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  1. The Legend of Zelda got the Musou treatment a few years ago on Wii U and 3DS, and now it's Fire Emblem's turn. Fire Emblem Warriors combines the colorful characters of Nintendo's strategy RPG series with the visceral and over-the-top action of Musou games like Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors. Thoughtful, turn-based combat is traded for real-time action where hundreds of enemies charge at your heroes, heroes drawn from across the history of Fire Emblem (though largely from the more recent entries in the series). It may be quite a gameplay change for Fire Emblem but like peanut butter and chocolate the two come together perfectly. Nintendo fans familiar with Hyrule Warriors will see some immediate similarities with FEW: worlds collide when portals between different Fire Emblem universes open up, allowing various heroes to fight alongside one another. And just like in Hyrule Warriors there are a few original characters as well. Rowan and Lianna are the twin prince and princess of Aytolis, and they're the ones that bind the group together on their quest to prevent the revival of the evil dragon Velezark. The plot isn't exactly a complex piece of writing, but FEW is still first and foremost a game catering to fans who want to see their favorite characters interact with one another. It may not be an elaborate story but it's fun to see a bunch of characters team up and battle alongside one another. There are even some support conversations as in the main series which is a nice touch, especially when characters from different universes interact. Musou games are founded upon a very simple tenet: it is a lot of fun to destroy enemy armies. Sure you have specific goals on each map and there are sub missions to keep you occupied as well but when it comes down to it, games like FEW are satisfying just for the enjoyment of wrecking whole swathes of enemy soldiers and building your kill count as high as you can. Sure it can be a little mindless at times but it really is gratifying to play. And to be fair there is still an element of strategy at play here as well. It's not quite on the same level as the main Fire Emblem series, but it's enough that if all you're doing is knocking down enemies you're not going to win on some of the tougher maps. In FEW you're both fighter and tactician, and you need to keep an eye on the whole battlefield to know where your ass-kicking skills are most needed at any given moment. Allies may be in danger, powerful enemies may spawn in unexpected locations, or one area of the map may just be overrun. The game alerts you to these developments, though sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what is happening on the mini-map. Thankfully there are some important strategy tools at your disposal. You can pause the game to get a good look at the map and direct your characters to attack or defend certain points. You can also switch between characters at any time—the AI is simply never as effective as a player controlled character—so you can quickly move to whatever point needs you most. On the truly difficult maps it can feel like spinning plates, trying to keep your army afloat against overwhelming odds, but that just makes the victory all the more satisfying. FEW also takes a few cues from the Fire Emblem series to add a bit more nuance to the gameplay. FEW features the weapons triangle (sword beats axe, axe beats lance, lance beats sword) and when you have advantage over an enemy it's easier to stun them and deal heavy damage. You can only bring so many characters into each battle so you'll want to survey the map and plan accordingly as far as what weapons might be most useful. You can also pair up characters just like recent Fire Emblem games, adding a bit of offensive and defensive power to the main character. Some characters on the map are strictly there for support purposes but if you pair up two playable characters you can switch between the two and make better use of the weapon triangle to take down enemies. It's great to have a bit more strategy at play in the game, but on the flipside you aren't beholden to it. If you want you can fight lance users with a sword-wielding character—it'll be a little harder, but FEW also has RPG leveling, so if you are a few levels above your opponent you won't have much trouble cutting through them like paper anyway. If you really want to stick to using specific characters you can (for the most part; some maps do have requirements/restrictions on whom you can bring). And with twenty playable characters in the main game—with more as unlockables and DLC—you're bound to find some that are your favorites. Even outside of the different weapon classes there is a decent amount of variety in how each character fights, so replaying maps with different characters can feel a little different. And Musou games are gold mines for replay value. You can build up support levels between characters, raise levels, earn gold, and gather items for upgrading character skill trees. Suffice it to say that, if you want to 100% complete FEW, you'll be putting a lot of time into the game. And if those hours upon hours of gameplay aren't enough the game also has a string of DLC planned, some of which is even free. A lot of it can be pretty repetitive but it's still satisfying to destroy waves of enemies, even the hundredth time you've done it. FEW also features split-screen co-op, and the only thing better than decimating enemy armies is being able to do it with a buddy. Co-op can also make it easier to coordinate your units since you can just plan together what needs to be done and cover more ground. The downside is the game takes a pretty noticeable hit to performance with two players. When one player is using a special attack the frame rate drops, and since the game is rendering two characters at different locations there are a lot fewer enemies on screen—sometimes this can actually make it a lot harder to hit the bonus goal of 1,000 enemy kills in a single map. The mini-map is also poorly handled in co-op. Both players get their own mini-map which is not only completely unnecessary, but it makes actually seeing the details of the map difficult. Of course you can just pause the game and look at the map there but it really is silly to have separate maps with a split-screen view. It has been quite a while since Fire Emblem fans have gotten to see a game made for a home console rather than handheld, and never before in HD. As a fan of the series it's a lot of fun to see these characters on the big screen, with all of the flashy, over-the-top attacks that pause the battle just so you can drink in all of the destruction. Even if the normal soldiers are pretty faceless there's still something so satisfying about seeing whole waves of them get knocked down with each attack. The game also has a pretty solid rock soundtrack, fused with bits of familiar Fire Emblem themes, but you'd hardly know it while playing. During battle it seems like characters never stop talking, whether to announce some change in battle or spout out a one-liner before a special attack. It's not that the voice acting is poor, for the most part it's pretty good, but it's kind of shame that it steps on the soundtrack's toes so often. As a longtime fan of Fire Emblem it's so much fun to see how much the franchise's popularity has boomed over the past few years, to the point where it now has a spin-off largely catered to the fans. But where Fire Emblem is slower paced and strategic, Fire Emblem Warriors is fast, chaotic, and thrilling. It's a distinctly different style but the characters of Fire Emblem and the gameplay of the Musou series manage to blend perfectly in a game all about fast, rewarding action gameplay. This game doesn't do much to reinvent the Musou franchise—there is still an undeniably repetitive cycle to the way these games work—but at the end of the day it doesn't really need to. Fire Emblem Warriors is still a beautifully action-packed game, one that will reward tenacious players with hours upon hours of game time. The only question now is: what will be the next Nintendo franchise to get the Musou treatment? Rating: 8 out of 10 Emblems
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