The Tactical Element of Fire Emblem Warriors

It's time to tip the scales

Dashing around the battlefield as Link was very engaging

Hyrule Warriors was one of my favorite titles on Wii U. It was immensely satisfying to chop down hordes of Bokoblins as Link, Impa, Ganondorf, or even Tingle. That speaks to the greatest strength of Hyrule Warriors: Its aesthetic. To be fair, the gameplay was a classic case of style over substance. The spectacle of ripping through the Zelda universe was enough to captivate myself and many other Wii U owners. Now, Koei Tecmo has released its second Nintendo themed musou game: Fire Emblem Warriors. For the uninitiated, the musou genre is an offshoot of the beat-em-up genre, most popular in Japan. They are bombastic action titles where you play as a warrior fighting through huge battles. Thematically, Fire Emblem is much better suited to these large scale conflicts than The Legend of Zelda, but I was still a bit concerned about its lasting appeal for me personally. I loved Fire Emblem Awakening, but only played a bit of Fates. So, in terms of franchise appeal, I’m a much bigger fan of Zelda. Yet, I still expected to enjoy running about as Fire Emblem icons and slashing through hordes of enemies. However, what I didn’t expect was just how tactical and engaging Fire Emblem Warriors would be.

The tactical layer to Fire Emblem Warriors elevates the
game above being a typical musou

Whereas Hyrule Warriors mainly borrowed the Zelda aesthetic and kept the classic musou gameplay, Fire Emblem Warriors takes a quite a bit more from its series. Fire Emblem Warriors plays out in two ways. One within the battlefield itself as you command a singular captain cutting down countless enemies throughout the map. The other is classic Fire Emblem. At any time by hitting +, the map of the field opens up. On this screen, the other captains can be manually selected and commanded around the field. For example, I’m playing as Frederick fighting to take over an outpost. I know that there is a fort on the other side of the map that needs to be taken over, so I could pause the game and assign Chrom and Rowan to the fort. However, let’s assume that the troops there use lances. The strategic element is again augmented by the weapons triangle, which also has migrated over from the core Fire Emblem series. Swords trump axes, axes trump lances, and lances trump swords. This dynamic further adds to the metagame of troop command. So, maybe I assign Chrom and Rowan to a different location where the soldiers use axes, and instead pit Lissa, an axe wielder, against the target fort. This elevates Fire Emblem Warriors above being a simple hack-and-slash game like its Zelda counterpart. Don’t misinterpret that; at its heart Fire Emblem Warriors is still full of both hacking and slashing. It just has another layer on top that which makes the gameplay more satisfying.

The cutscenes are complemented by humorous and well
illustrated, but still nonsensical, dialogue exchanges

However, the game really rests on the laurels of its gameplay. The biggest fault with Fire Emblem Warriors so far is the story. The cutscenes look great, and the voice acting is a huge step up from Hyrule Warriors, which makes it even more of a shame that the story is so damn nonsensical. I haven’t skipped a single box of dialogue, but I’m completely lost. Fire Emblem Warriors blends a retelling of the core games with an overarching plot starring brand new heroes. Yet, these two elements don’t mesh together and end up feeling disconnected at best. While the story might be Fire Emblem Warriors greatest fault, it is not my greatest nitpick. Quite annoyingly, whenever one of your captains levels up, the action is halted and a stat screen pops up accompanied by the same line of congratulatory dialogue. This can really break the pace of the gameplay. There are few things more annoying than unleashing a devastating 70+ enemy KO combo, only to be cut off midway by a notification. Equally annoying is the lack of video capture for Fire Emblem Warriors, even on the latest software version. I think it is a reasonable expectation that all first-party Nintendo games on Switch should have this functionality post-4.0.0 system update. I would love to record some clips of crazy combos I've pulled off in-game, and as of now, I can't. These nitpicks don't break the experience, but certainly hamper what is otherwise a fantastic gameplay experience.

The spectacle of Fire Emblem Warriors is fantastic

If Fire Emblem Warriors’s proximity to Super Mario Odyssey deterred you from purchasing the game, I implore you to pick it up down the road. Fire Emblem Warriors is a polished, fun, and charming musou game that Switch owners would be remiss to skip. It’s gameplay systems are a blast, and the spectacle on the battlefield is unparalleled. I’m a newer fan to the Fire Emblem series. So, I really enjoy the character selection so far, but older Fire Emblem fans seem to be getting the short end of the stick. As of now, legacy Fire Emblem characters are sparsely represented in favor of the fresher faces. That doesn’t bother me, but it is worth pointing out. While I’m only about three hours into the game so far, it is quickly becoming one of my favorite games on the console. It does have its problems, and if Hyrule Warriors wasn’t for you, I doubt this game would do much for you either. However, I’m having a blast with this one, and I can’t wait to put some more time into Fire Emblem Warriors this week.