Fire Emblem Heroes is a mobile strategy game that I’m still playing, with a ton of slightly horny characters and exciting tactic battles. Its upcoming event delivers new versions of highly popular characters, and holy crap their outfits are amazing.
Before Fire Emblem Heroes launched, a vote was held to determine which four characters would receive unique variants down the road. The final results were Lucina from Fire Emblem Awakening, Roy from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, Lyn from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, and Ike from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. All four will be available as part of an upcoming event starting August 31, wearing new costumes and bearing new abilities.
Lucina’s outfit is probably my favourite. Not only does her shield continue the butterfly imagery key to her character, but her armour cuts a nice line between a traditional outfit and some of the more anime-inspired looks from later in the series. A bit like her promotion in Awakening. The outfit gives her increased speed and a spear, but really the most important thing is that her fashion sense is incredibly on point. I never thought I’d say this, but get me an amiibo variant of this outfit immediately.
Lyn came in first place for the women’s poll, and while there isn’t much change from her default outfit, the added fur and additional armour trimmings give a slightly regal touch. It isn’t a drastic change, but it fits the characters: Spartan, focused and deadly. More importantly, she’s a mounted archer who is now immune to distance counter attacks from heroes such as Hector or Ryoma. I expect her to show up as one of the more dangerous units in multiplayer arena battles.
Roy now has a big arse sword. Big swords are cool. I’m not sure how a little dude like Roy carries that thing around, but it’s pretty hardcore. I’m pretty sure it’s the Blazing Sword but I’ve barely started Blazing Blade so uh, spoilers, I guess. Roy’s outfit hits all the notes of overclass imagery. This looks like Roy took the Rigain specialisation and ran with it. He’s visually identifiable but looks significantly more powerful and mature. It’s a bit boring that he remains a red-coloured unit, but he’s a mounted unit like his dad Eliwood now so there’s some value there as well; big sword or not, he’ll be able to move more quickly around the battlefield. And look cool while doing it.
Ike’s always been a bit blunt and rugged, and this costume really gets to the heart of that. He trades in the heavy blue and red tones of his original outfit for some earthier colours. The pauldron is a big anime pauldron, and the armoured boots give him some additional toughness. It’s a bit like Lyn’s costume in that the embellishments aren’t too grand but they fit the character and add some life. He looks a lot like his father. If you couldn’t tell from the big axe, he’s a heavier unit with some extra damage reduction. He loses the distance counter ability of the vanilla version but gains effectiveness against flyers and cavalry. I guess he just hates horses.
Just as important as the fashion game is the fact that players will be able to choose one of these units for free. Fire Emblem Heroes‘ gacha system has evolved over time. It started steep, and deviously scheduled events ran side by side in an attempt to squeeze money from players. But as time has gone on, the game’s gotten a bit more liberal with in-game currency and even offers free summons the first time players pull on new events. Free units are a nice gift. Some of them have more tactical value, but if more unique character outfits look this good, they might as well change the name to Fashion Emblem.
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