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.

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.

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.