UPDATE: Fire Emblem Fates is out in the UK this week, so we thought you'd like to catch up on some of the Fates stuff you might have missed during the US and Japan launches.
Some of the most heart-pounding, high-stakes moments in Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest come from pivotal decisions in the heat of turn-based tactical combat, but it’s the resulting consequences that kept me hooked for well over 40 hours. Whether I was watching my soldiers establish and grow their relationships as warriors, or watching in horror as another one permanently fell to an enemy blade, I loved every moment of it. The stiff challenge, tailored to Fire Emblem veterans, and visually striking colorful style is complemented by wonderful mission variety and some deep customization.
Conquest is the tougher half of the Fire Emblem Fates package - for the other, check out our review of Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, which is sold and reviewed separately.
Conquest’s tense decisionmaking on a grid-based battlefield is part of an intricate and addictive turn-based tactics loop.
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Fire Emblem Fates’ beautiful anime graphics and superb audio are on par with 2013’s excellent Fire Emblem Awakening. The distinctly European flavor of the glory-seeking Nohr kingdom contrasts with the spiritual Japanese vibe of the peaceful Hoshido Clan for great looking, visually distinct battles and characters. The two feuding families kick off a tumultuous and gut-wrenching campaign full of tough battles. In Conquest, you play the role of Corrin, a young noble born to the Hoshidos but raised by the Nohr who chooses to fight for his adopted brothers and sisters to find an end to the conflict.
Conquest’s tense decisionmaking on a grid-based battlefield is part of an intricate and addictive turn-based tactics loop. Attacks are based around chance-to-hit percentages and hidden dice rolls, with a simple rock-paper-scissors ruleset to keep melee weapons and projectile attacks balanced: Swords and magic beat axes and bows, which are beaten by lances and hidden weapons, which are in turn vulnerable to swords and magic. Each choice made on the battlefield plays a critical role in winning a skirmish, but your actions can also have a larger impact on how units develop. Decisions include choosing which soldiers to deploy, their weapons and loadout, and the right time to attack or run from enemies.
Experience from combat naturally rewards you with level-ups and increased stats but, as is a defining and beloved characteristic of Fire Emblem games, your soldiers also get stronger based on bonds and relationships that develop as they fight side by side. Additionally, building up relationships opens up new story content in the form of support conversations, which add personality quirks and depth to their character, often revealing more about their motivations or silly personal imperfections. Felicia, for instance, is a hardworking maid you meet early on who also happens to be a total clutz, while Xander is the conflicted but dutiful crown prince of Nohr who diligently fights for the kingdom despite not always agreeing with his father’s decisions.
The personalities and stat bonuses add incredible depth to Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest’s carefully balanced battle system.
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The personalities and stat bonuses add incredible depth to Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest’s carefully balanced battle system, because attack percentages and damage is affected by range, enemy class, and what allied characters are nearby. And while each class has a specific role in a fight, you can unlock additional perks as your classes evolve, with some surprising effects. For example, once Corrin has upgraded his class Nohr Prince to a Nohr Noble, his Draconic Hex spell can follow up standard attacks and add a bonus effect that significantly reduces an enemy’s stats, softening them up for a killing blow. Or Silas’ high-risk, high-reward Vow of Friendship power, which adds additional damage dealt and taken if he’s near another main character who has 50% or less health. These complex abilities can really turn a fight in your favor when used wisely on the right soldier and in the right situation. Building strong relationships draw new, more powerful soldiers to join your ranks and the loop starts over as you develop those recruits.
Yet even with a perfect soldier pairing, a 95% attack chance is no guarantee. That works out to the same as rolling a 20-sided die and landing on one - it’s not very likely, but definitely a possibility you have to account for. Sometimes bad luck can steal away the most carefully planned approaches, and part of the drama of this story is how you deal with those losses. The fear of a character’s permanent death is what makes Fire Emblem’s choices feel difficult and significant, because all of that progress and their associated relationships can be lost if you choose poorly. Note that you can disable permadeath if you want a low-pressure way to witness the great story between the feuding Hoshido and the Nohr kingdoms, but you’d ultimately miss out since the fear of losing a valuable team member raises the stakes, turning mundane moment-to-moment choices into life-or-death decisions.
What’s disappointing in a game about forming strong relationships is that the story isn’t able to acknowledge the loss of teammates in a significant way.
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What’s disappointing in a game about forming strong relationships is that the story isn’t able to acknowledge the loss of teammates in a significant way. Unless a specific death is part of the campaign’s plot, the characters just go on with their lives and never mention the loss, even if they’d been joined at the hip for many battles.
While the counterpart game, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, has the same great tactical mechanics, Conquest’s tougher campaign uses an impressive amount of variety to force you to put these skills to their best use. It really ramps up a third of the way through, as missions throw curveball after curveball to constantly keep you off guard, with unique objectives that turn up the pressure on the battlefield. In one mission, you have to survive for 11 turns against huge waves of enemies; In another, you have to uncover the identity of a pirate thief hidden in the middle of a larger skirmish before he steals all your gold.
This is a bonafide master-level quest edition that feels tuned to challenge veteran Fire Emblem players, which might make Birthright the better starting point for new players, but Conquest is the deeper, more elaborate of the two. One of the biggest distinctions is that Conquest gives you such limited opportunities to develop your troops before taking on a new, more challenging mission, since you can’t grind and play additional side battles at will the way you would in Birthright. While that might sound intimidating, Conquest plays fair. Each map presents clear rules and allows lots of room for strategy. In one example, I could manipulate randomly appearing vortexes via switches to push enemy soldiers five units to the north or south. If I didn’t, the wind would push my units at the end of the next turn. Many maps have a unique spin like this, which kept me thinking of new approaches instead of simply repeating the strategy that worked last time.
This is a bonafide master-level quest edition that feels tuned to challenge veteran Fire Emblem players.
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Verdict
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest is a rewarding and deep turn-based tactical game with a grand story and characters I liked enough that losing them in combat really stings. The intense difficulty is squarely aimed at veteran Fire Emblem players, and its satisfying campaign is full of variety and challenge. And even though a win or loss can down to sheer luck, I walked away either satisfied or eager to give it another shot.