Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Old-school"

When I first read about this game the first thing that jumped out to me was someone comparing it to Shining Force. This being one of my favorite old school games made me instantly want to play it. The comparison is very good and is well justified since Fire Emblem is a strategy game in the same class as Shining Force for Genesis.

Fire Emblem is a character driven turn based strategy game. At first you start off with a single female character who is a fighter. As the game advances you pick up more characters to use such as knights on horseback, archers, thieves, mages and other fantasy staples. It has a kind of rock, paper, scissors take on combat basically making certain weapons and classes better or worse against others. It works well and is easy to pick up very quickly. As the game goes on you earn new weapons and level up your characters giving you a lot of incentive to continue on past the storyline.

Speaking of storyline its not the greatest youll ever find in a game, but it does a good job advancing the game. Youre not going to find yourself blown away but it isnt incredibly terrible. In the end the characters are varied and interesting and manage to carry the story more so then the overall plot.

Past all that its a fun game that I enjoyed from the beginning to the end. Turn based strategy fans should not pass up this game.