Fire Emblem Heroes (FEH) – mobile game on iOS and Android – has been around since February 2017. It’s a spin-off game based on the Fire Emblem franchise. It’s a more simplified version of the traditional Fire Emblem games.
FEH is not as popular as Pokemon Go. Only 10 million+ combined downloads/installs on both platforms. It’s rather tiny when compared to more than 750 millions for Pokemon Go (source). It’s estimated about 500K active FEH users (based on Arena weekly play), while there are more than 5 million active pokemon go daily users.
Nintendo announced it’s financial statement results recently and it paints such a different results. Source: Bloomberg
Fire Emblem Heroes revenue for Q4 2017 is more than 3 times as big as Pokemon Go revenue. It’s such an amazing feat for Fire Emblem Heroes with such small install base and small active user base.
What makes Fire Emblem Heroes so successful? Let’s review the game.
Story
Fire Emblem Heroes story is not as long and deep as the usual Fire Emblem games. At the beginning, when it was first released, it only has 9 Chapters with 5 sub-chapter each. So, total 45 missions to play. Once you finish a chapter, a harder mode of the same story mode becomes available. There are 3 modes total: easy, hard and lunatic.
The developer promised to keep adding new content periodically. So far, they have kept their promise. In the first 6 months since the release date, they’ve added 3 more chapters, 2 Xenologue and 8 Paralogue. They have added 4 voting gauntlet, 2 tempest trials, 2 special maps event and several other mini quests. They also added several Grand Hero Battle: Narcian, Robin (female), Ursula, Michalis, Navarre, Zephiel, Xander, Lloyd, Camus, Legion, Clarisse and Berkut. Not only that, they’ve also added squad assault and chain challenge.
So, there are actually quite a lot of content being added over time. If you’re just starting playing the game, you’re in for a treat. But if you’ve been playing everyday since release day, it feels that the content doesn’t come quick enough.
Heroes
As with any other Fire Emblem games, there are lots of unique heroes in Fire Emblem Heroes. Each heroes have their own back story. Some of them are limited edition, such as:
- Easter edition heroes – Xander, Chrom, Lucina, Camilla
- Bride edition heroes: Caeda, Lyn, Cordelia, Charlotte
- Summer edition heroes: Robin (female), Tiki (adult), Frederick, Gaius
So far, there are about 150 heroes available in the game and more are being added as we speak.
There are a few ways to get the heroes:
- Starter heroes – you get them free as you start the game based on the story
- Daily heroes – there are only a few of them on rotation and you can only get them once. Once you get them, you can’t get them again even though they’re on rotation
- Grand Hero Battle – you get them from the GHB event. Typically twice per month
- Summon – use orbs to summon random heroes
Game play
The game play is very similar to any Fire Emblem game. It’s more simplified that we don’t have to worry about weapon breaking down. No real inventory for battling. No class change, etc. Though simplified, it still provides enough fun and strategy.
Gacha effect
In Fire Emblem Heroes, collecting the heroes is pretty much the goal of everyone. Summoning the heroes is pretty much the only way to get the heroes you want. Some of the heroes are only available at 5 stars. Some are available as 4 stars and 5 stars. Some as 4 stars only. Some as 3 stars and 4 stars. And some as 3 stars only. Getting a 5 stars hero is very hard. Chance of getting a 5 stars hero starts at 3%. Every 5 summons, if you don’t get any 5 stars, the chance increases by 0.25%. So, in theory of probability, you should get a 5 stars hero once per 24-33 summons (on average). However, not everyone get good RNG. Currently, I’m in a drought. I’ve summon 38 times without getting any 5 stars.
Summoning heroes is very similar to gambling (slot machine). The heroes you summon may or may not have the stats you’d like. Each summoned heroes come with slight variety of stats (IV). Depending on the heroes, you may want a specific IV for optimal use. For the most part, everyone would like to get the heroes with either +atk or +spd stats. Heroes are considered bad if either atk or spd is negative. So, if you want to get your favorite heroes with the right IV, you have to summon a lot. Summoning is easy, however it’s very expensive and the chance of getting your favorite heroes is very small.
Orb is very limited in this game. You can get orb by completing missions or quests. However, you can only get orb once from them. You can also get orb from some event bonus (limited time only). Or you can purchase them with real money. It cost $12.99 for 23 orbs or $19.99 for 35 orbs. It costs 20 orbs to summon 5 times in a row without quitting the summon process. Each summon without continuing costs 5 orbs. So, you’ll get a 1 summon discount if you summon 5 continuously.
Since almost everyone wants to collect all of the heroes, many can’t resists the temptation to spend real money to get the digital character they want. Some spend less than $100. Some spend in the hundreds. Some people spend more than thousands of dollars.
Final Thoughts
Fire Emblem Heroes is an excellent game. It’s simple, yet have rich stories as it’s based on the Fire Emblem Franchise and the developer keep adding more and more content. It’s the highest grossing Fire Emblem game of any Fire Emblem versions. So, expect the developer will keep adding more content in order to get more revenue. However, this game is not for everyone. If you can’t control your spending habit or susceptible to falling to gambling, you should avoid this game as far as possible. If you’re a casual gamer that just want to play for fun, then this game is an excellent choice.