So my pick of the week is the latest entry in the very popular Fire Emblem series. Its sold relatively well so my guess is that if you own a Nintendo 3DS you already have but if you dont I suggest that you give it a shot.
If you dont know much about the series it is a turn based strategy game much like Advanced Wars or Final Fantasy Tactics. The game offers a variety of difficulties so new comers shouldn't feel threatened or overwhelmed and series veterans or fans of the genre will find a challenge.
This game is offered as 3 different stories but each one stands alone and will offer you hours of gameplay. The names of those is Birthright, Conquest, and Revelations. Your first one will cost you 40 dollars, but if you decide that you also want to play through the other stories it will only cost you 20 dollars each. If your asking yourself which one you'd want to get let me break down each of them for you to make your decision a little easier.
Each of the three stories starts the same. Your character is a royal who was kidnapped from the kingdom of Hoshido and raised by the kingdom of Nohr. These two kingdoms have been enemies and have been in constant battle. After the first few missions you have to make the decision of which side your going to fight with. Do you fight along side your birth family who you just met or do you fight with the family that has raised you?
In Birthright you choose to fight with your birth family. This story is the easiest of the 3 stories. The main missions are pretty straight forward with their objectives, like defeat the enemy boss or clear out the enemy team. Much like in Fire Emblem Awakening you can choose to take on the main mission or you can spend some time tackling some some side challenges to level up you team or build their relationships with each other. I'd recommend this one to start if you're new to the series, if you liked the way that Awakening was set up, or if you like grinding and building relationships with your team.
In Conquest you choose to fight with your adoptive family. This story is probably the most difficult of the 3. This story is more reminiscent of some of the older Fire Emblem games such as Sacred Stones. The main missions have different kinds of objectives, like survive 12 turns or defend an area. Unlike in Birthright, Conquest doesn't give you the option of grinding out side missions to make your team stronger or build relations with your team which makes every turn a precious decision of who you want to level up or who's bond you want to grow stronger. This one is tough, even I had to turn down the difficulty on this one because of the amount of frustration it was bringing me.
Finally you have the final one, Revelations. In Revelations you dont choose either side. You side with your self and by doing so you can recruit characters from both stories. This one is a nice marriage between the two. While it does allow you to grind out side missions, it also gives you story missions with a little more flair and different objectives. The difficulty on this one is somewhere in the middle. I would recommend you play through this one after you've played through one of the other two. This one reveals more about the over arching story that has a better pay off if youve played through Birthright or Conquest.
Make sure you sound off in the comments to let us know which one you decided on first!