Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest Reviews
The better of the two retail Fire Emblem Fates releases, Conquest offers satisfying and challenging combat that lives up to Fire Emblem Awakening's heady legacy.
Conquest is very lucky that its gameplay and localization are so excellent, because its tired story leaves much to be desired.
Fire Emblem Fates, regardless of which game you begin with, is a wonderful experience that builds on everything Awakening did right, and makes it even better.
Fire Emblem: Fates offers an unprecedented amount of content without falling victim to the temptation quantity over quality. Each of the three total games here features its own vivid branch of the story, and everything from the gameplay to the presentation shifts with it. This is a massive and highly enjoyable addition to the epic franchise that really does stand as one of the most prolific and memorable amongst its contemporaries.
By the end any notion of nature versus nurture is long forgotten. Tragedy falls on both sides of this war no matter what you or your hero do. Friends and family die or permanently retreat with regularity. Fire Emblem is both an adorable game about cute anime kids becoming friends and lovers, and also one of the cruelest and most unforgiving virtual death marches you'll ever play. Don't hold all that death against Fates: it's the game's birthright.
Not exactly novel but fantastic all the same. There's something here for everyone to love.
Yet another feather in the 3DS's very well-adorned cap.
If you're a hardcore Fire Emblem fan, this collection will give hours upon hours of unbridled gaming fun and if you're really keen, you have the option of playing it through again in order to experience the other side of the war.
Fire Emblem's gameplay is second to none, but Conquest sports a lackluster narrative and questionable dialogue that brings the whole experience down.
There's nothing that gets your blood boiling and your heart racing like a hardcore strategy-RPG with perma-death, and Fire Emblem Fates fits that mold to a T.
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest is just about as good as an SRPG can be.
Fire Emblem Fates is a fantastic followup to Awakening, introducing some slight new gameplay elements as well as gorgeous new graphical options.
A tough, tactical adventure
It lives up to its franchises reputation.
To say this game has significant issues is an understatement, and the blame can't be placed on one team. These issues range from simple gameplay mechanic choices that go against much of the internal logic the game was founded on, story issues that seem to have no place existing in the game in the first place, localization issues butchering the grammar and flow of many important points, and a business practice that uses and abuses its customers. While this isn't the worst Fire Emblem game I've played, I can't in good faith suggest people buy this game as it is.
As a 3DS title and as a Fire Emblem title, Fates does not disappoint. It is everything you could expect from a good Fire Emblem game and a solid addition to the 3DS library. It's the first good 3DS game I've played in a long time, and it's one I'm still playing today. It's minor flaws are easily outshone by its major accomplishments, and localization issues slowly lose all meaning as the player is lost in the mountainous content and beauty of this game.
Fire Emblem Fates has all the plot elements you'd expect from an entry in Nintendo's fantasy warfare series. There's a chosen one, a war between two kingdoms that represent the light and dark, magic swords, prophecies, and dragons. But at the core is the profound dilemma of nature versus nurture: Will you define yourself by your biological family or the one that raised you?
In a series underwritten by amnesiac orphans, Fire Emblem Fates breaks away to tell a story about memory, family, and the self, meditating on the decisions that define us and how we regret them.
Fire Emblem Fates is so perfectly executed that I wonder how they'll top it as the series progresses. Every complaint from Awakening has been addressed, leading to a fine-tuned strategy game that borders on genius.
There's something that definitely seems to be missing from Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest. The challenge is certainly there, but it brings its own sacrifices, as well. Ultimately, the narrative feels a little worse off for its separation into three parts, and despite each telling a complete story, there's something nagging about the "What if?" that always seems to come to mind while playing. Despite that, the characters and the challenges provided give so much that, aside from its shortcomings, it's still a compelling story, and an excellent role-playing game.