Being an off an on Musou fan. I was extremely excited for Fire Emblem warriors. Hyrule warriors was definitely my jam and Fire Emblem warriors seemed like it was going to fit the bill perfectly for me. I have been through every Fire Emblem start to finish with the exception of Radiant dawn. This entry married both of these franchises beautifully! The excitement of mowing down hordes of enemies with flashy attacks and special moves with the relationship and building tactical strategies found in Fire Emblem seemed like it was going to be the prefect game for me.
You begin the game with the choice of two main protagonists to choose from, Rowan and Lianna. Two royal children who are brimming with personality and sibling rivalry. The game starts simple enough with a tragic tale starting you off on your path of recovering the "Fire Emblem" The tutorial is done exactly the way that I prefer a game to teach you how to play. In the Midst of battle a small to the point message will pause the game and tell you a specific function or mechanic and the result/benefit of what it does. It's to the point and throws you right back into the action with very minimal reading. Too many games produce pages and pages of bland text to you explaining how the game works taking you out of the action, while making learning the game a total bore. Fire Emblem Warriors does a great job of inching you into the ever more complex traits of the game one step at a time.
This is a chapter based affair which is broken up into many branching paths as your quest continues on. You are usually presented with a cutscene or static image based story before the battle prep screen pops up. The story honestly is serviceable. I wasn't expecting anything revolutionary and I know the meat and potatoes is the massive scale battles and tight gameplay. But I do admit there were times where I was hoping to feel a little more engaged with what was going on. It does have characters you want to root for and the story does a fine enough job to tug you along and make mowing down tens of thousands of enemies seem like the right thing to be doing. But, it was hardly a revolutionary tale. The last few chapters wrap up nicely and it delivers a ton of fan service to players of previous entries in the Fire Emblem franchise. One of my favorite parts was seeing victory poses such as Frederick picking up a stone saying "He misses absolutely nothing" Which is a funny throw back to Fire Emblem Awakening.
Combat wise is pretty straightforward and quite easy to grasp. A simple light and hard attack button scheme with two kinds of special attacks. Balancing them out is fun and delivers some great risk/reward scenarios on higher difficulties. The special attacks and flashy and grand. It makes you feel like you are a god among men which is kinda the whole idea of the Musou genre. Even after the hundredth time I activated a certain character's special, I never found myself tired of watching it. They're extremely well done and quite short. They did a great job of making the battles seem legendary and very grand in scale.
You are able to partner up with a hero on the battle field opening up the chance of an even more powerful dual special which literally eliminates anything within the surrounding area.
Now on to some of the relationship building mechanics. This is where the game actually gets surprisingly deep. As mentioned above, you are able to pair up in tandem on the battlefield. Eliminating enemies while in this state will award you relationship points towards strengthening your bond. This will open up new attacks and perks for each character. It is surprisingly addictive and a great borrowed mechanic from core Fire Emblem titles.
There are also a ton of stat unlockables using loot and gear scavenged from the battlefield. It makes the replaying the stages fun and always worth it was you are either getting EXP from defeating enemies or more loot for fine tuning their stats.
On that topic, one of the larger complaints I had was the omission of a learn all option per character when it comes to unlocking stats. I would have to scroll through pages and pages of grids to click on icons learning each stat from each character which definitely got up there is the later half of the game. I was definitely yearning a "learn all button" instead of siphoning through pages and pages of menus. Most times I was devoting more of my time learning new skills than actually playing the game sadly.
The missions range anywhere from 3 minutes to 20 minutes depending on if you are trying to complete all side quests or just the core winning criteria.
The game does a good job of keeping you on your toes and not mindlessly slashing through the hordes by throwing urgent time sensitive side quests at you during battle. It's usually in line with save this villager or eliminate mounted riders and so on. It's nothing ground breaking but it was a great way to keep me on edge and not just sprinting right to the finish line. Doing these side missions usually rewards the player with higher end loot for levelling up or some nice gear and equipment.
I put roughly 35 hours into Fire Emblem Warriors before I saw the credits roll. I haven't done everything just yet and I was pleasantly surprised with some extra end game content after completion. Some minor complaints with some campy story, writing and a few annoying design choices. I really enjoyed my time with Fire Emblem Warriors! It catered to both Musou fans and Fire Emblem fans alike. I would definitely like to see another entry in the expanding Warriors crossover titles and would gladly dedicate my time to another game in the series.
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Score8.5/10
Playtime: 35 hours and counting
Platform: Nintendo Switch