Review - GBA - Fire Emblem

[schild]

Daydreamer sent us a review of the latest turn-based strategy game for the GBA. I'm just not witty tonight.

[Trippy]

The auto-save mechanic is a killer for me. I hate it when my characters die permanently and I don't have the patience anymore to replay maps over and over so they don't.

[schild]

I've played through most of the game, and I gotta say - my big problem is how easy it is. You start the game with a paladin that can pretty much cut through enemies like a hot knife through butter. About 8 missions in you should be able to level up one of your knights (or something a rather as well). On any given mission if you just run your two lead second-tier guys and your lead character, you can pretty much just leave enemy corpses in dust behind you. I generally had my group split into two parties. Second tier, leader, and one cleric. And the other party consisted of one cleric, 2 horseman, a mage, and an archer.

As much as it pains me to say this, I enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics advance more. But not by much. I love the permadeath mechanic immensely, but I think if I lost one of my two lead strongmen, the game would just kick my ass. Unfortunately I've yet to encounter anything that can hit them for more than 2 damage at a time.

I still can't wait for the Gamecube version, even if it is being released the same month as the Xbox 360. Hopefully the difficulty isn't toned down too much for American audiences.

[Daydreamer]

I generally play FE highly defensively and abuse the arenas and the tower to keep most everyone at a decent (but not high) level.  I generally only lose an occasional mage or archer who hasn't been leveled yet, usually to the Hand-Ax/Javalin users I described in the review.  I never ever use the early promoted units, just because they take the fun out of it, though the extra kick starter characters get near the end through having more levels and stats is a nice bonus.

Also, how is everyone promoting their Trainees?
Ax --> Fighter --> Hero (best Acc it seems to me)
Lancer --> Armor Knight --> General ( I made the first Armor a Great for more second attacks, Amy is fast enough for them as a Gen it seems)
Mage --> Shaman --> Summoner (Early dark magic + summoning = luv)

[Kail]

Just wondering... I'm still trying to get through the first Fire Emblem and I generally have to take three or four runs at just about every mission until I can get through without loosing anyone (I didn't think I was that bad until I read this thread, but if everyone else is just blowing through it, I probably just suck).  Anyway, I like the game, but it's real frustrating for me having to do everything over and over and over again.  I was going to just totally pass over the sequel, but I heard there's some kind of re-visitable dungeon in the new one that you can just run through over and over again to level up your guys.  I was wondering how that affects the difficulty level.  Can you just level to twenty on these side dungeons and plow through the entire main game without hitting any major bumps, or does the game do something to counter this?

[Margalis]

Doesn't it have different difficulty levels?

In a lot of games, a valid strategy is to keep levelling up a couple of overpowered guys. But when I play these types of games I try to level up my guys about evenly, which makes it a lot more enjoyable.

[Daydreamer]

Yes the alternate dungeons and monster battles help (hell, they are often more fun than regular maps), especially since all but skellys are outside the regular attack triangle, so its just a matter of wailing on them with all your might.  But I prefer camping outside arenas myself to level up, so I can work on support at the same time.  You can level to 20 no problem (10 + 20 with trainees), you'll just be stuck there until you find the emblems you need.

There are three difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, and Hard.  Easy is just normal + tips from the computer.   Hard just beefs the enemy up and makes them smarter.  I guess the intent is to give the difficulty for winning, not the difficulty of 100% survival.

[Jain Zar]

I hated the first US GBA Fire Emblem.  Too hard, but not even fair hard.  Autosave permadeath in a level based system is poopy.  Now Pathway to Glory on the N Gage?  That's permadeath done RIGHT.  Because its not level based but skill based.  And bullets kill a veteran as easily as a raw recruit who just replaced my 10th submachine gunner.  Veteran characters just shoot a bit more and are quite a bit more accurate with those shots. 

None of the super uber unkillable commanders the First Fire Emblem threw at you every other mission.  Fuck that game.  Fuck that game right up its rosy red ass.

[Margalis]

It's funny, half the people think it is too hard, half thing it is too easy. In the first one just whore out Hector if you are having problems, he has awesome offense and crazy defense.

I've played a few of the Japanese ones. The first Super Famicom FE game was amazing as it was the best animated game of it's time. Some of the Japanese ones are a LOT tougher, I can't remember which one exactly but maybe 5 or Thracia was just insane.

One thing about the FE games is that a lot of people have a lot of different opinions of them. Some people think all the Cavalry units are too good, others think they suck immensly.

One thing I will say is that the first USA GBA one deserved an award for writing if any game ever did.

[Kitsune]

Advance Wars pwns all in the turn-based strategy GBA arena.  That is all.

[Jain Zar]

No shit.  I fear for the DS Advance Wars.  It might be.. REAL TIME.

Excuse me while I go weep.

[Aenovae]

Autosave permadeath = shelf-level event for me too.

(Shelf-level event meaning the point when you say, "fuck this," put the game back on the shelf, and never play it again.)

Also, I couldn't find a way to beef up my characters outside story missions.  Worse, the only characters who level up are the ones who fight.  You get something like 30 characters, only a few of which actually participate in battle.  Which means you can totally fuck yourself if you level up the wrong characters, leaving the others weak as kittens.  It also means that it's impossible to level all your characters if you wanted to.  Add to that the fact that one of your few, precious, decently-leveled characters may suddenly die permanently, forcing you to replace him with one 10 levels lower.  No thanks.

[Margalis]

If one of your guys die, reset.

Seriously. It's funny, a lot of people complain that the FE games are too easy.

[Strazos]

Just got it from Gamefly, and I'm loving it. The art and animation are top-notch for the platform, and the story is decent also.

Yeah, the permadeath can be a bit annoying, but it's entirely avoidable - if someone dies, reset the mission if you really want them. The fact that there's permadeath just makes me think a bit more about my moves, because I would rather not reset and waste time.

Still an awesome game thus far, and I'm not even far into it.

The only thing I don't like right now is that most of the Nice starter weapons I have are just about shot - the stuff I can currently buy just doesn't compare.

EDIT: Intelligent Systems has both the Fire Emblem and Advance Wars series. They're doing a lot of good stuff right now - add them to my fanboi list, right below BioWare and Black isle Studios.

[schild]

It is, indeed, a good game.

[Strazos]

It's just BEGGING for some sort of DS treatment, just like the Advance Wars series.

[schild]

Oh, I agree. Also, you might want to check out Lost Magic on Gamefly. Just came out this week. RPG + RTS + lots of Trauma Center frantic doodling.

[Strazos]

Some of the suturing in the last operations of Trauma Center was just obscene....though it did teach me how to cheese the system, as opposed to trying to make actual sutures.