Dark Deity was a surprise release during E3 2021. It's impossible to play it and miss the influence of long-standing strategy RPG series like Fire Emblem and Langrisser. Some have even gone so far as to label Dark Deity a Fire Emblem clone. After all, it does look and feel like a spiritual successor to the GBA-era Fire Emblem titles.
Despite the developers paying some obvious homage to Nintendo's beloved strategy RPG franchise, Dark Deity does carve out its own identity. The artwork, weapon systems, and the staggering number of classes all play with conventions and shape them into a game with its own identity (for the most part). We take a look at exactly how the two match up.
13 Support System: Fire Emblem 🥂
In both Fire Emblem and Dark Deity, characters bond by being close to one another in battle. In Dark Deity, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the support system leads to extra dialogue and cutscenes between bonding characters, which reveals more of their backstory. However, it doesn't give the player any benefits in combat.
The mechanics behind the support ꧃systems vary between Fire Emblem games but they typically give the affected units stat boosts in battle on top of the additional story segm💙ents. In some games, there are even dual attacks. Nintendo truly trie🌸d to make the support system fit into both the combat and story, and it would have been nice to see Dark Deity try to incorporate supports into combat in some fashion.
12 Difficulty Optඣions: Dark Deity
Fire Emblem is infamous for having an unforgiving permadeath system (until modern entries). Some players loved it, some hated it, and it's always been either a big draw or a deal-breaker for strategy RPG fans. After all, it is mighty frustrating to lose a favorite hero in the middle of a hard-fought skirmish.
Dark Deity tries to remedy this divide by giving the player a choice in the matter. Most difficult settings leave heroes with "grave wounds" if they fall 💝in combat. Instead of dying, they get hit with stat decreases. If they fall enough times, these stat decreases can make them unusable. There is also a diܫfficulty setting that offers permadeath. Recent Fire Emblem games starting accomodating different players, but Dark Deity deserves some credit for doing it on the first try.
11 St♒ory and Characters: Fire Emblem
Fire Emblem characters like Marth, Lucina, Edelgard, and so on have entered the JRPG ꦏhall of fame. Fire Emblem makes memorable characters and plots because it focuses on a narrow band of heroes despite having a large cast. Nintendo focuses on the struggles of the main characters while the rest of the cast is relegated to the battlefield or optional cutscenes.
Dark Deity doesn't have a weak cast, but the plot is generic, and there are too many characters thrown at the player, even at the onset of the adventure. It doesn't help that the main story arch feels detached from a number of the earlier chapters and missions.
10 ♛💧 Weapons: Dark Deity
Both games have an excellent we🐭apon system, but Dark Deity goes a bit deeper and allows the pl♎ayer more customization. A single unit can wield multiple weapons. Each of these weapons has different upgrade trees, such as power for extra damage or focus to increase accuracy.
Fire Emblem doesn't really lose any points for its weapon upgrade system, but Dark Deity deserves credit for making a genuinely deep and rewarding weapon system that has never really been seen before.
9 Combat:🥂 Fire Emblem 🅺
While both games find their footing on the battlefield, Nintendo has had 30 years to perfect the formula and it really shows. Fire Emblem's combat is a perfect balance of simplicity, strategy, and challenge. Every Fire Emblem game is fun in its own right, and it's amazing how Nintendo kept the formula recognizable while simultaneously making each game in the series feel unique.
Dark Deity's combat is just fine, but it is missing some quality of life aspects and strays a bit too close to Fire Emblem to truly best it. Sometimes playing paper-scissor-stone with lethal weapons is all a game needs.
8 Artwork: Dark De♕ity
The artwork in Dark Deity is an incredible blend of pixel art and anime goodness. All of the characters are well-drawn, and it's especially nice to see the character portraits pop up when the player hovers over a unit in battle. The graphics are by no means cutting edge, but they pay homage to strategy RPGs of yore and mix that with great hand-drawn aesthetics.
Fire Emblem manages to keep pace, and Fire Emblem Shadows of Valentia has a very similar aesthetic to Dark Deity. It's just amazing how the small dev team behind Dark Deity managed to capture the magic of old strategy RPGs while still forging its own identity.
7 Balance: Fire Emblem ﷺ
Fire Emblem games are generally well-balanced. Sure, there are more powerful units than others, but even the strongest tank will fall quickly in the face of enemy mages. It's harder to cheese battles in Fire Emblem than in Dark Deity.
Dark Deity has some massive inequality between its characters. In some battles, it's possible to just rush up to a boss and take it out before even dealing with most of the enemy combatants.
6 🌜 ♛ Accessibility: Dark Deity
Potential mobile spin-offs aside, Nintendo hardware is required to play Fire Emblem games. Older entries in the series were more cult classics than blockbusters. As such, it's genuinely difficult to find older Fire Emblem games, and most entries have only been released on one respective piece of hardware.
Dark Deity is available on PC for now, but Sword & Axe LLC might port Dark Deity to other consoles and platforms. If sequels are made, they won't be restricted to one platform. For PC gamers and those without a Nintendo console, Dark Deity might be the only option.
5 ❀ Music: Fire Emblem
Being a long-time franchise, Fir♌e Emblem has contiguous tracks and sound effects (such as the level-up jingle) 🤡that usher in a wave of nostalgia and grandiosity. Most Fire Emblem games have well-composed soundtracks that really give the battles an epic vibe, even if they are a little redundant by the end of the game.
Dark Deity doesn't commit any fouls with its soundtrack, but it doesn't stand out in a crowded genre of games full of amazing soundtracks either.
4 💎 Upgrade and Promotion Paths: Dark Deity
Whereas Fire Emblem has a pretty simple promotion tree, Dark Deity goes above and beyond and features♈ a treasure trove of unique classes. Dark Deity offers multiple promotions, and there is a lot of choice on the build of the party. There are multiple types of top-tier classes for tanks, magic users, equestrian classes, and so on.
Fire Emblem generally lets you promote between two classes, and it isn't rare to have multiple units of the same class in one party. Fire Emblem boasts some great classes, but there is no question that Dark Deity went above and beyond with the class system.