Jedi's proper thoughts on FE:W

[Jedi]

I say proper review yet I'm doing this on a phone.

Anyways despite all the controversy surrounding Fire Emblem Warriors, it's turned out much better than I could have hoped in pretty much every department.

Barring the roster but even the meh roster has merits in terms of supports and interactions.

Lets start from the top, FEW is probably one of the most fluid and well playing Musou games out of the entire set, it feels nice to play in almost every aspect and doesn't really feel tedious unless you play for way too long at a time, and there's even advanced tech like frame cancels and animation canceling with dodges 

Allies are competent enough and you can order them to various forts and stuff or to heal up, target certain enemies, much like the Empires subset of games in both the Dynasty and Samurai Warriors series. This alone makes taking on multiple objectives feel less stressful (as Musou games main aspect is dealing with multitasking). Along with having 4 main units you control you also select who your allies NPC units are of the cast and this is tactical as well considering you can use them for pair up or orders as well.

Movesets all feel fun, there's not as many unique movesets as say in Samurai Warriors or Dynasty Warriors (barring 6 and 7). But all the movesets that do exist in the game all work really well and none say feel as awkward as Agathas in HW etc. I personally have the most fun with Marth, Chrom/Lucina, Lissa, Robin and Xander (wow for once I like Xander over Ryoma in a way but his moveset is rad too since it takes a lot of Fates SM animations) but everyone feels super good even Tiki who folks thought would be awkward has easy ways to build Awakening meter to go into Dragon form (you can add Musou bars into her meter).

The archers are really fun, and Sakura is adorable.

Elise and Leo have a super awesome mounted mage set and I'd imagine they'll be really good when people start tiering characters in how effective they are. Same with Fred who has a super brutal moveset on his stead.

Camilla brings the heat with a really cool Wyvern moveset.

Corrin takes a bit of inspiration from smash with a lot of dragon fang usage and using the fang to stick in the ground, spin etc.

i still need to unlock Lyn and Celica

Pegasus Knights feel a little odd at first but also really shine when you need them to.

Lianna and Rowan also flow really well and have a nice moveset and I quite like them, especially Lianna, Rowan might look like a goofy Naruto/Super Saiyan but he's a big dork so it works out, and Lianna reminds me of Sophita (from Soul Calibur) on promotion so that's a huge plus.

The story is very basic, but it works, its divided into a traditional FE chapter format, you also have 4 difficulties, Easy, Normal, Hard and Lunatic which is unlocked after beating the story the first time.

The maps are all really well designed taking advantage of both your multitasking ability and also how the enemies can pressure you. Along with unit types such as Pegasus or Camilla (or enemy Wyverns) being able to take short cuts, and in a particular map Hinoka and her Pegasus do a very solid job of rushing you down if you don't properly counter it.

Objectives are simple yet may take some tactical moves (more so on higher difficulties where enemies can and will have effective weaponry making you use a varied team to counter them).

The difficulty is just right even Normal mode can give you a run depending on enemy composition and your lack of viewing what they have (or you get locked into a team for a History Mode challenge).

The game takes what Hw did but takes out the clunkiness such as Boss Enemies who took way too long to kill, and removed items being needed to progress or get S Rank objectives on a map.

Supports exist and from what I've seen of the translations they're nice at some crossover conversations (shout outs to Celica and Xander and a number of others). Meanwhile others are utterly adorable (see Caeda and Tiki).

While the roster is mediocre at best and the PR was quite honestly some of the worst I've ever seen (most definitely the worst I've seen out of KT who I've liked for years). I'd say if you have the vaguest interest or love Musou games you should give this game a try. It covers the FE bases as well as it can while improving on HWs formula and making it, more of its own.

While some may decry the lack of as much weapon variety there should be, the focus on weapons properties tend to be more important than the triangle itself, although as the enemies get tougher the triangle is a bit more key to doing things faster.

I'm willing to take questions, I just wanted to write out my thoughts.

In conclusion, I'd like to say this is honestly one of the most enjoyable Musou games ever I've played and I have been playing them for an even longer time then I have been playing FE itself.

[Elieson]

Watching you play the game, it looked incredibly easy.

I mean incredibly almost hilariously easy

Have you tried Hard/Lunatic mode yet?

[Anacybele]

13 minutes ago, Jedi said:

on higher difficulties where enemies can and will have effective weaponry

RIP Freddy. :( (he still has more weaknesses to effective weapons than anybody in this roster, the poor guy. Which is ironic due to how he's supposed to have crazy defense)

But great review, Jedi! It makes me feel more comfortable about playing the game myself once it releases in English! Really great read!

[EricaofRenais]

This is a good review and I will be picking the game up, with some misgivings on the roster.  I loved HW so if this game plays better then that game I hope I can enjoy it.  I just hope Minerva will be DLC.  Thank you for the effort you put in to your playthrough and writing this review.

[Lightchao42]

Nice, it's encouraging to see an experienced Warriors player think the game is good.

How would you say it fares in comparison to Hyrule Warriors (since it's the only Warriors game I've played thus far)?

[Neghis]

Not satisfied with the roster (like almost everybody) but I'm still incredibly hyped for this game. About 2 weeks left people! I can't wait.

[kingddd]

7 minutes ago, Elieson said:

Watching you play the game, it looked incredibly easy.

I mean incredibly almost hilariously easy

Have you tried Hard/Lunatic mode yet?

one of my units almost died in normal mode quite a few number of times.  So yeah higher difficulty will be much harder.  Since your AI enemies are more competent, it almost means the enemies can take you out more easily than previous titles and can combo you near death.

[Jingle Jangle]

Nice review of the game. I suppose your thoughts on the story will come later once the game is released in English .

[Aura Of Twilight]

After hearing a lot of negativity mostly because of the roster, this review is a nice breath of fresh air and I'm looking forward to playing the game once its released in English. Thanks Jedi. :) 

[Slumber]

All of these things are pretty encouraging to hear. Certainly makes me feel like I made the right choice in deciding to pick the game up, despite all of my pre-release grievances.

[wissenschaft]

1 hour ago, Elieson said:

Watching you play the game, it looked incredibly easy.

I mean incredibly almost hilariously easy

Have you tried Hard/Lunatic mode yet?

Musou games always make normal mode looks super easy (because it is). Higher difficulties and completing all the objectives and challenges is where the difficulty comes in. Hence, being able to control your heroes on the map and switch between them at will seems really useful for fighting for multiple objectives at once.

Also, its interesting to see that while the weapon triangle doesn't seem a big deal at first it becomes more important when effective weaponry is introduced. That gives us a reason to switch between 4 characters and use pair up. I already know a youtuber has said that Ryoma + Camilla make a great pair up. Using Camilla's dive attack to close the distance quickly whenever Ryoma knockbacks the enemy. And Camilla just being super mobile as a flyer.

Edited October 3, 2017 by wissenschaft

[ChibiToastExplosion]

Happy to hear it!

My only question is, do you think the extra modes will be as much contents as the adventure maps in HW, or are they notably shorter? Even without item grinding (which was bonk), each map had a ton of scenarios - I was hoping that would be the same here.

Also, how restrictive is character selection - ie, how often does the game force you in to someone?

[Interdimensional Observer]

Since you really praised Elise and Leo, are mages (and maybe Tiki and archers?) by virtue of being out of the WT superior to others? Or at least allow you to be less attentive to enemy placement with acceptable costs?

[Folt]

Can't wait to try to assist with character tiers in this game. Besides how the good the character is, I'm probably gonna have to consider possible Pair-Up teams to expand their options.

[Jedi]

1 hour ago, Jingle Jangle said:

Nice review of the game. I suppose your thoughts on the story will come later once the game is released in English .

Pretty much yeah, we'll wait for that.

2 hours ago, Elieson said:

Watching you play the game, it looked incredibly easy.

I mean incredibly almost hilariously easy

Have you tried Hard/Lunatic mode yet?

I'm not really doing HM yet because I wanna power up everyone before I do it.

1 hour ago, ChibiToastExplosion said:

Happy to hear it!

My only question is, do you think the extra modes will be as much contents as the adventure maps in HW, or are they notably shorter? Even without item grinding (which was bonk), each map had a ton of scenarios - I was hoping that would be the same here.

Also, how restrictive is character selection - ie, how often does the game force you in to someone?

The History Mode maps are shorter but I'd say I prefer it than way over the overly needless bulk of HWs Adventure map.

Theres differing objectives.

It only force selects every now and again like one map on the Awakening history mode map forced me to only use the 3 Axe units, then on the Fates one there's been one where I had to have only the two archers. For two examples. Chrom was forced in one or two maps in the Awakening one as well.

58 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Since you really praised Elise and Leo, are mages (and maybe Tiki and archers?) by virtue of being out of the WT superior to others? Or at least allow you to be less attentive to enemy placement with acceptable costs?

They'll struggle vs enemies with high resistance like Pegasus Knights and people with weapons that do good vs Horses.

Tiki gets destroyed if a Falchion user so much as sneezes on her (same with Corrin and Camilla).

Archers do heavy damage to fliers and have super fast attacks but don't do as well versus officers due to lower attack values.

A balance is key in your army picks. I'd say the safest character to play as overall is probably Robin as he/she only has to worry about high res enemies and if someone has high attack value. Since they have weaker defense.

[Xattm47]

Glad to hear this! I figured the game would be good, but hearing thoughts from someone who actually has played a lot of Warriors games makes me pretty confident I'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I'm also happy that Leo sounds really good to play as because he was probably the character on the roster I was looking forward to playing the most.

[SoulWeaver]

Well, a recommendation from Jedi himself, this bodes well for this game. Now for the real problem. I don't have a Switch or an N2DS(because paying an extra $50 so I can choose to not use the 3D is stupid), and don't really plan on obtaining a Switch until Nintendo's made like two or three more consoles. Is this game worth the roughly $200 I'll need to drop to obtain the game and system?

[Jedi]

32 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

Well, a recommendation from Jedi himself, this bodes well for this game. Now for the real problem. I don't have a Switch or an N2DS(because paying an extra $50 so I can choose to not use the 3D is stupid), and don't really plan on obtaining a Switch until Nintendo's made like two or three more consoles. Is this game worth the roughly $200 I'll need to drop to obtain the game and system?

I'm honored you consider my opinion so highly!

If you really like your Musou and Fire Emblem it might be worth it, however I think you might wanna wait if you don't have anything else on the system you'd like or upcoming on it. (Like how I have Sonic Forces preordered, and am looking forward to Project Octopath Traveler).

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Jedi said:

They'll struggle vs enemies with high resistance like Pegasus Knights and people with weapons that do good vs Horses.

Tiki gets destroyed if a Falchion user so much as sneezes on her (same with Corrin and Camilla).

Archers do heavy damage to fliers and have super fast attacks but don't do as well versus officers due to lower attack values.

A balance is key in your army picks. I'd say the safest character to play as overall is probably Robin as he/she only has to worry about high res enemies and if someone has high attack value. Since they have weaker defense.

I'm getting a sense of "conflict of wants" here. 

On the one hand, it sounds like I just can't solo the map with one character. Nor can I, like in Samurai Warriors Chronicles, use 4 of whoever I want willy nilly and just field Nobunaga, Masamune, Nene and Kotaro all the time (although if you're going for the 4th Weapons there, you are kinda locked into using a handful of characters like for the sake of ease). I have to be very attentive in who I use and when. This is bad, because I in Musou, I want to be able to mow down everyone with just the characters I want to use. If I like Fire Emblem for its characters, this is bad.

On the other hand, being forced to use multiple characters strategically, including characters I may not personally like if I don't want to put additional difficulty on myself, is very much in line with Fire Emblem. In other words, this is a Fire Emblem: Musou, and not Musou: Fire Emblem, if you get what I mean. As someone fond of Fire Emblem gameplay, I should like this.

This game is too much of one part of FE, and too little of another at the same time.

Then again, Normal and Easy exist for character fetishers, and who plays Lunatic using only their favs without excessive grinding? I'd wager playing on Easy should make arrows and Falchions sting next to nothing, so that is there for character lovers who find the gameplay secondary. Lunatic and Hard are there for people who are really into the gameplay itself, that sounds fine to me. History Mode doesn't have difficulties though right? That's a bummer for the "character casuals".

I've never played them, but perhaps FEW leans a bit towards being Bladestorm or Kessen by virtue of the FE element, even if it is more much Musou than either of them?

[Jedi]

I'd say it's much more Musou then those, I might have overstated how good weapons are, but I find it cool that you might have some issues throwing one person at everything haha.

Edited October 4, 2017 by Jedi

[Florete]

Good read. I think I'm happier with the roster than most (4 of my top 5, including my top 3, are in), so I'm still pretty excited for the game.

4 hours ago, Jedi said:

The History Mode maps are shorter but I'd say I prefer it than way over the overly needless bulk of HWs Adventure map.

How much shorter? About how many hours do you think it would take an average player to 100% the game?

[Thany]

I remember hearing quite some time ago about pegasuses having unique routes between themselves. is there anything like that in the final game?

[Jedi]

Just now, Thany said:

I remember hearing quite some time ago about pegasuses having unique routes between themselves. is there anything like that in the final game?

Yes Pegasus Knights and Wyverns have shortcuts that only they can take, like the Ninja routes in the Samurai Warriors games.

[Gaia093]

Which difficulties are available from the get-go? All the way up to Lunatic or just Easy-Normal-Hard?

I played Hyrule Warriors on Hard first time and then Hero right as it was unlocked, because anything less and it'd have been a boring walk in the park. I plan on doing the same thing with FEW.

 

[SavageVolug]

17 hours ago, Anacybele said:

RIP Freddy. :( (he still has more weaknesses to effective weapons than anybody in this roster, the poor guy. Which is ironic due to how he's supposed to have crazy defense)

But great review, Jedi! It makes me feel more comfortable about playing the game myself once it releases in English! Really great read!

If Fredrick could equip the Great Shield skill he would literally be a god. I'm talking about Great Shield as in from FE4 a skill that Generals had and it would negate ALL damage, not half, not based on what weapon was used, but ALL.