Nintendo releases Fire Emblem Heroes

Nintendo has just released Fire Emblem Heroes, the company's first "real" game for Android, and second game for iOS.

Nintendo's first game, Super Mario Run, has been available for iOS for some time already, and will be out for Android in the coming months.

The company released the new game for both mobile operating systems at the same time, something that Android users will surely appreciate.

The game is the latest in the popular Fire Emblem series. If you don't know Fire Emblem at all; it is a tactical role playing game franchise that that dates back all the way to the Nintendo Famicom (NES) console.

Fire Emblem Heroes

Fire Emblem Heroes is a free to play mobile game, and you should not expect the depths of a Fire Emblem Awakening for the Nintendo DS from it.

The game is well designed, and high quality, as you would expect from something that Nintendo publishes.

The game lets you summon characters from the Fire Emblem universe to fight battles with them. The player takes the role of a summoner, who can call heroes from the Fire Emblem universe.

The store revolves around two kingdoms. The evil Emblian Empire, which wants to rule the all worlds, and the Askran Kingdom which wants to prevent it. Your main goal in the game is to save the Kingdom of Askr from the invading empire.

You can play the main story line, which features a series of battles and story sequences, or additional modes the game supports. You need to play the main campaign for a couple of maps before the other modes become available.

The game modes are:

• Story Maps -- This is the main quest mode in which you fight against the Emblian Empire to save the Kingdom of Askr.
• Training Tower -- You can play these scenarios as often as you like, and gain both rewards and experience for doing so.
• Arena Duels -- Fight against human players around the world.
• Hero Battles -- These scenarios are available for a limited time only. Defeat the heroes that oppose you, to have them join your ranks afterwards.

Battles in Fire Emblem Heroes are turn based. You are a bit limited when it comes to them, but they offer enough tactical depth to be interesting nevertheless.

The game uses a triangle system that determines effectiveness of attacks. You may move, move and attack, or cast with each of the characters during your turn.

Attacks and spells play out in small animations, and you move around and attack using touch. The touch controls are excellent, and really easy to use.

Fire Emblem Heroes Free To Play

Fire Emblem Heroes is a free to play game. The game uses a stamina mechanic that depletes when you play the game. It refreshes automatically at the rate of 1 stamina per five minutes.

You can restore stamina for orbs automatically, and purchase Orbs in the store. You do earn orbs when you complete some maps as well, but may use them for other things such as resurrecting one of your heroes to avoid losing battles.

You may spend orbs on other items as well. Currently, a castle is available that gives you an XP boost of 20%. Orbs may also be spend on increasing the -- already large -- number of heroes that you can collect. The default number is 200, which seems a lot already.

Last but not least, you may use orbs to restore dueling swords.

Closing Words

Fire Emblem Heroes is a well designed, beautiful and fun mobile game. I may be a bit biased as I like tactical turn based games more than any other genre. Still, the game is great, the free to play aspect does not really get in your way too much, and there is lots of content that you can explore.

Some users reported that they experience downloading and networking issues while playing the game. This was not the case on my end. You are asked to download additional assets while you are using the game. The initial download is only 40 or so Megabyte on Android, but you will have to download an 80 Megabyte large asset on start which is the opening movie. Additional downloads happen while you play the game.

Now You: Did you try Fire Emblem Heroes? What's your take on the game?

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