Genre: Strategy Developer: Intelligent Systems System: 3DS
0000000 If you've already played either of the other Fire Emblem games on the 3DS, I can safely say this one is not as good, while still very enjoyable to play.
(At least if you stop after you beat the game. If you try to do the postgame last dungeon, it's infuriating. Don't do it). The game is shorter, coming in at about 60 hours of gameplay without
the postgame content. You might spend countless hours trying to do the final dungeon, but this is a trap. It's stupidly hard and you're wasting your time if you do this.
0000000 The game's difficulty mostly derives from the final dungeon, in which the enemies all have way more HP than their health bar will tell you (this in itself
is a major game flaw), but while the enemies are so tough you can't defeat them, you have little hope of leveling up your characters to a point where they will be strong enough to withstand them;
you're characters will max out but will be easily destroyed by these creatures after you get to the 9th floor. I don't know how long this last dungeon goes on, but I think Game Informer said
it was pretty large. Even the mulligans don't really help, because if Alm or Cecilia dies in the final dungeon, you just die and it's the end. I didn't realize this and I stupidly brought
Celicia along for the ride in my third and final attempt. You're much better off leaving her behind so that if someone dies, you can get up to 11 do-overs for that final dungeon.
0000000 The inventory was primative, you only get to carry one item in each character's inventory, which was really stupid. The gameplay was often boring and
tedious, and I found myself using the autoplay feature (where the AI plays the battle for you) almost constantly. The story was ok.
0000000 The last thing I'll say was that while the challenge of the final dungeon was certainly fun, it was also really poorly designed because of the unfair
battles once you got to the 9th floor; suddenly you have 14-17 units surrounding you that you can't possibly handle because they are just too powerful. It's unclear just how difficult this part
of the game is, because after the 3rd try and dying at the 9th floor, I was done. I have to wonder what others take on this final dungeon was. Anyway, I thought it was painful and stupid.
~ Adam Henderson
Game Difficulty Rating:
9/10 AGONIZINGLY DIFFICULT
80% Good.
60% Normal, nothing special.
30% Not much here.
65% Postgame was painful.
50% 60 hours (without postgame).
60% Meh.
OVERALL SCORE = 60%
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