Fire Emblem is essentially the "original" console strategy RPG, in a domain that was previously bound only to computers. Designed by a division of Nintendo that would later call itself "Intelligent Systems", Fire Emblem was the brainchild of a main named Shozo Kaga. This mix of strategy, RPG-style character development, and medieval themed storylines, became one of Nintendo's most popular franchises in Japan, and has directly influenced practically every major SRPG since then, including Shining Force, Langrisser, and Tactics Ogre. The funny thing about a lot of strategy games is that few honestly felt like they were focused on strategy. Real time strategy games fell more about micro managing growing throngs of units or dealing with more and more types of resources. Other strategy RPGs focus too much on the customization elements, where gaining levels and optimizing combinations of skills are far more important that placement on the map. As such, Fire Emblem is a rare gem. It demands that you create and execute a sound strategy, as opposed to masking its difficulty in exponentially increasing layers of numerical bureaucracy. It's striking as an optimum balance between strategy, with enough complexity to feel deep, but not cumbersome. Sure, leveling up is still important, but you can't just grind your characters to victory. Nintendo released creator Shozo Kaga's brain child, Fire Emblem: The Dragon of Darkness and Sword of Light on the Famicom on April 20th 1990. This mix of RPG-style character development, growth and storyline focus coupled with the tactical placement of units on maps of War Simulations(dubbed the Simulation RPG) was one of the first of it's kind and gamers rejoiced. Fire Emblem immediately bloomed into a franchise with popularity on par with Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest and spawned many imitators. Throughout its many installments, Fire Emblem has retained many core characteristics that have been carried over from game to game. Most characters can wield at least two weapons (usually a spear, an axe, or a sword), which have various strengths and weaknesses. These weapons wear out from use, requiring that you constantly buy new ones. In most games, the shops are located on the battlefield, so you might need to take one of your characters out temporarily to have them stop by at a local store to restock. Characters can also visit houses on the battlefield to chat with the locals, or talk amongst themselves in reveal extra story tidbits or strengthen their power. In some cases, you can even recruit enemy soldiers on your team. Most games feature a huge roster, often featuring a handful of primary characters and dozens of secondary characters. The enemy AI is surprisingly smart, striking viciously at weakened opponents and doing everything it can to ensure their victory. Perhaps Fire Emblem's most controversial elements is lies with permanent player character death. Yes, once a character is killed, that's it - they're gone for the entire game, and (usually) there's no way to resurrect them. This requires that you carefully consider every move, especially when maneuvering weak units like magicians or healers. While this aspect often frustrates obsessive compulsive gamers that refuse to lose any of their characters, the later games in the series tend to toss enough playable characters into your roster that you can spare to lose a several and not have to worry about being outnumbered. If you play semi-compentantly, you'll probably have more characters than you know what to do with anyway. Oddly enough, Fire Emblem's introduction to the gaming world outside of Japan was through a party/action game, Super Smash Brothers: Melee for the Nintendo Gamecube. Rumors circulated that Nintendo of America planned to cut the Fire Emblem characters - Roy and Marth - out since no one knew about Fire Emblem and outcry ensued. Thankfully, they were left in, as they're both remarkably good characters to play as.

Fire Emblem Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

Fire Emblem: The Dragon of Darkness and Sword of Light - Famicom / Super Famicom (1990)

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Fire Emblem

Fire Emblem

Thousands of years ago, dragons and humans lived in harmony on the continent of Akanaea. But this peace was brought to an end by the evil Medius, the leader of a race called Mamkutes (human/dragon hybrids that can change forms.) The humans fought valiantly, until the hero Henry came forth, wielding the legendary Falchion sword, and slayed Medius. And all was well for another hundred years. This was, until, Medius came back to life. With the help of the evil wizard Garnef, the Mamkutes slowly began spreading their influence, taking over the country of Doluna, and once again waged war on the land of Akanaea. But Medius' primary objective was to hunt down and slaughter the descendants of Henry. This includes Prince Marth, the heir to small nation of Aritia and descendent of Henry. Having fled from attack, Marth flees to a remote island, leaving his family and his heirloom - the legendary Falchion - behind. But the Doluna army has found and cornered him, and the only thing he can do is fight back and save his country. Marth Prince of the small kingdom of Aritia and main character of the game. He is the only Lord class unit in your control. His name has been translated several ways (including "Mars" and "Matus") with "Marth" being Nintendo of America's official translation. All of the allied units are colored blue on the map, hence the blue hair. Sheeda The princess of the island nation of Talis and Marths major love interest. Sheeda is a skilled Pegasus Knight and wields a silver tongue, as she convinces more enemy units to join your cause than any other character. Ellis Marth's older sister. She's the sole unit capable of using the Ohm staff, which can raise a fallen unit from the dead. Neina The Queen of Akanea. Spared by a Grunian general, the infamous Black Knight Camus, Neina found sanctuary in the Kingdom of Orleans. Hardain The King of Orleans and a capable Cavalier. He joins Marth's cause when Grunia invades his nation. He may seem like a minor character out of the many you'll recruit, but he's crucial to Fire Emblem 3. Chiki The last descendant of Naga, the God Dragon. She is a Mamkute, capable of using ancient stones to morph into a dragon. She hasn't fully matured and cannot harness the true power of the God Dragon Stone yet. Gato An ancient priest who crafted the holy spell, Star Light that can defeat Medius. Garnef The evil priest that revived Medius. He wields powerful dark magic that can only be defeated by an ancient, holy spell known as Starlight. Medius An ancient member of the Mamkute race and king of the Earth Dragons. He originally started an empire in the land of Dorua and was defeated by the hero Henry. Rather than fall to his rule, the neighboring countries of Grunia and Macedonia opted to ally themselves with Medius. Fire Emblem: The Dragon of Darkness and Sword of Light is the bedrock on which the franchise was born. Marth and his army proceed through twenty five maps, defeating enemies, finding new comrades, buying weapons and capturing castles, all to reobtain the Falchion sword and kill Medius. The plot is mostly limited to small conversations at the beginning and end of each stage, but it's still more in detailed than many 8-bit RPGs. This is an old NES game, from 1990, to be precise, so it isn't exactly polished. Using the same basic engine as the Famicom Wars games (predecessor to Advance Wars), the interface looks and feels a bit spartan. There's no visible indication on how far a unit can move, and you need to pull up some menus to look at stats instead of popping up when they're highlighted. The cursor movement is sluggish, the characters shuffle slowly around the map, and the ground will often remain green even when stepping on other terrain (like water.) The battle backgrounds are stark black, and while the combatants are relatively well animated for a NES game, they're a bit slow and boring. You can shorten them, thankfully. In spite of these setbacks, Fire Emblem is a surprisingly engrossing game. The graphics are fairly bland but the music quality is pretty good by NES standards, and it's especially cool when the music changes once the tide of the battle turns in your favor. While the weapon triangle found the later games hadn't yet been implemented, and there's only one class of magic, there are 25 potential player characters and a total of 21 classes. Certain terrain effects are more important than any other game in the series - you can scale walls and you'll find one way hills that you can go down but not up. Because of this, it really feels like units' classes are more important than their stats, because troops like Pegasus Knights can ignore these terrain effects. There's even a mid-game save option, which was quite a luxury for back in the day. While the remake featured on the third game arguably makes this entry obsolete, it's still worth checking out for curiosity's sake. MP3s

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Fire Emblem Gaiden - Famicom (1992)

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Fire Emblem Gaiden

Fire Emblem Gaiden

Fire Emblem Gaiden was released two years after the original. While most of the graphics have been recycled and the clunky interface is practically identical, Fire Emblem Gaiden takes many other drastic departures from its predecessor. Additions include an open-ended class change system, a new equipment system and some standard RPG-style exploration scenes as seen later in the Shining Force games. In Fire Emblem Gaiden, characters always have a default weapon unless players specifically equip them with one. Weapons never wear down either, so you never need to worry about them breaking. Magic spells now drain the spellcaster's HP, making them even more vulnerable if you keep them too close to the fray. You can also revist certain areas and continue to fight enemies in order to level up. For the most part, level grinding is practically a necessity, given some of the immensely strong foes you'll face. Characters can also be equipped with special shields or rings, but since everyone only has one equipment slot, this gives magic users a very unfair advantage. Giving a powerful caster a shield or ring that boosts their power or defense, and regenerates their HP makes for a good, map-clearing combatant! Thankfully, class changes are done at Statues of Mira rather than using items. Fire Emblem Gaiden has only minor ties to the plot of the original, and takes place on the faraway continent of Valencia, where Mira the Goddess of the Earth and Douma a Demonic God fought thousands of years ago. After the battle, Valencia was split into two parts. Sophia, the Kingdom of Scripts, was established in the south, and the Rigal, Kingdom of Knights,was established in the north. Emperor Rudolf of Rigel amasses an army in an attempt to unite Valencia under his rule. With the help of Dauze, a holy knight that betrayed Sophia, the Kingdom of Script is now collapsing. Alm A young warrior from the Kingdom of Rigel from the village of Lum. Trained by the knight Maisen, he gathers and leads an army to free Valencia from the tyrrany of Rudolf. He promotes to Hero later on and gains the ability to use bows as well as swords. Selica The lost princess of Sophia. Under the watch of Mira's Great Sage Nouma, she masters magic and the sword. She doesn't know her country of origin, as she spent most of her childhood in Lum with Alm. Her quest starts out on an island far south of Valencia. Maiden This former holy knight of Sophia took a young Selica and fled to Rigel. He has been hiding in the village of Lum, training up an army to fight against Rudolf. Of all the villagers, Alm shows the most promise. The game starts with Alm and three young villagers from the town of Lum in his army. You have the option of changing these villagers into one of five classes - mages, cavaliers, mercenaries, archers or soldiers. From then on, they'll proceed down a linear class change path. It may seem simplistic, but it's a lot more customizable than most Fire Emblem titles. The game takes you through two quests, one lead by Alm and the other by Selica. Unlike the previous Fire Emblem, which limited the number of troops you could take into a given battle, all units under your control will be deployed. This is true even when Alm and Selica meet up and players have a strong army of over thirty units marching into the final battle, provided they've recruited everyone possible. Due to all of the changes to the system, Fire Emblem Gaiden is largely seen as the bastard of the series, the Fire Emblem equivalent of Zelda. Regardless, it's still an excellent game, though it unfortunately never got a port like the original game.

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Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem - Super Famicom (1994)

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Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem

Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem

Two years after Fire Emblem Gaiden, Nintendo brought the series to the Super Famicom and, subtitled it "Monshou no Nazo". The story goes back to Akanea, the land from the first game. A year has passed since Marth supposedly defeated Medius and brought peace to the land. Hardain and Neina have married, forming the Akanean Empire, consisting of Akanea, Orleans, Macedonia and Grunia. Prince Marth is sent by Hardain to investigate a rebellion in Grunia and suppress it. There, he discovers that Hardain has been extraordinarily harsh on Grunia's populous. Being the kind-hearted fellow he is, Prince Marth recruits many of his old friends from the first Fire Emblem, and fights against the corrupt Akanean Empire. Marth The Prince of Aritia is bit older but not exactly wiser. After chasing rebellions in Grunia and Macedonia, Aritia falls into Hardain's hands... Sheeda The Pegasus Knight Princess enters the foray again, fighting alongside Marth. Hardain The new emperor of Akanea has completely flown off the handle. He marches around with the Gradius lance that Camus used to wield. Chiki She's grown up and as the God Dragon, she is now a force to recon with. She's one of the few allies on your side who can damage Medius. Medius Who here isn't surprised that he's back? Only this time, he's in an even more powerful form. From a gameplay perspective, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem plays like the first game without any notable innovation. Mounted units can get off their steeds at any point, but that's one of the only changes. There's a much heavier focus on the storyline, with chapter introductions and much more dialogue between characters. The interface has received a considerable overhaul, so you can actually see your movement range when you highlight a unit, and stats are easily viewable. The characters move much quicker too. The graphics also received a considerable overhaul, but compared to the other Super Famicom titles being released at the time (notably Final Fantasy IV), Mystery of the Emblem's graphics are relative antiquated. On the plus side, the animation during the battle scenes is amazingly fluid. The sprites look fantastic, and there are plenty of nice background details, like the clouds in the background or the glimmering heat waves in the deserts. You can even make out the twang of the bow strings after arrows are fired. Though minor, these touches add a lot of life to the otherwise primitive graphics. The music has also been upgraded, but some of the songs haven't been reorchestrated particularly well and sound rather hollow. There are two games "chapter" contained in Mystery of the Emblem. The second chapter, entitled "War of Heroes" is the new scenario, but the first chapter is a complete remake of the original Fire Emblem using the updated graphics and interface. It's quite true to the original, but a few characters and maps have been cut from the roster. However, it's more playable than the Famicom original, and thus probably preferable. MP3s

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Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War - Super Famicom (1994)

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Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

Released on May 14th of 1996, the fourth installment of the Fire Emblem series marks an introduction of major new game play elements, many of which current players of Fire Emblem are likely to recognize. Most notably, Fire Emblem IV introduced the "weapons triangle", a rock-paper-scissors relationship between types of magic spells and melee weapons. For example, spears are powerful against swords, swords are powerful against axes, axes are powerful against spears. Additionally, if a mounted unit has any extra movement remaining, they can continue to move after attacking. The foundations for the support system and many others were also first laid in this game. Fire Emblem IV leaves behind the adventures of Marth and focuses on a whole new land. The back story is really quite typical - long ago, twelve heroes vanquished the dark god Loptos using twelve divine weapons. After the war, each hero established kingdoms where the descendants of the original twelve continued to rule. Each heroic line kept one of the divine weapons for themselves and the balance of power maintained peace. The game's story begins proper when Verdane, the one kingdom lacking in any lineage to the twelve heroes, invades Grandbell, a kingdom comprised of many houses of related to the ancient heroes. The whole continent is soon at war, as various events occur that disturb the old balance of power. So much for peace through divine weapon proliferation! Fire Emblem IV paved the way for a lot of new features to be refined in later incarnations of the game, and deviates from the standard formula in ways that have yet to be revisited. Many of these have yet to be revisited in any other Fire Emblem game. For instance, halfway through the game, a terrible tragedy strikes your army. The story then fast forwards a few decades, which now focuses on the main character's children. One of the most interesting has to be "Love and War" system. During the first half of the game, players can attempt to make their units to fall in love with each other. When they reach a certain level of intimacy, they'll get married, have kids and pass on any divine blood and individual skills on to the children. When next to each other on the map, lovers will get a chance to score a critical hit (marked by swirling hearts around the attacking unit before the battle animation kicks in.) The stats of parent characters also determined the starting stats of the children too and how they level up. If certain characters fail to fall in love, there are some default units that will fill in the void. Most of them are pretty weak. First Generation Sigurd Main character and descendant of the holy knight Baldo. He is heir to the holy blade Tirfing, which closely resembles the Falcion from FE3. Diadora The mysterious maiden of the forest is a long lost descendant of Narga, the dragon of light and Loptos, the dark god. She weds Sigurd after fighting alongside him. Arvis Heir to the house of Verthomar and the great sage Fala's amazing Fala Flame spell. He also carries the blood of the dark god Loptos. Ayra A descendant of the master swordsman Ordo and inheritor of the Shooting Star Sword skill which lets her attack 5 times in a row. She is a princess of Isaac, a nation recently ruined in the current wave of turmoil. Edeen She is a noble in the house of Junguvi, the house of the hero Ulir. As a priest, she has no weapon skills whatsoever and is unable to fight when Verdane attacks her castle. Cuan One of Sigurd's best friends and wielder of Noba's holy lance, Geibolg. He married Sigurd's younger sister Ethrin and rules the Kingdom of Lenstar. Eltosian The king of Nodion and long time friend of Sigurd and Cuan. He's a descendant of Hezul and wield the Mystic Blade Mistoltin. Second Generation Selis The son of Sigurd and Diadora and all around twerp. He must finish the war that his parents started. Yurius The dark prince borne of all the blood of Loptos extracted from Arvis and Diadora. He's a master manipulator who rapidly usurps power from his father and plans to take over the whole continent. Yuria Yurius' twin sister and polar opposite. The blood of Narga flows strongly in her veins and she's very skilled with light magic, fire magic and healing staves. Leaf The son of Ethrin and Cuan has matured into a strong fighter under the stewardship of Finn. Together, he and Finn try and protect Lenstar to the best of their abilities. Shanan Isaac's lost king and wielder of the holy Balmnk sword. He's a powerful Sword Master, versed in Shooting Star Sword, like his older sister Ayra. Manfroi Head of a cult that worships Loptos and seeks the revival of the dark dragon. The way chapters are presented is different as well. All of the maps are huge and feature multiple castles to conquer, making each scenario far longer than the previous games. However, there are fewer scenarios in general, with a total of twelve stages. If your main castle falls, it's game over - you can assign defenders to individual castles as well. Shops, arenas, blacksmiths, storage and fortune tellers can all be found in castles, plus units can be promoted in the main castle without needing items. Conquering castles on the map will trigger more events and generate new objectives. The sheer size of the maps gave mounted and flying units phenomenal advantages. There are some instances in the game that demand that players' armies haul booty which can be a problem to characters not on a horse. The amount of available characters in each chapter has been reduced and each unit given a special skill to reduce the bench warmer count. All units are deployed at all times, and most are unique to their class. Not all of the changes are for the better. The individualized skill system makes certain staples, such as advancing attack (getting a second hit in after your enemy attacks your unit if their speed is high enough) and critical hits into skills that only a select few units have. These skills aren't balanced very well, especially in the second half of the game. Many of the more interesting skills were rebalanced and revived in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for Game Cube. Characters also have thirty levels total - the levels don't reset after a class change, which isn't necessarily a badthing . However, to gamers used to maxing characters out before promoting, it feels like a rip off when characters can't enjoy the full stat gains from their promotions. The biggest peeve of Fire Emblem IV has to be the fact your characters cannot freely trade weapons. Each individual unit has their own wallet, which they can use to buy new weapons and repair existing ones. MP3s

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Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 - Super Famicom (1999)

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Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

This is the last Fire Emblem game that original creator Shozo Kaga developed with Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. This Super Famicom game was released for the Nintendo Power system, where consumers purchased blank rewritable memory carts and had games of their choice written to them at various convenience store chains. This game is a throw back to the older Fire Emblem games featuring more and smaller chapters and a wide range of units to choose from. A lot of skills from Genealogy of Holy War have been taken, lock stock and barrel. It also introduced the interface and artwork style that were later used in the Gameboy Advance titles. Thracia 776's story follows Prince Leaf before he meets up with Selis in the 7th chapter of Genealogy of Holy War. Thracia has been eyeing Lenstar land for conquest for years, and while every nation is at war, why not take advantage of the opportunity, especially when supplied with extra soldiers from Arvis and company? Leaf makes his way from the small village of Fiana nestled in the mountains towards the capital of Lenstar itself. He gathers a small force there and gathers rebels from across the land. A lot of things about the story fly in the face of continuity, since Prince Leaf starts off damn weak in Fire Emblem IV and Lenstar is still overrun with Thracian soldiers. Thracia 776 introduced rescuing which has been a staple of Fire Emblem games ever since. If a unit has low HP, another with a higher Build stat (a rating similar to "constitution" in the previous games) can whisk him or her away to safety. Unlike later additions, characters had chances to raise their Build when they leveled up. Granted, these rises were extremely rare. A lot of abilities incorporate the Build stat. Enemies with lower Builds canbe captured, have their possessions pillaged and released. Thieves can steal unequipped weapons or items from enemies that weigh less than their Build stat. With all the waves of enemies that you'd be thrown against, stealing enemy weapons becomes a necessity at times. One system that some players might find irritating is the Stress system. Every action a unit did bumped their stress meter up a notch. If their stress rating was higher than their HP, they'd have to rest for a map (the whole stage). Stamina drinks can eliminate stress, but they're expensive and rare. With the introduction of gaiden chapters that really needed specific characters present, the stress system could screw players over a times. Certain chapters also have annoying "Fog of War", so your characters can only see spaces adjacent to them. On the plus side, there are now bonus "gaiden" chapters you can find by completing certain objectives in various stages. These extra stages are vital for gaining levels and finding hidden characters. Leaf The main character and prince of Lenstar. He wields the Sword of Light which Diadora originally gave his mother Ethrin. . Finn Cuan's former squire and a lance knight of Lenstar. He rushed Leaf to safety when Thracia and Friege invaded Lenstar. Evale A sword master and mayor of Fiana. She turns out to be a member of Sigurd's army that survived Arvis' ambush and lost her memory. Nana Leaf's main love interest and daughter of Lachesis. Rinoan Mayor of Tara, one of the major cities in Lenstar. Quite a few characters from Fire Emblem IV make appearances in Fire Emblem V. Note: There is rather irritating stat leveling bug where characters continue to gain in a stat they've already maxed out (alas, you don't reap the benefits of this!) with the first version of FEV that did get fixed. MP3s

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Fire Emblem: The Sealed Sword - Gameboy Advance (2001)

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Fire Emblem: The Sealed Sword

Fire Emblem: The Sealed Sword

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Fire Emblem: The Flaming Sword - Gameboy Advance (2003)

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Fire Emblem: The Flaming Sword

Fire Emblem: The Flaming Sword

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