Highly addictive and just plain fun for strategy fans.
Fire Emblem is actually the seventh in a long line of Japaneese RPGs with similar titles. This is the first to be released outside of Japan.
At the beginning of the game you are allowed to change to name of the "Tactician" who is basically you in the game directing orders to an array of characters ranging from horse riding cavilars to stave wielding clerics. You are thrust into "Lyn's Story" which is basically a tutorial with a story that spans the games first ten chapters, or levels.
There is a simple rock-paper-scissors formula for which weapons give you which bonus when fighting which weapon. A strong character usually can overcome this and defeat an enemy even when his weapon is vulnernable to his enemiess' weapon.
Fire Emblem has a lot of characters and in RPGs this sometimes becomes a problem because there is no character devlopment. Fire Emblem gets around this rather nicely, if you keep using certain characters on the same map and they stand by each other a certain number of turns they have a "Support Conversation". Ths support gives them both a minor bonus as well as gives them a bit of personality. Since you chose which charcters you bring into battle you chose which characters you want to devlop.
The game is turn based, you move your characters and attack and then the bad guys do the same. The objectives are usually kill everyone on screen although sometimes you just have to kill the boss or defend a spot of a certain amount of time.
The story line is good enough to draw you into the game and the gameplay is sort of repetitive but fun none the less. You will be coming back to this again and again if you like it and I've been playing this game since 2004, it really is great.
Fire Emblem is one of the best games for the GBA out there and I give it a 9/10.