Fire Emblem

"No Marth or Roy. But it does have dragons. And Pirates."

Fire Emblem has been quite a popular series in Japan for a while. Japan… they get all the good stuff. Fortunately, Fire Emblem decided to make its way across the ocean and on to the Game Boy Advance. Contrary to the uninformed assumption, Marth and Roy are not present in this particular Fire Emblem. The fire Emblem series is niche but what they are known for is being a Strategy RPG like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea. But more on that later. The thing to note is that Fire Emblem is becoming more popular in America. After this game was released and sold decent, another Fire Emblem game was released on the Game Boy Advance and yet another fire Emblem game was then released on the GameCube. The storyline to this game isn't really all that hooking but it does suffice. You start off as….. you, a young tactician who is rescued by a strange girl from bandits. The girls name is Lyndis. Lyndis is a girl who lives on the plains and she lost most of her friends and family during a bandit raid. She finds out that she has a grandfather but he is in grave danger. You embark on a quest to save him and reclaim the throne. Of course, this is only the premise. The main character will eventually be Eliwood and of course the storyline gets more complex but a little cliche. A strange group in the shadows is manipulating kingdoms for some mysterious reason. You will encounter a LOT of characters but there is very little development placed on them and the few who do get some don't get the development they should. I didn't find this to be too big of a problem because this game is battle after battle after battle. The storyline is simple and not too epic but in the end it's solid.

The game play is where this genre of video games shines. First I will mention that the game has a rock-paper-scissors element to it with the weapons. Swords > Axes > Lances > Swords. So, obviously, this means that characters with Swords do good against characters with axes but not good against characters with lances. Not a hard concept at all. (Although in real life, why would lances fall to axes?). You control an array of characters on the battlefield. Each character has their own HP, items and abilities. If a character runs out of HP, he or she is dead and never returns. This is not like Final Fantasy Tactics where it takes a few turns for them to die. This means that characters will die for good often. It just means you need to be careful that your best guys don't die. Fortunately, you get new characters in almost every level so unless you suck really bad, you shouldn't run low on characters to use. I should mention that if any of the three main characters die, you get a game over. They can't die, no matter the cost. Weapons and spells you receive during the game can only be used X amount of times and when that number reaches 0, the item breaks and you won't be able to use it. This is why it is important to keep a plentiful supply of weapons in each characters arsenal. A character with no weapons can't do anything except act as a decoy. There are no safe spots or towns to buy your weapons (Except in ONE case…), you will have to visit these shops during the actual battle. It may seem weird at first but you'll soon find it isn't really a big deal. The neat thing about this game is that when you engage an enemy, it will zoom in on those tow characters and you can see the word hit the enemy. There are many different types of characters to use, there is an archer, berserker, pirate, dancer, mage… there is a whole array of different jobs to get. Some jobs can even be upgraded! Fire Emblem is still, by definition, an RPG. This means that you get experience from attacking (and even from taking damage). If you get enough experience points, you raise a level where your stats will rise such as the HP, Strength, Defense etc. The highest level in this game is 20 but some characters can be upgraded. When this happenes they will be a new job at level 1 but keep their old stats in place. This allows for more stat growth. The game play is a little different from most SRPGs but not radically different and manages to retain the original formula overall.

On the battlefield, the graphics may just seem like blobs on the screen but the fact that there can be so many character on the field at one time makes up for that. The graphics also redeem themselves during the one on one battles. The characters and movements are realistic and fluid and are somewhat impressive. The music quality and sound is overall mediocre. You see, there are some really good tunes that I liked in this game but they were played very rarely while the songs that sucked were played much more often. That was a little aggravating but at this game had some nice music. I'm no expert on the Fire Emlbem series by any means but from what I was able to garner, this Fire Emblem does a nice job at implementing some new themes as well as a classical feel. The sounds are very good in this game. No crazy screaming when a character dies though *Glances at FFT* The swords, spears and magic is all decent and the sounds of horses running through the fray give it a more realistic feel. Fire Emblem is a single player game but it also contains a feature that allows you to hook up and battle your friends on a one on one duel. That's cool. There's also modes like Hard Mode and Hector Mode and you will easily be able to replay this game several times. That, is not an issue.

Storyline: 7/10
Game Play: 10/10
Graphics: 9/10
Sound/Music: 7/10
Replay Value: 10/10

Overall: 43/50 = 86% (Rounds to 9…. Just barely)

Pros:

A portable strategy RPG that is good
Some good tunes
Lots of characters
Can be challenging
Big battlefields
Lots of characters to use
A wide array of spells and abilities

Cons:

Story isn't very good
A lot of repetitive underwhelming songs
Characters and weapons can die (Could be a pro if you like a good challenge)

Fire Emblem is a good solid game that needs to be played. I hope that Fire Emblem becomes more prominent in the gaming industry and inconsequently a bigger Nintendo franchise. Zelda, Pokemon and Mario is what Nintendo heavily relies on with Metroid, Kirby and other various titles to support it. Titles like Fire Emblem get lost in the fray but I guess that's not necessarily true. Fire Emblem now has three titles out but this right here was the first in America but not the first in the series. If you need a good game to waste many hours with, you can't go wrong with Fire Emblem. It certainly is better than Final Fantasy Tactics Advance which is the rival of Fire Emblem. What made Nintendo decide to ship the Fire Emblem series overseas? Personally, I think Super Smash Bros. Melee played a role. Two popular SSBM characters are Marth and Roy and their original is from a Japanese only Fire Emblem. The name fire Emblem was automatically known and thus opened a gateway for Fire Emblem outside of Japan. But I digress, that's irrelevant. What's important is that Fire Emblem kicks ass and its worth playing. A strategy RPG with some new elements as well as some old with a whole bunch of characters and a moderate challenge? No reason not to get fire Emblem.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/06