Hello once again, readers (Tobuscus reference!).

I'm back with another review of a game I beat not too long ago. Fire Emblem is the first game of the Fire Emblem series to make it to America, in large part because of the inclusion of Marth and Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee. This proved to be a good move by Nintendo and Intelligence Systems, because there was a huge market of gamers who were hungry for something new. In a lot of ways, this game delivered. Its turn-based tactical system was fresh, as was the medieval theme and the tale of dragons and kingdoms. Characters like Lyndis, Hector, and Eliwood wowed gamers, and being able to name your own tactician really brought you into the fray of the battle. Because of the success, more games were made and brought to America, many of them also commercial successes. But with age and wisdom comes a bit of cynicism, because as you learn, you begin to see things that you've never noticed before. In this case of Fire Emblem, a lot of the problems I have with the game are with one of the most well-loved things about the game, the story. I will get to that in a moment.

Graphics: 9

I love the graphics of this game. I believe that it utilizes the limited power of the Gameboy Advance well, and it all around has a crisp and clean look. Particularly, interactions between characters look excellent. I really enjoy the detail put into many of the characters' overall appearances and I think the artists did a good job in rendering just what their characters looked like. I also felt that battle scenes were pretty well done, and my favorite aspect of that was Lyndis's critical hits in both her Lord and her Blade Lord form. What takes the score down a point is that I felt it was a little sloppy to have Lyndis's hair green in battles but blue in her portraits.

Sound: 6

I like the music of this game, but it got old very quickly to me. I didn't feel like there was a major amount of variety in the music itself, as it was limited in upbeat tunes. The final chapter's battle music was excellent, though, giving it a real dramatic feel suitable for an end-game scenario. Other than that, I felt the music could have been a lot more diverse and a lot more intense at times. Part of the reason I think I feel this is because I have started playing a Fire Emblem hack that has a wide variety of different types of music, so perhaps this is a little bit too biased.

Addictiveness: 7

I'd play this game again for many reasons, all of which include how fun the gameplay is. In fact, I'm continuing playing Fire Emblem games because I really do enjoy the gameplay so much. However, the story gives me pause to play the game many more times, because I really have several qualms with it. The Hector game mode increases the incentive to play, though, especially because you have the option not to play through Lyndis's mode again to get to Hector's mode after you get through Eliwood's. The extra levels are cool, and there are a few more options for characters in Hector's mode, but the story is overall the same and other than the challenge, the reward is not as great as it needs to be.

Story: 6

So I've made a couple of references to the fact that I am bothered by this story, but I'm going to start off with what I like about it first. The story itself was deep and complex, and I really felt the political disputes between the territories and countries in the game really felt legitimate and interesting. There were some elements of tragedy in which I thought were expertly done, like where you would have to kill enemies who were not innately evil but instead were compelled to fight you despite knowing they were going to their deaths. The characters themselves were done pretty well, especially Eliwood, because he shows his strength by setting aside grief to accomplish the task at hand. The interactions between the characters were excellent, too, particularly in the realm of support conversations, where you got to see into the back story of your many units in the group. If it wasn't for the bad aspects of the story, this 6 would be much higher.

Unfortunately, though, for everything Fire Emblem did well, there were a slew of problems that caused issue. Mostly, I take issue with the horrible villains in the game. Their actions, other than being stereotypical villain in nature, were even worse than that, as their ineptness did not stop with their henchmen, but the villains themselves. For instance, the main villain, Nergal, took three tries to kill a starving and wounded character, and he didn't even kill him out-right. Before the death, the wounded character took a shot at Nergal and wounded him to the point of fleeing. One of the villain's henchmen, Ephidel, acted as a creepy catalyst for some of the political movements between some of the Lycian states, but as hard core and awesome he portrayed himself to be, he too was inept, because he could not adequately kill a king that no longer was useful to him. Not only that, but his death was so anticlimactic and ridiculous, especially considering that one of his powers were revealed one chapter beforehand. I also feel like there were a lot of situations where the game simply gave to you rather than you earning something, such as the game's ultimate weapons in the final chapter. And then there was the situation the fairy tale-esque revival of a character whose death would have rivaled the impact of Aerith's in Final Fantasy VII. This, to me, frustrated me more than anything, because I like a good story and I love a great plot twist, and Fire Emblem ruined this opportunity to create a lasting memory in gaming history.

Depth: 8

There is a lot to do in this game, and there are a lot of ways you can get things done. Moving through the chapters, you can take your diverse cast of characters and mold them to fit your personal style and desire. Some of the extra items and the various percentages of stats increase sometimes leads to characters being used in ways that they weren't exactly designed or expected to be. The arena allows you to make money and grind out characters to make them stronger. Conversations with NPCs in houses and towns are diverse and interesting, as well. Good depth, particularly for a game made for the Gameboy Advance and the first Fire Emblem localized in America.

Difficulty: 6

The game is not too difficult in some areas and pretty tough in others. The weapons triangle is simple, the attack window is easy to understand, and the grid layout really makes the gameplay easy to understand. Early chapters provide a limited challenge, but as the game progresses, it gets harder. Strategies range from full-on assaults, to tactical defense procedures, to a combination of the two that allows you to accomplish tasks while defending a position that otherwise would harm your team in a big way. Adding elements of fog, rain, and snow make you rethink everything you've already learned and sometimes forces you to choose characters you haven't utilized very much (Matthew!). After you beat the game, you can increase the difficulty, to where there are more strong enemies, which is very nice. But overall, the game is manageable, it is beatable, and the difficulty should not give people too many fits.

I'm going to conclude by saying I really do enjoy this game. It was extremely fun and brought back many good memories of grade school. There are problems with the story, particularly the villains, that I think weakens the game's overall score, but I still love this game and feel it's one of the better games that the Gameboy Advance has to offer. I would love to see a remake of the game in the future, with some added content and perhaps some tweaking to the story. I would definitely buy it.

Overall: 8.5

Hope you guys enjoyed the review. Let me know what you guys think about it!

great review , fire emblem is a awesome game , the first time i played this game was on vizzed a few months ago .

I liked this game, but Awakening is definitely superior.

Intresting,just needs to be advanced

Awakenings is a very fresh new start that even gave the franchise new life.  Nintendo even said that selling so many copies over here in the US saved it from being scrapped, thank god!!

The way the article stated that they put so many new things into the game as they kinda knew this might be their last shot, and it showed.

I played most of the FE games before, but its been a long time that I did them.  Now that I see they are all here I can go crazy re exploring this series!!

Cheers, can't wait to get some extra time in them!!

Tom