When I first heard that Fire Emblem: Heroes was introducing a monthly subscription “Feh Pass,” my initial reaction was more like, not mad… just disappointed.
I mean, there’s little reason to get mad about a gatcha game introducing more ways to make more money, because when the day is over, the ultimate goal of every gatcha game is to make money. But like most F2P mobile games I ever come across, my goal is to always spend as little or no money at all. At the very moment I’m writing this, I’ve played both Pokémon Go and Fire Emblem: Heroes consistently since their respective launch dates, and I’ve spent approximately a total of $14.99 in total. Yet, I’ve gotten tons of enjoyment and have pretty stacked accounts in both games, mostly out of longevity, but the point is that I haven’t spent much money but still gotten just about all that I’ve wanted from them.
FEH has always kind of had kind of a pay2win methodology available at all times prior to the introduction of the Feh Pass, but it was still required to have some skill in the game’s mechanics, as well as the luck of the draw of actually getting the random characters that you’re aiming for. But the Feh Pass, by virtue of giving those who pay for it an actual statistical stat boost, now un-levels the playing field, and truly becomes a game where you can buy superiority over players that do not.
However, I’m actually writing this after the launch of Feh Pass, and aside from the fact that I’ll always have this annoying glorified ad trying to get me to pay for a Feh Pass, in order to cash in on some rewards I’ve already fulfilled the requisite tasks for, it hasn’t really been all too intrusive to my every day playing of FEH. I imagine that will change in time, as Feh Pass subscribers begin amassing more and more subscription exclusive character variants with stat boosts, and then I’ll start running into them in modes like Arena and Aether Raids, but for the time being, it hasn’t affected me yet.
Regardless of the inevitability of things like this, I’m still a little disappointed in FEH for going down this route. It’s already basically the most lucrative mobile game in Nintendo’s portfolio, so to me this is like them just being greedy on top of being already greedy. It’s not going to stop me from playing the game, but now I’ve got this automatic instant resentment for Feh Passers, and I’m looking forward to taking down these whales with my Klein+10 and three dancers cheese method.
