Revelation, the excellent third branch in the Fire Emblem Fates story, might be relegated to download-only (unless you own the Special Edition), but it shouldn’t be missed. This entirely unique turn-based tactics campaign is a fantastic trifecta of imaginative battle maps, bountiful and engaging character interactions, and challenging yet accessible combat. Things really take off after a rough start to the story, and great customization and balanced difficulty make it a great investment for anyone who enjoyed Birthright or Conquest and was left hungry for more.

The best thing about Revelation is how it brings together the casts of both Birthright and Conquest. That’s exciting for three reasons. First, there’s unique and enjoyable character dialogue not found anywhere else. Some of these encounters, like the barbed quips exchanged by the pedantic Leo of Nohr and the prickly Takumi of Hoshido, are downright hilarious. Others are genuinely sweet – my favorite moments involved Princess Sakura shyly conversing with the stoic Prince Xander. It’s easy to fall in love them all – which you can actually do by pairing up constantly and attaining an S rank (the highest available) with an ally of the opposite gender. That not only unlocks steamy romantic dialogue that can cross faction lines, but will give you access to all the children produced from unions in both Conquest and Birthright, adding more useful members to your army.

Another reason to jump for joy over your more diverse cast members is that you now have more ways to build your perfect army. Each unit has specific class abilities as well as a unique personal skill, which makes learning which formerly incompatible Nohr and Hoshido abilities compliment each other a lot of fun. For example, I found great success in pairing Ryoma with Xander, since the latter can steamroll enemies through Ryoma’s Bushido skill, which boots a partner’s attack while decreasing enemy damage. Plus, having them fight alongside each other triggers Attack Stance and Defense Stance, combat features that let adjacent allies dual-attack and parry enemy blows respectively. It’s exciting to watch these two former enemies team up to cut foes down.

Learning which Nohr and Hoshido abilities compliment each other is a lot of fun.

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Revelation’s climactic 30-hour story takes place mostly in the lost land of Valla, which looks like something straight out of a high-fantasy novel with its magical floating islands and crumbling ancient ruins.

The first act feels a bit weak due to a silly plot device

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Unifying the two families is a fun concept with some excellent payoff towards the end, as the threads from Birthright and Conquest finally tie together to create a more cohesive whole. Unfortunately, the first act feels a bit weak due to a silly plot device involving a contrived curse and a melodramatic moment shoehorned into the story for the sake of another silly plot device. It soon recovers, though, making up for that weak start with a series of crazy plot twists at the end and genuinely moving character interactions that had me wiping away a tear or two. These special scenes are made even better by fantastic music and excellent art direction that uses sweeping angles and well-timed close-ups on characters’ expressive faces to convey pain, regret, or hope as they fight to protect the world from a corrupt and ruthless being.

It should be noted that Revelation contains spoilers for both Conquest and Birthright, so you might want to finish at least one of those before starting this one. Trust me, it’s worth the wait.

The story is matched up with an outstanding campaign, which strikes a fantastic balance between Birthright straightforward objectives (route the enemy, defeat the boss) and Conquest’s creative and challenging maps: in one mission you have to seize a fort while navigating a pitch-black cave where enemies lay in ambush; in another you must use special tiles on the map called Dragon Veins to change the direction of the wind in order to blow enemies away from you. There’s even a cool navy battle where you’ll have to leap from ship to ship in order to reach enemies. It requires a lot of strategy to conquer these maps, and that’s exactly what’s so fun about it.

There’s even a cool navy battle where you’ll have to leap from ship to ship

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It doesn’t hurt to start on a lower level either, since there’s a lot going on with these tactical maps. Like in previous Fire Emblems, you have to juggle a number of combat variables, including learning to defeat the type of weapons enemies use with its rock-paper-scissors-style counter, observing what their stats and buffs are, making note of whether they’re paired up (a new feature that lets enemies attack and defend just as effectively as ally troops) and taking into account how close they are.

Judiciously, Fates makes it easy to manage all of this with an intuitive interface on the lower screen. Take the traditional Weapons Triangle for example: swords and tomes beat axes and bows, bows and axes trump hidden weapons and spears, and hidden weapons and spears are superior to swords and tomes. That might seem confusing to the uninitiated, but a handy color-coded schematic makes it easy to understand. Meanwhile, the Combat Forecast lets you view ally and enemy stats side by side, with buffs and debuffs clearly marked in blue and red respectively. It’s a simple system that makes determining the outcome of a fight hassle-free.

Revelation base-building mode is a more robust and enjoyable feature than in Birthright and Conquest, because now you can fill your fortress with charming item shops from Nohr and elegant buffer stations from Hoshido. This gives you more freedom to design your hub town however you want, which I appreciated because I liked having a place that looked uniquely my own.

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These buildings aren’t just cosmetic, though. They also double as additional defense against online invaders during multiplayer. Five-on-five online battles are pretty fun, and stopping Streetpass invaders in their tracks with my mix of Hoshido and Nohr warriors and artillery felt great; bet they didn’t see that one coming!

Unfortunately, Revelation is saddled with Fates’ clunky online interface. A crystal ball near the throne area of your fortress organizes your multiplayer options into neat little menu tabs, but it’s sometimes easy to accidentally log out entirely once you’re finished flipping through them. It’s a minor gripe though, and I still enjoyed using StreetPass to summon someone else’s troops into battle. That in itself is a nice incentive to hop online.

More Fire Emblem Fates

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Feb 23, 2016 - This is one Fire Emblem worth reveling in.

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Feb 17, 2016 - An amazing introduction into the fantastic tactical world of Fire Emblem.

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Feb 17, 2016 - Love and war collide in Conquest’s tough-as-nails campaign.

Verdict

Fire Emblem: Revelation is an excellent final act to the Fates storyline. Its balance of difficulty and accessibility means that both veteran players and newcomers can enjoy it without feeling bored or overwhelmed, and its story starts slowly, but quickly becomes a worthy finale to this tactical trilogy. Fire Emblem: Fates Revelation will be available as DLC in North America on March 10th, 2016.