I've been playing since day 1. While there have been a lot of improvements to the game since it launched, there are also a lot of issues that Intelligent Systems hasn't addressed, despite people sending feedback for years now. This game focuses so much on summoning units you want to the point that it's detrimental. In order to make your favorite as powerful as possible, you have to summon 11 copies of them (maybe even more if you don't get the stat boon you wanted) and then also probably summon other units to use for inheriting skills to them. Furthermore, the pool of summonable units at lower rarities is very bloated, so even summoning specific "common" (3-4 star rarity) units for simple skill inheritance can be difficult. Units who were in the game at 5 star rarity at launch are still locked to 5 star rarity despite being vastly inferior to more recent additions. The most egregious issue with this game, however, comes from the recent version 4.2.0 update, released Feb. 2 2020. The Feh Pass monthly subscription is overpriced for what it provides, and it also locks some quality of life features behind a paywall, despite other gachas having these features available for free. That aside, even though it shouldn't be an issue for people who don't want to buy it, the game continually shoves it in your face. Any map that can use the Auto-Start feature (one of the QoL features in the pass) will have a prompt to go buy the pass when you select that map to play it. The summoner support menu has a prompt to go buy the pass so that you can have 3 summoner supported units instead of just 1. To top it all off, the quests menu will show the Feh Pass exclusive quests, your progress toward them, and any rewards from them, even when you don't have the pass. The finished quests indicator will include them among finished ones even though you can't claim the rewards without the pass, so that it will serve as a constant reminder that you're missing out on things by not paying. It's extremely obnoxious, and there is no way to remove it except by buying the pass. (The exclusive quests do expire at certain times of each month, but they're so simple to complete that you'll just complete the next exclusive set if you're actually playing the game.) Tl;dr: summoning is the focus of this game but it's also boring and there's a lot of powercreep. The newest update put quality of life features (among other things) behind a paywall for a price that's too high and then constantly reminds you about how you should buy the Feh Pass.
Reviews for Fire Emblem Heroes
I love this game as an extended collection of the characters, story, and universe I fell in love with. The gameplay is an entertaining time killer, but it should be noted that PVP aspects are incredibly pay to win and the absolute scaling of new chars makes some pve content difficult. I much preferred being able to summon someone after so many pulls of many banners, now you have to pay to do that in most cases. I love parts of this game, but its not a very satisfying payoff in the long run.
Remove Hall of Forma if you're not going to make a way to earn Forma Souls or drop the price of the pack. The event is useless for those who can't spend or don't want to spend $30 on that small pack. All the prices for everything in this game are ridiculously stupid. Like $5.99 for character you missed? Half of them aren't even that great, and can be out built by other characters. Fire Emblem has always been a series i've loved, and the gameplay is fun. But the prices in this game bring shame.
What's this? Feh's 3rd anniversary, time to celebrate...is what i'd like to say. This new $10 a month subscription wasn't needed when locking mechanics behind a frickin paywall. I think this was a bad idea and the pass just isn't worth the money. The pass includes exclusive rewards and quests. The better solution is to make these available for everyone in my opinion. It still retains the core gameplay and mechanics as in free summons, strategy, etc. This game is not what it used to be.
It's probably alright, but as a brand new player the power creep and balance is REALLY off-putting. The heroes that I was given after 2 battles literally have abilities or whatever that are 200words essays. It's ridiculous. On top of that, they're so strong that it makes everything trivial and boring. Like I don't even have to try in a tactics/strategy game. It completely turned me off the game. I have dozens of heroes but I don't care about reading through all of those skills. Hard pass for me
UPDATE: Ever since the new Aether Raids feature was implemented, I've started hating the game. That mode is ridiculously hard and consists of a lot of luck if you don't have overpowered units. That mode started to make me realize that the rest of the players were right about Nintendo's (or Intelligent Systems') greediness starting to get really up high. I'm not going to spend a lot of money just so I can play AR for the rewards. And I'm also not going to spend a lot of money to get the newest units so I can grind for the new dragonflowers. ORIGINAL 5 STAR POST: I'm what most would call a hardcore gamer; which means that I don't play smartphone games. This game app is the only exception.
It's fun for the gameplay, but if you have a particular character you like, they'll be outclassed by the next shiniest thing on the shelf. This is especially hard hitting for units who are 5* exclusive and cannot be summoned at lower rarities, as the developer's refusal to buff or nerf units or skills post release means they get rapidly outstripped in power. At the end of the day, the game may fight you at every turn if you try to keep pace with it, and offers little to fans of older units.
I have been playing the game since the release of skill inheritance. 1: For a PvE game, the game does not have a good story, like it's really mid and disappointing. 2: Graphics are good. 3: The gameplay is good. 4: Skill creep and stat creep are very noticeable, but you can still make older units useful, though definitely not close to newer heroes. 5: It is probably just my luck, but I have not been able to get any of the recent heroes even though some have increased chances ranging from 3-8%
I have played this game since the first Christmas banner and really enjoyed it, but the powercreep has become extremely bad, on top of poor marketing choices like locking useful features behind a paywall. I can't use any of the characters that I like without severe penalties because of how much of a gap there is between them and the new units. I love fire emblem, and I really did love this game, but it's just disappointing where it has gone.
Hollow shell of what it once was. Used to not be 100% pay to win, it was fairly high pay to win before, but you could also save up the in game currency to enjoy. With the addition to Feh pass and Forma Souls, you are able to skip the hassle of building up characters, giving them free stat buffs. Locking features that should be free behind a paywall. Too many similar events that just feel unrewarding, and just generally feels like the only way to play is to pay for the new units that powercreep.