Fire Emblem Heroes

Fire Emblem Heroes is a strategy game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo which was released on February 2, 2017 for Android and iOS.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) It's one of the few gacha games which are generous for a lot of reasons:
 * 2) * You get free orbs in a lot of ways like daily log-ins, missions, most of the first-completion rewards, arena, etc.
 * 3) * Every summoning session (the main way to get new heroes) has a maximum five heroes each of one of four random colors. The first summon (except the very first one per banner, which is free) costs five orbs, the next three in the same session cost four orbs each and the last one only three, meaning that every full summoning session costs 20 orbs (15 if it's on the free summon).
 * 4) * The percentages in banners are quite generous:
 * 5) ** 3% for 5-star focus units
 * 6) ** 3% for 5-star (highest rarity possible)
 * 7) ** 58% for 4-star
 * 8) ** 36% for a 3-star
 * 9) * Pity Rate: The 5-star percentage increases by 0,5% if you don't get a 5-star every five summons in that banner and you can see the pity rate you have before summoning anytime you want.
 * 10) * The Grand Hero Battles (and similar) can be beaten with easy-to-get units with minimal to no skill inheritance.
 * 11) Awesome music (even the tracks which aren't taken from previous games).
 * 12) The characters' artworks (which are made exclusively for the game) are amazingly well done.
 * 13) The chibi sprites in-game are great, similar to that of the Paper Mario series, and quite cute.
 * 14) Characters from games without voice acting finally get voiced with great picks like Griffin Burns as Julius, Brina Palencia as Lute and Ayra, Patrick Seitz as Hector, Greg Chun as Ike, Ephraim and Eldigan, etc.
 * 15) Every unit can be turned into a powerhouse thanks to skill inheritance (spend a unit in order to give another unit their available skills) and merging (combining two units of the same rarity or one into other of lower rarity).
 * 16) Unlike other gachas, the gameplay tries to feel like the source material adding elements such as movement/rally skills, the weapon triangle, weapon effectiveness (bows wreck flying units), etc.
 * 17) Reinhardt became a meme, which increased the popularity of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776 overseas.
 * 18) The interface is incredibly well designed, allowing you to have the information you need about your heroes in a compact aesthetic without it feeling cramped.
 * 19) Decent map design, with exceptions like the "Twin Walls" map.
 * 20) Though the game is mostly PvE, some modes like Arena and Rival Domains allow you to fight against other players' teams to climb the ladder or fight on a big map with your friends' units.
 * 21) There are legendary banners in which there is only a focus batch of three 5-star-exclusive heroes per color with an 8% chance of getting one of said heroes (which are the only five stars in the banner), some of which, the Legendary Heroes, can only be earned on these banners. These usually come with a Legendary Hero Battle which gives orbs if you beat them (though it's usually really hard) and this is a good chance of getting five star heroes.
 * 22) Speaking of Legendary Heroes, two of them are free! Those being Fjorm (for completing Chapter 1 of Book II) and Legendary Ike (upon completing the Xenologue 3: The People's Hero). You can also get one of the four alternate versions from the winners of the first Choose Your Legends voting (Ike, Roy, Lucina and Lyn) called "Brave Heroes" and one of the four alternate versions of the winners of the second Choose Your Legends voting (Celica, Veronica, Hector and Ephraim) also called "Brave Heroes".
 * 23) * Fjorm: Has a 16 Mt lance with Distant Counter, along with a great skillset which makes her good for tanking ranged units in particular.
 * 24) * Legendary Ike: Great weapon (same stats as Fjorm's but it's a sword), Warding Breath may not be as good as Steady Breath, but having a 4-cooldown of Aether and giving him Quick Riposte allows him to use it in every single encounter, allowing him to tank a lot.
 * 25) * Brave Ike: Has a great weapon and one of the best skills in the game, Steady Breath. The rest of his kit is okay and his statline is good.
 * 26) * Brave Roy: Good player phase unit thanks to Blazing Durandal, Galeforce and his offensive spread.
 * 27) * Brave Lucina: Great support unit with Geirskögul and excellent stat spread.
 * 28) * Brave Lyn: Definitely the best Brave Hero if you're new to the game. Amazing offensive stats and base kit, an excellent and unique skill along with being one of the most feared units in Arena since Reinhardt.
 * 29) * Brave Celica: Royal Sword is great for charging up special, good offensive spread added to Death Blow 4 and Double Lion is an excellent player phase skill.
 * 30) * Brave Veronica: If you're going to follow guides to beat Abyssal Hero Battles (recommended, those are really hard), then Veronica is your pick, great range just like Brave Lyn, good offenses, has Razzle Dazzle build as default (as in being a staff unit than can attack without being counter-attacked) and her weapon is great for buffing allies and debuffing enemies.
 * 31) * Brave Ephraim: Brave Ephraim shines with support, since his axe allows him to do a guaranteed follow-up if he's buffed, which synergizes with his Special Fighter skill.
 * 32) * Brave Hector: Good mixed bulk and offenses, along with the ability to do follow-ups both in player phase (thanks to Bold Fighter) and enemy phase (thanks to his weapon).
 * 33) Book II has slightly improved the writing and introduced some likable characters (like Laegjarn and Helbindi). Alfonse had some great development as well.
 * 34) Love Abounds is the best written paralogue as well as.
 * 35) * A lot of varied YouTube content (summoning sessions, F2P guides, build guides, unit reviews, shitpost, etc.) which are really well-made.
 * 36) * Stamina doesn't affect a lot since the removal of its cost in Grand Hero Battles and other events that required rather hefty amounts of it.
 * 37) * The Weapon Refinery allows units to have different playstyles and utilities, even those which are usually overlooked.
 * 38) * Budget builds can be viable even if they don't have rare skills like Distant Counter or Steady Breath.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Just like various gachas, luck plays an important factor in order to get certain units.
 * 2) As of 2018, Intelligent Systems has begun making a lot of non-seasonal variations of characters, something which some people are against.
 * 3) * Speaking of those, the majority of them (counting non-seasonals) are from Awakening & Fates characters.
 * 4) The Lyn and Lucina controversy: those two characters got a fifth version as a legendary hero (to top it all, Lyn's was lackluster).
 * 5) Karla from The Blazing Blade became more controversial than ever due to being an overpowered unit which is very untrue to her stats in her source material and being introduced in the Scattered Fangs banner when she (as well as her brother Karel) was never a member of the Black Fang.
 * 6) Book I's story is rather formulaic. Literally almost every chapter in that book is reduced to: "Hey, we have a contract with Embla and we have to kill you unless you defeat us".
 * 7) The most recent change to Arena is awful. Basically, they give you a hefty bonus for killing units with a bonus unit. The problem is that it doesn't apply just to one kill per match (which could be fairly reasonable), rather to every single possible kill. This forces people to solo teams with a bonus unit and reduce the other units to mere supports, thus making Arena really boring. They also included Arena-centric skills which made certain combinations of movement and color, those being Red Fliers and Green Infantries (with more prone to come in the future), score as much as an armor unit in terms of BST (Base Stat Total without counting merges) and were locked to 5-star exclusive characters, Laegjarn, Helbindi, and Loki respectively.
 * 8) Despite being highly generous, the game centers too much around summoning. Literally every action relies on good pulls. Want to complete a merge project of a non-GHB/TT unit? Summon for copies of that unit. Need a skill to finish a build? Summon for a unit that has it (this is worse with rare skills like Distant Counter or Steady Breath).
 * 9) They push way too much Fates, which isn't even done right, with a overabundance of unneeded alts (especially royal alts) instead of adding characters they haven't added yet.
 * 10) Dancers can't gain XP from dancing, unlike most games in the series.

Game Tips

 * For a reliable database site of the game (and the franchise as a whole), visit and Serenes Forest.