Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Amazing"

This is the first tactics RPG I've played and I think it is a genre I need to check out further. While I'm not a big fan of RPGs in general and I'm not very good at most strategy games, somehow this just works for me.

Fire Emblem is very much like an anime in spirit. It is a game created in Japan, but with characters that look European and with the setting being a mixture of fantasy and the middle ages. Several of the main characters are either royalty or soldiers for royal army. On their journey they run into undead creatures on several ocassions. There are also Pegasuses that some of your party members ride and they can get Wyverns if you choose that particular cIass upgrade.

The game has an art styIe like anime and the combat animations are focused more on cool moves than moves that would actually work in battle. I mean, what does doing a double backflip as your retreating to your neutral stance really accomplish?

Fire Emblem takes place on several maps where your characters move a certain number of squares each turn. During your turn you can attack, heal, visit towns etc. One thing I love is that significant story elements like recruiting someone to your side takes place within this system.

There are several reasons why I like the combat system. First of all, it is a very predictable system. When you stand next to an enemy and choose attack, a screen pops up with your chance to hit (in percentage), how much you will potensially hit for and what your chance for a critical hit (x3 damage is). It also shows the same for your opponents, because if they can they will counter-attack. It also tells you if you will hit the enemy twice, which happens if you are much faster than it. This enables me to think everything through before deciding on a strategy.

Another aspect I like is how all the items have durability. When you select which weapon/spell to attack with, it shows how many uses you have left. This makes Fire Emblem one of those games where the in-game economy actually makes sense and money can potensially become a significant factor. On some maps you can get money if you reach a certain chest before the enemy, and it becomes an important part of the mission.

Perhaps most importantly, there is a great variety of characters and weapons. For instance, Pegasus and Wyvern Knights have crazy agility and can travel large distances, but are extremely weak to bows and don't hit very hard. Bows are nice because you can attack melee characters without them counter-attacking, but it also means that you can't counter when they attack you. There is one particular character who is crazy-strong but can only use one weapon and that weapon only be used 50 times throughout the campaign. There is another character who dances for other people enabling them to go one extra time during your turn. Then there are characters that start of really weak, but you can level them up to be the strongest of all.

In a nutshell the system is about using the strengths and weaknesses of your party members and the terrain to your advantage. For instance, most maps have some sorts of choke points you could use. Some terrain is slow to travel on, but boosts your defence and chance to avoid attack.

Returning to the anime comparissin, the story is quite generic and predictable, but the game has a rich character gallery. The dialogue is well written and quite fitting to the characteristics of the person talking. The game also manages to make me care about them due to the support system. During gameplay, if you place the right characters next to each other they will have a conversation which increases their bond, whether it be a family bond, a romantic bond or simply mutual respect between two hardy warriors. There is usually about five people a character can have conversations with and you can have a maximum of three with one person and five in total. Your decision might slightly alter the epilogue, that tells you how the characters faired after their death. Support conversations also give the characters a slight boost in combat.

My love for the game is best demonstrated by the fact that I played through it a second time on hard mode. Usually with games that have difficulty I'll choose easy or normal and think that if I like it I can play though on hard mode, but even if I enjoyed the game I won't. However I really liked the system and wanted to see how I faired on the hardest difficulty. I also had some extra incentive because of support conversations I really wanted to see. When I finally beat the game and the epilogue told me how two of my favorite characters got married I just sat with a dumb grin on my face for a while.

Anyway, the game is fairly well balanced on hard, but not perfect. I'd hope that it was so intense that I'd have to be clever with leveling people up, possibly by having the already good characters weaken bosses and have the ones needing Exp deliver the finishing blow. However duing that and using my money well rather put me a bit ahead of the curve. However there were still some difficulty spikes, particularly with maps where the goal is survival or maps with fog making it so you can't see enemies on a distance. At one map which was both survival and fog I eventually won by backing my entire party into a corner, remove all weapons from by two best defensive players, put them in achoke point with healers in second row and just wait it out.

Fire Emblem the Sacret Stone is easily the RPG and/or strategy game I've put the most time into with 80 hours and I've even started a third playthrough (which I'll play on more casually). There are some more support conversations to pursue and I've also heard that Ross becomes wicked strong if you upgrade him to the Berserker cIass.