# Partia — user reviews

> 123 indexed App Store user reviews of Partia by Imago Software, rated 4.20/5 from 134 ratings.

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/partia/id572432485/reviews
- App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/partia/id572432485.md
- Rating breakdown: 5★ 79 · 4★ 30 · 3★ 12 · 2★ 5 · 1★ 8

## What do users think of Partia?

Overall sentiment: positive

**Pros**

- ❤️ Labor of love - clearly made with passion and dedication
- 🎮 Excellent SRPG gameplay - engaging and strategic combat
- 🎨 Retro aesthetic - nostalgic graphics that feel authentic
- 📖 Good story and characters - compelling narrative with personality
- 💰 Affordable price - great value for the content
- 🏆 Fire Emblem alternative - best tactical RPG on iOS
- 🎯 Simple but engaging mechanics - easy to learn, hard to master
- ⚔️ Weapon durability system - adds strategic depth to grinding
- 🏛️ Town exploration - entertaining hub between chapters
- 👥 Unique character abilities - diverse unit types and support bonuses
- 🎪 Arena training system - allows meaningful character progression
- 🎭 Customizable protagonist - ability to name main character
- 🌍 Interesting world building - races and unique weapons

**Cons**

- 🎮 Clunky controls - touch screen implementation feels awkward
- 📱 Poor screen optimization - doesn't utilize full device screen
- 🐛 UI issues - camp menu feels disorganized
- ⏱️ Slow gameplay - movement and combat animations are tedious
- 📚 No tutorial - game mechanics unexplained
- 🎨 Limited animation - no battle animations or character expressions
- ⚖️ Unbalanced difficulty - steep spikes between chapters
- 💪 Weak main character - avatar lacks combat ability
- 🔧 Insufficient information - weapon/item stats not visible
- 📏 Small UI elements - text and buttons too tiny
- 🎯 Punishing EXP system - excessive grinding required
- ⚔️ Limited weapon stock - restricted item quantities cause problems
- 🔑 Key management issues - can get stuck without proper planning
- 🎬 Rushed story - character development feels incomplete
- 🎵 Repetitive soundtrack - same music throughout
- 🎯 Short game length - only 8-9 chapters

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Sound not working on some devices
- Screen display issues on iPhone X and newer models (top notch overlap)
- Game not full 16:9 fullscreen on newer iPhones
- Xbox One controller not supported despite controller attempts
- Save file deletion (Chapter 8 save disappeared)
- Aspect ratio not adjustable on older devices
- Control key sometimes moved automatically
- Saving can be choppy at times

**Most requested features**

- Controller support (d-pad and buttons option)
- Full screen optimization for newer devices
- In-game tutorial or guidebook
- Battle animations
- Character expression changes during dialogue
- More chapters and longer story
- Healer class promotion options
- AOE spells for mages
- Character interaction scenes at camp
- Weapon stat visibility
- Potion healing information display
- Class upgrade system clarity
- Multiple save files
- Ability to skip cutscenes
- Better dialogue and story pacing
- More diverse soundtrack

## Newest reviews (16 of 123)

### 4/5 — Fun Game

*2022-11-27, version 2.0.0*

Overall experience is good. Story and gameplay are good.

There is lacking explanation on how the interactions work with characters, items, etc 

Overall, very worth the price.

### 3/5 — Controller support

*2022-07-23, version 2.0.0*

Please add controller support! This game would be much more enjoyable for me and others if it had it! Thanks!

### 4/5 — Very Good, Very Interesting, Very Short

*2022-04-29, version 2.0.0*

Hi, don’t get me wrong with my title for the game. I felt/believe it was very good and somewhat went along with what I was looking for as a “Fire Emblem” experience while not being FE. I rated this as “8/10” on a solely personal opinion.

For the price of the game, it’s certainly worth getting. Very cool and very refreshing to me. Just a bit short and repetitive. But that makes sense, as it feels like a chapter going into a chapter. A game going into a sequel. And a beginning game at that.

Spoilers Ahead for anyone reading this:

First, leveling up units is easy in the arena. Pair your fighter with an archer and let the archer fire away at you. Each miss still counts as EXP, which is super valuable. 

Also, don’t worry about potion healing at the inn. Just have your healer step into arena fights with your weak partner, heal then and then “abort”. Make sure the bet/crowns are low during those aborts, as they cost you.

As for the game, for me, I played FE for the stories compared to gameplay. Most of the time anyway. Path of Radiance did both for me. And FE7 - Lyndis, Eliwood and Hector - was a tremendous experience too. Story really gripped me with the older FE series, which is what I was looking for here.

Sadly, I feel like there was a story here but… it felt rushed? It jumped places? Especially the south rebellion? It would have been nice to see the characters interact. Even see chats between them at camp. Instead, it felt like you just moved on from chapter to chapter with some light connection between your character and the romantic interest.

And then there were politics behind closed doors; involving the north and south at each other’s throats. But there was no real side intrigue or anything. No one wondering why “this” was happening or “that”. Who was acting “suspicious” lately. No reports on the “unexpected”.

I do give points for being able to name the main character! That was very nice and helped me feel connected to the world/fantasy. And the class promotions were still encouraging, as usual. I did find it interesting to see armor units limited to one class, although there was “sword” missing.

Also, dwarf and elf weapons. Those were surprising! I wondered about what races there could be in this FE look alike. The world builds were interesting too, alongside the character sprites! I do wish that the character icons changed expressions for emotion like happy, sad, surprised and so on, to set the mood even more. But it was all still good.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this game and feel like it was a start project of some kind. I’m going to look into the sequel, which the “trailer” showed me. I had a spectacular time with Partia, although feeling a bit lost. Reminded me a bit of Dungeons and Dragons, a prologue leading into the bigger story later. A start to everything, ha ha.

### 5/5 — Great game so far.

*2019-06-21*

The game looks amazing for what it is. The style is perfect for this type of game. Price isnt to high or to low, i plan on purchasing the other two games as well but i will only be purchasing them after i complete the one beforehand. Thank you for making these games as they are what i have been looking for and Just now found.

**Developer response:** Thank you for enjoying the game so far! I hope you would get to the finish line and find out the series indeed gets progressively better. Or should I say I pray!

### 4/5 — Fun but somewhat grindy FE clone

*2019-04-10*

Pros:

- Visiting Town between chapters is entertaining and makes sense. 
- Dialogue is expertly crafted, easily better than the ridiculous Japanese-English translation dialogue that plagued FE games
- Character portraits and character personalities (so far) are mostly pretty great, with the ocasional hilariously “homemade” portrait
- Special abilities on characters, including support bonuses boosts the depth of combat. Having an accuracy boost on the pathetically weak main character is especially welcome!
- Big maps! Some might complain, about more tapping/clicking/turns to traverse, but big maps make battles feel epic!

Cons:

- Punishing EXP system (esp on expert). You will need to grind, especially with your main character, to get them strong enough to not get one shotted by enemy grunts 

Tips (for noobs only):

- Exploit the arena. Revisiting town spawns new random arena match
- Save your potions! Should be used in arena only
- If you run out of potions for the arena, bring in your healer and do 2v2 matches vs. weak enemies to heal your injured units 
- For best EXP gains, it is most effective to unequip your character weapon and wait for a weak enemy to attack (and hopefully miss) for 25 turns, OR attack with slow/weak weapons.

(Edit after response from Developers):
Bumped up to 4 stars, since the punishing EXP system works as Devs intended!

**Developer response:** Hi, thanks for playing the game, in the expert mode! Despite the higher difficulty, I think it is how the game should be played, especially in Partia 2 and 3. There is a joy in bulldozing through the game to get to the end, but there's also a joy in bringing up your characters to see if they can meet the challenges the game throws at you. ;-)

### 5/5 — Love and love this game!

*2018-09-23, version 1.0.7*

It’s great, leads onto the second game nicely. Great story and characters. Key is to train characters and have enough items.  I throughly enjoyed it.

### 3/5 — It’s an okay game

*2017-10-28*

I feel like it’s an incomplete game with some problems. You can only equip items once you are in a battle, can not upgrade units like upgrade an archer to a sniper, level ups don’t help much and the max level is only 20 witch I can reach pretty fast, and the story doesn’t seem so smooth and sometimes hard to understand. I do like how every character has a different face, we are able to train before we move onto the next chapter, there are different endings, and the different game play options was pretty neat. Overall it’s not really worth the price because of the problems and it’s not to different from some of the free tactics games on iPhone., but it was enjoyable.

### 4/5 — Great Potential

*2017-07-17, version 1.0.3*

The biggest problem this game has is unit balance; The avatar/main lord has the combat ability of a piece of bread, and some units are way too good (i.e. Tatum). Also, magic feels a bit too good, since the enemy fire mags in chapter two often one shots most of your units. Still, I'm loving this game 👏

### 3/5 — Hard to use and many flaws

*2017-07-05, version 1.0.3*

Such a great game but has many flaws. Characters miss hits more than they hit. Characters die without option of resurrection, so they're just gone. Weapons and armour deteriorate meaning you can be stuck in battle without either. You can also be stuck in locked rooms/dungeons without jets meaning you have to restart the entire game to save keys up.

### 5/5 — To all those who down grade this for Tutorial or being "Hard"

*2016-11-02*

I will say this right now, this was a game that was geared more for people who played FE and for those who played GBA. And if your complaining about the platform not being up to date, read "Details" and you will find it was 2 people making this game. If you need a tutorial, literally look up "Partia Walkthrough" and it will give you the mechanics. Also, just click on someone to see their attack range, the old fashioned way.

### 4/5 — Mehhhhhh

*2016-10-31, version 1.0.3*

Game is pretty much like fire emblem without the fancy fighting scenes.. which is aight I guess; however, it is very hard honestly. The ratios seem a bit off but not crazy and the difficulty from stage 1 to 2 goes way out of scale. Practically impossible to save the girl from the house... just saying but yeah pretty fun game worth trying if your a fire emblem fan.

### 5/5 — Game

*2016-09-24, version 1.0.3*

It's good

### 5/5 — Great Job Devs.

*2016-09-21*

This game is great. I have read many reviews knocking this game for lack of tutorial, but come on, this game is made for people who have played Fire Emblem and the like. I have played so much Fire Emblem and Shining Force, and I have to say, this game is pretty great when it comes to being a clone of that brand. As far as controls go, they seem to have overhauled what was once a clunky system, after reading the older reviews, and made it all touch, (when horizontal) and it handles great. The dialogue could definitely use some work, but it's still a pretty good story. After some extremely tense battles, and a few chapter restarts, I was actually able to clear the game without losing a single character, which was very difficult but the challenge was welcoming. It is possible people!

Over all I would give this game a 7/10. The 5 star rating is due to being the only clone I've found that is worthy in iOS form.

If you like Fire Emblem, get this game!!

### 5/5 — Best game on the App Store

*2016-05-30, version 1.0.3*

This is truly the best and most strategic game that is currently in the App Store. Nintendo would be proud knowing that there are many supporters of their popular series known as Fire Emblem. Again, this is a magnificent tactical RPG, so take buying this into game consideration, it's worth every penny.

### 2/5 — Just like Fire Emblem but... Must give a poor rating

*2016-05-25*

This would probably be my favorite original tactics game on iOS if it wasn't for the fact that I cannot pass Chapter 2 without losing characters. Partia is close to a perfect Fire Emblem copy, and I wish I could enjoy it fully, but I feel too much experience is needed to level, character stats are WAY too low (same with stat increases during level ups), and somehow my 80+% hit chance will miss twice, but a 30% hit chance will hit twice.
At first I thought it was just bad luck, but after witnessing this happen on multiple occasions, I feel there must be some sort of imbalance.
To put my frustration into an example I just experienced, my level 6 lord face to face with a level 4 hero in a duel could only do 2x2 damage with a steel sword with 61% chance of success and 13 health, died when he missed the level 4 hero twice, and the level 4 hero, with 11 health and 7 or 9x2 attack, landed a hit both times at 30 or so percent hit rate.
I have had this game for ages, and I would deeply love to enjoy the full story and gameplay, but there seems to be some issues in this.
Would give 5 stars, but I've been waiting for this to be fixed, I keep playing even though I know how imbalanced it is, and it will never get fixed.

### 5/5 — Awesome

*2016-04-25, version 1.0.3*

Love this game!  Very similar to Fire Emblem, one of my all time favorite games.

## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated)

### 1/5 — Don't waste your money

*2016-12-27, version 1.0.3*

Like off brand fire Emblem but 1 million times worse. Felt like a slap in the face for spending my hard earned money on that crap; had to delete it after playing the first level. Please take my word for it

### 1/5 — Not Good

*2016-05-11, version 1.0.3*

If you think you're going to relive your love for old SRPGs through this app, think again. The animation is low quality even by 8 bit standards. Everybody looks like either a blue or a red pixelated stick figure. There's no exploring in the game. It's all linear story broken up by navigation menus and the actual battles. Worst of all, when a character dies it's gone forever, and there's no way to reset a battle if you mess up, so
good luck trying to get better. It's nearly impossible to maintain your team and level up your weak characters. I want a refund.

### 1/5 — Unsatisfactory

*2016-04-17, version 1.0.3*

Just terrible.

### 1/5 — I want my money back

*2016-02-03, version 1.0.3*

Extremely painful to play on the phone, controls are really bad, gives me a bad headache every time. Horizontal screen gives u bigger picture but touch screen on this type of game is exhausting need both hands and no cancel or back button is a pain, vertical screen only gives half viewable picture with ill-response control buttons. Also extremely irrational difference in character levels the second stage already, and the missing ratio definitely has bugs

### 1/5 — Lousy game

*2015-05-09, version 1.0.3*

I regretted purchasing it as there only 9 stage to play with and the last stage is a nonsense and make no sense at all,I advise not to purchasing it if you don't want to waste $.

### 1/5 — Don't Purchase

*2014-04-28*

I spent 3.99 on this app thinking that it would be much more similar to the fire emblem games that I used to play on my game pay advance back in the day. I was very disappointed, as there is no engaging battle graphics when you attack an enemy unit. Also, the game doesn't seem to flow like it should. You can change the game speed and increase the speed at which enemies perform their turn sequence but it doesn't effect the flow... I had high hopes. And was greatly disappointed. Simply not worth the money. It need to be updated for the new gen, specifically resolution. Don't waste 3.99 on this app, spend your money in something more worth while.

### 1/5 — A disgrace to Fire Emblem

*2014-01-30*

When I bought this app, I expected a legitimate fire emblem like app. But no. This was a waste of four bucks, due to the terrible controls. It takes minutes to finish a turn, and the touchscreen controls are very clumsy. You also cant skip scenes, and you cant see the range of multiple enemies, and neither can you see the range while you move. Without these features, this app is not anything like fire emblem, and is just a bad game. I suggest you go back to the normal ab lr controls with the control pad, because you clearly  cannot optimize the touchscreen.

### 1/5 — sadly, terrible

*2013-12-06, version 1.0.3*

I can tolerate a clunky game, a game with no ability to save/load, a game that force you to sit through long cutscenes over and over, a permadeath game, a game with bad writing, a game with no help or manual, and/or a game that forces you to tap 5-10 times to complete one action for one of 10-15 units. but not all of these together. if you love fire emblem and/or having fun PLEASE stay away from partia.

### 2/5 — Too Rough and uninformed

*2020-08-09, version 1.0.9*

It’s not horrible. It’s okay the problems however make me just throw my hands up on the second Map. 

Yes. Second. Still here?

The game sells itself as a Fire Emblem like even if that’s not what the devs wanted. But Fire Emblem at least TOLD you how it works. Is there weapon advantage? Maybe but I can’t tell. Is there Perma-death? They don’t tell you, they want to seem to have you waste time figuring it out. How the bleeding heck does Magic work with its damage and resistance? Nope get out what is this some spoon fed hold your hand sim?

It’s far to rough and seems to take sadistic glee and not telling you anything. Maybe the sequels don’t waste your time as much.

### 2/5 — Limited weapons/item stock

*2019-10-23, version 1.0.7*

The grind would be fine if weapons armor and items were not limited in quantity.  Trying to level up my hero in arena is near impossible since it depends on either not getting hit or wasting weapons/armor

## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated)

### 5/5 — Great game

*2026-07-21, version 2.1.0*

Fun game, just make sure your healer doesn’t die

### 5/5 — Obviously a labor of love

*2025-06-06*

Partia is an excellent SRPG that was very obviously made with a lot of love, passion, and dedication. 

I don’t understand people nitpicking the game’s features.

Having to grind your characters for a little bit is nothing new. Frankly for some majorly successful game franchises like Disgaea, grinding is the vast vast vast majority of the game; in fact they basically advertise grinding as an attractive feature of the Disgaea franchise, so “I shouldn’t have to grind” isn’t a reason to dislike Partia. 

Basically it’s built like an old school SRPG, the graphics are retro and nostalgic depending on how old you are, I’m in my 30’s and for me the graphics feel like home. 

The combat is simple to understand but engaging, and features like weapon durability and the fact that you can’t just heal at the inn an infinite number of times makes grinding feel real and consequential, not just a task where I have to press buttons over and over until I get a high enough level. You actually need to put some thought into how to efficiently and successfully grind your characters, because you can’t just use the inn like a poke-center. If you don’t like that you have to play strategically, then you shouldn’t be playing an SRPG.

Overall it’s an excellent game. If I have to find a flaw, I’m not the biggest fan of the UI for the camp, it feels a little bit all over the place to me. Otherwise it’s one of the best mobile games I’ve ever played. 

If you like classic SRPGs, you will love Partia. Buy it.

**Developer response:** Oh my goodness! You might be my kindred spirit lol!

Really I thank you very much. Much, much appreciated. It's the comment like yours and people like you that I get the courage to sit down and continue work on the game series, where I feel stuck in a long dark tunnel with the next one.

### 5/5 — Great homage to retro SRPG’s

*2023-10-03*

Nice and simple, retro feeling SRPG without it being overwhelming or overloaded with confusing menus. Great for people who liked the feeling of the older Shining Force/Fire Emblem games. My only real gripe is that the game doesn’t seem to be full 16:9 fullscreen for newer iPhones (there is a gap at bottom where home slider is as well as showing clock and battery on left size of screen)

**Developer response:** I was finally able to fix this smaller size screen issue while working on TOP with newer SDL. I guess retro fitting the game with newer engine is something I can do during my vacation!

### 5/5 — One of my favorite game series of all time.

*2023-01-17*

Cannot express enough how much I love these games(all 3). The only thing I hate is the excessive amount of precise tapping on these big phones it hurts my hands honestly. I wish there was a d-pad and buttons option to avoid all the stretching but hey if that's the worst part I will gladly deal.

Edit- I tried using a Xbox One controller and it did not work. Thanks for responding you seem to be a nice developer and I am glad I supported by buying all three. Would Apple allow you to instead of updating the game for all sell the virtual d-pad and the ones who want it could buy it for say 2 bucks? Just wondering if there was a workaround or loophole we could use.

Edit- Deleted my save after starting Chapter 8. Only that file have no idea why.

**Developer response:** Oh thank you very much as usual! Your encouragement really does matter to me and actually gives me courage to continue on! The games do have portrait and virtual d-pad mode but Apple is not allowing me to have vastly black UI for some reason and I couldn't fight its policy. But I think bluetooth dpad will work if anyone is trying.

### 5/5 — Bonne alternative à Fire Emblem

*2022-05-07, version 2.0.0*

Bonne histoire (pour une fois sur ios !!) et bon gameplay juste un peu court.Bien mieux que Fire emblem ios. Le jeu a été fait par deux passionnés ça donne envie de récompenser leur travail !

### 5/5 — Regarding my last review

*2022-02-27, version 2.0.0*

Don’t worry about remasters, the game is incredible by its own and it holds itself pretty good, the thing that I wanted to point out was that the game on iPhone X has the top information of the phone, (hour, battery, and connection) and It didn’t happened before.

### 5/5 — I love the Partia trilogy!

*2020-05-16, version 1.0.9*

I bought Partia because I was looking for a good rpg mobile game and I was not disappointed! I beat this one, and the second one now I’m going to buy the third one! I can’t get enough and I will most definitely replay these over and over! 5 stars!

### 5/5 — Sehr guter Fire Emblem Ersatz

*2020-05-03*

Kann es definitiv jedem empfehlen der fire emblem mag.

### 5/5 — Love It

*2020-04-15, version 1.0.9*

This is coming from a huge Fire Emblem fan who has played each game within the franchise repeatedly. 

Firstly, I just want to keep this review short since there is too much I enjoy about it. Basically, I am overjoyed and eternally grateful for this game. The Partia series is like having classic Fire Emblem on mobile, and it is something I have always wanted (Fire Emblem Heroes is NOT it, from really just being another gacha game). With a few other gimmicks, it can definitely come out as its own thing. Yet while still far from an original idea, I mean it is just so much like classic Fire Emblem, it is not at all a bad one. With Partia, you are not getting garbage. Partia gives you a legitimate and thoughtfully made game full of fun. On a side note, I recommend turning on all three of the special settings — horse rule, etc. — for the nearly diverse fun-filled gaming to which I am referring. It will probably be more or too difficult for some to most players, but best experience for people like myself who love the genre of T/SRPGs.

Secondly, I will be honest in which I have not played much of it thus far. I have owned this game since released, played it for a bit (recently restarted and getting further), and even have had the Partia 2 and 3 since release. And yet, I have played enough of this game to get that satisfaction I always get from the genre. It is by far from perfect, which is expected from an indie game as well as something only on mobile. Overall, it’s a hidden treasure in the world of tactical RPGs. I am thoroughly excited to get more into the world of Partia and continuing with the next two, and hopefully more, games.

And finally, there are a few things I wish to see from Partia. The biggest one is for there to be controller support. I use screen mirroring with my iPad, and Partia could benefit perfectly from having controller support (hopefully on each of their games) so that I can connect my 8BitDo SN30 Pro+ controller to my iPad and just play it like any other game. As for the other things... I forgot what they were. Maybe add some more fighting animations such as what has always been on Fire Emblem? For all I know, that has already been implemented into the sequels. Honestly, the rest does not matter much. Imago Software is doing good work. Keep it up, and many thanks.

(Guess this thing did not turn out all that short after all.)

### 5/5 — Bought to play the series

*2019-11-12, version 1.0.7*

The first Partia feels quite partial. I enjoyed abusing the arena, but the money was short for my effort. Wasn’t ever any worthy enemies to use the greater weapons on. Would recommend to anyone that has a deep love for Fire Emblem.

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-01.*