"Similar, yet very different from FE7"

Similar, yet very different from FE7

This game came out in early 2005 for the Game Boy Advance. It is made by Intelligent Systems, the same people who made Advance Wars. Fire Emblem 7( Also Known as Rekka No Ken) , the game made before this game, was made in 2003.This game is very similar to it's predecessor in terms of gameplay and story, and yet, they are both very different from each other, here is the more detailed explanation:

Story -9/10

It has been stated that Fire Emblem Games have some of the best storylines, and I couldn't agree more on this. When you start the game, you see a princess being hurried away by her guardian. This girl is the Princess of Renais, a kingdom that gets destroyed almost immediatly after you leave it. The people that are responsible for this is- The Grado Empire, the greatest Empire in all of Mag-Vel ( The continent). You must now seek aid from the other countries and try to find the missing Prince Ephraim ( Eirika's Brother) in order to stop Grado from destroying any more countries. And yet...it all seems too strange – Renais has always had a good relationship with Grado, why break it? It seems that Prince Lyon of Grado, a long time friend of the twins, has decided to collect all the Sacred Stones and destroy them, for the good of the continent. Little do they know that he is being possessed by a much..greater..entity.( I don't want to ruin it for you readers, sorry). In order to get to Lyon, they must first get past ALL of Grado's Generals, including Emperor Vigarde of Grado.

Music- 8/10

Fire Emblem music is actually very good for the GBA. Very catchy, very nice. Excellently made, they even have a sound room that you unlock all of the approximately 100 songs ( each with great variety). In fact, the music is so good, that I put on a pair of headphones just for this game to enhance the quality of the music even further. The only thing holding the score of this game down is the fact that Fire Emblem 7 music is actually slightly better than the music of Fire Emblem: The Sacred stones.

Graphics- 9/10

Now in all honesty, you don't expect the GBA to have good graphics at all right? Well let me prove you wrong there, this game redefines GBA graphics as a whole . In this game there are tons of animations for every character, the battle scenes are excellently made and are very well detailed, in fact, this can very easily be described as the BEST 2-D game graphically. ( Note I said 2D). Even the over world map looks excellent, being finely detailed.

Game play- 9/10

The gameplay, while good, is somewhat repetative and doesn't deserve a full 10. you simply go and take throne in much of the cases. The gameplay itself is like this: Move,they move,move, take throne eventually. It's better than most RPG's I've played though....HOWEVER. if one of your characters dies, they will not come back. Remember that advice now. Also your weapons have a chance of breaking when you use then,unlike other RPGs. You can promote your unit to a higher class via promotion crests too.So it has all the makings of a good RPG but even more. The battle system is well made, but as it might get boring after a while it has a turn off function. Each of the characters have special skills that they use to better serve in battle, they also have unique personalities ans stats to further give them more separability. The creators also added monsters, giving FE a much needed feature in random battles. The game play itself, while not the best, is a great part of the game.

Replayability 10
You can go different routes, promote different units, use different modes, use other units, a full 10 I believe. You can also play after you beat the game in a new special mode called creature campaign, in which you try to purge the land of the monsters.

Difficulty- 5/10 ( Doesn't affect score)

The creators with all their new ways to get experience, easier enemies, better units, infinite stat ups...well they spoiled us to say the least. Not that it is bad...just that they could have made it harder for the more experienced gamer. If you would like a more difficult Fire Emblem game buy FE7, or import FE6 from Japan ( even harder, though in Japanese)

Buy or Rent?

Buy...end of story.Well no, not really. Rent it if you have never before played an FE game. But Buy if you have.

UD signing off

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/02/05