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Fire Emblem

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File:Fire emblem noken.jpg
Eliwood, Hector and Lyn (from Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, the first Fire Emblem to be released internationally).

Fire Emblem (Japanese: ファイアーエムブレム) is a popular strategy/role-playing video game franchise developed by Intelligent Systems, the creators of Nintendo Wars/Famicom Wars/Advance Wars, and published by Nintendo. The Fire Emblem games are strategic role-playing games with a very strong emphasis on western forms of medieval folklore. The Fire Emblem franchise has graced the Famicom, Super Famicom, Game Boy Advance, and the Nintendo GameCube. It was confined to Japan until the seventh installment, Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, which was released on the Game Boy Advance in North America in 2003 and in Europe in 2004 under the title Fire Emblem. The musical scores for Fire Emblem have been composed by Yuka Tsujiyoko for most of the series' history (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones was scored by Saki Haruyama, Yoshihiko Kitamura, and Yoshito Hirano, under Tsujiyoko's supervision). The primary designer of the Fire Emblem series from its inception was Shouzou Kaga, who resigned from Intelligent Systems after completing Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 for the Super Famicom. He went on to start his own development studio, Tirnanog, and created the video game Tear Ring Saga.

Gameplay

Like Advance Wars, Fire Emblem is a series of turn-based strategy games that involve moving units through a map grid in order to defeat the opposition and eventually seize a base or defeat a boss. The combat system bases itself on a rock-paper-scissors method of fighting, as each weapon type has both an advantage and a disadvantage against specific other types. Beginning with Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, the triangle system for weapons has been lance beats sword, sword beats axe, and axe beats lance, and the similar triangle for magic has been Anima magic beats light magic, light magic beats dark magic, and dark magic beats Anima magic.

Unlike Advance Wars, the creation of various player-generated units is absent. Instead, Fire Emblem utilizes a distinct cast of characters, each with their own particular class. Unlike most strategy games, each unit has a personality and past of their own. Money is used to buy units better weapons, and the use of units in the battle will allow them to gain experience points; a character's level will increase upon gaining 100 exp. Depending on the mechanics of the particular game, characters may change classes upon reaching a certain level, or through the use of a special item that will force a unit's promotion. Typically, the size of the player's character roster is very small at the beginning of each game, but as progress is made, other units may join in the battle through story events or through actions taken by the player. The latter games in the series typically contain playable rosters between thirty and fifty characters deep.

Romance is a prevalent feature throughout the Fire Emblem series, often through Support conversations—occasional exchanges between certain characters who spend a lot of time adjacent to one another, allowing them to perform better as a result. If some characters with a mutual romantic attraction engage in three Supports throughout the game, they will often be a part of each other's ending, with the result being either marriage or a continued pursuit of their relationship.

Death is permanent in a Fire Emblem game if the progress has been saved afterwards; if the player wants to keep a character who has been killed, he or she will be forced to restart the chapter. Only under special circumstances, such as being significantly related to the story, will characters who have fallen in battle not actually die, and only on extremely rare occasions, such as in Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, can they actually be used again at a later point in the game.

A "Game Over" occurs whenever one of the main characters (known as lords) falls, or in other situations depending on a mission's requirements. If the player kills a recruitable enemy or completes a chapter before an enemy or neutral character can be recruited, he or she may be influenced to retry the chapter or restart the game from scratch in order to recruit the character.

Although the concept of permanent character death is a hallmark of the Fire Emblem series, the mechanic is not without its critics. Some gamers claim that permanent character death makes the games too hard and frustrating, as it is possible to play a single mission for more than an hour, only to lose a character two or so turns before the end. It can also be a personal annoyance, as many charismatic Fire Emblem characters tend to earn the affections of players. However, most fans of the series see character death as a legitimate challenge to overcome.

What is the Fire Emblem?

The "Fire Emblem" to which the games' titles refer is a plot device or item that has taken multiple forms throughout the series, changing with the setting. The original Fire Emblem was a shield which allowed the wielder, Marth, to use the Falchion sword. During the second part of Monshō no Nazo, the Fire Emblem can be upgraded with five orbs to turn it into the Shield of Seals. In Rekka no Ken and Fūin no Tsurugi, the Fire Emblem is a seal required for a ceremony to recognize the heir to the throne of Bern. It is also used to unlock the Sword of Seals. In The Sacred Stones, the Fire Emblem is the Sacred Stone of Grado, which holds the Demon King's spirit, but is split in two (the other half forms the Dark Stone), and then the Fire Emblem is crushed. In Path of Radiance, it was another name for Lehran's Medallion, an artifact containing the imprisoned spirit of an evil god. There is no actual Fire Emblem in the games Seisen no Keifu or Thracia 776.

Games in the Series

File:Thracia776Screencap.png
Screenshot from Fire Emblem: Thracia 776.

The following is a brief list of games released in the Fire Emblem series.

  • Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi (The Dark Dragon and Sword of Light), Famicom (1990)
  • Fire Emblem Gaiden (Side-Story), Famicom (1991)
  • Fire Emblem: Monshō; no Nazo (Mystery of the Emblem), Super Famicom (1993)
  • Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu (Genealogy of the Holy War), Super Famicom (1996)
  • Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, Super Famicom (1999, 2000)
  • Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi (Sword of Seals), Game Boy Advance (2002)
  • Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken (Blazing Sword), Game Boy Advance (2003)
  • Fire Emblem: Seima no Kōseki (The Sacred Stones), Game Boy Advance (2004, 2005)
  • Fire Emblem: Sōen no Kiseki (Path of Radiance), GameCube (2005)

Recurring Themes

There are some recurring themes among Fire Emblem games.

  • Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi, Fire Emblem: Monshō no Nazo, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones are about a dark bishop resurrecting an ancient evil being. In Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi, Garnef strives to resurrect the dark dragon Medeus. In Seisen no Keifu, Manfroy strives to resurrect the Dark Lord Loputousu. In The Sacred Stones, Lyon and Riev work to resurrect the Demon King Fomortiis. Medeus, Loputousu, and Fomortiis all have an effect that reduces the victim's attack power.
  • In Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi, Fire Emblem: Monshō no Nazo, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, when the Rena character of the game first appears as a playable character, she is initially under possible attack by the Nabarl character of the game. In Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi and Monshō no Nazo, when Rena is introduced in Chapter 3 of the game, she is under attack by Nabarl and the Samshan bandits. The original Rena character is the only Rena character who is under attack from the first turn of the chapter. In Seisen no Keifu, the case is similar to that in Marth's games except the Rena character (Aideen) and the Julian character (Dew), are far away from the Nabarl character (Ayra), who is guarding Genoa castle on the opposite side of the map. Aideen and Dew get under attack by Ayra only after one of the axefighters guarding Genoa Castle start moving. In The Sacred Stones, when Natasha is introduced in Chapter 5 of the game, she is under attack by Joshua, but not immediately as in Marth's games. Exceptions are that while Rena and Aideen are introduced with their respective Julian characters, Natasha is introduced in the chapter after the Julian character and recruits the Nabarl character, and whilst Saphy is introduced in the same chapter as the Nabarl character, but the Nabarl is not recruitable until several chapters later. In Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, the Nabarl character (Guy) is recruited by the Julian character (Matthew). Also, in Marth's games and Seisen no Keifu, the Julian and Rena characters have a tie with each other. In Seisen no Keifu Dew is predestined for Aideen, as a homage to Marth's games, but his best suitor is arguably Ayra. In both In both Thracia 776 and Seima no Kōseki, the Nabarl character is recruited by the Rena character, and have a good relationship with each other.
  • In Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, a recruitable enemy (Ayra, Raven, and Cormag respectively) is initially hostile toward a Lord character (Sigurd, Hector, and Eirika respectively) since that Lord character is from the country that the recruitable enemy's country initially opposes, and it is related to the death in that recruitable enemy's family. In Seisen no Keifu, Sigurd's country, the kingdom of Grandbell, is at war with Ayra's kingdom, the kingdom of Isaac, because Rivough Castle army besieged Darna Castle, and Ayra's father King Mananan of Isaac was assassinated by Lord Reptor of Freege. Ayra's brother Mariccle promptly succeeded King Mananan the throne of Isaac. The death of King Mananan resulted in rage, and King Marricle launched a full-scale attack against Grandbell. In Rekka no Ken Raven views Ostia as his sworn enemy. He plans to kill Hector as a retribution for the loss of his title and his family. He changed his name from Raymond to Raven so that he could infiltrate Ostia undetected. In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, on Eirika's story, the General Valter kills Glen, Cormag's brother, and tells Cormag that Eirika killed Glen in order to get Cormag to hunt down and kill Eirika.

Other Notes & References

  • In 1995, an anime OVA (co-produced with KSS) was produced and released; it was closely based on the first three acts of the very first game in the series or more specifically, the remake contained in Monshō no Nazo. See also Fire Emblem (anime).
  • Two Fire Emblem characters, Marth and Roy, are secret characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Marth, the original protagonist in the series, starred in Fire Emblem: Ankoku no Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi, and Fire Emblem: Monshō no Nazo. Roy starred in the sixth game, Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi. According to Nintendo's official Japanese website, Marth was put in Super Smash Bros. Melee upon the request of Japanese gamers. Because Fire Emblem was virtually unheard of in America at the time of SSBM's development, it was expected that he would be dummied out of the North American version of the game. However, Marth's design and playability earned him extra attention in North America, and it was by the decision of Nintendo of America that he was included in the North American version. Meanwhile, Roy was developed for Super Smash Bros. Melee for the purpose of advertising Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi, and was included in the North American version of the game as well. It was due in part to Marth and Roy's popularity from their appearance in SSBM that Nintendo eventually decided to localize Fire Emblem games to North America and Europe.
  • In addition to the above, a title listed as "AKANEA" in the debug mode of SSBM suggests that an arena based upon Fire Emblem was under development; unfortunately, no real map data exists. However, if one has Marth unlocked and hold both L and R when entering Hyrule Castle, a remixed version of Fire Emblem's main theme and the recruiting theme will play instead of its original music. The song may also play randomly, but only if Marth is unlocked.
  • Although the first six games in the series were originally released only in Japan, the last Japan-only installment, Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi still has a chance for localization to North America and Europe. Fan translations of the first six Fire Emblem games are underway, being translated from Japanese to English, and the games have received growing levels of interest from North American and European gamers. If any of the first six games are remade for a current or future Nintendo platform, it's possible that the new versions may see release in North America, Europe and Australia. The Fire Emblem games predating Fūin no Tsurugi may be downloadable on the Nintendo Revolution.

See also

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Wikiquote has quotations related to Fire Emblem.

Sites:

Forums: (Largest 4)

  • FESS Forum - Large Fire Emblem dedicated forum.
  • Fire Emblem Planet Forums - Large Fire Emblem forum with a text-based roleplay. Also offers a new feature, "Member Exchange", where members can share more in-depth information.
  • Fire Emblem Wars - A Fire Emblem RPG forum that formerly mirrored the Fire Emblem games. Has already RPed through the worlds of Fire Emblem 7 and 8, and now is progressing towards a new, original RPG that uses Fire Emblem mechanics.
  • Elibe Clan Wars - Another Fire Emblem roleplay forum. A newly created RPG was implemented near the end of October.
  • Fire Emblem Arena Battle League - A Fire Emblem board where you get to create a character with stats and growths, and then battle them against other members' characters. Also has roleplaying.

Misc:

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