My own first experience with it was shortly before the arrival of Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube, playing Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War emulated. After briefly trying that out, I quickly forgot about it as I was not prepared to appreciate the established formula yet.
Several years later, Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, the seventh entry got released in the West, and with it, the franchise would from now be critically and commercially acclaimed all over the world. Intelligent System would continue to release quality entries even to this day.
The anime based characters combined with deep dialogue, sometimes intriguing stories, phenomenal music and best of all challenging and thinking gameplay is what Fire Emblem is all about. One of the unique features is that your party members can permanently perish or retire from the battlefield if defeated.
But there's much more involved. Different unit classes and a rock/paper/scissor system are also present, giving us more depth into the various battlefields you will be participating in. And there are sometimes special obstacles such as long distance ballistas in your way.
Also available is the option of recruiting new characters, usually triggered when your main character talks to them on the battlefields, but sometimes requiring a bit more effort. Another feature aspect I personally like is the one where you are able to rescue units in danger and send them safely away.
Fire Emblem can also be very unforgiving should you try out the harder modes or challenging side quests. It can however be exploited because you are able to grind on world maps with some of the entries.
The latest title, Awakening, is special in several ways, as downloadable content is available for the first time. Furthermore, a new feature where two units can help each other out is present, strengthening their abilities and making up for some interesting tactics, but sadly the rescue option is still missing. It could be argued that this new feature replaces the rescue function though, so perhaps I will get used to it in the future.
The story felt typical for
Fire Emblem standards, as there is not much difference between Shadow Dragon and
Awakening for example minus some time travel elements playing. Chrom is the new
likable main character, and this time you will be able to create one custom
tactician character who will also fight alongside Chrom’s Mercenaries.
A new kind of "breeding" feature involving marriage is also implemented in Awakening, but perhaps because I beat the game on Hard and Classic Mode, this feature was never explained to me, so in the end only Chrom married a redhead character and got two kids. Supposedly it has replay value and depth toward it.
What I really, really dislike about any Fire Emblem is when enemy reinforcements upon spawning are able to instantly move around, which makes up for some truly painful trial and error at certain moments. And Awakening is with this regard no different.
Rating: 8.6
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