Nintendo has delivered gameplay of Fire Emblem Warriors at last, and there’s quite a bit to talk about. So get cozy and grab a bite to eat.

First off, it should be noted that our protagonists Shion & Lian have been given the localized names of Rowan & Lianna.

The Koei-Tecmo devs go over a bit of information, like how switching between a group of characters was inspired by the 3DS Hyrule Warriors Legends and how they felt it would fit with Fire Emblem.

There are various missions to complete around the map. This is strikingly similar to Samurai Warriors 4-II‘s progression through maps where if you followed the missions you’d be better off in terms of the overall map. However they weren’t 100% mandatory, even if ignoring them usually puts you at a disadvantage.

Missions in 4-II are also unique to each character, although since FE Warriors is more open to who is on what map (due to not being a historical simulation of sorts), I doubt it’ll be character dependent here.

For newcomers to the Warriors games, allow me to break down the interface here. The life bar is at the top. The bar below it is usually the “Musou Gauge”, a meter that you can build up for a powerful special attack.

The section below that, however, is new to FE Warriors, and this gives us our first look at how Pair Up partly works. It appears that you can call Chrom in at will using this button combination (ZR+Y) for an assist attack.

There’s also Dual Guard as mentioned later in the video.

Like most other Warriors games, characters are given dramatic introductions when they are faced as enemies, seen here as Marth twirling his cape in dramatic fashion before speaking.

On the status menu we can see traditional Fire Emblem stats, including an undefined move stat. Lianna has a sword called Facinna, along with a healing stave, which is interesting and I’m not quite sure how it will come into play.

With Chrom as her Pair Up partner, Lianna’s stats are currently raised, giving her boosters in Strength, Skill, and Speed. Strength, Defense, Magic, and Resistance stats will be used in the obvious manner, but it’s unknown exactly how other stats such as Skill and Speed will come into play.

We can also see a sprite of Female Corrin here alongside Lianna. We’ll get to her in a bit.

On the map side, Forts (red and blue squares) typical of other Warriors games make their return. You have to take out a general or base captain to take them over for your army.

Much like Hyrule Warriors Legends or the various Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors Empires games, you can give orders to your various allies on the map for where they’ll focus.

In this game’s case, you’ll see the weapon triangle advantage… if you have a sword you’ll have twin red arrows next to your character vs an axe and so forth. This is good for setting up potential future plays in the map where you can switch characters when needed in a key location.

This status menu also brings up something: these characters are beyond the usual level 20 limits of most Fire Emblem characters. It’s likely that FE Warriors follow Koei-Tecmo’s level cap rules, a more RPG-like level cap around 50 or 99. They could also simply end at level 40 like some character classes in Fire Emblem Fates.

Chrom & Lianna do a twin musou/special attack which isn’t new to the series but might be locked to characters who are paired up at the time.

Like in Hyrule Warriors, if you walk far enough your character goes into a sprint. This is likely to make up for the general lack of mounts for the cast that generally is allowed in usual Warriors games.

They decided to add in the Female version of Corrin, and her moveset includes many attacks that utilize her draconic heritage, such as Dragon Fang and some very Smash-inspired animations, Often her head or arms just change and not the full dragon transformation, though she does go full dragon for a few specific attacks.

There is also a blue aura that you can activate which seems similar to Focus Spirit from Hyrule Warriors or Musou Rage from Dynasty Warriors 5. This lets you power up even further and get an insane amount of power for a short burst of time, ending with a unique Musou/Special attack.

Leveling up works like typical Fire Emblem however it remains to be seen if stat gains are fixed or randomly generated based on growth rates. These level-up screens can be turned off as well to not interrupt your play.

Meanwhile the weapon triangle seems to work much like the one in Dynasty Warriors 8. When you have an advantage you can break an enemy’s “weapon meter” and do a chain attack on them for massive damage. This is also similar to Hyrule Warriors in that when you hit a character in their weakened state, you can setup a critical hit.

Ryoma seems to focus on lightning fast sword strikes with his signature Raijinto. Fates players can spot some Swordmaster animations in his attacks, such as part of his critical hit animation, kicking an enemy in the gut before doing a downward cut.

Chrom also does a spinning slash from the air as seen in this Awakening cinematic. Koei-Tecmo did their homework.

We also have Coliseum mode which seems to act like Samurai Warriors Survival Tower where you have to do specific challenges to get levels for your specific characters. In this case, we get to see Xander in play.

Xander fights entirely on horseback much like how Link did with Epona in Hyrule Warriors. However, Xander has a number of hilarious moves involving the horse spinning as he slashes, not unlike how Paladins are animated to attack in Fire Emblem Echoes.

In this Coliseum you have to defeat a set number of Heroes, we aren’t sure of the variety quite yet in mission types so stay tuned for more information on that front.

Last but not least, we have two new Fire Emblem Amiibo: Chrom & Young Tiki. based on this, it’s very likely that Tiki will be a playable character in the game. Also Treehouse did make note of the “only sword users” so far and said there is variety to come and not to be worried about it.

Stay tuned as we go further into this year!