Fire Emblem Fates

Screenshot of a battle in Fire Emblem Fates, showing two characters about to fight one another. The basic mechanics of the battle system are all displayed.

Battles take place on a grid-based battlefield, with turns being given for players and enemies. During an attack, the view transitions from a top-down perspective to a third-person view. Environments and terrain vary between levels, ranging from mountainous regions to flatlands. A unique ability members of each kingdom's royal family have is the ability to use Dragon Veins, which are special map tiles that enable them to alter the environment in favor of their side.[12] Like previous games in the series, Fire Emblem Fates features a "weapon triangle" – a system where certain weapons have advantages over others. However, in Fates the triangle differs from previous installments, with swords and magic defeating axes and bows, axes and bows besting lances and hidden weapons, and lances and hidden weapons overpowering swords and magic. Weapons in Fates do not have a limited-use durability system sans staves; instead, stronger weapons will lower some of the user's abilities. For instance, while the Brave Sword allows its user to attack twice, it also lowers their defense and magic defense stats.[13]

Units are assigned a unique character class: in battle, each unit's usable weapon types and range of movement are pre-determined by their class.[12] Each character begins the game with a starting class: the main protagonist begins as a Nohr Prince/Princess, while Azura begins as a Songstress. The classes of each version of Fates are also distinct from each other, drawing from their respective nation's aesthetics.[14][15] Using special items known as "Seals", classes can be evolved or changed: effects of various Seals range from upgrading a character's class, changing class completely, raising their experience level, or altering their stats.[16] Character relationships are developed during and between battle, also known as Support, which can be viewed in conversations via the Support menu outside of battle. Battling with an adjacent or paired-up unit gives advantages, such as blocking an attack or attacking alongside the currently controlled unit. Outside battle, relationships between characters can be fostered to the point of marriage and children. These children's appearance and abilities are determined by their parents.[12][17] Using a particular Seal, child characters can also take on additional skills from parents.[16] The game also introduces two other Seals for changing classes, the Partner and Friendship Seals, which allow the user to gain the class of their spouse or best friend respectively (provided the class is compatible and that an S or A+ Support rank is reached respectively).[16]

The game features online multiplayer. Having five maps as standard, matches can be carried out with select players, random players, or through local multiplayer. Random battles are played either with standard rules, or with special limitations. The Fog of War environmental effect is removed, and turns have limits of five minutes.[18] In addition, Fates features Amiibo support for the first time in the series, with four Fire Emblem characters from the Super Smash Bros. series appearing as recruitable units: Marth, Ike, Robin, and Lucina.[19] When scanned, the character represented by the figurine will appear within My Castle, and after talking with them three times they can be fought in battle. When defeated, they become allies that join the main campaign. Talking with them prior to the fight gives the player themed items, such as Marth's tiara or Lucina's butterfly mask. Amiibo functionality is unlocked after the narrative splits and My Castle is unlocked.[20]

Pile of Fire Emblem Cipher cards, mostly depicting characters from Fire Emblem Fates

Fates is primarily set in the territories of the kingdoms of Hoshido and Nohr. Their royalty share a similar line of descent from ancient dragons, but each kingdom worships different dragon deities, and so exist in a state of war. Little do they know that there is also another dragon deity; the dragon Anankos, ruler of the kingdom of Valla. This realm is located under the Bottomless Canyon which separates Hoshido and Nohr. Anankos has usurped the throne of Valla and is intentionally provoking war between the two kingdoms.[21] In the Hidden Truths DLC, it is revealed that Anankos was formerly a kind dragon who gave wisdom to humanity, but his growing power and inability to ascend to the spirit realm with the world's other dragons began corrupting him. After he killed Valla's king in an uncontrolled fit of bestial rage, he finally went mad: his remaining sanity and kindness took temporary shelter in a human form and fathered the Avatar before dying, while his dragon self began an insane crusade to destroy humanity.[21][22]

The central character is the Avatar, named Corrin by default, whose name, gender, and appearance can be customized by the player. A member of the Hoshidan royal family, they were captured by Nohr at a young age. They have the unique ability of transforming into a dragon. The other central character is Azura, a member of the Nohrian royal family who was kidnapped by Hoshido as part of their efforts to rescue Corrin. Holding power over water, she is one of the companions to join Corrin in whichever story route they choose. The main characters among the Hoshidan royal family include Corrin's siblings Ryoma, Takumi, Hinoka, and Sakura. Ryoma and Takumi wield the Legendary Weapons of Hoshido, the Raijinto katana and the Fujin Yumi. The main characters from the Nohrian kingdom include Corrin's guardian, Gunter, and their adoptive siblings Xander, Camilla, Leo, and Elise. Xander and Leo respectively wield the Legendary Weapons of Nohr: the sword Siegfried and the tome Brynhildr.[14] Other characters include Corrin's mother, Queen Mikoto of Hoshido; King Garon of Nohr; Sumeragi, the former king of Hoshido and husband of Mikoto; and Anankos, the dragon ruler of Valla and Corrin's blood father.[21] Three other characters, namely Odin Dark, Laslow, and Selena, are actually returning second-generation Fire Emblem Awakening characters Owain (son of Lissa), Inigo (son of Olivia), and Severa (daughter of Cordelia).

Several years prior to the start of the game, Hoshido's King Sumeragi is ambushed by Nohr's King Garon during a fake peace treaty talk between the nations and is killed. King Garon kidnaps Sumeragi's young child, Corrin, and decides to raise them to serve his purposes. Meanwhile, back in Hoshido, without their king, Sumeragi's wife Mikoto becomes the new ruler of the kingdom.[21]

After coming of age, Corrin is sent by Garon to inspect a Hoshidan fortress above the Bottomless Canyon. However, one of Garon's men, Hans, provokes a battle with the Hoshidans and throws Corrin's mentor Gunter into the Canyon. Corrin is found and captured by Hoshidan soldiers, who recognize them as a long-lost member of the Hoshidan royal family. Corrin is brought to meet their blood relatives and Azura at the capital city. However, soldiers attack the city and a hooded assassin attempts to kill Corrin. Mikoto shields them at the cost of her life. In the aftermath, Corrin comes into possession of a legendary sword called Yato, said to belong to the one who will save the world. In the opening battle between the two kingdoms, Corrin's two families meet, and Corrin is forced to choose between siding with Hoshido and Nohr. In the Birthright and Conquest routes, Corrin chooses either their biological or adopted family, respectively. This causes them to be denounced by the other side, and they are gradually forced to fight them.[21]

In the Birthright route, Corrin helps their Hoshidan kin defend their country from invasion by Nohr. After confrontations with Corrin, Camilla and Leo's lives are spared. With the help of Elise and Shura, the man who kidnapped Azura from Nohr, Corrin and their company invade the Nohrian capital. Elise is killed when she attempts to stop Corrin and Xander from fighting, and Xander falls into despair and forces Corrin to kill him. Corrin then faces Garon, killing him with the Yato after it is infused with added power from Ryoma and Takumi's Legendary Weapons. However, Azura dies after having overused her singing powers to weaken Garon. In the epilogue, Ryoma is crowned king of Hoshido and Leo is crowned king of Nohr, and peace is forged between the two kingdoms.[23]

In the Conquest route, Corrin both fights in the war against Hoshido, and works with their adoptive family to change Nohr's brutal reputation from within. One night, Corrin finds Azura wandering alone and follows her, ultimately being transported into the invisible kingdom of Valla. There, Azura reveals that King Garon has been replaced by an impostor. Corrin then decides to have Garon sit upon the magical throne of Hoshido, which will remove the false Garon's disguise. During the invasion of Hoshido, the Nohrians spare Hinoka and capture Sakura, while Takumi, whose behavior has become increasingly erratic and violent throughout the war, apparently dies by jumping off of a rampart. Garon orders Corrin to kill Ryoma. After their fight, Ryoma spares Corrin the pain of killing their own brother by killing himself. Infusing the Yato with the power of Xander and Leo's Legendary Weapons, Corrin confronts and kills the false Garon. However, a crazed Takumi suddenly appears and attacks them, and it is revealed he has been long dead and his body is possessed. Corrin destroys Takumi's body to free his soul. Azura overuses her powers as in the Birthright route, but her death is not seen and she is instead marked as missing. In the epilogue, Hinoka is crowned queen of Hoshido and Xander is crowned king of Nohr, and a peaceful alliance between the two kingdoms is formed.[24]

In the Revelation route, Corrin rejects both Hoshido and Nohr, and is denounced as a traitor by both. They flee with Azura and one of their retainers through the Bottomless Canyon to the kingdom of Valla. Azura explains that the king of Valla, the dragon Anankos, has plans for humanity's destruction; he is the one who killed and replaced Garon, and he is responsible for Takumi's descent into madness in the Conquest route. Azura also reveals her history as the daughter of the king Anankos usurped, and that a curse placed by Anankos will kill them if they reveal Valla's existence to anyone outside its borders. The two decide to kill Anankos. Fleeing Valla with Gunter, who survived his fall into the chasm, Azura reveals that they must unite Corrin's twin families before a natural event which will seal the passage for decades. Corrin travels through Hoshido and Nohr, gradually gaining the trust and allegiance of their hereditary and adopted families. They also learn that their sword Yato is the "Seal of Flames", which when combined with the other families' Legendary Weapons will become the Fire Emblem, capable of killing Anankos. Once the group enter Valla, the party heads to confront Anankos. During their journey, they battle the resurrected bodies of Mikoto, Azura's mother Arete, and Sumeragi, the latter of whom is revealed to be Mikoto's assassin. During their battle with Mikoto, Corrin learns that they and Azura are maternal cousins, making Corrin heir to Valla's throne. The group is eventually betrayed by Gunter, who was possessed by Anankos since first coming to Valla, but Corrin succeeds in freeing Gunter from Anankos' control. When they face Anankos, they are initially helpless, but Ryoma, Takumi, Xander, and Leo feed the power of their Legendary Weapons into Yato, transforming it into the Fire Emblem. Near death after being defeated, Anankos summons and eats the impostor Garon to regain his strength, but is finally destroyed with the Fire Emblem. In the aftermath, Valla is reestablished on the surface, Azura crowns Corrin its new ruler, and an everlasting peace is established between the three kingdoms.[25]

Paid additional content was released alongside the games, in the form of extra levels used to improve the units' strength or gather exclusive resources. A series of additional storylines were also released to expand on the main narrative. The first is Before Awakening, in which Corrin is transported to Ylisse, the setting of Fire Emblem Awakening, and aids its heroes Chrom, Frederick, and Lissa in fighting off the forces of Valla. The second, Hidden Truths, centers around Awakening characters Owain, Inigo, and Severa as they are contacted by a mysterious figure who asks for their help in saving Valla. To this end, they are given new powers and names: Odin, Laslow, and Selena. The trio ultimately join with the kingdom of Nohr as retainers.

The Heirs of Fate saga, released after the rest of the DLC, focuses around the game's child units. Two separate versions of the Avatar's child Kana, one male and one female, each journey with members of each version's cast to discover why a group of mysterious soldiers attacked their homes. It is revealed that they were never truly in their homes, as Anankos had transported them to Valla and attempted to trick them into killing each other. However, Azura's son, Shigure, breaks the illusion and bands the two Kanas' armies together, only to leave them to face Anankos alone with the hidden verse of his mother's song. However, the army finds a way back, and helps to defeat Anankos one final time.

During the initial planning stage, the team reviewed how fans and critics had responded to Awakening. While the gameplay and graphics were positively received, the story had been criticized for being too simple by some long-time fans, even though new players approved of it. To that end, they decided to write a story that would appeal to series veterans as well as newcomers. The concept of the story changing depending on which protagonists the main character sided with, originated from Yamagami's memories of the first Fire Emblem game, which allowed for choosing different protagonists but did not change the story. Wanting to play from both sides of a conflict and show both sides as neither good nor evil, the team decided to create multiple versions of the game. Initially, the plan was just for a choice between one of the two kingdoms, but Yamagami wanted a third neutral path where neither side was chosen, so a third version of the game was planned. The game's Japanese subtitle, "if", came from the sheer number of choices featured for players in the game. The English title "Fates" referred to the concept of the main character shaping and changing their fate by choosing a side.[3] After the creation of the three storylines, the team needed to make the decision to divide Birthright and Conquest into separate physical releases. This was because packaging them as a single release would have necessitated raising the game's price to the equivalent of a two-game bundle, which would not benefit people who wanted to play one single version. Another reason for this decision was how easy it had become to add the other versions on as cheaper downloadable content (DLC). This opened up the option for players to run through the game until the crucial decision point in Chapter 6, then buy the alternate routes as downloadable content so they had different choices. Each route was estimated to have the same amount of gameplay and story content as Awakening.[9]

As the plans for three different versions of the game appeared, the staff realized that it was impossible to write three storylines in-house. After searching through known video game writers, they decided to consider writers in other fields. The writer suggested by Maeda was Shin Kibayashi, who was famous in Japan for his work on multiple manga and television series. Kibayashi was initially approached by Kozaki through their shared editor, and was pitched the project by the staff in December 2012. Kibayashi was going to refuse the project as he had a tight work schedule, but after both he and his daughter played through a copy of Awakening provided by staff, Kibayashi decided to accept and wrote an initial draft story. Despite his initial minimal commitment of a ten-page summary for each storyline, he became fond of the characters and felt that 10 pages were not enough, and thus the full summary for Birthright extended to about 500 pages. After delivering his work, he then wrote summaries of equal length for Conquest and Revelation, driven by the need to create a high-quality story, partially to surpass his daughter's pressuring expectations, and ended up writing enough script to fill two books. While the Japanese titles for Birthright and Conquest were written in kanji, the third storyline's title was written in katakana to distinguish it from the other two.[3] A great deal of the character traits for the royals of Hoshido and Nohr were contributed by Kibayashi.[30] After he had done his work on the storylines, other writers took over much of the rest of the work.[36] The main scenario writer for the Revelation storyline was Yukinori Kitajima, a writer associated with the Senran Kagura series. He and other staff from his scriptwriting company Synthese also wrote the support conversations for Birthright and Conquest.[37] One of the principal writers for all three story routes was Nami Komuro, who had previously worked on Awakening.[26][27]

The game's soundtrack was created by multiple composers. Intelligent Systems's Hiroki Morishita and T's Music's Rei Kondoh previously worked on Awakening, while WarioWare composers Takeru Kanazaki and Yasuhisa Baba of Intelligent Systems, and Monster Hunter composer Masato Kouda of Design Wave joined the team as newcomers. Longtime series composer Yuka Tsujiyoko acted as a supervisor.[38][39] Morishita and Kanazaki wrote the majority of the game's tracks. Arrangements were handled by Morishita, Kanazaki, Kondoh and Kouda. Many of Tsujiyoko's tracks for earlier Fire Emblem titles were remixed for use in Fates.[39]

The game's theme song, "Lost in Thoughts All Alone",[lower-alpha 7][40] was written by Morishita, with lyrics by Maeda, and sung by Japanese pop singer Renka, who also provided Azura's in-game singing voice.[38][39] The developers were looking for a singer who could do justice to their vision for the character, and when they heard Renka's audition, they instantly decided that she was right for the role. According to music personnel, several among them cried when they first heard her performance.[38][41] Multiple versions were used throughout the soundtrack.[39] Azura's normal voice work is performed by Japanese voice actress Lynn. In the English version, Azura's speaking and singing voice were provided by Rena Strober.[42] The lyrics were adapted into English by Audrey Drake.[43]

An official soundtrack album, Fire Emblem if Official Soundtrack, released on April 27, 2016, through the Symphony No. 5 label of Tablier Communications. The album contains seven discs of music from all three versions of Fates, and a booklet featuring commentary from the composers. Also included is a special DVD containing remixes of tracks from both Fates and previous Fire Emblem games, high-definition versions of the three opening cinematics, and cutscenes from Birthright and Conquest featuring alternate versions of a dance sequence with Azura.[44] The soundtrack, having eight disks in total, is one of the largest single game official soundtracks ever released.[45] "Lost in Thoughts All Alone", Renka's debut single, was released as a regular CD edition and a special DVD edition featuring a music video on July 1, 2015.[38][41] It was also included as part of the main soundtrack release.[39]

Shortly after pre-orders for the special edition were announced, it sold out within a day. Following complaints from fans, Nintendo created a second run for the edition.[88] In its week of release, Fates topped sales charts, with initial sales of both versions totaling 260,675 copies. The game's special edition sold a further 42,991 copies, bringing total sales to 303,666 copies.[89] Birthright was the better-selling of the physical versions, with Conquest coming in second place.[90] It remained at the top of the charts the following week, selling a further 54,896 copies.[91] Birthright remained at the top, while Conquest dropped to fourth place.[92] By the third week, both versions of Fates had dropped to fourth place, selling a further 29,682 copies and bringing total sales to 345,253 copies.[93] Famitsu's sales estimates were slightly higher, with their sales figures for the game totaling 353,201 copies, and going on to sell 71,550 and 41,400 copies over the next two weeks, bringing total recorded sales to 456,274 copies.[94] In July, Kibayashi reported via Twitter that Fates was the current best-selling video game on Amazon Japan.[36] By the end of 2015, according to Famitsu, both physical versions had sold a combined total of 538,669 units, coming in at No. 10 of the year's top-selling video games.[95]

Prior to its western release, pre-orders for the Special Edition holding all three versions were high, resulting in it selling out by December 2015. After this, a glitch in GameStop's ordering system meant that copies of the Special Edition were reserved after stocks were empty, and they gave orders the option of cancelling or transferring their order to a different Special Edition offer.[96] On release in North America, the game became the fastest-selling game in the series' history, selling over 300,000 units during its opening weekend: this was estimated as being five times the debut sales of Awakening during a similar period. Birthright was the better-selling of the two versions, with Conquest said to be "close behind".[97] According to the February NPD Group report, Fates sold nearly 400,000 copies across physical and digital versions, with both versions reaching places in the top ten gaming chart. In addition, combined sales of all versions including the Special Edition placed the game third overall in software sales, tripling the equivalent first-month sales of Awakening.[98] When the physical versions released in the UK, Birthright was the better-selling edition, coming in at No. 5 in the all-format charts behind multi-platform releases Doom, Homefront: The Revolution and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Conquest came in at No. 11 in the all-format charts. In platform-specific charts, Birthright and Conquest reached No. 6 and No. 8 respectively.[99] In Nintendo's financial briefing at the end of the 2015–2016 fiscal year, the game was said to have sold 1.84 million copies, with 780,000 copies sold in Japan and 1.06 million copies elsewhere.[100] The title's DLC sales were also strong, coming in fifth in the top-five best-selling DLC content for Nintendo products in Fiscal 2015–2016.[101] Nintendo announced different sales in 2017, the game had sold-through 1.6 million copies worldwide, with 500,000 copies sold in Japan and 1.1 million copies elsewhere by the end of March 2017, lower than previously announced.[102] Fire Emblem Fates has sold 3 million times as of December 2019.[103]