Fire Emblem Heroes 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 February 2, 2017 was unveiled.
The game is one of the first titles developed internally by Nintendo for mobile phones. It is not 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 provided by a variety of artists, as well as new voiced dialogue. Similar to many mobile titles, Fire Emblem Heroes has received and continues to receive updates to add more characters, story chapters, and additional features over time.
Community Relationship
Fire Emblem Heroes directly announces new upcoming features to the player base mainly through the in-app notice board. This announces upcoming events such as Tempest Trials, upcoming bonus units for Arena Duel, and announcements for upcoming summoning banners.
The latter is prominently featured on the Nintendo Mobile YouTube page which announces at least three New Hero Banners a month; one comprised of characters in their original forms from past Fire Emblem games, one comprised of seasonal variations of Heroes, and a Legendary Hero banner featuring a powerful Blessed Hero.
Approximately every two months, Heroes also releases a special video series known as Feh Channel, meant to announce upcoming new features and major changes coming to Heroes.
Fire Emblem Heroes also maintains its own Twitter [1] account.
Game Service in Belgium
Due to legislation passed in the nation of Belgium that defines microtransaction loot boxes in video games as a form of gambling, as well as the therefore unclear legal status of gacha collection titles, Nintendo ended service for Fire Emblem Heroes in Belgium on August 27, 2019. On the same day, Nintendo also ended Belgian service for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which features loot boxes. This comes on the heels of other companies either pulling their titles from Belgian service or disabling the ability to buy loot boxes in the Belgian versions of games that otherwise remain in operation.
Plot
Book I
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.
Book II
The war between Askr and Embla shifts with the introduction of the antagonistic nation of Múspell ruled by the evil King Surtr, which threatens to engulf the world in fire. They are opposed by Princess Fjorm of the kingdom of Nifl, who allies herself with the Askr royals.
Book III
Not long after the war against Múspell, Hel, the ruler of the Realm of the Dead, has invaded Askr with her army of the dead. Those who confront her will witness their demise. Princess Eir, Hel's daughter, was forced by her mother to ally herself with the Askr royals to backstab them, but ends up betraying her mother and staying with them in the end.
Book IV
Immediately after defeating Hel and her forces, Askr's queen Henriette hears a report about a village in Askr in an endless sleep. The Askr royals rush to investigate where they find themselves in Ljósálfheimr, the realm of dreams. The royals ally themselves with Peony against the nightmare realm of Dökkálfheimr.
Book V
Sometime after leaving Dökkálfheimr, Askr is attacked by soldiers from Niðavellir lead by Reginn who plan to conquer the other realms. However after they defeat her, Reginn defects to the Askr Royals telling them that she wants the conquests to stop even if it means confronting her brothers Fáfnir and Ótr who want to capture Kiran for mysterious reasons.
Gameplay
Fire Emblem Heroes is a strategy game requiring a mixture of tactics and unit training.
Units and Team Building
- See also: Hero (Heroes)
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.
Orbs are a form of currency in the game which can be used for a variety of purposes including replenishing Stamina and Duelling Swords, Purchasing expanded barracks, or summoning new Heroes. Players are given Orbs the first time they complete any story map on any difficulty, gifted through missions, and through event gifts. Players may also buy Orbs through in-app purchases which a minimum of 3 Orbs cost USD$1.99. Special Orb bundles are offered on a monthly basis, and typically cost USD$9.99. These bundles offer more bonus orbs and a special items to accompany them, such as Hero Feathers, Refining Stones, or Sacred Coins. Seasonal Orb bundles have also been offered.
Heroes are unique and have different properties including different unit types, stats, preferred weapon, and bonus skills/abilities. Every unit has a fixed growth pattern and maximum stat total upon reaching Level 40, preventing random stat growths from changing potential max stats between players. However, each character summoned via Orbs are subject to a Boon and Bane modifier that adds additional points to one of the 5 stats of the character while reducing the total for another. Summoned heroes also have a rarity assigned; higher rarities allow stronger starting stats, better growth rates, and more available skills. Base stats of acquired heroes can vary slightly, but those base stats adhere to a consistent base stat total. Characters may be trained up to Level 40, upon which they reach a Level Cap and cannot obtain any more levels. Any 1 Star to 4 Star Hero can perform an Unlock Potential, raising their Rarity by 1, but also resetting their Level to 1 and reseting their stats to its original base total. Skill Points (SP) are the only stat that does not reset when Unlocking Potential. Unlock Potential costs Badges and Feathers to perform. 2 Star to 4 Star Unlock costs normal badges while 5 Star Unlock requires Great Badges and a substantial amount of Feathers. Heroes who are 5 Stars cannot perform any more Unlock Potentials. They can, however, fuse with any copies of themselves through Merge Allies. Merging any copy of a Hero will grant them additional Skill Points, with higher skill points the rarer the card is. However, if the merging Hero has the same rarity and name of the base Hero, the base Hero will receive a special bonus level that does not count towards the Level 40 cap (for example, at maximum level, the character will be listed as Level 40 + 1 if it has a bonus level through merging.)
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 in a fixed manner depending on their boon/bane combination and their innate maximum stats. While a character may not get a stat increase for every stat every level, SP are always guaranteed and increase the amount gained every 10 levels. Heroes can expend SP to acquire new skills for the Heroes. The Skills available to learn are fixed to each character and require the Hero to be a certain rarity to learn. Skills come in 4 categories; Weapon, Attack/Heal Skill, Support Skill, and Passive Skill. Weapon Skills increase the Hero's weapon base damage and carries special effects the higher the weapon's Rarity are. Visually, the Hero's weapon in combat and on the battle map will also match. Attack/Heal skills provide bonuses when either attacking or healing. These skills require the Hero to attack, heal, or be attacked a certain number of times in order to activate. Support Skills are activated by having a Hero select an ally unit to give them a supportive effect. These includes Healing, Repositioning, Rally, and Dance commands. Passive Skills are a series of skills with various effects that can influence combat (such as Life and Death, self stat bonuses, adjacent allies bonus stats, and other various map skills (such as Obstruct).
As of March 16, 2017, the Inherit Skills feature became available. Units are now allowed to acquire skills from other units to bolster their combat capabilities. The player selects a base unit to acquire the skills, then chooses another unit to sacrifice to teach the base unit new skills. The player then has the ability to select up to four skills (three skills prior to version 3.3.0) that the sacrificed unit has acquired and transfers it to the base unit. The sacrificed unit is then removed permanently from the player's roster. Most skills can be universally transferred between units, however there are a few exceptions. First, several supportive skills are locked and cannot be transferred for any reason, such as the Dance skill that can only be used by dancers such as Olivia and Ninian. Second, weapons can be transferred between units, however weapons can only be transferred between two units who utilize the same weapon type and color (thus Blue Tome users can only transfer their weapon to other Blue Tome users and Stave wielders can only transfer their weapon to other Stave wielders) (Dragonstone and Bow weapons do not have the color restriction). Lastly, certain weapons are non-transferrable, mainly special weapons such as the Falchion or Armads can only be used by specific characters.
Special quests are available that also offer additional items, such as Hero Feathers, Orbs, Crystals and Shards, with various requirements such as using a specific hero for a certain fight.
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 forests, mountains, lava fields, and oceans. Character's movement varies; Units riding mounts can move a maximum of three titles, basic foot units can move two spaces, and heavy knights are restricted to a single tile for movement. If the HP of the player's Hero 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.
A unit's combat capabilities are set, restricting them to a single weapon, regardless if the class in the main series is able to use multiple weapon types. The Weapon Triangle and Anima magic are used in a singular weapon effectiveness wheel to create Blue weapons (Lances, Thunder/Light/Dark Magic), Red weapons (Swords, Fire/Dark Magic), and Green weapons (Axes, Wind/Light Magic). There are also Colorless weapons (Staves, Earth Magic), but these are not factored into Heroes Weapon Triangle unless a specific weapon designates it so (for example, Male Robin's Blarraven, classified as Thunder Magic, a Blue weapon, grants a weapon advantage against colorless units as well as red ones). Blue weapons are strong against Red weapons, Red weapons are strong against Green weapons, and Green weapons are strong against Blue weapons. There are also weapons that fit into all four colors, (Bows, Daggers, Dragons (also known as Breaths), Beasts), and weapon skills of each of these weapon types are usable on all four colors, meaning they can be inherited even if the donor and receiver are different colors than each other (Beast units are currently unable to inherit weapon skills due to their tier 1~3 weapon skills being movement type-exclusive and shared across all beast units of the same movement type, as well as all of their tier 4 weapon skills being exclusive skills). Bows retain their special property of dealing effective damage against Flying Units, Daggers can lower enemy stats, and Staves can still heal allies as well as attack enemies, but their Damage is halved after calculation, unless that unit has Wrathful Staff or a weapon with its effect equipped. All Sword, Lance, Axe, Breath, and Beast attacks are from one tile away while all Magic, Bow, Dagger, and Staff attacks are from two spaces away.
Modes
- Story Mode – Players play through the story of Heroes, following the adventures of Prince Alfonse and Princess Sharena as they battle the Embla empire lead by Princess Veronica. There are thirteen playable chapters in Book 1, each containing 5 battles each. Players encounter a series of Fire Emblem characters from different Fire Emblem games, though each chapter focuses on a specific game. Each map costs a varying amount of stamina, harder battles cost more stamina. Completing each individual battle rewards the player with an Orb upon its first completion. Completing a chapter unlocks the ability to battle the map on Hard and Lunatic with raised Stamina cost and enemy levels. In addition to the main story, there are also Paralogue stories that release over time that are set outside the main narrative. Xenologues, which exist in the Paralogue section, are brief chapters set in-between chapters in the main story.
- As of Version 2.0, a new story called Book II has been added. In Book II, the players play through a new adventure, where they will help Princess Fjorm of the Ice Kingdom of Nifl battle against the Flame Kingdom of Múspell ruled by King Surtr.
- As of Version 3.0, a new story called Book III has been added. In Book III, the Order of Heroes faces a new threat: The army of the dead led by Hel, the ruler of the Land of the Dead. Eir, the Princess of Death and Hel's daughter, joins the Order of Heroes.
- As of Version 4.0, a new story called Book IV has been added. In Book IV, the player find themselves in the Realm of Dreams, ruled by Freyr, where nightmares are invading from the Realm of Nightmares, lead by Freyja. Peony a ljósálfar from the Realm of Dreams, joins the Order of Heroes.
- Tactics Drills - As of Version 2.7, a new mode, Tactics Drills, has been added in the Story Maps. It is designed to test the player's strategy and they must overcome the challenges with a turn limit.
- Heroic Ordeals - Heroic Ordeals feature a map designed for each Hero in the game, in which that hero and one other must rout the enemy.
- Multi-Map Battles - Multi-Map battles are battles in which players must survive multiple maps in a row.
- Chain Challenge was added in Version 1.5 in the Story Maps section, before later being moved to Multi-Map Battles. In Chain Challenge, players can play through the past chapters from the main story, only this time they can play all 5 battles from an entire chapter, and all 10 battles from both chapters. Like the Tempest Trials, characters that fall during the challenge are lost and cannot be utilized for the rest of the challenge run.
- Squad Assault was added in Version 1.5 in the Story Maps section, before later being moved to Multi-Map Battles. In this mode, players will have to prepare 20 units to clear a series of maps. Once a player clears a map with one team, that team from the last battle cannot be utilized for the rest of this challenge, forcing the players to use another team before the next battle, no duplicates. Unlike the Chain Challenge, if one single character from the player's team falls during this challenge, the game is over
- Blessed Gardens is a game mode where players battle against the enemies from each of the previous paralogue maps. However, only the Legendary Heroes and Heroes with Blessings are allowed in this mode. Furthermore, the players must clear the maps without losing a single unit, much like Grand Hero Battles. Players can earn rewards upon clearing the maps, such as Orbs, Hero Feathers, Divine Dew, and the four elements of Blessings. This mode was moved into the Multi-Map battles section and stopped seeing new additions with the introduction of Aether Raids, which took its spot on the world map.
- Training Tower– A tower with eleven strata of increasingly strong enemies that awards more EXP than regular maps. Each stratum starts with 5 Normal difficulty levels, 3 Hard levels, and 3 Lunatic levels. The stamina required to complete each stratum increases as the difficulty rises as well. 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. Players may also use the tower to train characters to level 40 and gain more skill points.
- Special Maps – Consisting of a variety of maps, Special Maps are defined typically as maps that appear for a limited time. Some of the more notable and consistent category of Special Maps are as follows:
- Daily Hero Battle - In this series of battles which cycle daily, players challenge a special team lead by a specific Fire Emblem character, without losing a single unit on their team. Upon completion for the first time, the player recruits the lead into their army. The tier of the recruited Hero depends on the difficulty of their map.
- Grand Hero Battle - Similar to the Daily Hero Battle, players challenge a special team lead by a specific Fire Emblem character, without losing a single unit on their team. Upon completion for the first time, the player recruits the lead into their army. The tier of the recruited Hero depends on the difficulty of their map. The earliest GHB maps cycle daily, but the schedule for when GHBs outside of those two rotations return is unclear.
- Bound Hero Battle - Usually accompanied by a summoning banner, Bound Hero Battles are challenging maps where players face a challenging map based around a pair of Heroes without losing a single unit on their team.
- Legendary and Mythic Hero Battles - Accompanying the appearance of a Legendary or Mythic unit on the monthly Legendary or Mythic summoning banner (with the exception of Fjorm, Gunnthrá, Eir, and Peony), a Legendary or Mythic Hero Battle is a challenging map with reinforcements that players have to clear without losing a single unit on their team. The highest difficulty rewards a golden version of an accessory.
- Special Training - Reminiscent of the Fire Emblem: Warriors maps, Special Training maps are intended to help players train their Heroes, a melee, magic, bow, and all out assault based training map cycle daily. All the enemies on these maps are easy to defeat.
- Rival Domains - Introduced in Version 2.9, in this mode, players assemble a brigade of 20 heroes to take on a much bigger map than usual. Players must seize the enemy bases while protecting their own with their team of 20, which deploys all 20 in order than cycles back to the beginning.
- Relay Defense - Introduced in Version 2.9, Relay Defense is a now defunct mode, as it was discontinued in Version 2.11, after two runs. In this mode, players defended their bases for 8 turns using a brigade. Five units were deployed at a time, and were switched out for the next five every two turns.
- Arena Duels – Players challenge teams created by other Heroes players for points. Players attempt to battle 5 consecutive teams for a cumulative score which are compared to other players each week. Ending week rank can move players up or down tiers with the highest tiers comprised of players with near perfect teams.
- Arena Assault - A gauntlet of Arena style battles. Players challenge 7 Arena Defense teams in a row. However, player's must create 7 different teams, one for each battle.
- Allegiance Battle - A biweekly event, players challenge a map based on a Legendary Hero, and try to defeat every opponent and reinforcement on the map. Defeating an opponent the player is strong against (ie: green against blue) grants a greater score, and losing anyone lowers the score. The higher the score, the greater the rewards.
- Resonant Battle - In this mode, players attempt to defeat as many thieves as possible before they escape.
- Events - Events are non-permanent game modes. There are three types of Events and each reward players in different way for participating in it.
- Voting Gauntlet - Every so often, eight Fire Emblem characters are selected to participate in a tournament based on popularity. Players select a unit to represent one of the eight character and they participate in battles to earn points for their candidate. The end results of the Gauntlet awards players with Feathers based on the represented unit's performance and final scores each round. Players earn bonus points based on if they utilize the hero they choose to represent. For example, players who represent Lucina earn bonus points for using her in a Voting Gauntlet battle. However, this unit must be the player's own, as they will not get bonus points if they use a Lucina from another player. Additionally, the unit must match the variant of the unit participating in the event. For example, if Alfonse: Prince of Askr is participating in a Voting Gauntlet, then using Alfonse: Spring Prince will not apply a bonus.
- Tempest Trials+ - Like the Voting Gauntlet, Tempest Trials are a periodical event. Players battle against a gauntlet of enemy teams of various difficulties. Characters that fall during the gauntlet are lost and cannot be utilized for the rest of the gauntlet run, but is not permanently removed from the player's roster. Once a player has cleared a gauntlet, they are graded based on the difficulty of the set, the number of units lost, and the number of cumulative turns to clear the map. Players can earn bonus rewards for reaching certain point totals through the event including feathers, orbs, extra skills, and exclusive Heroes. After a few Tempest Trials Minis, with lowered score thresholds to obtain every reward, Tempest Trials kept the score thresholds from the Minis, and were permanently rebranded to Tempest Trials+ with the Thunder's Fist Tempest Trials+.
- Tap Battle: Illusory Dungeon - Tap Battle: Illusory Dungeon is a periodical event, like the Voting Gauntlet and the Tempest Trials. In this rhythm game, players battle against the enemies by simply tapping the screen. If the timing is just right, enemies will be hit by a critical attack and fly off-screen. In order to achieve an S rank for a perfect run, the players must rack up the combos by landing multiple critical attacks in a row. In Casual mode, the players can tap the bottom screen with the Summoner and Feh. In Expert mode, they can tap the spaces next to their 4 units in the right order.
- Grand Conquests - Grand Conquests is a periodical event. Three armies battle to conquer territory across a continent. Each Grand Conquests event last for 3 battles, with each battle taking course over two days. Like the Rival Domains Special Maps, players will battle with the help of their friends against the enemy armies to control the camps and forts. When the battle ends, the armies will earn the rewards, based on how many areas they controlled.
- Forging Bonds - Forging Bonds is a periodical event that coincides with the release of brand new units. Players challenge maps in order to increase their bond with one of four highlighted characters. Rewards are given at certain milestones, most notably unique accessories of that character and special support conversations.
- Røkkr Sieges - Røkkr Sieges is a periodical event in which players face off against Røkkrs, which are giant shadowy versions of Heroes created by Loki. The goal is to deal as much damage as possible within 7 turns. This damage is then combined with the damage of other players for a total amount of damage to the Røkkr. Rewards are given at milestones based on total damage dealt.
- Lost Lore - Lost Lore is also a periodical event where players send out their heroes on scouting missions to recover lost pages from the books about their worlds. When heroes return, they bring rewards for the player.
- Hall of Forms - In the periodical Hall of Forms event, players use and train preset Forma units created by Thorr and clear various maps reminiscent of the Training Tower with these units.
- Mjölnir's Strike - Mjölnir's Strike is a periodical event with three phases. In the first phase, players build a defense by using various structures and selecting a team. In the second phase, the player has 7 turns where they defend their base from an invading army led by a Grand Hero Battle unit and Thorr. In the final phase, every player works together to fire arrows back at the invading army commanders and try to outscore the opponent in damage.
- Frontline Phalanx - Frontline Phalanx is a periodical event in which players choose to support one of four characters facing down a strong enemy army. Over-supporting a character raises the risk of them losing, but backing a character with more support also grants greater rewards.
- Aether Raids - Aether Raids is a game mode where players create defensive maps utilizing special structures and units from their roster. Players then battle against other player's maps in order to gain Lift for their Aether Base, granting greater rewards to improve their maps and Heroic Grails to summon Grand Hero Battle and Tempest Trial units.
- Aether Resort - Similar to the defense building aspect of Aether Raids, in the Aether Resort, players can place various facilities, such as a concert hall, bathhouse, and garden, for their heroes to visit.
Characters
Fire Emblem Heroes includes a large roster of characters from across the full history of the franchise, along with some original characters. There are currently 564 unique playable units with 359 of the franchise's cast represented in at least one form.
In addition to the standard characters on the roster, there are also special variants of select characters that have been released as part of timed seasonal and special events. These character variants have appearances, skills, and weapons that differ from their standard forms.
On October 3, 2019, a new type of character was announced, Duo Heroes, in which two or three separate characters are counted as one single unit, with the second and third characters acting as support. On June 15, 2020 another new type of character was announced, Harmonic Heroes, which works similarly to Duo Heroes, but the units are from different games, and their Harmonic Skill only works on units for their games.
Certain characters only appear as part of a special or seasonal banner and not their original appearance, some of which are based on appearances from their base games, including:
- Gustav (Majestic Love)
- Henriette (Overflowing Love)
- Veronica (Brave Princess, Spring Princess, Harmonic Pirates & Bestowed Love)
- Bruno (Masked Hare)
- Elice (Royal Altean Duo)
- Darros (Seawalker)
- Xane (Autumn Trickster)
- Hardin (Dark Emperor)
- Rudolf (Emperor of Rigel)
- Rinea (Reminiscent Belle)
- Brigid (Orgahil Pirate)
- Wolt (Sunbeam Archer)
- Geese (A Life at Sea)
- Pent (Fancy Fiancé)
- Louise (Eternal Devotion)
- Dozla (Harvest Attendant)
- Rolf (Tricky Archer)
- Zihark (Ninja Blademaster)
- Rhys (Gentle Basker)
- Greil (Heroic Exemplar)
- Tanith (Forthright Heart)
- Ena (Autumn Tactician)
- Ashnard (Mad King)
- Dheginsea (Harvest Goldoan)
- Rafiel (Blessed Wings)
- Sephiran (Hoary Sovereign)
- Inigo (Indigo Dancer)
- Noire (Shade Seeker)
- Mikoto (Caring Mother)
- Charlotte (Money Maiden)
- Rhea (Fell Star's Duo)
- Dorothea (Solar Songstress & Twilit Harmony)
- Sylvain (Hanging with Tens)
- Felix (Icy Gift Giver)
- Ingrid (Solstice Knight)
- Lorenz (Highborn Heat)
- Raphael (Muscle-Monger)
- Marianne (TBA)
- Gatekeeper (TBA)
Currently Thórr, Freyr, Fáfnir, Ótr and Dagr appear only as enemy units while Feh, Fehnix, Eitri and Daniel appear as NPCs.
- See main article: List of characters in Fire Emblem Heroes
Chapters
- See main article: Chapters (Fire Emblem Heroes)
Voice cast
- See main article: List of Voice Actors in Fire Emblem Heroes
Artists
- See main article: List of Artists in Fire Emblem Heroes
Music
- See main article: List of Music in Fire Emblem Heroes
Choose Your Legends Event
Choose Your Legends is an annual event for Heroes occurring in January of each year. Players vote on their favorite Fire Emblem characters from across the entire franchise, and are allowed to vote for one character per day for the extent of the voting period. Participants may vote for the same character as many times as desired.
At the end of the voting period, all characters are ranked, and the top two characters of each gender are crowned the winners of the event. All four are then given a special Hero variation called Brave Heroes who are released on a unified banner around August of that year. The top male and female character in the ballot also receive a special skill that is exclusive to them.
Once a character has won a Choose Your Legends event, they are no longer eligible to participate in future Choose Your Legends events. This also extends to variations of winning characters. For example, the Path of Radiance incarnation of Ike won the first Choose Your Legends ballot for the male category, and Lucina placed second among female characters. Consequently, the Radiant Dawn version of Ike and Lucina's "Masked Marth" persona were deemed ineligible for future ballots.
Below is a summary of each Choose Your Legends event, including notable new ballot inclusions and exclusions, as well as rule changes that went into effect for a given year.
2017 Choose Your Legends Event
Prior to the launch of Fire Emblem Heroes, the game's official website went live with the innagural Choose Your Legends event. From January 18 to January 31, 2017, visitors to the website could vote for one character per day. All playable characters, major villains, and select major NPCs from each entry in the franchise were eligible to receive votes. Characters that appeared in more than one game could also receive votes for each individual appearance.
On February 8, 2017, the top twenty male and female characters to receive votes were announced via Nintendo of America's Twitter account:
On August 27, 2017, Ike, Roy, Lyn and Lucina received a Brave Hero variation due to holding the top two spots for each gender respectively. Ike and Lyn, the top ranked hero of their gender categories, received their own unique skills: Beorc's Blessing and Sacae's Blessing respectively.
Additionally, the top ten male and female characters were featured in monthly calendar mobile phone wallpapers distributed from March 2017 to December 2017. Four of the highest ranking units who were not already in Heroes were added in a later banner: Dorcas, Joshua, Mia, and Lute.
2018 Choose Your Legends Event
On January 21, 2018, the second round of the Choose Your Legends event began. Characters added to the ballot included the new characters in the Fire Emblem Gaiden remake, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, as well as the original cast of Fire Emblem Heroes itself. The voting period for the second Choose Your Legends event was shorter than the first, and lasted only seven days.
The results of the ballot were revealed on the official website on February 1, 2018.
On August 21, 2018, Hector, Ephraim, Celica and Veronica received a Brave Hero variation due to holding the top two spots for each gender respectively. Hector and Celica were the two highest ranked Heroes of their respective genders. Their Brave variations received Ostian Counter and Double Lion for their unique skills respectively.
Three of the highest ranking voted units (aside from Veronica) that were not already in Heroes were added on November 2018, being Owain, Kliff, and Loki. Aversa, who placed at 23 in the female division, was also added, despite Selkie placing higher than her at 12, most likely because beast units had not been introduced at the time.
2019 Choose Your Legends Event
On January 21, 2019, the third round of the Choose Your Legends event began.
Beginning with the 2019 ballot, characters with multiple appearances no longer saw their votes split between appearances. Votes for all variations of a character are instead combined, and the variant with the most votes is considered the winner should the character place. However, some characters received exceptions due to them having dramatic differences between games, such as undergoing a new alias (ex. Owain/Odin), a long amount of time passing (ex. Tiki), developing a shift in personality (ex. Hardin) or being an entirely different character altogether (ex. Anna).
The results of the ballot were revealed on the official website on January 31, 2019.
Alm, Eliwood, Micaiah and Camilla each received a Brave Hero variation due to holding the top two spots for each gender respectively. Alm and Micaiah placed first in their divisions and received special skills for their Brave Hero kits, being Scendscale and Yune's Whispers respectively.
There was no banner representing the highest ranking units yet to appear in Heroes this year. Instead Sigrun was added as a Tempest Trials+ reward despite placing at 95 for the female division, with multiple female characters yet to appear placed higher than her.
2020 Choose Your Legends Event
The fourth Choose Your Legends voting event began on January 21, 2020, and ended on January 28, 2020. New characters added for this year's ballot include the casts of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore, as well as new original characters from Fire Emblem Heroes itself.
The results of the ballot were revealed on the official website on February 1st, 2020.
Dimitri, Claude, Edelgard and Lysithea received a Brave Hero variation due to holding the top two spots for each gender respectively. Edelgard and Dimitri received special skills for their Brave Hero kits, Black Eagle Rule and Blue Lion Rule respectively, for placing first in their divisions.
In addition to the free summon gifted to the player, after the player summoned forty times on the regular Choose Your Legends 2020 banner, the player could redeem one of the Brave heroes for free. The player could do this up to four times to claim all four heroes (requiring a total of 160 summons to do so)
Once again, there was no banner representing the highest ranking units yet to appear in Heroes this year. Instead Jorge, who placed at 12 for the male division, was added as a Grand Hero Battle reward despite Felix, Ashe and Sylvain placing higher than him.
2021 Choose Your Legends Event
The fifth Choose Your Legends voting event began on January 21, 2021, and ended on January 28, 2021. New characters added for this year's ballot included the characters featured in the Cindered Shadows expansion for Fire Emblem: Three Houses and the latest characters from Fire Emblem Heroes, with the exception of the newest character Eitri. 2021 also saw the addition of NPCs and boss characters from across the franchise that were previously left off of the ballot in prior years. These new ballot additions include:
- Díthorba from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
- August and Dryas from Fire Emblem: Thracia 776
- Bramimond, Brendan, Durban, Desmond, Elbert, Eleanora, Fargus, Hellene, Lundgren, Natalie, Roland, and Uther from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
- Morva and Vigarde from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
- Bryce, Gromell, Kasatai, and Shiharam from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
- Alder, Altina, Lehran, Lekain, Levail, Ludveck, and Numida from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
- Phila from Fire Emblem Awakening
- Daichi, Daniela, Funke, Gazak, Haitaka, Kumagera, Llewelyn, Lloyd, Senno, Tarba, and Zhara from Fire Emblem Fates
- Gustav and Henriette from Fire Emblem Heroes
- Gatekeeper from Fire Emblem: Three Houses
The Gatekeeper, Marth, Marianne, and Eirika will receive a Brave Hero variation due to holding the top two spots for each gender respectively. The Gatekeeper and Marianne will receive a special skill in their skill kits for placing first for their respective genders.
Anniversary Events
A Hero Rises 2018
As a part of celebrating the one year anniversary of the launch of Fire Emblem Heroes, the A Hero Rises event was launched on February 1, 2018. For this event, participants were allowed to vote for one character already present in the game per day, including special event characters and other character variants, with the exception of the original cast of Fire Emblem Heroes. Voting took place over two rounds, with the first lasting eleven days, ending on February 12, 2018. The top four characters to receive votes were then voted on in a final round that took place over four days, from February 15 to the 19th.
The four finalists, and their ranking, were:
- Ike (Vanguard Legend)
- Tharja ("Normal Girl")
- Azura (Lady of Ballads)
- Hector (General of Ostia)
The winning character, Ike (Vanguard Legend), was made available to all players as a free 5-star unit for completing the subsequently released map, Xenologue 3: The People's Hero.
Find & Vote Heroes
As part of celebrating the second year anniversary, the Find & Vote Heroes event was launched on February 3, 2019 and ended on February 8. For this event, participants took part in a minigame where the player must select a summoning stone color and they would enter a battlefield surrounded by heroes of that color, the player must search the battlefield for their desired hero in order to vote for the character. Once selected, the player had an opportunity to double their vote; to do so, the player must once again search the battlefield, which is then filled with enemy units, for Alfonse, Sharena and Anna. The player had 3 minutes to locate them, and depending on their remaining time, they will receive a special wallpaper.
The four winners, and their ranking, were:
- Azura (Vallite Songstress)
- Myrrh (Spooky Monster)
- Duma (God of Strength)
- Lyn (Lady of the Wind)
The winning characters became part of a Hero Fest Banner where the first summon would give the player one of the four winners for free, the stones were colored gold with question marks and their chimes were distorted so the choice would be random.
A Hero Rises 2020
As a part of celebrating the third year anniversary, the A Hero Rises event returned on February 1, 2020. Much like the first anniversary, participants were allowed to vote for one character already present in the game per day, including special event characters and other character variants. A Hero Rises voting in 2020 also introduced Fire Emblem Heroes original characters and variants to the ballot. The ballot phase ended with eight finalists, who then took part in a Voting Gauntlet with the winner awarded to all players. The players could play as any hero of their choosing during the Voting Gauntlet.
The winners and their rankings were:
- Altina (Dawn's Trueblade)
- Alfonse & Sharena (Askran Duo)
- Sothis (Girl On the Throne)
- Leif (Unifier of Thracia)
- Sothis (Silver Specter)
- Azura (Vallite Songstress)
- Alm (Saint-King)
- Edelgard (The Future)
On March 5th, 2020, Altina (Dawn's Trueblade) was announced as the winner of the Voting Gauntlet and was awarded to all players on March 10th.
A Hero Rises 2021
The A Hero Rises event returned in 2021 in celebration of the game's fourth anniversary, and will run from February 1, 2021 to February 8, 2021. Similar to the 2020 event, the characters that place in the top eight will participate in a special Voting Gauntlet. However, in addition to the Voting Gauntlet winner being granted to all players, the four characters that advance to the Voting Gauntlet semifinals will be grouped together in a special banner.
The winners and their rankings are:
- Seiros (Saint of Legend)
- Lyn & Florina (Ninja-Friend Duo)
- Dimitri (Savior King)
- Freyja (Lady of Nightmare)
- Corrin (Child of Dusk)
- Edelgard (Adrestian Emperor)
- Byleth & Rhea (Fell Star's Duo)
- Micaiah & Sothe (Dawn Wind's Duo)
Trivia
- The tutorial gives the player various units during and after the preface, which is part of the tutorial along with the prologue. When the game launched, you were given a two-star Virion in the second part of the preface. With the version 2.5.0 update, however, this was changed to a four-star Takumi, with Virion now being given after completing the preface. That same update also increased the base star rating of all units obtained from the tutorial from two stars to four stars.
- Players who started playing before this update were given the four-star Takumi and materials to increase the tutorial units to four stars via a log-in bonus.
- As of February 12, 2019, Fire Emblem Heroes had earned a worldwide revenue of US$500 million. It is the first mobile title published by Nintendo to cross the $100 million threshold and currently stands as the company's most profitable mobile title to date.
- Fire Emblem Heroes was initially rated E10+ by the ESRB, but it was later raised to T, most likely due to "partial nudity" and profanity.
- In April 2019, a crossover event with this game ran in Dragalia Lost, where four characters from this game were made obtainable. One of the characters was Alfonse, who was a Light-attuned sword adventurer obtained for free, but he would only join you permanently if you maxed out his friendship. The other three characters were obtainable through a summon showcase, being Marth, a Flame-attuned sword adventurer, Fjorm, a Water-attuned lance adventurer, and Veronica, a Shadow-attuned wand adventurer. In April 2020, the event was revived, followed shortly by follow-up of the event where another four characters were made obtainable. Sharena, who was a Light-attuned lance adventurer who would immediately join your army upon activation of the event. The other three were Peony, a Light-attuned wand adventurer, Chrom, a Flame-attuned sword adventurer and the Shadow Dragon version of Tiki, a Water-attuned dagger adventurer.
- Though Veronica is classified as a wand adventurer, she actually uses a tome, which overwrites the appearance of whatever weapon she is equipped with.
- The same also applies to Peony who's weapon is overwritten with Flower of Joy.
- Out of these four characters, Veronica is the only character whose Dragalia Lost artwork depicts them using a different weapon than their default weapon in Fire Emblem Heroes.
- Though Tiki is classified as a dagger unit, she has never been classified as a dagger user before in the game, not even in her previous appearances, this is most likely because her dragon form has to be activated like the other dragons.
- Alfonse's sword, Fólkvangr, was obtainable as a five star Light-attributed event weapon. However, its description states that it is a replica, implying it is not the real Fólkvangr.
- Though Veronica is classified as a wand adventurer, she actually uses a tome, which overwrites the appearance of whatever weapon she is equipped with.
- Prior to Book V, the main antagonist of each Book has been a Green unit.
- Unlike other CG movies in Fire Emblem Heroes, the ending to Book IV was uploaded separately to YouTube and is not in the game itself. Choosing to view the movie from within the game opens a link to YouTube on the player's phone.
Gallery
Videos
Trailer
Movies
New Heroes
Special Heroes
Legendary/Mythic Heroes
