Finally finished Fire Emblem: Gaiden. It was quite a fun ride. No doubt, there were some frustrating battles due to rng cheapness and the length of enemy turns because of some really longwinded animations, but overall things like the difficulty being fairly balanced, grinding potential, unlimited use weapons, and the dual character paths made up for it.
The plot never really delves too deeply into the supporting casts backgrounds, but fortunately Alm and Celica, our two heroes, get at least some backstory. Alm is the grandson of a general of Zofia, Mycen, referred to as "Zofia's greater hero". After discovering fellow Zofian General Dozer's plan to murder the king, queen, and children of the royal bloodline to take the throne for himself, he attempts to stop the general in his tracks. However, he is blamed for masterminding the plan to assasinate the royal family, and having no recourse to prove his innocence, he flees along with Alm and Celica, princess of Zofia, to Ram Village. He sends Celica off to safety in another village, to keep her survival a secret. Some time passes and on one fated day, amidst an ongoing war between Zofia, now ruled by Dozer, and the northern Rigel Empire, in an attempt to take back what was theirs and overcome the growing Rigelian threat, they set off on their own, yet shared, adventure with supportive friends and allies. Throw in some humorous bond-like villains, some really cheap rng, an incredibly bad plot twist rivalling that of Star Ocean 3's, and that's FE: Gaiden in a nutshell.
Since it's a gaiden title, some system mechanics differ from the rest of the mainline series. Weapons are unlimited use. You can grind without resorting to an arena. You can actually have characters die and ressurect up to 6 of them, so that you don't have to start over if you aren't the type to do so. The RNG is super unfair. I'm sure there's a hidden mechanic that causes player characters to miss more than than it's depicted, especially casters. I swear I missed with a 100% bar. Don't get me started on summoned monsters, something unique to this series and sacred stones. It could add so many enemies/allies on screen that a single enemy turn could exceed 6 minutes. Nuts! Thank god for the Dear spell(which dispels enemy summoned units, yet doesn't stop them from resummoning said units, sadly) I can't say much about the difficulty, as I didn't find it too hard. Most of my deaths were due to stupid mistakes on my part, but sometimes I would have horrible rng streaks where every single one of my units missed in a single turn. I blame the game for that.
The maps weren't as creative as the original Fire Emblem on NES, or future iterations. There were some maps that were just blank open canvases that had tons of enemies scattered, with no real terrain to work with for your stragetic advantage. That's not to say there was no strategy involved, as this encouraged you to work on building the perfect inpenetrable formation to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of your weaknesses.
The music was pretty neat and the graphics were acceptable given the games age. The animations, while some being annoyingly long, impressed me with how fluid they were, given the NES cart size limitations. Sure, I could have always turned off animations, but that reduces the games epicness by 1000%.
Overall, it's a game worth playing if you're a Fire Emblem fan. It's different enough from the rest of the series that it feels like a fresh take on the tried on true formula, without deviating so much that it would alienate you. If classic, or cliche if you will, plotlines aren't your thing, you can still find some value in the aspects that the game offers, particularly in the character growth and group make up categories and gameplay. It might just be worth playing for the the incredibly silly plot twist near the end of the game. It had me rolling. :D
Giving this one 3.5/5 stars, or a solid 7/10.
Pros
-Unlimited use weapons and grinding potential can more easily put you ahead of the curve, unlike earlier and future installments.
-A plethora of unique characters, classes, and group make up potential. Mastering the ideal formation for any given situation is fun.
-Following two seperate heroes paths makes the game feel more expansive and epic.
-The graphics and some player animations are incredibly well done. Celica's Ragnarok cast for example.
Cons
-Some super longwinded animations, most notably from tank classes slows down combat pacing. Throw enemy turn length and summoned monsters into the mix and this increases exponentially
-Rng is the too sketchy. Missing at 75-90 percent hit rate happens far too often, unless it's an enemy unit attacking you.
-The story never really develops past the initial premise.
- That plot twist.. at the end.. Wow. Just, no.
-Turn length again,
