Good god there’s a lot to cover here today. Guess that’s what happens when I’m so busy that I don’t have the time to address these updates as they come out.
Though… I suppose it is nice to be able to get it all out of the way at once rather than having three separate, incomplete posts.
Probably the only problem is the fact that this post is going to be a billion words long if I get to rambling on too much. Since I’m already basically doing that, I’ll zip it and jump into all the Fire Emblem goodness.
I’ll try to keep it brief. Promise.
…
It’s not going to be brief, is it?
The Version 2.2.0 Update
Starting off our little marathon of coverage is this big puppy: one new Fire Emblem Heroes update fresh off the presses.
Battle Screen Layout
Probably the most obvious change right off the bat is a brand new battle mode select screen:
Okay well it isn’t COMPLETELY new or anything. But it’s new enough.
Instead of there being two separate icons for the Tempest Trials and Voting Gauntlets, the two categories have been combined and now appear together in an “events” vortex. This change has cleared room for… Something.
I honestly have no idea what the new upper-left icon is. It looks like the Garden of Eden, or some kind of fountain of power. The name is obscured and we can’t select it yet, but supposedly it’s going to be maps specifically used for Legendary Heroes and their blessed allies.
Which will finally give me a reason to use my blessings.
Also included in the new events vortex is a brand new game mode, which is arguably the most significant addition to this update.
Tap Battle Game Mode
Tap Battling is… Interesting.
Interesting is about the only really good thing I can think to say about them upon first impressions, however.
Let’s break things down.
Opening up the Tap Battle menu, as you can see above, makes everything seem very similar to a Tempest Trial, with the two-week timer ticking down.
However, the similarities stop there. An early noticeable aspect of the game mode is that it fills the same niche as Arena Assault by requiring no stamina, dueling swords or anything to play. You can literally tackle the labyrinth endlessly if you want.
If you do decide to tackle it, there are two game modes to work with:
As you can see, Casual mode has you tapping the Summoner at the bottom of your phone screen to defeat an enemy when they reach the red square in front of your units, whereas Expert mode requires you to tap the row of the unit that’s under attack.
I enjoy the aesthetic presentation of this mode, if nothing else. Being able to select whatever units you want to bring is an interesting idea as far as letting you choose a team you want to tap with, and it’s cool to see their sprites so close up against a wide-open background for once.
On top of that, even if the enemy placement is rather spaced out and boring on easy difficulty, there is also a hard difficulty that makes tapping along to the rhythm of the song a little more exciting:
Multiple kinds of units appear in hard difficulty too, as opposed to just sword-wielders on easy.
There are also special boss stages every 20 floors, where you encounter a notable character that attacks each of your unit’s lanes in a set order until you can wipe out their health bar.
Each time you beat a level, you’re scored based on how much of a combo streak you keep throughout.
The Summoner be looking cute in this graphic here. Just sayin.
However, as cute as the Summoner is, he can’t stop the ever creeping mediocrity of the event as a whole. While it all sounds interesting in concept… It frankly becomes dreadfully dull and underutilized in execution.
For one, as you might have noticed before, I said hard mode makes it more enticing to tap along to the song. THE song.
There’s only one song.
Granted, we only have 40 floors currently, and there are 100 floors all together promised…
But seriously Intelligent Systems? ONE song? In a music-based rhythm game?
I’ll give them props for making each stage have a unique pattern despite going against the same base song… But it’s so painfully boring to just hear the same song over and over again.
Plus, each stage goes through five floors at a time in this game’s logic. With only 40 floors available so far, that means there are eight stages (with more being promised to appear every day). These stages are quick to run through on easier difficulties and feel less like accomplishments than they would have if each stage was a distinct floor to work through by itself.
With that said, I only mentioned them being quick on easier difficulties, right? Hard mode is definitely the way to go then, isn’t it?
Well, hold your hypothetical horses my dear reader.
Hard mode is more engaging, yes. In fact, I quite like the idea of there being options to change game style and difficulty to create a more customizable experience for players… But the game is set up in a way that makes it a superfluous addition.
Clearing each series of floors earns you a reward. However, each stage literally only has one reward.
If you beat a stage on easy, you can’t get a reward for hard. If you beat it in casual mode, you can’t get a reward for expert mode.
Despite this, the four permutations of play style are all given desperate rankings. So for example, if you get an S-rank on Easy/Casual, you don’t get the S-ranking on Hard/Casual. But you get no extra reward for taking the same stages on again other than bragging rights.
Seriously, as far as the informational post put out by Intelligent Systems says, there isn’t any sort of extra reward planned for getting full S-rankings on each permutation. The game simply claims it’s an “easy-to-play battle mode.”
Honestly if I wasn’t such a completionist with my games, I probably wouldn’t bother playing this mode after the first run of it. But I am, so I’m going to hate myself and continue playing it just in case something happens later.
Something just really bugs me about Tap Battles. I feel like there’s an interesting concept under the surface of a boring, empty-feeling game mode.
For example, I like the idea of bringing the units you want, but the choices you make have no impact on your time in-game. I understand why considering each map is specifically timed to go with the song, but there was so much more that could have been done.
Why not make it so a sword unit you bring is super effective against an axe-wielding boss? Have their attacks take away more of the bosses health bar, or something along those lines.
I don’t know… Maybe this will grow on me, but for right now I’d honestly say it’s bland and forgettable. Luckily it will keep updating and provide more rewards to retain interest, but what a missed opportunity.
Speaking of forgotten, however…
Weapon Refinery Update
A slightly more anticipated part of this update, for me at least, was the addition of new weapons to refine.
Basically, every unit who uses Falchion can now upgrade the legendary sword with various effects. Lucina’s upgraded Falchion grants her buffs to all of her stats when she’s standing next to allies while Marth’s upgraded Falchion buffs his allies when he’s next to them, for example.
The other five units shown in the image above can also now upgrade their basic weapons into character-specific legendary weapons. For units like Raven, Felicia and Caeda, these buffs were hugely needed and welcomed.
Hell, I’ve had a Raven since probably my fifth 5 star summon, and only now am I considering using him.
I’m just hoping Eirika gets an upgrade to her sword soon so I can keep my child growing.
New Special Battle Map Rotations
This is probably the most interesting update in the bunch, if you ask me.
Two different daily rotations have been added into the Special Maps menu.
The first offers players the chance to fight Grand Hero Battles of the past. Seven of the heroes have apparently been retired to this fate, which will give us the opportunity to take them on whenever we want – if it’s the right date.
I love that idea, since it shows they’re planning on making room for new Grand Hero Battles to be implemented in the near future without having to worry about bringing these back in rarified time slots.
Plus, there are quests available for a full year to get extra things like orbs.
Who can complain with that?
The second rotation comes in the form of Special Training Maps.
There are five of these maps with five difficulty settings each that give you rewards when you beat them the first time.
Of course, that means that there will be no rewards remaining after the first week, but they’re apparently built to help train the units that are described in the title. It’s a nice idea, though slightly less so than the Grand Hero Battle rotation if you ask me.
Extra Patch Notes
The last part of the 2.2.0 update is outlined in full right here. For the most part I don’t have anything to add.
Except… Thank god manaketes don’t have to transform each and every time a fight starts.
I really appreciate that kind of quality of life change.
Love Abounds Summoning Focus
That’s leg one of this marathon done. You all still with me?
Good.
Well then, let’s talk about Valentine’s Day.
While I’ve been waiting for this holiday-centric summoning banner to arrive for some time now, I’m admittedly not super excited seeing that it centers around the Binding and Blazing Blade heroes.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it’s not Fates- or Awakening-centric again, but these games have easily the third most granted alternate skins.
Maybe if I get the chance to play these original games at some point in the near future, I’ll be a little more caring for the heroes. But until then, let’s see what these new holiday heroes are packing, shall we?
- Lyn – Wind’s Embrace
- The interesting thing about this Lyn is the fact that with her addition you can now have a team full of four different Lyns to take down your foes. Okay… Well that’s not the only interesting thing I suppose. I do actually like Lyn’s build. She’s a blue armored mage who can buff the movement of her fellow armored units, gains stats when she’s next to them and make the opponent use their special attacks less. Sounds pretty sweet, especially considering I don’t have any non-footsoldier magic units. Plus, I’ll have two of the game’s four Lyndis clones if I get her.
- Hector – Just Here to Fight
- Alright, Hector is… I guess the opposite of interesting, in a sense. His skills are essentially the same as his regular counterpart, just with a buffed up weapon, a new special attack and different armor-benefitting skill. While it isn’t exciting, his original form is still known for being a beast, so I’m pretty interested in going after him as well. Especially since he looks pretty legit in that black outfit of his.
- Lilina – Blush of Youth
- Lilina is arguably the unit I would want least on this banner… Even if I just cursed myself into getting her instead of Hector, since they’re the same color. She’s a green mage cavalier, which I already have in my own amazing form. Her skills are sub-par in my opinion despite making her a team leader, so I’m not going to lose any sleep over her. Sorry Lilina.
- Roy – Youthful Gifts
- Roy is our second bow knight, behind Lyn funnily enough (it’s a position which I still think should have gone to Neimi, Intelligent Systems. One day soon, I swear). However, he seems to pale in comparison to his friend, with just Death Blow going for him honestly. At least, in my opinion that is all he has going for him. He shares the same weapon skill with Valentine’s Day Lyn and Lilina, but I’m just not super impressed by them I guess.
Eliwood is also here as a special hero, but he’s going to show up in a Tempest Trial later this month.
While I’m not necessarily in love with these heroes as a group, I do actually quite like their overall Shakespearean theme. It’s a neat aesthetic to take on for a Romeo and Juliet callback of sorts.
If I had to pick, I’d say I’m looking out for either Hector or Lyn. Green and Blue orbs abound.
However, because I’m unfortunately not super in love with these lovey dovey heroes, I’m not going to spend a ton of orbs this time around. I had about 100 at the time the banner dropped, so I’m going to be disciplined and only use orbs when I get back up to 100.
If I don’t get anything, I’ll just spend some time building up again using the many, many events all happening at once. That way I’ll also have a ton of orbs around just in case I like whatever is coming in the future.
Now that I’ve discussed my thoughts on the heroes, you know what’s up next.
Story time, lovelies.
Luckily, this time we only have a Paralogue to sort through, not a full chapter. That makes things much easier on my for now.
Plus it opens up the opportunity for more creative level design, in this case fitting in with that Romeo and Juliet style I mentioned before.
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See what I mean? It’s a very medieval-styled festival in my opinion. War of the Roses era stuff.
But how does that cute aesthetic tie a story together?
Well it starts with the Order of Heroes preparing to head out to a festival for Devotion Day. Because the holidays in Fire Emblem can never just be in their natural forms.
Sharena has a very romanticized view of the holiday:
However, her allies have a… Much less romantic view of things.
Classic Anna.
When you arrive in the world, you start to come across the done up heroes, starting with Roy and Lilina.
They’re pretty much just being cute and flirting with each other.
Even if I haven’t played the games they’re in, I can appreciate a cute ship when I see it.
Once you defeat them you come across their parents preparing to take part in the festival.
Frankly, the exchange between them all is hilarious. I really enjoyed this part, so I’ll lay it out in pictures.
I just really like the idea of Hector going up against these people having fun by slaying them with his legendary axe. It’s super great.
Beat the three of them and you arrive next on a battlefield with everyone… Except Roy for some reason. Guess he just gets the shaft here.
Or technically, I suppose it makes sense due to the exchange between Hector and Eliwood.
See, Hector sees his daughter Lilina going around with a gift while spending time with Roy and believes the two are off to get hitched.
He’s not so happy about that…
But Lyn quickly derails the argument.
And fight you do.
When you defeat all of the holiday heroes, they lament their loss as usual. However, things take a different route when Lilina comes out and gives the gift she’s been carrying around to her father.
Obviously he feels bad knowing that the symbol of what he thought was his daughter growing up and moving away from him was actually her way of getting closer with him.
He also mentions the wonky continuity of Fire Emblem Heroes by talking about how he’s dead in her canon universe and they shouldn’t be together…
But hey.
Video game logic.
Once the heroes move on, Sharena decides to hand out presents to everyone, with her speech to the Summoner calling back to her idea of wanting to reveal her true feelings by suggesting once more that she had a romantic interest in him.
It’s a sweet ending to a sweet diversion in what has become a rather dark story progression.
Even if I don’t have a huge attraction to the holiday heroes, at least I feel nice having gone through the story these developers plotted out.
Now if only I could summon one of these fools so I would feel better about them.
Upcoming Events
You’ve all made it quite far into my little gauntlet of over-embellished written nightmares here, so for this portion I’m going to take it easy on you.
Because I appreciate and love you.
So many events, so little time.
Most notably, we’ve got another Tempest Trial on the way (with Valentine’s Day Eliwood as the reward, like I said before) and six summoning banners coming out in the next month.
It’ll be a grind to keep up with it all, but I’m as ready for the challenge as ever.
Golly gosh am I tired after all this writing. Wasn’t expecting to stay up so late to do it, but I guess the writing bug really hit me tonight.
I know I basically just said it in the short section above, but I wanted to thank anyone who came this far again for being so willing to put up with my late night rambling text bullshit.
Seriously, this was a massive undertaking that probably had no right to be such a massive undertaking. Could’ve just split it into multiple posts. If I was smart, I probably would have.
But that said, there’s a ton of things to reflect on that I talked about leading up to this. So let me know, what do you think of the 2.2.0 update? Or the new Valentine’s Day summoning focus? Or all the upcoming events?
Let’s talk about it in the comments below!
But even if not, I hope you all enjoy your weekends. I’ve got a bunch of work to do throughout, but it’s going to be great to rest a little too after this long, arduous week.
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