I’m going to keep this intro brief because the banner is pretty exciting.
Just so you know, this is the first time I’m going to try culling my word count by pivoting away from self-generated skill sets to showing off the official video.
It’ll be a little less fun for me personally, but it should make things more efficient.
But my hype for Alm was nothing compared to seeing fallen Berkut for the first time.
Intelligent Systems put extra time into him. His idle sprite looks unhinged with a tilted head and calloused laugh. The witch of his sacrificed Rinea lingers in both his artwork and attack animations. On top of that, the insanity of his lust for power is evident all over the character dialogue.
Clearly the developers know Berkut is a fan-favorite, because he got love far beyond any unit I’ve seen.
He’s also my favorite part of this fallen banner, which is great considering he was my free summon:
Figures Berkut would peg me as an ally after Alm’s rejection.
However, just because Berkut is the stand-out doesn’t mean he’s the only unit available.
This year, alongside Berkut is Tiki, an incredibly powerful colorless armor dragon; Mareeta, a rare Thracia representative; and Corrin, who…
Frankly doesn’t compare. Maybe if she was red? But as things are, I’m not impressed.
However we have possessed Delthea coming, and if she’s amazing I might update my main infantry team.
It’s cool that Echoes has been getting its due, and thankfully Berkut gave me enough savings to focus on Tiki with the free summon tickets from Forging Bonds.
An event with strange continuity issues. Fjorm arrives in a forest of the damned and meets these four heroes, surprised by how different they are… Despite this being Mareeta’s first appearance.
The scenario is wonky, but I can forgive it. Because their individual stories are less dry than the main story chapter.
Book III, Chapter 7 — A Home Unknown
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We begin in the midst of the Order of Heroes’ trip through Hel.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the landscape begins to resemble Alfonse and Sharena’s homeland of Askr — just emptier and more unnerving.
Before we can get too deep into that plot point, Intelligent Systems sidetracks us into a brief conversation between Veronica and Loki.
It sounds like they will soon be headed for Hel, as Veronica wishes to kill the queen of the dead, which by extent will kill all of the other dead that she cannot kill.
Because plot.
The Order’s trip is a mostly uneventful romp through tortured heroes until Eir has a sudden conversation with Líf: First King of Askr.
He gives us plot seeds by asking Eir not to remember things that seem to pain her.
Basic development, but my main problem with the moment is its setting. Where and when are they having this conversation?
If it’s in the Order’s camp, how did the dead guy get in unnoticed?
This conversation happens at the end of map 4, and map 5 has Anna remarking on his sudden battlefield appearance.
So what’s the deal?
Unfortunately, no answers are provided. Once the battle with Líf ends, he retreats and Sharena is distracted by flowers.
This is also a blatant set-up for something, though I’m not exactly sure what.
It’s likely either the reveal that Líf’s dead wife loved those flowers too, or that this is some alternate universe’s dead Sharena. Pick a cliché, any cliché!
Then, without any more fanfare, the chapter ends.
Nothing particularly eventful happened, and almost everything that did happen was set-up for future storytelling.
As cynical as I might be about the weak story chapter, that doesn’t take away from how much I genuinely enjoy the banner’s units.
I’m really excited to see what other possessed/fallen characters they pull out next:
Zombie Scarlet? Demon Lyon? Anankos Gunter? Apparently, fallen Julia was a thing too.
Any of those amazing units… Would have probably been better than Corrin. Banking on her three seconds of losing control at the beginning of Fates is kind of lame.
But that’s just my opinion, so let me know what you guys think about these fallen heroes in the comments!
Grants Defense +3. If unit is within two spaces of an ally, grants Attack and Defense +3 to unit and those allies during combat. Standard beast transformation effect applies. If unit transforms, grants Attack +2, and if unit initiates combat, inflicts Attack/Defense -4 on foe during combat and foe cannot make a follow-up attack.
Rally Attack/Defense+ (Range = 1)
Grants Attack and Defense +6 to target ally for one turn.
Chill Attack (B Skill)
At start of turn, inflicts Attack -7 on foe on the enemy team with the highest Attack through its next action.
Ward Beasts (C Skill)
Grants Defense and Resistance +4 to beast allies within two spaces during combat.
Grants Speed +3. If unit is not adjacent to an ally, grants Attack and Speed +6 during combat. Standard beast transformation effect applies. If unit transforms, grants Attack +2, and if unit initiates combat, inflicts Attack/Defense -4 on foe during combat and foe cannot make a follow-up attack.
Moonbow (Cooldown = 2)
Treats foe’s Defense or Resistance as if reduced by 30 percent during combat.
Speed/Defense Solo (A Skill)
If unit is not adjacent to an ally, grants Speed and Defense +6 during combat.
Hone Beasts (C Skill)
At start of turn, grants Attack and Speed +6 to adjacent beast allies for one turn.
Grants Defense +3. If a movement Assist skill is used by or targets unit, inflicts Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance -4 on foes within two spaces of unit and target through their next actions after movement. Standard beast transformation effect applies. If unit transforms, grants Attack +2 and deals +10 damage when Special Attack triggers.
Smite (Range = 1)
Pushes target ally two spaces away.
Attack/Defense Link (B Skill)
If a movement Assist skill is used by or targets unit, grants Attack and Defense +6 to both units for one turn.
Beast Exp. (C Skill)
While unit lives, all beast allies on team get 2x EXP (only highest value applies, does not stack).
Grants Attack +3. If foe initiates combat, grants Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance +4 during combat. Standard beast transformation effect applies. If unit transforms, grants Attack +2, and unit can counterattack regardless of foe’s range.
Bonfire (Cooldown = 3)
Boosts damage by 50 percent of unit’s Defense.
Distant Defense 4 (A Skill)
If foe initiates combat and uses bow, dagger, magic or staff, grants Defense and Resistance +8 and neutralizes foe’s bonuses during combat.
Vengeful Fighter (B Skill)
If unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent and foe initiates combat, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per unit’s attack, and unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack (does not stack).
Distant Guard (C Skill)
Allies within two spaces gain: “If foe uses bow, dagger, magic or staff, grants Defense and Resistance +4 during combat.”
The only one I don’t particularly care for is Ranulf. I don’t know any of these beasts in the first place, but he’s the only one without a distinguishing skill.
Lethe (an already cute cat girl) has great solo potential sans her hone skill.
Mordecai has an interesting build that lets him throw his allies into the fray like a powered-up bomb.
And finally, Simba is a unique armored beast with a distant counter weapon. Which is 2000 kinds of wild.
I’d be happy to summon any of those three.
But my luck with beast-filled banners has not been fantastic, so I guess we’ll see if the unit purge helps me get something new!
I have 300 orbs stored up thanks to my recent lack of spending interest. I won’t be using a lot now, but the free summon tickets from Forging Bonds and story mission orbs should hopefully boost my chances.
Eir describes the realm as a place where “those who deserve nothing more come to reside.”
Comforting stuff.
The first Askran King Líf runs into the Order, and after his defeat remarks that:
Afterward, they find a locale encrusted with blood. Eir reveals that it was the place where her mother killed her. The princess was apparently bestowed with a thousand mortal lives by yet another ancient dragon, and each mortal death grants the underworld’s ruler more power.
So she was killed a thousand times. By her mother.
On that happy note, a fight skips us ahead 10 days. Hel arrives as the warriors approach her castle, and a brief duel ends with her (once again) cursing Alfonse to a death in nine days.
However:
Pretty clever loophole.
Hel later appears to her daughter and reminds her about tricking the Order to their deaths. Eir asks her to spare the main characters, but is rejected.
She then comments that Hel used to smile at her with angel’s wings.
If that ain’t a clue that Eir is the Corrin of this storyline, stolen from her birth mother like Hades stole Persephone, then I’ll eat my hat.
Calling that plot twist now.
Embla’s first queen Thrasir joins Líf for his return battle, but it ends much the same way.
The Generals retreat through a portal, and the Order of Heroes follow close behind.
Thus ending this rather story-heavy chapter on a cliffhanger. Which Fire Emblem game did Líf and Thrasir run off to?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Usually a banner with characters I don’t know has trouble keeping my interest, but neat unit mechanics and a turbulent story does wonders in helping me finish these off quickly.
Speaking of quickly, I’ve been trying to pair down my unit analysis and story discussion so that these posts aren’t quite as unwieldy.
I’m considering stopping my physical dictation of unit skills to that same end.
I personally love writing that out, but it could be served better by linking the video. And without that ~400 word chunk, these posts would be much shorter.
So let me know what you think about that idea.
While you’re at it, let me know what you think of these beast units! And where you think we’ll be headed based on that cliffhanger.
Personally I’m always hoping for more Sacred Stones. Fingers crossed.
After we got our first round of beast units in Fire Emblem Heroes, some Intelligent Systems employee decided to head off everyone’s cravings by adding all of the Fates beast units in one fell swoop.
To be fair, I’m absolutely one of those people who has been waiting for the Kitsune and Wolfskin to be added into Heroes.
So good on you, corporate office guy. Hope you got a raise.
Inflicts Speed -5. Unit attacks twice (even if foe initiates combat). Beast transformation effect applies. If unit transforms, grants Attack +2 and deals +10 damage when Special Attack triggers.
Draconic Aura (Cooldown = 3)
Boosts damage by 30 percent of unit’s Attack.
Special Spiral (B Skill)
If Special Attack triggers before or during combat, grants Special Attack cooldown -2 after combat.
Beast Valor (C Skill)
While unit lives, all beast allies on team get 2x Skill Points (only highest value applies, does not stack.
Grants Speed +3. At the start of turn one, grants Special Attack cooldown -2 to unit and unit’s support partner. Beast transformation effect applies. If unit transforms, grants Attack +2 and deals +10 damage when Special Attack triggers.
Luna (Cooldown = 3)
Treats foe’s Defense and Resistance as if reduced by 50 percent during combat.
Close Defense (A Skill)
If foe initiates combat and uses a physical weapon, dragonstone or beast damage, grants Defense and Resistance +6 during combat.
Ward Beasts (C Skill)
Grants Defense and Resistance +4 to beast allies within two spaces during combat.
Grants Defense +3. Grants allies within two spaces bonus to Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance during combat = current bonus on each individual unit’s stats. Beast transformation effect applies. If unit transforms, grants Attack +2, and if unit initiates combat inflict Attack and Defense -4 on foe during combat, foe cannot make a follow-up attack.
Pivot (Range = 1)
Unit moves to opposite side of target ally.
Speed/Resistance Link (B Skill)
If a movement Assist skill is used by or targets unit, grants Speed and Resistance +6 to unit and target ally for one turn.
Goad Beasts (C Skill)
Grants Attack and Speed +4 to beast allies within two spaces during combat.
Grants Resistance+3. If unit’s Resistance > foe’s Resistance, and if foe uses a physical weapon, dragonstone or beast damage, grants bonus to Attack, Speed, Defense and Resistance = 50 percent of the difference between stats (max bonus of 8 to each). Beast transformation effect applies. If unit transforms, grants Attack +2, and if unit initiates combat inflict Attack and Defense -4 on foe during combat, foe cannot make a follow-up attack.
Iceberg (Cooldown = 3)
Boosts damage by 50 percent of unit’s Resistance.
Attack/Speed Bond (A Skill)
If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Attack and Speed +5 during combat.
Sabotage Attack (B Skill)
At the start of the turn, if any foe’s Resistance ≤ unit’s Resistance -3 and that foe is adjacent to another, inflicts Attack -7 on that foe through its next action.
Even Resistance Wave (C Skill)
At the start of even-numbered turns, grants Resistance +6 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn (bonus applied even if no allies are adjacent).
Jesus Christ, all of these attack descriptions literally got longer the further I went.
When I cut out a sizable portion of the base text and still hit a six-line paragraph, we might be going overboard IS.
Though I suppose I can’t complain about lengthy text that make powerful units I want to use. Especially Keaton with his double strike and buffed Special Attacks, and Selkie with her mixed physical and magic defenses.
The Kitsune being ‘cavaliers’ so they are weak to beast slaying weapons is also a nice reference to Fates.
Plus, I’m just all about this banner aesthetically.
Kaden is one of my favorite Fates units if for no other reason than him making Azura a likable character in their support conversations.
Hot take I know, but I’m just not a fan of Azura’s character when she isn’t married to Kaden and snuggling with that fluffy tail. Even if she is a good unit in Heroes.
Selkie is my second favorite choice since she combines that fox spirit aesthetic with the cute anime girl look, followed by Velouria for her Red Riding Hood schtick.
But I still won’t forgive Intelligent Systems from making me write so god damn much.
… Well, maybe I’ll forgive them if I get lucky and snag some of these beasts easily. Due to self-control and abstinence after my luck on the Valentine’s Day banner, I have 230 orbs stored up.
Hopefully I can keep the stash above 200 with a little help from the Forging Bonds free summon tickets.
Even if I should have no orbs according to that storyline:
But don’t lose hope Summoners, IS did not take away our orbs. But if they did to remove ludonarrative dissonance, we would be in good hands.
Plus we would find some replacement orbs from the new Book III story chapter!
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Speaking of ludonarrative dissonance, looking at this chapter next to the Forging Bonds story is a straight narrative dissonance.
While Alfonse is finding who stole the orb stash like some kind of medieval Donkey Kong, we cut into discussions of how the army could stop Alfonse from succumbing to Hel’s curse.
The sibling’s parents arrive upon hearing the news, and King Gustav chides his son for not staying away from Hel on the battlefield.
Alfonse accepts the blame, then Gustav straight up tells everyone to forget they have a son because death is inescapable.
Pretty tough.
At least Alfonse finds some determination in searching for Hel through battles across Askr during his last nine days of life.
Most of the battles just briefly introduce the Fates beasts, as well as Panne the Taguel from Fire Emblem Awakening.
Don’t really know why they didn’t save her to release alongside her son Yarne.
At one point Alfonse’s father tries to see if he remembers a tattered stick which I’m assuming was some kind of old play sword. When he doesn’t, Gustav shrugs it off.
However, Alfonse’s final day of life arrives and a bit more sympathy seems to shine through:
Just why he wants Alfonse to stay close will become clear after the final battle with Líf, Kaden, Keaton and Panne.
Hel arrives and the Order tries to fight her off desperately, but they find that she is literally like a Spectre who cannot be physically damaged.
For plot convenience’s sake.
She raises her scythe to take Alfonse, resigned to his fate, until…
Surprise surprise. Gustav arrive and jumps in front of the attack.
It’s a pretty convenient bait-and-switch for a character who was just introduced at the beginning of this Book’s story, but it’s set up enough to work decently well.
I wouldn’t say I was shocked by the twist, but I am looking forward to seeing the Order forced to fight against the former King zombie.
In his last few moments, Hel is astounded by Gustav’s determination to throw his life away for his much younger son and kingdom.
As he succumbs to repeated slashes, Gustav asks his son to become a strong king in his stead. The screen cuts to red and the chapter ends.
Here’s your orb reward for killing Alfonse’s dad.
Congratulations!
Out of sheer curiosity, I checked and found that 448 of the (current) 1248 words in this post are dedicated to copying the attack descriptions for each unit. Just had to know with how god damn big those weapon texts are.
The fact they took up a basic news article’s worth of space is kind of astounding, and it’s the reason I don’t pay as much attention to word count with these.
Basically this post is ~800 words with an add-on. That way I feel less guilty.
But hey, personal hang-ups aside, let me know what you think about our new beast units in the comments down below!
With a few more Fates units under our belt, I’m hoping we can get back to Sacred Stones soon… Especially considering I may or may not be writing about it for my Gaming in American Culture class.
I’ve said before that the Radiant games are an unfortunate blank spot in my experience with Fire Emblem. When I found out beast units were finally on their way and that they would be from this particular universe, I was a little hesitant about whether I’d want them over some potential other options like Kaden or Yarne.
But then we saw what these beasts were packing, and my first reaction was:
Why are there so many different kinds of animal units out of this one Fire Emblem continent? Hawks, swans, ravens AND wolves seem a bit over the top.
Grants Attack +3. If foe’s Health = 100 percent and unit initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack.
At start of turn, if unit is adjacent to only beast or dragon allies, or if unit is not adjacent to any ally, unit transforms (otherwise they revert). If unit transforms, they can move one extra space and grants Attack +2 (that turn only, does not stack).
Will furthermore be referred to as ‘Beast transformation effect.’
Draconic Aura (Cooldown = 3)
Boosts damage by 30 percent of unit’s Attack.
Sturdy Impact (A Skill)
If unit initiates combat, grants Attack +6 and Defense +10 during combat and foe cannot make a follow-up attack.
Chill Attack (B Skill)
At start of turn, inflicts Attack -7 on foe on the enemy team with the highest Attack through its next action.
Even Attack Wave (C Skill)
At start of even-numbered turns, grants Attack +6 to unit and adjacent allies for one turn (bonus granted to unit even if no allies are adjacent).
Accelerates Special Attack trigger (cooldown -1). During combat, boosts unit’s Attack and Speed by the number of allies within two spaces x2 (max of +6 to each stat). Beast transformation effect applies, and unit deals +10 damage when Special Attack triggers.
Moonbow (Cooldown = 2)
Treats foe’s Defense and Resistance as if reduced by 30 percent during combat.
Distant Counter (A Skill)
Unit can counterattack regardless of foe’s range.
Null C-Disrupt (B Skill)
Neutralizes status effects and disables skills that prevent counterattacks during combat.
Glare (C Skill)
After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts status on target and foes within one space of target restricting movement to one space through their next actions.
So fun fact, writing out the skills for these units took nearly 500 words. Beasts take up a lot of god damn text, apparently.
That said, I would say all that text was very worth it for how broken some of these units look. Namely Tibarn and Nailah.
The two swans are interesting in that we’re leading with singing units for our introduction to beasts, as well as the fact that they have the exact same weapon in two different colors — which I think is a first?
But Tibarn hits like a truck with all of his attack, and that new Attack/Defense buff from Sturdy Impact is a crazy power creep.
Then Nailah basically always triggers Moonbow from any distance while neutering the opponent’s skills and movement range. It’s crazy to me that we finally have a non-Hector unit with Distant Counter and she appears just as broken.
So yeah. I’m definitely focusing more on red and blue stones in this banner.
… It’s just too bad all of the holiday banners sapped my orb supply.
Luckily the new run of Forging Bonds is giving out one free summon ticket for each character.
Sure that’s a downgrade from the seven we’ve gotten out of daily rewards in the past, but we’ve got a whole new chapter in Book III to help bolster that orb supply.
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This new story chapter starts by setting the scene for what I imagine we’ll see for a while:
King Gustav tells his son to avoid Hel at all costs, as she is literally death and no matter how strong one becomes they cannot help but succumb to death.
He talks about how he had prior experience fighting Hel years ago, which left him with his battle scar.
… I’ll admit, I didn’t see the scar until he brought it up, but now that I know the lines on his face aren’t just wrinkles and crow’s nests, I understand the danger.
After the brief introduction, business goes about as usual. Anna leads the Order of Heroes into battle and there’s a good four matches without any serious exposition.
The most interesting bit of dialogue we get is from Reyson:
What’s interesting about this is Princess Veronica is the one who forges contracts with units, but apparently it’s the Askran ancestor who does so for Hel.
Maybe that’s just interesting to me?
When the next map begins, King Gustav’s advice goes right out the window as it turns out Hel is there. Her daughter, Eir, provides a bit of foreshadowing.
Didn’t think I’d forget about this dumb meme, did you?
Once the battle commences, Hel is surprisingly easy to kill (on the lower difficulties where she has an Iron Axe, anyway). But for story reasons her defeat turns out to be a subterfuge.
She reappears and brings context to the name of the chapter by cursing Alfonse to die in nine days. Why she couldn’t just take him right away with her scythe as she does in the opening cinematic is beyond me…
But it does open up this philosophy dialogue:
So you know. Sometimes we have to be poetic rather than sensible.
Let’s just hope the next bit of story comes within nine days so the prince doesn’t die.
Keen viewers out there will know that a few days ago I promised this would be coming out yesterday. That’s because I can’t read dates, apparently!
The banner is out now however, so here we are. That means you should expect a second post about my time at Alyson’s mini band banquet later tonight.
Until then, let me know what you think about the brand new beast units in Fire Emblem Heroes, and which beasts you want to see come out next!
Also, just for curiosity sake, let me know what you think about how inefficient Hel was with that ‘nine day curse’ thing. Like she is literally death get a little more realistic, lady.
All of this excitement definitely is not helping me stay ready for exams.
But we’re not here for school-related stuff today. No, this is a two-part blog post about the big introduction to Book III! Yesterday I talked about the Feh Channel that Nintendo put out, that way today I could devote all of my time to the beginning of the story.
So knowing this is going to be long enough as is, let’s get into it shall we?
Chapter 1
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Chapter 1 begins in an… Unexpected place.
Some time has passed since the end of Book II, though the actual period isn’t specified. Our first scene has the Queen of Askr, Alfonse and Sharena’s mother, arriving at the Order of Heroes’ castle with a mission at hand:
After Henriette becomes acquainted with you, the team heads back to Askr proper.
On the way there are aggressive soldiers from the rival nation of Embla — not seen since Book I. The siblings find this strange given how far they are from the nation’s border, but their mother explains what is happening.
Interestingly enough, despite the fact that these enemy units are supposed to be Emblian units previously encountered, there are a whole host of new unit types on the enemy side. Colored bow users, colored dagger users and flying manaketes among them.
Soon enough the Order starts to come across the two generals of Hel’s army:
Líf
Thrasir
Upon seeing the two figures on the battlefield, Alfonse and Sharena immediately recognize them. It turns out both figures are intrinsically linked to the characters in an interesting way.
They are the ancestors of the royal siblings and Princess Veronica respectively.
How the characters will deal with their ancestors should be an interesting development throughout the story.
When the Order finally approaches Askr castle they’re intercepted at the gate by Eir, princess of the dead. Once she’s defeated she submits to death by the hand of Alfonse (because I guess the princess of the dead wasn’t dead? Go figure that one out), but he spares her. Instead they take the girl as a prisoner and eventually a wary ally because she supposedly ran away from home and would not be allowed to return.
I say supposedly because… Well… Intelligent Systems blew their load on the surprise before Eir even arrived.
You couldn’t have kept this as a reveal for the future instead of telling us right off the bat?
Ah well. Her character description says she doesn’t quite enjoy her mother’s assault on the living, so at least the character transitioning into a true ally is still available.
But until then we have her as a “tentative” ally.
I get the feeling most people are going to latch onto the princess fast. Because boy is she packing heat with that base kit of hers.
Grants Resistance +3. At the start of combat, if unit’s Health ≥ 50 percent, grants Attack and Speed +4 during combat, and if unit initiates combat, foe cannot make a follow-up attack. After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts Defense and Resistance -7 on target and foes within two spaces of target through their next actions. If bonus was granted to unit, deals 4 damage to unit.
Iceberg (Cooldown = 3)
Boosts damage by 50 percent of unit’s Resistance.
Swift Sparrow (A Skill)
If unit initiates combat, grants Attack and Speed +4 during combat.
Mystic Boost (B Skill)
Disables foe’s skills that “calculate damage using the lower of foe’s Defense or Resistance” and “calculate damage from staff like other weapons.” Restores 6 Health after combat.
Sparkling Boost (C Skill)
At start of turn, restores 10 Health to ally that has been dealt the most damage (excluding this unit).
Analysis:
Eir is just good. Her weapon and A Skill give her a ton of Attack and Speed at the cost of a little health each turn, but her B Skill just restores that health while nullifying a ton of different abilities that might give her enemies an edge.
Add onto that the high resistance attack buff of Iceberg and general ally healing and… Yeah, she’s solid.
A hell of a unit to have given us for free.
Chapter 2
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Chapter 2 begins in the grand halls of Askr castle… Of which we see one background panel.
Alfonse and his father, Gustav, vaguely dance around the reason why Alfonse had said he wasn’t allowed back home before just jumping into the meat of story-relevant exposition.
Apparently there’s a single entrance to Hel that had been sealed for over 20 years by the king’s best defenses. However something happened to the gateway that allowed denizens of the dead to emerge once more.
Right away there’s some weird business going on with Gustav being very harsh toward Alfonse while subsequently ignoring Sharena… But later we also get some dialogue with the queen that suggests he’s that archetype of a grizzled old father who wants his son to avoid the same mistakes he made.
But I’ll get to that.
First we have to discuss the shoehorned in appearance of Veronica after battle two.
There’s more vague alluding to the time skip at this point when Loki shows up out of nowhere to ask Veronica for some kind of cooperation in fighting the soldiers of Hel. They also reference Veronica’s brother Bruno, who had deus ex machina’d his way into the end of Book II but is now off on some secret mission again.
Despite Veronica’s hesitation, Loki suggests a partnership between the two nations because dead people just want to kill all living people.
We don’t have a solid idea of Hel’s motivation yet so let’s go with that for now.
My only wish is that we also get a connection to the Nifl/Múspell conflict here instead of just sticking with the Askr/Embla stuff. At the end of Book II Fjorm did join the Order permanently knowing she was dying from the after effects of the Rite of Frost.
Did she die? Or will she and Hríd and everyone be able to help fight the dead?
So far the only reference we’ve gotten to Book II comes at the end of the fifth battle. It centers around the Order of Heroes arriving at the gateway to Hel and seeing thousands of soldiers pouring out to attack a nearby village. They distract the forces long enough for Askr’s full army to arrive and rout the enemy, at which point Gustav scolds his son.
They do bring the moment around into a pretty nice message about what it means to be a king, showing that the harshness is less about being a calloused father and more about trying to groom a proper heir:
But it still seems like a stretch to toss out the entirety of Book II’s scope and consequences by saying it didn’t make everyone in the Order a hero.
You could show some more affection toward your son you know Mr. Grizzled Old Man Archetype. I’m sure that would make things better come the inevitable existential crisis of fighting death and literally seeing his sister get taken into her army.
Since you know, we’ve seen that it’s coming in the opening cutscene.
Just saying.
For now that’s all we’ve got in the Book III story. Everything is obviously a bit rough around the edges as we only have the earliest exposition set out before us.
However, not counting ridiculous things like the developers spoiling Eir’s possible double-cross later, there were a few good surprises just in the first two chapters. Connecting Hel’s generals to the history of the game’s two main nations in particular makes me interested to see more.
But with all that said, this post is extra long considering I had to sum up two chapter’s worth of story. So I’m going to leave everything to all of you here:
What do you think of the Book III story thus far? Where do you think it’s going to go? Where do you want it to go? How should we boycott the game if the Book II characters never show up again?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below! I, for one, am looking forward to getting some of that Fire Emblem Heroes fix in again.
What better way is there to celebrate Veteran’s Day than to talk about a game in which fantasy characters have taken part in dozens of wars over a number of titles?
…
Okay no, I’m just kidding. It’s probably really weird and insensitive to joke about Veteran’s Day like that. I have nothing but respect.
I just needed some kind of segue into this Fire Emblem Heroes post that I’ve been putting off because… Boy am I not excited for it.
I know that’s a weird sentiment to walk into one of these with, because in that case why talk about it at all?
Well dear viewer.
The reason I hate this banner is because it is the next evolution in what has been a slow-growing problem.
Hope you’re ready for more of that than actually discussing the banner.
Accelerates Special Attack trigger. If the number of allies within two spaces (excluding unit) > the number of foes within two spaces (excluding target), grants Attack and Speed +5 during combat. If foe’s Range = 2, calculates damage using the foe’s lower defensive stat.
Dragon Fang (Cooldown = 4)
Boosts damage by 50 percent of unit’s Attack.
Attack/Defense Bond (A Skill)
If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Attack and Defense +5 during combat.
Null Follow-Up (B Skill)
Disables foe’s skills that guarantee foe’s follow-up attack and foe’s skills that prevent unit’s follow-up attack.
Hone Dragons (C Skills)
At start of turn, grants Attack and Speed +6 to adjacent dragon allies for one turn.
Accelerates Special Attack trigger. If the number of allies within two spaces (excluding unit) > the number of foes within two spaces (excluding target), grants Attack and Speed +5 during combat. If foe’s Range = 2, calculates damage using the foe’s lower defensive stat.
Rally Attack/Speed (Range = 1)
Grants Attack and Speed +6 to target ally for one turn.
Draconic Aura (Cooldown = 3)
Boosts damage by 30 percent of unit’s Attack.
Attack/Speed Bond (A Skill)
If unit is adjacent to an ally, grants Attack and Speed +5 during combat.
Fortify Dragons (C Skill)
At start of turn, grants Defense and Resistance +6 to adjacent dragon allies for one turn.
After combat, if unit attacked, inflicts status on target and foes within two spaces of target preventing counterattacks through their next actions.
Martyr (Range = 1)
Restores Health = damage dealt to unit +50 percent of Attack (minimum 7). Restores Health to unit = half of damage dealt to unit.
Miracle (Cooldown = 5)
If unit’s Health > 1 and foe would reduce unit’s Health to 0, unit survives with 1 Health.
Brazen Attack/Resistance (A Skill)
At start of combat, if unit’s Health ≤ 80 percent, grants Attack and Resistance +7 during combat.
Infantry Rush (C Skill)
Infantry allies within two spaces gain: “If unit’s Attack > foe’s Attack, grants Special Attack cooldown charge +1 per unit’s attack (only highest value applied, does not stack).”
Normally I would give my thoughts on each of these units individually. But frankly I think in this case it would be more constructive for me to go through these units in the way I naturally reacted a few days ago.
Starting with the first, most immediately striking question:
“WHY WOULD YOU MAKE A MAIN GAME BANNER WITH THREE DUPLICATE UNITS?!”
Words cannot express how baffling this is to me.
Duplicate units are fine in seasonal banners where they’re one-offs with unique qualities in some way. Something you can hold over people’s heads as a status symbol should you have played the game far longer than them and they missed the giveaway.
But if you’re going to add the units into the regular summoning pool, why not just add new units from the game you’re using? There are dozens of characters in Fates to pull from!
Like my waifu Scarlet. Just add her in. Please.
Instead we get our 17th version of Camilla and two new Corrin alts for basically no reason. Or lore reasons I suppose.
Once I got over that annoyance, I actually looked through the things these units bring to the table. Like sure, it bugged me when Eirika and Hinoka got alternate versions of themselves in the regular summoning pool, but at least they were neat.
These Adrift units don’t have that luxury. They’re so… Boring.
The Corrins didn’t really stand out to me at all outside of that new Null Follow-Up skill that the male one has. Mikoto is the only “new” unit here, but she’s just kind of average in a colorless healing pool that has blossomed recently with Veronica and Halloween Mia.
Camilla is honestly the only one of the four that seems particularly good thanks to the combination of her Attack/Resistance skills making her a decent mage counter as well as a flying support unit.
But she also comes into a summoning pool that has flourished lately. In just the last couple weeks we’ve all received a free flying red mage in Aversa, Summer Tana appeared again on the Legendary Eirika banner and Halloween Nowi came back in a banner retread.
I don’t know, guys. I was able to let this slide when it was just one duplicate unit on occasion despite my desire to see something totally new instead. But three on one banner?
It’s too much. If this is a trend that keeps up, I’ll have some far more choice words for Intelligent Systems. But for now, that’s mostly going to boil down to me boycotting this banner and saving my orbs for something down the line.
That said, was there anything good that came out of this banner?
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Other than the non-banner related stuff, this Paralogue is probably one the most interesting bits of story in this game in a while. Mostly because it’s a substantial interstitial explaining events between Books II and III (coming in December).
In it, we follow Loki talking to young girl Azura — the upcoming Tempest Trial reward unit who’s actually more relevant to everything than the main units here.
As we find out, the Adrift Paralogue is happening in Azura’s dream? I think? They don’t explain that part well. But the four main units in this banner are manifestations of Azura’s family and friends that helped her out of the dark past that was the driving plot of Revelations.
Except we only know that because while this strange philosophical discussion is happening between Loki and young Azura:
The Order of Heroes wakes up confused and is led on by adult Azura to find them. It’s a very short and succinct ‘find out what happened and stop the bad guy’ plot over three battles.
But what makes them so compelling is the extended look at the conversations between Loki and Azura, as they reveal more about what Loki is planning now that Muspell’s king has fallen.
If you map this onto the plot development from the Hoshidan festival banner a few months back, it becomes obvious that Loki is looking to use the power of Anankos for… Something nondescript. She’ll get to that power however she can — Even if it means abusing a tormented young child.
By the end of the Paralogue, she talks to Prince Alfonse and tells him that the Askrans clearly don’t know what potential their family’s ability to close gateways into other worlds has.
Which is a pretty good little cliffhanger considering the brief glance at Book III we’ve gotten so far is just Sharena covered in blood or dirt, reaching toward the camera and crying out.
Obviously some stuff is going to go down soon and this Paralogue is a neat little bridge to get there.
…
Now if only it didn’t make itself that by using a bunch of throw-away, underwhelming “dream” characters that we’re now stuck with.
I know extended rants probably aren’t the most enticing thing to read, so if you’ve gotten this far I appreciate it. I really just needed a space to complain and vent about this stupid thing in a game I love.
Let’s be honest, I’ve been putting this off for so long that framing it around complaints was the only way I was going to talk about the banner.
Originally I was also going to discuss the new Aether battles feature, because that’s actually something in this update that I like a lot… But I’m already getting pretty wordy here. So if I get around to doing it in the near future, I’ll include a link to my discussion on that at the bottom of this piece.
As usual, let me know how you feel about this new banner. Or let me know if you think I’m just crazy and stupid and wrong.
About a week ago, we got a new calendar showcasing the many events that were coming down the pipeline in Fire Emblem Heroes for the first few months of the year.
By many events, I do mean many events.
Wow. Talk about a busy lineup, right?
Through the sizable web of things happening I, alongside many other fans of the Fire Emblem series, noticed something interesting. The chief antagonist of my favorite Fire Emblem game, the Sacred Stones, was coming up as a Grand Hero Battle. Then, when he cleared off, Valder would be returning.
Two Sacred Stones units in a row? Well that’s odd. Could it possibly be a coincidence given that a new summoning focus was set to begin just before they arrived?
As it turns out, it was not a coincidence. This new banner is indeed Sacred Stones-themed like everyone was hoping.
Let me tell you, I was excited about the sheer possibility of a banner from this game as soon as the calendar was hot on the presses. Every time something with Sacred Stones comes up, my heart starts firing at all cylinders.
Was my excitement met with an ample return from Intelligent Systems?
Am I ready as ever to immerse myself in the world of the Sacred Stones?
Would I be asking this many rhetorical questions if I didn’t have a subverting comment waiting in the wings?
Read on to find out.
To make a long cliffhanger short, I am indeed pretty excited about these units! Like I said already, it’s hard for me not to be excited when this game comes out of the woodwork.
However, there is one blemish on this otherwise beautiful sight that leaves me somewhat embittered about the whole thing.
But I’ll get to that. For now, let’s start examining what our new summon-able friends bring to the table.
Peaking a little early here, Intelligent Systems? On top of being an obvious fan favorite character, Myrrh also has arguably the most interesting and powerful build in this new bunch. She’s a rarity, being not only our second green dragon unit in the game, but also a green dragon unit with a flying movement-type distinction. You can probably build some crazy interesting half-dragon/half-flying team combinations with her on your side. It helps that she looks as powerful as she does unique, boasting a skill to Hone other manakete units, the attack-heavy Fury and Bonfire special attack and a special breath weapon that makes her hit a weaker defensive stat against ranged units. A pretty sweet spread all-and-all.
Yet another fan favorite character who seems to be bringing her wonderful holier-than-thou divine justice, but a strange name pronunciation. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever thought to say “Lara shell,” but to be fair the game developers also had a different pronunciation for Innes so I guess that trait runs strong in Sacred Stones. L’Arachel also has a bit of a strange skill spread compared to the undoubtedly powerful Myrrh. Rather than being a staff-wielding troubadour, as most likely remember her, she’s much more akin to her valkyrie advancement in that she uses the sacred light weapon Ivaldi (now a blue tome). Though it doesn’t have great base power, she gains bonuses in attack and speed when fighting a full health unit. An interesting add-on admittedly. However, from there she carries the sub-par special attack Glowing Light and bulk-centric Renewal (which may or may not be important depending on her stat spread), as well as the brand new Resistance Tactic that grants a big boost to infantry and armored units. There’s possibly some synergy here, we’ll have to see.
Anamnesis: Noun. The recollection or remembrance of the past. I’ll admit, this is a very clever title for Eirika given her overwhelming insistence on remembering all the good times between her, Ephraim and Lyon. If I had to guess before jumping into the story missions, this theme will play into them appearing together and I appreciate that. Unfortunately, it also brings me to remember the fact that we already got Eirika as a unit. A long, long time ago. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool when we get new versions of old units through Brave Heroes and holiday-themed events, and I’ve been an advocate for Eirika on horseback like her final form in the original game for some time… But when a second version of a unit shows up like this in a main summoning focus, it just feels like a slot was taken that could have been filled by another. Especially since her skill spread seems like the most underwhelming of the three heroes here despite her boasting five skills. Plus, what’s with her having the dark tome Gleipnir? She can never learn how to use magic in the Sacred Stones, it just seems… Nonsensical. Unless there’s a story reason that I haven’t gotten to yet, but I guess we’ll see.
I don’t really know what it is about Eirika that bugs me so much. Her appearance here is what makes me feel rather bitter about this whole banner despite the fact that it’s based on my favorite game in the series and has two wonderful units in it. Seriously, Myrrh and L’Arachel are great and I’m going to be trying to get both, but why did we get a weird reprint of Eirika now?
It really feels like it would have made more sense to release a horseback Eirika as a Brave hero down the line, for me at least.
…
Plus that would have saved room for someone like Neimi.
I mean seriously Intelligent Systems, how much more do I have to beg? I appreciate Myrrh and L’Arachel, and I know both Lyon and Marisa are coming soon too from other events… But I just want my favorite character in the game already.
I’ll keep voting in the new Choose Your Legends event until I get her.
If nothing else, I suppose it’s a positive that she’s not in the game because I don’t feel as bad voting for her? But not really, because I would have voted for her anyway.
I will seriously throw my Brave Lyn away in a heartbeat if we got a horseback archer Neimi at some point.
That’s about enough empty, ridiculous bitching about a gotcha game for one day, though. Thanks to the Radiant Dawn banner screwing me over and scaring me away at the same time as a Tempest Trial, I’m starting off this Sacred Stones banner with 94 orbs, so I’m feeling lucky about nabbing that Myrrh.
…
Wait, what was that? I wrote this whole section before the update even happened you say?
Well… You’re not wrong.
Luckily, now present day Jason can report some good news on the tail end of this somewhat negative build-up:
I GOT DAT MYRRH BABY, YEAH!!! WOO!!
Also she’s apparently sassy as FUCKhere. It’s absolutely incredible, and I’m very happy and lucky considering this happened so easily.
It only took 30 orbs to nab her too! So I still have about 60 orbs – without having done all of the new missions and all – to spend either on future special banners or to come back and try my hands at L’Arachel.
It’s a bit of a tough choice since I love Sacred Stones, but also I love having special holiday variant heroes.
Just don’t read too much into that in comparison to my vague disdain toward a new version of Eirika appearing.
On that note, the question remains regarding whether or not my predictions about a reminiscent Eirika/Lyon interactions were valid, which strikes me as a perfect segue into story.
While I am a bit surprised to see two main story chapters show up in such a short period of time, I can’t say I’m opposed to it. Especially considering this chapter goes into a really deep amount of interesting character development.
Before they head off, however, we get to see a much deeper look into Alfonse’s daddy issues.
It actually gets a bit heavy, even if things aren’t very thoroughly explained in my opinion.
Alfonse talks about how his father is leading an army to protect the land of Askr, yet he doesn’t agree with Alfonse being a part of the Order of Heroes… Which for all intents and purposes is essentially an army protecting the land of Askr.
Sure, the Order led by a greedy general, and I guess they’re fairly ‘hands on’ as he says, but otherwise I don’t necessarily see the distinction off-hand.
Plus, the game leaves off other potentially relevant details, like why Alfonse seems to be ostracized but Sharena, his sister, isn’t. Maybe that’s just her hiding it away because she’s got a happy-go-lucky kind of defense mechanism, but if that’s true we don’t get too much of an indication to that effect either.
Am I thinking too much into this? Maybe. But I’ve got no qualms talking about my love of the lore in this game. Seeing character development is always great, and Alfonse gets some powerful stuff here.
Of course right after that ends they’re interrupted by Sharena bringing him colored hay he asked for… Which I didn’t exactly know was a thing?
Remember this, later it’s going to blow your mind.
Once you get through the first hefty story dump with a strange conclusion, the next couple of missions go relatively quietly.
Most of the summoning focus characters do get brief introductions, but that’s about all.
For some reason, Myrrh doesn’t get any sort of introduction. Why do you guys have to short my gal, Intelligent Systems? It’s not like she’s the Great Dragon of legend or anything.
Also I guess that does bring up another point I’d like to address. It feels like the Sacred Stones heroes got a bit shafted here.
In the context of the universe, the only reason game-specific heroes are still appearing is because Princess Veronica has teamed up with Surtr and is providing contracted mercenaries, essentially. From that angle, I understand why they don’t necessarily have a huge amount of time given in the main storyline compared to more independent, specifically focused Paralogues… But still.
The music playing under everything is from the Sacred Stones, but the maps aren’t. Which is unfortunate because seeing the miniature representations of original game maps is still one of my favorite things about playing Fire Emblem Heroes.
It’s a shame, though I can let it slide considering main story progression is put on the forefront here.
That progression has the Order of Heroes eventually making it to the gateway into Fjorm’s homeland, which is sealed by a massive magical MacGuffin.
Arriving at that gateway has the story kick up to 11 once again. After all, it takes time for Fjorm to open up the gate, and you know what holding a position for a long time entails:
Surtr arrives to ambush the Order, which does lead to one of my favorite aesthetic effects in the history of Fire Emblem Heroes thus far.
Chapter 4-4: The Young Dragon
Chapter 4-5: Fiery Resolve
What a cool duality between invading and defending. I love that sort of thing, revisiting an old area with a new coat of paint. It’s just rad game design!
But you know what else is rad?
How cool of a villain Surtr is.
I won’t even qualify it that much, just look at how savage and unequivocally insane the guy is.
It’s just amazing seeing such a gruesome person in a mobile game spin-off of a somewhat kid friendly Nintendo franchise. I’ve come to really love a lot of the characters from the Fire nation, and this kind of unchecked intensity is one of the reasons why.
Though I do think it’s hilarious that you get a long, intense monologue from Surtr, only for him to send his two lackies in first and arrive after turn 3.
Especially since he’s invincible. So he’s just giving you the opportunity to end the fight before he can help.
Good guy Surtr?
Okay definitely not. But when you beat this mission, the story goes wildly off the rails once again.
After Fjorm opens the gateway to allow your heroes to escape, they have to come to terms with making the decision to run and fight another day even if that means Surtr destroys a nearby village.
Alfonse leads the charge to run away, which feels uncharacteristic after a whole mission set surrounding his citizen-first mentality.
Once they escape, however, the story cuts back to focus more on Surtr’s forces.
Then, in the surprise of the century, Xander reveals that he’s still relevant to the main plot.
Yeah, remember when Xander was important as the General of Veronica’s army? Well apparently he hasn’t disappeared.
Honestly it’s getting to a point where I wouldn’t argue with people shipping Veronica and Xander together. Clearly he’s sticking with her for the long run, after all.
Plus there are people who are into older men like that. I don’t judge.
Anyway… That aside, Veronica and Surtr start arguing over whether he should destroy the town, since Veronica is keen on having them be part of the Emblian empire once Askr is destroyed.
Before they can fight, Loki stops the group by letting them know the town is empty.
Colored hay ex machina? Or nice use of chekhov’s gun? I’ll let you decide.
After Surtr metaphorically cools his jets and agrees to keep Veronica around longer, he splits his forces up, setting things in motion for the next big mission.
What a long, frankly fascinating journey just this one mission series is. The character development is interesting, the writing is clever and everything moves at a good pace.
Even if the Sacred Stones heroes feel a little left behind, I can’t argue with what we got.
Oh, and no Lyon yet in case you hadn’t noticed. I know he’s coming tomorrow, but it does seem like a waste not to have him appear with Eirika here in this set somewhere.
Especially since they alluded to it all over the place!
As I’m sure you can tell, this banner has been a bit divisive for me.
On the one hand, it’s Sacred Stones-themed, so I’m predisposed to like it. Especially since Myrrh and L’Arachel are in it. Plus, the story they have going that includes these heroes is easily the best we’ve seen out of this game yet in my opinion.
I even got Myrrh with very minimal sacrifices. That’s awesome!
But at the same time, Eirika reappearing still bugs me wildly. Especially considering they really don’t do anything with her! I’m more than willing to admit that there’s probably just some personal bias here.
I love Eirika and the fact that they included a horseback version of her, but it was so wildly disappointing seeing her taking up a slot in this summoning focus, and that just really hit me hard. I’m willing to bet it’s in part because I’ve had a rough first week of school this semester and am taking even slight blemishes in overall great developments as over-embellished issues.
That said, as much as I want to complain about it, everything outside of Eirika here really lines up perfectly and would probably be my favorite update in some time otherwise.
So I’m going to stop looking at the negatives and take everything for what it really is: Some damn well done story and gameplay.
With a little bit of luck in summoning to boot.
I guess with all that said, all I really have to add is… Here’s looking forward to Lyon being good, hopefully.
How do you feel about this new summoning focus, or the story it accompanies?
If you could have any other hero from Sacred Stones beside Eirika a second time, who would you want to see?
Let me know in the comments below, and until next time. I’m off to get some rest so I can cover an Academic Senate meeting in the morning.
There are discussions about who’s going to be added whenever new summoning focuses approach, and reactions to those characters when they show up and inevitably get placed on tier lists.
Artwork abounds of characters who not only just appear in skimpy or cute outfits (because let’s be honest it’s a game with an anime aesthetic, so there’s plenty of it), but of characters who have gained relevance solely because they matter in Heroes. Like Reinhardt, who appeared in a currently Japanese-only Fire Emblem game but is now unforgettable as a destroyer of everything in the mobile title.
Probably the most interesting thing about the fanbase for heroes is seeing them deal with the interactions between characters from different games coming together. Never is this more apparent than during Voting Gauntlets, when artwork starts popping up of front-running units beating the crap out of each other. People pick sides and root vehemently for their favorites, only to cry out in disappointment as Intelligent System’s ‘inability to math’ screws them over.
Editor’s Note: For those who don’t know, there’s a meme among members of the Fire Emblem Heroes community making fun of the fact that the point calculations in Voting Gauntlets are screwy, making it so the two sides can be labeled as having the “same score” when the numbers above clearly show that one side is a few million points ahead.
It’s never not hilarious.
I don’t think of Fire Emblem Heroes as a social experiment because of the community, however. I think of it as one because I’ve never seen a game that’s taken such an interesting shift in story development over such a long period of time.
When this game came out in February, it started with a rather simple story through ten sets of missions. You, as a summoner of characters from all over the spectrum of Fire Emblem games, traveled with the Order of Heroes to stop an opposing summoner from destroying the homeland of your friends. That was about it, a fairly thin layer of skin over a random number generating summon mechanic clearly designed to make you want to spend money.
But now, about 11 months later, we’ve arrived at the release of Book II, and things are dramatically different.
Most of the extra story chapters and paralogue missions in Book I expanded upon the original premise of the game by taking you to different Fire Emblem worlds to find more heroes that you can throw your orbs against the wall to summon. However, under the surface, there was more being developed, slowly but surely.
Princess Veronica, the leader of the opposing nation, developed a partnership with a mysterious character named Loki who disguised their appearance but hoped to bring their king to Askr to fight the good fight. Prince Bruno, Veronica’s brother, is revealed to be the old ally of the Order of Heroes that provides much of the motivation for Prince Alfonse and Princess Sharena. But these developments with the villains are slow to arrive, and give the game a chance to develop its characters over a long period as players become accustomed to them.
Then, Book II takes the story through a rapid paradigm shift.
The new part of the story begins with a cinematic that introduces the overall theme of this leg. New characters, allied with Veronica and clearly fire-themed, take on the Order of Heroes allied with a new character who controls ice. There’s some impressive displays of power, but otherwise it doesn’t tell you a lot.
It also turns out to just be a teaser of sorts, looking at future events as Fire Emblem likes to do. The actual story of Book II begins well before what they show you.
When you arrive at… I’m not even sure I can write the name of this land, so I’ll just say the ice kingdom… When you arrive at the ice kingdom, Alfonse and Sharena remark on the cooling magma that covers the once beautiful farmland they used to visit as children.
The first chapter of Book II pretty much goes on without any other story until the fifth map, when you first run into Princess Fjorm and King Surtr.
The two are dueling, though the fight is clearly lopsided in favor of the king. He leaves after defeating Fjorm, but leaves his assistant Loki in charge of taking care of your team.
Defeating Loki leads to her retreat, and allows you to bring Fjorm to safety, where she joins your team to help fight against the evil monarch.
Once she’s on your side, you take on chapter 2, where you and your allies chase after Surtr.
It’s mostly a story-less approach (though it introduces a few interesting things that I’ll go into in a bit), besides the beginning and the ending maps.
The first brings you face-to-face with Veronica, now open about her allegiance with the fire kingdom.
She sends new Heroes at you over the next few battles to slow your progress, but eventually you reach the fifth map and encounter the king himself.
His fight is a timed survival, as special magic makes the armored king invincible. You have to survive six turns against Surtr and his main allies, who all get a proper first introduction here.
If anything, this fight is arguably the representation of the opening cinematic in-game… Though it’s much less exciting than the specially created video, of course.
When you survive long enough, the Order determines that they cannot win and retreat.
Oh also, there’s a prophesy. Because of course there’s a prophesy. Can’t have a big dramatic story without it, apparently.
Minor clichéd gripes aside, that wraps up where Book II ends… For now.
To be completely honest, like I’d mentioned toward the beginning of this, I’m very impressed at how things have developed, and glad I’ve stuck around long enough to see it happen.
Over 11 months, the entirety of the game we’ve seen up to the release of Book II felt like the end-all-be-all of Fire Emblem Heroes. It was a simple game with a simple premise that delighted players by finding a basic way to throw a ton of Fire Emblem characters together.
But now, that entire 11 month developing story just feels like it was a prologue. Expositional, introducing us to the main characters and what they can do and how they interact with one another to build up to the actual chief conflict of the game: This war of fire and ice that everyone gets dragged into.
It’s kind of incredible really, thinking that all of this was likely planned in some capacity from the beginning. Granted, thinking back to a game like Fire Emblem Awakening where halfway through the story you jump ahead a few years and suddenly have a whole new story that’s the true meat of the game, it’s the kind of developmental ‘pulling the wool over one’s eyes’ that the series does frequently.
But Fire Emblem Awakening was one contained product, a single game cartridge with just about all of its main content available at launch.
For Fire Emblem Heroes, developers had to make sure players stuck with their game for almost a year to get the big reveal and find out that everything they’ve seen is just build-up. That’s a crazy feat, but one that really seems to have paid off in the long run.
Though this post was mostly intended to elaborate on why I felt the Book II story is more impressive than others might give it credit for, I did also want to touch on some of the new, interesting thing they added throughout the maps as well.
In chapter 1, there are a two new generic units that fill different archetypes from Fire Emblem games which haven’t gotten any villainous love up to this point.
Manaketes and Wyvern riders are staples of the series all the way back to the original Fire Emblem game with characters like Tiki and Minerva. The fact that they didn’t show up in the enemy armies up to this point was a little odd, though I suppose it becomes a nice and convenient excuse to say that they were added in as units from the fire kingdom who didn’t exist in Emblia.
I can respect that. Waiting long enough that you get a convenient out. Much better than just adding them in randomly a few months later like they were forgotten originally.
However, the generic units really aren’t the highlight of the new units added in. Rather, it’s the heroes that Veronica brings along, teasing the next summoning focus:
Children of characters from Fire Emblem Fates are next on the docket, which is something we knew about from previous calendar updates, but never knew exactly who would be showing up until now.
I’ll keep my thoughts abridged for now, since I’ll probably be more over-the-top and wordy later once the main banner is released… But let’s just say there’s a certain Nohrian girl I’ve got my eyes on.
Even if the way they split the heroes into two banners bugs me.
But again, I’ll save that discussion for next time.
Hopefully you all enjoyed me blathering on for almost 3,000 words on a mobile game once again. There’s going to be more later this week, like I said, but for now I’m going to be taking another break to work on all of my final projects and exam study guides. Gotta love this time of year.
What do you think of the Book II story? Are you as enamored with the idea of the long-term story telling as I am? Or is it just basic enough to keep you invested in the game a bit longer? Let me know in the comments below!
As I’ve come to find, there’s never a better opportunity to be productive with some Fire Emblem than when you’re just sitting around biding time.
Unlike most of my Heroes update posts, this one is not being written during the witching hours between midnight and 3 a.m. Though it feels a little wrong in that sense and the post itself won’t go out at my usual early-ish morning time, I can’t really complain about feeling a little bit more well-rested as I talk about these new heroes:
It seems a bit strange that a more substantial update like this got a banner with only three heroes, but from the perspective of trying to summon them all I suppose it’s hard to argue with a little more ease in that department.
I’m sure I’ve brought this up in the past, but the Radiant games (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance respectively) are part of the legendary RPG series’ history that I personally haven’t touched. While I don’t really have much of a personal connection with the three new heroes that were added as a result, I do still have some first impressions I can give.
Princess and, from what I understand, later queen of Crimea. Elincia is a Pegasus knight who uses a sword called Amiti that reduces her speed in exchange for attacking twice when she initiates combat (though with less of a reduction than an average brave weapon). She has Ardent Sacrifice as a passive skill to heal her allies, Death Blow to boost her attack by 6 as a way of making up for her sword’s low base power and a new skill called Flier Formation which seems to work like a reverse of Tana’s skill, allowing her to teleport to nearby flying units.
A cavalier from Crimea who joined Ike’s Greil Mercenaries and is apparently known for his speed. Out of everyone here, I would argue Oscar carries the least amount go gravitas in terms of what he gets out of the box. A Sapphire Lance makes him capable enough as a weapon-triangle abuser, he can grant +3 speed and defense with his assist ability, he has Lancebreaker to combat other lance users and he grants an extra passive +3 Speed and Defense boost to adjacent units during combat. An interesting and worthy set of buffs, but nothing that seems too mind-blowing.
Coming in with arguably the strangest name of the bunch is Nephenee, a commoner from Crimea who still seems to carry somewhat of a drawl from her native home despite trying her best to talk more in-line with the royalty under which she serves. As an infantry unit, Nephenee comes with a Slaying Lance to lower the special cooldown of her Moonbow special attack (quite the deadly combination, I might add), a +2 attack/speed boost and a new skill called Wrath that accelerates special cooldown more and boosts the power of a special attack when she’s below 75% health. If her stat spread is good, she’s probably going to have incredible damage output.
Elincia has stood out to me most thus far, as a sword-wielding Pegasus knight is something I’m still looking to add to my flying unit team alongside Minerva and Cordelia. Plus it’s cute that her Pegasus has a unicorn horn, and I’m always a sucker for cute design choices.
The game seems to have had other plans for me, however. While my free summon was a four-star Palla (Also known as not the sword user Pegasus knight I wanted), I decided to use a couple of extra orbs considering the Tempest Trials Mini and other daily events have given me a 100+ orb surplus.
Then this happened:
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This craziness was enough to outright blow me away when it happened. It kind of said to me that somebody somewhere is looking out to prove that games can be nice to their players. Once in a while, at least.
Seriously, three five stars in general at once is insane, but having Innes from the Sacred Stones banner and Nephenee from the new Path of Radiance banner show up for me is all kinds of extra nuts just from being so recently relevant.
Sure, it’ll be a bit of a slog to raise all three of them up to their full glory, but in the end I’m sure it will be a worth-while venture. The more good five stars I have, the easier it becomes to tackle things with continuous fights under changing conditions like the Arena Assault game.
With that slight bit of self-serving feel-goodness out of the way, let’s get into the nitty gritty of what we got to surround this new summoning focus banner.
The Radiant series seems to be an ever-popular one in the Fire Emblem fandom, and Heroes has no qualms about using that popularity to push bigger elements in its ever evolving story by the looks of it.
The Dauntless Crimeans came alongside a new main story chapter, one with five missions and plenty of actually engaging plot.
Of course a new story mission also means a host of other goodies, like extra orb missions and daily log-in bonuses:
But I would honestly argue that the plot for the “Diabolical Bloodline” chapter is really what should be drawing you in… If you’re into the plot of Fire Emblem Heroes like I am, at least.
Although, spoiler alert, this part of the plot has literally nothing to do with the new heroes despite taking place in their world. Just as a forewarning for anyone who was hoping to see the three newbies in their natural habitats.
This leg of the story begins fresh off the heels of Chapters 11 and 12 leading you through the world of Fire Emblem Echoes and culminating in the reveal that one of the archvillains, Prince Bruno, is actually the Order of Heroes’ missing friend Zacharias.
Pretty much right off the bat things jump into a hefty amount of exposition and backstory on Zacharias. It’s a lot all at once, arguably even overwhelmingly so from the way it comes out of nowhere, but at the same time it’s a very… Expected Fire Emblem backstory.
Evil dragons, harsh royal blood, puppet curses… Everything you’d expect to see in the plot of a Fire Emblem game. A safe choice in that respect, though they do go more personal with it.
I would say adding the details about his mother is just the kind of unexpected emotional whammy needed to build up some sympathy and intrigue in the character.
Beyond that, however, this chapter doesn’t offer much in terms of plot. Like I said before the three focus heroes show up as set pieces, but not a single one of them gets a line of dialogue. Not even the usual generic affair about there being a contract they need to follow.
I would say that’s the strangest part of this whole chapter, the general lack of use of other characters despite there being at least 5 missions to introduce Zacharias’ backstory and maybe even elaborate more on why the World of Radiance seems to be a favorite spot for him.
Though I could also argue that’s asking a lot for the plot of a mobile game that only periodically updates… So I digress.
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The five missions in Chapter 13 weren’t necessarily all that engaging to me considering I haven’t spent any time in the world of the original games. Nothing stood out too specifically about the backgrounds or the music as a result, though I do enjoy the world theme for the levels.
I did also find it interesting to note that Chapter 13-5 uses Brave Ike rather than normal Ike. Can’t help but wonder whether that means Brave Ike ties in more with Path of Radiance, or if they simply wanted to shake things up considering the new summoning focus had no axe-wielders.
However, arguably Chapter 13-3 took the cake as being the most interesting of the five. It was the only level to include a “survive 7 turns” stipulation, but rather than just forcing you to take on an onslaught of generic enemies, the level actually introduced a brand new character into the mix:
Not only does the Black Knight look dope as hell, but his appearance adds an interesting element to the fight. He’s invincible thanks to the special Emblia’s Ward ability and rather high leveled even on the most basic difficulty setting, so the character acts like a check for being able to blow through the mission like it’s nothing.
Plus, it more or less tells us everything we need to know about Black Knight before he appears in some sort of Grand Hero Battle later on. A sword with distant counter, a more powerful version of the Luna special attack, a defense boost when he’s attacked and Wings of Mercy to jump to an ally when they’re damaged… I can already tell this guy is going to be pretty powerful, especially on my armor team with Amelia.
Even with that diversion out of the way, however, things quickly jump back into Zacharias and his own emotional dark god blood angst.
Defeat him here and you get to go into some conclusive details with him somewhat making up with the Order of Heroes but knowing he can’t come back because blah blah story continuity and necessary villain being necessary.
And, of course, things end off with a message for the player.
Pretty standard roll-credits stuff here, not gunna lie. Fairly well handled considering how long we’ve been invested in these characters now, but nothing Pulitzer Prize winning by any means.
Now we wait and see where things go next.
Well, looks like that about wraps things up for today’s Fire Emblem Heroes update. Just in time to make my video conference in a half hour too, conventionally enough.
What do you think about the new Crimean heroes? Do you have a favorite? I certainly like Elincia best from a design perspective, but Nephenee seems pretty powerful and I’m looking forward to trying her out.
How about the continually growing Heroes story arc? Do you enjoy what they’ve been doing with it? Or would you be equally as content if everything was more filler-based considering the nature of the mobile title?
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