Fire Emblem (2003)

Man, I love Fire Emblem games. I get so addicted to the gameplay. Every map is like a puzzle, figuring out the perfect way to move your characters to avoid damage and not only achieve your objective but distribute experience reasonably equitably amongst your party.

This first localized entry was no exception. The only things I don’t like are the time it takes to manage your party and inventory before every chapter, and circumstances where the game throws you into a situation you couldn’t reasonably have prepared for and you end up having to replay an hour of content.

And that’s why the game ended on a low note for me. Without spoiling it (but putting the spoiler tag just in case), the game finished with a scenario where, unless you lucked out or prepared specifically, there is really only one (really time consuming) strategy to beat the final boss, and it ends up being a battle between characters that have had very little to do with the story up until that point. I had to redo the entire chapter because by the time I got to the end, I realized I had not brought character (and item) that I needed to pull off a victory.

So it ended on a bit of a low note, but overall I really enjoyed this game! And playing it on the Delta app made it really easy to pick up in bed and play a little bit before going to sleep every night.

After playing Fire Emblem Engage I decided that I wanted to start a new journey: the journey of playing the rest of this series!

Of course, I picked this one because it was the first out-of-Japan release, and I must say it was a beautiful experience. As a GBA-era player, I was ready for it as soon as I pressed the Start Button.

The tutorial was kinda meh, but then things get pretty heated. The story was there… I think it has a lot of depth, but the way it is presented and the technical limitations didn’t really help to boost it on the right moments. So basically, I was mostly interested in the tactical aspects of the game more than its plot. Characters interactions during the story are ok, the Support conversations (or at least those I could do) were really poor.

I liked the music – for the limitations the GBA had... it was good. The chiptune does hurt my brain after a while so I must confess some particular stages were played with the volume off. However - you get a WIDE range of sounds that demonstrate they wanted to add a particular mood to the game., and this adds layers of epic-ness to what's happening.

In regard to the gameplay – THAT was the fun part. Coming from newer entries I thought it would be a pain going from one chapter to the other without an interim stage, but it was actually the opposite. The story flows where it wants to go (even though the pace isn’t the best, mind you) – and you get plenty of time to do the rest. The item/storage system is the most painful part of the game, but by the end of the prologue you are good to go.

I do believe you need some taste for GBA games for being able to put up with it, so my recommendation goes for die-hard fans of Fire Emblem and people used to strategy games of the kind – otherwise get ready to suffer.

Fire Emblem is a game I started way back when it first came out on GBA but quit because of frustration. I recently picked it back up, started over, and managed to finish it. Sadly, I almost quit a couple times again, including right at the final chapter.

Despite loving the spirt of the game, and most of the mechanics, I find it impossible to truly fall in love with the whole package. This game could really be considered a roguelike but with game sessions taking 10s of hours at a time. I'm not just talking about the perma-death concept with the characters (which does suck) but the fact that you can really save yourself into a hole that you can't get out of. If for some reason you succeed at earlier missions without leveling up some key characters, future missions may literally be impossible. While you can do your best to spread out some save files to allow you to go back, there are only three slots in this game which makes that all but useless too.

That issue really set in for me during the final mission of the game. I got my butt absolutely handed to me and really thought I was done. (Very minor spoilers for the final mission coming. Skip to the next paragraph if you are extra sensitive.) The final boss just does a set 37 damage to every character. After losing so badly I read some FAQs online and found many comments about how it was "easy" with a certain character. Well, this character for me had fewer than 37 HP, which meant that I couldn't use them to attack the boss as the counter attack would always kill them. What the heck? I could definitely see it being easier if I had leveled them more so they had more HP than that.

Thankfully, after giving it some thought myself, I was able to come up with a unique strategy for me that worked and I finished the game. That feeling of success was satisfying but I'm not sure it overcomes the general stress the game caused.

So, it's hard to really recommend Fire Emblem to everyone. If you are the kind of person that doesn't have a ton of gaming time and really wants to play it to experience the story, it's really hard to say you'll enjoy it. However, if you like to retry 30+ hour games over and over again and have the time to do it, there are so many combinations of characters to level and play with that you will probably find a lot of content here.

I've been wanting to try out the Fire Emblem games for some time, but wasn't sure what to start with as an entry point. I reconciled to start at the beginning (of the NA releases at least) since playing more modern entries in a series often makes the lack of polish and quality of life features of earlier games more apparent. Starting early and working forward gives a more natural feel of game design evolution and doesn't take away any of the enjoyment from the earlier titles.

That being said I still wasn't expecting to enjoy this GBA title as much as I did right from the start. The depth of the game is only as deep as the player wants it to be. I found myself replaying some chapters a dozen times to really get the perfect run down, and haphazardly running through others with a character dying because they didn't interest me or I was too focused on others. The simplistic rock paper scissors type weapon system continues to add to itself naturally throughout the game to keep it from getting stale, and gives the player a good reason to constantly try out new unit combinations rather than keeping a constant stable of over powered characters. Occasionally an enemy boss would one shot one of my guys, prompting a bout of frustration and a chapter restart, but it almost always felt like it was my own fault. More often than not losing a character is due to impatience; overreaching into the map and failing to read a situation being the leading causes of a unit's demise.

On the surface story wise the game is yet another "unassuming heroes struggle to upend big bad's world domination plot." But along the way I found myself more attached to some characters than others because of their role in combat or some of their general dialogue. The wide cast of characters are mostly two dimensional and rely heavily on tropes, but it's still hard not to pick a few favorites. The true character the stands out is the world which has seemingly unending backstory and dictates attitudes of many of the cast towards each other. I found myself more interested in some of the political intrigue that was hinted at than a lot of the core exposition.

As is expected for a game of this era the interface leaves a lot to be desired. For a game that gives you control over dozens of characters, each of which needs to be individually outfitted, the inventory management system is abysmal. Even after unlocking the merchant it's a complete chore to swap, use, and manage inventory on each character. The micromanagement at the start of a chapter should have felt like a grand preparation for battle, but instead felt like it's own battle against the games lackluster UI. While it wasn't enough to lessen my enjoyment of the game, it was a lone annoyance in an otherwise great gaming experience.

This game absolutely holds up today and was a completely enjoyable experience that kept sucking me back in until I finally beat it. There are a lot of recommendations I've found to start playing Fire Emblem with the 3DS titles but I don't think anyone would have issues getting drawn into the series with this title.

The game comes in three arcs, where you follow 3 different heroes, Lyn, Eliwood and Hector. The game has its charm, as the character's dialogue is driven by their own motives, and each character sort of fights for their own agenda.

The dragon portal bit was really interesting. The final battle being pretty cool. I finished the game, but at what cost?! Many of my dudes ended up dying in the final battle unavoidably. Sain, Wil, Marcus, their sacrifices were not in vain. Been trying to beat this game for almost a year. I wish I would have been able to keep them and see how their back story ends up.

I didn't try to have the units gain affinity towards each other so everybody pretty much ended up with a solo ending. I am off to the internet to see what the possibilities could have been. Kinda reminds me of Star Ocean 2.

All in all a great game with very nice battle animations, character design, and strategy challenges.