Gemfire

"It's pretty cool when you get the Fire Dragon"

Graphics: 5
Sound Effects: 6
Music: 7
Originality: 5
Play Control: 9
Challenge: 3
Replay Value: 7
Overall: 6

I like fantasy games, and I like strategy games. I also like games that don’t take forever to learn how to play. Understandably, I like Gemfire. You control a small kingdom on the island of (insert fantasy name here, since I don’t have the instruction book so I don’t know what it’s called). Your mission is to conquer the island and reunite the various kingdoms. You do this by (joy!) sending armies to crush your opponents. What could be more fun than that?

Good Points:
As I said, I like the genres this game embodies, and I like games that aren’t too hideously complex. While Genghis Khan II might have been a better game, it’s much easier to pick up and play Gemfire without pulling out your hair wondering how to play. There aren’t a lot of nuances to pick up, which makes the game easy and fun to play. In your mission to conquer the island, you maintain armies and hire mercenaries, some of which are extremely fun to send around to kill stuff. Having your cannoneers fire shells into a regiment of knights is a vicious thrill, while having your Ogre just beat up the enemy wizard is very satisfying.

Bad Points:
There aren’t many things about this game I would change. Diplomacy is virtually useless, as the only people ever interested in maintaining good relations with you are the kingdoms that are too far away to actually attack you. You are somewhat limited in what you do, i.e. you can have your people tend the fields or strengthen the fort, but that’s about all they can do. The most annoying thing is the fact you can only have five regiments of troops on the field at once, and four of them are all approximately the same size. You can’t decide to have extra archers or another unit of cavalry, because the computer just divvies up your troops itself.

Graphics:
When you are on the “Overworld” map, looking at your little kingdom and deciding what to do this month, the graphics aren’t too bad. The characters are drawn well, if a little simplistically, and the color scheme is nice. When you’re in battle, however, the graphics take a dive. While certainly better than the NES, the graphics in this game are kind of fuzzy and grainy when compared to other Genesis games, and the field on the battle sequences is a really revolting shade of green.

Sound Effects:
The sound effect you will hear most often is the sound of building a fence. If you’ve played Warcraft II, you’re already familiar with the building sound, although it’s not quite as nice in Gemfire. The other sound effects come from units attacking each other, some of which sound better than others. For example, when knights attack someone, it makes a lame sort of swishing sound, but when the archers fire at someone, it makes the sound that cartoon characters make when they fly into the air. Hmm, maybe that wasn’t the best example I could have used.

Music:
There are really three songs in the game: the main screen song, the song played when somebody invades somebody else, and the song played during battle. While these songs are catchy and certainly capture the mood, in fact the main screen song is excellent, the fact that there are only three of them is a disadvantage. Sure the songs are nice, but you can only listen to them for so long before you turn off the volume.

Originality:
It’s hard to say this is terribly original, but it’s not overdone either: it’s a combination of Risk and Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t know of any other games that are the exact combination of these genres, which helps set this game apart, but it plays like any other Koei strategy game, or any other strategy game for that matter. The fifth unit mercenaries are a nice touch, but the game could stand to have a few more things to differentiate it from other strategy games.

Play Control:
Since sensitive play control isn’t very important for a game like this, I will focus more on the ease with which you can navigate the menus. All in all, it’s pretty easy to do, especially considering you have to use the Sega Genesis control pad and not a keyboard, but your little units may not always do what you want them to do in battle. Basically, it’s kind of tough to figure out how to make your units face the way you want them to, but that’s really my only complaint.

Challenge:
Bleh. This game is way too easy. If you use Prince Erin or Prince Ander (the heroes) then the game is simple, and if you use the little crappy princes stuck in the corners it’s not too much tougher. The hardest thing is dodging the fire dragon until you get a unit that can take it out, but the computer’s horrible tactical mind makes that relatively simple to do.

Replay Value:
Gemfire is a strategy game, and so as you might guess it’s pretty engrossing. There is always a strategy you overlooked or didn’t use last time you played, so there’s a good reason to go back and play it again. Since the game isn’t exceptionally long, you’ll probably beat it long before you get tired of it, but even so the simplicity of Gemfire can wear you out quickly.

Overall:
I’m a big fan of the Koei strategy games, and I like Gemfire as one of these. It has some advantages over, say, Nobunaga’s Ambition, such as the presence of fantastic creatures like the ever popular Wyvern, but in the end the overall simplicity keeps Gemfire from being as great a game as its counter-parts. If you haven’t played strategy games before, this is a good place to start, and it’s fun if you just want to sit down for a little bit and play, but I suggest moving on if you want a more engrossing and long-lasting game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/02, Updated 09/07/02