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Another fantastic strategy title for GBA

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 121 / 126
Date: November 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm a big fan of Nintendo's Intelligent Systems; who wouldn't be after Paper Mario, Mario Kart Super Circuit, Advance Wars 1 & 2, and Metroid Fusion? Their latest game is Fire Emblem, a long running series in Japan making its first English debut.

Comparisons to Advance Wars are inevitable - turn-based strategy game, grid map, and little groups of units battling it out. At the first play, it may feel too similar to some gamers, but differences emerge making Fire Emblem a completely separate interpretation of how to make a tactical strategy game. The RPG elements included in Fire Emblem provide depth and character without sacrificing simplicity. Characters only use one type of weapon and no armor. When characters reach a certain skill level, they can advance to a new class (i.e. knights to paladins) which allows the character to use another type of weapons, further extending their usefulness. The weapon types follow a rock-paper-scissors approach, or in this case, swords-lances-axes. There's three types of magic that interlock in a similar manner. While the outlying mechanics are simple, when facing down various enemies in the battlefield, maneuvering your squad to get the right match-ups is a challenging and ultimately pleasing puzzle.

One of the notable features of Fire Emblem is frail mortality of the characters. When characters die in a level, they cannot be brought back to life and do not return for subsequent battles. Exit stage left, thank you for playing. Fire Emblem tries hard to keep the player as honest as possible by transparently saving after every menu selection. If you try to cheese the game by turning off the GBA right as a character dies, when you turn your system back on, you'll be treated to the same death scene each time you load your game. The only way to save your characters from death replaying the entire level- levels can span 30-45 minutes, and restarting can be a serious sacrifice to save a less favored character.

To further burden the decision of whether to let a character die, characters that end up along side each other develop support relationships that provide bonuses when they fight together. It takes a long time to develop these relationships and the bonus are worth the effort. A death of one of a partner in one of these relationships seriously effects the other's effectiveness, therefore it becomes even more difficult to allow one player die.

While the rigid approach the game takes to standard save/reload cheese may come off as annoying, it does much to make the game world more vivid to the player. Characters are almost as close to living things as could exist in a videogame format. You become attached to them because they can be so fragile and you think seriously about the consequences of leaving a weakened party member exposed to enemy forces. (In a brilliant turn, the game allows some characters to rescue other characters and pull them from dangerous situations.)

That said, the scenarios are entertaining, well scripted, and have a wide enough amount of variety to keep the player on their toes. Some levels feature fog of war, indoor battles with doors and breakable walls, anti-magic wells, or special requirements like defending a certain character. My favorite levels are ones where your group of a dozen soldiers has to split up and accomplish different tasks, almost in a Mission Impossible-style. Deciding who to bring on the mission, how to divide them up, equipping them correctly, and synchronizing the battle so that everything falls into place is supremely satisfying.

There's nothing that an experienced gamer hasn't seen before in Fire Emblem, but I've never seen those components stripped to their essence and combined in such a elegant matter. Fire Emblem is the only console strategy game that can be compared favorably to Advance Wars, and that's all the praise I need to give.

Wish This Had Been Brought to NA Earlier!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 61 / 64
Date: July 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I try to be honest in all of my reviews, and this will be no different. I wanted not to like Fire Emblem. I assumed that there had to be a really good reason that a strong-selling title from a beloved Japanese series would not have made it to North America. As you can tell from my score, this was not the case. I absolutely LOVED every minute I played this game, and continue to play it at least once a week.

Story
To discuss the story in great depth would certainly lead to spoilers. I do not want to ruin the intricate attention to detail that the authors have so lovingly crafted into this title.

Without going into great story-ruining detail (beyond the ''Tutorial'' chapters), you are placed in the role of a Tactician. As such, you are responsible for assisting Lyn, a woman who is attempting to rid her locale of invading hordes. Along the way, you meet up with several like-minded characters who wish to help you with your quest. Some first appear as enemies, however. If you choose to attack them rather than talk to them (which are different menu commands), you will find yourself possibly missing out on their contribution to the storyline.

As your cabal increases in number, you have a choice as to which characters to choose from. There is an ''old woman'' who can do a reading for you where she occasionally recommends that you take someone along (usually because they will be needed to talk to another character). This ''Augury'' costs you money, but is very helpful to the newbie turn-based strategist.

Characters
The story really has strong character development, and a wide range of characters you will encounter:
* Archer
* Cavalier
* Paladin
* Monk
* Magician
* Lord
* Wyvern Rider
* Pegasus Knight
* Nomad
* Fighter
* Thief
...

Most of the characters have a deep back-story that unfolds throughout the game. Like many RPGs, the characters level-up through an experience-based system, which automatically improves their personal statistics as well. Items throughout the game also act as power-ups, allowing your characters to evolve into a ''super'' class based upon those which they started from.

Gameplay
This is a turn-based strategy game. When two characters are near one another, they have the opportunity to attack one another (depending on their attack range). Each class of character has their own type of attack (largely dependent upon the weapon or magic that they wield).

The fighting in the game is based upon a triad, much like rock-paper-scissors:

* Axes beat Lances
* Lances beat Swords
* Swords beat Axes

The same can be said for magic, where you have 3 types of magic and each has one type that it is strong against and one that it is weaker against:

* Elemental Magic beats Light Magic
* Light Magic beats Dark Magic
* Dark Magic beats Elemental Magic

This makes for very interesting gameplay, as you can have a relatively low-level character with light magic beat the heck out of a higher-level Dark Mage, simply because of the magic balance.

SNES Level Animation and Good Attention to Detail
I expect GBA games to have decent animation and sound, and Fire Emblem does well on this platform. The music is great, the sound effects are appropriate and well-timed.

What really caught my eye was the attention to detail. If a unit is holding one type of weapon, when you cut to the battle sequence, they fight with that weapon (not their default). I was especially impressed with the fighting sequences, although I eventually turned them off for the later chapters so I could spend less time watching fights and more time strategizing!

A really great feature of this game is the ability to save almost any time. At any time that you are in control (e.g. not when computer or ''other'' is moving), you can choose to ''Suspend'' your game. This means that all moves up to that point will be saved, and you can continue from that point on. This was very important to my enjoyment, as later battles can take upwards of an hour a piece. If you want to try a silly ''blitz'' approach to map out the level, you can have a throw-away save spot and use it to store your explorations.

Well worth noting is the automatic saving feature. A couple of times I found myself up very late at night, trying to finish a level before the power of my GBA ran out. Ignoring the orange light, I continued to battle. When the machine ran out of power, as all batteries inevitably do, I was very worried that my progress would be lost! Luckily, all moves up to the point that the power went out were saved to the slot I was working on. I wouldn't recommend this approach, as I am sure I jeopardized the stability of said save file, but it is good to know that if you get too involved, you won't lose everything!

Will This Gather Dust?
It certainly won't in my collection. I have played this game to death, and still have a few chapters left to conquer. This is the kind of game you play, then rethink how you completed the chapter...could I have saved more guards if I had only...could I have reached that village before it was sacked by barbarians???

Well worth its price, and I do truly wish this series had been brought to North America earlier. I look forward to the next Fire Emblem game reaching our shores!

Overall Recommendations:
You'll like this if:
* You like RPGs.
* You like medieval-themed games.
* You liked Warcraft I or II or StarCraft.

great game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 19
Date: September 28, 2003
Author: Amazon User

As cedon said, this game is set in medieval times. You have your different types of units which are: Pegasus Knights/Riders, Dragon Knights/Riders, (be especially careful with these two types of units, if they're shot by archers, chances are they'll die because the arrow will have a berzerk hit!) Social Knights,(basically a knight that can use a sword or lance) Lance Knights, (only able to use a lance) Paladin, (class change for social knights), Duke Knights, (class change for lance knights), Lord, (your leader unit, use him/her to conquer castles) Mage Knights, (I believe this is class change for a mage), Mages,(they can use magic) Priests, (use staffs to heal people), High Priests, (class change for priests) Sword Masters/Fighters, Archers, Snipers, Hunters, Sisters, (basically same as priest), Armor Knights/Generals, Freelance Knights, Axe Knights, Arch Knights, Fighters (ground axe fighter), Thieves/Theif Fighters, (they open doors/treasure chests)Bow Axe Fighters, (archers on horseback)Mountain Thieves, Torubadors, (female knights that can heal others)Great Knight, (class change for axe knight)Forest Knight, (class change for freelance knight)Warrior, (basically an axe fighter) Axe/Bow Armor, (armored knights with axes/bows) Mercenary, (basically a sword fighter) Bard, (like a mage, higher speed and skill, can also use light magic) Sage, (EXTREMELY powerful mage) Dancers, (give people back their turns, I'm not sure if they're on this game as I haven't beaten it yet on the Japanese one, same goes for bard and sage) Piper? (boy with teal hair, he gives people back their turns, but is not a dancer, also cannot use weapons). I believe this is all the units the player can have. I may have missed a few. Rough terrain slows down movement. Weather conditions also come into play on this game. When you start playing you'll have to enter a name, gender, birthdate, and element for your "Commander", in case you're wondering that's you! It'll also do a tutorial thing once you have all that done. It'll show you how to attack, use potions, (healing items) and conquer places. You can recruit characters on this game by having certain characters talk to them. If they're an enemy and they say something about a character you have on your team, try to talk to them with that character to recruit them. Don't let your Lord character die. If she/he dies, you'll game over. Be wary of the auto-save function on the game as well. If your Lord character dies, it'll save that happening, so proceed with caution. You can also level up your characters on your game and hook up your GBA system to another GBA and battle against their characters. Lin is the 1st female Lord character on a Fire Emblem game, and she's awesome. Same goes for Elwood. Normally your Lord characters really suck, (Ex. Marth, Leaf, Roy)the only reason why Roy and Marth were worth keeping around is because they had special swords which you needed to kill certain bosses. Celis and Sigurd were good, (Celis is Sigurd's kid). They were on Fire Emblem 4. Leaf was on 5, Roy is on 7, Marth is on 1 and 3. I never played Fire Emblem 2. The other Fire Emblem games are awesome too. If you can understand Japanese, you should think about playing them. This game series is definitely my favorite for RPGs. You should give them a try!!

awesome.........

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 17
Date: September 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

...this game is nothing like Zelda. Yes, it's true it was a game released only in Japan, but it's coming to America in English. I've played and nearly beaten the game all the way through, (on the Japanese one) the guy with the red hair is not Roy. It is Roy's dad, Elwood, and no, Marth is not on this game. He was on Fire Emblem 1: The Dragon of Darkness and the Sword of Light, and Fire Emblem 3: The Mystery of the Emblem. I've beaten both games. They were good too. This game is a game similar to Advance Wars, but it's set in medieval times. You have a lord character, (basically he/she is your leader) and your other units assisting you. If any of your characters die, you cannot bring them back. If your lord character dies, it's an automatic game over. First time through it is Lin, (the girl with the green hair on the cover), and second time through it is Elwood. I'm almost done beating this game. Like all Fire Emblem games, it is very fun. However, (so far anyway).....my favorite Fire Emblem game is Fire Emblem 4: The Geneology of Holy War. Like I said though, that may change. Fire Emblem 6 has a good story and good graphics. Since I don't want to ruin the story for you, all I can tell you is buy it and see what you think!!:)

THE REAL GAME OF THE YEAR

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: November 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Only a fool would own a game boy advance and not own Fire Emblem.

My initial impression is that nothing can stop this from being GOTY aside from the fact that game boy games are usually snubbed and fire emblem will be snubbed too.

The localization for this game is much better than the localization for Intelligent System's other popular strategy series advance wars. According to a review I read, Fire Emblem is better than Advance Wars as a single player game, and so far I have to agree with that comment.

I haven't been this immersed in a game since Chrono Trigger for the super nintendo. After several hours of playing the game I feel that the character development and dialogue is probably the best in any game boy game ever made or at least any game boy game I have ever played.

Presentation 10 out of 10
Flawless presentation. All the menus are top-notch and the game is designed to near perfection.

Graphics 10 out of 10
Beautiful hand-drawn backgrounds and excellent character design. The graphics are technically and artistically wonderful.

Sound 9 out of 10
I was amazed at what I heard coming from my gba speakers.

Gameplay 10 out of 10
Flawless turn based strategy.

Lasting Appeal 9/10
The multiplayer is only bested by Advance Wars.

Intelligent Systems is now my favorite game development company.

Oh My God.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: February 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Oh My God this game is oh so cool. Time flies when you're having fun and that's definitely the case with Fire Emblem. In this game, there are SO many people and you become friends with ALL of them. If you lose one, GOODBYE. Ya won't see him/her for the rest of the game, PERIOD.

I've seen reviews of Fire Emblem complaining about the graphics, but personally I think they're fine. They aren't better or worse than any other games I've ever played, and it's actually quite funny the way they look on the battlefield. Course you can't tell two people of the same class from one another, like say, Batre from Dorcas. That's a problem, but it doesn't really make a huge effect on the game.

There's things like Weapon Levels, Support Levels, and all that, but you don't have to worry about getting armor for any of your chars. You do have to worry about weapons breaking and magic items disappearing, but it's all worth it for this game.

The battles and strategy are pretty easy in the tutorial and at the beginning of the real story, but in the later chaps of 23+ they are really difficult. For those people who enjoy a challenge and using their heads, this game is for you. ENJOY!

Awesome Game, DON'T PASS THIS ONE UP!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: March 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game, period.

Storyline: The story is immersive. Great characters, dialog, everything! The opening tutorial (not really a tutorial) has a story of its own that just leads to the main story later on. Overall, I had a hard time putting this game down.

Graphics: Personally I enjoy the anime-style graphics of this game more than some 3-D titles on other systems. Battles are colorful and all of the character designs are great (well one character, a monk named Lucius, looks like a girl, but it is no big deal).

Gameplay: The strategy system in the game is very similar to the Advance Wars titles, but in my opinion even better (played both Advance Wars games, there good but FE is better). You play on a grid-based map where you direct your characters in battle. The addition of rpg elements (leveling up) is a great feature. Gameplay is easy enough and challenging enough for everyone.

All I have left to say is BUY THIS GAME! I promise you won't regret it!

The game rocks

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 26
Date: November 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Since I have to buy my own games, I really take pride in choosing the right one. Even though I had not played a lick of tactical strategy (i.e. Advance Wars series) in my life, I decided to start playing with Fire Emblem. The game looked interesting, and I had read good reviews about it.There were other equally good looking competitors out there- Sword of Mana,Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, just to name a few. The early screenshots of Fire Emblem looked great, so I went out to purchase it at my local shop. I brought it home, quietly opened it and started playing with the first mission. To my surprise, it was a smooth drive. The gameplay flowed coherently, and the animation and storylines fit into the game. I knew I was going to have a great time.

The Best NonRPG Game There Is!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: March 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is the bomb because of its difference to other games. Below show my overall rating of the game.

Graphics 8/10-I only gave it ten because a lot of the enemies look the same as some of your own team. Only some of your team (with the exception of your lords)look different than enemies, such as theifs/assasins.

Storyline 10/10-The storyline was original not like some other games where you have 5 or 6 levels with barely any storyline and the objective for each level is "Beat the boss" (rolls eyes and sighes)In this game you have 31 chapters I believe and each one plays a role in the game.

Gameplay 10/10- The game is intresting to play but not like some games such as "Megaman Zero" and "The Hobbit" that are easy to beat in a few hours. This game is hard hard hard!!!!!!! I have had this game for 1 month and i am still on chapter 26x (I am only allowed to play on the weekends)

Characters 10/10-The characters all have different looks if not on the battlefield. The characters can die and by the time they do you are so attached to them you restart the chapter.

Music 7/10-There is music for different things but only like 10 tracks are used most of the time so the music is pretty repetitive. Even so the music is good so that makes up for it.

I hope this review helped you decided whether or not to buy the AWASOME!!!AWASOME!!!AWASOME!!! game called ~~~Fire Emblem~~~ (^_^)

Fire Emblem

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: August 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is actually the seventh in the series. The first six games were only released in Japan. So this being the first game we can get a true feel for, I have to say they couldn't have done any better. If you're someone that worries about a game being too easy, you'll be very surprised. Fire Emblem is one of the toughest games to be released in quite sometime on ANY system. As the other reviewers have stated, once a character falls in battle, they will not return for that entire tale. This will cause you to restart the game plenty of times, as it will be difficult to persuade yourself into marching on without that character. Unlike everyone else though, I consider this a positive. It adds much more life to the game, rather then if you were to give the character a secret potion to bring them back right away. It's unique, and you get much more out of the game this way. The first 11 chapters are Lyn's Tale, which basically serves as a tutorial for the game. It gives you a chance to get used to the game and play without much trouble. Following the 11th chapter, chapter 12 starts off as Eliwood's Tale. This is really where the game starts. You'll be faced with plenty of missions and gaiden chapters (side quests). If you're able to beat the game here, then you will unlock Lyn's Hard Mode, Eliwood's Hard Mode, and Hector's Tale, if you didn't think it was hard enough the first time. You will also find some extras, like your Battle History, a Sound Test Room, and Support Conversations that certain characters could have with each other.

When a character levels up, the stats that get boosted are not already set. You could gain a level up which consists of your HP, POWER, SPEED, and LUCK raising, then need to reset the game, get the level up again, and this time only come away with your HP going up. This is where the Link Arena comes in. You can challenge other people, facing your characters against theirs. Since not everyone is guaranteed to have the same stats, anything can happen. You might find yourself wanting to start more files just to get better characters to use in the Link Arena.

Even all I have said really can't explain how great the game truly is. Once you start playing it, you'll see for yourself. The replay value for this game is the highest I've experienced in a GBA game, and one of the highest I've seen, pretty much in any game. So just know one thing...there will be something that keeps you playing this game.

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