Nintendo has revealed a new Fire Emblem game available now for smartphones, which includes Among Us-style social deduction.
Called Fire Emblem Shadows, it has three players battling enemies – but one is a traitor. Afterwards, players vote on who they think the traitor is, before battling each other.
And honestly? It’s absolute rubbish.
Fire Emblem games are known for their tactical strategy, but Shadows is simply a grid-based auto-battler where you character moves and attacks automatically. You then select from a handful of moves that regenerate on cooldowns to either heal or activate different magical attacks.
And that, really, is the extent of gameplay. There’s little interaction, barely any strategy. It’s just watching little chibi characters hit each other. You can win without selecting anything.
Then there’s the touted social deduction, which boils down to which of the other players may have on purpose hit you. It’s usually pretty obvious, but worse is the fact there is barely any consequence for guessing either way. The second round proceeds accordingly, with good players now battling evil, and if you previously guessed correctly you get a piddly amount of extra health.