Anyone who, like the author of these lines, passes the waiting time at the train station with games on their smartphone, has surely stumbled upon Fire Emblem Heroes in the last few weeks. Developer Nintendo has released the successful series, which has produced more than 15 games since 1990, as a FreetoPlay title for iOS and Android.
You play in the typical top view on chessboard-like battlefields and command a maximum of 4 heroes. The heroes are recruited from the complete Fire Emblem Pool of all previous parts and are expanded regularly. As known from the games, the units receive experience for participating in combat and can thus advance to level 40.
The strength of each figure is based on 5 stats such as hitpoints, attack, def, etc. as well as on the weapons and abilities that can be acquired through skill points. The heroes get skill points with every level up.
In addition, every new hero you get has a rarity value that can range from 1 to 5 stars. A 1 star hero has access to fewer skills and is generally weaker, 5 star heroes join your army with the best weapon.
Upon reaching level 20, the hero can be promoted to the next rank. The hero is reset to level 1, but retains the skills he has acquired so far. In addition, upgrading costs a lot of resources. For example 2,000 springs from 3 to 4 stars, 20,000 springs from 4 stars to 5. These are mainly obtained from the arena. There are also other resources in the form of crystals that can be obtained from various battles.
The fights and maps themselves are very varied. Sometimes you can even recognize sections of the cards from the "big" console games.
The main story with so far 9 chapters, each consisting of several cards, tells the background story of Fire Emblem Heroes with animated sequences.
In addition, there is the training tower with battles for each level area, to gain experience for your heroes. As part of the app release celebrations, special cards with orbs will also be available as a reward for the first 30 days.
Nintendo has also built in a bonus card that changes every day, on which a hero can be earned: This rotates through a list of 7 heroes so that you definitely have a foundation stone for your army.
Where do you get the heroes from?
Some may ask themselves this: You can start a summoning for 5 so-called orbs, then a menu with 5 places appears in the colors red, green, blue and white. A random hero is hiding behind them. You can only tell from the color which category it belongs to, for example: red = swords, flame magic, red fire breath. White = bow, shuriken, staff (healer).
After you have decided on a potential hero, there is a small sequence with the summoning. Hopefully a little film will then start showing the dramatic appearance of your new companion.
Hopefully, because only the good 4 and 5 star heroes arrive this way. Units that are weaker only show themselves with their portrait. If you are unlucky and have not summoned a 4 or 5 star hero, the percentage chance that the next hero will have 4/5 stars increases.
Unfortunately, Orbs has to pay for the next summoning again, albeit with a small discount, so that it costs one orb less and the fifth attempt only costs 3. So 5 new heroes cost 5 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 3 = 20 orbs.
The probabilities are also improved by so-called focus banners, that is a thematic selection of heroes who have an increased chance of being summoned during this period. For example, at the moment (March 7, 2017) there are two banners: “Princes” and “Princesses”. These increase the chance of well-known royals from the Fire Emblem universe.
Fire Emblem Heroes - FreetoPlay or PaytoWin?
The orbs required for the summons are of course in great demand and can be obtained for free through quests, story missions or daily logging in. There are also 10 orbs to be linked to your Nintendo Account once. On the other hand, there is also a shop for the impatient where you can buy more orbs in different quantities for real money.
From 3 orbs = 1.99 € to 140 orbs for a proud € 74.99.
This only speeds up the game, there are no items or improvements that cannot be obtained as a pure FreetoPlay player. So, luckily, Fire Emblem Heroes is no PaytoWin Game.
Between 7.3. and 13.3 there will be a special event in the world of Fire Emblem Heroes. The decision about who is the best princess or prince is fought. Each player chooses 1 of 8 heroes and fights battles against opposing teams at certain intervals. You get points for your own parliamentary group and as a ranking for your own merits. This rank determines the reward you get at the end of the event.
So if you have always wanted to get a taste of the Fire Emblem series and may have missed it due to the lack of a console, you can now do so free of charge on your smartphone.
The Fire Emblem Heroes app has been available free of charge for iOS and Android since February 2, 2017. More information is available on the official website.
