Update: About an hour and a half after the new one fire emblem announcement of the smartphone game and the vague “soon” release window for iOS, Nintendo told fans that the game would be released simultaneously on iOS and Android on February 2nd. That puts iOS gamers ahead in terms of Nintendo releases; Super Mario Run won’t launch on android until “March 2017.”
Nintendo didn’t explain why fire emblemThe iOS release window was advertised so vaguely in the original announcement.
Original report:
Nintendo’s pursuit of smartphone gaming continues on February 2 with the launch of Fire Emblem Heroesa touch-only take on the company’s old tactical RPG series – and possibly the most microtransaction-powered game to date.
Like Super Mario Run for the, Fire Emblem Heroes will have a period of platform exclusivity, but in a surprising twist, that exclusivity is reversed. Android users get the first crack on heroes on that release date, while iOS users have been told their version is “coming soon”. During the announcement, Nintendo did not mention Animal Crossingthe other series will get a smartphone port in the near future.
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“Strategic Battles!” But they take place on rather small 8×6 cards.
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Use your fingers to direct your fighters and drag and drop an enemy to launch an attack, or place them exactly where you want and issue a custom command.
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Generating new heroes for your armies requires spending orbs, which you can earn in the game…
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…or buy with real money. You need five orbs per hero.
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Well, unless you generate multiple heroes in one fell swoop, at which point each is cheaper. Five, then four, then three, and so on.
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The heroes you create must take into account the series’ rock-paper-scissors strength and weakness system.
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Put all your fighters together in custom armies to face future battles.
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Unlike other Fire Emblem games, the characters remain in a simplified, cutesy style, even during the fighting zoom-in moments.
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Full screen art from the attacker will at least briefly blink.
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I personally love the chibi style here, but I could see it being a letdown for people who like Fire Emblem’s more dramatic fighting moments.
like others fire emblem spell, heroes revolves around turn-based combat, in which characters maneuver around a grid-based map to attack and defend with a mix of swords and sorcery. Unlike older games, heroes will limit his cards to an 8×6 grid of squares “so that the entire battle fits on your screen.” (Most fire emblem games have much larger maps, which you can scroll through using the controller buttons.)
heroes will be free to download when it launches; it will make money through in-app purchases. The game’s “orbs” currency can be earned through battle or purchased with real money, and those orbs are used to generate new heroes. (Each hero costs five orbs by default, each costing around 60 cents when bought in packs.) The catch is that the orbs you receive come in random colors, and the attributes of your generated heroes vary based on the colors of the stones you spend are the generation process (and even then the heroes that appear once you spend these orbs are random). Nintendo is actively encouraging players at this point to “spend more, save more” until the random hero generator coughs up your ideal swordsman, ax wheeler, or arrow shooter.
Fire Emblem Heroes Announcement Trailer
Unlike the console and handheld versions, heroes‘ characters don’t disappear forever when they die. This change is believed to be due to the microtransaction nature of the game. Nintendo’s trailer describes ways to unlock new heroes, as well as boost and level up the ones you own, but there’s no mention of whether these bonuses can be paid for as well.
With a smaller map size and an emphasis on hero generation and army optimization, you might expect Nintendo to reveal some sort of two-player mode. However, such a mode will not be included in the game at launch (although the gray box of a menu screen may be replaced by such a mode in the future). There are currently few details on exactly how the game’s various battles are chained together; menu screens refer to both randomly generated challenges (including “seasonal events”) and some sort of overarching quest (via “story cards”).
Nintendo’s “Fire Emblem Direct” video also featured new games in the series coming to Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch. The Japan-only NES release Fire Emblem Gaiden gets a translated 3DS remaster (dubbed) Shadows of Valentina) for all regions on May 19, and the company teased a “traditional” Fire Emblem game coming to Nintendo Switch in “2018”. (This is different from Fire Emblem Warriors on Switch and the “new” Nintendo 3DS, which is still on track for a 2017 launch.)
List image by Nintendo