Fire Emblem Heroes is a mobile phone app developed by Intelligent Systems. The game was launched on Android and iOS devices on February 2, 2017 in territories worldwide.
Development
A Fire Emblem mobile app was announced on April 27, 2016 as a part of Nintendo's effort to bring their content to the mobile phone market. Initially announced to release in the fall of 2016, it was later pushed back to an unspecified date within the March 2017 timeframe before its official release date of February 2, 2017 was unveiled.
The game is one of the first titles developed internally by Nintendo for mobile phones. It is not a traditional Fire Emblem experience, but one tailored more toward the mobile market to help drive broader interest in the franchise and the core games on Nintendo platforms. It is also one of the first mobile apps, after the social app Miitomo and Super Mario Run, to make use of the universal Nintendo Account system created in collaboration with Nintendo's corporate partner DeNA.
The game was officially unveiled during a Fire Emblem-themed Nintendo Direct on January 18, 2017. During the Direct, the game's final title Fire Emblem Heroes was revealed, and its story and gameplay were both introduced. It was also revealed that the game is a free-to-play mobile app with microtransactions based on a "gacha" collection structure. All characters that appear in the game will receive new art provided by a variety of artists, as well as new voiced dialogue. Similar to many mobile titles, Fire Emblem Heroes has received and continues to receive updates to add more characters, story chapters, and additional features over time.
Plot
Book I
The game follows two protagonists, the royal siblings of the Kingdom of Askr, Prince Alfonse and Princess Sharena, as well as gathered heroes from other worlds. Together, they plan to fight against the opposing Emblian Empire and their leader, Princess Veronica.
Book II
The war between Askr and Embla shifts with the introduction of the antagonistic nation of Múspell ruled by the evil King Surtr, which threatens to engulf the world in fire. They are opposed by Princess Fjorm of the kingdom of Nifl, who allies herself with the Askr royals.
Gameplay
Fire Emblem Heroes is a strategy game requiring a mixture of tactics and unit training.
Units and Team Building
- See also: Hero (Heroes)
Heroes revolves around using various Fire Emblem characters from numerous games, three of which are exclusive to Heroes. Heroes may be summoned either via completing special missions or Summoning them using Orbs.
Orbs are a form of currency in the game which can be used for a variety of purposes including replenishing Stamina and Duelling Swords, Purchasing expanded barracks, or summoning new Heroes. Players are given Orbs the first time they complete any story map on any difficulty, gifted through missions, and through event gifts. Players may also buy Orbs through in-app purchases which a minimum of 3 Orbs cost roughly 2 USD. Orb bundles go up to 75 USD and offer more bonus orbs the more expensive the bundle is.
Heroes are unique and have different properties including different unit types, stats, preferred weapon, and bonus skills/abilities. Every unit has a fixed growth pattern and maximum stat total upon reaching Level 40, preventing random stat growths from changing potential max stats between players. However, each character summoned via Orbs are subject to a Boon and Bane modifier that adds additional points to one of the 5 stats of the character while reducing the total for another. Summoned heroes also have a rarity assigned; higher rarities allow stronger starting stats, better growth rates, and more available skills. Base stats of acquired heroes can vary slightly, but those base stats adhere to a consistent base stat total. Characters may be trained up to Level 40, upon which they reach a Level Cap and cannot obtain any more levels. Any 1 Star to 4 Star Hero can perform an Unlock Potential, raising their Rarity by 1, but also resetting their Level to 1 and reseting their stats to its original base total. Skill Points (SP) are the only stat that does not reset when Unlocking Potential. Unlock Potential costs Badges and Feathers to perform. 2 Star to 4 Star Unlock costs normal badges while 5 Star Unlock requires Great Badges and a substantial amount of Feathers. Heroes who are 5 Stars cannot perform any more Unlock Potentials. They can, however, fuse with any copies of themselves through Merge Allies. Merging any copy of a Hero will grant them additional Skill Points, with higher skill points the rarer the card is. However, if the merging Hero has the same rarity and name of the base Hero, the base Hero will receive a special bonus level that does not count towards the Level 40 cap (for example, at maximum level, the character will be listed as Level 40 + 1 if it has a bonus level through merging.)
As the characters are used in battle, they can level up after obtaining Experience Points, of which the gains scale based on the difference in Level between the player's character and the enemy's. EXP also scales depending if the player's character killed the enemy. Upon leveling up, their stats will increase in a fixed manner depending on their boon/bane combination and their innate maximum stats. While a character may not get a stat increase for every stat every level, SP are always guaranteed and increase the amount gained every 10 levels. Heroes can expend SP to acquire new skills for the Heroes. The Skills available to learn are fixed to each character and require the Hero to be a certain rarity to learn. Skills come in 4 categories; Weapon, Attack/Heal Skill, Support Skill, and Passive Skill. Weapon Skills increase the Hero's weapon base damage and carries special effects the higher the weapon's Rarity are. Visually, the Hero's weapon in combat and on the battle map will also match. Attack/Heal skills provide bonuses when either attacking or healing. These skills require the Hero to attack, heal, or be attacked a certain number of times in order to activate. Support Skills are activated by having a Hero select an ally unit to give them a supportive effect. These includes Healing, Repositioning, Rally, and Dance commands. Passive Skills are a series of skills with various effects that can influence combat (such as Life and Death, self stat bonuses, adjacent allies bonus stats, and other various map skills (such as Obstruct).
As of March 16th, 2017, the Inherit Skills feature became available. Units are now allowed to acquire skills from other units to bolster their combat capabilities. The player selects a base unit to acquire the skills, then chooses another unit to sacrifice to teach the base unit new skills. The player then selects three skills that the sacrificed unit has acquired and transfers it to the base unit. The sacrificed unit is then removed permanently from the player's roster. Most skills can be universally transferred between units, however there are a few exceptions. First, several supportive skills are locked and cannot be transferred for any reason, such as the Dance skill that can only be used by dancers such as Olivia and Ninian. Second, weapons can be transferred between units, however weapons can only be transferred between two units who utilize the same weapon type and color (thus Blue Tome users can only transfer their weapon to other Blue Tome users and Stave wielders can only transfer their weapon to other Stave wielders) (Dragonstone and Bow weapons do not have the color restriction). Lastly, certain weapons are non-transferrable, mainly special weapons such as the Falchion or Armads can only be used by specific characters.
Special quests are available that also offer additional items, such as Hero Feathers, Orbs, Crystals and Shards, with various requirements such as using a specific hero for a certain fight.
Combat
Players expend stamina points to begin battle in Battle mode and each map has a set amount of stamina required to begin. All maps are on a 6x8 grid, though maps come in various terrains based on past Fire Emblem games. Maps features a plethora of terrain including forrest, mountains, lava fields, and oceans. Character's movement varies; Units riding mounts can move a maximum of three titles, basic foot units can move two spaces, and heavy knights are restricted to a single tile for movement. If the HP of the player's Hero is depleted, the character will retreat from battle, but can be used in subsequent battles, regardless if the player had lost all characters in a single duel, hence having more of a Casual Mode style of unit handling.
A unit's combat capabilities are set, restricting them to a single weapon, regardless if the class in the main series is able to use multiple weapon types. The Weapon Triangle and Anima Magic are used in a singular weapon effectiveness wheel to create Blue weapons (Lances, Thunder/Light Magic), Red weapons (Swords, Fire/Dark Magic), and Green weapons (Axes, Wind Magic), with Breath attacks falling into all three categories depending on the hero. Blue weapons are strong against Red weapons, Red weapons are strong against Green weapons, and Green weapons are stronger than Blue weapons. There are also Colorless weapons (Bows, Shuriken, and Staves), but these are not factored into Heroes Weapon Triangle unless a specific weapon designates it so (for example, Male Robin's Blarraven, classified as Thunder Magic, a Blue weapon, grants a weapon advantage against colorless units as well as red ones.) Bows retain their special property of dealing effective damage against Flying Units, Shuriken can lower enemy stats, and Staves can still heal allies as well as attack enemies, but are weak in damage. All Sword, Lance, Axe, and Breath attacks are from one tile away while all Magic, Bow, Shuriken, and Staff attacks are from two spaces away.
Modes
- Story Mode – Players play through the story of Heroes, following the adventures of Prince Alfonse and Princess Sharena as they battle the Embla empire lead by Princess Veronica. There are thirteen playable chapters in Book 1, each containing 5 battles each. Players encounter a series of Fire Emblem characters from different Fire Emblem games, though each chapter focuses on a specific game. Each map costs a varying amount of stamina, harder battles cost more stamina. Completing each individual battle rewards the player with an Orb upon its first completion. Completing a chapter unlocks the ability to battle the map on Hard and Lunatic with raised Stamina cost and enemy levels. In addition to the main story, there are also Paralogue stories that will release over time that are set outside the main narrative. Furthermore, as of Version 1.5, Chain Challenge and Squad Assault are added in Story Maps. In Chain Challenge, players can play through the past chapters from the main story, only this time they can play all 5 battles from an entire chapter, and all 10 battles from both chapters. Like the Tempest Trials, characters that fall during the challenge are lost and cannot be utilized for the rest of the challenge run. Squad Assault is the most devastating challenge, where the players will have to prepare all 20 powerful units to complete that challenge. Unlike the Chain Challenge, if one single character from the player's team falls during this challenge, the game is over. Also, if the players clear a battle, the team that survived the last battle will be captured and cannot be utilized for the rest of this challenge, forcing the players to use another team before the next battle, no duplicates. As of Version 2.0, a new story called Book 2 has been added. In Book 2, the players play through a new adventure, where they will help Princess Fjorm of the Ice Kingdom of Nifl battle against the Flame Kingdom of Múspell ruled by King Surtr. As of Version 2.7, a new mode, Tactics Drills, has been added in the Story Maps. It is designed to test the player's strategy and they must overcome the challenges with a turn limit.
- Training Tower– A tower with ten strata of increasingly strong enemies that awards more EXP than regular maps. Each stratum starts with 4 normal difficulty levels, 3 hard levels, and 3 infernal levels. The stamina required to complete each stratum increases as the difficulty rises as well. This is also where players can obtain Shards and Crystals for EXP that can be distributed and Badges and Great Badges that are used to promote characters to higher Star ratings. Players may also use the tower to train characters to level 40 and gain more skill points.
- Special Maps – Players challenge a special team lead by a specific Fire Emblem character. Players must defeat the enemy team without losing a single unit on their team. Upon completion for the first time, the player recruits them into their army. The tier of the recruited Hero depends on the difficulty of their map. Other Maps (such as Launch Celebration map) are also occasionally available.
- Arena Duel – Players challenge teams created by other Heroes players for points. Players attempt to battle 5 consecutive teams for a cumulative score which are compared to other players each week. Ending week rank can move players up or down tiers with the highest tiers comprised of players with near perfect teams.
- Arena Assault - A gauntlet of Arena style battles. Players challenge 7 Arena Defense teams in a row. However, player's must create 7 different teams, one for each battle.
- Events - Events are non-permanent game modes. There are three types of Events and each reward players in different way for participating in it.
- Voting Gauntlet - Every so often, eight Fire Emblem characters are selected to participate in a tournament based on popularity. Players select a unit to represent one of the eight character and they participate in battles to earn points for their candidate. The end results of the Gauntlet awards players with Feathers based on the represented unit's performance and final scores each round. Players earn bonus points based on if they utilize the hero they choose to represent (for example, players who represent Lucina earn bonus points for winning as her.)
- Tempest Trials - Like the Voting Gauntlet, Tempest Trials are a periodical event. Players battle against a gauntlet of enemy teams of various difficulties. Characters that fall during the gauntlet are lost and cannot be utilized for the rest of the gauntlet run, but is not permanently removed from the player's roster. Once a player has cleared a gauntlet, they are graded based on the difficulty of the set, the number of units lost, and the number of cumulative turns to clear the map. Players can earn bonus rewards for reaching certain point totals through the event including feathers, orbs, extra skills, and exclusive Heroes.
- Tap Battle: Illusory Dungeon - Tap Battle: Illusory Dungeon is a periodical event, like the Voting Gauntlet and the Tempest Trials. In this rhythm game, players battle against the enemies by simply tapping the screen. If the timing is just right, enemies will be hit by a critical attack and fly off-screen. In order to achieve an S rank for a perfect run, the players must rack up the combos by landing multiple critical attacks in a row. In Casual mode, the players can tap the bottom screen with the Summoner and Feh. In Expert mode, they can tap the spaces next to their 4 units in the right order.
- Grand Conquests - Grand Conquests is a new periodical event. Three armies battle to conquer territory across a continent. Each Grand Conquests event last for 3 battles, with each battle taking course over two days. Like the Rival Domains Special Maps, players will battle with the help of their friends against the enemy armies to control the camps and forts. When the battle ends, the armies will earn the rewards, based on how many areas they controlled.
- Forging Bonds - Forging Bonds is a new periodical event. Players will have to forge bonds on the battlefield and grow closer to Heroes. By defeating the enemies, the bonds from certain characters will grow stronger, depending on the difficulty. When they grow close enough, the players will unlock and view special conversations.
- Blessed Gardens - Blessed Gardens is a new game mode where players battle against the enemies from each of the previous paralogue maps. However, only the Legendary Heroes and Heroes with Blessings are allowed in this mode. Furthermore, the players must clear the maps without losing a single unit, much like the Grand Hero Battles. Players can earn rewards upon clearing the maps, such as Orbs, Hero Feathers, Divine Dews, and the four elements of Blessings.
Characters
Fire Emblem Heroes includes a large roster of characters from across the full history of the franchise, along with some original characters. There are currently 282 unique playable units with 203 of the franchise's cast represented in at least one form.
In addition to the standard characters on the roster, there are also special variants of select characters that have been released as part of timed seasonal and special events. These character variants have appearances, skills, and weapons that differ from their standard forms. Currently, Charlotte, Inigo, Noire, and Veronica have only been made available as a special unit variation and not their original appearance.
- See main article: List of characters in Fire Emblem Heroes
Chapters
- See main article: List of chapters in Fire Emblem Heroes
Voice cast
- See main article: List of Voice Actors in Fire Emblem Heroes
Artists
- See main article: List of Artists in Fire Emblem Heroes
Music
- See main article: List of Music in Fire Emblem Heroes
Choose Your Legends Event
2017 Choose Your Legends Event
Prior to the launch of Fire Emblem Heroes, the game's official website went live with the Choose Your Legends event. From January 18 to January 31, 2017, visitors to the website could vote for one character per day. All playable characters, major villains, and select major NPCs from each entry in the franchise were eligible to receive votes. Characters that appeared in more than one game could also receive votes for each individual appearance.
On February 8th, 2017, the top twenty male and female characters to receive votes were announced via Nintendo of America's Twitter account:
Male:
- Ike (Path of Radiance)
- Roy (The Binding Blade)
- Hector (The Blazing Blade)
- Chrom (Awakening)
- Ike (Radiant Dawn)
- Marth (Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light/Shadow Dragon)
- Ephraim (The Sacred Stones)
- Robin (Awakening)
- Takumi (Fates)
- Leo (Fates)
- Henry (Awakening)
- Dorcas (The Blazing Blade)
- Donnel (Awakening)
- Lon'qu (Awakening)
- Gaius (Awakening)
- Niles (Fates)
- Marth (Mystery of the Emblem/New Mystery of the Emblem)
- Joshua (The Sacred Stones)
- Eliwood (The Blazing Blade)
- Owain (Awakening)
Female:
- Lyn (The Blazing Blade)
- Lucina (Awakening)
- Tharja (Awakening)
- Camilla (Fates)
- Corrin (Fates)
- Eirika (The Sacred Stones)
- Cordelia (Awakening)
- Azura (Fates)
- Micaiah (Radiant Dawn)
- Nowi (Awakening)
- Robin (Awakening)
- Tiki (Awakening)
- Lute (The Sacred Stones)
- Felicia (Fates)
- Elise (Fates)
- Mia (Radiant Dawn)
- Anna (Awakening)
- Nephenee (Path of Radiance)
- Nino (The Blazing Blade)
- Sakura (Fates)
On August 27th, 2017, Ike, Roy, Lyn and Lucina received a Brave Hero variation due to holding the top two spots for each gender respectively. Additionally, the top ten male and female characters were featured in monthly calendar mobile phone wallpapers distributed from March 2017 to December 2017.
2018 Choose Your Legends Event
On January 21st, 2018, the second round of the Choose Your Legends event began. Like the first event, visitors to the website were allowed to vote for one character per day. However, the characters who won first and second place in 2017 (Ike from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Lyn from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, Roy from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, and Lucina from Fire Emblem Awakening) were ineligible to receive votes. This ineligibility extended to character counterparts (Ike from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and Masked Marth from Fire Emblem Awakening). Characters added to the ballot included the new characters in the Fire Emblem Gaiden remake, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, as well as the original cast of Fire Emblem Heroes itself. The voting period for the second Choose Your Legends event was shorter than the first, and lasted only seven days.
The results of the ballot were revealed on the official website on February 1st, 2018. The top twenty characters for each gender as voted are:
Male:
- Hector (The Blazing Blade)
- Ephraim (The Sacred Stones)
- Marth (Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light/Shadow Dragon)
- Alm (Gaiden/Echoes: Shadows of Valentia)
- Reinhardt (Thracia 776)
- Chrom (Awakening)
- Robin (Awakening)
- Takumi (Fates)
- Leif (Thracia 776)
- Ryoma (Fates)
- Marth (Mystery of the Emblem/ New Mystery of the Emblem)
- Owain (Awakening)
- Eliwood (The Blazing Blade)
- Leo (Fates)
- Kliff (Gaiden/Echoes: Shadows of Valentia)
- Keaton (Fates)
- Xander (Fates)
- Alfonse (Heroes)
- Kaden (Fates)
- Soren (Path of Radiance)
Female:
- Celica (Gaiden/Echoes: Shadows of Valentia)
- Veronica (Heroes)
- Camilla (Fates)
- Eirika (The Sacred Stones)
- Azura (Fates)
- Loki (Heroes)
- Nino (The Blazing Blade)
- Micaiah (Radiant Dawn)
- Corrin (Fates)
- Tharja (Awakening)
- Cordelia (Awakening)
- Selkie (Fates)
- Morgan (Awakening)
- Lilina (The Binding Blade)
- Nowi (Awakening)
- Laevatein (Heroes)
- Mia (Radiant Dawn)
- Ninian (The Blazing Blade)
- Delthea (Gaiden/Echoes: Shadows of Valentia)
- Robin (Awakening)
A Hero Rises Event
As a part of celebrating the one year anniversary of the launch of Fire Emblem Heroes, the A Hero Rises event was launched on February 1, 2018. For this event, participants were allowed to vote for one character already present in the game per day, including special event characters and other character variants, with the exception of the original cast of Fire Emblem Heroes. Voting took place over two rounds, with the first lasting eleven days, ending on February 12, 2018. The top four characters to receive votes were then voted on in a final round that took place over four days, from February 15th to the 19th.
The four finalists, and their ranking, were:
- Ike (Vanguard Legend)
- Tharja ("Normal Girl")
- Azura (Lady of Ballads)
- Hector (General of Ostia)
The winning character, Ike (Vanguard Legend), was made available to all players as a free 5-star unit for completing the subsequently released map, Xenologue 3: The People's Hero.
Trivia
- The player is given a free two-star archer unit as their free tutorial draw for the game's gacha mechanic. When the game launched, the character given in the tutorial was Virion. With the version 2.5.0 update, however, the tutorial character was changed to Takumi.
- As of August 1, 2018, Fire Emblem Heroes had earned a worldwide revenue of US$400 million. It is the first mobile title published by Nintendo to cross the $100 million threshold and currently stands as the company's most profitable mobile title to date.
- Fire Emblem Heroes was initially rated E10+ by the ESRB, but it was later raised to T, most likely due to "partial nudity" and profanity.
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