Fire Emblem

Possibly one of my favorite game series by Nintendo, Fire Emblem is a series of role-playing, fantasy strategy games. Similar to the far more popular Final Fantasy series, there is virtually no carry over in story lines, outside of several traditional classes, and some basic character archetypes and plot elements. The games consist of small mini-series, where a couple games will interact with each other, usually with a time skip between, or a perspective change. 1-3 relate, 4-5 relate, 6-7 relate and 9-10 relate, along with 8, 11 and 12, who act as stand-alones and remakes.

In traditional Nintendo fashion, a series can never be ordered that simply. All those numbers I used, and that are used by most of the community, only exist in Japan. Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword, the seventh game in the Japanese series, was the first game ported to the U.S., so of course, it was just called Fire Emblem. The following four games, the stand alone Sacred Stones, the paired Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, and the remake Shadow Dragon, were all small time hits, very popular in small circles, but relatively unknown otherwise. Due to this, the next remake game, New Mystery, a remake of the classic third game, wasn't released in the West. I can only hope the new 3DS game will make it over...

What makes Fire Emblem so popular with those who play it is its difficulty. You see, unlike pretty much every other similar strategy game, when a unit dies, they are gone. G-O-N-E, gone. Since every character comes with his or her own unique back story, personality and relationships, you want these units to live (in most cases). It is a very low forgiveness game, involving constant restarts and new strategies. But the fun of the games is figuring out how units work together, how their stats develop, and how they need to be equipped. Any game in which you can lose a level seven times and still want to try again is pretty impressive.

Fire Emblems other biggest draw is its storyline. Most strategy game have little to no storyline, and you don't give a crap about your units. In the "sister" series, Advanced Wars, your handed units like candy, and you get new ones every level. All the character are shallow and one dimensional, and the story just acts as a link between battles. On the other hand, every Fire Emblem game comes complete with a rich and immersive world, a deep and complex story line, and characters with faces, that you care about. During Advanced Wars, you want to shove a gun down Olaf's throat, because he's the evil traitor of the Blue Moon coun try you arbitrarily hate. In Radiant Dawn, the final bosses are almost all rational, relatable characters who just so happened to side with the goddess you're trying to kill after she turned everyone in the world to stone.

Of course, nothing is perfect. You see, Fire Emblem relies largely on the Dark God of gaming: the Random Number Generator. If this baby doesn't like you, and hands you a bad roll, that sucks. Your paladin that you've raised since the first scenario is dead. Let me say it again. Dead. Forever. None of the English games, and few of the Japanese games, possess any way to revive characters. In addition, all the weapons that are required for characters to attack have limited uses. So once you've used that iron sword 46 times, it's broken forever. But these two features only add to the game experience and difficulty.

Overall, I strongly recommend this series to anyone looking for a good story, a decent challenge and something that can make them think, even when they want to beam the Gameboy through a wall. Expect to see on this series as I move through it at random intervals.

The Mellin Patch

Hello there internets! I am your humble host, Das Mellin, or as some know me, Johnathan Hocus or Scramasax. Okay, maybe not so humble, as you may find. I am a full time gamer, reader, movie watcher and aspiring writer, and part time /b/tard, weegeeian, /sage/, Pokemon master, medieval general, psychologist, and world hopper. Oh and I teach history or something too.

What you are currently reading is the first post in what will likely turn out to be a sporadically updated place for venting, thinking, sharing and ranting and possibly money making... you'll know about the last one if ads show up.

 Now, as an over-imaginative, frequently bored and very opinionated geek, this blog will very often be a place for me to talk about the various games I'm playing, books I'm reading, movies I've watched and everything else. Most will be text, but you might get some activity by video, or even guests.

I hope you stick around my happy place for awhile, I swear there will be more posts soon... and enjoy your stay.