Fire Emblem Shadows review – RTS Among Us?

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Fire Emblem: Shadows surprised me! I expected it to be similar to Fire Emblem Heroes, with the typical ‘gacha’ system of collecting characters. But it’s completely different. It’s actually a real-time strategy game with a bit of social deduction, similar to games like Among Us.

It might sound strange, but the gameplay is different from typical strategy games. You don’t control an army moving across a map. Instead, you direct just one character in a small battle area, and they act on their own. You can’t directly control attacks; instead, you cast spells to help your allies and damage enemies, focusing on keeping everyone alive.

You’ll team up with other players, but one of them is secretly a monster trying to ruin your progress. This hidden player can attack your teammates and create extra enemies without anyone knowing. After each round, everyone tries to figure out who the traitor is. If *you* are the traitor, your goal is to make it look like someone else is the one sabotaging the team through your actions.

If you secretly attack a teammate and then publicly heal them, you can deflect suspicion from yourself. But if you attack all your teammates without discrimination, you’ll immediately become the prime suspect. Correctly identifying the imposter earns your team an extra life for the next battle. Conversely, if you successfully deceive your former teammates while acting as the imposter, they’ll lose that extra life, making them more vulnerable. In the second round, the imposter transforms into a powerful beast with increased health before launching their attack.

The game doesn’t have any random character unlocks or ‘gacha’ elements. You advance by gaining rank and completing battles to unlock story scenes, which unfortunately are just text-based with no voice acting. As you play, you’ll receive disciples – characters you can level up – as well as weapons and spells to help them in battle.

The game features a battle pass with both free and paid options. This pass helps you unlock characters, weapons, and items for upgrades using currency you earn while playing. You can also buy cosmetic outfits for your characters with premium currency. While the game isn’t overly focused on getting you to spend money, it might not fully satisfy longtime fans of the Fire Emblem series.

While Intelligent Systems – the team behind popular mobile games like Pokémon Masters and Mario Kart Tour – is developing this new title, it unfortunately misses key elements that Fire Emblem fans love. The series is known for letting players build relationships between characters, enabling strong teamwork and strategic combat. This new game removes too much player control, leaving it feeling like a Fire Emblem game in appearance only.

If you looked at this game without knowing it was a Fire Emblem title, it’s perfectly decent. It’s similar to simpler real-time strategy mobile games like Command & Conquer: Rivals, though you have even less control over your units. It’s not a bad game, but unless you’re a big Fire Emblem fan wanting more of that experience on your phone, there are many other mobile games you might enjoy just as much.

Okay, so there are a bunch of new characters, but honestly, it takes *so* long for their stories to develop that I didn’t really connect with any of them, even though they *look* amazing for the most part. You can unlock classic Fire Emblem heroes as team members – I’ve already got Lyn from Blazing Blade and Dimitri from Three Houses. But here’s the thing: all the new characters have these animal features – like ears and tails – which is clearly setting up a big transformation thing later on. It’s pretty obvious who this game is for, huh? Definitely seems like the furry Fire Emblem fans are gonna love it.

Fire Emblem Shadows is an okay game, but it’s easy to see why Nintendo didn’t heavily promote it. It doesn’t quite offer the depth that long-time Fire Emblem fans are looking for, and people who don’t already play Fire Emblem can probably find a similar game on their phone or tablet. It does function as intended and isn’t overly aggressive with its in-app purchases. It’s worth trying if you’re interested, but if you want a full-fledged Fire Emblem experience, it’s best to wait for Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, coming in 2026.

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2025-09-26 16:17