First Impressions: Fire Emblem (Wii U)

Fire Emblem / Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
Systems: Game Boy Advance, Wii U Virtual Console
Original Release Date: April 25, 2003
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Intelligent Systems

As I have mentioned before, my experience with the Fire Emblem series is limited to, and in this order, Fire Emblem Heroes, Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses.  I also briefly started the first game in the series, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, but upon realizing that the mechanics were more antiquated than any of the more recently released titles and because I felt that I needed a non-platforming game to play opposite New Super Mario Bros., I decided to jump into the turn-based tactics game that is Fire Emblem.  And while it may not be known outside of everyone else who has played these games, Fire Emblem on the Game Boy Advance was named as such for North American audiences because this was the first game in the franchise to be localized and introducing the subtitle to a prequel that was never released stateside, was probably the better option, even if it created some confusion (read confusion on my part) for when people would search for where this game fell in the Fire Emblem franchise history.

This game introduces the player as a player in the game, kind of similar to the role of the Summoner in Fire Emblem Heroes, this being the first time that the role of Tactician/Strategist was introduced in the series.  The Tactician does receive their own in-game avatar and I guess I will have to wait until my birthday to see if anything happens because the game does ask for your name, and birthday (and apparently in the original release in Japan, your blood type because why?  OH!  That would have been cool to introduce a story element 3/4 of the way through that required the Tactician to give a blood transfusion to one of three characters, two of which will die without the blood transfusion and you can only give blood to one character whose blood-type matches yours; yes, I know that is not exactly how blood-types and transfusions work in the real world, but play with me here) and we are some time off from my birthday and I will likely finish the game before I transition into the final year of my early 40s.  And while you do choose the gender of your Tactician, your avatar on-screen is the same regardless of gender and, at least at present, you do not engage in battle but instead are absorbed into the main character of Lyn (as is expected in a JRPG universe).

Currently, I believe that I am still in the prologue as I am still getting prompts about how best to strategize characters during battle and what icons do on the battle screen, and the infamous weapons triangle-quadrant; Sword > Axe, Axe > Lance, Lance> Sword, Arrows > Flying.  As hand-holding as these opening chapters are, I actually do not mind as I am learning a whole new set of mechanics that are different enough to previous tactics games I have played that if I A-button mashed my way through then I feel like I could be at a serious disadvantage when playing against a computer-controlled character who knows all of the rules.  There are things such as dialogue options with locations (Houses, NPCs) that can only happen with specific characters, some of which is just exposition while other conversations can help to recruit new characters to fight with you.  

I also accidentally found out about "Rescue," which allows a character to rescue another character preventing them from taking further damage (presumably unless the rescuing character dies and the rescued character returns to the battle; or unless you drop off the rescued character when they are out of harm's way.  What I love about this tactic, is that it introduces a whole new element that I have not seen in a tactics game that gives both flying units and cavalry units something else do to, because right now, Florina feels very weak compared to the rest of the characters and like all other Fire Emblem games, if the main character Lyn dies, that is game over after a 25-minute battle that was going well until the computer decided to spam-attack Lyn into oblivion.  I think I just like the idea of having the ability for a flying unit to soar over mountains to rescue someone who is on the verge of dying.  I am sure that Sain will be all about this tactic.

I am thinking that I will forgo playing Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light on the Switch and focus on this Fire Emblem as I am finding it a bit more user-friendly.  I am also debating if I want to pick up Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, which was the Game Boy Advance remake of that first game and looks fairly similar to this Fire Emblem, so it could be that it is more of an actual remake than a simple reskin.  Perhaps after becoming more familiar with some of the mechanics from older games in the franchise, I will move back and play the first game again.  Besides, it is not like the stories in each game are connected to the preceding game, although I know that there is some crossover between some of the titles.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

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