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3 CommentsThis may be why Fire Emblem Heroes players are all named Kiran
Fire Emblem Heroes players may have noticed that a ton of their competitors have the same name: Kiran. While the game makes it easy for anyone to change their nickname from the start, it often seems as though most stick with the default “Kiran” option.
It turns out the reason for this may have to do with Heroes players’ known obsession with getting the best characters. Many fans intent on landing the highest quality characters use a method called rerolling, which involves deleting save data and restarting the game, capitalizing on the automatic free currency doled out at the beginning to keep summoning heroes until they get ones they like.
A program that expedites this process, called Nox, may account for the plethora of Kiran characters that show up on friends’ lists and in the...
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13 CommentsHearthstone’s ranked ladder climb is about to get less tedious
After many months of complaints about how frustrating it is to climb up Hearthstone’s ranked ladder each month, Blizzard has announced today that it will finally implement changes to the game’s ranked system to ease player pain.
Blizzard’s specific solution to this problem is something it’s calling “floors.” Beginning with update 7.1, players climbing the ranked ladders in either Standard or Wild mode will hit “floors” at ranks 15, 10 and 5. Upon hitting these floors, they will no longer be able to de-rank with losses for the remainder of the month.
In Hearthstone’s ranked modes, players begin at rank 25 and must achieve consecutive wins to work from that point all the way up to rank 1, but losses can de-rank you, stifling progress. If players achieve enough wins at rank 1, they’ll...
Cover Story
Issue
25
January 9, 2017
Final Fantasy 7: An oral history
30,000 words! 35 interviews! 4 videos! A trivia minigame! We take an in-depth look back at Square’s breakthrough role-playing game.
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0 CommentsThe Walking Dead season 3’s next episode coming in March
The third episode of A New Frontier, the third season of The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series, will be released in March, developer Telltale Games announced today.
The episode, “Above the Law,” will follow the arrival of a season pass disc version of A New Frontier. That collection will debut Feb. 28 in North America for $29.99, and will launch March 3 in Europe; it will be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
“Above the Law” will arrive “later in March,” Telltale said in a news release, adding that it will provide further details on the episode soon. As such, the disc will include only the first two chapters of the five-episode season, which were released together as a two-part premiere in December. The package will grant access to downloads of the other three episodes as they are...
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8 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes’ most popular legends have been crowned
Nintendo has revealed the results of its Fire Emblem Heroes election, which saw fans voting on their favorite characters from across the series. Based on the response to the poll, the company will introduce not just two special fan-voted characters as promised, but an additional pair as well.
Based on the final tally that the company tweeted last night, Ike from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Lyn from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade won by a landslide. Both heroes maintained their leads throughout the voting period, based on a midterm ranking Nintendo published last week.
The results are in! Thank you all for participating in the #FEChoose Your Legends event. pic.twitter.com/2WdijCv6Xn— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 9, 2017
Even with Ike’s multiple appearances...
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14 CommentsSpending $1,000 in Fire Emblem Heroes still won’t guarantee you every character
In what may be a community first, a Fire Emblem Heroes player spent $1,000 to max out their barracks, hitting the 500-fighter limit in the process. While that sounds like an exorbitant amount of money to spend on Nintendo’s new free-to-play game, it turns out that dropping a grand on the grab bag still didn’t win Reddit user Kookoo22 every available character.
Kookoo22 posted their full collection in an “Ask Me Anything” thread on the Fire Emblem Heroes forum. Other players mostly asked about character stats (Takumi “is great,” obviously) and what kind of job the user must have to maintain that level of disposable income (“Chemical analyst/software developer”), but what’s most fascinating is how many characters they still doesn’t have. Even with 500 heroes in their arsenal, Kookoo22...
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2 CommentsPokémon Go Valentine’s Day event is all about the candy
A Valentine’s Day event goes live in Pokémon Go this morning. From 11 a.m. PT today until 11 a.m. PT on Feb. 15, trainers can really get into the holiday spirit with plenty of candy, pink Pokémon and other special attractions.
During the campaign, players will receive double the candy for catching and transferring Pokémon, along with hatching Pokémon Eggs. Buddy Pokémon will also collect candy at an increased rate; they’ll pick up the good stuff twice as quickly during the event.
Candy aside, pink Pokémon will be in the spotlight. Expect to find Valentine’s Day-appropriate Pokémon like the lovely Chansey and Clefable — and Porygon, who’s predominantly pink — more often than usual over the weeklong campaign. Pokémon Eggs collected and hatched over Valentine’s Day will also increasingly...
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21 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes players want the stamina costs to come down
Fire Emblem Heroes’ most obvious free-to-play conceit is its use of “stamina,” a finite amount of energy with a cooldown timer that can leave a player waiting a long time before they can get back into the game. That’s par for the course with mobile games, but what many Heroes players can’t stand is just how hefty these stamina costs are, even for the smallest activities.
Reddit user Selena_poketrainer summed up the “problem with stamina” in a top-rated post. According to them, the problem is threefold. First, the stamina costs are often too high; some late-stage story maps require more than 10 points to play, meaning a player wanting to regenerate their maximum store after a battle could be waiting around a while.
That’s the second problem, though: Regeneration is a lengthy process,...
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6 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes Twitter campaign triples goal in 12 hours
Fire Emblem Heroes’ first Twitter campaign has already rocketed past its goal, guaranteeing all players a pretty appealing in-game reward. After hitting the required 10,000 retweets mark, everyone who plays the mobile game will receive 10,000 of the coveted Hero Feather item later this week.
All #FEHeroes players will receive 10,000 Hero Feathers if we reach 10,000 global RTs! Ends 6:59PM PT 2/7 (cc @FE_Heroes_JP @NintendoEurope) pic.twitter.com/2XgcyeVlBA— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 7, 2017
That’s a huge get for fans who want to maximize their fighters’ potential. Hero Feathers are used to upgrade the quality of individual heroes that have reached level 20. As grabbing the highest quality heroes — designated by five stars — from the game’s grab bag is tricky,...
News
18 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes’ best character is one players love to hate
It’s already become clear to hardcore Fire Emblem Heroes players which characters are the best to have on a team, and there’s one fighter in particular who towers above the rest. That would be Takumi, one of the strongest characters from Fire Emblem Fates, who’s gone on to be both beloved and reviled by the Heroes community.
Takumi’s a steely archer with an impressive set of skills, making him a tough opponent. The most notable of these is his passive skill, a counter that works from a short distance. That’s unlike other archers, whose attacks only work from a long range. Players learn how great Takumi’s skillset and stats are early on, facing him in a story mode map set in the World of Birthright. If players haven’t caught on to how integral he is to a good Fire Emblem Heroes team by...
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4 CommentsIs Lost Secrets of Un’Goro the next Hearthstone expansion?
Judging by its regular schedule of add-on releases, Hearthstone is due for a new expansion announcement and release in the next couple of months. But thanks to an errant resume, we may have an early peek at the direction of the game’s next content drop.
According to this leak, the next Hearthstone expansion will be titled Lost Secrets of Un’Goro. Uncovered by a poster on the Hearthstone subreddit, this title comes via the resume of voice actress Lani Minella, who has done work in hundreds of video games, in addition to various cartoons and animated films.
Alongside the title Hearthstone: Lost Secrets of Un’Goro, Minella lists a number of characters she provided voice work for in the expansion. These include: Golakka Crawler, Pterodactyl, Anklesaur, Hydra and Brontosaurus. Assuming this...
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17 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes is a reminder of how terrible friend codes are
Fire Emblem Heroes uses a version of Nintendo’s archaic friend code system, which the company has still yet to abandon. Unlike its predecessors Miitomo and Super Mario Run, the game doesn’t have any other options for players to connect with each other. They must either trade 10-digit, randomly generated numeric codes or go it alone.
This will be familiar to anyone who played multiplayer games on Nintendo DS or Nintendo Wii, systems which predate Nintendo’s gradual acceptance of modern online communication. Even some recent Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games use friend codes, but they’ve mostly gone by the wayside in the last few years.
Super Mario Run ushered their return with its December launch on iOS. That game has one big thing going for it in the multiplayer department over Fire Emblem...
News
6 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes is now live (update)
Fire Emblem Heroes is out right now on the Google Play store. Nintendo’s latest mobile game is available for Android devices in North America, after launching in many other countries earlier today.
Fire Emblem Heroes is free to play, but additional characters and other content are available at a cost. The game uses a currency known as “orbs,” which players can purchase with real money and then spend in-game.
This is the second game developed by Nintendo and mobile partner DeNA in its burgeoning line of mobile titles. Super Mario Run preceded Fire Emblem Heroes in December. A timed exclusive on iOS, the game will hit Android in March.
We checked out Fire Emblem Heroes last week; you can watch our impressions below. For those wondering how the game differs from the handheld Fire Emblem...
News
7 CommentsWhat can fans expect from Fire Emblem Heroes?
Fire Emblem Heroes is out on iOS and Android today, making the role-playing game franchise the latest to get Nintendo’s mobile treatment. As Fire Emblem makes the move to smartphones, longtime players and total newcomers may both be wondering what to expect. Is Heroes in the same vein as the series’ recent Nintendo 3DS entries, or will it cater more toward a mobile-first crowd?
The answer, according to Nintendo, is both. In the company’s recent financial results briefing, president Tatsumi Kimishima said that Fire Emblem Heroes is meant to accommodate people with a range of experience.
“We developed Fire Emblem Heroes to be a quality title that fans of the series will appreciate and play thoroughly,” he explained. “At the same time, we hope to provide a chance for consumers who have...
News
13 CommentsBlizzard president criticizes ‘Muslim ban’ in internal email
Following last week’s extremely controversial executive order from new United States president Donald Trump blocking refugees and citizens from seven majority Muslim countries from entering the U.S., many smaller game developers have publicly spoken out against the “Muslim ban,” as it’s become known. So have multiple figures and companies in the tech world. But aside from a few instances, the biggest developers and publishers in gaming have remained silent.
That changed yesterday, when Blizzard president and co-founder Mike Morhaime sent an email to the entire company. The statement was not released publicly, but Polygon received a copy from a source that asked to remain anonymous. We have confirmed the legitimacy of the email with another source at Blizzard.
In the email, Morhaime...
News
7 CommentsSuper Mario Run update adds an easy mode
Super Mario Run now has an easy mode, as of the game’s most recent update. That’s the biggest new feature available in the iOS game, which also received some bug tweaks in its new version.
The reduced difficulty setting lets players try out levels without worrying about death or time limits. Nintendo described it as a “pressure-free” experience for owners of the $9.99 mobile game.
Also sure to keep the pressure down is a fix for Toad Rally, the polarizing mode that is the closest thing Super Mario Run has to multiplayer. When the player loses a match, they’ll forfeit several of their Toad collectibles. This number has decreased in the game’s new version. Differently colored Toads are used to unlock items in the Mushroom Kingdom Builder feature, so players want to hold onto as many of...
News
3 CommentsAnimal Crossing mobile title delayed again
Nintendo has pushed back the launch of its Animal Crossing mobile game again. It now won't come out until sometime after March.
The news was part of Nintendo's overall earnings report on the third quarter of its fiscal year. Though not formally dated, Animal Crossing had been slated to launch on mobile by the end of Nintendo's fiscal year, which would be March 31. That has now been pushed to the next fiscal year.
In the rest of the filing, Nintendo reported a profit of 64.67 billion yen ($575.7 million) for the quarter, up from the 62.8 billion yen ($559 million) the previous quarter and more than double the 29.1 billion ($259 million) for the same quarter in the previous year. Pokémon Sun and Moon was by far Nintendo's top seller for the quarter, at 14.69 million units globally....
Video
19 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes: hands-on with Nintendo’s next mobile game
Fire Emblem Heroes marks Nintendo’s second foray into mobile gaming as a developer, and it’s a radical departure from Super Mario Run. While the latter was free-to-start but required a $9.99 payment to unlock the full version, Fire Emblem Heroes is a much more traditional free-to-play title, with stamina meters, in-game currency and microtransactions.
We recently got our hands on Fire Emblem Heroes, and returned with a few answers, a ton of new information and a boatload of screenshots. Above, check out 20 minutes of hands-on gameplay impressions from Fire Emblem Heroes, including a first look at free-to-play pricing, summoning new heroes, leveling your heroes and more.
Fire Emblem Heroes launches on iOS and Android devices on Feb 2.
News
7 CommentsR.B.I. Baseball returns for a fourth edition on Xbox One
R.B.I. Baseball, the only baseball game licensed by Major League Baseball on the Xbox One, is back for a fourth season. National League Rookie of the Year Corey Seager of the Los Angeles Dodgers was declared the cover star, though it isn't clear if the game will have a physical disc launch.
R.B.I. Baseball 17 will feature all 30 MLB clubs and the full membership of the Major League Baseball Players Association, performing in 30 distinct representations of MLB ballparks. The game will be available for $19.99 on consoles and $4.99 on mobile devices.
R.B.I. Baseball will launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iOS and Android. A list of launch dates will be provided later. Opening Day is Sunday, April 2 and MLB The Show 17 launches March 28 on PlayStation 4.
R.B.I. Baseball, originally...
News
14 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes contest is screwing some characters over
Nintendo launched the Fire Emblem: Choose Your Legends event last week, giving series fans the chance to vote on which characters will make a special appearance in Fire Emblem Heroes. Although the polls will remain open through Jan. 31, Nintendo teased fans with a list of the most popular heroes thus far, and it shows that fans need to place their bets a bit smarter, going forward.
Here are the current leaders of the #FEChoose Your Legends event. The margins are slim, so keep voting until 1/31! https://t.co/D6ADuwXYQ7 pic.twitter.com/9m2gvjjXCl— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) January 26, 2017
By that, we mean the contest doesn’t just ask voters to choose their favorite individual Fire Emblem heroes; it also implicitly crowns the most popular version of said character. Even...
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