Back in the days of the Wii U, the team behind the dynasty warriors games approached Nintendo with an idea –  a dynasty warriors game in the style of Zelda, basically having characters from the dynasty warriors games running around dungeons etc. Fortunately instead we got the reverse: a dynasty warriors style game, with Zelda characters and we got Hyrule warriors. It was after this they thought, hey let’s do one with Fire Emblem characters, and shortly after when the Wii U waned and the Switch (now the fastest selling console of all time) rose, Fire Emblem Warriors was announced.

Ok first up, if you have played any dynasty warriors style game you know what you are in for. You play a character and run up and down a battleground mowing down (because they die so easily and in such numbers) enemies while capturing key locations to progress, your character getting stronger as you go. Much like other crossover dynasty warrior games, you will get characters from around the franchise history, though in Fire Emblems’ case it’s just 3 games: Awakening, Fates and Shadow Dragons which people were quick to complain about (Shadow Dragons? really).

The game however brings something different to the mindless murder of countless goons (though that can be very therapeutic) by implementing the Fire Emblem weapon triangle. Swords are good against axes, axes good against spears and spears good against (you get the idea)  – but also bow  good against flyers (you get 3 Pegasus riders and 1 sexy wyvern rider) and some characters are much weaker to spells. This means you can be much more strategic on who you fight. This is further increased by the fact you can choose as the battles go on, where your other characters go and fight as well as having a choice of 4 characters you can switch control off in any one battle.

The game is split up into 2 main modes.

Story mode is where you play as the original character protagonists and gain the aid of classic characters from the franchise (just like other warriors games). You unlock most of the characters doing this mode first getting the Awakening characters, then the Fates characters and finally the Shadow Dragons trio. The real meat of the game is its history mode, you are presented with a map based on events from the Fire Emblem games each with an enemy in certain squares – go to those enemies and you get presented a mission to complete in a battle such –  as kill as many people as you can, beat this level under certain conditions etc.

When you complete a map in history mode you unlock something extra in the game, such as the other gender for Robin and Corrin (they were the avatar characters in Awakening and Fates, you could choose their gender but for this game their default is male Robin, female Corrin) or the bonus characters of Lynn and Cecilia (neither of which are from the 3 chosen games so were nice add ons). Then you can also unlock the items that  upgrade each characters signature weapon. This is where the grinding comes in as these are high level missions that throw way too much at you at times (including a dragon).  You have to beat them in under 15 minutes to get that upgrade.

All this has meant that I find this a great game to  burn time with and the ‘take it anywhere’ nature of the Switch really helps with that (yes I have played this on the toilet). While this game is no way as good as the likes of Mario Odyssey or Zelda Breath of the Wild, there is enough in it and presented in a way that may cause you to be playing it far longer.  Now back  to grinding so I get that maid outfit for Camilla (that sexy wyvern rider I mentioned earlier, go on look it up you will see what I mean)

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