Fire Emblem Heroes

Fire Emblem Heroes (ファイアーエムブレム ヒーローズ, Faiā Emuburemu Hīrōzu), is a mobile phone app developed by Intelligent Systems. The game was launched on Android and iOS devices on February 2, 2017 in territories worldwide.

Development
A Fire Emblem mobile app was announced on April 27, 2016 as a part of Nintendo's effort to bring their content to the mobile phone market. Initially announced to release in the fall of 2016, it was later pushed back to an unspecified date within the March 2017 timeframe before its official release date of Febuary 2, 2017 was unveiled.

The game is one of the first titles developed internally by Nintendo for mobile phones. It will not be a traditional Fire Emblem experience, but one tailored more toward the mobile market to help drive broader interest in the franchise and the core games on Nintendo platforms. It is also one of the first mobile apps, after the social app Miitomo and Super Mario Run, to make use of the universal Nintendo Account system created in collaboration with Nintendo's corporate partner DeNA.

The game was officially unveiled during a Fire Emblem-themed Nintendo Direct on January 18, 2017. During the Direct, the game's final title Fire Emblem Heroes was revealed, and its story and gameplay were both introduced. It was also revealed that the game is a free-to-play mobile app with microtransactions based on a "gacha" collection structure. All characters that appear in the game will receive new art and new voiced dialogue.

Plot
The game follows two protagonists, the royal siblings of the Kingdom of Askr, Prince Alfonse and Princess Sharena, as well as gathered heroes from other worlds. Together, they plan to fight against the opposing Emblian Empire and their leader, Princess Veronica.

Gameplay
Fire Emblem Heroes is a strategy game requiring a mixture of tactics and unit training.

Units and Team Building
Heroes revolves around using various Fire Emblem characters from numerous games, three of which are exclusive to Heroes. Heroes may be summoned either via completing special missions or Summoning them using Orbs. When Summoning, the player expends 5 Orbs for a board containing 5 colored Orbs, reflecting the type of Hero summoned if selected. Once selected, the player is given the option to summon another hero for 4 Orbs. The player may summon up to three more Heroes for 4 Orbs, where the fifth and final orb on the board will cost 3, making a complete board purchase cost 20 Orbs. Once summoned, that Hero becomes a permanent member of the player's army and can be trained to become stronger.

Orbs serve numerous purposes in the game, including summoning new heroes and replenishing stamina to fight battles. Orbs can be acquired either by clearing maps or by making in-app purchases. Occasionally daily events may reward the player with more orbs.

Heroes are unique and have different properties including different unit types, stats, preferred weapon, and bonus skills/abilities. Summoned heroes also has a rarity assigned; higher rarities allow stronger starting stats and more available skills. It is possible to promote characters to higher rarities using Hero Feathers and Badges or Great Badges once the character has reached Level 20. Promoting a character resets him or her to Level 1 but grants access to the added skills and higher base stats.

As the characters are used in battle, they can level up after obtaining Experience Points, of which the gains scale based on the difference in Level between the player's character and the enemy's. EXP also scales depending if the player's character killed the enemy. Upon leveling up, their stats will increase randomly, though Skill Points (SP) are always guaranteed. These Skill Points allow the character to learn attacking and supportive skills upon leveling up or defeating an enemy of equal or stronger level, with these skills ranging from new weapons for basic attacks (such as the Fujin Yumi for Takumi and the Falchion for Lucina) to other skills such as Life and Death.

Combat
Players expend stamina points to begin battle in Battle mode and each map has a set amount of stamina required to begin. All maps are on a 6x8 grid, though maps come in various terrains based on past Fire Emblem games. Maps features a plethora of terrain including forrest, mountains, lava fields, and oceans. All characters, regardless of their current class, set to a three tile movement each turn. Map objectives are to eliminate all of the enemy team's units. If the HP of the player is depleted, the character will retreat from battle, but can be used in subsequent battles, regardless if the player had lost all characters in a single duel, hence having more of a Casual Mode style of unit handling.

The Weapon Triangle and Anima Magic is used in a singular weapon effectiveness wheel. Blue weapons (Lances and Lightning Magic), Red weapons (Swords and Fire Magic), and Green weapons (Axes and Wind Magic). Blue weapons are strong against Red weapons, Red weapons are strong against Green weapons, and Green weapons are stronger than Blue weapons. There are also Colorless weapons (Bows, Shuriken, and Staves), but these are not factored into Heroes' Weapon Triangle. Bow's retain their special property of dealing effective damage against Flying Units, Shuriken can lower enemy stats, and Staves can still heal allies as well as attack enemies, but are weak in damage. All Sword, Lance, and Axe attacks are from one tile away while all Magic, Bow, Shuriken, and Staff attacks are from two spaces away.

Modes

 * Story Mode – 9 chapters of 5 missions each (not counting a prologue.) Each chapter pits the player's teams against teams of heroes from one specific game (for example, Chapter 6, World of Birthright, has players facing teams composed characters from the Birthright version of Fates.) Completing a map for the first time awards an Orb, and completing a chapter makes it available in Hard and Lunatic difficulties, with stronger opponents but the chances to earn added Orbs. Story Mode battles are split between the main story and Xenologues.
 * Training Tower – A tower with nine strata of increasingly strong enemies that awards more EXP than regular maps. This is also where players can obtain Shards and Crystals for EXP that can be distributed and Badges and Great Badges that are used to promote characters to higher Star ratings.
 * Hero Battles – A battle against a party led by a specific character. Winning the battle without losing a character allows the character to be recruited. This applies once per map and per difficulty (higher difficulties award higher starting Star ratings.) The current rotation of characters available here includes Felicia, Virion, Sophia and Lissa.
 * Arena Duels – For three times daily (more if the player uses Dueling Crests to recharge), players can pit their teams against teams assembled by other players. Victory awards points, with the highest score after a battle counting as the player's submitted score. Players can earn more points by including specified characters in their party, by defeating harder opponents (players can choose Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced opponents with each battle) or by recording consecutive wins (up to 7, at which point the Chain Bonus resets.) Players also earn Defense points if another player loses against a team that the player has assembled. Higher points and rankings earn Hero Feathers, which are required to promote characters to higher Star ratings.

Choose Your Legends Event
Prior to the launch of Fire Emblem Heroes, the game's official website went live with the Choose Your Legends event. From January 18 to January 31, 2017, visitors to the website can vote for one character per day. The top male and female characters to receive votes will receive recruitable "Choose Your Legends" variant designs with special outfits. The top ten male and female characters will also be featured in monthly calendar mobile phone wallpapers to be distributed from March 2017 to December 2017.

All playable characters, major villains, and select major NPCs from each entry in the franchise are eligible to receive votes.

As of January 25, 2017, with one week left in the ballot, the top twenty male and female characters to receive votes, as reported via Nintendo of America's Twitter account, are:

Male: Female:
 * 1) Ike (Path of Radiance)
 * 2) Roy (The Binding Blade)
 * 3) Hector (The Blazing Blade)
 * 4) Chrom (Awakening)
 * 5) Ike (Radiant Dawn)
 * 6) Marth (Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light/Shadow Dragon)
 * 7) Ephraim (The Sacred Stones)
 * 8) Robin (Awakening)
 * 9) Takumi (Fates)
 * 10) Donnel (Awakening)
 * 11) Henry (Awakening)
 * 12) Leo (Fates)
 * 13) Lon'qu (Awakening)
 * 14) Marth (Mystery of the Emblem/New Mystery of the Emblem)
 * 15) Gaius (Awakening)
 * 16) Niles (Fates)
 * 17) Joshua (The Sacred Stones)
 * 18) Dorcas (The Blazing Blade)
 * 19) Corrin (Fates)
 * 20) Owain (Awakening)
 * 1) Lyn (The Blazing Blade)
 * 2) Lucina (Awakening)
 * 3) Tharja (Awakening)
 * 4) Camilla (Fates)
 * 5) Corrin (Fates)
 * 6) Eirika (The Sacred Stones)
 * 7) Cordelia (Awakening)
 * 8) Azura (Fates)
 * 9) Micaiah (Radiant Dawn)
 * 10) Robin (Awakening)
 * 11) Nowi (Awakening)
 * 12) Tiki (Awakening)
 * 13) Elise (Fates)
 * 14) Anna (Awakening)
 * 15) Lute (The Sacred Stones)
 * 16) Felicia (Fates)
 * 17) Mia (Radiant Dawn)
 * 18) Nephenee (Path of Radiance)
 * 19) Sakura (Fates)
 * 20) Nino (The Blazing Blade)

Characters
Fire Emblem Heroes includes a large roster of characters from across the full history of the franchise, along with some original characters.
 * See main article: List of characters in Fire Emblem Heroes

Voice cast

 * See main article: List of Voice Actors in Fire Emblem Heroes