Fire Emblem

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.