User Reviews (11 - 21 of 143)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

I...love this game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

OK, the in-game graphics look crappy. Even though they're kinda cute, in their own strange way. The music is pretty good, the plot is excellent, and...there's actually a good amount of strategy needed. Something that's completely lacking in recent tactical-RPGs, starting from Final Fantasy Tactics continuing on to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis. (those being the only other ones I've played other than the Original Tactics Ogre, which was pretty hard until the end) The gameplay is simple and excellent, and most of all: it's FUN. really fun. so go get it.

Don't die on me, my minions!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: January 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First of all I must state that I am yet to finish this game--most likely for the reason that it is so strikingly difficult. I fancy a challenge, however, and despite my annoyance at some of the game's aspects, I'm enjoying it so far.

MUSIC~ 7/10
I don't like the music all too much. It gets repetitive and doesn't sound very fluid--it's very "video-game-ish", if you will. Before you shout, "DUH! It's a VIDEO GAME!", I mean that it sounds very artificial and rather choppy. It was alright at first, but now I tend to pop in a CD and turn off my GBA's sound instead.

CHARACTERS~ 9/10
The sheer number of obtainable characters in this game is staggering. This is fun, because you get a bunch of dudes. Freak, awesome. The problem? With so many characters, not all of them get much development. If you're like me, charrie-development is a MUST in a game. So, naturally, this makes me sad. Wahh. I want to see more surrounding characters like Erk and Lucius, not ONLY Eliwood and, err, those other main guys.

STORY~ 10/10
Impossibly complicated and multi-layered, the story is one of the game's strongest points. I can't even begin to explain it, but I'll say that you'll get sucked in. Personally, I've changed my eating, sleeping, and bathing habits just to play more.

GRAPHICS~ 8/10
This coming from someone who worships Golden Sun (my favorite GBA title), the graphics are NICE, but not the very best. The little dudes tend to look the same on the battlefield, and I find myself thinking, "Is that Dorcas or my other axe-wielder guy?" Perhaps a little more effort could have been put into the battle graphics, I suppose. But overall, the graphics are nice. Anime-style art makes me happy.

GAMEPLAY~ 10/10
I LOVE the gameplay. It's more--err, "tacticial" than Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, if you ask me. Weapons break after a certain amount of use. Certain weapons, spells, and attacks are more affective against other weapons, spells, and attacks. It's complicated, but once you get used to it, you'll love it. Another aspect is the class system--once you get a new character, they've got a set class, meaning they can do certain things and weild certain weapons. You can only upgrade their class with a special item (specific to each class).

Another thing--when your characters die in battle, they die. That's it. They don't come back. This is quite possibly the thing that makes me want to throw my GBA out the window and then shoot it. It's irksome when you're almost done with a half-hour battle and one of your weaker characters decides to suddenly bite the dust. Whoops, gotta restart (I love all my characters, so I can't let any of 'em die. Sob). My record for restarting is around eight times for one chapter. =D This feature CAN be brutally annoying and merciless, but it also makes you want to get back in there and stick a freakin' sword in the guy that took out your character.

OVERALL~ 8/10
Very, very good, with only a few flaws. Completely worth the money. ^_^

Fun! Excellent! Addicting!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: February 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Overview:
For being a GBA RPG, Fire Emblem gives me everything I need to stay captivated. The graphics are excellent! The sound is good! The story is quite interesting; characters are well thought out.

Graphics:
Fire Emblem's graphics are some of the best. All the battle maps are fully detailed with trees, forts, castles, and terrain weather. Sometimes the area is surrounded with white, fluffy snow, while other times its foggy or even raining. During battle, it looks quite generic. It's not 3D and the characters are not very detailed. Enemies are dressed in red, NPCs are all green, and allies are blue. During a battle encounter between enemy and allie or when an allie heals another, the screen zooms into the two characters, showing detail, animation, and their full character design.

Sound:
Music is good, but is used repetitively throughout. Sounds are accurate and well done also. All sword, lance, and axe attacks to magics of all types have individual sounds.

Basic Gameplay:
The only time you are in control of your characters is during battle. Other than that, you follow the story. Once in a while you can choose 'yes' or 'no' in whether to join a side-mission. You get a maximum of 11 characters during each battle to choose from, (you aquire many characters throughout the game with special abilities: axemen, swordsman, healer, thief, ect.).
Weapons have a certain amount of durability. Once used, durability goes down. Eventually, weapons will break and have to be purchased. Items must be bought by a vendor DURING battle. Lastly, if an enemy loses all their HP you CANNOT ever use them again in battle unless the story allows you to. OTherwise you lose that character forever. Be warned, it's hard to avoid sometimes. (no phoenix downs in this game.)

Fun:
This game is tons of fun! I recommend this to anyone who wants something fresh, new or even just wants another strategy RPG. I guarantee you'll love it!

Pros:
Fun game play.
Over 30 addicting battles
Many characters to choose from!
Great story

Cons:
Completely linear
Weapons breaking is annoying
Buying items during battle is something I wish I could avoid.

amazing!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: July 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Fire Emblem is amazing.

In the game, you are a tactician, and it is your job to direct your army to victory through many hours of wonderful gameplay (divided into chapters). There are three main lords, and each has their own story line (Lyn's is the "tutorial" stage while Hector's and Eliwood's are very, very similar with the exception of a few different stages). Each chapter starts off with a little clip about the storyline, and then after making preparations, you are off to war.

Each map is different, and on the map there are many kinds of terrain (different terrains offer different advantages), shops, houses, and enemies galore. You have your characters on the map ("sprites") and you direct them where to go, whom to talk to (if possible), what items to use, and so forth. Yes, it's turnbased. When you attack, the enemy is given the chance to counterattack (unless it can't).

Fire Emblem has a nice hierachy when it comes to weapons and magic. Lances beat Swords, Swords beat Axes, and Axes beat Lances. Anima (Nature) beats Light. Light beats Dark. Dark beats Anima. Like rock paper scissors, it is not hard to get the hang of.

What I like (unlike its counterpart, Advance Wars) is the fact that every character you acquire is unique with their personality and looks. As you may know, when a character dies in battle (except for the tutorial stage), you lose that character forever, and if you're like me, you develop a fondness for them, so losing one could cause you to turn off the game immediately and starting over :) One thing you must be careful: if any of your three Lords die (Hector, Eliwood, Lyn), it's game over.

There are many classes, each with their own advantages/disadvantages. For example, archers must strike at least two squares away, and they cannot counterattack in melee. Most of these classes can upgrade to more powerful units, and you'll have fun leveling up.

The graphics are really nice (if you like anime). When they talk, they show their heads, and they even blink and show facial expressions/turn their heads when appropriate. The sprites on the battlefield are, in my opinion, adorable, although some people beg to differ.

The music is riveting and fits the mood. You feel like you're really about to go to war. Not to mention the storyline is beautifully written, and you'll be anxious to play through the chapters.

There is also a "support" system, where on the battlefield, you put two characters next to each other for several (cumulative) turns, and after awhile, they can talk (Support) each other, thus increasing stats. If you get two characters' support levels high enough, they may have a special ending, ie: they get married :) This gives the game yet another great replay value because support conversations are recorded.

However, if you're looking for great multiplayer action, you might want to look somewhere else. You pick 5 characters from your file, and you fight your opponents' 5 characters. A little unfair, since the person who gets the first strike often sets the tide of the battle. Plus, you can't take healers in, and there's no terrain advantages, just a little square of an arena.

All in all, Fire Emblem is a wonderful RPG/strategy game that fans of these genres should not pass up.

Fire Emblem - The Stategy Gamer's Paradise

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: August 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I cannot keep my hands off this game!

Graphics - 8/10 - Ok, so the graphics aren't THAT incredible during the battle , but outside of battle, there are anime-style sequences, during attacks there are cool attack sequences, and at touching moments, there are beautiful looking painting-ish things! Plus, how could you better cram characters into a such small space on the grid?

Story - 10/10 - Incredible story....... Although it may move slowly at some times, it never plus so slowly that you get bored with it. Plus, the epilogue is alone worth the entire cost of Fire Emblem.

Controls - 10/10 - What can I say? They quickly become intuitive.

Sound - 9/10 - How incredible! Beautiful tunes! They even have a sound room, where you can listen to all of the tracks you have already heard. There are a hundred songs! The reason I gave it a 9 is that the talking is a weird beeping noise, that makes you want to mute it a lot of times, just because it kind of gets annoying.

Gameplay - 10/10 - Perfect. Just the perfect amount of Levels, the perfect Hardness level, (and even something to adjust the hardness after you beat the game!) and the perfect experience and status system.

Replay - 10/10 - If you manage to beat the game, which is very hard, you can go back and set all the levels to Hard and beat it. Then try the Hector mode, then try that on hard mode. Plus, there are loads of cool extra's (strive for the perfect RATING in Hectors Hard Mode!), and the Link Arena to battle with friends.
I've had it for months, and I just beat the Normal mode.

Personal Value - 10/10 - It's hard to explain the pure beauty of the game.

Overall - 10/10

I'm the kind of guy who usually gives up on a game if it gets deleted, but after months of progress was deleted, (by my own fault, not the games) I kept going because I needed to get to the end. Then, when I was stuck indefinitely, instead of giving up, I started over. I did this five times before I finally made a team to beat that level, and eventually the game.

So get it now, because you'll never regret it!

For Serious Tacticians Only

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: December 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Fire Emblem is the first of the games known as Tactical RPGs, and this, the seventh entry of the series, is the first to be released in America, for a reason I will get to soon. The difference between this and a standard RPG is the combat styles. Fire Emblem takes place entirely on the battlefield, where you place up to twelve of your units onto the current map and use their unique abilites to defeat all enemy units, or capture a specific place, or maybe just to survive for a few rounds. Units level up as they fight, and their equipment wears out slowly, so you must constantly be caring for your equipment and upgrading it. All shopping, of course, ALSO takes place on the battlefield, making an interesting quirk from other TRPGs.
The reason this game is maligned by many other of these reviewers seems to be the graphics and difficulty, which is strange since the celebrated Advance Wars has plainer graphics, and the well-rounded Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has comparable graphics. This game is MUCH more difficult than the latter, which I believe is the reason the Fire Emblem series has never crossed the ocean. Units are lost if they reach 0 HP at any time. There are no life spells, you either recover while they live, or die trying.
I liken this game to a game of chess where each piece has hit points. It takes a good deal of planning to survive any given map, and even more to do so with few casualties. This is the reason I can see fans of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance hating it, as in FFTA, most battles can be won with ease. However, those games who seem to play through recent RPGs effortlessly will find the difficulty a refreshing change of pace. But anyone who is not able to appreciate such a change will not like it.

FIRE EMBLEM, THE BEST GBA GAME

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: February 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Here is what I think of it.

Graphics: 9/10 Battle graphics are great but when you look on the whole map you say, Which guy is that over there about to be slaughtered??? Each type has there own little picture with no differences. Everything else is perfect.

Story: 10/10 A great story. Its not the typical, I wanna be the best thing.

Gameplay: 10/10 When it comes to gameplay this game is perfect, perfect but hard. When one of your characters dies they are dead, no extra lives thing, and you can't trick the game by turning it off as they die. The game just shows you the same death scene again. Other than that there are tons of characters, I started to play thinking that I had all the characters but then I restarted and found a load more.

Sound: 8/10 A bit repetitive, Ok though.

Characters: 10/10 You get to like them after a while and you hate when they die.

This game is great so GET IT!!!

if u dont buy this ur a complete idiot

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

this game is awesome. its the best tactical rpg ive ever played. unlike advanced wars once your characters die there is no bringing them back unless you restart the chapter. This adds an interesting layer of strategy. In advanced wars if your units die you just make fifty more and no one cares. You can win advanced wars by making thousands of units the mashing the buttons with your backside. In fire emblem the tactical part of the tactical rpg is actually present. The characters are all greatly drawn and they each have different personalities. You can learn much more about the characters by making them talk to each other when in other games all you get is "this is bill, now go kill someone with him". basicaly the game is set in medeival times with magic and dragons. There are three stories one with 10 chapters, 2 with 20+.You command your units into battle and supply them with weapons and armor. You sre only a tactician so you dont fight. the hand drawn backgrounds and characters are amazing. This is a fun simple game. most good games have been lost to the void of complexity but not this one. The controls are simple with extensive menus which allow you to control most aspects of the game. and unlike rpgs like zelda you dont have to spend hours looking fo the triforce shard or the old man...etc
simply put this game rocks and if you dont buy it you are a stupid moron.

One of the best!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: February 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Alright, Fire Emblem was a new game for me. I'm used to the action-adventure type fighting that is in Zelda, or the random battle fighting that is Golden Sun, but the only experience I;ve had with this type of all-fighting was an arcade classic PC game my brother has. Of course, when I first started Fire Emblem, I kept compairing it to that other game; Fire Emblem is MUCH superior.

I could go and list all the pros and cons, but I could just criticize as I go along.

One thing I like is that you're actually IN the game. Of course, as in most games, you don't talk, but you actually take form as a flesh-and-blood character. Well, digitally flesh-and-blood. Also, there is a ridiculous amount of characters. I think there's about forty. And the thing is that you have a personality for ALL of them.

The thing people usually bring down ratings is the graphics. People say the graphics are horrible, and that's why it's a waste. The character portraits are good, and even though it gets a little boring after a while, the battle graphics are also good. The biggest downfall is the world characters. A lot of them look so identical that the only thing seperating your guys from the bad ones is the color.

Of course, it is a challenging game. The first couple of chapters, the enemies are easy and the missions simple, as well as the beginning of Eliwood's route. But it gets really complicated really fast. And it doesn't take long for one to find out that once a guy is dead (no pun intended), he's gone. You cannot fight with him, you cannot bring him back. He only appears in conversations that include him. You see, he's not really dead, but had some sort of "accident" that prevents him from playing at all for the rest of the game.

One last thing. Fire Emblem has something that plenty of other games don't- a PLOT!! Many games don't have this, or a fairly standard plot that should be put in the book "Most Chliche Plots in the History of Video Games".

All-in-all, Fire Emblem is a very challenging game very much worth your time. From what I've seen, many Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced don't like Fire Emblem and complain about graphics. They take so much time complaining that they don't realize the true beauty of Fire Emblem! ^.~

A Game for the Wise

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've read some of the reviews about this game and its sequel. Believe me, the hyperboles and such about the game's bad graphics and boring gameplay are incorrect. The game is for those who can think and organize an army, not just 1 person.

Graphics: 10
Good attention to detail and the critial attack moves look very smoothly done.

Story: 10
Well written, emotionally effecting.

Gameplay: 10
Turn-based strategy. Comparing this to chess or checkers is a misconception; this is more like shogi, because of the promotion system and the numerous different classes and abilities.

Characters: 10
I love the promotion system and the different classes:
-Lord
-Knight
-Cavalier
-Fighter
-Nomad
-Cleric
-Mage
-Monk
-Shaman
-Archer
-Peg. Knight
-Wyvern Knight
-Pirate
-Theif
And these are just some of the starting classes! A unit is promoted by use of a certain item; Guiding Rings for magic-users, Hero Crests for mercenaries, and many other kinds of item-unit combinations. It brings a sense of custimation to the game.

Music: 10
Well composed BGM, not the same annoying sounds in games such as the Mario francise.

Replay Value: 10
Huge amount of thought goes into playing this game, and just as much can be in the idea "What if I had done this instead...?" "Would I still have Dorcas if I had him...?"

Overall: 10
I know it sounds bias, but this game deserves every point I've given it. To top off this review, I'll tell you that this game is for thinkers--not those who just want to button-mash like crazy. If you're a member of that tribe, one who sees Super Smash Bros Melee and says "Ooh! It's an all-you-can-mash-buffet!" I advise you stay away from this game and find something a little less...thought provoking.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions