Personal Impressions

[Arthur97]

Now that the game is out internationally, what are your own opinions? Personally, I like it. I think it's a mechanical improvement from HW and even the Fates characters (for the most part) don't annoy me as much as I expected. I do wish Lyn did not get plastered on the marketing so much considering how minor she is in the game, but overall, I enjoy the game immensely. What about you?

[Nébulya]

This game is a lot better than Hyrule Warriors, especially the history mode. I'm a fan of zelda, fire emblem and warriors series.. But I never finished HW's adventure mode, it was too annoying. 

In FEW, it's much more enjoyable, yes sometimes I'd like to have more missions diversity but as it is a first try for them, it's really good! 

The history is good, better now that I have the game in French and not Japanese.. xD 

The game can be difficult sometimes and it is very good. 

The only bad point is the multi-player.. It's not playable at all. There isn't enough enemies on screen to finish some rush missions aiming S rank, it lags a lot, very bad.. But that's the only bad thing I've saw so far. 

[Thane]

I wrote this on Reddit earlier today to detail my thoughts. I will reiterate that Iago was probably the biggest pleasant surprise this game has thrown at me so far. Man what a delightful asshole he was here.

Also, Owain's intro both in the story and when he enters the battlefield are amazing; I'd honestly argue that the latter is even better.

[Sentinel07]

MUCH better than Hyrule Warriors that's for sure.

I've already gotten far more S-ranks in History mode than I ever did Gold ranks in Adventure mode. Thank goodness the conditions are not nearly as nit-picky here.

[Nanima]

10 minutes ago, Thane said:

I wrote this on Reddit earlier today to detail my thoughts. I will reiterate that Iago was probably the biggest pleasant surprise this game has thrown at me so far. Man what a delightful asshole he was here.

Also, Owain's intro both in the story and when he enters the battlefield are amazing; I'd honestly argue that the latter is even better.

I am surprised you found Takumi and Sakura so lacking. Granted you have to throw a some medals and a magic bow for Sakura at them first, but afterwards they straight up punched through the game for me. Except for armoured dudes I guess, but everyone has a weakness in a certain areas, such as mages completely failing against pegasi. Plus, they hit enemis across a wide range. I always have one or both on my team unless forced to otherwise.

As for the rest I have to agree with you. Gameplay is very solid and a lot of fun for something I had never tried before. Sinking my teeth into the different maps is very entertaining, and I have been playing the game consistently for a month now.

Story is just.. yeah not much to comment on. I agree that it shouldn't just be brushed aside, and the Fates arc was especially weak until like the final two chapters. The twins felt like they were barely even there at times.  Using the 3D models for portraits also wasn't the smartest idea. I find Sakura in particularto look very weird and unnatural at times. 

 

[Thane]

Just now, Nanima said:

I am surprised you found Takumi and Sakura so lacking. Granted you have to throw a some medals and a magic bow for Sakura at them first, but afterwards they straight up punched through the game for me. Except for armoured dudes I guess, but everyone has a weakness in a certain areas, such as mages completely failing against pegasi. Plus, they hit enemis across a wide range. I always have one or both on my team unless forced to otherwise.

I use Sakura quite a bit, but she's not as satisfying to use as Lissa or Frederick, for example. There's a distinct lack of "oomph" in her attacks, and it feels like she's often weaker than she should be. Maybe I just need a magic bow for Sakura, but I feel like I don't clear out an area as quickly with her as with other characters.

2 minutes ago, Nanima said:

As for the rest I have to agree with you. Gameplay is very solid and a lot of fun for something I had never tried before. Sinking my teeth into the different maps is very entertaining, and I have been playing the game consistently for a month now.

Iago's map still stands out to me as the best moment in the game, not to mention he was so much fun to hate there. The fact that we don't have to take him seriously is a plus, too.

3 minutes ago, Nanima said:

Story is just.. yeah not much to comment on. I agree that it shouldn't just be brushed aside, and the Fates arc was especially weak until like the final two chapters. The twins felt like they were barely even there at times.  Using the 3D models for portraits also wasn't the smartest idea. I find Sakura in particularto look very weird and unnatural at times. 

I'm surprised by how much nothing there was in such a short story. Filler maps and really cringy writing. At least there are good moments, like with Owain and Iago.

Sakura does look a bit off at times, I agree, though Robin's pained expression is probably the weirdest one to me. It just looks...wrong, I don't know why. I can't put my finger on it.

[Folt]

9 minutes ago, Thane said:

Also, Owain's intro both in the story and when he enters the battlefield are amazing; I'd honestly argue that the latter is even better.

Agreed on this: I laughed when I saw that; It was just so perfect!

As for myself, I think this game is much better than Hyrule Warriors so far. Every character I've tried so far is amazingly fun and it's nice that the characters you don't play as function just fine without your guidance most of the time (and as long as they're not at a great disadvantage, they actually get shit done ontheir own which is amazing)!

My favorites in terms of gameplay so far is Robin, Lissa, Frederick, Ryoma, Xander, and Leo (and Elise by proxy). I'm also very fond of Sakura stat-wise because once I got Topsy-Turvy on her, she straight up murders low-res units, which definitely does it's part to set her apart from Takumi.

Also, I think all of our magic users are pretty high-tier. Their C1 gimmick to force a yellow stun gauge on enemy officers is amazing, and they have a good moveset, made better when you get Astra for them.

[Nanima]

3 minutes ago, Thane said:

I use Sakura quite a bit, but she's not as satisfying to use as Lissa or Frederick, for example. There's a distinct lack of "oomph" in her attacks, and it feels like she's often weaker than she should be. Maybe I just need a magic bow for Sakura, but I feel like I don't clear out an area as quickly with her as with other characters.

Sakura does look a bit off at times, I agree, though Robin's pained expression is probably the weirdest one to me. It just looks...wrong, I don't know why. I can't put my finger on it.

Huh that's strange. Yeah definitly get Sakura a magic bow or she won't do too much damage thanks to her low strength stat. Takumi doesn't have this problem though... Maybe it's like with Camilla and me, where it just feel like I am chipping away at an enemy for hours, despite her high strength stat..

Oh yeah, that one. I have no idea why they look like this. I suppose it's cheaper than drawing new sprites, but it does rob us of credible emotions.

[Thane]

12 minutes ago, Nanima said:

Huh that's strange. Yeah definitly get Sakura a magic bow or she won't do too much damage thanks to her low strength stat. Takumi doesn't have this problem though... Maybe it's like with Camilla and me, where it just feel like I am chipping away at an enemy for hours, despite her high strength stat..

Just played through a Shadow Elimination map in History Mode and I made the mistake of only bringing physical...against Xander. This is what I get for relying too much on two axe wielders.

[eclipse]

Weird, "chipping away" is how I felt about Lissa and Robin.  Different strokes, I guess.

Currently in the middle of the story.  Someone needs to tell Sakura to take it easy - she's murdering everything, and looking damn cool while doing so.

Spoiler

She quite literally solo'd the Wyvern Lords on Ryoma's map. To be expected, given her bow, but still pretty damn impressive.  Speaking of, can't wait to get Camilla.

Also. . .

Spoiler

"Chipping away" is how I felt during the Oboro fight. . .with Frederick.  It was really annoying, but I prevailed eventually.

 

[Jedi]

Is it cheating to just put my review in here?  

Overall i'm quite glad the English dub turned out to be pretty great, despite the lackluster trailer clips. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Sorry, I just have a laundry list of gripes to get off my chest over the past two days:

• To check a weapon's additional effects, you must equip that weapon, enter the Status > Check Weapon screen to find out what it does. Come on,  where's the "press R to learn more" that I'd expect of any fire emblem game? Final Fantasy 4 for the SNES, a game released 26 years ago, has a more intuitive menu system.
• I already knew this was going to be a problem going in, but the weapon imbalance in the character roster makes character selection a huge drag. There are many sword movesets, and they all feel great. But I have to say no to most swordies I love because I won't need more than two.
• Meanwhile, since 100% of lance movesets are the pegasus knight class, it's that much more infuriating that they're so difficult and unique to play. Whenever I finish a combo, the enemy gets launched so I tap B to catch up to them for my next one. With pegasus knights, the dashing version of Y takes them way too far, I will miss the target. And their X move on its own may seem like the perfect mid-range alternative for this scenario, but that attack just never seems to connect into further hits. Plus if the enemy happens to block you you're left incredibly vulnerable. Plus there are so many pauses between their movement and attacking that I struggle to start a combo against anything other than an enemy swordmaster. Add the peg's weakness to bows to the equation and I have plenty of reason to never field them.
• Critical damage like bows against fliers has a nice pause for every hit, giving more emphasis, but it drops my inputs mid combo. The buffer system isn't compensating.
• L targeting prioritizes enemies centered in the screen, instead of the enemies closest to you, and I definitely prefer the latter. Especially since the game wrests control of the camera from you during specials, stun guage criticals, etc. 
• The game decides allied captains for you. You can't change them with other available characters. And most important, you can't decide that you want to play as those characters for that map. You can only pair up with them. (Story Mode issue only, History Mode doesn't care about having duplicates in a battle)
• When a fort's gate is opened, that doesn't mean all of the gates are open, sometimes forcing huge detours when the game asks you to seize them all as a filler objective.

As for my overall opinion, the game is fine. Classic mode is giving me the appropriate awareness of the battlefield to keep units alive. AI units are extremely helpful to order around. Pair up adds far more depth to the game than I anticipated. The stun gauge is way more engaging than the "wait and dodge" system of Hyrule Warriors. And History Mode looks like a mode I will actually finish with a human level of persistence. High 7 out of 10 right now.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Glennstavos

[Nanima]

10 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

 

• The game decides allied captains for you. You can't change them with other available characters. And most important, you can't decide that you want to play as those characters for that map. You can only pair up with them. (Story Mode issue only, History Mode doesn't care about having duplicates in a battle)

It doesn't? At least not from my experience. With exceptions like Darius, I was usually able to switch allied characters to who I wanted for that map. You can't actually play as them, but that's what your blue main team is for anyway and you can still pair-up with them and give them orders.

[Azure Sen]

Some thoughts:

-The game does manage to capture the FE 'feel' in some ways, though this is not always a good thing (see also: asshole reinforcement spam).

-Heroes and generic non-mook units feel super-tanky a lot of the time. While the latter has been mitigated with levels and weapons, the former is still true to a ridiculous extent; I was fighting a lv. 20 hero with a lv. 50 promoted PC with a Silver weapon and I had to just spam musous because of how little damage I was doing.

-Pegasus Knights are not fun to play as. They're too flighty and imprecise with their attacks, and their mobility is actually a huge downside as some of their attacks can overshoot very easily. Their bow weakness is also crippling and basically forces their non-deployment in a lot of maps, especially if you're on Classic.

-I'm torn on the promotion system, because on the one hand it's a nice FE element to have, but on the other hand in History mode it can really screw you over if you don't promote the "right" units, and without its boosts a lot of units are basically useless in the later stages. For example, in one of the two maps needed to unlock the final map of Fates' History mode, there are maps where you have to play as either the Hoshidan siblings plus Rowan and Lianna or the Nohr siblings plus Rowan and Lianna; if you haven't promoted more than two of either of those categories, you're gonna have a bad time, made even worse by the fact that those stages have Master Seals as their S Rank rewards.

Overall the game's enjoyable, but I'd have a hard time calling it one of my favorite Warriors games.

13 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

• The game decides allied captains for you. You can't change them with other available characters. And most important, you can't decide that you want to play as those characters for that map. You can only pair up with them. 

Yes you can. You can do it from the orders menu when you hover over them, just as you do with switching out/swapping positions of your playable units.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Azure Sen

[kingddd]

16 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

Sorry, I just have a laundry list of gripes to get off my chest over the past two days:

• The game decides allied captains for you. You can't change them with other available characters. And most important, you can't decide that you want to play as those characters for that map. You can only pair up with them. (Story Mode issue only, History Mode doesn't care about having duplicates in a battle)

With the exception of some map restriction you can change your allied captains with other playable characters.  There is an option for that on the preparation screen when you select the unit in the green and blue spaces.  Green spaces make them AI only.  Blue spaces make them playable units.  While the game preselects some for you, you do have the option to change them to whoever you want.  Once you do beat the story mode it's all free pick whoever you want.

[eclipse]

21 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

 

• To check a weapon's additional effects, you must equip that weapon, enter the Status > Check Weapon screen to find out what it does. Come on,  where's the "press R to learn more" that I'd expect of any fire emblem game? Final Fantasy 4 for the SNES, a game released 26 years ago, has a more intuitive menu system.

I use the Forge for this.  Yes, it's a bit inconvenient, but at least I know what an effect does before I actually use it in battle.

[Thane]

The menus are a bit clunky, right? I find myself getting mildly miffed every once in a while trying to figure them out. It's better now though, but it was a challenge to overcome in the beginning.

[Jedi]

1 minute ago, Thane said:

The menus are a bit clunky, right? I find myself getting mildly miffed every once in a while trying to figure them out. It's better now though, but it was a challenge to overcome in the beginning.

Just a tad, although I don't think anyone can make them look as clunky as I did in the original Japanese stream I did lmao. 

@Azure Sen and @VincentASM probably had a good laugh at me being like "plz help"

[Thane]

Just now, Jedi said:

Just a tad, although I don't think anyone can make them look as clunky as I did in the original Japanese stream I did lmao. 

Ah, good times, good times. That was a lot of fun to watch.

Also, can I just say one more thing I don't quite get?

"Is this satisfa-another success!Is this satisfa-another success!Is this satisfa-another success!"

[Alkaid]

So far I'm enjoying the game even more than I expected. Despite some issues it's been pretty good. This is my first Warriors games, but I have played other hack and slash games (I have no idea if musou is the Japanese genre term or specifically the term for Koei's games, but I've played this type of game in the past from other developers. Koei's Dynasty Warriors games never grabbed my interest enough to try one out when I used to see them.)

I won't write a big review, but here's some of my thoughts so far:

Spoiler

 

- The story is pretty bad, but I had low expectations to begin with from this type of game.

- I thought the graphics seemed pretty bad in the previews, even compared to Hyrule Warriors that's a console gen behind. But now that I've had it in hand and played it I think they're fine enough. Characters look good but the environments are bland. That's pretty par for the course on these types of games, though. (not that they shouldn't be striving for better)

- The English VA work I'm mixed on. All the Nohrian characters besides Elise I thought were terrible. Camilla's new voice is bad, which is a shame since I like her so much. I wish she had the same VA as she does in Heroes, which I found even better than her original dub in Fates. Xander and Niles are both just plain bad as well. They really feel like people are reading lines off of a paper. The cherry on top is Hinoka's though. It's just plain horrible and I don't know what they were thinking there. It's almost grating to listen to.  I'm not one to care about switching to Japanese voices, but Hinoka's alone almost made me want to. Especially since I actually like her as a character and wanted to use her more. 

- Aside from those, I think the rest of the VA work is actually quite good. So I don't really know what fell apart for those few. 

- I thought the SD characters were really tossed in, so I can imagine some people wouldn't be happy about that. I'm not personally bothered by them feeling so tacked on since I'm mainly here to enjoy the Awakening and Fates characters, but I really got the feeling of the devs going "oh shit we forgot to fit in the SD characters."

- History mode is alright. It's not quite the FE style strategy map the dev previews played it up to be, but oh well. I wish it was a bit more interesting. I thought Hyrule Warrior's Adventure mode looked more interesting, but I haven't actually played HW to really say for sure. Maybe I just expected it to be more than just a screen to pick individual battles to do. Either way I'm still having fun playing through the battles from it. 

- I don't really like playing as Pegasus knights. I understand hit and run the tactics to make them work better, and I can handle them alright, but I just don't find their gameplay that great in general. It can be annoying how much they move forward during attacks (similarly a problem I have with Frederick and Xander) Lifting enemies up into the air with the heavy attack button feels pretty pointless as well. I wish I found them more fun since I really like Cordelia and Hinoka as characters. 

- I also don't like the archers too much. I find them to lack the "oomph" behind attacks to make them feel good to use. 

-Lissa and Camilla are very fun and powerful to play with. Flashy and effective, and I really feel like I'm beating the crap out of stuff with them. Their specials are both fun and have nice easy to aim AOEs to them too. 

- I wish the UI for the convoy and camp were a bit better, since managing weapons and such can be kind of annoying sometimes. 

- I like that the AI actually feels like it does something when I direct them on the map. If I send Ryoma to go take a fort, he usually actually does it. Same with directing them to defend allied commanders or intercept enemies on the map. I was worried I'd have to do everything myself as they stumbled around but they actually do a pretty good job.

- On the other hand, when you're right nearby them I feel like they're programmed to not attack much. If I have all the allies on the map in the same fort with me attacking a boss, they kinda just stand around. Or if an area's swarmed with enemies and I direct them all at different groups while I go after another, I'll turn around and they're mostly just staring the enemies down. I wish they contributed more when in that kind of situation. 

- I like the varied styles of the sword users and how faithful some of them are to the regular games. Ryoma's first strong attack being that critical hit kick he does, or Chrom and Lucina using Aether is pretty sick. 

Overall, as I said I'm enjoying it. It's got its flaws but it's not the super shallow experience with the FE name tacked on I was worried it might be. 

Edited October 22, 2017 by Alkaid

[Jedi]

5 minutes ago, Thane said:

Ah, good times, good times. That was a lot of fun to watch.

Also, can I just say one more thing I don't quite get?

"Is this satisfa-another success!Is this satisfa-another success!Is this satisfa-another success!"

Uhhhh yeah thats just a typical "doing a repetitive action in a Warriors menu with VAing fast" 

Edited October 22, 2017 by Jedi

[wissenschaft]

I'm loving this game. A lot of fun. Honestly, I love all the weapon types. Sakura is fine for clearing out trash an normal enemies. I like to pair her up with a tougher fighter so I can switch to them to kill targets faster. In fact, I think I like the bow users a bit more because of the speed of their attacks. 

Mages attack rather slow but they have the advantage of placing weak points on anyone. The strong attack has to be aimed carefully because its rather short ranged and enemies can get in the way of the blast. Also, anyone notice that Leo's awakening attack summons a tree with tomatoes? And that his support item is "Leo's Tomatoes". lol

The Pegasus knights are a little awkward to use but sure are great to have vs sword units.

I actually like the twins moveset. Lianna has a very balanced moveset which makes her decent vs everything. Her small AoE attack which creates a magic circle around her(I believe light + light + heavy) often puts a weak point on enemies which makes her able to fight anyone.

I love Camilla. Her strong attack slaughters mobs and her fireball attack sets up weak points in an AoE. Shes pretty powerful if you know her combos and you need to use her combos to deal good damage.

Thats something I do notice, you can't just spam the basic combo and expect to do much damage. Knowing the light+heavy combos and when to use them is a must.

[LucarioGamer812]

I feel like it's pretty good. I'm loving it so far.

Just tbh the axe users seem underleveled to me. Camilla especially. I tried doing a map with her, Lissa, and Frederick and they were the same levels as the enemies along with having steel weapons and a few skills, they could not damage lance users at all. So I feel like I need to grind up their levels some before reattempting it.

On the flip side, Lucina and Chrom are very,very good. Lucina shatters through Lance users most of the time and is a good anti-mage killer. Chrom is a slightly worse version but still good since two very good units with the Falchion helps on some maps.

Loving the pegasus knights.

Lianna is very good in combat.

Bow users attack really fast but low range, but getting up close and spamming arrows is a reason why Takumi is great.

[ChickenBits]

Well I've been thoroughly enjoying my experience so far except for a few minor gripes I have. Hard/Classic has been a nice challenge and I love abusing crests(Lissa turned into a tank for a little while). Ordering the characters around is nice. The menu was kinda of clunky for me at first. The writing had me chuckling from time to time but the story so far isn't something to write home about.

I wish Lyn and Celica weren't forced in. Their inclusion brings nothing to the story. I like them but still. 

[wissenschaft]

30 minutes ago, LucarioGamer812 said:

I feel like it's pretty good. I'm loving it so far.

Just tbh the axe users seem underleveled to me. Camilla especially. I tried doing a map with her, Lissa, and Frederick and they were the same levels as the enemies along with having steel weapons and a few skills, they could not damage lance users at all. So I feel like I need to grind up their levels some before reattempting it.

I'm not sure why people say this. I'm not having any trouble using any of the characters. The key to killing enemies fast is getting the weak points gauge to appear (thats the yellow bar around an enemy) and blowing through that to get a critical attack. As axe users, Camilla, Lissa, and Fredeick should destroy lance users because WTA makes that weak point gauge appear far easier.

It doesn't matter how powerful your weapon is or what level your character is at, if you can't make the weak point gauge appear then commanders will take forever to kill.

Edited October 22, 2017 by wissenschaft