[sub]Here we go - a DemonGuy792 retrospective review. I wrote this because I decided that I'd try and make a resolution to myself, and try and write reviews on a vaguely ordered schedule once I'd Gone Gonzo. It also seems to have become somewhat traditional for a non-reviewer to write a review at various post milestones, and I'm nothing if not a stickler for traditions (or pseudo-traditions, as the case may be). Hope you enjoy reading this.[/sub]
Fire Emblem is a game series, and quite anold well-established one, having started on the Famicom and, as of now, has games on both of Nintendo's current gen consoles, the DS and Wii. I say Famicom, rather than NES, because its more appropriate, I think, since the series has been a Japanese exclusive, right up until the 7th game to be published, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken, which roughly translates as Blazing Sword, although it was simply known as Fire Emblem outside of Japan.
The Game Boy Advance was not exempt from its share of Fire Emblem games; indeed, three were released for the Game Boy Advance, the joint most for any Nintendo console, sharing its place with the Super Famicom. These three games are the ones I shall be reviewing, and consist of the Japanese-only Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi, the first Fire Emblem game to be released outside of Japan, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken and the first game to incorporate a freely-navigable World Map and multiple promotion trees for characters, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, because, quite frankly, if you review one, you've reviewed them all.
The gameplay of Fire Emblem has remained fairly consistent over the years that the series has been running (that's 19 years now), and all three of these games are no exceptions - the games sit quite neatly in the Turn-Based Strategy RPG genre, along with the rest of the series. The basic premise is that you and your army are placed on a map that is all squared off, with various enemies in the way and an overall goal presented to you. In Fuuin no Tsurugi, the goal never differs from "Sieze the Keep", whereas Rekka no Ken and The Sacred Stones both feature alternative goals, like "Defeat the Boss" and "Survive for x amount of turns", which helps keep the games interesting by keeping players on their toes, since each goal requires a different strategy.
The units open to the player are quite extensive. The game is set during a fantasy-medieval time period, and the classes reflect that. Most characters start off with a 1st tier class; these include the Myrmidon (an assassin type character with a high critical hit ratio), the Thief, the Cavalier (Social Knight in the Japanese games), the Fighter, the Mage, the Shaman and the Cleric, as well as many more, and each class can upgrade, once certain parameters have been met, with the 2nd Tier classes often being much more refined, such as the Swordmaster, Druid, Bishop, Rogue, Hero or Dragon Master. The main protagonists of each game are all Lords, but can upgrade into their own unique class as well, with most of them being an upgrade of the weaponry the Lords use, such as Blade Lord, Knight Lord and Axe Lord.
Another part of the tactics in Fire Emblem is the Weapons Triangle, of which there are two. All weapons will fall into a category, which are lances, swords, axes, bows, Anima, Light, Dark and Staves. The first Triangle states that during battle, a unit with a lance will gain a boost against a unit with a sword, a sword user will have the advantage against an axe wielder and an axe wielder will beat a lance user. Similarly, the Magic Triangle says that Anima magic, such as Fire and Thunder, is effective against users of Light Magic, Light Magic is good against Dark Magic and Dark Magic beats Anima. The two weapons exempt from this are bows, which do extra damage against Flying units, such as Pegasi Knights, and Staves, which cast various effects such as Heal, but stops the user attacking in combat. This adds an extra degree of thought when it comes to making moves, as you may attack a sword wielding enemy with a lance-wielding Knight, only to have that unit charged by enemy Warriors armed with axes.
The main part of the challenge of the Fire Emblem games is when your units finally bite the bullet and die, and this is what sets Fire Emblem apart from other RPGs - there is no way to revive your characters. Quite literally, if a character dies, they stay dead, which means you have to exercise extreme caution when moving your units. All three of these games do offer more than one unit in each promotion tree, but if one dies, then you're usually faced with the prospect of having to train another, and, because the game uses an auto-save system, you can't just reset the battle, since it'll restart with the death of your character. In fact, the only way to get around it is to restart the entire Chapter. Similarly, every weapon has a durability number that decreases with each use of the weapon. Once that runs down, the weapon breaks and the unit is rendered unable to attack.
The plot of the three games is another part of the games where they all resemble each other. The basic plot of the three games can be summed up as one nation is at war with another, causing the main character(s) - Roy in Fuuin no Tsurugi, Lyn, Eliwood and Hector in Rekka no Ken and Eirika and Ephraim in The Sacred Stones - to go on a quest to stop them, and are assisted by a wide variety of characters in their quest. Sometimes the main villain is another country's leader, sometimes its a demon, but the plot has very little variety in terms of the main storyline. However, it's presented fairly well, with text-based conversations before and after the Chapter, with some in the middle as well, as some enemies will take time out of fighting to banter with their attacker, while units who spend a set number of turns near each other can engage in Support conversations, which increases their stats when they're near each other, as well as revealing snippets of the character's history, or their thoughts on other characters. However, as I said before, the plot's pretty much the same, with only some minor differences for each game, so if you're looking for an original story and you've already played one of these, then be wary.
Graphically, the game is quite pretty, as far as sprites can be called pretty. There's plenty of colour splashed around, which is nice to see, although there's only a small number of tiles used for each map, but it doesn't detract from the visual spectacle. The characters are also nicely designed, although I couldn't help noticing that, as an RPG, some characters had wildly coloured hair, if not wildly designed, but that's alright, it helped make some of the character's memorable.
The attacks are also beautiful - specifically, the magic attacks, which mostly consist of sparks of various colours splashing around the screen, and it makes it all the more upsetting when they finally run out and you have to resort to less impressive attacks.
Still, its not without its problems. The main problem is, just like everything else, it never changes. From Fuuin no Tsurugi to Sacred Stones, there's no graphical upgrades at all. Everything is reused - every sprite, every attack, every animation, every background - and there's just nothing new. While its all fine and dandy that the game looks good, I'd expect a game released 2 to 3 years after the first in the series to have some updates.
In terms of sounds, the game could do better, I feel. While I've nothing against the synthesized music present in the games, with grand stories and epic quests, I think that synthesized notes don't really do the game justice. Similarly, the tinny "bleepedy bleep" of the text as it scrolls across the screen tends to gets grating after the first hour or so, and each game is fairly verbose, so you'll be hearing it a lot. Still, I understand the limitations of a Game Boy Advance game, but still...I've got to find something solid to complain about, really, and there hasn't been much up to now to moan about.
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The Bottom Line - Is it Fun and should I Buy It/Them?
First of all, yes, all three of these games are fun. To the casual gamer, they're a great way to kill, say a train journey, and then put down for the return home, while a more serious gamer could spend ages carefully planning a strategy to get them through the game with no casualities, which is possible, as well as getting all of the Support Conversations and, therefore, all of the possible endings for each character.
However, the main problem in these games lies in the fact that they're all too similar to warrant buying all three. It really is a case of played one, played them all, I found, since there's only ever minor adjustments to each subsequent game, which gives the final game, The Sacred Stones, a feeling that your playing Fire Emblem Version 1.3, rather than an all-new game.
So, the bottom line - buy, rent or miss? Let's do this for each game.
Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi. This is easily the biggest challenge of the three, what with having the weakest Lord, the hardest bosses and being all in Japanese. Now, I can read Japanese, so I managed to struggle through the game fairly well, but, unless you can read it or you fancy reading a fan-translation as you're going along, then I'd avoid it, but not because it's a bad game. It's just too hard to get a copy and it's all in Japanese.
Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken - [sub]Also known as Fire Emblem in non-Japanese speaking areas[/sub]. This game, much like the previous title, is a challenge, but less so, since you can choose from three Lords, all of whom are good, and it is has the added bonus of being in English. If you're a Fire Emblem or Turn-Based Strategy veteran, then I'd Buy This One, as it's more of a challenge than the following game while still being fun.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. This game would be the one I'd recommend to beginners, either in the Fire Emblem series or in the entire Turn-Based Strategy genre. The multiple promotion trees allow for a large amount of strategic planning and choice, while the freely navigable world map means you can easily replenish supplies should they start to get low, as well as fighting Skirmishes to raise your characters Levels. Therefore, if you're new to Fire Emblem, Get This One.
Thank you for reading; any and all comments would be appreciated.
DemonGuy792
Fire Emblem is a game series, and quite an
The Game Boy Advance was not exempt from its share of Fire Emblem games; indeed, three were released for the Game Boy Advance, the joint most for any Nintendo console, sharing its place with the Super Famicom. These three games are the ones I shall be reviewing, and consist of the Japanese-only Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi, the first Fire Emblem game to be released outside of Japan, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken and the first game to incorporate a freely-navigable World Map and multiple promotion trees for characters, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, because, quite frankly, if you review one, you've reviewed them all.
Hi, I'm the Middle Child.
The gameplay of Fire Emblem has remained fairly consistent over the years that the series has been running (that's 19 years now), and all three of these games are no exceptions - the games sit quite neatly in the Turn-Based Strategy RPG genre, along with the rest of the series. The basic premise is that you and your army are placed on a map that is all squared off, with various enemies in the way and an overall goal presented to you. In Fuuin no Tsurugi, the goal never differs from "Sieze the Keep", whereas Rekka no Ken and The Sacred Stones both feature alternative goals, like "Defeat the Boss" and "Survive for x amount of turns", which helps keep the games interesting by keeping players on their toes, since each goal requires a different strategy.
The units open to the player are quite extensive. The game is set during a fantasy-medieval time period, and the classes reflect that. Most characters start off with a 1st tier class; these include the Myrmidon (an assassin type character with a high critical hit ratio), the Thief, the Cavalier (Social Knight in the Japanese games), the Fighter, the Mage, the Shaman and the Cleric, as well as many more, and each class can upgrade, once certain parameters have been met, with the 2nd Tier classes often being much more refined, such as the Swordmaster, Druid, Bishop, Rogue, Hero or Dragon Master. The main protagonists of each game are all Lords, but can upgrade into their own unique class as well, with most of them being an upgrade of the weaponry the Lords use, such as Blade Lord, Knight Lord and Axe Lord.
Another part of the tactics in Fire Emblem is the Weapons Triangle, of which there are two. All weapons will fall into a category, which are lances, swords, axes, bows, Anima, Light, Dark and Staves. The first Triangle states that during battle, a unit with a lance will gain a boost against a unit with a sword, a sword user will have the advantage against an axe wielder and an axe wielder will beat a lance user. Similarly, the Magic Triangle says that Anima magic, such as Fire and Thunder, is effective against users of Light Magic, Light Magic is good against Dark Magic and Dark Magic beats Anima. The two weapons exempt from this are bows, which do extra damage against Flying units, such as Pegasi Knights, and Staves, which cast various effects such as Heal, but stops the user attacking in combat. This adds an extra degree of thought when it comes to making moves, as you may attack a sword wielding enemy with a lance-wielding Knight, only to have that unit charged by enemy Warriors armed with axes.
The main part of the challenge of the Fire Emblem games is when your units finally bite the bullet and die, and this is what sets Fire Emblem apart from other RPGs - there is no way to revive your characters. Quite literally, if a character dies, they stay dead, which means you have to exercise extreme caution when moving your units. All three of these games do offer more than one unit in each promotion tree, but if one dies, then you're usually faced with the prospect of having to train another, and, because the game uses an auto-save system, you can't just reset the battle, since it'll restart with the death of your character. In fact, the only way to get around it is to restart the entire Chapter. Similarly, every weapon has a durability number that decreases with each use of the weapon. Once that runs down, the weapon breaks and the unit is rendered unable to attack.
What do you mean, you forgot to bring the Life spell?!
The plot of the three games is another part of the games where they all resemble each other. The basic plot of the three games can be summed up as one nation is at war with another, causing the main character(s) - Roy in Fuuin no Tsurugi, Lyn, Eliwood and Hector in Rekka no Ken and Eirika and Ephraim in The Sacred Stones - to go on a quest to stop them, and are assisted by a wide variety of characters in their quest. Sometimes the main villain is another country's leader, sometimes its a demon, but the plot has very little variety in terms of the main storyline. However, it's presented fairly well, with text-based conversations before and after the Chapter, with some in the middle as well, as some enemies will take time out of fighting to banter with their attacker, while units who spend a set number of turns near each other can engage in Support conversations, which increases their stats when they're near each other, as well as revealing snippets of the character's history, or their thoughts on other characters. However, as I said before, the plot's pretty much the same, with only some minor differences for each game, so if you're looking for an original story and you've already played one of these, then be wary.
Don't let it concern you. I often end plot-based exposition in the middle of.
Graphically, the game is quite pretty, as far as sprites can be called pretty. There's plenty of colour splashed around, which is nice to see, although there's only a small number of tiles used for each map, but it doesn't detract from the visual spectacle. The characters are also nicely designed, although I couldn't help noticing that, as an RPG, some characters had wildly coloured hair, if not wildly designed, but that's alright, it helped make some of the character's memorable.
The attacks are also beautiful - specifically, the magic attacks, which mostly consist of sparks of various colours splashing around the screen, and it makes it all the more upsetting when they finally run out and you have to resort to less impressive attacks.
Still, its not without its problems. The main problem is, just like everything else, it never changes. From Fuuin no Tsurugi to Sacred Stones, there's no graphical upgrades at all. Everything is reused - every sprite, every attack, every animation, every background - and there's just nothing new. While its all fine and dandy that the game looks good, I'd expect a game released 2 to 3 years after the first in the series to have some updates.
I cast Diamon Dust...err...I mean, Fimbulvetr! Yeah...
In terms of sounds, the game could do better, I feel. While I've nothing against the synthesized music present in the games, with grand stories and epic quests, I think that synthesized notes don't really do the game justice. Similarly, the tinny "bleepedy bleep" of the text as it scrolls across the screen tends to gets grating after the first hour or so, and each game is fairly verbose, so you'll be hearing it a lot. Still, I understand the limitations of a Game Boy Advance game, but still...I've got to find something solid to complain about, really, and there hasn't been much up to now to moan about.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bottom Line - Is it Fun and should I Buy It/Them?
First of all, yes, all three of these games are fun. To the casual gamer, they're a great way to kill, say a train journey, and then put down for the return home, while a more serious gamer could spend ages carefully planning a strategy to get them through the game with no casualities, which is possible, as well as getting all of the Support Conversations and, therefore, all of the possible endings for each character.
However, the main problem in these games lies in the fact that they're all too similar to warrant buying all three. It really is a case of played one, played them all, I found, since there's only ever minor adjustments to each subsequent game, which gives the final game, The Sacred Stones, a feeling that your playing Fire Emblem Version 1.3, rather than an all-new game.
So, the bottom line - buy, rent or miss? Let's do this for each game.
Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi. This is easily the biggest challenge of the three, what with having the weakest Lord, the hardest bosses and being all in Japanese. Now, I can read Japanese, so I managed to struggle through the game fairly well, but, unless you can read it or you fancy reading a fan-translation as you're going along, then I'd avoid it, but not because it's a bad game. It's just too hard to get a copy and it's all in Japanese.
Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken - [sub]Also known as Fire Emblem in non-Japanese speaking areas[/sub]. This game, much like the previous title, is a challenge, but less so, since you can choose from three Lords, all of whom are good, and it is has the added bonus of being in English. If you're a Fire Emblem or Turn-Based Strategy veteran, then I'd Buy This One, as it's more of a challenge than the following game while still being fun.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. This game would be the one I'd recommend to beginners, either in the Fire Emblem series or in the entire Turn-Based Strategy genre. The multiple promotion trees allow for a large amount of strategic planning and choice, while the freely navigable world map means you can easily replenish supplies should they start to get low, as well as fighting Skirmishes to raise your characters Levels. Therefore, if you're new to Fire Emblem, Get This One.
Thank you for reading; any and all comments would be appreciated.
DemonGuy792
