Nintendo has revealed a new Fire Emblem game available now for smartphones, which includes Among Us-style social deduction.
Called Fire Emblem Shadows, it has three players battling enemies – but one is a traitor. Afterwards, players vote on who they think the traitor is, before battling each other.
And honestly? It’s absolute rubbish.
Fire Emblem games are known for their tactical strategy, but Shadows is simply a grid-based auto-battler where you character moves and attacks automatically. You then select from a handful of moves that regenerate on cooldowns to either heal or activate different magical attacks.
And that, really, is the extent of gameplay. There’s little interaction, barely any strategy. It’s just watching little chibi characters hit each other. You can win without selecting anything.
Then there’s the touted social deduction, which boils down to which of the other players may have accidentally on purpose hit you. It’s usually pretty obvious, but worse is the fact there is barely any consequence for guessing either way. The second round proceeds accordingly, with good players now battling evil, and if you previously guessed correctly you get a piddly amount of extra health.
The reason Among Us worked and popularised social deduction is being able to actually speak to people and screw over your friends. Here you’re matched with random players online with no form of communication. You just select another player and move on to the battle without really caring.
On top of all that is the usual gacha nonsense for a free-to-play game. There’s a season pass, multiple currencies, various weapons and abilities to attach to characters, and new characters to unlock. I spotted another player as a cute little Dimitri from Three Houses, but I have neither the cash or the will to find out how to unlock him.
I was excited to try out a new Fire Emblem, even if it is on mobile, but its deception-based gameplay is fundamentally flawed and shallow.
If you want to try it out, it’s available now for free across iOS and Google Play.
But really, just hold out for the next mainline entry in the series – Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave was revealed at Nintendo’s recent Direct and will come to Switch 2 next year.
