Fire Emblem Fates

You were raised by one family, but you were born into another. And now you have to choose whose side you will fight on. It is with this agonizing dilemma that Fire Emblem Fates begins, an ambitious tactical strategy that split its story into several separate paths at once.

Fates from 2015 builds on the success of Awakening and pushes its ideas further. The foundation remains turn-based strategy on a grid, permanent death of units and the system of relationships thanks to which characters form bonds and start families. The greatest daring, however, is the structure itself: the game came out in two main versions, Birthright and Conquest, depending on whether the hero joins the peaceful kingdom of Hoshido or the belligerent Nohr. A third, downloadable path, Revelation, then offers the option of not siding with either party. Each version, moreover, brings differently tuned gameplay: Birthright is more accessible and more generous with resources, while Conquest emphasizes harsher tactical challenges with limited means.

Behind the game stands, once again, the studio Intelligent Systems. After the commercial resurrection of the series with Awakening, it was given the room to experiment and decided to tell the story from multiple perspectives. Visually as well as mechanically, it is an evolution of the proven formula, supplemented with new options for managing your own base and deeper customization of the army.

Fates did well commercially and confirmed that the popularity of Awakening was no accident. The sales of the individual versions together reached millions of copies, and the Fire Emblem brand thus definitively established itself among Nintendo's most significant names. The split into multiple versions became the subject of lively discussions among fans as well as the media.

Critics appreciated above all the polished tactical gameplay; the more challenging Conquest in particular reaped praise for its thoughtful map design. Reviewers at the same time pointed out that the story does not reach the quality of the gameplay and that the split into multiple paid versions is a bold but disputable step. Nonetheless, it is one of the most extensive and deepest strategic experiences on the 3DS.

Why play it: Top-tier turn-based tactics with a bold choice of sides, offering dozens of hours of thoughtful battles and three different perspectives on a single conflict.