Nintendo's Unsung and Underrated Hero is Fire Emblem Heroes

[banthnub]

Hey folks, lurker for a long time here, and also with gaming media. I wrote a story and published it this morning, focusing on the one-year anniversary of Fire Emblem Heroes, and how despite the game being well-designed, generated fairly little attention with mainstream games media. Even after earning over $300 milliion in revenue from the game, it's just kind of fallen off the map, despite being one of the best mobile games in years and earning a DICE Game of the Year (mobile) award. 

In the piece, I compared this game to various other mobile games like Puzzle and Dragons, Brave Frontier, and Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and how Heroes stands above them in a quality and design standpoint. What do you guys think of the game, its overall direction, and what it's done thus far? Any egregious decisions that stand out to you? 

Piece is here if you're interested, and looking forward to mingling with this community a bit more! 

https://www.gamerpros.co/nintendos-unsung-and-underrated-hero-is-fire-emblem-heroes/

[Kazuya]

9 minutes ago, banthnub said:

Hey folks, lurker for a long time here, and also with gaming media. I wrote a story and published it this morning, focusing on the one-year anniversary of Fire Emblem Heroes, and how despite the game being well-designed, generated fairly little attention with mainstream games media. Even after earning over $300 milliion in revenue from the game, it's just kind of fallen off the map, despite being one of the best mobile games in years and earning a DICE Game of the Year (mobile) award. 

In the piece, I compared this game to various other mobile games like Puzzle and Dragons, Brave Frontier, and Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and how Heroes stands above them in a quality and design standpoint. What do you guys think of the game, its overall direction, and what it's done thus far? Any egregious decisions that stand out to you? 

Piece is here if you're interested, and looking forward to mingling with this community a bit more! 

https://www.gamerpros.co/nintendos-unsung-and-underrated-hero-is-fire-emblem-heroes/

Heroes is extremely bad imo. It's even more predatory than other mobile games, while trying to pass of the guise of being fair and F2P friendly. It is a good mobile game sure, but is it the best? No, there is so much better out there. 

A new mobile game released last month, the Disgaea spin off, Makai Wars. Makai Wars has been on and off cancellation for 13 years. In my opinion, it is the best mobile game. Extremely well done (Not balanced as well as other NIS titles but the game was made by Cloverlabs) gameplay that is necessary for the best SPRG series. It's a gacha game, but so are most Japanese mobile games. It's well done and isn't scammy to all hell. Plus it has fun and fun is rare in Mobile games. 

Heroes cannot compare and shouldn't. I would never call heroes a hero, it's too unbalanced and a blatant cash grab to be one. 

[Reality]

I feel like Fire Emblem Heroes is pretty good value for a mobile game. Just because it's designed  to get money out of a portion of the playerbase doesn't mean that it's "outright predatory".

I think the main downsides is that it's possible to get through the best-made content (Squad Assault, Chain Challenge Lunatic), in about a 4 week period, especially as new users will have lots of guranteed things with GHB units now being re-run, free 5 stars, etc. (It was possible to do this in October-November without these advantages though) Anyone who graudates to a 2-month total playtime will be  able to play through new content on the highest level on the same day it releases. I feel like the game heavily relies on players turning toward the Arena and Arena Assault, at this point, which is okay, but I think a playerbase coming from an RPG background will not be satisfied with this, and not all new content is made at the level of the current strongest teams/meta, which is good for new players, but makes the (player versus event) game have diminishing returns for someone who's played it for any length of time. I do think that there are some steps being taken to make player progress through (high difficulty) content slower than it is currently is, so I'm optimistic about the future of the game.

Granted I'm a guy who likes World of Tanks and War Thunder, so maybe my tolerance for F2P business practices is unusually high. 

Edited March 6, 2018 by Reality

[Cute Chao]

I've played a fair few mobile games and this is the only one I really enjoy sinking time and money into, mostly because it doesn't feel like I have to just to get through the game. All the content so far is doable with characters you can get for free (although if you're as rubbish as me, you have to use guides), and it doesn't lock exclusive prizes behind rankings like so many other games seem to do. You can get all the way through the story mode easily enough and orbs are fairly generous - as are the other game currencies (except maybe dew). It also isn't only focussing on female fanservice, like it feels several other gachas I've tried do. It has some, but then it also balances it out with male fanservice. 

My biggest gripe at the moment is the balance between popular and unpopular characters. It feels they've made repeating characters far too early, both with repeats in seasonals (Xander, Camilla, Lyn) and, even worse to me, repeats in non-seasonals (Eirika still being the most standout, even though the newest banner teeters with that). As a long time Fire Emblem fan, I'd love to see some less popular characters shine. It was amazing in early game to see Reinhardt, whom I had quite liked from the Thracia games but never really thought much about, actually take the spotlight. Now, it just feels like they're too afraid to take even a minor risk with the characters. I'm really hoping that will change. 

Edited March 7, 2018 by Cute Chao

[Book Bro]

I'm not a mobile gamer by any means, I only have FE Heroes on my phone. That being said, I've spent $0 since downloading it on release, and haven't felt the need to spend at all. I have most of my favourite characters in the game so far, which I've gotten using the generous and regularly given free orbs and doing as many quests as I can, while playing casually. I think it's perfectly playable and enjoyable as f2p. If you spend money, that's your choice. There are incentives, sure, which is totally fine as they need to make money somehow, but it's never outright necessary.

As an FE fan I also love it for including characters and fanservice from the whole series.

[banthnub]

1 hour ago, Kazuya said:

Heroes is extremely bad imo. It's even more predatory than other mobile games, while trying to pass of the guise of being fair and F2P friendly. It is a good mobile game sure, but is it the best? No, there is so much better out there. 

A new mobile game released last month, the Disgaea spin off, Makai Wars. Makai Wars has been on and off cancellation for 13 years. In my opinion, it is the best mobile game. Extremely well done (Not balanced as well as other NIS titles but the game was made by Cloverlabs) gameplay that is necessary for the best SPRG series. It's a gacha game, but so are most Japanese mobile games. It's well done and isn't scammy to all hell. Plus it has fun and fun is rare in Mobile games. 

Heroes cannot compare and shouldn't. I would never call heroes a hero, it's too unbalanced and a blatant cash grab to be one. 

I will look into this game for sure. Love NIS. 

42 minutes ago, Cute Chao said:

I've played a fair few mobile games and this is the only one I really enjoy sinking time and money into, mostly because it doesn't feel like I have to just to get through the game. All the content so far is doable with characters you can get for free (although if you're as rubbish as me, you have to use guides), and it doesn't lock exclusive prizes behind rankings like so many other games seem to do. You can get all the way through the story mode easily enough and orbs are fairly generous - as are the other game currencies (except maybe dew). It also isn't only focussing on female fanservice, like it feels several other gachas I've tried do. It has some, but then it also balances it out with male fanservice. 

My biggest gripe at the moment is the balance between popular and unpopular characters. It feels they've made repeating characters far too early, both with repeats in seasonals (Xander, Camilla, Lyn) and, even worse to me, repeats in non-seasonals (Eirika still being the most standout, even though the newest banner teeters with that). As a long time Fire Emblem fan, I'd love to see some less popular characters shine. It was amazing in early game to see Reinhardt, whom I had quite liked from the Thracia games but never really thought much about, actually take the spotlight. Now, it just feels like they're too afraid to take even a minor risk with the characters. I'm really hoping that will change. 

I think the seasonal stuff has to do with the fact that the majority of their modern audience right now is most familiar with Fates and Awakening. I mentioned this as well, and while it's unfortunate it's understandable because they kind of brought the game from the brink of literally never coming out with another entry. 

[BrightBow]

I suppose it's an unsung hero for Nintendo's shareholders. Not sure why anyone else should be happy about that, though. Because it's technically possible to play the game without spending money? Doesn't really change the fact that the game is fundamentally designed to try and squeeze as much money out of players as possible. And I don't think that this is how I want companies to approach game development. 

[Cute Chao]

51 minutes ago, banthnub said:

I think the seasonal stuff has to do with the fact that the majority of their modern audience right now is most familiar with Fates and Awakening. I mentioned this as well, and while it's unfortunate it's understandable because they kind of brought the game from the brink of literally never coming out with another entry. 

I don't mind the seasonal repeats of characters that already had a normal version. What I did mind was the fact they repeated characters within the seasonal, when it felt needless. I mean, Hinoka could have been done instead of Camilla, for instance. Another Hoshidon instead of repeating Azura (maybe Oboro, who is very popular and would make sense to be with Takumi). Or, if they'd known they were doing New Years, they could have picked Oboro for Halloween and done Sakura for NY. Instead of repeating Chrom for Xmas, they could have done someone else, since most Awakening characters have a decent level of popularity. Same with Xander - if they'd known they were going to do him in the summer, they should have chosen someone else for Easter (I'd rather have the summer than the easter version if I had to pick). As you say, Awakening and Fate have the most popular characters, so it felt like there was no real need to repeat them when they could've chosen some of the other fairly popular characters. Ryoma is more popular than Xander right now, according to CYL, but he hasn't had a single seasonal. Easter Ryoma! 

[Zangetsu]

So haven't exactly play every mobile game out there, but Heroes has been extremely generous so far.

 

"Masked Marth" & Black Knight were being Temple Trial rewards is something I'm extremely grateful for. They could have easily take advantage of that but InSyst practically gave for free. Granted, it wasn't without it's downside since they can't be merge & Zelgius ironically power creep himself but I still stand by on what I said.

[De Geso]

FE Heroes is a decent game. There are some things other mobile-shit does better, but it's all mobile-shit so the games can only be so good anyway. Heroes does benefit from being related to my favorite games franchise, though, so I play it (for free only).

[SoulWeaver]

Hey, welcome, glad to have you aboard!

Heroes is kind of an interesting game for me. I have four mobile games on my iPod at this point in time: Heroes, KHuX, GoddessKiss, and Tekken. I used to have Brave Frontier, but I mostly downloaded it for the VOCALOID collaboration event and let it go after I needed space for one of the big Heroes updates since I didn't even have Luka, the VOCALOID I was mostly after in the first place. A strange lineup of games, to be sure. Anyways, Heroes is currently the main one I log in to every day(Tekken being the other because I just started it last week), both for free Orbs and because when it came out I vowed I would not let the game go until my Defense Team lead was a 5S +10 Roy, and have since added to this vow the clause that said Roy shall have obtained as many Skills as I have the patience to give him through Skill Inheritance, so as you can imagine I'm gonna be here a while, especially as I only have 5 Roys at this time, 3 of which are still 4S.

To be honest, even if it's not the absolute most amazing mobile game out there, it's still Fire Emblem I can play at work without needing to worry about damage to a more important system(and for those of you who say I can't break a 3DS at a fast food place, I have somehow managed to damage two separate handhelds at work despite never taking them out of my backpack - they're only brought for StreetPass). It's also given me new appreciation for several characters, for reasons including the lols such as Narcian, for major team carrying such as Delthea or Sakura, and of course for Bae Factor like Palla, who was only sort of on my Waifu List before Heroes and is currently probably Top 5 material(and will also be taken to 5S +10 before I give up on Heroes). It's also fun to see and obtain Seasonal variations that we can only ever find here in Heroes, like the adorable NekoSakura or the, uh…interesting Normal(?) Tharja. Skill Inheritance also means I don't necessarily have to be worried about whether my Unit of choice has a good base kit because I can just transfer Skills over from other less-loved Units(unless they're 5S-exclusive because no way am I killing off my only Hector to give DC to someone unless Refined Binding Blade doesn't come with DC), which makes it easier to just use who I want and not just who's good because everyone can be good.

On the other hand, pretty much every week brings a new(usually 7-to-14-day-long) Banner with, more often than not, new Heroes to try and Summon. In addition, once you beat the Story and Paralogues on all difficulties, your Orb income slows noticeably, making it difficult to keep up with all the new Heroes that are only available for a limited time and you'll never summon them anyways because Pity Breakers wahaha(screw you Lucius). Even on Legendary Hero Banners, I've managed to get Pity Broken by Fjorm way too many times as I only wanted the one of her the Story gives me and promptly pulled like five over the course of the first two months(alongside two Spring Xanders, the one Unit from both Banners I wanted less than more Fjorms). The latest two Legendary Hero Banners, I believe I've had L-Ike's Banner net me one Bridal Caeda and one Summer Xander when I was trying to build up full five-Orb pulls for L-Ike(though I did get Gunnthra so I just dealt with it), and L-Ephraim's Banner handed me one free Summer Leo(I don't even like Leo) and zero other 5S Units - I would have been much better off trying for the lower Focus Rate of the Shadows in the Mirror or Love Abounds Banners, but instead because I tried for the 'greater chance' of the Legendary Banner it's now too late for an F2P like myself to build up enough Orbs to make a last run for LA-Roy or Witch Celica without spending money, so I just ended up about as happy by that whole ordeal as my Summer Leo was(thank goodness for owning two NNIDs to switch between - the alt account nailed LA-Roy and Grima).

In the meantime, most players who come to the game thinking they can jump in with their favorite character instead get buried under a million Bartres, Serras, Lazlows, Arthurs, Florinas, Odins, (insert character you're tired of pulling)s, (insert other character you're tired of pulling)s, etc., which is a MAJOR killjoy, not to mention the game devs somehow had the mental disconnect that led them to think we'd all like to start out with VIRION of all characters as our first Gray Unit as opposed to, say, literally any Healer in the game, who would have been infinitely more useful for those early levels since Virion got benched before most of us even left the World of Zenith in favor of whatever we happened to pull with our 15 startup Orbs because no matter how bad they were, at least they're not this crappy 2S Virion. I'm actually my own best example for the it's-obnoxiously-hard-to-get-a-given-character problem - I heard about Heroes and realized I could put Roy, Cordelia, Camilla, and Sakura all on the same team and was excited as heck, downloading the game as soon as iTunes was open enough to let me download it. Roy and Sakura came at 4S each fairly early on and were the first two Units I threw Feathers into(and are still part of my core team incidentally, though I'm looking for optimal natures now), and Camilla blessed me by being the first 5S Unit I ever pulled, but I only finally got myself a 4S Cordelia for my main account last month - after an entire year of trying for her, long enough that I'd given up on ever getting her and also swapped Camilla out for B-Ike. This is far longer than I think your average player is willing to try for their favorite before giving up and going back to mainstream Fire Emblem because at least there the game actually lets me use the Unit I want to instead of playing hide-and-seek with crystal spheres. The only upside I can find about that turn of events is that I learned to appreciate Catria and Est much more in Cordelia's absence because they filled the role I wanted Cordelia for better than I expected.

Another problem is the Banner duration - the very first two Banners lasted at the very least a full month, I want to say they went much longer because they were the first but I may be wrong. Now, I'm seeing way too many Hero Banners last no longer than a fortnight, slightly less than half that time. Not only does this get annoying because they keep pumping out so many Banners that we end up with like six active at a time, it's also obnoxious because it feels like there's hardly any time to try for a new Unit before they're gone, especially if they introduce new regular Units alongside new Seasonal Units such as Love Abounds and Shadows in the Mirror - I have to choose between epic-looking evil Grima and Celica or the adorable Valentine's Lilina and Roy, and I'm kind of getting tired of having to make those choices.

Overall, though, even with all these things against Heroes, I still find myself diligently collecting login bonus Orbs and training up my just-upgraded-to-5S Ursula, my favorite self-centered Unit Narcian, and of course the army of fodder that will serve to be sacrificed on the Dragon's Table for the almighty Epic Roy I strive to achieve. Who can say how the hearts of men function?

Edited March 7, 2018 by SoulWeaver
Not actually sure if Bridal Caeda and Summer Xander were in Ike's Banner or Gunnthra's

[Dandy Druid]

Am I the only one confused about the Unsung and Underrated hero wording? It's definitely not EITHER of those two.

Definitely not unsung, the FE Heroes subreddit has more members than the general fire emblem subreddit. On these forums, FE Heroes gets a dozen posts each day dedicated to different units and strategies for the game. All of my casual FE friends have the game. Didn't it win an award at some mobile app awards? It's popular and earning IS a TON of money.

It doesn't fit the definitions of Unsung and Underrated, imo.

[Roflolxp54]

2 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

Another problem is the Banner duration - the very first two Banners lasted at the very least a full month, I want to say they went much longer because they were the first but I may be wrong. Now, I'm seeing way too many Hero Banners last no longer than a fortnight, slightly less than half that time. Not only does this get annoying because they keep pumping out so many Banners that we end up with like six active at a time, it's also obnoxious because it feels like there's hardly any time to try for a new Unit before they're gone, especially if they introduce new regular Units alongside new Seasonal Units such as Love Abounds and Shadows in the Mirror - I have to choose between epic-looking evil Grima and Celica or the adorable Valentine's Lilina and Roy, and I'm kind of getting tired of having to make those choices.

Wrong. The very first banners ran for 2 weeks. And 2 weeks is the typical length for new, non-seasonal Heroes banners.

New Heroes banners: 2 weeks
Special Heroes banners: 2 weeks or ~1 month
Hero Fest banners: ~1 week
Legendary Heroes banners: 5 days
Voting Gauntlet banners: ~10 days
Tempest Trials banners: ~10 days (mini); ~17 days (full)
4-5* Heroes: 2 weeks
New Bound Hero Battle banners: however long the new BHB lasts
Skill banners: ~2 weeks

[Astellius]

On 3/6/2018 at 5:52 PM, banthnub said:

Hey folks, lurker for a long time here, and also with gaming media. I wrote a story and published it this morning, focusing on the one-year anniversary of Fire Emblem Heroes, and how despite the game being well-designed, generated fairly little attention with mainstream games media. Even after earning over $300 milliion in revenue from the game, it's just kind of fallen off the map, despite being one of the best mobile games in years and earning a DICE Game of the Year (mobile) award. 

In the piece, I compared this game to various other mobile games like Puzzle and Dragons, Brave Frontier, and Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and how Heroes stands above them in a quality and design standpoint. What do you guys think of the game, its overall direction, and what it's done thus far? Any egregious decisions that stand out to you? 

Piece is here if you're interested, and looking forward to mingling with this community a bit more! 

https://www.gamerpros.co/nintendos-unsung-and-underrated-hero-is-fire-emblem-heroes/

I think Heroes is an excellent game, and it's quite generous to its F2P players. Definitely one of the best mobile apps out there, at least from what I've played. It's successfully kept me engaged with the game for over a year now, and I certainly plan to continue to play it for a good deal longer. Right now, the only mobile games I play on a daily basis are this and Crash Fever. I've tried plenty of other games, most of them just don't stick for me.

As for it being unsung and underrated, I disagree on that point, and, indeed, I find it a somewhat strange thing to say. It's highly rated in the Google Play store and is an editors' pick there; the game has won numerous awards, with DICE just being the latest; it's commonly featured in lists of the "best mobile games" in mainstream gamer magazines; and it has even been profiled in non-gamer magazines like Forbes. Not sure what more praise it would need?

[Tenzen12]

On 3/7/2018 at 2:33 AM, BrightBow said:

I suppose it's an unsung hero for Nintendo's shareholders. Not sure why anyone else should be happy about that, though. Because it's technically possible to play the game without spending money? Doesn't really change the fact that the game is fundamentally designed to try and squeeze as much money out of players as possible. And I don't think that this is how I want companies to approach game development. 

And how exactly do you want companies approach game development then?

Company want profit, causal player want F2P friendly fun and competitive players want get power matching used funds. Heroes managed do all of that. There are no victims only winners.

[Midnox]

Well, I don't have much experience with F2P mobiles, but I thinks FEH is pretty competent and it's fair with it't premium content. Limited time heroes aren't permanently unobtainable later, and the main premium currency: orbs, are given pretty generously. My main issue is how luck-based it can be if you wanna get a specific hero, but nowadays there are enough strong heroes that you won't feel like being behind for long if you start late, as strategy is still the main key to victory