Concept:  Choose your favorite recruits and strategically battle enemies on a grid based battlefield. When players aren’t busy opening cans of rup ass, they are poking or blowing on their spouse to increase their bond, or bitch slapping another player in the face by seizing their castle through wireless battles.

Gameplay: This is what Fire Emblem games are known for and this latest title doesn’t let us down. The formula has changed some from the last Fire Emblem title and for the better. weapons now have infinite durability and  can also be forged together to create more powerful weapons. There is also an area titled My Castle where players can battle in an arena, blow on their spouse to cool them off after a hot bath, and even take a dip in the hot spring!  (Gah! Single file! Single file dammit! There’s nothing to see except some low graphical butt crack that nobody asked for.)

Story: Caught in a war between two empires, players choose which one to side with. Will you choose Hoshido? (Your blood related family) Will you choose Nohr? (Your foster family) Or will you refuse to side with either and have both empires turn their blade on you? The choice is yours!

Graphics: The graphics aren’t necessarily bad considering it’s a 3DS game but they also could have been better. Most of the problems lie with the battle scenes. These problems include frame rate issues causing slowdown and the shabby looking backgrounds. On the other hand, the animations  look incredible and the recruits actually have feet. (Nobody had feet in the last Fire Emblem for some ungodly reason.)

Voice acting: The voice acting is definitely better on certain characters than others. This game actually had one voice actor who voiced a nervous maid that I was quite impressed by. Sadly, most of the other voice actors were only subpar. This game wasn’t voiced most of the time.

Music: Fire Emblem Fates has the best music of any other game in the series. Most of the music sounds rather medieval and is composed mostly of instrumentals. There is one japanese vocalized song in this game with some rather deep lyrics.

Gameplay time: My gameplay time was twenty five hours on each path. There are three paths available meaning Fire Emblem Fates delivers about seventy five hours of gameplay total. The additional paths can be bought as dlc after you buy either the Conquest path or the Birthright path .

In Depth Review:

Fire Emblem and mushy relationship building. That ab roller. My search for the meaning of life. Sadly, somethings just don’t work out. (12:25 pm/ Mt.Everest. “WHAT DOES IT ALL MEEAANN!”) The bonding between the players main character and their spouse involves poking and blowing on their face, which I didn’t exactly hate. The part I found disturbing was the dialogue during these bonding scenes. Soft, out of breath voice tones were used during these scenes and the lines used were either sickeningly sweet or ridiculously bad. E.g. (I don’t wanna steal a kiss, I want you to give me one.)

Onto the topic of gameplay, gamers can expect to use their gray matter as there is a ton of strategic gameplay involved in Fates. Players will choose their army from many different recruits obtained throughout the game. Each recruit has a class and each class has its own advantages and disadvantages. There is also the weapon triangle to consider.(similar to rock, paper, scissors) Certain weapons fare better against others such as swords having an advantage over axes. This advantage in battle affects damage output and hit chance. Units can also pair up on the battlefield which will combine the two units into one but with a slight stat increase.

We all love level ups and that just so happens to be a big part of Fire Emblem. Whenever a level up is obtained in Fire Emblem, the stats increased are determined by a random number generator. Sometimes, players will get a point increase in every stat and sometimes, players will get ass. (ass=no point increase.) That’s part of the Fire Emblem magic actually and we Fire Emblem fans love it. Some players actually go as far to restart a level if their recruits get an ass level up, but I choose not to. Sure I have a max level paladin with only 15 strength, (should be double or more) but guess what? That paladin is being controlled by me, so move it or lose it bitches.

The area entitled My Castle is where players spend time when they’re not fighting battles. Players can spend resources to purchase and equip cosmetic accessories for their recruits or battle in an arena to win resources. This is also where players buy weapons, healing supplies, and upgrade weapons. Players may also prepare their castle for wireless battles by building defenses such as golems or puppets which attack enemies along with your troops.

The player can also have their recruits bond with each other by either pairing them up or placing them beside each other on the battlefield. If players do this enough to reach an S rank between two recruits, they will get married and have a child. These children reside in a land called the deeprealm, where time passes very quickly, so most of the children become close to the same age as their parents. This allows players to recruit these children to help fight in the current war. The main character can achieve a S rank with someone of their same gender, but they cannot have any children, so that means that players get penalized when marrying someone of the same gender.

Now, let’s talk about the big censorship outrage. I’m sure gamers have wondered why this game got so many bad reviews and scores. Some of the reviewers only reason for giving the game an ass score was simply because of the fact that parts of the game got removed when brought to the states due to cultural differences. One part that got removed was a petting feature. Apparently, this was a feature that allowed players to “pet” their recruits from the waist up. Now, I understand how this could be upsetting for some gamers, but giving this game a zero out of ten, due simply to the fact that this feature was taken out is fucktarded. The game was very enjoyable from beginning to end without this feature, so I encourage gamers to disregard these reviews based solely on their issues with the localization.

Closing comments: Overall, Fire Emblem Fates is an amazing game that brings Fire Emblem fans exactly what they wanted; a Fire Emblem game that only improves on the gameplay that we have come to love . So grab a javelin, hop on a pegasus, and show the world that a petting feature can’t make or break this awesomeness!

Fire Emblem: Fates for Nintendo 3DS 9/10

About the Author

Danny Barton

I’m usually found with a blue face, lost in a world of one of my rpg’s, with a cup of dark roasted coffee by my side. I also got caught by Ashley on Resident Evil 4 but who didn’t?