Fire Emblem Shadows Struggles to Live Up to the Series' Standards
September 29, 2025
Nintendo shadow-dropping a new Fire Emblem mobile game wasn't on anybody's bingo card for the year. By all means, it seemed like Nintendo's interest in the mobile market had just about fully waned. Since the release of Pikmin Bloom, back in 2021, Nintendo had been relatively quiet on the mobile front. Until now.
Fire Emblem Shadows is Nintendo's latest mobile endeavor, a social deduction spin-off of the storied strategy series. Compared to Fire Emblem Heroes, Shadows puts a lot more emphasis into its original world where light battles dark in the most literal sense. The game's most distinctive feature, its multiplayer battles, build fully off that concept.
Falling into the shadows means becoming an enemy of the light. While this has story significance, it's also the crux of the gameplay loop. There is always a traitor, working toward everyone else's demise. It's honestly a perfectly fine concept. After playing Fire Emblem Shadows for some several hours now, though, I have to say, this isn't really a game for Fire Emblem fans.
Fire Emblem Shadows Is Fire Emblem Only In Name
When you think of Fire Emblem, there is a very distinct picture that it evokes. It's chess with extra steps. That may sound like an oversimplification — and it is — but the series lives and dies by that general perception.
Fire Emblem Shadows is a strategy game, so it stays true to the franchise's roots in that sense. What Shadows actually offers, however, is nothing like the mainline games. In general, Shadows really struggles to feel like a Fire Emblem title. Shadows tries its best to look and sound like one, but it just never feels right.
The gameplay in Fire Emblem Shadows only vaguely imitates the series' traditional strategy formula. While the maps are still broken down into tiles, players have no control over their movement. Weapon attacks are also automatically managed. Players only have control over their magic skills, and even then they have timed cooldowns. In action, the game bears no resemblance to anything Fire Emblem-related.
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Fire Emblem Shadows simply doesn't appeal to any of the series' main qualities. Shadows does put an emphasis on planning and creating character builds, but it lacks the most crucial aspect of any good strategy game: the ability to make meaningful mid-game adjustments. Matches in Fire Emblem Shadows just happen so fast that you're simply forced to accept your fate when you're clearly outmatched.
Auto-chess gameplay, minute-long match times, and a shallow magic skill system don't make for a good Fire Emblem title. Fire Emblem Shadows isn't an outright bad game, but it underdelivers heavily when it comes to the main audience that it targets.
A Bold Narrative Direction...That Feels Highly Ignored
Fire Emblem Shadows explores two different sides of an overarching narrative, openly highlights a lesbian relationship, and has no qualms with getting incredibly dark. And yet, the narrative forcibly plays second fiddle to the multiplayer PvP mode. To experience the full breadth of the story, you have to play a lot of Fire Emblem Shadows. Story fragments, which are needed to unlock new chapters, can only be earned from battles.
What's even more bizarre is that the main narrative doesn't come with any sort of maps or battles attached. Fire Emblem Shadows was only designed for PvP matches. The disconnect between the story and the gameplay feels as strange as it might sound. Despite how interesting the story can get, it's hard to feel too immersed.
Thinking ahead, the story is really the only thing that players will have to look forward to. There's much more to tell, but I really don't know if the game will be able to keep players' interest for that long.
