Fire Emblem 15's Downloadable Content

Ugh.  Is it even worth it to write an intro?  Let’s just make it quick, because we all know how this is gonna go down.  We’re looking at the add-ons for Fire Emblem Heroes: Shadows of Valentia today, DLC packages are bad wastes of money like 70% of the time in general, and if the Fire Emblems immediately preceding and proceding this one are anything to go by, this series’s add-ons are especially terrible.  And given that FE15 is kinda bad to begin with, I’m not exactly expecting great things, here.

Well, let’s get this over with. I can’t wait to see what halfhearted, careless money-grabs that Nintendo’s got on the roster.



Cipher Legends 1: Alright, so we’re gonna start here, because the 4 packages that come before Cipher Legends 1 are a linked set of stories that we’ll get into below, and the first crowd of add-ons that came before those are just a bunch of straightforward, trite little battle/dungeon things that have effectively no story components.  Either you have or somehow have not tired of this game’s repetitive Fire Emblem battles and cookie-cutter dungeons, and you can figure out for yourself whether you want to bother engaging further with them.

Anyway, Cipher Legends 1.  This DLC, which adds 2 characters from a small off-shoot installment of Fire Emblem, is an odd one to judge.  The inclusion of Emma and Randall feels extremely random, and I’m generally not big on introducing new characters for no reason beyond marketing--it’s bad enough that undeserving Fire Emblem schmucks like Byleth and Ike invade Smash like an ever growing number raccoons finding a way into your attic, but not EVERY Fire Emblem needs other Fire Emblem characters shoved into it! You’re not Nippon Ichi, Nintendo, people don’t give a crap about hamfistedly cramming your titles into a shared multiverse for shits and giggles!

On the other hand...Emma and Randall are reasonably amusing, and let’s be honest, there’s not all that many particularly fun characters to be found in Fire Emblem 15.  So...I can’t really say they’re unwelcome.

Anyway, the plot of this one is just that Emma and Randall get in a bind, the heroes show up to bail them out, and in gratitude the 2 join up with the army, because in Fire Emblem, there’s just no such thing as thank-you notes.  The add-on’s not much altogether, and Emma and Randall only have a single Support, with each other.  I really don’t know why a couple couldn’t have been made with the regular cast members--why in the world does Emma not at least have supports with the Whitewing sisters?  She’s all about the Triangle Attack, and it’s almost their signature move in the franchise!  Sadly, although I think these 2 add some far too uncommon likability to the cast, there’s just not enough content here to justify the price of $4 by a long shot, nor the price of $3 when considering the package deal of both Ciphers for $6.


Cipher Legends 2: Unsurprisingly, this one’s very similar to the first Cipher Legends package.  Shade and Yuzu’s inclusion feels forced, but conversely, they’re pretty likable as characters, once again more so than most of FE15’s main cast.  The plot of this one does actually relate to the main quest’s evil cultists, rather than just being the bread-and-butter bandit-beating that Fire Emblem is so incredibly fond of, and to its credit, there’s a good bit of extra dialogue available if you’ve already got Emma and Randall from the first DLC.  Still, while I do like Shade and Yuzu better than the FE15 average, one has to consider how much content there actually is in this DLC (which is very little), and once again, this add-on all boils down to a single battle, some dialogue before, during, and after it, a few more bits of character text in town, and only a single support chain for the new characters (Yuzu and Shade don’t even have supports with their own friends Emma and Randall!  How stupid is that?).  As with the first, there just isn’t enough content here to justify even a measly $4.


Battle of Zofia Harbor: Oh holy crap, ACTUAL story in a DLC?  I’d almost forgotten what it looked like.  This package provides a little bit of backstory as you take Fernand and Clive through a mission before the game’s events in which they have to reluctantly save that worm Slayde from the “finding out” phase of his fucking around.  Having to do an escort mission for fucking Slayde of all people is not exactly the most enticing prospect in the world, and he certainly goes to no great lengths during this DLC to make the matter any easier to swallow, but I suppose that 9S did warn me that existence was nothing but suffering.

Opening this DLC by having the entire lead-up to its events summarized unnaturally as Fernand goes into a grumpy tirade is fairly clumsy, but as a whole, this little side story does a halfway decent job humanizing Fernand, which is good, because the game proper wanted him to die a much more sympathetic villain than he did.  Although I’d prefer competent writing from the start, I can always appreciate it when a developer uses its DLC as a chance to correct its narrative mistakes.  I also appreciate that the DLC is used to establish the general unrest of the citizens, and the poor leadership of the Zofian king--it’s a pretty direct and simple affair, mind you, but at least it actually relates to the damn game and attempts to embellish a prior tell-don’t-show error of the game proper.  Otherwise, it’s a pretty cut-and-dry mini-plot, but the purpose of this DLC is obviously less about the events than the insight into its cast and lore, so that’s fine.

The Memory Prisms you get from completing the mission are also decent for developing Fernand, through depicting his relationship with Clair.  Although the conversation is mostly about how everyone in-game wants to de-legitimize Clair as a warrior by throwing her at the first eligible bachelor they can find just as much as the writers themselves want to.  Oh, and also, Clair describes her ideal man, who is the exact opposite of the dingbat she winds up stuck with by the game's end, because someone important on the staff for this game just really, really does not like women.  And as if the reassurance that Clair’s romantic future is shitty isn’t already frustrating enough, Fernand has to go and point out that the ideal mate that she’s describing is essentially her brother.  Jesus Christ Fire Emblem could you JUST stop toying and teasing at sibling incest for ONE FUCKING GAME?  And then it turns around and Clair talks about how Fernand likes his ladies the way he likes his oranges, full and ripe, and it’s like, could we PLEASE MOVE ON.  

...Where was I?  Well, whatever.  The DLC’s got ups and downs, but it does actually attempt to accomplish something of worth to the game as a whole by filling in a few of its narrative deficits.  It’s still overpriced at $4, as you’re gonna get maybe close to an hour of content out of it, max, so I can’t recommend it, but Battle of Zofia Harbor is at least of pretty decent quality.


Outpost Rescue: This little piece of backstory is about Lukas, Forsythe, and Python rescuing some comrades before Alm joined the Deliverance.  It’s...pretty bland, just like its stars.  I mean, I like the moment in which Lukas has some self-reflection and acknowledges that if the Deliverance fails because of Desaix’s ire at losing a match to him, then it is Lukas himself who will have doomed them all for indulging in his pride and not throwing the fight.  But honestly, that’s really about the only moment that stands out here for the DLC’s main story, and the extra Support conversations that come from its completion don’t stand out, either.  I mean, Forsythe and Lukas’s talk about each wanting what the other had as a child leading each to better value what he DID have is a decent set of interactions, but not amazing, and Lukas and Python’s Supports are kinda boring.

Is this a bad DLC?  Not really.  But it’s not an interesting one.  You could justify playing it if it came free with the game, but it’s certainly not worth paying for.


Flight From the Ruins: This DLC involves Clair and Mathilda trying to find an anti-magic ring and getting mixed up in fighting zombies or whatever.  There’s nothing wrong with it, but after Battle of Zofia Harbor, which gave some appreciated and much-needed development to Clive and especially Fernand, this is disappointing.  The fact that Outpost Rescue didn’t really do much with Lukas was less disappointing than it was simply expected, because Lukas is freakin’ boring and both Forsythe and Python are basically just in the game to pad out the cast a bit...but Mathilda and especially Clair actually have personalities and a little depth, so it’s too bad their DLC mini-adventure just doesn’t really do much of anything with them.  Aside, of course, from having Clair start getting uncomfortably territorial over her brother with Mathilda, Clive’s actual girlfriend, because apparently Nintendo felt that 1 of the biggest priorities of FE15’s DLCs was to make up for lost time with Fire Emblem’s traditional, cowardly noncommittal but undeniably ever-present fetish for incest.

The Supports that come with the DLC are far better, at least.  We get a bit of character history between Mathilda and Fernand, which is welcome, and a conversation chain between Mathilda and Clair about growing up--what good is gained from it, but also what good is lost in the process, too.  This actually feels like real, genuine interpersonal growth and character writing with a purpose, and is easily the best part of the FE15 DLCs thus far.  Sadly, though, even if this package’s Memory Prism Support Conversations are far better, there still just isn’t enough good stuff to justify the $4 price tag it released for.  You’re simply not gonna get more than about an hour from it, and only a bit of that hour is going to be earnestly good.


Siege of Zofia Castle: ...Huh.  Okay.  So...this add-on, which shows us how Zofia Castle was lost to the Deliverance before Alm’s arrival during the game proper’s events, is actually good.  Really good, even.  And I don’t mean that it’s got a couple really good moments that stand out while the rest of it is passable at best.  I mean Siege of Zofia Castle is actually, genuinely good in essentially its entirety!

This add-on, which is a culmination of the previous 3, actually does a very nice job of further characterizing Fernand, utilizing what we’ve seen of him in the previous packages as a foundation for continuing to flesh him out, and gives some backstory and reason as to why he’s such a douchebag in the main game.  Honestly, these DLCs, this one in particular, have managed to turn Fernand around from being an easily-dismissed, dime-a-dozen disingenuous antagonist into an actually sympathetic character.  That’s not an easy thing to believably, naturally pull off, especially after the fact, so I give full kudos to the writers on this one.  Seriously, whoever it was in the writer’s room that buckled the fuck down and hammered Fernand into an asset to the game instead of 1 of its flaws, my hat’s off to you, and considering how bad my haircut is as of the time of writing this, that means something.*

This DLC’s not just the Fernand show, either. I like Python and Forsythe’s exchange about whether what they’re doing is even worth it, as the murdered king was ruling Zofia poorly, and the common citizens care more about living decent and peaceful lives than about which noble jackass has the “right” to be on the throne.  It’s an unexpectedly thoughtful self-assessment of the heroes’ cause, particularly for a Fire Emblem game; this series is generally very fixated on the perspective of the nobles and knights and rights of succession and such.  The extra Support Conversation between Clive and Python that you get at the add-on’s end is really good, too.

And this time, it’s not JUST the character bits that shine in the DLC.  The actual plot, small though it is, is quite engaging and interesting.  The tension as the Deliverance fights its losing battle and especially the way that the Deliverance secures its safe retreat once there’s no other option is genuinely interesting and fun to witness.  The aftermath is just plain great--the demoralized and angry discussions between the members of the Deliverance after their defeat and retreat, the fact that you can see Fernand deciding that this dishonorable tactic of Lukas’s must be a result of his non-noble origins, Clive’s despair over the loss, the great development this ordeal provides for Lukas...

I am earnestly shocked at how good this DLC is.  The story is good, the character development is solid for every member of its cast as it shows us a rare perspective of these characters at their lowest moment, it gives us a far better understanding of how they got to where they are by the time we encounter them in the game, and it fully turns Fernand into a narrative strength rather than a weakness.  Siege of Zofia Castle is easily the best Fire Emblem add-on I’ve encountered, and for that matter, the best JRPG add-on I’ve played.  When I someday expand my Greatest Add-Ons list, you can almost surely expect to see this one upon it.  $4?  It won’t give you 4 hours of content, but fuck it, this one’s worth 4 bucks and more.  Solidly recommended.**



Well...that was a pleasant surprise.  I went into this game’s DLC sour, but I came out happy.  Granted, most of Fire Emblem 15’s add-ons are only passable with a few highlights, and not worth their cost, but they’re certainly still an improvement as a whole over the DLC situations of Fire Emblems 14 and 16.  And the fact that Siege of Zofia Castle is an unequivocally and fully high quality piece of writing is a terrific surprise!  This is the kind of offering that restores a bit of my enthusiasm for the add-on scene.  Thanks to Siege of Zofia Castle, I’m gonna go into the DLCs of the next game I play with some actual optimism!

We’ll see how long it lasts.












* It's a pineapple, if you're wondering.  My coworker shaved and dyed my head into a pineapple.  It's a very impressive piece of work, actually.


** I don’t really have anywhere else to put this observation, so I’m just throwing it here.  I can’t help but notice that all the major story DLCs are focused around a very specific handful of characters from Alm’s side of the story, and not Celica’s.  Just 1 more example of the imbalance between these 2 protagonists that I’ve spoken of before.