Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright (3DS)

The Fire Emblem Fates tactical role-playing games ask you to pick a side in a war, your choice of game ultimately the kingdom you’ll be fighting for. However, while there is the base layer of the Nohr being the aggressor compared to Hoshido being the defender, the choice of which army you should join is complicated by your character history. While you get to customize the protagonist’s appearance, ultimately they are someone who was born in the peaceful Japan-inspired nation of Hoshido but raised by the people of the Europe-inspired Nohr for most their life, there being some push and pull between your true family and your adoptive one. This personal conflict teases a more complicated affair, but a few more factors will likely influence whether you pick Conquest and align with Nohr or join Hoshido in Birthright. Nohr is ruled by a flagrantly evil despot named Garon who is the villain regardless of your route, but there’s an even stronger deciding factor for some that exists outside this narrative concept. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright is, of the two, the much easier game, this perhaps suiting the idea of choosing the easier path of fighting against evil instead of trying to reform a corrupt empire from within, but it also means the gameplay won’t be quite as thrilling if you want to go down the more heroic path.

 

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, Conquest, and even the combined DLC path Revelation all begin with the same set of six chapters to lay out the history of the game’s main character. You’ll see the flagrant cruelty of Nohr’s Garon, but also get some time to see your the more sensitive sides of your adoptive siblings before you inevitably face them in battle fighting alongside Hoshido should you chose Birthright. After a fateful fight lands your character in Hoshido, they’ll meet their blood relatives and learn of their kidnapping at a young age only for Nohr to strike and instigate the war that will require you to pick your side. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright only allows you to play Hoshido’s version of the tale unless you purchase the alternate paths, but once you’ve declared your intention to protect your birthplace, you then join your family and a steadily growing army as they must take the fight to Nohr. For a good deal of the game’s chapters, your war effort really does feel like a travelogue. Your battles are often conflicts that occur as part of the march towards Nohr, your progress to Garon’s castle blocked often by his troops or allies but the fights are not matters of conquest or always ones with personal significance. Sometimes they serve as a chance to recruit new soldiers or you might get small bits of foreshadowing to set up some of the later game’s more involved story-telling and character moments, but it can feel like the game is taking its time rather than providing exciting twists or developments. The fact you spend a good deal of the game also just trying to catch up with your brothers adds to that feeling, the archer Takumi one of your few blood relatives suspicious of you in an otherwise harmonious army while the leader of the Hoshido forces Ryoma is absent for most of the adventures as you try to find him. When the game does start to pick up more and you begin encountering some of your Nohrian relatives, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright at least shows that, while it will depict Hoshido and your family as pretty spotless nations in terms of being the heroic side, a war will have costs and sacrifices that cannot be avoided. Some story revelations are saved for the DLC of the same name, but Birthright does mostly provide a simple heroic adventure which isn’t wholly idealistic despite making Hoshido a bit too squeaky clean morally.

For the fights of Birthright’s campaigns, conflicts take the form of grid-based skirmishes where each side takes a turn moving their full army and choosing how to strike. When a unit attacks another, the game will shift from its simplified map display to one using 3D models, characters then playing out a quick fight influenced partially by luck but heavily by specific elements of the battle. The terrain it takes place on can give certain units advantages, like a unit in the trees having a high chance of dodging an incoming blow. Troops can have different weapons that may be stronger, more accurate, or have other special features that might tip them towards things like delivering a powerful critical hit if they’re lucky. Weapon types are crucial to keep in mind though. A warrior a bow will easily be able to shoot down the knights who ride atop a winged horse or dragon, but bows can’t be used in close range combat so someone using a sword or axe can rush in and strike them without fear. Usually most battles involve the aggressor attacking first and then the defender getting in a counterattack, and if either side has an ally standing nearby, not only will they get a small boost to a stat, that character may also contribute an attack to the fight. All of these elements form the fundamental nature of Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright’s combat, the player needing to consider a unit’s usefulness and vulnerabilities so they can be moved into optimal positions to take out the enemy forces.

 

Most fights end when you’ve either wiped out all opposition or taken out their leader, and specific maps can greatly change how you approach positioning your units. An indoor area may have a lot of thin halls that serve as chokepoints, but some units like magic users may be able to strike foes on the other side of such walls. Large open spaces may give you a lot of room to arrange your soldiers, but it can be harder to adequately defend your fragile healers when there are so many areas of approach. Some maps will have more pronounced dangers or influencing factors, such as a marsh with damaging muck should you stand in it or mountains that will greatly hinder the movement of some units while others can move about unimpeded. Certain members of your army, your relatives as well as your hero, can unleash the power of special Dragon Veins found around most maps. A Dragon Vein can reshape the battle immensely, freezing over water so it can be walked on, dealing heavy damage to foes in specific locations, or forging bridges of stone over uncrossable gaps. The enemy side will have characters that can similarly exploit Dragon Veins at times, and in some fights, areas of the map can even serve as spaces for reinforcement troops to appear for your adversaries. At first, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright’s maps will make use of traps, reinforcements, and other such elements to add some extra challenge to their design, but it won’t often overcome the advantages you’ll have. A careful advancement or sometimes even just bullrushing the main target can win you the day without much struggle, but as you reach later chapters the game will provide more challenging designs with more limited options so you have to consider your troop actions more carefully. Around this time though you will get Ryoma joining your side, an incredibly powerful unit who can strike foes near and far for considerable damage. He is just one soldier though, and rather importantly, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright is a game where troops who fall can perish or at least be unable to continue fighting, so long as you choose the Classic difficulty. Casual has them revive after battle instead, meaning you lose a strategic piece in a fight should they fall but still can fight on knowing they’ll be available for the next battle, but Phoenix mode takes things a bit far. Phoenix mode allows a fallen troop to reappear on the next turn, meaning the game will be even easier since it’s unlikely you’ll lose at all, but like the Auto Battle option, it may exist mostly as a means for people more interested in the story or character relationships to play without having to consider the tactical fights despite them not being too demanding in their design.

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright does give you reasons to sometimes forego optimal strategies in terms of long-term gains though, and a good deal of that comes from the character relationships and growth you have a good deal of control over. If you want to increase the strength of your units you’ll need them to be the ones actually killing enemy troops, more powerful versions of their warrior classes unlockable later should you cultivate them well. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright mostly gives you fighters that fit in with its Japanese theming, shuriken throwing ninja, katana-wielding samurai, and even the archers use the yumi bow specifically compared to Nohrian arsenals that align with European medieval weaponry. Some advanced classes get more eccentric like the Mechanist who rides a puppet into battle, but cultivating characters will allow them to use stronger weapons and unlock passive abilities as well. Fighting alongside other units also serves a greater purpose than a temporary buff for that fight alone. The more units work together, the deeper their relationship grows, the team-up starting to provide stronger boosts when paired together and even unlocking special Support scenes where you can get to know them better. Support conversations provide a nice way of fleshing out your soldiers and exploring some of their lives more deeply, even if some characters are pigeon-holed or one-note. For example, Oboro is the daughter of tailors, which means some Support conversations can be built around her talking clothing with others, but she also will inject that subject into some situations where it doesn’t feel natural simply because its her defining characteristic. It is nice to be able to see your character actually grow closer to their relatives such as seeing a softer side of the tomboyish Hinoka or coming to empathize with the dancer Azura who was born in Nohr and raised in Hoshido, Azura even being responsible for the game’s excellent vocal track “Lost in Thoughts All Alone” which shares pretty good company in the rest of the soundtrack. The friendship building can be taken one step further though. If a pair of characters become close enough, they can potentially be wed and even have children. Through some supernatural oddness, your children will even be able to join your army as full-grown adults, the game adding 13 extra battles that serve as introductions for these extra characters before they join your side.

 

Between battles, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright also features an area to regroup known as My Castle. Squirreled away in the astral plane so it can be accessed from anywhere, My Castle is a base you can gradually build up to provide special services such a weapon shop, a mess hall where you can cook single battle boosts, and spaces to engage with the game’s multiplayer modes. Multiplayer battles in Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright take place in these personalized castles, players able to place buildings and objects to influence the shape of the battlefield when they’re playing defense, and there are AI invasions to fend off if you don’t have any other players to go up against. These battles can be rather tough in both well designed or flimsily defended castles, the openness of a weak one potentially benefiting both sides while the attacker may have a lot more to work through to reach the throne and claim victory in a well laid out space. My Castle does provide plenty of benefits even during a solo run, but it also gives more to do after the adventure ends, but one reason Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright is deemed the easiest of the Fates games comes down to another optional element. Between story chapters there will often be simple fights that appear in previous locations. These skirmishes are essentially a way to build up your forces and earn money and other resources without having to continue the story, which is not necessarily a bad way of mitigating difficulty in any RPG, but it does feel like another option atop a pile of tools already granted to you. They are simple and easily skipped without missing anything at least so you can continue on without overlevelling your army, and that is one way that Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright avoids become all too easy. A lot of the tools for making things simpler are offered but not enforced, story chapters still not always putting up the toughest fights but some will offer entertaining battles so long as you don’t take every option to make it easier that comes your way.

THE VERDICT: Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright may be the easiest of the paths through its story of war and family because of how many tools it offers, but the strategic fundamentals and the rewards that encourage playing to cultivate your troops’ growth rather than going for the easy win still add some depth to the play experience. When later maps or tougher situations arise then you can see the pay off to your work or find it through the Support relationships and My Castle battles, and while the story putters along with its travelogue for quite a while, it still has some guts in making the heroic side of the war still come with some moments of pain and loss.

 

And so, I give Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright for Nintendo 3DS…

A GOOD rating. Some issues can exist across all versions of Fire Emblem Fates, the whims of random elements like critical hits being something that can be part of weighing your options but also completely upend carefully laid plans through no fault of your own. Similarly, the large armies provided so you can both afford to lose units in Classic or figure out interesting pairs and class arrangements means the cast is wide but not always deep in terms of personality. However, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright also benefits from some of the universal strengths of the Fates games. Its tactical combat has many layers to consider both in terms of the immediate fight and how you want to grow your characters across battles, and while Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright gives you many additional tools to become rather powerful, many an RPG can technically be made much easier through devoting time to extra work. Beyond elements like maps that don’t push you to think much or giving you Ryoma at a strong baseline of power, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright can still have a good deal of action still push you to consider your approach if you don’t want to experience unit losses. Its flexibility is not an issue, but if it wanted to be closer to Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest in terms of thrills and satisfaction it would have to utilize some more demanding map structures or ease up on some of the Dragon Veins that let you avoid riskier plays. It isn’t hollow if you are used to strategic RPGs because you will still be putting your brain to work either in some of the stronger fights or to make long term growth considerations. More depth in most parts of its design would be appreciated, but it does seem to be aiming to be the most accessible way to play the story of Fire Emblem Fates even for a novice of the genre, the sacrifices to make it approachable not so strong that it feels far too easy.

 

This particular game does feel like an odd duck in terms of the three versions of Fire Emblem Fates you can play. Conquest seems to be the most sound in terms of its level of challenge while Revelations aims to offer the definitive story, but Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright is able to tell its own version of events well even though much like its action, it’s not particularly adventurous in how its effective ideas are laid out.