Jeremy Gallen's Game Reviews

Nature, Nurture, or Neither

Some RPG developers have cases of roleplaying games where they create multiple versions of essentially the same games, the Pokémon series among them, given the varying incarnations for each of its generations. Other franchises have done similar things, for instance, later installments of the Mega Man Battle Network franchise and Shin Megami Tensei subseries DemiKids. Among other RPG franchises to adopt this practice is Fire Emblem, which has three distinct versions of the same title, Fire Emblem Fates, its incarnations consisting of Birthright, Conquest, and Revelations.

Upon commencing a new game, the player has two different kinds of difficulty options from which to choose, one determining the strength of enemies and the other the fates of the characters upon death. Classic Mode makes it so that characters who die in battle are gone permanently, Casual resurrects them after campaigns if they die, and the new setting, Phoenix, revives fallen characters on the same square on which they died following the enemy turn session, which consequentially makes it impossible most of the time to get a Game Over unless the player fails to fulfill an objective in combat, should any exist other than winning within a certain number of turns.

A few battles in, the player gets a customizable base where they can perform functions such as buying unit equipment and engaging in support conversations to build relationships between characters that affect how they participate in combat when next to one another on the battlefield. Mechanically, the games are similar to their predecessors, with the Weapon Triangle still existing (although armaments this time are color-coded, red beating green, green beating blue, and blue beating red), and weapons except for healing staves no longer having durability and ultimate expiration. Another feature fortunately inherited from past games includes the ability to skip battle animations and enemy turn sequences, which can shave superfluous playtime.

When characters reach level ten, the player can promote them to higher classes, with occasional variations of jobs. Birthright features additional maps that allow for extra leveling and acquisition of money, Conquest lacks them for an experience paralleling older Fire Emblem titles, and Revelations strikes a balance between the first two. Furthermore, while the auto option can speed up battles, characters will not necessarily fulfill whatever objectives fights may contain, such as having allies escape from the battlefield, and only expert gamers would find the games playable on higher difficulty settings. Even so, the adjustable challenge makes the games treats for veterans and newcomers alike.

The tactical gameplay remains strong.

Each game has a linear structure that makes it virtually impossible to get lost and figure out what to do next in the main storyline. Moreover, the player has convenient options to unequip every character and equip the best gear only for those allies they choose to participate in a battle. The only real hangups are that when shopping, the player cannot instantly tell whether a prospective weapon is better than what a character has equipped, and the menus take some getting used to for those unfamiliar with the franchise.

After the initial chapters, the player receives a choice of siding with birthplace of the protagonist(Birthright), the nation of their upbringing (Conquest), or neither (Revelations). Each narrative path has its strengths, with support conversations adding many dialogues that reveal more about the characters. The stories can also vary depending upon whether allies survive battles in traditional difficulty settings, and each story route ends with indications of what becomes of the surviving characters in the campaign. Unfortunately, the negatives of the divergent narratives counter the positives, with many tried story elements such as the questioning of authority, resistance against unjust government, and many exhausted twists.

The localization fails to help the narrative and its branches. While the dialogue is legible and free from spelling and grammatical errors, most of the game text feels unnatural and out of place in a fantasy game. Furthermore, Nintendo of America, for whatever reason, lazily used the broken-English acronym "OK" that doubles as a reference to American political history. The voice clips also rarely match the dialogue, and translators could have easily replaced lines such as "Gods!" with "By the gods!" In the end, the Fates games prove that fantasy RPG translations would benefit from the input of actual professional writers in the literary genre.

As implied, the Fates games feature voice acting, although its quality is almost universally poor, with generic performances that fail make the fantasy setting seem very authentic and clash with the narrative seriousness, although mercifully, players can mute them all the way. Full marks go to the soundtrack, however, full of many excellent pieces that never seem out of place, many tunes with Gaelic and Asian flairs. The sound effects are also believable, and the aurals are ultimately pleasing.

Dances with Foxes

The three-dimensional visuals of many cutscenes look nice, with plenty of excellent character designs and occasional cel-shaded animated FMVs that appear gorgeous. Even the sprites on battlefields have believable proportions; however, the decision to have full-fledged character portraits during scenes where the 3-D models appear is slightly questionable, alongside the typical imperfection of three-dimensional visuals with occasional pixilated scenery textures.

Finally, with the ability to skip battle animations, finishing each game can take as little as six hours, but keeping everything on standard settings can make individual playthroughs take up to twenty-four hours. Lasting appeal exists as divergent difficulty settings and story variations. However, the games lack achievements, guides would be necessary to uncover everything, and they lack a New Game+ mode.

Overall, the Fire Emblem Fates collection is another feather in the cap of the legendary tactical RPG series, given the continuation of trends from predecessors like Awakening that include the optional nature of permanent character death, alongside new features such as the Phoenix Mode that makes it a draw for newcomers to the series. The strategy gameplay is all-around solid and accommodating to players of different skill levels, the control is tight, and the audiovisual presentation is well above average, the only major issue being the writing. While the games would warrant playthroughs from most gamers into strategy RPGs, the closure of the Nintendo 3DS eShop severely limits options for experiencing them legally.

This review is based on individual playthroughs of all three story branches on Normal difficulty, Casual Mode, and Phoenix Mode.