the formula and the result is the first of these I’ve actually finished.

Like its predecessors, it follows the basic formula of gaining champions and storming fortresses, but Fire Emblem’s classic strategic twists and eye for cinematics are now added. Sure, you’re still mowing people down as a God-like champion, but if you don’t delegate your troops to the right locations, the tide of battle will turn against you. The series’ familiar Weapon Triangle is also added to the game and that adds a moment of thought when switching between champions. Make sure you have the right character with the right weapon to take on a boss or an elite character. The best thing about this is that they add the level up screen. Sure, it slows down the action a bit but I just love seeing it. All of this turns what is usually a mindless hack and slash into a decently fleshed-out RTS, and I loved that.

Champions from many of your favorite Fire Emblem games are here, although it is very Awakening and Fates biased. Sorry everyone else. What’s great is the localization team put time and care to make every character well voice acted. The developers also added great character models and unique moves that harken back to the main series. The story mode is just your typical crossover type story, withteams from different games showing up through portals. They don’t know why they’re there, and a lot of miscommunication comes from it. This sounds contrived but at least it leads to getting to fight some of your favorites, like Chrom, right in the battlefield. You spend the story playing as the most blond protagonists of all time, Rowan and Lianna, both pretty annoying but full of heaaaart. I never wanted to play as Rowan because he whines more than Luke in A New Hope. When I had to play as these two, which turned out to be too often, I played as Lianna, who by the end I had pimped out pretty hard and turned her into a total badass. The story is still a lot of fun, though and if I had to grade the story alone I would give it a B-. Totally serviceable and fun but not exactly memorable in any shape or form.

As you build your roster, you form a party that you’ll use most of the time. Then, you use all your resources to make them the most OP character on the field. My Camilla was a taaaank. What equipment they used and skills they had also adds another fun RPG layer. I enjoyed trying to form my best team of favorite characters and the added Bonding element from the latest Fire Emblem games was a fun addition too. If certain characters fight near each other or are paired together, their bond increases. With an increased bond, if you’re paired, you can pull off deadly combos easier and faster. If your bond is maxed, you unlock special extras, upgrades or costumes for the character. It really drives you to pair up with the other champions to get more unlockables.

Now, Fire Emblem Warriors has a few frame rate issues and glitches. During dramatic fighting moves, large numbers of characters and even your opponent just disappear off the screen, then blink back in again. During some of these sequences, characters would lose their face and look like The Question. It is super weird but not game-breaking. The frame rate would drop pretty noticeably if the screen was filled but it had to be very full. I also ran into a no progression glitch in one story mission. The game didn’t give me a direction on what to do next in a story mission and then I couldn’t progress forward. I restarted the game and when It loaded back up, it gave me the instruction I needed to move forward. It was super strange and is just something to look out for when playing. Other than that, the game looks pretty great most of the time, even in handheld mode.

All it took to make one of these interesting was to actually add some elements of what makes the franchise fun in the first place. As opposed to just button mashing. A weapons triangle, equipment and skills, team builds and deployment strategy all incentivize planning. Fire Emblem Warriors finally broke the Warriors mold for me and if you’re like me and don’t exactly love these style of games, give this a try. If you don’t like Fire Emblem but love Warriors, you might really enjoy this. If you don’t like either, then wait for a sale.

Galaxy of Geek Breakdown:

Rating: 7 Out of 10 super dramatic flourishes

Time Played: 15 Hours (13 in story, 2 Hours in other modes)

Cost: Usually $60 (Got it for 50% off at best buy and then added my 20% Gamer Club on top of that, so about $20)

Spent Most Of The Game: Customizing my team