Fire Emblem

"As good as Golden Sun!"

Story:7
The story will not wow you, but it is still interesting to keep on going. Its the basic, generic anime style SRPG. The story is about three nobles saving the world from some evil spell caster named Nergal who has the Black Fang to help him do destroy the entire world.

The character development I didn't really care for, but like I said, the story will not wow you 75% of the time. A Nomad named Lyn, who is really royality, a man named Eliwood who most people here call a pansy, a brutish noble named Hector whose brother is a new Marquess that is trying to keep a level head when he is threatened by Bern.

There are more characters, like an emo kid who hates the house of Ostia, a monk who looks like a girl, the shy sister of the emo kid, a fighter who is as smart as a rock, a thief who is really a spy for Ostia, an old, and sometimes wise Jeigan, an assassin who was part of the Black Fang, an innocent mage who cares for the assassin, the last survivor of the Pheare (or however you spell it), The villains are: heartless, skimpily dressed morph, another skimpily dressed person who is a Valkyrie class (and not a morph), a man who absorbed Quintessence to make himself immortal. (the main villain) I could go on, but I won't because I'm not that mean. The ending is...*spoilers* a premonition of the sequel, Fire Emblem 6, which stars the son of Eliwood, Roy, and FE6 will not hit the states

A slight downside to the story is that they use way too many exclamation points when they say something, and the translation is not perfect, like Linus being called the Mad Dog instead of Rabid Hound, these translation woes do not affect the game badly, but it might annoy some of the Fire Emblem fan base.

Sound/animations:8
Even though the sounds are unrealistic, they are acceptable for a GBA game, the spell effects sound great, even if it is a GBA game. The sounds in this game, especially the sages when they cast a spell are great and original. The better spells have great animations and epic sounds, like the Fimbulvter, Excalibur, Luce, Gespenest, etc. The hit and miss sounds are pretty simple to remember.

And the Swordmaster criticaling animataion may be unrealistic, but its awesome to look at, and the Assassin is no slouch in critical hit attack animations. The animations bump up the mediocre sound decently and might excite some newcomers.

Characters:8
The personalities of the characters are very realistic and this game has completly realistic character recruitment, like using a certain unit to recruit a NPC or Enemy, they have distinct feeling about what is going on with the world, such as greed, poverty, murder and romance, but it still doesn't help the story get a higher score. The characters, because of their backstories turn the overall stories rating to an 8, because of the characters deep and dark stories, emotions and personal thoughts.

The world of Fire Emblem is a dark and truly cruel world full of death and the pains of reality, yet the jolly characters like Merlinus and maybe Fargus keep a spark of joy in this otherwise bleak world they call home.

Diffulculty:Very easy (because of the relatively tedious tutorial), to moderately hard (because the last few bosses take real effort to defeat without someone dying). It gets a 6 at first because most of the bosses are pushovers (except Sonia) because when you get to chapter 27, almost all of your enemies are promoted or unpromoted with extremely good weapons and at the levels of 14-20 (But mostly promoted units you'll be fighting).

The diffulculty drops a little bit at the last chapter because the main villain makes morphs of most of the Black Fang bosses and a power hungry Marquess you've beaten before, which makes a small amount of enemies (yet relatively hard bosses, especially Kenneth, Lloyd and Linus) plus some not that helpful to the villain enemy reinforcements (because you'll probably be near the villain's area. The only thing thats keeping him from getting walloped quickly is a Druid with a Berserk staff, which is a very annoying unit.) Otherwise, you make it quickly to the main boss

The relativly easy main villain (He felt a little too easy for a second to last boss), and before he dies, the main villain *spoilers*

Summons the real last boss which is... *spoilers*

The Fire Dragon, which is kind of hard, because of his piercing ability. (You might need some Elixirs, or use your healers.)

Music:10
The music in this game just sounds epic, the music in certain fights fits like the most beautiful gloves you've ever worn. The first boss song is mediocre, the second one is very epic and battle like music, the third piece of boss music is haunting and emotions, the fourth piece of boss music is like the third one, only more haunting and epic, the last boss music isn't that great, but better than first few bosses music. The stage music is average at first, but becomes more orchestral, especially in the enemies turn, on the last few chapters in the game, especially when you are fighting the main villain, on your turn.

Graphics:7
The sprites looks good for a GBA game, and the CG pictures have great designing, even if they look like a generic anime style art. Don't get me wrong, I like anime sometimes, but the dub haters turned some of my anime love off (Its just a cartoon). If you are not an anime fan, you might not like the CG pictures, if you are, you'll probably love this games art style. Good for the crazed anime fans out there, or someone who is tired of ugly looking charas in SRPGs

The overall score of the graphics is still a 7, because not everyone likes the world of anime.

Gameplay:10
With the diffulculty in this game, plus that charas die forever, its great for the diffulculty crazed people on this great site. Weapons don't last forever like most RPGs, they break after a certain amount of uses, meaning you'll probably love the challenge you'll feel while playing this game. If you like SRPGs, RPGs, diffulculty, or character development, you will probably love this game till it breaks. (Or you get sent to the loony bin for hallucinating everyone is a FE7 cartridge, which proves you are a crazed fan of the entire FE series, I'm not insulting you.). This game also gives you bonus chapters, which are pretty diffulcult, great for diffulculty nuts and semi-hardcore gamers, if you are new, you might want to skip some Gaiden chapters, because of the diffulculty, and try them when you make a new file, or gain more experience before you try it. The bosses chat a little bit before attacking you, and might say something different to certain units, like the lords in this game.

Overall, this is great for diffulculty nuts, Fire Emblem fans, and newcomers to the series (because of the tutorial, which is kinda tedious to some of the seasoned vets of this game.)

This game gets a 9 out of 10! It would get a perfect 10, but most of the tutorial might annoy hardcore fans of the FE series. Please do not flame me for comparing this to any of the GS games (Because you like this game better than GS, or you think GS fails at character development or etcetera) I just like GS better, in a way, because the last boss is pretty hard.

You should definatly buy this game! If you are nervous about buying this, rent this or borrow it from a friend. Then you might want to try this completely, because of the battle system, the way charas die, because nothing revives the dead here! If you want a light hearted RPG, this game is definately not for you.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/21/06