"Are Marth and Roy in the Game? NO!"

Introduction

So Fire Emblem has finally reached the Gamecube level and what a surprise I got to see the beautifulness of this game. The story has an interesting plot, the gameplay hasn't change too much and the graphics are superb. Even though Marth and Roy aren't in this game, you'll not be disappointed at all, instead of the well-known princes that were introduced to us American players in SSMB, this game features a young mercenary leader named Ike who was raised in Crimea on the continent of Tellius. You'll be launched to beat up enemies on several different chapters, 28 in reality, every one of them harder than it's predecessor. So here is where it all began.

Story

I'll cover the first few chapters to not spoil the game too much. So you'll start out as a new recruit of the Greil Mercenaries, whose leader is none another than Ike's father “Greil”. So once you get in the game, Soren reports breaking news, this guy is a member of the mercenary group who was on a spy mission. Once he finished his report, you'll find out that Daein the neighbour country of Crimea has launched a surprise attack on your country. Then to confirm the statement Soren brought up, Greil the leader will send you on a recognizing mission to the capital of Crimea. While they were heading for the capital, they stumbled upon the Daein army. Once the fight was over, none other than the princess of Crimea in person whom existence remained secret was found near the capital. After her identity was confirmed, the princess hired the Greil mercenaries to escort her to the nearby country called Gallia. The Gallian Empire is home to the laguz, which are half human, and half beast creatures. They are treated as an inferior race by the pejorative way of calling them sub-humans, why do they call them sub-humans, easy, because of their different looks and their ability to transform into an animal. Anyway, the princess will be escorted be Ike and his mercenary group to claim refuge for the princess. After this point, the story unfolds to a much bigger and darker plan which Ike and friends will try to stop at all cost. I personally thought the story was great but some elements could have been left behind, like unimportant information after or before certain chapters which kind of slow the pace of the game, but anyway.

Gameplay

I'll try to shorten things up a bit because there are many things to cover. First of all, everyone of you should know what is the genre of this game, it is a Strategy Turned Based game which means, you get your turn to move than your enemy will advance, it'll be your turn again and so on. You start out by advancing your characters on the field. Once your character is moved to the desired place, you can attack an enemy if he is within your weapons range. You can also trade items with your fellow comrades, also steal items from your enemy with the thief class, you can also heal yourself and many different options that you'll surely discover by playing the game. Once you've finished, it will be your enemies turn and they can do the exactly same things that you are able to do. Besides all the important stuff you need to know, an old and frustrating aspect of the game hasn't change, it is when a character runs out of HP, then he or she will die for the rest of the game. You can always restart the chapter but when you arrive near the end where a chapter takes 1 to 2 hours to complete, you just don't want any of your characters to get killed. Anyway, it is the best way they have found to actually make your brain work instead of just running through a chapter and finish it as fast you can. So this pretty well sums up the gameplay which I think was pretty well thought and still addicts' players today, including me. :)

Graphics

The Graphics are what I was expecting from it, they are astonishing. I haven't found any big flaws for the moment, even though some might have found some. The graphics for the gameplay were very well realized, but the cut scenes where you see Ike any company chat in front of a background hasn't really change. Also when they discuss, they don't move a lot except when protagonist jump into conversation or when they blink their eyes which is rather rare, add this to long speech, it really increases boredom in-between chapters. Well, there aren't only bad points in a review, because sometimes-short videos with extraordinary graphics will come and add magnificence to the game. Even though they are short they are really awesome to watch.

Sound

The music is relatively nice at the beginning but tends to get repetitive after a certain amount of time. Although if we think of this, there aren't many games which its music doesn't get annoying after a certain point because of its repetitiveness. Anyway, I thought some cut scenes were lifeless at a certain extent because when it was neither happy nor unpleasant information the music tend to vanish to let an emotionless atmosphere gain the discussion.

Play-Time/Replayability

The first time I've played through the game it took me about 50 hours to complete it on normal mode which is quite long. Although I haven't played on easy mode, you should at least get a fair amount of time to make it through the game. I'm actually on chapter 18 on Hard Mode and I have 22 hours already. You have all sorts of things to unlock once you have beaten the game such as a variety of different bonus chapters and also the chance to try the game on a harder difficulty. You could also try to support with every character to get the most information about them.

Final Word/ Recommendation

FE9 didn't disappoint me at all except for some boring in-between chapters and music that gets quite repetitive after a certain amount of time. Except these few points, the gameplay, the graphics, the playtime and replayability are excellent. Even the music is good for the first few chapters. Anyway I recommend this game for any strategy players or connoisseurs of FE titles. Those of you who aren't really familiar with these type of game, you could always rent it and make a final decision concerning this game. I personally loved the game and influenced my friends who were sceptic regarding the style of it but actually found out that they were wrong and that it was definitely something they were going to buy for the great graphics, gameplay and the story the game provides. So the final score I'll give to the game will be a 9/10, lost a point mainly because of the audio, which wasn't really what I was expecting from it.

Overall: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/12/06