Fire Emblem Fates

Fire Emblem Fates  is the 12th installment in the Fire Emblem series and the second released for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo.

It is significantly different from Awakening in that choices matter more and the world is different from previous games. The 3 paths in the game are; Conquest , Birthright, and Revelation .

Gameplay
The game is designed in a way where the player chooses his/her storyline at Chapter 6 and it changes the way the game plays past that point. Aligning with Hoshido is an easier venture with battle inbetween main story chapters.

The other option is the Nohr which is a harder then playing as the Hoshido. A third path called Revelation is also available after being purchased and is between the two in difficulty.

A new mode called Phoenix mode that is simpler than Casual. Teammates respawn after the turn finishes. Players can switch from Classic to Casual and then to Phoenix at any time but, they cannot revert in that playthrough.

In terms of mechanics, the game has altered many features from Awakening. The Pair-Up and Dual Attack mechanic has been revamped into a new mechanic called Attack Stance and Guard Stance. First of all, enemies can do them as well.

Attack Stance has your partner do an addition attack if standing next to each other while Guard Stance happens if paired up so the main unit gains boosted stats and the chance to protect against an attack completely. Once the shield gauge is filled at 10, the next attack is blocked and the gauge resets. Dual attacks from enemies in attack stance will be blocked.

The weapon triangle has also be altered so that all weapons are weak to one set and strong against another. It goes like so:

Swords and Magic > Axe and Bow > Lance and Hidden Weapons > Sword and Magic

Weapons except for staves and similar no longer have limited uses. In exchange, prices for them have gone up and they have various stat changes to be used over the other.

amiibo
The Fire Emblem amiibo from the Super Smash Bros. series can be scanned in to be used in the My Castle portion of the game. Eventually, they can be recruited for normal play.

Plot
After coming of age, the Avatar is sent by Garon to inspect a Hoshidan fortress above the Bottomless Canyon. The Avatar is found and captured by Hoshidan soldiers, who recognize them as a long-lost member of the Hoshidan royal family. In the battle between the two kingdoms, the Avatar's two families meet, and the Avatar is forced to choose Hoshido and Nohr. In the Birthright and Conquest routes, the Avatar 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.

Conquest: The Avatar both fights in the war against Hoshido, and works with their adoptive family to change Nohr's brutal reputation from within. During the invasion of Hoshido, the Nohrians spare Hinoka and capture Sakura, while Takumi, whose behavior has become very erratic and violent throughout the war, apparently dies by jumping off of a rampart. After the fight between the Avatar and Ryoma, Ryoma spares the Avatar the pain of killing their brother by killing himself. 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.

Birthright: The Avatar helps their Hoshidan kin protect their country from invasion by Nohr. After confrontations with the Avatar, Camilla and Leo's lives are spared. Elise is killed when she tries to stop the Avatar and Xander from fighting, and Xander falls into despair and forces the Avatar to kill him. The Avatar 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 made between the two kingdoms.

Revelation: The Avatar 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. In the aftermath, Valla is reestablished on the surface, Azura crowns the Avatar its new ruler, and an everlasting peace is established between the three kingdoms.

Characters
Between all three campaigns, there is a total of 69 playable units, 21 are second-generation units obtained by pairing the initial cast. 43 of these units are available in Birthright, 41 are available in Conquest, and 68 are available in Revelation. Outside of the initial 69 units, Anna can be accquired in all three routes via DLC. Marth, Ike, Lucina, and Robin may be recruited in all three routes via amiibo connectivity, and Marth, Lucina, and Minerva may be obtained in Japan only, via download codes distributed in special packs of Fire Emblem Cipher cards.

Development
The previous title in the series, Fire Emblem Awakening, was planned to be the last in the series due to decreasing sales, but it's success encouraged Nintendo to release another entry. During its early design stages, Fates was given the working title Fire Emblem 3DS II.

Fates was co-developed a Fire Emblem developer Intelligent Systems and Nintendo SPD, with the main staff of Awakening returning to their previous roles for Fates: they were Intelligence System's Kouhei Maeda as director, Nintendo SPD director Genki Yokota, Nintendo producer Hitoshi Yamagami, art director Toshiyuki Kusakihara, and character designer Yūsuke Kozaki. The game's cutscenes were animated by Studio Anima, while storyboarding was handled by Spooky Graphic. The My Castle feature was suggested by Maeda as an alternate activity for players, and to provide a way for getting to know the main characters outside battle.

The two kingdoms were based upon different cultures: Hoshido was themed after Japan, while Nohr used a Medieval European setting similar to earlier Fire Emblem games. Hoshido and Nohr were made to contrast each other in a variety of ways, with the most obvious being its architecture: Hoshido was themed around light and air, while Nohr was themed around darkness and stone.

The Hoshido characters' clothing were influenced by Japanese culture and character designs drew inspiration from well-known people in Japan: a main instance was Ryoma, whose clothing was based on samurai, including historical figures such as Takeda Shingen, along with incorporating animal motifs such as lions. The colors used in their clothing were varied and mainly bright to emphasize the country's focus on light. For Nohr, a "vampire-like taste" equivalent to dark fantasy was used to highlight it as a kingdom where the sun did not shine. Kozaki used black and purple as key colors in character designs to create a cold and unified image. The nobility of Nohr were given similar design elements to represent their familial connections.

Music
The games main theme, "Lost In Thoughts All Alone", was written by Morishita, with lyrics by Maeda, and performed by a Japanese pop singer Renka, who also provided Azura's in-game singing voice. 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. In the English version, Azura's speaking and singing voice were provided by Rena Strober.

Revelation
This is a third path for the game available for $20 like the other version. It takes on the path where you choose neither Nohr or Hoshido. The maps are designed more around the Dragon Vein power and is supposed to be the true path. The Special Edition includes all 3 paths on a single cartridge.

Controversy
There was some controversy over a piece of dialogue between Corrin and Soleil that received a rough translation from fans. The claim was that Corrin slips in a drug into Soleil's drink and it causes Soleil to become straight and fall in love with Corrin. However, Soleil does not actually dislike guys and the magic powder was for treating Soleil's anxiety condition around women and after the first time, Corrin reveals that he inserted the powder in her drink and tells her the effects and she willingly takes it afterwards. While Soleil does fall in love with Corrin, she does because Corrin did such a selfless thing in helping her. The dialogue was changed in the English release to avoid reference to drugging and possible gay conversion.

Trivia

 * In her supports with Camilla where she is offered to learn knitting, Hinoka voices her eagerness to start by saying "I'm feeling stabby!" These exact words are also uttered as one of the critical pop-in quotes of Peri in the localization, with whom Hinoka shares her English voice actor Elizabeth Daily with.
 * Gunter's Japanese voice actor, Rokuro Naya, passed away in November 2014, seven months before  Fates ' Japanese release.
 * In the English dub, Rena Strober gets to show off her chops as a Broadway actress by playing Azura and doing her singing voice.
 * In the English dub of the  Heirs of Fate  DLC, Matthew Mercer gets to sing as Shigure.


 * Azura's pendant is available for 12,000 yen.


 * Game data suggests that Candace and Nichol were originally meant to be regular party members rather than capturable bosses, as their names are listed among the main army and they are the only bosses with critical cut-ins and official Twitter icons.
 * Ben Diskin and Liam O'Brien, who are Americans, gives Jakob and Laslow British accents in the localization.
 * Averted with Jakob's son Dwyer, his VA Gideon Emery is British but gives Dwyer without an accent.


 * Similar to  Pokémon Black and White, there is a project to translate the game entirely to English (requiring 3DS homebrew which itself requires outdated firmware) before the official localization comes out.
 * Head writer Shin Kibayashi neither disowned the Fates plot nor said that he hated it on Twitter. He merely stated that he wrote the basic draft of the story, so he felt that it was unfair to give him all the credit when there was a whole writing team behind it.
 * Rena Strober (Azura's English VA) never claimed she was completely blind during the recording process. She didn't know much about Azura when she auditioned, but she was given proper information as it became relevant and she interjected when stories began falsely accusing Nintendo of withholding information from her.
 * Thanks to a line by Leo in the beginning of the game, players believe that Elise was aged up for the Western release. His exact words were "... act like the adult you  technically  are..." which only means that Elise meets the age requirement for an adult by the standards of the game's universe. These standards are never actually revealed in the game itself, and if anything, only serve to highlight that she is indeed quite young compared to the rest of the cast, even if she is of marriageable age.
 * Also no, Yusuke Kozaki never compared Camilla to a cow. That was Toshiyuki Kusakihara, the art director and Kozaki's BOSS, and it's during a  group interview  for the newest FE artbook. Cue the fans  still  claming it was Kozaki and showing a lot of ignorance about work ethics in Japan (where a boss' authority is almost  absolute  and the people working under him/her would be far more liable to lose their works if they don't go along with what they say) and game design in generalundefined(a character designer MUST work with what he or she is given by the art director and can't really stray a lot from it, lest he or she will have their sketches rejected).
 * After the first trailer focused on an eastern-style army fighting a western-style one, many fans correctly guessed you would be able to choose which side to fight for.
 * After Kaden's reveal, people began guessing that Nohr would have a faction-specific shapeshifter that was a wolf. In the "introduction" trailer, there's a glimpse of a man turning into a large wolf: this man would turn out to be Keaton.
 * A lot of people speculated that Odin, Laslow, and Selena are Owain, Inigo, and Severa respectively. Turns out that this is the case with the supports with each other and the Avatar.
 * After noticing that the Avatar can potentially Support with  both  sets of his/her siblings, many assumed that both families and Corrin were Not Blood Siblings after all. This turns out to be true— the Avatar  was  born into Hoshido royalty, but only the queen was his/her biological relative. The others were raised as stepchildren, with the king being their biological father.
 * Almost every fan guessed that Midoriko would be shortened to just Midori. Those fans were right.
 * A lot of fans also guessed correctly that Crimson would become Scarlet in the localization, due to that being an actual name in English while also being a shade of red.
 * Some fans guessed that Soleil's romances with male characters other than the Avatar and Forrest would be removed from the localized version.


 * The pre-order exclusive Special Edition comes with all main three routes ( Birthright ,  Conquest, and  Revelation ) on one cart, alongside an art book.
 * The games' release in Japan marks the 25th year of the franchise since its debut in 1990.
 * The fifth chapter of the game (the final one prior to the route split), "Mother and Child," shares the same exact name with the fifth chapter of  Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 . The in-chapter events are also extremely similar: In  Fates,  Mikoto, the biological mother of the Avatar, is struck by a massive bolt of energy and dies protecting him/her. In  Thracia 776,  Eyvel, the adopted mother of Nanna and Leif, puts herself in harm's way in order to save Nanna's life, being turned to stone in the process by the sorcerer Veld. And like many other parts of  Fates, there's a bit of a Counterpart Comparison to these two scenarios: Eyvel can potentially survive petrification and be freed prior to the final chapter in  Thracia 776.  Meanwhile, Mikoto can potentially come back from the dead as an antagonistic spirit in the  Revelation  route, but is otherwise permanently dead.
 * A number of assets are reused from  Fire Emblem Awakening . Most of the returning Skills use the exact same icons, the resistance HQ at the start of  Birthright  Chapter 14 is the barracks from  Awakening (complete with an  Awakening -style Armor Knight shield lying next to the crates), and some classes that wield axes use the animations of the  Awakening  Fighter and its promotions.
 * There are two chapters in Japanese DLC pack #3 that are absent from North American/European DLC pack #2. The first DLC pack in North America/Europe consists of the  entirety  of the first two packs from the Japanese version.
 * The Latest in the Fire Emblem Series  outside of Japan on the game's first reveal. Then the second trailer seems to shorten it to just  Fire Emblem, before becoming  Fire Emblem Fates  at E3 2015.
 * The "Making of Fire Emblem" book suggests that all three routes were supposed to be available from the start, rather than  Revelation  being released later as DLC.
 * Azura was originally planned to have different supports with Female Kana if she was her mother, depending on the route, like she does with the Avatar.
 * The typical "early designs having different hairstyles and hair colors" thing—Takumi was originally planned to be a redhead like Hinoka and Sakura, but was given silver hair in the final product, while the Avatar was supposed to have black hair by default just like their mother.
 * Hinata and Hisame were originally planned to be twin brothers instead of father and son. This was changed because there would have been too many first generation Samurai.
 * Hinoka didn't exist in the first drafts of the story, and her role as a Hoshidan princess was originally intended to go to Kagero. She was included because Kozaki doodled her up one day and requested that she be one of the royals.
 * The skinship minigame was originally  much  more extreme, with the cursor being a hand and the ability to touch the character anywhere on their body, though it would have been limited to whoever the Avatar married. It was to the point that even some of the developers considered it disgusting, and Nintendo ultimately agreed with them and asked to tone it down.
 * There were many, many fake rumors about the plot and the gameplay before the game's release, including but not limited to: Sakura falling victim to a Cruel and Unusual Death in  Conquest, M!Corrin applying "corrective rape" to Soleil in their already polemic supports, Ryoma personally attacking the temporarily ill Elise in  Conquest , jail prisoners being tortured or violated to get them to join the group, M!Kana being rejected in a deliberately rude way in his S supports like Caeldori, or the ending dialogue of  Revelation  being different if M!Corrin married Azura. While most of these rumors have died out, Soleil's is persistent.