Partia 3: Fire Emblem "clone" for Android and iPhone(buy-to-own)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imago.partia3&hl=en

https://www.amazon.com/Imago-Software-Partia-3/dp/B07NV757N2/

Partia is a series of mobile games VERY inspired by traditional Fire Emblem games. The mechanics are virtually identical to Fire Emblem with permadeath, no facing, similar damage calculations, villages destroying bandits and very familiar classes (but only map animations for fights). Complexity-wise, it's roughly on par with Fire Emblem 3, with the addition of basic character skills, equipable shields and armors (increase defense for a certain amount of hits, but decrease speed) and the ability to recruit semi-generics. They are buy-to-own, with zero ads, dlc, gacha or any of the traditional mobile nonsense, which is very welcome.

The games best point is the map variety; there's a surprisingly large amount of situations you have to deal with, and overall the maps are pretty solid. For example, one of the early chapter in Partia 3 has you ambushing an enemy army, where you desperately hold off their escape routes while strong allied ballista shoot at them. The story is also decent, and the games are pretty challenging.

On the negative, visually the game looks pretty bad and I'd give the battle animations a zero. Cavaliers are wayyy overpowered: super canto, access to shield and armor, great stats, and an optional (fortunately turned off by default) feature where they do additional damage the further they move. Shielded and armored enemies sometime turn maps in too much of a slog. Story implementation is not the best.

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Overall, I'd recommend the games for hardcore Fire Emblem fans only, or if you want a SRPG for your mobile device that has none of the usual mobile trappings. The presentation is really rough, and you have to be able to stomach permadeath. As a big Fire Emblem fan I appreciated Partia 2 a lot, though.

I do not recommend Partia 1: The game feels very unfinished, and does not reach its potential at all. The games stories are also separate (think Shadow Dragon vs Awakening), so no need to play this one for story purpose either.

Partia 2 is pretty good. I played and finished years ago; I would not consider the game to be an amazing experience, but I easily got my time and money's worth with it.

Partia 3 is new and I'm still very early in it, but thumbs up so far . First impressions are very good: character development is a nice step up and the maps are all very nice so far (first map is super simple, but that's fine). It plays nicely with a bluetooth controller (works natively). There is a Langrisser / Ogre Battle-like quiz at the start which creates an "avatar" unit, but they merely just a gameplay unit: They appear in chapter 2, and have literally zero presence in the story (zero lines of dialog, never talked about, not even introduced; just like a generic character).