Fire Emblem

aka: Fire Emblem 7, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken , Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
Moby ID: 11200
Game Boy Advance Specs
Buy on Game Boy Advance
$81.99 used, $355.00 new on eBay
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Description official descriptions

The rightful heir to the throne of Rikea is finally returning home after many years lost to her people. But before the celebrations can begin, you must first guard her through the evil lands that await before you, by taking charge of an elite group of soldiers possessing skills unlike any other.

The first Fire Emblem title to be released outside of Japan includes an all new quest featuring a selection of warriors, wizards and dragons (both good and bad). Battle through turn-based environments and choose your moves wisely, as those you lose during a fight will be lost for good.

Spellings

  • ファイアーエムブレム 烈火の剣 - Japanese spelling
  • 火焰之纹章:烈火之剑 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Credits (Game Boy Advance version)

75 People (64 developers, 11 thanks) · View all

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Program
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Scenario Support
Main Design
Face Design
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Graphic Design
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 48 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 59 ratings with 7 reviews)

The perfect balance of fun and strategy...

The Good
Fire Emblem 7, the first game to make it to the shores of the USA. This game is virtually flawless. All of the characters have deep storylines in them, and I found myself having affinities with quite a few of them. This is the game that stars Roy's father, NOT Roy. Every weapon is perfectly balanced. The weapons triangle adds a nice twist of strategy. The realistic factor of not being able to revive the dead adds difficulty and more strategy. This game is better than Final Fantasy tactics Advance by far, since it actually requires thought.

The Bad
Hmmm... Some parts were tedious, but nevertheless fun. The not-being-able-to-revive-the-dead thing also makes the game too hard for some people (cough, cough, FFTA fans). Some might find the storyline cheesy and cliched, but that's the translator's fault.

The Bottom Line
If you own a GBA, go buy this game now. I'm serious. Don't go for FFTA, go for Fire Emblem. The graphics rule. The gameplay rules, The storyline rules. Blinking portraits and animated characters rule. The sprites are awesome. Just go buy Fire Emblem.

Game Boy Advance · by Lad Holyman (3) · 2004

Practically perfect.

The Good
Fire Emblem is a hybrid roleplaying and turn-based strategy game. It sacrifices the open-ended gameplay and random encounters of traditional RPGs in favor of scripted battles with much greater depth. One might think that this genre was pioneered by the classic Final Fantasy Tactics on the Sony Playstation, but the Fire Emblem series actually dates all the way back to the 8-bit Nintendo Famicom. Fire Emblem for the Game Boy Advance is simply the first title in the series that Nintendo has seen fit to publish in the United States. Given the top-notch quality of this game, it's hard to believe they didn't do it sooner.

Fire Emblem has the kind of truly classic gameplay that doesn't come around too often. I love a game that's easy to pick up, yet has enough depth to keep you coming back until you have beaten it. The game mechanic is infinitely admirable because it is perfectly balanced in so many areas. The game is difficult, but never frustrating. Instead of giving up after you have lost a round, you'll feel like you just need one more try to correct your mistakes and win it. It features plenty of items and upgrades, but never resorts to forcing the gamer to micromanage like so many other strategy games. Your characters will level up and become more powerful, but you will never feel forced to grind away on a "leveling treadmill" like in so many other roleplaying games. In short, the game mechanic is practically perfect, and fans of classic 8- and 16-bit games should feel right at home.

The game has an incredible amount of bang for the buck. There are 31 missions in all, not counting optional side quests (and new game modes unlocked once you have beaten the normal game). I played Fire Emblem every chance I got, and it still took me approximately two weeks to finish. I was by no means disappointed; never before have I seen a handheld game with so much plot depth. The game actually has two full story arcs; the first third functions as a tutorial, each mission teaching you another aspect of the game mechanic. By the end of the tenth mission, you will know everything you need to in order to play the game effectively.

The tutorial was so well done, in fact, even going so far as to feature a long epilogue detailing what became of each character, I actually thought that it was the game. Little did I know that it was all just preparation for the real story.

And it's a wonderful story, by the way. Fire Emblem does contain the occasional RPG cliche here and there, but you'll like the characters so much that you won't mind. Scripts published on the Internet show that the game contains almost a full megabyte of text, and the plot is advanced almost entirely through dialogue. Animated character portraits talk to each other onscreen in speech bubbles, and the game cuts away to full screen hand-drawn CGs for important plot events.

Fire Emblem's characters are terrific, and beautifully drawn. Rather than the generic military units of a typical pure strategy combat game, this title features more than 40 unique player-controlled characters, each with his or her own personality and back story. The game has plenty of replay value, since plot elements will change depending on which characters you use, and how you have them interact with one another.

The Bad
There was just one thing about Fire Emblem that I would have liked to see changed. The "character" you play is actually not one of the game's characters at all, but rather the team's military tactician. As such, you function as an observer of the story instead of being an actual participant. This is an interesting plot device, and it has merit, but it tends to lessen one's immersion into the story somewhat.

The Bottom Line
Fire Emblem is the most entertaining turn-based strategy game that I have ever played, and it's a shame that the previous titles in the series never made it to the United States. My previous favorite, Jagged Alliance 2 for the PC, may best it in terms of gameplay depth and challenge level. In terms of plot and overall fun factor, however, Fire Emblem has no equal that I've found. A story this long and immersive, rivaling many pure roleplaying games, seems even more impressive when you consider the fact that it was done on a handheld.

Intelligent Systems is currently working on a new Fire Emblem game for the Gamecube. Although plans for a US release have not been announced, it seems likely given the fact that the Game Boy Advance version was greeted by strong sales and positive reviews.

Nintendo lost my interest when Zelda and Mario went 3D, losing the wonderful gameplay of the 8- and 16-bit titles (in this reviewer's opinion). However, the day the Gamecube version of Fire Emblem is released in the US will be the day that I buy a Gamecube. That's the highest compliment I can pay to this game.

Game Boy Advance · by Eurythmic (2663) · 2004

The thought process of each battle, explained

The Good
Fire Emblem's mechanics are based on numbers and calculations. You're always doing calculations in your head. Since Advance Wars is a well-known game similar to Fire Emblem, I'll make some comparisons to that game in this review. In Advance Wars, your HP is somewhere between 1 and 10. Before each battle, you can roughly predict how much HP each unit will lose. The key word here is "roughly", because it's not shown on the screen. In Fire Emblem however, you know precisely how much HP each character will lose if they are hit. But they will not always be hit; it's possible to attack a unit and miss, dealing 0 damage. A lot of the fun is in this uncertainty: Will my guy hit? Will the enemy miss? This is the biggest reason why Fire Emblem is so much fun to play and replay and replay over and over. You're always nervous and excited about the outcome of the next battle.

Before each battle, there are 12 numbers you will look at. You will use these 12 numbers to make most of your decisions: Do I attack this enemy unit or not? Which weapon do I equip? Where do I place the characters?

The 12 numbers are: Your HP, Attack, Defense, Hit Rate, Critical Rate, Speed, and the same six attributes of your enemy.

The thought process of each battle:

  1. Look for wounded characters and a) Heal them. b) Move them outside of enemy units' attack range. c) You can also move them into a defensive terrain type (such as forest), so that the enemy will probably miss and deal 0 damage. It's really more exciting than it sounds: Place a character in a forest and wait for the enemy to attack them and nervously watch the result. But don't do this with the three protagonists because it's game over if they die. d) Rescue them with another character. e) Ignore the injury if no enemy units nearby can kill your wounded character soon. (You know this by looking at the 12 numbers I mentioned.)

  2. Move your character next to an enemy unit and view the attack screen. The game will display the 12 numbers. a) The first thing to do here is to compare the Speed. If [your speed - enemy speed > 3] , you will attack twice. Occasionally [enemy speed - your speed > 3] which will make the enemy attack you twice. Speed is a hugely important factor in Fire Emblem. The lead female character Lyn has high speed and everytime you work with her you will consider this. b) Calculate how much HP the enemy has left if you hit. This is [enemy HP - (your attack - enemy defense)]. c) Calculate how much HP you have left if he counter-attack and hit. This is [your HP - (enemy attack - your defense)]. d) If [enemy critical rate > 0], calculate how much HP you have left if he is lucky enough to score a critical strike. This is [your HP - (enemy attack - your defense) * 3]. e) Do this with all the enemy units that are nearby (you can see each enemy's attack range), in order to make sure that when it's the enemy's turn, they can't kill your character. It sounds like a long process but as you play more levels, you can do all the calculations in a few seconds.

  3. Improve your strategies by equipping different weapons, using different characters to attack different enemies, and a variety of other options. For example,

a) When you equip different weapons, [you and your enemy's hit rate and attack] can change. [Critical rates and speed] can change too but that's usually not important. You want to have a reasonably high hit rate. If your strategies are good, you'll often get a 100% hit rate, but that takes away some of the fun in Fire Emblem. You already know the result before it happens. Boring. b) When you place your character in a special terrain type, [enemy hit rate] will decrease. The possible outcome will be that you can hit him, but he can't hit you back. c) Block the enemy's path with a very-high-defense character. This is often the "General" or "Hector". You'll often want to block enemy's path in order to protect your weaker characters.

  1. The most important factor to consider, during every turn, is "can enemies kill one of my characters during this turn". In Advance Wars, the enemy AI always attacks your APC, so you can use that as a decoy to make enemy units move to a certain location. In Fire Emblem, they brought back the APC -- the enemy AI almost always attacks your weakest characters. If they can kill one of your guys, they'll do so. Therefore you must not give them that opportunity. Make it impossible for the enemy to kill one of your guys. Again, you do this by reading the 12 numbers of everyone nearby.

The good news is that, the game's difficulty is quite moderate, so even if the enemy does kill one of your guys (that's not one of the three protagonists), you can keep playing and you can still complete the game. What this means is that you can choose to play Fire Emblem very casually, without worrying too much. You only start worrying when you play for a high "ranking", or want to complete the higher difficulty modes, and need to keep your characters alive, because you need all the firepower you can get.

  1. In many levels you want to save the villages from being razed, or save the chest from being opened by enemy thieves. This is among the most exciting objectives in any game. This will add another step in your thought process: try to get to the village/chest quickly. This means that you can't play defensively anymore. You have to send characters deep into enemy territory, and possibly risk getting killed. Because of this risk, it adds a whole new layer of suspense to this experience. The best moments of Fire Emblem are being exposed to enemy fire, without getting killed. It's a wonderful feeling.

    The Bad
    Some important rules are never explained so you need GameFAQs (but you'll probably want to read FAQs either way since it's a turn-based strategy game with so many spells and items). Some in-game text is misleading. For example, it suggests that "steel" weapons are better than "iron" weapons, which is incorrect. Overall, the game does a fantastic job at teaching you how to play, so, only nitpicking here. The real problem with Fire Emblem is the unfocused nature of its character development. You'll have about 30 characters in your army. There aren't nearly enough experience points to properly develop these characters. The ideal strategy is to choose around 6 characters and use them exclusively (plus the 3 protagonists you're forced to use), ignoring everyone else. But that doesn't work quite well either. Because the campaign gives you a new character every two chapters or so. The new character is already stronger than the ones you have developed for a while, making your old characters much less useful, and making you wonder "why did I bother developing my characters, if the game will just give me a stronger one eventually?"

Another small problem is also in the character development section. Some characters level up VERY slowly. It's never explained or hinted. Isadora for example gains very few experience points when she attacks enemies -- that doesn't feel too good. Why does the game discourage players from using certain characters? There is justification for this: The game is trying to tell us that in the real world, not everything is rewarded equally. When you get deeper into the higher difficulty modes, this will become so overwhelming. The game is really trying to say something here. Some characters just level up faster. It's unfair and it's just life.

The Bottom Line
Like all turn-based strategy games, it's entirely a matter of whether you understand and like the mechanics or not.

Game Boy Advance · by Pagen HD (146) · 2013

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

References to the game

Lyn appears as an assist trophy in the Wii game Super Smash Bros.: Brawl.

Version differences

The introduction music features a voice in the Japanese and American version of the game. The European version of the game has the melody played by a flute instead. Most probably they needed more space for text in different languages, and they removed the voice to gain more space.

The Kingdom of Bern was renamed Biran in the French and German translations of the game, probably because the capital of Switzerland and its region is also named Bern, which could create confusion amongst some gamers.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2003 – #5 Game Boy Advance Game of the Year
    • 2003 - Revival of the Year (Game Boy Advance)

Information also contributed by Sciere

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Related Sites +

  • Fire Emblem
    Official game web site by Nintendo of America.

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  • MobyGames ID: 11200
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

Wii U added by Michael Cassidy.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, chirinea, Exodia85, gamewarrior, Bregalad, Patrick Bregger, Hengki Kusuma Adi.

Game added December 1, 2003. Last modified January 2, 2024.