Fire Emblem (7/Blazing Sword/Rekka no Ken)

I seem to remember writing something on it awhile back, when I first finished it, but this game deserves something more

And, since I just finished my second playthrough (and started my third about five minutes after... heh), now is as good a time as any.

When I first beat this, over a year ago, I declared it the best game of this generation, without exception. And now, even after games like Tales of Symphonia, Star Ocean 3, and everything else released since then, I still stand by that.

For those of you unaware, this is the seventh Fire Emblem game, Rekka no Ken, or "Blazing Sword" (though I've seen a few other translations...). It is also the first and so far only Fire Emblem game to be released in English. Unfortunately, they dropped the subtitle in the English release, calling it just plain Fire Emblem. Reminds me of a certain RPG company, though I like to think that a similar naming fiasco will be avoided.

Hmmph. I'm sounding like IGN, who always gives a detailed history of anything and everything in their reveiws. Hmmph.

Aaaaanyways, on to the game itself. On the surface, in terms of control scheme, the setup of the map, menus, and the turn-based strategy elements, it is very similar to Advance Wars.

However... it doesn't play or unfold the same way at all. You certainly won't be sitting there thinking that you're playing Advance Wars with in a fantasy setting. That is due, of course, to the RPG elements. Rather then hundreds of faceless units, you control specific characters, all with their own personalities and art, and build them up through the course of the game. There are countless contributing, of course, but that's the main thing.

And these characters... wonderful things. Even more then the story, this is the highlight of the non-gameplay stuff. The characters all, without exception, have fantastic art, which seems to be a mainstay of the series. The vast majority of them have wonderfully done personalities, and even those that seem flat and two-dimensional(characters that you don't usually use anyways) gain depth if you look into them. Best cast of characters in a game, period... in my experience, at least. From the looks of things, there may be over Fire Emblems that can surpass this one in that area.

I've seen people say the story is cliched or boring, but I don't see it. I love the story, if only because it offers even more ways to develop and involve the characters.

As you play through the game, you tend to develop a liking for your hard earned characters and their stats. It's only natural, and you'll find the same sort of thing in most games, especially strategy RPGs like Ogre Battle or the Tactics types. The game takes advantage of that... If one of your characters dies, and you save it, they're gone forever. No phoenix downs here, no miraculously being revived at the end of the level. Those important to the story just get "severe wounds" or something, and participate in story scenes.

You might think it's easily circumvented by loading a save game, and it is... but, due to an autosaving system, the game saves after every single move you or the computer makes. The way their randomizing system works, you'll get the same results if you load from that save.

This means that you can't save in the middle of a map and then load whenever something doesn't go your way. You can still restart the level though, so as long as you're willing to try over again there's no permanent damage.

Now, on to the battle system. It's not your typical battle system, where you control directly or give orders via a menu. It's more akin to Ogre Battle, or better yet, Advance Wars, where once your unit is engaged it's all up to the stats and a few random numbers to determine critical hits and misses.

That doesn't mean the battle system is all automated and requires no attention, of course. I don't think I've ever put so much thought into setting up the right battles as I did in this game. They have two rock-paper-scissors systems in here. Axes beat spears, speares beat swords, swords beat axes. Dark magic beats elemental magic, elemental magic beats holy magic, abd holy magic beats dark magic. That means that those wielding axes have a natural disadvantage against those wielding swords, and that my light-based bishop had an advantage against that dark-based Druid. Only bows are neutral.

It also means that those units who can use two or more types of weapons have an advantage over those who can't.

Each unit can hold up to five items at once, though you eventually end up with a merchant-type character that can hold 100 of them, to free up space in other's inventories. Each weapon has a certain number of uses, then it breaks. So an iron sword has 45 uses, and after it's been used 45 times, it breaks.

This allows something interesting, which I don't believe I've ever seen in another game... some of your characters get powerful weapons early on, or just start with them. So you have them... but you have to be careful and ration them, since they can break, and you don't get anything comparable til later in the game.

There is a class system in place, but that's just a way of diffentiating what the units look like, what sort of items they can use, and how far they move, really. Each character has it's own preset growth-rate. And there's no big job system here; aside from a single upgrade, nobody will be switching classes. You won't have an archer switching to a monk, though he may switch to a sniper. Personally, I'm fine with that; a complex class system would not fit with the game at all.


Some of that may sound annoying on paper... Especially the breakable items, permanent death, and autosaves. But I assure you, though such things often lower the overall quality of games, they are perfect here. The game is designed to incorporate them, and they are designed to be a part of this game. It feels completely natural. The thought of removing the autosave, or the permanent death, is a terrible one for me

In terms of difficulty, this game is... very good. It was very hard for me, the first time around, but not to the point of frustration. Well, not to the point of frequent frustration. I didn't mind having to restart a level once or twice. Though I was annoyed when I had to restart one level about 15 times because the boss, after I had cleared all the normal enemies, got lucky with critical hits

Anyways, as I said, it's very good. Hard enough to be extremely satisfying, but not hard enough to make me want to give up on the game.

My second time through was a totally different story, of course. I knew what characters I wanted to level up, so I only let those specific characters get the killing blows. I was familiar with the secrets and the levels. Even so, one of the final levels was a bit difficult, even with my army of maxed out characters... that had more to do with the turn limit that I needed to meet to unlock a secret level then anything else though. Combined with my careful leveling up of the two or three characters that weren't maxed out, of course.

The game features four modes, six if you count the tutorial. It has a tutorial campaign of 10 levels, and then two versions of the main campaign. The second version was a bit harder, featured more levels, more enemies, and a slightly different veiw on the story. Then, for each of the three modes, there is a hard difficulty.

I've played through both of the main campaigns on normal difficulty and the tutorial, which is as much a part of the main story as the rest of it, on both easy and hard. So I still have a few harder modes to entertain me


Speaking of replaying... They have these things called "supports". What they are, essentially, are pairings and conversations between characters. If you have two compatable characters stand next to each other for a total number of X turns, then they have the option to have a support conversation. Which is basically a conversation between the two characters, often revealing more of their past/thoughts/whatever. When it's done, they'll have a support level (level c, b, or a, depending on how many supports they have had), and that means that, if they fight near each other, then they get a stat bonus.

Oftentimes, if you get the right person to an A-level support, then those characters' endings will both change. So, say you have this guy and that girl with get an a-support level, they might end up married or something at the end. There isn't too much text devoted to it for any but the main characters, but by the end you're quite attached to all these people you've been using, so it's plenty of award.

Oh, did I mention? Each character is only allowed five supports, total, for each playthrough. And, when you beat the game, it unlocks a gallery, where you can read all the supports you have gotten, and see what percentage of these supports you have. So if you want to get 100% completion in the support conversation area, you'll need to play through the game numerous times, and use every character.

The game also has a veyr awesome soundroom. Only game I've ever actually bothered with the soundroom for. You'll have to play through at least twice to get 100% of that.

Also, during important story sections, they'll unlock "CGs", which are basically full screen art scenes. Depending on the supports, you might get different versions of these in the different endings. You can veiw all the ones you've seen in the soundroom, if you want. Another thing to shoot for.

Which brings me to the music, which is great. Best music I've seen on the GBA, easily surpassing even games like Golden Sun. They have a huge number of pieces designed specifically for story scenes, and they always fit the part perfectly. Great music all around, really. Sadly, it loses a large part of it's value when listened to on your comp, and I would imagine that it would lose even that if you haven't actually played the game.


Finally, I may as well mention the graphics. The maps of the levels and whatnot are pretty decent, but nothing amazing. Better then Advance Wars', but can't compare to some of the better GBA games' graphics.

However, the battle animations, backgrounds, and character portraits are where this game really shines. With the sole exception of Seima no Kouseki, the new GBA Fire Emblem that was just released in Japan, this has the smoothest, prettiest animations I have seen on the GBA. Golden Sun has that cool fake 3D battle veiw going on, but it's grainy and ugly. This is very beautifully done 2D, and smoother then pretty much any other 2D animation I have seen. Certainly there was nothing on the SNES that could compare.

And they have tons and tons of backgrounds, for battles and conversations. To be honest, I pay very little attention to them, but they're very nice... So much so that I downloaded the ROM specifically to take screenshots of them, before I found sites that already did.

Finally, I keep mentioned conversations... Whenever they have conversations, they have character portraits appear on the screen. Even aside from the fact that the entire Fire Emblem franchise has wonderful character designs (and therefore wonderufl character portraits), but these portraits are have fully animated eyes and mouth. Their mouths pretty smoothly when they talk, and their eyes blink. You won't be doing any mouth reading or anything, but it looks absolutely fantastic nontheless.

Meh. I've run out of things to gush about. Seriously though, go out and buy this game.

Every time you post something about Fire Emblem, I kick myself multiple times for not finishing it. Yes, it is a great game and the battle backgrounds were great, I didn't go into the options menu till I was with Eliwood so I think I might have missed a few.

You pretty much said everything we need to XD My favorite character is Fiora btw.Also, i think Golden Sun has the smoothest animations, but this one has REALLY good graphics too =)

I just hope that the Fire Emblem for DS has an easiar way to manage your group. I know there has been no information and I just pulled a Fire Emblem DS out of nowhere but you know Fire Emblem would just fit right in with DS and Nintendo would be stupid for not making one for DS.

Easier way of managing your group? What do you mean? It was simple and very easy in this one... I don't see it getting much better.

I just hope that the Fire Emblem for DS has an easiar way to manage your group. I know there has been no information and I just pulled a Fire Emblem DS out of nowhere but you know Fire Emblem would just fit right in with DS and Nintendo would be stupid for not making one for DS.

Yes. A Fire Embelm for the DS is almost guarnteed, as they are already making an Advance Wars DS.

If they do make a Fire Emblem DS, i hope it is of Fire Emblem 6. I wanna play that one SOOO bad!

Originally Posted by lord-of-shadow

Easier way of managing your group? What do you mean? It was simple and very easy in this one... I don't see it getting much better.

I dunno, sometimes when I got later into the game I got overwhelemd and confused. It was a bit hard in the beginning to manage about 20 characters and train them equally. Maybe have customizable sections. One section is lance users, one section is archers and one section on who can use multiple items etc.

Train them equally? If you try to train all your characters equally, you'll totally screw yourself over, and you'll probably have to start over on the game completely. There just plain isn't enough experience around to train all your guys equally and still remain an effective group of people.

The trick is to choose 14 or so people, and make sure they get most of the experience. make sure they get the killing blows, make them kill the bosses, etc., etc. Ignore everyone else, at least for that playthrough.

Yeah. ESPECIALLY train the lords. I didn't, and i was totally screwed in the final chapter XD Also, i reccomend training one of your archers (I prefer Rebecca) as soon as you can. Also, if you are playing Hector's Story, it is a brilliant thing to do to level up Farina all the way. She will probably be the best character you can get. I got her, leveled her up all the way, and she was amazing.

My first play through, I used Sain, Canas, Erk, Priscilla, Oswin, Matthew, Wil, Karel, Florina, and a bit of Lucius. And, of course, Nils/Ninian and the three Lords. I only got two ro three to level 20/20 though.

The second time around, I used: Lyn, Kent, Hector, Matthew, Eliwood, Guy, Priscilla, Wil, Florina, Lucius, Canas, and Nils/Ninian. I got every single one of them to level 20/20, with the exception fo Priscillia, who was 16/20. Every single one of them was pretty much invincible.

This this playthrough, I plan on using: Lyn, Eliwood, Hector, Lowen, Rath, Heath, Erk, Serra, Canas, Raven, Bartre, Legault, Nils/Ninian, and Dart.

Omg! Priscilla is INVALUABLE!! I use her EVERY playthrough, and always level her up all the way. She is simply amazing.

On my first playthrough I stupidly focused on using Marcus and I didn't really use the lords much. The final level was a nightmare, but I managed to beat it thanks to

Spoiler (Highlight to read):

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Athos. I put him alone in the dragon's range, and every turn I would heal him and then wait for the dragon to attack.

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The second playthrough was much easier. When I discovered the Triangle Attack, it proved to be very useful. Are there any other secret attacks like that?

Nope. The Triangle attack is unique.

In FE6, they had an armor knight triangle attack, heh.

Originally Posted by Twinrova

Omg! Priscilla is INVALUABLE!! I use her EVERY playthrough, and always level her up all the way. She is simply amazing.

But she's impossible to level up fast when she's a troubadour, and I ran out of patience

XD All i did was heal after every single attack, and she leveled up in no time.

She is good but the healing staff she starts off with is way too powerfull, I usede the weaker staff and kept the stronger one for harder times. The level with Raven wasn't that hard but I always had Marcus rescue pricilla in the beginning and then transport her to Raven as quickly as possible.