Fire Emblem has been a series that I have loved ever since the first game that touched the American shore, and with what can be put as an anniversary title recently released, I feel it only necessary to go through all the titles that I have played and compare them to each other.
The first title that I will cover will be Fire Emblem Fuuin no Tsurugi <F.T.>, the last in succession to be Japan exclusive until the second remake. F.T. follows the story of Roy( SSB-M anyone?) as he prevents the king of Bern from handing back the world to the dragons 820 after the war fought between humans and dragons for control of Elibe, the continent on which the story takes places. His main goal is to reach the homeland of his childhood friend, Lilina, but then turns to defeating Bern after the Lycia Alliance is decimated. The quest takes him towards all areas of Elibe from his birth home of Lycia to the barbaric Western Isles; from the desert of Arcadia to the holy land of Etruria, and either from the frosty mountain land of Illia or the Plains of Sacae to ending at the kingdom of Bern. Along the way, Roy meets denizens of the lands, and some of those denizens lead Roy to the Eight Sacred Weapons, used by the Eight Sacred Generals against the dragons in the Scouring.
F.T. was the first game in a couple of years to utilize the old system, but with a new battle calculation that produced higher dodge rates, making battles so much more survivable for characters, as well as better graphics. There were also a slew of characters that interacted with each other nicely in the support conversations. While the game was not spilt to allow children characters, it did have coupling of characters in the game for the epilogue. They also started using a weight based system where characters with higher build stats could carry bigger weapons without suffering any speed penalties, but not allowing the build to grow did cause some characters to be stuck with having lower speed. The game also continues the original archetypes like Cain and Abel; Jaegan; Est; Hardin; and Ogma. Characters like them were in the game, but the game also built off of those types and changed the attributes of them. For example, in the original Fire Emblem, we had Jaegan a pre-promote with little growth whatsoever, we got Marcus mirroring the original, but also Percival and Klein, pre-promotes that are actually usable without being required to use them for harder difficulties. Another example is the original Linda with balanced stats focusing on Skill and Speed, whereas Lilina was a full on Magic growth mage. We also get what the game calls “Side quests” which are quests that come after chapter in which there is one, usually requiring the player to complete the chapter in a certain number of turns or keep a certain character alive. In this game, the side quests are necessary to get to the true final boss and one of two different endings. I would also be remiss if I didn’t note that the game has one of the best enemy battle themes, as well as some of the longest but most inspirational magic animations, in particular Apocalypse.
However, some of the major problems occurred with comparing some of the characters on different routes: for example Gonzales was a Brigand whose level varied based on what route the player takes. If A is taken, he is at level 5 with a D rank in Axes, but if B is taken, he comes at level 13 with an E rank and the exact same stats. This could mean that the developer either made an error or they wanted the players to take the A route, but this may never be figured out. Similarly, whereas some pre-promote units were made to attempt to surpass the unpromoted units of the same class like Percival to Allen, Treck, Lance and Noah, and sometimes successfully doing so, some units were easily overshadowed by other units. Gonzales and Geese, a pirate recruited around the same time as the former, are somewhat the polar opposites of each other, but in a bad way. Gonzales has heavy focus on HP; Strength and Speed, with moderate Defense, whereas Geese is more balanced, evening out the holes that Gonzales has in his remaining stats like Resistance and Luck, and most noticeable Skill. However, they both change into Berserkers, a class which has a higher speed cap than skill, Geese will end up hitting more, but Gonzales will do more attacks with not only better speed, but higher Build. Another factor is that Gonzales has more to grow as he comes a battlefield earlier. On A route especially, he comes 5 levels lower, meaning that he has more to grow as well. Another Example is Ray and Sophia, similar to the last example with a slight difference. Ray comes mid-game as the first dark-magic user, and at level 11, boasts balanced stats and growths as well as a high Build, whereas Sophia comes 2-3 chapters later, assuming the player got to the side quest, as a level 1 Shaman with low base stats, focusing on Magic and Resistance. Now, applying what was said from the last comparison, Sophia would be better because the Druid, second form of the Shaman, has high Magic and Resistance caps, but since Sophia comes so late and is hard to train, most people usually go with Ray. Another factor is that Lilina is very similar to Sophia in that they both are Glass Cannons( high damage output, but frail) most people will just use Lilina, and drop Sophia.
Another flaw in the game is the imbalance of power between magic units and physical units. In this game, tomes (books used for magic) are very light, whereas Swords, Lances, Axes, and Bows are heavier. This leads to Mages being faster than certain physical units like Myrmidons, Pegasus Knights, and Nomads, and female units taking the biggest hit. For example, Lugh can wield almost all Anima Tomes with little to no speed penalties, whereas Thany, a Pegasus Knight, can only wield a Slim Lance without any penalty. This can be construed as magic units being overall better than physical units, but of course this handicap allows some classes to shine like the Knight, where Defense is the main focus, and Fighters (actually most axe users are the same in this regard), who usually have high enough Build and are more focused on power.
Now, one of the two biggest problems in the game is the late forced promotion of the main character Roy. Some people may ask, “why is it such a big deal that he promotes late”, and the answer is that the promotion is meaningless when he gets it. It’s not in the middle of the game, nor two-thirds through, but one chapter before the normal ending: at the end of Chapter 22 in a 23-25 chapter game. Roy’s promotion would make more sense if he became a game changer, but in reality the Master Lord class boasts only mediocre stat caps and no extra weapon or weapon bonus. Take Myrmidons: when they becomes a Swordmaster, the unit gains a critical bonus in exchange for only being able to use swords, or the Paladin, which gain the ability to use Axes when they promote from Cavaliers. In most cases, Roy will be out powered by other characters simply by this late promotion. Yet, this is not truly the absolute worst flaw in the game, rather the second worst, although they are just about tied.
The final flaw in the game is the true Final Boss, which can only be achieved by going on all the side quests; keeping the items gotten from them unbroken (usage not down to 0), and defeating the final boss for the normal ending. the sidequest requirements go as follows: Chapter 8x-keeping Lilina alive; Chapter 12x- Complete Chapter 12 in 20 turns or less; Chapter14x- Complete Chapter 14 within 25 turns and have Sophia alive; Chapter 16- Keep Douglas alive; Chapter 20A/B- Complete Chapter 20 within 25 turns and if on A route have Yuno, Zealot, Thany and Tate alive, if on B route have Dayan Sue and Shin alive, and finally for Chapter 22x complete Chapter 22 within 30 turns with Miredy and Zeiss alive. If the player does this, they will be rewarded with one extra chapter and the final chapter. For all that work, getting through the 24th chapter and the long range weapon the boss carries, and the multitude of fire dragons on the next chapter, the final boss is a pushover. Roy, with his Sword of seals, defeats her in one round; Fa, the Est of the game, does the same thing. In fact, Fa is so powerful she spawned her very own archetype. In other words, for all the work that the player does to get to the final boss, it ends up being a real disappointment. Normally, the last boss is supposed to be worth the challenge.
Many of these flaws were either fixed or lessened to make the game harder in the next game released. The first title released overseas and the 7th title of the series in japan: Fire Emblem Rekka no Ken, or just Fire Emblem to anyone else. This game is the unknown prequel to F.T., staring Eliwood, Roy’s father; Hector: Lilina’s father, and Lyn. This game was also the first to have three separate if not linked stories. Lyn’s story shows her gaining her rightful heritage as the granddaughter of the marquees of Caelin from her mother, while thwarting her great uncle’s plot to rule the land for himself by poisoning his older brother. Eliwood’s story or Hector’s story follows, with little actual difference between the two. Eliwood attempts to find his missing father. On the way, he discovers the plot to bring the dragons back orchestrated by Nergal in a bid to harness the power. He also is accosted by the Black Fang, a mercenary group, led by Nergal’s creation, Sonia, into believing his group carries bad intentions, but the main goal of the group being the favor of the current king of Bern by assassinating his next heir and son. Hector’s story follows the same plot but with little add-ins and more into Hector and his brother the Marquees of Ostia.
This game, as said before, was the first to feature three separate story lines, with Lyn’s story being the beginner’s level, and Eliwood’s being the last half of the story. Hector’s story added some extra difficulty with bosses having different weapons; enemies being in different places, and more chapters and side quests. This game was also the first of its kind to bring physical units up to snuff. The Tomes were made much heavier, putting magic units on par with physical units in terms of penalties, as well as making all the weapons more accurate, which bonuses the Axes the most. While we don’t get as diverse a unit roster as in F.T., we still have a nicely diverse enough cast, from the Sacaen Lord Lyn growing up in a tribal society, to the sheltered daughter of a count Priscilla; to the feminine Lucius to the eccentric Pent and wife Louise, and from the deserter Heath to Marcus serving the second generation in Elbert’s name (Eliwood’s father). The game also furthers weather conditions on the battlefield. The first ever weather was fog of war, limiting the unit’s sight and hiding enemy units that were not within range, and this game furthered it with rain, slowing all units movement.
The usable Jaegan from the previous game continues, but with the first Jaegan, Marcus, being so good, beginning players might be tempted to use him all the time. This is, however, the first time that every pre-promoted unit has potential, allowing players to have a pre-promote only playthrough, and also the first time a player makes his/her own Pre-Promote via the forced event in Lyn’s story right before the end.
In the previous game, they called the extra chapters for the sacred weapons “Side Quests”, but you had to go on them if you got them. In this game however, players are not required to go on the side quests if they wish not to, but like the previous game, the side quests have value to the story, by changing Nergal’s death quote, but having no effect on the ending. The side quest requirements are also less varied, being turn based, keeping someone alive, or defeating a boss.
There are some features in this game that are nice for players: first the main Lord’s promotion occurs near the end of the game, but not AT the end. This gives player’s time to work them up to speed so they can fight along their comrades without slowing them down, and the other lords can promote via a Heaven Seal, but the main thing is that the promotions usually end up being between Chapters 24-28. Second, in F.T., thieves were only usable for the first couple of chapters, and then they were outclassed simply because they could not promote, but in earlier games the thieves had special stat caps to compensate. R.K. introduces the promoted form of the thief: the Assassin. While losing what made a thief a thief, which was the ability to steal items, they gain better, if not basic, stat caps, they also gain the skill “Lethality”. This skill allows the unit, when it’s activated, to kill any unit regardless of HP, Defense, and any other factor, and gain double EXP from that kill. In fact, because of this skill, the programmers placed no assassins as enemies in the game, or if they did, they could not use the skill. The third is unique battle sprites. In the past game, Roy only got a change in his battle animation when wielding the Sword of Seals, and unit sprites were generic, but in this game all the lords look different, with each one having an unpromoted sprite; a promoted sprite, and a promoted sprite using their sacred weapon: Eliwood- Durandal; Hector-Armads, and Lyn- Sol Katti. There was even a Lyn with Durandal sprite and an Eliwood with smaller Durandal in the beta, showing up on YouTube, but it never appeared in the game as Durandal is Eliwood only. There also was a Berserker sprite without the mask exclusive to Hawkeye, but that might just be extra.
This game is also the first in the series to use an avatar for the player, in which the player enters the name and birth month for the character. This allows the player to be a part of the cast of the game and not be like a chess player where they are simply just moving the pieces around. However, this aspect is not needed in the game the way that it is, for all the avatar is ends up being just that: an avatar for the player. While the player can use the avatar as the figure for decision making in the game, it does no more than that: no extra fighting character; no character to support the other characters, and no actual in game sprite for the avatar. If Nintendo ended up deciding not to put the avatar in the game, there would only be fewer conversations, but the gameplay would not change.
We also get the Magic Seal, Kishuna, adding a new strategy to play. Within the area of the sealing, marked by a dark red area on the map, magic units cannot use magic, meaning that in the area, you cannot use mages, shamans or, monks, nor can you heal in there, and this goes for both the player and the enemy. This can actually make the map easier on the player, taking out a possible threat, or harm them by removing their best units.
We also get fewer comparison cases in this game, mainly because no character is without fault, and very few characters with the same class join at the same time with such a huge difference in stats or gains like Gonzales and Geese had. The only one I can get is Dorcas and Bartre, two fighters who join at the same time in both Eliwood and Hector stories. Both are similar: the standard Fighter class with high Hp, and Strength; low Defense and Resistance. The only difference is that Dorcas has higher Skill and Resistance, whereas Bartre has more Speed and Defense. With the Warrior’s 26 speed cap, it is not a fast unit, but some people still choose Bartre because of this simple edict: “Tis better attack twice and miss than to hit once”. This simply means that units that are faster will do better than units which are more accurate, because a higher Speed score will do more for a unit than a high Skill stat will. Dorcas also has a slight advantage to this because the player, should they have gone on Lyn’s story, will have used him earlier in the game, so while Bartre starts at level 2, Dorcas might be at level 3-7 depending on how much the player used him.
Sometimes, Erk and Nino, two mages are compared, and I have done this sometimes, but they cannot be compared as equals like Dorcas and Bartre. The simple reason is that there is too big of a gap between the two units. In Lyn’s story, the player gets Erk halfway through, and again in Eliwood’s/Hector’s story at around Chapter 14, whereas Nino doesn’t join until Eliwood story Chapter 26 (28 for Hector story). By the time players gain Nino, Erk could be very highly used in the main party. Nino is also considered the main Est Archetype for this game, as she also has very good growths and comes at a low level.
I originally owned both this game and a Japanese copy of F.T., and one thing I got annoyed at for both games is the growth rates for the characters, more so in F.T. than in the other game. In different playthroughs, some characters would have grossly different stat gains. Some characters, like Sue and Thany, would have stats akin to their growths, but some other, in particular Lou and Roy, had stats that went all over the place. In one game I had, Sue had maxed Speed; had gotten high Skill, and had decent Strength; Defense and Resistance, whereas Thany had similar stats with the exception that she had gotten no Strength gains. Lugh and Roy, on the other hand, were receiving stat gains that were completely out of left field: Roy had high Skill and Resistance; Average Strength and Defense, but low Speed, while Lugh had low Magic and Speed, but good Skill and Defense. Another game had Lou and Roy’s stat gains reversed. R.K. has never had this problem to that degree, with the only character having shaky growths being Eliwood. His growths are similar to Roy’s growths, minus a point or two from some stats, adding them to others, but I never had a problem with Eliwood that I did with Roy.
However, this game is not without flaws like the previous game, but these flaws are less daunting. First, story wise, I would prefer a bit more action between the members of the Black Fang and the player’s party, because the fights are somewhat short, and they ended up leaving me feel like they were just extras. Similarly, there was one boss that I wanted to fight, Ephidel, mainly because he seemed like he would be an interesting boss.
Second, the last chapter disallows any ability to move your units around in preparation, meaning that choice of unit order becomes important. Same with the final stage, there are times when I wish the doors wouldn’t open so fast, as I have gotten surrounded with high annoyance level enemies fast.
An annoyance that I had after discovering the last Pegasus Knight could only be found on Hector’s story, meaning that the famous “Triangle Attack” an attack that allows for a unit performing it to always critical the enemy, offsetting the set up for the attack. This leaves the already weakling Pegasus Knights with their low Strength and abysmal Build, even more unusable in harder modes due to that low strength holding them back, as well as getting double attacked because they can’t hold any of their weapons that do damage.
The final boss made a huge leap in difficulty from the previous game by making all the weapons effective against it not as damaging or heavier to lower attack speed, thus making it less likely that the player could double attack. However, the dragon had one weakness that could be exploited in that the tome Luna could kill him, or at least do a large amount of damage. Luna’s effect is that it negates the opponent’s resistance and does damage solely on the Magic stat of the user. In addition, the tome also had a high critical rating, so a Druid with maxed Magic can do base 29 damage, and a base 20% critical chance, doing 87 damage, or with Athos’ 30 Magic cap doing 90, cutting the dragon’s HP down to ¼ of its max. It is this that makes the boss actually worse because this was not meant to be the way to defeat the dragon: players were encouraged to use the weapons from the final chapter to defeat him, not to defeat him in one turn. On the other hand, players do cheat in games like this, so it’s not the worst aspect, but what is the worst is the link between F.T. and R.K.
Originally, this game was released after its supposed sequel, so this game was made so the player could play without needing to play the sequel, which is the right way to do it. at least, that is what I think to be true, but the truth’s somewhat more eschewed then that. in fact, it should be the opposite, because that way players can feel a connection between the future past and the past present, or the sequel and the prequel. We even see Eliwood and hector in the previous game as well as being able to use characters in R.K. originally from F.T.
With the most recent release of Fire Emblem Awakening, this got me thinking that the fact that the games had no actual link got to me even more the more I thought about it. this is especially so since in F.T., we have no clue who the mothers/ fathers are for some of the characters.
This brought me to a conclusion: both games need to be combined into a remake for the 3DS or maybe the WiiU, with the main feature being who married who. For example, if Eliwood married Fiora at the end of the game, their son, Roy, would have something passed down from Fiora and different growth rates than if Eliwood married someone else at the end of the game. Some new characters might also need to be made so characters in R.K. could have more choices to pair up. An example of this is to allow some of the Black Fang members to survive and marry for a new character, and the same would go for the morphs, saving one female and one male to make a couple for a child.
The story is also very straight forward, no real surprises in the game, as if it was trying to keep itself simple so players would not get scared away by a plot twist. However, again using Awakening as an example, games need plot twists in them to make the story interesting. I’ll do a full review on Awakening later, but something coming from the future is definitely a plot twist, and the main character being the “perfect” vessel for the final boss is again a plot twist. The story has some surprises, like the dancer being a dragon, or a hero of the scouring being alive after a war that happened several hundreds of year before the current story, but these are not truly surprising twists.
Overall, the two games are good on their own, but compared to newer games, they fall short in both story and gameplay. I, as one player, really enjoyed these two games, despite their flaws (perhaps because I didn’t finish one of them), and would like to see them redone with the changes that I thought of. Even, if only one game was to be remade, some of those changes would still remain true. These games can be considered two jewels of the past, as they are good games that led us to the future.
The next game I will cover will take back to Fire Emblem 4 and 5, and make more of a Halloween story, so join me for the next title in the series: Fire Emblem Sacred Stones.