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Fire Emblem If: The First Steps with Hoshido

by Daan Koopman - July 27, 2015, 2:46 pm EDT
Total comments: 1

If you played Awakening, this is likely the best place to start your journey.

It will come as a surprise to no one that I adore the Fire Emblem games a lot. I played most to completion and going through the strategy goodness on offer is always a treat. Awakening changed the dymanic a few years ago and it did that to absolute success. With strides made in the story and its presentation, it marked a brave new era for the franchise. The series finally managed to sell copies again and many newcomers picked it up for better or worse. At the same time, this created new challenges for the developers. How would they accomodate the various types of players and keep expanding the universe? The answer would come with Fire Emblem If, which released in Japan at the end of June.

The first big step made is that there are three seperate campaigns. In the beginning, you don't have to think about that too much. The game starts friendly enough with six introduction missions and here you will learn the ropes of this brand new world. You will play as Kamui, which is the official name for an avatar character you will create. Unlike Awakening where Robin would take a smaller role sometimes, Kamui is the game's central character. The changes in the world are based on the path you will choose and each side has its own consequences. You are born in Hoshido, but raised by the Nohr family and it is on you to decide who you should trust.

Both sides will try to pull at your heartstrings, but in that regard, Hoshido did leave the better impression. I don't want to go in depth about why that is, as it would spoil a ton about the title's opening moments. Either way, you can imagine that Hoshido would be my preferred path and that is how I began my journey. Naturally, the Nohr siblings aren't happy and you entered yourself in a war with seemlingly no end. Your new Hoshido family stands by you though and together you come up with a plan to destroy Nohr's dark ruler King Garon.

What makes Hoshido immediately stand out from Awakening is that the world map has a largely reduced role. You will no longer be traveling freely across the map and interact with every interesting point you see. Instead, the player will have to pick the level from a list of options. These can be story chapters, character encounters, random battles or the game's downloadable content. While most can be played over and over by going through a bunch of hoops, the story missions can't be played again. Once you play one and save the game afterwards, there is no turrning back. This helps to get to the action quicker and not to needlessly grind your way to the end.

There are also other changes to the weapon system that radically change how you will interact with the game. In Awakening, weapons could only be used a certain amount before becoming useless. You could increase this amount and stop the end of said weapons, but ultimately every one will suffer the exact same fate. That wasn't the case during my playthrough as the shops just limited the purchases of tools instead. This will put constrains on what you will be able to hold and think twice before buying something. If you have no proper use for it, why would you buy it to begin with? That money is better spent on recovery weapons or a variety of other things.

In battle, the strategy gameplay still feels fresh and diverse. There are small changes made to the weapon triangle, but outside of that, you will feel at home if you played Awakening. You could even say that the game assumes that you know strategy games or played Awakening just before it. The difficulty of the battles ramps up faster than before and you will need to learn how to adjust quickly. Depending on your difficulty, you have a pretty good idea of what to expect. There is no lower difficulty than normal, though your attitude will change depending the way your decide to play it. There is an option to let defeated characters return on the next turn, which I didn't touch in the slightest. I did began my journey on Casual though as I want to learn the maps on my first playthrough. The characters here will not end up dead after a stupid mistake, but there are still clear losing conditions in place. Eventually, I will likely play it on the highest settings and regret it horribly!

While the changes can't be seen at a glance, there are some small touches here and there. The Dual System, where you pair up two characters, makes its return and there are interesting differences to be found here. To start, your enemies can use this mechanic now as well and share stat boosts with one another. This will result in trickier enemy encounters, but not just for the obvious reasons. While the units can still attack together, there is now a deeper defence system. If you take damage, a gauge will be filled up. Once this is filled up, the next attack will fail regardless of the opponent's chances. This creates opportunities to beat the rougher enemies later in the game and it is something that is truly worth paying attention to.

Pairing up these characters is important, because you will get to see them interact with one another. It will raise their support levels to higher ranks and eventually become best buddies or even married. This has its own selection of perks like changing the class or meeting adorable children that will aid you in battle. What I found the most telling is that Hoshido introduces a lot of new classes like Ninjas, Spellcasters and Golden-Kite Warriors. That last class sees you hopping on a flying beast and using lances and bows. One of my favorite characters of the Hoshido playthrough is in that class, which makes it stick out. Picking and choosing your favorites is easy, but you will need to level up a lot to the most usage out of them.

Another new feature in this game is My Castle, which I feel sort of indifferent about. It is this large plaza, which you can populate to your own image. By spending Dragon Vein points, you pick and place buildings all across the area. These buildings range from shops, resource fields, forging areas, prisons and a lot more. You can also place statues to raise certain stats during special Castle Battles, which take place inside your own borders. All this stuff can be upgraded two more times by spending those same points later in the game. You gather Dragon Vein points by visiting other castles or participating in the various events that the game has on offer, so they aren't that hard to come by. This is a smart way to customize your experience and talk to your characters, but it all just feels very empty in the first half of the game.

Fire Emblem If looks better and brighter than Awakening. In particular, the character models look brilliant and even come complete with feet. The portraits are once again done by Yusuke Kozaki and he brought his A game to the title. The characters have clear and varied appearances and this put it on an equal footing with Awakening. The music is a hard one to call. I personally feel that I remember less of the soundtrack this time around, though the battle system is ingrained to my system at this stage. It is the most catchy thing in here, which is good as you will hear it quite a ton.

My first quest with Hoshido is now over, but I will carry on with Invisible Kingdom and Nohr. I will certainly come back and report more about about Fire Emblem If as I go along. For the time being though, I did enjoy my first steps with this game a lot and can't wait to see what the game will throw my way next. With a crisp presentation and various little changes to its system, the franchise continues to be fresh for me. While I don't see the appeal of My Castle and have some smaller gripes, it didn't stop from delivering the strategy experience that I wanted. At the end, that is what matters to me.

Talkback

WahJuly 27, 2015

Told you guys it was going to be awesome! :D

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3DS

Game Profile

Fire Emblem Fates Box Art

Genre RPG
Developer Intelligent Systems
Players1

Worldwide Releases

na: Fire Emblem Fates
Release Feb 19, 2016
PublisherNintendo
RatingTeen
jpn: Fire Emblem If
Release Jun 25, 2015
PublisherNintendo
Rating15+
eu: Fire Emblem Fates
Release May 20, 2016
PublisherNintendo
Rating12+
aus: Fire Emblem Fates
Release May 21, 2016
PublisherNintendo

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