#or some random combo of that with google images or other resources

[comfort-character-central]

What am I doing? Oh, I'm just doing some educated research, learning about topics that fascinate me.

*Goes back to my screen where there are 5 tabs on my computer, all different things related to the character I'm currently fixated on.*

[amateur-game-developer]

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius Vs. Fire Emblem Heroes Part 1

So Fire Emblem Heroes has been out for a little over two weeks, and having invested a considerable amount of time in the Final Fantasy phone game (and running out of things to do in said game) seeing that Fire Emblem Heroes uses a lot of the same systems, it seems like direct comparisons about the design of each game would make a lot of sense. While both games are RPGs, the core mechanics of the game is fairly different. Fire Emblem Heroes (FEH from here out) uses a scaled down version of the turn based strategy that Fire Emblem is known for, while Final Fantasy Brave Exvius (FFBE going forward) is a turn based RPG like the original classic Final Fantasy games.

User Interface: 

We’ll start by looking at the basic layout and home screens for both games.

Pictures belong to whoever posted them on google images

FEH has a fairly clean UI, the header shows your user name, Stamina (how many battles you can do, capped at 50), Dueling Crests, Orbs (premium currency), and Hero Feathers, the basic resources in the game.

The bulk of the screen shows a collection of characters, some of which may glow with hearts and you can click on them to get more hero feathers, along with 4 different notification areas, The Notifications board, Presents, missions, and friends list.

The footer of the screen has the Home, battle, allies, summon, shop, and Misc page options, with a faint glow to tell you what page you’re on, and an icon to give you an idea of what each option does. An important note is that Summon uses the same orb icon as the orbs at the top, to denote that you will use orbs to summon heroes.

FFBE is more cluttered. It’s a lot to take in at first, but I’ll go through each point.

The header contains gil, your user name, Lapis (premium currency) Energy (like FEH’s Stamina, no hard cap, rebuild cap based on rank), Rank, and Rank experience. These are your basic resources, and with the rank, a goal to look forward to.

Below the header is the main page split into 5 parts. The subheader contains the Quest Report (missions list in FEH), bundles (limited real money, sometimes in game currency, purchases of “better value” than their piecemeal counterparts, no direct comparison to FEH), notifications (in game events, same as FEH’s notifications board, Inbox (combined version of Gift inbox and Mission rewards in FEH), and Menu (similar to Misc. option in FEH)

In the main area you have three crafting options, and your current party, and a sliding option for what kind of battle you want to take part in and leveling up Espers. 

The sub footer contains a marquee of news and explains basic selections.

Under the main page is the footer, which has the options for the Home page, Units selection (near identical to FEH’s Allies, Items (no comparison in FEH), Shop, Summon, and friends list.

Fire Emblem Heroes has a cleaner UI design, but looking at the headers and footers of them, they look very similar. The home page on Fire Emblem draws attention to the characters you own and notification areas, while the Home page in FFBE, while more cluttered draws attention to the PARTY you have ready to use, and the crafting options, something that Fire Emblem lacks.

Battles:

The core of each of these games is similar to the core games in the series, stripped down to make them bite sized versions of what people enjoyed about the original games. 

In Final Fantasy, this means fighting enemies (typically 2-4 groups of 1-5 enemies) using a simplified turn based RPG system. Players select their characters actions by swiping their character "sheet” in different directions (left for items, down for defense, right for a list of magic/skills, and up to reset to default attack), and then press the character sheet to confirm their option. Battles take around 30 seconds to a minute. On the bottom of the screen you also have easy options, such as Auto, which is for easy battles, where your characters just automatically use the basic attack ad infinitum until it is turned off, Repeat, which uses whatever your last confirmed action for each character, and Reset, which sets all of the characters back to their basic attack selections.

Battles also have an aspect of timing, because each unit (of which there are literally hundreds) have their own attack animations, and correctly timing them can result in a Chain, similar to a fighting game combo. The three types of chains are the basic chain (hitting multiple hits within a small window), Spark Chain (hitting two different hits at the same time), and Elemental Chains (similar to the basic chain, but with magic of the same elemental type).

FFBE also has a mode called “Exploration” where players go through a dungeon, and fight through random encounters until they reach the end of the exploration, and fight the boss of the dungeon. Battles are the same, but the player explores using a swipe to move or tap on an area to move to that spot. It feels reminiscent of the Final Fantasy of old, while each exploration takes closer to 3 minutes to complete.

These battles are all contained in a map of the world of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, where each continent has their own missions to do. It gives the game a feeling of progression and really makes the world feel alive. 

On the other hand you have Fire Emblem heroes, there’s only one kind of battle and each of them takes between 1 and 5 minutes. 

Battles are turned based strategy battles similar to the Fire Emblem series, where basic units move and attack in range, and there is a rock paper scissors element to what beats what. Swords (red) beats Axes (green) beats Spears (blue) beats Swords (red). Grey units normally have no weaknesses or strengths, but typically can only be used to heal or as ranged attackers. Horse units can’t move through forests, but move an additional normal space, Winged units can fly over nearly any obstacle, but are weak to archers, and armored units move fewer spaces and have higher stats than basic units,but take additional damage from magic.

Similarities:

Both of these games use a basic “energy” system, limiting how much players can do in a single day. Both games have a Gacha summon where premium currency is used to gain new heroes that can be leveled up and ranked up by using special items and fusing heroes. Both games are built with intentional walls to prevent players from skipping ahead and running out of content, and more importantly pushing players to spend real world money on the game.

In the next part of this series we will go deeper into those similarities and talk about the stumbling blocks of each design and which design decisions work, and which ones need a little more work to them.

Pictures belong to whoever posted them on google images