Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End continues to reign at the top in the UK according to the latest sales charts from Gfk Chart-Track. It also noted that despite sales of DOOM declining by 35 percent over the previous week, it was still fairly close to the top spot with regards to the number of units sold.

Despite a troubled development history and highly critical reviews, Homefront: The Revolution managed to debut at third place. It’s just ahead of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright (which also debuted in the past week). Interestingly, Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest was not in the top ten.

Valkyria Chronicles Remastered also got some love this week as it arrived in sixth place. The remaining top ten should be familiar at this point with Tom Clancy’s The Division, Grand Theft Auto 5, Lego Marvel Avengers and FIFA 16.

This week’s sales should be interesting with Overwatch arriving tomorrow. Stay tuned for more info on how it could affect the current top sellers’ places.

(Read our Conquest and Birthright reviews.) 

Revelation’s way of answering unanswered questions from the stories of Birthright and Conquest is commendable.  As you play through the game, you realize that several major plot points had been left out of the base versions of Fates, and while the stories of Birthright and Conquest were self-sufficient in their own way, you will have a much better understanding and appreciation of them once you’re through with Revelation.

"Revelation’s way of answering unanswered questions from the stories of Birthright and Conquest is commendable. "

On its own, though, Revelation’s story is not quite up to the mark. It starts off very well, throwing the player in an extremely tough situation, giving you minimal resources and asking you to clear entire battlefields- so it gives you a sense of fighting against the odds, just like Conquest does, but as the cast of characters from Nohr and Hoshido start coming together throughout the later stages of the campaign, you realize that that sense of tension is gone, that the stakes don’t feel as high anymore. Because where Conquest and Birthright were dark fantasy stories with tragic losses and heartbreaking moments, Revelation is- more or less- pure fan service.

And don’t get me wrong- those fan service moments, of which Revelation has many, are great. Seeing the two warring nations of Hoshido and Nohr- and all the characters you saw and grew fond of in Birthright and Conquest– come together and mingle with each other is great, and these moments are brought to life with sharply written, witty dialogue. The fact that the game lets you pair all these characters with each other and build their relationships is even better, because it feels great to see these two families bonding with each other and helping each other out on the battlefield.

But the fact remains that the main narrative itself is mostly open and shut. There’s little here that will shock or awe you, and while you do get a deeper appreciation of the overarching story that all three versions of Fire Emblem Fates are trying to tell put together, I could not help but feel a little let down by how simple the story in Revelation turned out to be. It’s a satisfactory narrative that leaves very little unanswered, but that is the most that can be said about it.

"In the end, what you’re left with is a game that is the perfect marriage between Nohr and Hoshido, between Birthright and Conquest."

On the gameplay front, for those who thought that Birthright was a little too easy and Conquest a little too difficult, Revelation serves as a perfect middle ground. The game starts off with you in control of barely four or five units, making you fight against entire battalions, and the difficulty certainly seems more in line with the Nohr storyline of Fates, but as the game progresses, you start amassing a whole lot of new units- add to that the fact that, like Birthright, Revelation lets you grind in between missions as much as you want, and you realize that as the story progresses, the challenging nature of the game also diminishes. Even with permadeath on, the second half of the game doesn’t feel like much of a challenge- for those that enjoyed the unforgiving yet fair nature of Conquest, this might be a bit of a letdown, but those who’re looking for a bridge between the islands of Conquest and Birthright will be happy with the middling difficulty of Revelation.

In the end, what you’re left with is a game that is the perfect marriage between Nohr and Hoshido, between Birthright and Conquest. A game that serves as a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none. Its story teeters off in the second half, but seeing all these characters come together is a rewarding and enjoyable experience. And while Conquest– with its sharp writing and challenging gameplay- remains the best of the three versions, if you’re invested in the Fire Emblem Fates universe, you definitely owe it to yourself to cap off the experience with the wonderful Revelation.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo 3DS.

Conquest and Birthright are two sides of the same coin (read our Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright review here). Both tell the story of the war between neighbouring kingdoms of Nohr and Hoshido. When Nohr’s Prince Corrin finds out that he was actually kidnapped as a child by the man he thinks is his father, and that he is actually a royal prince of Hoshido, he arrives at a crossroads moment in his life. In the war between the two kingdoms, he can either side with his adoptive siblings from Nohr, the only family he has ever known, or he can side with his biological siblings from Hoshido and fight against his adoptive father, a cruel and evil man.

Conquest follows the story of what happens when Corrin decides to stay and fight alongside his adoptive siblings, the brothers and sisters he loves and grew up with. Right from the get go, Conquest’s setup is much more captivating than what we see in Birthright. When Corrin makes the decision to side with his adoptive siblings, his choice makes complete sense to you as a player, and his reasoning behind the decision- the bond and love he shares with his family in Nohr- feels organic and authentic, and resonates on an emotional level far more than when he decides to side with Hoshido in Birthright.

"Conquest’s setup is much more captivating than what we see in Birthright. When Corrin makes the decision to side with his adoptive siblings, his choice makes complete sense to you as a player."

What also makes Conquest’s story inherently more intriguing than Birthright is the fact that its main characters are much more interesting and better developed than their Hoshido counterparts. It’s very easy to get invested in the characters and their lives. The relationships and interactions between Corrin and his adoptive siblings feel real, and every conversation has meaning attached to it. Emotionally heavy moments have the right amount of impact here, and the game does an excellent job of detailing and describing the wonderful and long relationships all these characters have had with each other and- most importantly- with Corrin.

Several personal character moments will have an impact on you. The fact that these characters are this interesting and well developed- even though some of the background characters can be a bit one-note- makes those moments that much more poignant. Make no mistake- this is no Lord of the Rings. It’s a fairly simple tale with a few twists and turns along the way, but it’s told crisply and does its job of keeping you engrossed and, where necessary, provoking the right emotional responses. It should be noted that the writing is a little inconsistent at times, but for the most part it does its job perfectly well and rarely ever breaks immersion.  Which is, frankly, a little surprising, considering the writing in Birthright is at best mediocre.

This feeling of attachment you have with the characters isn’t exclusive just to the game’s narrative, though. It translates with almost as much weight, if not more so, into the core of the gameplay itself. Just like in Birthright– the way you fight and orchestrate battles has an impact on the relationships all characters develop with each other- and vice versa.  This Support system, as it is known, is integral to Fates as a tactical game- how you position your units on the map matters, and as two units spend more time fighting next to each other, they start bonding. The deeper their bond, the better they will fight alongside each other.

"It’s a fairly simple tale with a few twists and turns along the way, but it’s told crisply and does its job of keeping you engrossed and, where necessary, provoking the right emotional responses."

This Support mechanic is essentially the nucleus around which the entire game is built. It encompasses and forms the foundation on which the combat of Fire Emblem Fates stands. Characters with high Support ranks help each other avoid attacks, hit enemies harder or have better hit accuracy, among other things. Characters with exceptionally high Support ranks, in fact, often even throw themselves in front of an enemy attack to block damage on their partner. The Support system is, therefore, central to the way you play Fire Emblem Fates, and the more time and thought you put into it, the more satisfying and enthralling the reward will be.

The Support mechanic, however, isn’t the be all and end all as far as combat goes. There are several other elements that also contribute to dictating the flow of a battle. Other than the rock-paper-scissors system of weapons that Fire Emblem is known for- where each set of weapons is stronger against some sets and weaker to others- your surroundings on the map play a vital role, and the game encourages you to make use of environmental advantages. For example, positioning your archers on top of hillocks gives them the advantage of having the higher ground and lets them deal more damage and/or have better accuracy, while units surrounded by trees are harder to hit.

The newly introduced Dragon Vein mechanic takes these environmental boosts one step further. This new mechanic allows specific characters in your party to move to a set location on the map and change the environment to suit you better- for instance, in one map you can melt a frozen lake to make it harder for tougher enemy units to get to you, while in another you can destroy walls that enemies are using as cover.

"Your surroundings on the map play a vital role, and the game encourages you to make use of environmental advantages."

The fact that your enemies have all these tools- support boosts, environmental boosts and often Dragon Veins too- at their disposal as well makes combat that much more entertaining and intense. You always have to keep an eye out for enemy movement and actions. There is a deep sense of strategy involved, and the game demands you to stop, think and plan ahead. All of this makes combat incredibly challenging, forcing you to actually put a considerable amount of thought into how you fight your battles.

Conquest is an extremely challenging game on a very fundamental level- much more so, in fact, than Birthright. Enemies are smarter, maps are more complex, and in almost all missions, you are heavily outnumbered. All throughout my 30+ hour playthrough, I got the feeling that my army was fighting with the odds heavily stacked against them. Every victory- be it something as tiny one of my units going head on against a dauntingly tough enemy unit and coming out victorious, or something as major as an entire battle- gave me an incredible feeling of swelling satisfaction and pride. The fact that, unlike Birthright, Conquest gives you next to zero opportunities to grind and level up outside of the main story makes the difficulty even more intense. It’s a relentless forward march, and the game’s pacing greatly benefits thanks to this, and there’s always a palpable sense of tension. You actually feel as if you’re micromanaging a small army.

While the game is challenging, though, it’s rarely unfair. Sure, Conquest demands a certain level of strategy and tactical thinking from its players, but it always gives you the necessary tools to deal with the situation on hand, no matter how desperate it may seem. You can also always turn off the permadeath feature (you can go with Casual- units are revived at the end of a battle- or with Phoenix- downed units are revived at the end of that very turn) and/or scale down the difficulty to suit your playing style, but it’s highly doubtful that you will do so because you felt cheated or unfairly backed into a corner.

"While the game is challenging, though, it’s rarely unfair."

The challenge is directly complemented by the game’s ingenious map design, which is consistently innovative and well thought out. Developers Intelligent Systems have clearly put a lot of effort into the development of this game, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the game’s map design. Map design in Birthright is excellent to begin with, but Conquest takes that to another level. The maps that are exclusive to Conquest are immaculately constructed and add greatly to the complexity and nuance of the game. What helps is that enemy placement is, for the most part, perfect.

While Conquest and Birthright share a few maps, the former somehow manages to make much better use of them. Where mission objectives in Birthright almost always devolved into killing all the enemies, or taking out the boss enemy unit, Conquest has a lot more flavour and variety. Other than the basics, objectives in Conquest range from invading an enemy castle and “seizing it”- bringing it under your command, essentially- to holding a position on a map and defending it against a barrage of enemy units for a certain number of turns. One particular map asks you to identify and eliminate an enemy boss unit disguised as one of your allies, whilst what is essentially a countdown is playing in the background. The game challenges you to adopt different strategies and tactics, and the layered nature of the maps only serves to help.

While Conquest is significantly superior to Birthright in aspects such as maps and storytelling, the one feature that is almost completely identical in nature and quality in both the versions is My Castle. This feature allows you to build and customize your own fort, which serves as your base of operations outside of battle, consolidating all out-of-battle activities neatly into a single hub. Often, the game will give you invasion missions, in which you have to defend your castle against enemy forces.

These battles don’t have any impact on the development or maintenance of your fort, but they make for some enjoyable and thrilling encounters, while providing some rare opportunities to earn extra gold and experience points, both of which are in short supply in this game. Outside of these invasion missions, My Castle lets you engage in all sorts of activities- hanging out with your fellow soldiers, feeding your army, buying weapons, upgrading them, or improving Support ranks between characters. It ties all of Conquest’s extra-curricular actives neatly into a slickly presented hub. It needs to be reiterated, though, that this is the only area where Conquest is matched by Birthright. In every other way, this is indisputably the superior version.

From maps and mission objectives to characters and presentation, Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest rarely falters and constantly delights. It is an intense, stimulating and thrilling experience that is a must-buy for anyone who likes a game that challenges them on an intellectual level. As far as tactical strategy games go, it’s hard to see them getting any better anytime soon.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo 3DS.

Three years ago, Fire Emblem was on the verge of cancellation. Nintendo allowed developer Intelligent Systems to make Fire Emblem Awakening as one final hurrah for the franchise, and that was going to be it. But then Awakening actually released, was incredible, and went on to sell nearly 2 million units worldwide. The game was, unexpectedly, a hit, and Fire Emblem got a new lease of life.

The sequel for Awakening is bigger, better- and the sales seem to reflect this. Fire Emblem Fates released on February 19, and in the first three days on the market, it has sold 300,000 copies- more than five times what Awakening sold during its launch weekend back in 2013. Even accounting for two different Fire Emblem SKUs on sale this time around, Fates seems to have dramatically outsold and outperformed Awakening.

“Both fans and critics are falling for Fire Emblem Fates, and the early sales numbers prove the game’s undeniable appeal,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “This strong momentum for Nintendo 3DS is only the beginning, as many more high-quality exclusive games are set to launch for the hand-held system over the next few months.”

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright and Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest are both now available for the Nintendo 3DS exclusively, with Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation set to be released exclusively over the Nintendo eShop in March as DLC. You can check out our review for Birthright here– our review for Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest will go up later this week.

The problem was that it created a schism- old fans who preferred the more punishing, strategically nuanced gameplay of older Fire Emblem titles, with all their political intrigue and world building; and the fans who had come aboard with Awakening and preferred its more streamlined take on series conventions, its emphasis on mechanics like relationship building and its more fantasy based story. It seemed that going forward, Intelligent Systems would be caught between a rock and a hard place. They would either end up alienating their smaller, older but more passionate fanbase, or their newfound larger one.

"Fire Emblem Fates- Birthright succeeds in what it sets out to do- if you liked Awakening, chances are you’ll enjoy Birthright as well."

So with Fire Emblem Fates, they decided to think outside the box and ended up making three games- one to appeal to series’ veterans, one for fans of Awakening, and a third version that serves as a middle ground between the two. Fire Emblem Fates- Birthright succeeds in what it sets out to do- if you liked Awakening, chances are you’ll enjoy Birthright as well.

In all three versions of the game, you play as Corrin, a naïve prince of the Nohr kingdom who’s lived a very sheltered life, growing up with loving siblings in the shadow of a cruel father. The first six chapters of all three versions are exactly the same, but right around this time you find out that as a child, you were kidnapped and brought into the Nohr royalty, and that you’re actually a prince of the neighbouring kingdom of Hoshido, a kingdom that has always had bad relations with Nohr. This is where the big choice comes into play, after which all three versions go in completely different directions- in the war between Nohr and Hoshido, you can either side with your adoptive siblings from Nohr, the only family you’ve ever known, or you can side with your biological siblings from Hoshido and fight against your adoptive father, a cruel and evil man, or you can decide to side with neither.

Birthright follows the story of what happens if you choose to side with the Hoshido. Along with your biological family, you try and stop the evil machinations of King Garon of Nohr, while dealing with accusations of treachery and betrayal by your adoptive siblings along the way. The story in Birthright isn’t anything special. It’s an interesting concept, and there’s a lot of potential for some great character moments and heartbreaking scenarios, but the game rarely takes advantage of the great situation it puts itself in. Most of the story devolves into “march into enemy territory and take down the evil king”. While there are subplots and undertones that provide for some interesting moments between the characters, they’re not nearly as developed as they should be and don’t get the amount of attention that they deserve.

What doesn’t help is the fact that the writing is, at best, mediocre. The writing in Fire Emblem: Awakening wasn’t particularly special itself, but it was always crisp and kept things moving. In Birthright, though, the writing often feels stilted and forced, and is a step down from its predecessor. Crucial narrative moments often feel rushed, character motivations are at times unclear or underdeveloped, and as a result of all this, it becomes harder to become invested in the story or the characters. The writing eventually finds its footing and becomes better in the back half, but even at that point, it merely goes from being below par to serviceable.

"Where the story and the writing of Birthright frequently underwhelm, the gameplay and mechanics are simply sublime."

Where the story and the writing of Birthright frequently underwhelm, the gameplay and mechanics are simply sublime. Combat is rather similar to what we saw in Awakening with a few tweaks and improvements here and there. The weapons follow a rock-scissors-paper system where each set is stronger than and weaker to other sets, and all manners of things such as environment and positioning on the battlefield play a role in how battles play out.

What’s most important though, just like in Awakening, is the Support system. Characters’ off-field relationships with each other affect how much they help each other on the battlefield, as does whom you pair your characters with. A good pairing would involve two characters who have a high relationship rank with each other, seeing them complement each others’ attacks, or helping each other dodge or maybe even jumping in the way of an enemy attack to block a fatal blow. This mechanic adds a great deal of complexity to the already strategically nuanced combat, and moments where two paired characters help each other avoid certain death, for example, make the payoff for pouring hours into this mechanic that much more satisfying.

Battles feel like giant, epic games of chess. What raises the stakes even more is the typical Fire Emblem concept of permadeath. Knowing that one bad decision on the battlefield can result in the death of a valued, beloved character really makes you think that much harder about your strategy. Deciding who to sacrifice for the greater good, or seeing a character escape certain death when you were getting ready to say goodbye makes you realize how incredibly designed the combat system of Fire Emblem Fates is. What’s even better is that those moments aren’t scripted, but rather the immediate result of what you do on the battlefield. There are easier difficulty settings that remove this concept of permadeath too- Casual, which sees characters revived at the end of the battle, and Phoenix, which sees them revived at the end of that very turn- but seeing as the real joy of Birthright is not in the story, but in the tension of combat, I personally would not suggest those.

"Battles feel like giant, epic games of chess."

Visually, battles look just as slick and tense as you’d want them to. The incredible animations and battlecries of the characters from Awakening are all back in prime form. Birthright has also received a very noticeable visual upgrade. When two characters go at it against each other in the middle of a battle, the camera swoops in up close and shows them fighting each other, with the battlefield being shown in the background in complete detail with respect to where those characters are positioned. Oh, and characters in Fates have feet!

What also adds a great deal to the combat is the fact that the maps you fight in are always impeccably designed. Ranging from environments like frozen lakes and volcanoes to ships and crumbling castles, the maps in Birthright always make smart use of the combat’s mechanics. A new mechanic known as Dragon Vein allows a select few of your characters to go to specific spots in the maps and change the layout to something more favourable- for example, freezing a body of water or clearing debris. It’s a smart new addition that adds more to the excellent combat system.

On the other hand, what’s a bit of a shame is the fact that Birthright somewhat wastes the great potential of these excellent maps by having a very repetitive mission structure. Missions in Birthright almost always come down to similar objectives- it’s either rout the enemy (kill all foes) or kill the boss (kill the freaking boss). While the inherently excellent combat keeps the game from becoming even slightly dull or monotonous, the fact that the game’s sister version Conquest has much more varied objectives makes you wonder why Birthright couldn’t have had more kinds of missions.

"The My Castle hub is a very slick way of presenting the multitude of peripheral mechanics that Birthright has."

Outside of battles, Birthright still gives you a lot to do. A consolidated hub has been created to be your base of operations with the My Castle feature. This feature lets you build your own fortress, allowing you to build places where you can buy new weapons, upgrade them, feed your army, or just hang out with the people in your army to build better relationships with them. You can even defend your castles against invaders to get some extra experience or gold on the side, but these invasion missions have next to no long term (or short term) effects on the development of your castle.

The addition of this feature ultimately adds a lot to the gameplay experience, despite its somewhat basic nature in terms of customizability. It makes your out-of-battle activities less abstract, allowing you to further invest and immerse yourselves in these characters and their lives. The My Castle hub is a very slick way of presenting the multitude of peripheral mechanics that Birthright has. Rather than having the player navigate a series of endless menus, the hub adds a very real and tangible feel to the proceedings.

Presentation, though, seems to be a strong suit of all of Birthright in general. As mentioned before, the animations in the battles and the look of the battlefields themselves are top notch, but the fidelity of the game’s visuals goes further than that. Fates boasts of a great many more cutscenes than what we saw in Awakening, and those cutscenes are all beautifully animated. Voice acting, too, is generally strong.

"Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright is another success story for a franchise that logically should have died three years ago."

Where the visuals are good, the musical score of the game is even better. The soundtrack manages to simultaneously convey the scope of the story- something the narrative itself doesn’t do very well- while also always feeling true to the intimate and personal nature of the characters. Some of the tracks, in fact, will be stuck in your head for some time- the main battle theme is my personal favourite.

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright is another success story for a franchise that logically should have died three years ago. It makes a few mistakes- the story and the writing are mediocre at best and atrocious at worst- but the strong combat, the deep sense of strategy and the incredible and improved support mechanics make for an unforgettable experience.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo 3DS.