It's been five whole years already since Nintendo's Fire Emblem and Koei Tecmo's Warriors series first collided, resulting in the rather magnificent Fire Emblem Warriors, a game we called "one of the best Musou outings yet" that "combines enjoyable combat with real-time tactics, faithfully paying tribute to the two franchises it fuses together."
Yes, we may have been somewhat concerned in the run-up to 2017's hack-and-slash spectacular, fearing that we'd get little more than a bog-standard Musou effort with a quick Fire Emblem reskin, but our fears proved unfounded as Omega Force and Team Ninja managed to serve up a delightful melding of two unexpected bedfellows. Here was a game that successfully took the strategy and relationship elements of Nintendo's turn-based tactical RPG and fused them with the OTT action of Koei Tecmo's long-running Musou franchise, resulting in a delightful experience that sits alongside the likes of Hyrule Warriors as the very best the genre has delivered in the past ten years.
Of course, since 2017 we've seen the huge success of Fire Emblem: Three Houses on Switch, and so it comes as no real surprise that we find ourselves returning to the battlefields of Fódlan on June 24th in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, a game that looks set to improve upon everything we enjoyed about its predecessor. We've been getting stuck into the game over the past week or so in the build-up to our full review, and so far we reckon this one's looking like a bit of a winner.
If you've already indulged in Fire Emblem Warriors you'll mostly know the score here, with the game this time taking the entire cast from Three Houses. We counted 24 characters in total alongside a brand new protagonist, and flinging them headlong into Musou-style battles against hordes of enemies. The core of the gameplay here remains much the same as 2017's effort, you'll begin by choosing whether you want to play in either classic or casual mode, meaning your comrades will either resurrect or suffer permadeath, and you also get to make a choice between a "slow and steady" or "quick and efficient" mode that affects how much pre and post-battle planning and number-crunching you need to sit through.
Once you've made your choices in these regards you're introduced to the game's new protagonist, Shez, (who can be male or female) as they face off against Byleth, quickly suffering defeat and heading off to lick their wounds before joining forces with Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude to defeat some nasty bandits, a chance encounter that sees them invited to join one of the game's three houses before setting off on an all-new adventure.
The first big difference to the core structure here in comparison to 2017's effort is the fact you can choose to align with either Edelgard's Black Eagles, Dimitri's Blue Lions, or Claude's Golden Deers as you set out to help them on their individual questlines. This choice of three paths not only boosts the replayability on offer, but also does much — as far as we've experienced in the first handful of chapters at least — to improve upon the story aspect of the previous Fire Emblem Warriors, an element which was fairly lacking.
There's simply far more to dig into here in terms of characters and narrative (not something that can often be said about a Musou game!) and early doors there are lots of cutscenes, dialogue choices, and discussions to get wrapped up in. We've chosen to run with Edelgard for our first playthrough, and between battles we've been spending plenty of time with Hubert, Ferdinand, Linhardt, Caspar, Felix et al, an aspect of proceedings that the game pushes through a smorgasbord of side activities that give you the opportunity to improve or deteriorate relationships — a factor which directly affects how well your comrades perform on the field of battle.
The battle camp element of Fire Emblem Warriors makes a return here and it has, as expected, been bolstered with new ways in which to interact with those in your party. Chores are back, allowing you to gain battle bonuses by teaming up in order to perform duties around camp, as is cooking, which enables you to bestow boons upon yourself and your party by filling your bellies with delicious meals before setting out to batter another angry horde of bad guys.
Sticking with camp, you'll also find a record keeper who allows you to replay key battles for XP and rewards, a facilities manager where you'll upgrade your camp, giving you access to more ways in which to interact with comrades and gain boosts, a training area, blacksmith, battalion master, shopkeeper, armourer and more besides. Phew!
In short, between battles here you've got a wealth of ways in which to bide your time and dig into the signature relationship aspects of Fire Emblem. You'll even get to have special conversations with key characters where you can head off for some alone time and can develop these relations further. We're not quite sure how far or in what direction these special relations develop, we're still quite early doors with the game, but fans of the series are certainly being well catered to here with regards to how much interaction they get to have with the entire cast from Three Houses.
Taking into consideration that we're only experiencing one house and its protagonists so far — and this has given us more than enough in the way of characters to set about levelling up, outfitting, equipping, and getting to know — there certainly seems to be a ton to dig into here when you consider all three house paths and any potential crossing of fates that may or may not occur further down the line.
On the battlefield, well, as we already mentioned, things are much the same as ever, with your chosen party of warriors charging around maps and using a mix of simple combos and flashy special moves in order to blast through enormous numbers of foes. Class-specific special moves, combat arts, and magic attacks all return, as does the Awakening mechanic that sees you temporarily power-boosted. You can also perform critical rushes and team up with any nearby party member — known here as "assigning adjutants" — in order to pull off super flashy team combos. Just as in Fire Emblem Warriors, there's also a weapons triangle in effect here, with certain types of weapon more effective against others. It may sound slightly complex, but in practice you simply scroll through your available warriors and the battle map will indicate with blue and red icons whether or not that fighter is stronger or weaker against the enemies that you're currently up against.
With regards to choosing warriors from your roster, we've also been impressed with just how much you can dig into improving and specializing your favourite characters, who you can then play as by swapping around whilst in action. There are a ton of different classes to get stuck into here and you can choose to swap out and train in any of these as you see fit. Shez, as an example, starts off the game in the Fluegel class, which specialises in dual-wielding swords, but you can then train up and switch out to any of the game's other branching classes, all of which work up through beginner, intermediate, advanced and master levels. We can't give away some of the tastier aspects of what's new with the game's various classes and master levels just yet, but rest assured there's plenty to get excited for if you know what's what with your Fire Emblem strategies.
Of course, all of this stuff feeds directly into the one big difference between this and a regular-style Warriors game, and that's the ability to pause the action at any time to give your current party orders and direct them around the battlefield. You'll need to direct your squad to assault and seize strongholds, protect and guard various special units during on-the-fly bonus objectives, and ensure that you've got all bases covered in order to stop enemies regaining control of positions once you've moved onto another area of the map. Pre-battle you'll get the opportunity to choose exactly who you want to take into scraps and it's here that keeping an eye on who's best to take on a level's enemies will pay dividends.
If all of these systems sound like a lot of hassle, fear not, it's actually all impressively streamlined stuff and it gives the repetitive nature of the core Musou combat a satisfying strategic layer
If all of this sounds like a lot of hassle, fear not, it's actually all impressively streamlined stuff and it gives the repetitive nature of the core Musou combat a satisfying strategic layer, as does the ability to shift between any character currently on the field with the push of a button, enabling you to juggle who fights who in real-time.
On the game's world map, which you'll settle onto before missions, you've got a main campaign objective to work towards by taking on smaller battles as you slowly conquer a region. Once you've completed these battles and successfully polished off a specific region's main story confrontation, you've then got a bunch of additional side activities to hoover up for loot, as well further character-specific quests and expeditions to indulge in, all of which net you loot, weapons, materials, XP and so on. We've been slightly concerned with the length of a few of the battle missions we've played — some feel as though they're over before they've really begun, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that they develop into much beefier confrontations further down the road.
In terms of performance, something which has been a major factor with regards to Musou games on Switch in the past, we've been thoroughly impressed with what we've experienced so far. We've taken part in some pretty huge battles here and there, facing off against hordes of enemies and a handful of bosses and other beasties, and we've yet to notice any frame rate issues whatsoever. There's no choice of graphical settings this time around, no quality or performance modes to toggle between, but what we've played so far runs superbly well and looks fantastic for the most part in both docked and handheld modes, with plenty of flashy attacks and some nice environments making up for a slight lack of detail in enemy units.
We've yet to try out the game's co-operative battles, a gameplay option that opens up after the 4th chapter, allowing for drop-in hack-and-slash fun, but in all other capacities this one looks as though it's managing to avoid the technical issues we've seen with the likes of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.
With a demo rumoured to be dropping, [UPDATE: It's available right now!] it's not going to be too long before you get your hands on this one for yourself and, from the handful of hours we've put in so far, we're optimistic that we've got a bit of a belter on our hands that should satisfy Fire Emblem and Warriors fans alike.
Will you be jumping into Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes when it drops later this month? Let us know in the comments!
- Further reading: Best Nintendo Switch Warriors Games - Every Switch Musou Game Ranked
Comments 31
There are just way too many games and now that I got around to playing more of Hyrule Warriors on Wii U, I'm starting to get more into Musou games. It doesn't help that I've played through Three Houses on my third play through recently. Of course this has to be great, too!
Besides having to look up what belter means, (you learn something new every day) I really can never tell from reviews or first impressions with musou games if I will like them. I loved Age of Calamity so much that I went to try out more musous to see if that would click now, but nope, the ones I disliked before still suck for me. So it comes down to something in the fluidity, how the gameplay ‘feels’ and I hope a demo can enlighten me a bit on that.
Oh, and a halfway decent story, no matter how ridiculous, helps too.
They are the Golden Deers, not Golden Daggers
I just want to have more from this Fodlan universe.
Love the characters, love story, just really didnt like Byleth.
Good to read there's no technical issues this time!
Looking forward for the demo.
Edit: Alright, the demo is here already! XD. I thought it would take longer. Time to try it!
@relinqued Golden Daggers does sound cooler though, right!? Thanks
what does 'early doors' mean? Is it like "early hours"?
I've already learned the term "modcon" from this site, so here's to learning another one!
I can't wait to play this one! Three Houses is among my favourite Fire Emblem games. I've also sunk hours into Hyrule Warriors and to some extent the previous instalment of Fire Emblem Heroes, so I'm ready for more hack & slash goodness!
I do don’t know who came up with the fusion idea for musou games let alone the obsession with Nintendo but the Nintendo musou games have been a dream come true for me. Raises all around. Somebody earned them.
@Roz1281 Haha. Yes, early hours.
Anyone know if progress from the demo caries over to the full game?
@immensechicken It does transfer to the full game.
Might buy it once I got through the six other Musou games I already had first before this.
cannot wait to play the demo but man balthus' design looks absolutely horrific bruh
What does belter mean?
@abbyhitter Belter:
"1. an event, person, quality, etc, that is admirable, outstanding, or thrilling" (Collins Dictionary)
@Takoda Calamity Warriors is a bit different for a musou game, which may be why I didn't like it quite as much as others. It just feels different, but if you prefer it then the others might not be as interesting to you. I liked the first FE Warriors the most and am looking forward to this one.
@Serpenterror Man, they are the gifts that keep on giving, aren't they? With all this talk about how much content a game has, Warriors games shouldn't be letting anyone down!
Yes! I am so very happy but sadly the library is closed today and I cannot use there wifi to download it I'll have to wait until tomorrow (I use mobile data)
Think I played a Fire Emblem game on Gameboy..maybe? This does look pretty though even if I'm not a fan of warriors games that have you mindlessly tapping attack for hours.
@BrianJL
I really loved how movement and combat seemed to flow seamlessly in AoC. Like Link shield surfing hurt enemies, but also made it so I could move at the same time. Feels like I was always stuck in this 'stop-and-go' in other musou games... but again, I feel like it has to be more than that so I have no idea haha. Maybe it's indeed what makes it different from the others that works for me, and why the older ones don't grab me as much. I'm gonna try the demo for this one today, we'll see how it goes. Hope we both get our kind of musou to enjoy!
@Takoda Well, hey, the great thing is that there are different kinds of games in this series and genre. They are all somewhat similar, but it's cool to have some different stuff too. There's too many of them for them all to be exactly the same (though some will claim that they are - ha ha!).
Hopefully performance isn’t horrid like AoC when I try this later today because otherwise will just pass and just watch the “golden route” story on Youtube
Nice that they didn’t forget the Ashen Wolves though
Been playing the demo and I’m seriously impressed.
This is the best Warriors game I’ve played (not counting Persona 5 Strikers which I don’t consider a Warriors game). The strategy of commanding units adds that missing element of tactical depth other Warriors games lack, and this time they’ve actually streamlined it in such a way that it doesn’t come off as confusing.
I was always buying this, but now I’m hyped. 4 full chapters with save transfer to full game means I’ve got something to kill the time until Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak on June 30th. And assuming I finish the demo before June 24 I’ll have a full week to play the game beyond chapter 4 as well. I have no idea how I’m going to squeeze Mario Strikers and KOTOR II in.
I definitely misread the title at first as "better", not "belter" and I was like.. "a better what....?!?!".
@Arawn93 How is the performance? I'm not able to check it out for a few days and kind of curious.
Also.. what do you mean, "golden route"?
Ugh, looks like I need to play Three Houses to get the most from this game...
The game looked like it would be fun in the trailers for me, but I personally enjoy being able to unlock every character in musou games and using them freely, the mere existence of the Casual vs. Classic mode option with unit permadeath is a huge red alarm for me that the game will likely follow a number of Fire Emblem trends far to closely for me, especially the potential for completely route-specific characters...I will be watching YouTube videos of the game as it still looks fun to watch, but there's no way I'm buying this game.
@MeloMan
In contrast to games like Age of Calamity and Persona 5 Strikers, Three Hopes seems like the type of game that could work as an entry point to Three Houses because of the different protagonist.
Not really a fan of Fire Emblem (only tried Three House which I never finished, and the Gacha for a lil while), but still gave the demo of this a shot. It's actually pretty fun. Looks good and runs fine. Tried it handheld, and while it was 30 FPS, it felt like it was pretty consistent which is impressive. Story is definitely a mess if you have no knowledge though, but still found it enjoyable and able to somewhat understand what was going on.
But like, is that purple hair mandatory? I kind of don't want to buy it if you can't change the hair...
@Ulysses alas, it is. Don’t know what developers were thinking, but Shez design in both their armor (at least male version of it) and ridiculous toxic purple hair looks so out of place.
Their personality is also nothing special and interesting. I have yet to see any quality that will make them an interesting protagonist, but so far I would rather played as Byleth.
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