When characters assist, heal, or fight alongside each other in battle, their bond strengthens. Weapons in the game include axes, lances, swords, bows, tomes, and dragonstones. In addition to hack-and-slash combat, the game includes the ability to give tactical commands to units and the Weapon Triangle, which originated from the Fire Emblem series. The player defeats enemies with any character, accomplishing specific goals to beat maps.
Games represented in Warriors include Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, Fire Emblem Gaiden, Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, Fire Emblem Awakening, and Fire Emblem Fates.
As far as 3DS games go it is handsome, though as with the Switch version, it doesn’t have a massive sense of scale despite some large arenas.Fire Emblem Warriors is a hack-and-slash action role-playing game similar to the Dynasty Warriors series in which players take the role of Rowan and Lianna, and characters from several Fire Emblem games.
The draw distance is somewhat shorter too, but overall it’s a remarkably close approximation of the full fat experience on Switch. The other visual sacrifice has has been the reduction of a great amount of detail from both the player characters and your opponents, as well as all the locations, though the smaller screen means that it’s not as glaringly obvious as it could have been.
Even with the reduced numbers, there are still a hell of a lot of enemies to mow down. Of course, it’ll all done to hold the game’s performance and barring the odd hiccup here and there it is largely pretty solid (on the New 3DS at least). You’ll still be hacking your way through thousands of meandering soldiers and creatures, but they don’t swarm in quite the same numbers on the 3DS. There is a long list of what has been cut back in order to cram the game onto the smaller portable, and probably the most noticeable is the reduction in size of the crowds of enemies. Having said that, it’s a common problem with Warriors games as a whole. The only slight problem with this improvement for your ears is that you have to try and read the subtitles while bashing your way through the crowds of enemies, and the smaller screen doesn’t help much in this regard.
This being my second time out with the game, the English language voices are now starting to grate on me, but a patch has enabled the use of the original Japanese voices if you download the additional data from the eShop.
It’s remarkable just how close the two versions of the game are, and while resolution has clearly taken a big hit the handsome cutscenes from the Switch version arrive completely intact. As with Hyrule Warriors, this is a visually pared back version of a great game, but despite the 3DS’ obvious technical shortcomings the overall experience has been translated across very well. Interestingly Fire Emblem Warriors is our first experience of a dual Switch/3DS release, though it’s nothing that the few Wii U owners out there won’t have experienced before. However, besides playing host to one of the best gaming libraries of the past few years there are still a few notable releases making their way to the dual screen handheld. Well into its twilight years, it’s become easy to forget about the 3DS, overshadowed as it has been by the runaway success of the Nintendo Switch.