Fire Emblem is a challenging and enjoyable game for both hardcore and more casual fans of turn-based strategy.

User Rating: 8.8 | Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken GBA
By JonathanL | Review Date:
After years of being a Japan-exclusive franchise (with the exception of two characters in Super Smash Bros.: Melee), Fire Emblem finally comes to western world, and gamers who enjoy a deep and addictive experience in the palm of their hands have Intelligent Systems to thank for a truly great game. That isn't to say that the game has years of baggage to go with it, however. Anyone can step in and play the game, as the story takes place before the other games in Fire Emblem's lineage, and there is a very long and detailed tutorial esection that does a very good job at teaching the player the ropes. Fire Emblem is pretty much your standard turn-based strategy game; you have a cast of characters/units, you wait for your turn, you move your units to attack, and when you're done you pass the turn. In and of itself, it's not all that exciting; on paper, it's even BORING. But Fire Emblem, like other high quality turn-based strategy games, has a few aces up its sleeves. For starters, there are lots of interesting and varied units. There are air units, cavalry, archers, different mage classes, swordsmen, and more, all with specific strengths and weaknesses, and all with a proper time and place for best usage. The game also employs a paper-rock-scissors-type melee hierarchy, whereby swords, axes, and lances all take priority over one of the other melee methods, and lose out against another. It makes the player guage their forces and their foes wisely, and tricky weapons that reverse the flow also factor in later on. There are also terrain, lighting, and weather effects, and it all ties in to add enough variables to make every situation a bit different Also, the game gives the advantage to aggressors, giving them first (and oftentimes final) strikes, encouraging the player to seek out and attack their enemy, instead of relying on a great defensive strategy that doesn't end up being very exciting or interesting. The balance this strikes is very effective, as a good player must play offensively at times, defensively at others, but always keeping in mind advantages and disadvantages, spacing and weapon/magic hierarchies... it's all very intense to the player, made even moreso by Fire Emblem's signature gameplay element... Characters actually die. In battle, if someone's hit points reach zero, then the character dies... no unconsciousness, no single hit point after the fight, and assuredly, NO Phoenix Downs... dead is dead, and players who want to make sure there are no casualties in this war have a long, arduous fight ahead of them, as much of the difficulty in Fire Emblem is not so much intrinsic as it is reliant on the player's level of perfectionism: a dedicated player who will not allow any deaths will havea much logner experience with this title over someone who is willing to let heroes fall, or, worse, let bait serve its purpose. The reward for keeping players alive is not one I intend to spoil here, but it is nice that Intelligent Systems rewards players according to their level of dedication to those who are doing the dirty work on the field of battle. The storyline in Fire Emblem isn't terribly good, but it is well-developed, and the game tries very hard to make sure the cast of dozens is well-represented; the player will gain many an ally, and their options in battle will increse with the swelling score of friends in arms as well. The visuals are fairly good, and if the player chooses to leave the battle animations on, the fights are fun to watch; they are fairly simple, but reasonably attractive and well-animated. Other than that, the terrain is well-done, but the character models on the overhead view are obviously too small to be well-represented; they all look rather squished, and it all would have looked better had the size of things been upped a bit, or if there was a closer view function that actually represented the character well. The character design, while a bit plain compared to many contemporary titles in its field (like Final Fantasy Tactics or even Intelligetn Systems' own Advanbce Wars), is well-done, and each character has a nice-looking portrait as well, and that little picture goes a long way towards making the cahracters more sympathetic. The audio is very good, with an excellent main theme and good battle music as well. Catchy music seems hard to come by these days, and Fire Emblem has some tunes that sound both energetic and serious, and it's a very well-done soundtrack overall. The main thrust of the game involves three separate campaigns. The tutorial takes the player through the beginnings of the plot while leading Lyndis, a nomad swordmaster, and it is during these missions, just short of a dozen, that the player learns the basics and gets a feel for basic game strategy. After this the game kicks up a bit as the leader of troops become Crown Prince Eliwood, and after succeeding through that, the player relives the events of Eliwood's story through his best friend, Prince Hector. The second time around, things are changed up just enough to be interesting while staying familiar, and the opportunity to progress through the game while giving other characters on the list a chance to play and change strategy is welcome. After beating that, Hard mode opens up, and it's terribly difficult, as Intelligent Systems dooes not fool around with higher difficulty levels. The game does have a few shortcomings, however, namely the save system, which autosaves after every turn. What this means is that if the player loses a memebr of their team, but did not intend to, in order to keep that character from dying, the player must start the entire battle all over. This means a lot of trial-and-error for perfectionists, and stands out as the game's greatest flaw. There are also no extra battle maps and no additional Vs. modes with the computer, so other than the game's main plot and any battles against a friend (the multiplayer mode is not very well-developed or all that entertaining), there isn't anything else left. On the plus side, theese are the only major issues the game has, really, and a game with issues of "restarting levels" and "limited multiplayer and maps" is nothing new; luckily, the game's main mode takes enough time that this isn't much of an issue. When all is said and done, Fire Emblem is a challenging, addictive, highly entertaining game that both casual fans of the genre and hardcore fans alike can get into. The save system is a bit frustrating, but other than that, it's got a good plot, a great cast of characters, solid visuals, and a very good soundtrack. It's not perfect and doesn't have the breadth of modes or content that its sister series, Advance Wars, has, but it's very much its own flavor and very entertaining, and highly recommended to anyone remotely interested in strategy RPGs.

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