Fire Emblem Warriors

Fates of Awakening

So since playing Switch is more and more fun and easier than the Wii U that is stuck near the TV I felt a small pull to play a Hyrule Warrior kinda game (I know it's the Dynasty Warrior franchise that started it, but I've only played the Zelda one) and since the preferred Dragon Warrior game for Switch aren't coming to the west at the moment I had to go to the next best thing, a fire emblem version. And it was fun, but boy, I who can stomach clichés starts to feel that Fire Emblem really need to change its game, and this isn't even a main game. 

So basically, the Outrealm gates that are established since Awakening turns up in the kingdom of Ayolies where the the twin prince and princess Rowan and Lianna are sparing with neighbour prince Darios. They escape with the Fire Emblem (shield) and a quest to find 5 heroes to fill the emblem with the jewels to gain the divine dragons strength. So obviously it's the damn shadow/chaos dragon from earlier games like Awakening and the remake of the first game (if it's the dragon of Fates as well I wouldn't know, I've still haven't finished all parts of those games) and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE. I'm getting tired of this plot mostly because the enemies are so one-dimensional. It's always the dark dragon corrupting or manipulating everyone to release him and then I have to stop him as he just breaks free. I start to find that may be the reason I like the first western Fire Emblem and the Radiance duology more. The world is more complex in those with political themes and in ways the villains are sympathetic. In the first western one the bad guy is Nergal who pretty much went insane from losing his children as they were half-dragons and he didn't want one special dragon, he wanted to purge humanity and they discuss power politics of the nobles that effects the lower classes and so on. Same goes for the Radiance games, the bad guy is the goddess of Order who tries to bring order and stop her "sister", the goddess of chaos, that almost destroyed the world last time, but since both are split from the original goddess it is clear they are in reality unbalanced. She's helped by people that have lost faith in humanity due to prejudice and greed. And Ike is the first main character that isn't a noble, a person more to the ideals and incorruptible. I love those games.

Best blue haired main character

So it plays pretty much like Hyrule Warriors, but different attacks and characters. I found some improvements that are wonderful. For example you can switch (haha) between 4 characters on the field and all of your characters (even non-playable ally characters) level up on their own, meaning it goes faster to get characters higher level (I would suspect it might be due to more characters than Zelda). They also put in the weapon triangle from Fire Emblem and I can get behind that (maybe since I know it by heart), you know swords beat axes that beats lances that beats swords. Attacking with the right weapon gives you advantage and makes it easier to break their "shield". Which is probably why they have the switch-mechanic. Overall, it feels better and smoother.

So I like the gameplay and the story is boring. But there is glimmers for a fire emblem veteran. For example first meeting with the Awakening players is a recreation of the first scene of that game. And at first I wondered if it was the original voices and I just now checked it out, yes, many of them are the same, some are not, especially enigmatic with Fates characters that was released not that long ago. So you got to meet the different heroes, Chrom first, then Xander, Ryoma and Corrin and lastly Marth. And here is another problem, it's the same games over and over. Why three from Fates? Really, the hero of those games are Corrin while Chrom was Awakening and Marth is Marth, but why not from other games? They just released Shadow of Valencia, why not some cross-promotion? I still haven't got that one. And were is my Ike and Eliwood characters (I see Lyndis is somewhere in the game, I assume the history mode which I need to grind up the characters to be able to tackle).

At least the models look like their games

Also, the mind-control thing was weird in Zelda, here it's just irritating mainly because in the Fire Emblem games it's overused. It's been there for me since Sacred Stones (also, why didn't we use that game as base, there were twins as well?). I can't stand it since it's so obvious and tired. Then again, I've had a hard time to figure out if one of the main characters in this games actually was taken over or did it for himself. It's framed like he was taken over, but they don't act like it. Could also be that I saw the Robin turn and just waited for it to kick in so I could kick him out. And the Iago chapters. Hate that guy.

There is a two-player mode, but I haven't played it and frankly, at the moment without looking at the history mode doesn't feel necessary (like I felt to manage some missions on the Zelda game). The history mode is pretty much a map from different games where they put out some enemies that are missions you need to play in order to get to the end. The only one I watched was the Lyndis one where they reimagined the intro with characters from this game. A pity they didn't use the right class since I believe it was Will the Archer and not Mark the Tactician that gave the news about the layout of the map. At least the ending battle with the dragon was awesome.