Introduction:Hello! It's gamer29475, back from the dead. I haven't been on here for a while, but I'm back with a review of Fire Emblem 7. This game, also known as Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword or simply Fire Emblem, is a Strategy RPG created by Intelligence Systems, an in-house company of Nintendo. Fire Emblem 7 is considered by a lot of people to be the best of the series. Why? We'll see.

Gameplay:
The game is a Strategy RPG where you control a small army of units(ranging from 9-12) led by the three lords, Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector. You must use your army to accomplish various objectives, like looting treasure chests, murdering enemies, and accomplishing the main chapter goal. To do this, you must train your units. Your units all have strengths and weaknesses. Some are harder to train than others.
All of them can be viable given enough luck with the Random Number Generator. In this game, there is no conventional grinding, aside from the Arenas, which can be risky to use, and are in limited supply, so you have to distribute experience points carefully to the units that need it most.

 However, there are a few flaws with this game. First, the RNG. It's generally not a problem, but sometimes it can screw you over. An enemy can kill you with a low chance of hitting and force you to reset. Another problem is that it can screw over characters in level ups. This can very rarely be playthrough destroying. Second, this game has one of the most long and boring tutorials in any game: Lyn's Story. It has a series of 11 chapters that railroad the player. Aside from that, and a few other irritating chapters, this game is very enjoyable.


Graphics: This game has amazing graphics! It's clear that the artists that designed the maps and sprites were very talented and enjoyed their work. The character sprites are simple and detailed at the same time. And the animations are excellent! The sprites move seamlessly and the animation is very enjoyable to watch, especially the critical hit animations.(unless it's the enemy that critted...) They should've retained this art style in the DS games. Bottom line, this game's graphics are amazing.
10/10

Sound: Much like the art, this game's soundtrack and sound effects are amazing. The story music conveys urgency and the music fits each scene. The sound designers also made sure the music fits each level. A great example is Chapter 16x. It's a level taking place in a port town. The music playing in it is very jolly and something you'd expect from a pirate town. The game not only has great tracks, but also good placement.
10/10

Story: The game follows three main characters, or lords. Their names are Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector. They are on a mission to stop the evil assassination guild, the Black Fang, and their leader, Nergal. Nergal seeks power and immortality. Sadly, Lyn and Eliwood are fairly bland, but Hector is a very fun character. Each character is reasonably developed over the course of the story, and the story, though simple, is a pretty good one.

 The real strength of the game is the cast. The characters each have their own personalities and backstories that are developed through a game mechanic called Support Conversations. These conversations give insight to a character's personalities and backstories. This adds to one of Fire Emblem's greatest strengths: none of the characters are generic. They all have unique personalities, stats, and appearances to differentiate them.

Depth:This game is reasonably long. Depending on your skill, this game could take up to 7-14 hours to beat. This also depends on how long you spend on unlocking Support Conversations. A perfect length.
10/10

Difficulty: The difficulty varies depending on your difficulty level. On Eliwood Mode and Hector Normal Mode, the game is a decent challenge. Not too hard, not too easy. However, if you decide to try Hector Hard Mode, the game becomes very hard. The enemies have special bonuses called HM bonuses, so they become much stronger(this also applies to enemies that you can recruit, so that's an advantage) and sometimes come in greater numbers. In addition to higher difficulties, there are also self-imposed ways to make this game harder. Low Turn Count runs, 0% growth runs,(a run with stat growth disabled) ranked runs, and solo runs.
Eliwood Normal Mode: 5/10
Hector Normal Mode: 6/10
Eliwood Hard Mode: 7/10
Hector Hard Mode:9/10

Addictiveness: As said before, there are many interesting ways to play this game, including LTC runs, 0% growth runs, ranked runs, solo runs, and randomized runs. This gives it high replay value.
10/10

Overall: Fire Emblem 7 is a great strategy RPG for the GBA. If you are a hardcore SRPG fan, then definitely come here.
For FE players reading this review, I encourage you to try the GBA Universal Randomizer. This link will lead you to this Serenes Forest thread where you can download it. It was made by OtakuReborn.
http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=55809