I first discovered the Dynasty Warriors franchise during the PlayStation 2 era, starting from its very beginning with Dynasty Warriors on the system's precursor. However, as the inaugural entry was a fighting game, I took surprise when its numeral sequel took a vastly different direction in terms of gameplay, eventually discovering that the franchise's numbering was off by one in country-of-origin Japan, similar to how the Final Fantasy series once was in America. Dynasty Warriors' genre would ultimately receive the label of musou, and its formula would eventually find its way into other franchises, among them being Fire Emblem, its particular spinoff receiving the moniker Fire Emblem Warriors.
Warriors opens with twin prince and princess Rowan and Lianna of Aytolis sparring with their friend Prince Darios of Gristonne, until monsters suddenly attack the kingdom and they flee with the Shield of Flames, which is, to say, the MacGuffin Fire Emblem of mainline entries. They ultimately discover a plot to resurrect the Chaos Dragon Velezark, with heroes from other Fire Emblem titles crossing into their dimension and helping them to stop the dragon's revival. There is some decent backstory, but crossover fiction, with only a few exceptions, typically doesn't make for good storytelling, and Fire Emblem Warriors is no exception, with many tried plot elements in the mix.
The translation definitely doesn't help. There are a few good lines, a deficit of spelling errors, and decent naming conventions for the various luminaries, although given the general shoddy state of the writing, one can safely assume that Koei-Tecmo handled the localization. For instance, there are lines in battle such as “(character) defeated (insert unit type here without ‘a')”, and given Nintendo's preference for family-friendliness, at least in North America, some of the dialogue feels Bowdlerized at times. There is some profanity at times, but lines such as “Double damn!” sound horribly unnatural, along with Engrish-sounding titles such as “Hero-King”. Overall, the translators could have certain made a far better effort in their work.
Luckily, the gameplay largely compensates for the narrative and translational shortcomings. When starting a new game, in addition to focusing on the prince or princess, players can, akin to mainline Fire Emblems, choose options such as permadeath for characters and a default difficulty selection, although players can replay completed stages on higher settings, with a tougher challenge mode accessible upon finishing the main quest. Akin to the Dynasty Warriors games, stages occur on a moderately-sized battlefield, players eventually able to set additional “leader” units, up to four including whatever mandatory ones the game dictates (the chosen protagonist typically among them, although some are at times forbidden if a player hasn't finished a stage).
Once the player is content with the setup of their leader units, they can begin the battle, which is like the Dynasty Warriors game in real-time, players controlling one commanding character at a time yet able to switch among the other leaders they chose for the fight, if able. Battles have victory conditions, such as the defeat of a certain enemy leader or capture of an adversarial base, sometimes defeat conditions, such as the demise of one of the player's main units, and sometimes submissions like killing enemies harassing an NPC unit or preventing enemy messengers from reaching their destinations. Many fights as well may have a treasure chest and a unit with a key the player can seize and use to open said box for postcombat bonuses.
Melee and in some cases ranged combat is of the hack-and-slash variety, with each leader character having gauges that fill up as they battle foes that allow them to execute more powerful fixed attacks. Furthermore, the Weapon Triangle of the mainline Fire Emblem games plays a significant role, with swords being effective against axmen, axes trumping spearmen, and spears beating swordsmen. Leader units have another gauge that fills up with occasional item drops that briefly allows their standard attacks, regardless of the Weapon Triangle, to be effective against all enemy types. There are also twists to the formula present in the standard Fire Emblems such as bows being especially effective against winged adversaries.
As commanders slaughter foes, they gain experience for occasional level-ups and consequential stat increases, although players must win the current battle for said advancements to carry over to successive battles, given that failing a primary objective means Game Over, akin to the main entries of the franchise. However, one handy feature is that, when playing a game with permadeath disabled, the player can save in the middle of battle so that if a Game Over does occur, they can restart from that point, although lamentably, an actual suspend save where the player can quit a battle and pick up where they left off seems absent.
Total victory nets players all weapons and materials left by foes into the player's inventory, mercifully limitless. Each commander has three skill trees that necessitate the use of said materials to grant them bonuses such as increased resistance to certain attack types. Support conversations depending upon how in sync one commander fought with another may advance a grade after combat as well, granting the player rare materials also usable in the aforementioned skill trees. Money is another spoil from battle, with the skill tree advancements requiring a payment, alongside increasing a character's level up to a max of wherever the highest-leveled character stands in that department.
Players may occasionally receive Master Seals with which they can advance a character's class, and while one would think that akin to mainline Fire Emblems they would prefer to max the level of their base class before using them, in Warriors it doesn't matter at all whenever they do decide to do so, given the limitless disposition of leveling well beyond the required level of fifteen, and admittedly, I had to reference the internet after beating the main quest to confirm this (and I finished the game just fine without any promotions at all). Regardless, Fire Emblem Warriors for the most part does a great job adapting the mainline series gameplay to an action setting.
Control, however, doesn't fare quite as well. While the game is rigidly linear and it's consequentially impossible for players to get lost and need to reference the internet in order to advance, going through every character's skill tree to find out what the player can advance in between battles can be a bit of a chore, and while cutscenes are for the most part skippable, during scenes where the player can scroll through dialogue, it takes a bit of loading for the option to skip them actually become useable. The use of the touchscreen to try and get a battle's map to zoom in/out can also be somewhat unresponsive, although there are some bright spots such as the ability between battles to optimize equipment for all characters. Still, Warriors could have definitely been more user-friendly.
The soundtrack, though, is one of the highlights of the musou spinoff, with battles largely utilizing rock versions of combat themes from mainline Fire Emblems, and plenty of signature series music such as the franchise overture, sound effects, and jingles appearing in various capacities. Lamentably, the voicework isn't very good, as would plague Koei-Tecmo's main Dynasty Warriors game, but in the end Warriors isn't too big an earsore.
Fire Emblem's first musou game isn't a great eyesore either, but oftentimes the graphics lack polish, given the blurry and pixilated texturing aplenty most visible in combat, along with the cookie-cutter enemy models, although voiced cutscenes use either the cel-shaded animated style present in contemporary mainline entries or static portraits showing various emotions in other scenes. The general art direction and character designs are good, with their respective models in battle reflecting their respective artwork, as one would expect from a game of its time, although the visuals could have certainly been better.
Finally, one can potentially blaze through the game's main quest in a little over eight hours, although unlocking every achievement and completing every battle on every difficulty can pad playtime well beyond that time.
In summation, Fire Emblem Warriors could at best have been a convoluted mess, given the core differences in the mainline franchise's style and that of the Dynasty Warriors series, but turned out surprisingly well in the gameplay department, given the successful translation of key gameplay elements of the primary Fire Emblems mixed with action-based musou mechanics. The soundtrack rounds off a general solid experience, along with plentiful lasting appeal, although there are a few serious issues regarding control, the narrative, the voicework, and the visuals that prevent it from truly excelling. Given Omega Force's success in giving musou twists to prominent gaming franchises, who knows which big-name series they'll creep into next? I'd definitely be interested.
This review is based on a playthrough of a digital copy downloaded to the reviewer's New Nintendo 3DS.
The Bottom Line:
Good largely for its gameplay.
Score Breakdown:
Platform: New Nintendo 3DS
Game Mechanics: 8.5/10
Controls: 5.0/10
Story: 3.5/10
Localization: 2.5/10
Music/Sound: 8.0/10
Graphics: 5.0/10
Lasting Appeal: 9.5/10
Difficulty: Adjustable
Playing Time: 8-24+ Hours