Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Amazing"

Fire emblem is an adventure game using a mix of RPG and strategy elements. What makes this game different from many other games of this genre is its strong story. You take the role of a young tactician named Mark (or you can enter your own information) and embark on adventures together with characters that you meet here and there. Basically a series of maps need to be completed and you'll encounter a variety of characters, some of which you can recruit if you live up to certain conditions in the game.

Graphics:
In true Intelligent system spirit, this is a very visual strategy game where everything moves and is animated. It moves and works pretty much like in Advance wars, but everything is so much better and it looks better. What I like most about the graphics is the layout. The way the portraits show up on screen, the way statistics flash upon the screen the way everything presents itself. The portraits are very varied and many. Ridiculously well-drawn and unique and really put emotion and personality into the characters. Just like in Advance wars you move your characters around using a smooth "arrow" interface. The maps are well designed and look good. As you engage in combat or other activities like using staves etc, your portrait and the one of your adversary are shown and a short animation takes place. These look awesome and you can pull off critical attacks as well as the regular ones, and they are shown differently on-screen. The stills in this game are amazing and without doubt the most beautiful I've seen on the GBA. They show up as you complete certain conditions in the storyline. All menus look very nice and are animated as well. There's an intro where the story behind the game's world is told that's also really nice. Between scenes, as you travel through the countries and different continents of the world, you are shown on a parchment type map. This is without doubt one of the best looking games out for the GBA.
95%

Sound:
Seriously, the best game music I have ever heard. The sound effects are thick and nicely done. The sound your weapon makes as it hits its target depends on what kind of weapon it is and what's being hit. For example, there would be a different sound if you were to hit a snag than if you were to hit a living opponent. The moving around sound is great with marching boots, galloping hooves, flapping wyvern wings etc. The knights sound really heavy in their armor, the sound as arrows are swooshing by is awesome as well. Back to the music then. It changes according to the story and depending what you're doing. There are a total of 99 tunes in the game. Huh? Isn't THAT cool? Also, once you finish the first set of missions, the songs you have unlocked are available in the Sound room. The audio presentation in this game is perfect.
100%

Game play:
As this is a strategy game mixed with role-playing elements (You level up and get better at wielding certain weapons if you use them a lot). The story has an awesome drive to it and is told with a superior sense of storytelling. You really get a feel for the characters you encounter and even though you CAN continue if a character gets defeated, with the exception of three main characters, chances are you will try the map again until you finish it with all your troops still standing. The interface you use moving the troops around, battling, shopping and even in the menus is near perfect. You can't save during battles, but don't you worry, if something in the real world comes up, or if you're running out of batteries, you can xxxxx your game and xxxxxx at any time. This causes some major problems though. I don't mind a challenge, but some of these maps are DIFFICULT, especially if you've leveled up the wrong characters. You'll lose HOURS trying to find out a way to beat a certain mission. This IS tedious and gets boring quickly. But with all the different weapons, characters and techniques available, it never gets to the point where you just give up and never play the game again. It does drag the game play down though.
90%

Lastability:
You'll be hooked from start to finish and it DOES have a replay value since you can do side-quests and use different troops/characters in different missions and level up different characters. Many of the maps can be completed in different ways but some can get really tedious and boring after a while. Those are the maps you'd like to skip the second run.
78%

Overall:
Fire emblem is the best game on the GBA in terms of presentation and layout. It has an awesome story and cool game-play. Buy or die.
95%