Fire Emblem

"Finally it reaches US shores!"

A little history:
You know RPG's have become quite popular as of late, way more than they were back in the late 80's early 90's. We have many hybrid RPG's now, But no genre more intresting than the Strategy RPG. I have played a ton of these games from Tactics Ogre(The very first of it's kind basically) to Disgaea. Now I must bow down and praise nintendo for FINALLY bringing one of the greatest if not THE greatest Strategy RPG series to US shores. Fire Emblem.

Fire Emblem for the GBA is actually not the first of it's series, their are a ton of these games in japan. The very last Super Nintendo game was Fire Emblem Thracia 776 it was made in 1999. Through heavy FAQ usuage and some slight modifying to my SUper Nintendo and frequent trips to Japan town I was able to play this wonderful series and thankful that Nintendo has finally brought it here. Probably credit to Roy and Marth's immense popularity in Super Smash Brothers Melee.

Story: 9/10
I love the story in the game, it starts out so simple and it brances off into something alot more serious and a tad bit dark. You start off taking the role of yourself as a rookie Tactian you pass out on some plains and you're found by a young Sacrae woman named Lyn. While you yourself aren't adapt with weapons you know tactics like no other and when bandits attack guide Lyn into teaching them a thing or two. From there things steadily take a twist and get more complicated. While the changes focus every now and then you'll fall absolutely in love with characters, so many of them have different personalities and while some of the charactes you want to just reach out and choke the life out of others will make you die laughing from comments Sain comes to mind. My only gripe with the story comes directly from the games battles itself, if you lose a character they are gone permanantly complete with death speech, but if they are important to the story they'll pop up in the scene they're supposed to be in even after death! What the Deuce!?

Gameplay: 10/10
Fire Emblem succeeds at what few tactical RPG's do, make you think carefully. Because every move you make counts, literally. The game saves after every unit you move so if you screw up and end up getting a character killed that you just can't live with out, you'd better restart the battle from the top. The AI in the game isn't stupid they'll attack your weakest character over your strongest, gang up on you, use terrain to their advantage etc.

Speaking of using terrain, the landscape in this game just isn't there for show. It's there to help and hurt you, such as forests units hiding in the woods are less likely to be hit because well they're hiding n the woods. Same goes for moutain tops, if a unit is in a fortress they'll have a higher defense and HP will be replenished in small amounts each turn they're there. It makes moving your units much more smarter than just ''You go there for some reason!'' It's more like ''You! Get in the woods you'll have the advantage, or You're hurt hangout in this fortress for awhile!''

Also weather plays a big part in battles. Rain will slow your units movement down and fog will obviously shroud enemies from you. Another thing about this game is the Rock-Paper-Scissor weapon and magic system. There are 3 types of weapons in this game, Axes, Swords and Lances. Swords are better than axes, axes are better than lances and lances are better than swords. This puts even MORE thought into where you move units and who they fight against. Instead of just randomly running up and bashing the nearest adversary, you'll want to stop and think on what weapon is better for him or who I should say. Same goes for magic, there are three types, Dark, Anima(Elemental), and Light. Light beats dark, Dark beats Anima, Anima beats light.

Their is also a Class system in this game that is greatly balanced. Magcians, Monks and Shaman are extremely powerful and can deal out big damage. But going up against melee uses one on one they will be slaughterd. Archers get the same treatment by the can savagely murder Pegasus and Wyvern riders. Horseback riders are better than most Melee units and Melee units own all indirect fighters. The gameplay in this game is so balanced that nothing and no one is too powerful, everyone has a weakness to exploit.

Graphics: 10/10
Fire emblem may use Tiny sprites to represent the map units, Out of the battles when the characters talk are much better. They have beautiful designed anime portraits and they even blink for christ sake! During important moments we get drawn cutscenes that just like stupendous whether on a GBA screen or on a TV screen.

The battle scenes aren't boring either, it's not just guy 1 whacks guy 2, guy 2 whacks him back. Depending on the unit and weapon they'll have several different fight animations and wow if these aren't the prettiest Critical hit attacks I've ever seen in my life!

Sounds: 7/10
Meh, while the unit and attack sounds are good. I honestly can't remember too many themes in the game off the top of my head. That's not to say they're bad it's just well..I can't remember them.

Overall I'd say this is the best RPG on the GBA currently. If you're an RPG fan of any kind there is no reason to not buy this game. I hope this game becomes a wild sucuess so Nintendo will bring us more Fire Emblem games, maybe ports of the ol Super Nintendo ones hell even on on the Gamecube!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/03