Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest
Following
the success of Fire Emblem: Awakening in finally making Nintendo's
storied strategy series popular in a large scale, it was inevitable that
we'd get more Fire Emblem action on 3DS. This came true in the form of
Fire Emblem Fates, an exciting follow-up that keeps a lot of what made
Awakening great and brings its own new ideas to the fold.
To
further help capturing a more 'casual' audience while keeping hardcore
fans happy, FE Fates was initially released as two separate games:
Birthright, tailored to be more forgiving and simple, and Conquest,
which features harder and more intricate objectives. I chose the latter,
as the unforgiving aspect is what made me connect with the series in
the first place.
While
this Pokémon-like release could be seen as a cash-grab, it does make
sense in that both games feature completely different campaigns, each
with its own recruitable characters. No matter which one you choose, you
can get the other as downloadable content for a fraction of the price,
which is a nice touch. There's also a third game, called Revelations,
which was released exclusively as DLC and works as a mixture of
Birthright and Conquest. Bottom line: there's plenty here to sink your
time in, provided you don't mind paying a bit extra.
Even
if you want to get only one of the games, you won't be wanting for
gameplay time: I spent over sixty hours to get to the end of Conquest.
The gameplay is classic SRPG, consisting of several separate battles in
different maps. As you progress through the game, you unlock more and
more characters to add to your army, and it's loads of fun to fine-tune
each of them with different classes, weapons and stat-boosting items.
As
usual, the game features permadeath, meaning that dead characters stay
dead. This can be turned off, but in my opinion doing so undermines the
emotional connection and the battle tension that make the series so
great. There are also several difficulty options, which can be toned
down (but not up) at any time during the campaign, meaning the game
definitely finds a nice middle ground when it comes to accessibility.
A
returning feature from Awakening is the ability to make children. By
making characters fight alongside each other, you can boost their
relationship, which can eventually lead to marriage. Doing so will
generate children, who can then join your army. The fact that each child
inherits abilities from both parents is a great way to try and
'engineer' perfect characters, adding to the strategic depth. It's a bit
awkward, from a storytelling standpoint, how children can immediately
join the fray; in Awakening, this was explained by time travel, but
Fates makes such a mess out of its own explanation that it's better to
just ignore it.
Speaking
of which, this has to be said: the story in the game is the one element
that is veritably atrocious. Awakening didn't exactly feature stellar
writing either, but here things get taken to another level entirely.
Several plot points are so incredibly convoluted as to stop making sense
altogether, along with drab dialogue that made me wish the game spent
less time trying to establish the tale before each battle.
Luckily,
there's one new feature that's great, and it's called My Castle. In it,
your army gets to sit back at your own custom castle in between
battles, where you get to walk around, build structures, harvest crops,
buy items, and partake in several small activities. You also get to
fight online against other player's armies, either by visiting their
castle or having them visit yours. This is not really online
multiplayer, as the armies are computer-controlled, but it's still loads
of fun. All in all, this is a great addition to the series that can be
exponentially expanded upon in future entries.
Even
though it's not as groundbreaking as Awakening before it, Fire Emblem
Fates nevertheless carries the series's torch more than admirably. Being
in fact three different games, it potentially offers even more playtime
than usual for the franchise, while still making you feel quite
satisfied if you only want to go through one of the adevntures. Just
choose your path and let the fun begin.
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