About the game

This is the the first Fire Emblem game on since the SNES and the first one with a PAL release. So Fire Emblem has live up to to a game on console wich is heraldide by rose tinted nostalgia loving nintendo fans, being one of the finest games on that platform and also having to capture non importers or people who download emulatorsthe. This game has plenty to live up to and even more to do.


Fire Emblem dosent however lose any amount of ground on the original except for the lack of orriginality in game play. The new story makes plenty of sense and the new charaters are well balaced against the enemys. This will do to a start of a turn based statergy game as the basic controls are well taught in the first few missions. this does become annoying if you want to restart or play though a second time as there is no way to skip the training missions.


The game play is very standard for a turn based stratergy game. Your group of fighters are put onto a feild to face another small force of enamy fighters. both sides are kitted up with swords, lances, axes and magic. There are also a huge range of support Items. Weapons break with use and most items are single use. Replacement weapons can be bourght from shops but to do this you use on of your teams turns. Attacks are performed by taking your charater within range of an enamy and selecting a weapon to attack with. Most weapons have a range of one so they can attack an enamy in the four adjacent places. bows and javalins attck up to two or more but you cant always attack someone next to you. Magic is performed in the same way using books instead of weapons.


There are three main mission types. Destroy all enemys (pretty obviouse really), Seize an area (this often puts you up against a boss) and survive (puts you up against a far supperer force and attacking avoiding them. untill the timmer runs out). Most battles are held in villages where you can get infomation or useful items from villagers as well as shops to buy and sell items. The others are held in castles wich change startergy there are now coridors wich only allow you to put one man though at a time. Or making sure you dont end up in range of a powerful spell performed by wizzards behind locked doors. no shops but if you take a theif there are plenty of tressure chests to plunder.


The game is held together by some pretty convincing game still screens and one of the best storys in video games history. The sounds amd graphics are as good as you could expect out of your GBA. Isometric veiws and some aging fantasy game music work well


This could well be the finnest turn based stratergy game ever with the only real compotion comming from the Wars sereis wich is simmeler but replaces bows for guns and axes for tanks.

Verdict