Fire Emblem

The Good
The system itself is simple and effective. The system is a respectable fantasy warfare system without the need for 20 pages of rules on hit modifiers. There's a simple rock-paper-scissors method, with random element and some situational things. Easy enough to learn and keep in mind, complex enough to keep things interesting. And the AI is pretty fun: It can actually retreat to keep me annoyed at times, and can pick weak units and attack them. (Nothing like getting everything done 90% correctly, almost ready to crush the last baddies like bugs, and this smart thing decides to do just what I hoped it wouldn't do: kill the leader, Game Over.)

One thing that struck me that this game has great characters. Each of them have a lot of personality. There's good dialogue and nicely tangled yet generally straightforward plot.

Graphics rock - very nice sprite animations here too. Music is just plain amazing.

A weird thing is that I liked the auto-save thing. I'm either staying current or having to get the whole chapter done from the beginning. If I've taken a break and can't remember a thing, I can always restart the chapter and not feel bad, because the chapters are generally pretty nice and short. And the chapters are generally pretty well designed to keep things balanced as I pick up more and more of the game: The 10-chapter tutorial doesn't even feel like a tutorial.

The Bad
Once again, here we have a really, really nice game that's just about perfect in every way and the only things to complain about are in the technicalities. I think the only really annoying thing is the fact that the text speed cannot be changed, and every letter appears slooowly on screen and make beep when they appear on screen. (That's so 1980s. When do the game makers learn this isn't the way to go anymore?) The dialogue can be sped up (and skipped), so this isn't that bad, except when you speed up the text, you miss character animation...

The Bottom Line
I had heard that Fire Emblem was a great series, yet when I heard it was a strategy game and from the team that made Advance Wars, I was a bit skeptical - I thought Advance Wars was decent but it didn't just get me really really excited. But I have always liked fantasy strategy games more than modern/sci-fi strategy games, so I just got it.

And my skepticism was uncalled for.

It's actually a very fun game, quite challenging yet it's never really annoying at all. If I mess up, it's never really depressing to start the chapter over. The story is fun to follow, characters are great, and in general, everything in the game makes sense.

Fantasy strategy at its finest, indeed!

The Good
This game sucks you in right from the beginning. The tactician role was perfect, although the game overglorifies the player sometimes. The story is great, with it's many plot twists and tragedy and drama. All in all, it's balanced, has a decent difficulty, and replayability is great, as you try to get all of the CG's.

The Bad
Well, the fact it's on the gba as a 2D strategy game irks me, because it would have been SOOOO sweet if it was a fully fledged 3D rpg game on the Gamecube, complete with cinematics and graphics. (oh and the char. dies no revive irks me too)

The Bottom Line
dude, just go buy the game and enjoy the immersiveness of it!!!

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.