Fire Emblem

"My very favorite game, and possibly the best GBA has to offer"

It wasn't until this particular game, originally titled Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken (loosely translated as the Fire Emblem: Sword of Blazing Flame), that Intelligent System's magnificent Strategy-RPG franchise finally saw an English release. Until then, the Fire Emblem series was confined to the Japanese, and their exposure to the outside world was limited to a cameo appearances of the two characters in the series (Marth from FE1, Roy from FE6) in Nintendo's gimmicky fighting game, Super Smash Bros Melee. Which is a huge shame, since the game is a combination of magnificent gameplay mechanic and epic story-telling that formed a Strategy-RPG experience with stunning depth. Fortunately, after a decade-long wait, Nintendo finally decided that starting from the seventh title for Game Boy Advance, the series will go international.

Once you played it, you'll realize why so many people fell in love with the series. The mechanic, the characters, the presentation, the story, and practically everything else in the game just oozes quality in consistent fashion. I used to think that Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was great, but Fire Emblem easily topped Square's outing in nearly every aspects. It's the best Strategy-RPG (the top genre in the platform) for the GBA...if not simply the best game.

Gameplay

Fire Emblem have the same basic premise as in Advance Wars, another great Intelligent System-developed franchise for the GBA. Your task is to control troops in a chapter-based campaign; every chapter is a map of battlefield in which you must persevere against enemy troops. You move your troops around the grid-shaped battlefield (think ‘chess pieces') until you achieve the objective needed to clear the map and move on to the next chapter. Unlike in Advance Wars, though, you have medieval kingdoms instead of military factions; swords and sorcery instead of infantry and heavy artilleries; and a whole RPG mechanic which includes character level and experience system, weapon system, inventory, plus a storyline and a cast of characters that really matters.

When you start the game, the very first mode that you'll play is the Lyn's Tale, essentially an 11-chapter long tutorials which purpose is to teach you fundamentals of the game. Once you have finished it, you gain access to Eliwood's Tale, the main course of the game. Complete it, and the last mode, Hector's Tale, is unlocked. Every tale is a journey which spanned numerous chapters, put in a respective point of view from the three main characters.

Simply put, the RPG part in Fire Emblem means that the game's primary focus is on the character's building aspect. The characters that function as your units in battles are individuals with their own personality, back-story, and fighting style. Battles are fought one-by-one, and you will go to a battle screen once an engagement is made between two characters. How the characters perform is determined by level, statistics, and class; as they practically dictates the strength and weakness of each particular character. Characters get stronger as they fight and defeat enemies, might be promoted to a better class once they hit certain level, and get this-they can be killed. Killed, as in ‘dead' and ‘unable to participate for the rest of gameplay and storyline' (unless it's one of the three main characters, then it's a Game Over and you have to restart the chapter) No revival items either, the only way to get your dead characters back is to restart the chapter and potentially negate the hours of progress you've made. This is one thing that really contributes to the challenge and distinguishing factor of Fire Emblem.

The whole thing about character's management and build-up is handled very well. When characters level up, stat raise is randomly generated; they may get a single stat raise, a raise in several stats at once, or (once in a blue moon) no stat raise at all. It means that a certain amount of luck is involved, but rest assured that the system works fair enough, and that all characters have good potential to be better in certain aspects than others. The rule ‘everybody is good at something and nobody is good at everything' also applies at the class system; which is less complex than the job system in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, but much more balanced. No class is utterly useless or downright dominating, and each had its own distinct uses. Furthermore, you can beef up your characters by utilizing the Support system, which strengthen the characters if they're placed near other characters whom they're compatible with. Not only that it benefits the gameplay, but it also has great effect to the storyline (more on that later)

Weapons played a huge role in the game. It's not a simple matter of switching primary weapon right away when you gained access to more powerful one; instead, weapon is divided into a very wide spectrum of power, hit rate, weight, range, durability (yes, weapon can be broken, so you need to replenish supplies constantly), and advantages/disadvantages (it works in a rock-paper-scissor way and is called ‘Weapon Triangle System', the basic idea is that swords beat axes beat lances beat swords) There are even weapons which is stronger against certain units, have more ranges than usual, reverse the Weapon Triangle, and many more. Magic attack, which come in the form of spell books, also works similarly. Using weapons is a huge chunk of your strategy in playing the game, such as, would you prefer to equip your characters with weapons that deal more damage but might slow him down? Or, a weapon that is weaker but more flexible to use? Naturally great characters might be a dead meat if you equip them with a wrong weapon selection, so that underlines just how important weapon-using strategy is.

As naturally found in these kind of games, terrain also contributed another aspect to the strategy. Although it looks pretty bland in a glance, there are enough aspects in the battlefield which might affect the outcome of your battles. Forest terrain (or ‘grids') helps increasing the evasion of characters placed on it, fortresses provide curative means, certain trees can be cut down to form a bridge, and many more. The classic fog-of-war system (you can't see your enemies until you're close enough) is present in several maps, and there's also the weather system which affect character's movement.

The combination of character's death and the unique saving system made this game to be quite a challenge. Finishing a certain map might be something, but doing it with no casualties is something else. And, because the game infuses a very strong sense of attachment between the player and the characters, most of the time you would want to restart the whole map if one of your character meets his/her demise. Don't think you can just cheat your way out by saving and reloading, since the game actually saves itself for every action that happens in the battlefield and its consequences. There will be moments of frustration when you messed up halfway through the map and cause someone to get killed, but you will return right away to the action instead of throwing the game away; because the challenge doesn't stem from a broken or unfair mechanic, and it will simply motivate you to get better at the game.

All things considered, the Fire Emblem formula is a very immersive and addictive to play. If given the chance, I would like them to add, perhaps, some more classes and abilities; but, on a second thought, that might ruin the perfect balance this game already achieved. This game is already great enough as it is.

Storyline

The story of Fire Emblem revolves around three major characters. They are Lyn, a prideful swordfighter from the plains; Eliwood, a valiant knight in a quest to find his lost father; and Hector, a loose-mannered noble who also happens to be Eliwood's best friend. Each of them has a significant role to play in a turmoil which engulf their continent of Elibe, and will be joined by many warriors from all over the continent, each with their own back-story and causes to fight. What started as a journey for personal causes will develops gradually into an epic quest to save the world; you might have heard it elsewhere, but the stellar presentation of the story will keep you hooked until the very end.

The story sequences are told in-between chapters, mostly with character portraits talking to each other. The overall plot and the script is just brimming with charm and personality, and you will never get bored watching the story unfolds; heck, I've played through the game more times than I care to remember, and I never get bored. Don't fret if you want to skip the somewhat lengthy story sequences though, as a simple press of the B button will bring you straight to the battlefield.

The biggest charm of Fire Emblem storyline is the characters. The development team really put a lot of polish to every character's design and development; everyone from the obnoxious cleric to the committed armor knight, from the silent nomad to the cheerful thief, from the battle-hungry wyvern rider to the droll merchant, really makes you care for them enough to restart the whole chapter should one of them perish in the battlefield. While only the main characters and several others got to star in the main script, the Support system (which triggers conversation between characters) ensure that every character will have their own moments and development, and might affect the type of ending they get (yes, every character had their own narrative endings)

The only thing that I found a little bit off from the storyline is how the game put the player into a role of a mysterious tactician (the default name is Mark, and he/she doesn't get to speak, being representation of the player) The characters in the game will addressed you and talk to you in certain points of the game, and it feels a little awkward after a while. However, it's a very miniscule point which doesn't really detract any enjoyment from watching the story unfolds and the characters develop; and, I've got to say that the cast of characters in Fire Emblem is the best I have ever seen in any game. Period.

Graphic & Sound

The map design might seems simplistic and bland, but the combination of awesome battle animation and character's art design more than makes up for it. To highlight the amount and coolness of the battle animation, there are class-specified animation, weapon-specified animation, critical hits animation, and nifty visual effects spread liberally. However, most­-if not all-animations are recycled materials from Fire Emblem: Fuuin No Tsurugi, the previous FE game for Game Boy Advance; it shouldn't be a problem though, as for most people it would be the first time they see the graphic, having no exposure to the previous Japanese game before. Meanwhile, the art design punctuate the charm of Fire Emblem characters further; and to add the icing on the cake, there are even some hand-drawn CG pictures which you can see and collect throughout the journey.

The excellent presentation is rounded up with brilliant musical scores. Starting from an orchestral score heard in the opening sequence, the game hits you all over with tunes that evoke every kinds of emotion; whether it is joy, triumph, fear, anger, or sorrow. The music really set up a perfect atmosphere, and you can even listen to every tune, complete with titles, in the Sound Room mode (which also store the CG pictures) Don't even ask about sound effect, as it's also as perfect as it can get.

Replay Value

At this point, you might think that I have ran out of good things to say about the game, but I really haven't. Fire Emblem is a game made for multiple (read: countless) playthroughs, with the 43 playable characters, 3 different tales (each with two difficulty settings), the Support system, secret/alternative chapters, and all those cool extras (CG pictures, musical scores, character's conversation) which you can collect throughout the game. You will want to play again and focus on using different characters, try to unlock the secret maps, use a different strategy to finish certain maps, find other support conversations for your characters, and just have another taste of this very delightful journey.

For all the greatness that is playing Fire Emblem, the multiplayer mode is a disappointment, though. The mode allows the player to create a team of fighters from the story mode, duking it out arena-style against up to three other teams, controlled by either a CPU or another human player connected with the link cable. Although it does deliver some fun in short bursts, it would be much inferior against the kind of multiplayer that have the players go all-out against each other in a map, just like the one found in Advance Wars.

But still, Fire Emblem remains to be the cartridge that spend the most hours sticking in my GBA; and that is really saying something, since I also owned another games with amazing longevity, such as the Pokemon games, Mario Golf, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and the Megaman Battle Network games.

Recap

The Good Points:

(+) The immersive and addictive Strategy/RPG mechanic
(+) Masterful presentation of the story and characters
(+) Fair and perfectly balanced challenge
(+) Great music, both in terms of quality and quantity
(+) The battle animation and art design are astounding, too
(+) Cool extras

The Bad Points:

(-) Well...the multiplayer mode is quite lacking, and that's all about it

Conclusion

That's it, the game earned a ten in my book. It's not a perfect ten, heck, no game will ever be perfect, but it's damn closer to a ten rather than a nine; thus, Fire Emblem is the first (and probably last) game that has earned a perfect score from my review.

As in a sky full of stars, Fire Emblem shines the brightest of them all; in the midst of many great GBA games, this game can also manages to be on top. For all of you GBA-owners, do yourself a monumental favor and play this game.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/26/09

Game Release: Fire Emblem (US, 11/03/03)