RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Games and Tech PRAK #1 - Fire Emblem for the Gameboy Advance

This is like the cheap, pirated version of B7's FRAK. Hah! Ahoy Mateys!



I hate Role Playing Games - it's true. Not because it's geeky, nor because I think they do an awful job at entertaining people. It's actually due to the fact that the stories in majority of RPGs tend to be exceptional ones. Stories I want to hear, or see, or experience. Except the trouble is they use the game part to advance the story - and I find that tedious. With books, I need only exert minimal effort in turning the pages, and even easier with TV as I only need to wait for everything to happen, or at worst, ignore commercial breaks. Roleplaying videogames require me to run all over the place, retrace steps, comb virtual maps, etc. etc - just to see what happens next.


safe enough to look at your tits?


No, that's the other guy who also does GBA reviews. My name is neil.

This is where Fire Emblem is different, in the sense that it doesn't put the burden of controlling the story entirely upon your hand. Similar to Choose Your Own Adventure books, it only gives you choices of possible paths to take in crucial points of the narrative. It's a lot less like a game and more of an interactive fiction in that respect, and I liked that. It felt comfortable being able to sit back, relax and just enjoy the story scroll on your tiny LCD screen. It also helps that the story - while cliched, is still solidly written. It started as a tale of country politics and slowly found its way into an epic about the war between humans and dragons. And hot chicks.

But what about the game?


at first glance: simple


at second glance: also simple. See where I am going with this?

It comes in the form of a complex strategy game that only looks simple at first glance, that being caused by the verity that the game itself is a set of simple scissors, paper, stone rulesets(i.e. lances beat swords, swords beat axes, and axes beat lances - knights are strong against archers, archers are strong against magic users, and magic users are strong against knights etc. etc.) coalesced into a chess game. You can't cheat by leveling up too much, since the game rarely gives you the opportunity to do so. It's all about military strategies; knowing when to send which type of troops, and in what formation etc. etc.

One noteable thing about Fire Emblem is its ability to make you care about the characters - they're not just one-dimensional caricatures of famous archtypes replete with cheesy catchphrases, but rather, each comes with a complex sidestory that the game doesn't tell out front. This is hinted at by dialogues with their fellow characters during battle, or even with NPCs or enemies which can even be recruited to join your party. And if you're not into cheesy sentimentalities, it will also make you care about character preservation because each has their own attributes which are useful and maybe they will even provide access to a couple more recruitable characters.

All in all, Fire Emblem is an engrossing strategy game with an equally absorbing story to back it up. If you're a fan of things that trick you into believing that your brain has a six-pack, try it out.

If my frail physique and abnormally huge forehead hints at something, it's the fact that I am REALLY ugly. ALSO, that I am a better military tactician than I am at being a soldier. I only lost two precious characters during the entire game.

Fire emblem's ending credits provide a short description of what happened to the characters after the battle, all except for the dead ones - who only get a mention of which chapter they died in. So today, I'm going to write a eulogy for my deceased characters.

Lowen, the swift knight.



Ah, how I remember the young knight named Lowen, who first appeared as an apprentice to the Paladin Marcus. He had the fire of youth burning within him, and an innate sense of justice which compelled him to take up arms, despite having a serious accuracy deficit. I mean, how the hell can he hit things with that kind of haircut?

Lowen's greatest asset - his speed - proved to be his downfall. In the "false friends" chapter, where I found one of my main characters - whose deaths will end the game - trapped in a corner against an archer, my only choice was to sacrifice another character, that being Lowen, whose high speed attribute meant that he was the only character who has enough moves left to be positioned directly in front of my knight lord and the fury of a poisoned arrow.

Goodbye Lowen, you will be sorely missed. If fate had not dealt us such a bittersweet card, I would have promoted your class to a valiant Paladin or maybe even an unstoppable Blade Lord, but now you are just a memory. And if you are reading this from videogame heaven - please get a fucking haircut. That atrocity makes you look like Jughead's pet dog, Hotdog.

Rebecca, a wildflower



Rebecca, a beautiful young farmgirl whose intense desire to make a difference severely contrasted with her lack of military training. For her, succumbing to the rule of a mad tyrant is a fate worse than painful death - it was this belief that made her take up arms and join my band of mercenaries as an archer. I wasn't about to recruit a minor, but she offered her help and we were outnumbered at the time. If an eighty year old pregnant nun offered her help, we would have accepted. We were THAT desperate.

For a couple of chapters, Rebecca proved to be very useful. But in "In search of Truth", her weak physical attributes and her lack of experience soon found her trapped in fog, with no help from my sturdier, and more experienced cavaliers. Good intentions can only get you so far and sometimes the worst things happen to the best people - a group of axe-wielding bandits soon closed in on her, and took advantage of an archer's lack of effectiveness in close combat. She died at the tender age of Level 1.

I borrowed this game from a friend of mine. It is indeed a very good game. I loved being able to pick and choose from so many characters to be in my party.