Fire Emblem

Wow, you're going whole hog on the Peg Knights.

They're good units.

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Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, chapter 23: Dark Pontifex

Having marched all the way back to Khadein, the Akaneia Alliance attacks Gharnef at his own castle.

The aesthetics of this map are impressive; seriously, look at it◊. The designers used every perspective trick in available to make a bunch of tiles look three-dimensional; this really does look like I'm invading a castle with multiple floors at different altitudes.

Since this is Khadein, enemies are almost all Mages and Bishops plus a couple of Thieves and Snipers. Of note, there are several Gharnefs on the map, though only one of them has Imhullu; all the others are armed with Worm, so I guess they're illusions of some sort.

I can only bring 12 units, so this will be tricky. Julian comes along to open doors and chests. Shiida hasn't missed a map yet, and Hardin is on the ascendant. Catria will make a useful mage killer. Linde has a personal beef with Gharnef, and she's the one holding Starlight. I happen to know there's a secret shop selling promotion items, so I also bring along Merric, Est, and Lena for healing. Wendel, holder of the Ward staff, comes along for support. Nabarl rounds out my assault force (Ogma is this close to max)

As soon as the map begind, Gharnef taunts me, saying that he is no servant of Medeus; as long as he possessed both Falchion and Imhullu, it is him who is the master. I begin by sending Julian north to raid the treasure chamber while the rest of my army moves east. The enemy spellcasters put up a decent fight but fall without difficulty. My army heads up the stairs and Julian finds a Talisman in a chest, so Est rushes back to become another mage killer. The rest proceed along a narrow walkway, Hardin in front one-shotting enemy Mages and Lena using Fortify to keep everybody alive.

Finally, I get close to the real Gharnef, who uses his vauntd Imhullu on Hardin. It... is super-anticlimactic. Oh, it has a great animation, with ghostly skulls appearing and flying toward my guy, but it does a measly 9 damage and has horrendous accuracy. With a Res boost courtesy of Wendel, Linde kills Gharnef easily, avenging her father. Of note, Gharnef, like Camus, has a death quote. With his last foul breath, he taunts me, saying that even after beating him I have no hope against Medeus, and he will wait patiently for me in Hell.

That done, I clear out the last of the Khadein forces and grab some promotion items in the secret shop. Marth seizes the throne and has a heartfelt reunion with Elice, and hey, she's a big sister healer! Handily enough, Elice comes with an Aum staff, which she can use to resurrect a unit while in a Dolunan temple; fortunately, there won't be any need for that.

Now that Marth has rescued his sister and obtained his father's sword, it's time to tromp all the way back to Doluna again for the showdown with Medeus.

New units: Elice

Levelups: Marth, Shiida, Hardin, Nabarl, Tiki, Linde, Est, Catria, Wendel

Promotions: Catria, Est, Lena, Merric

Takings: 10,000 G, Talisman

Previous instalments: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 -15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22

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Linde doesn't have a unique convo with Gharnef, odd.

Get Out of Our Home.

Probably space limitations, if I had to guess. Not many non-main characters get any lines at all in that game (also no death quotes at all, for one).

From a Watsonian view, Linde's been in hiding from Gharnef and his men for a while, and I don't imagine she's in much of a mood to talk to him, nor is she really the type to be swearing revenge on him before she attacks him.

Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.

"And so my plans will come to fruition with-"

(Gharnef is blasted with lightning)

"GOTCHA BITCH."

Yeah, the bosses have lines when they initiate an attack, but there aren't any unique battle conversations.

Some characters do have death quotes, but not many, and some of them are shared.

I do love the interpretation of Linde striding furiously toward Gharnef and blasting him without saying a word.

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Speaking of Linde, weird that in the original game she was a blonde, but they dropped it immediately for the sequel and remake (though it is another case where the art is inconsistent; her sprite portrait is brunette). Is Aura the only example of light magic found in Archanea? I know all tomes are classified under the same branch there, but flavor-wise I think it's the only instance of it.

Man, I wish Light would make a comeback. I know it's weak and it sees the most use when there are monsters for it to be effective against, but I miss bishops being able to nuke the shit out of things with the powers of Holy.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jan 31st 2019 at 11:28:37 AM

Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.

Doesn't Alm's hair have the same problem? I think inconsistency may also just be a general game versus official artwork problem. I seem to recall Final Fantasy 6 having marked differences in hair colour, too.

Light magic is pretty valuable in Radiant Dawn Hard, where the Hit actually matters because Micaiah's complete lack of authority stars, coupled with biorhythm, makes it easy to end up with garbage hit rates. Light's base Hit is so overkill that Micaiah rarely doesn't have over 95 listed Hit.

I'd also argue that light magic is really helpful in Valentia, since Seraphim has some of the highest Hit and Mt in the game. The anti-Terror component is also a huge boon, but I still found myself using it a lot for general nuking.

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Yes, Linde is a brunette in the game, and she even looks brunette in that picture you linked.

Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light doesn't distinguish between different types of magic at all (and in fact Blizzard works like Wind here, and has no bonus damage against fliers). That said, if we go by elemental appearance, Aura is not the only light magic - there's also Starlight. This also has the interesting effect that holy people have no trouble using dark magic, namely Worm.

Also in Radiant Dawn, if you can get Laura to promote, she's super-useful with great Mag and quite high Spd. In that map where you fight the Laguz Alliance in the swamp, I placed her behind Aran for defence and she kicked arse.

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Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, chapter 24: The Dragonkin Realm

After tromping all the way to Khadein and back to get Falchion, our heroes are finally read to end this war. They cross the border into Doluna, where Medeus awaits.

This map consists of rollings hills and dense forests surrounding a central mountain with a temple on the south face, which a homeowner helpfully tells me I can use an Aum in. This is the sort of map where infantry and cavalry mobility will be drastically impeded, so I bring along my entire air force of Shiida, Minerva, Palla, Catria, and Est. Hardin and Tiki also comes along for the experience and because they have decent mobility even when the ground isn't open. Merric, Linde, Wendel, and Lena are all present to let loose with magic, as well as Elice because I think it's right to give her some time and to provide part in the story. Gordin and Nabarl make up the numbers.

There's a Thief with a devil sword across the hills, and he's closer to the treasure chest in the temple than my army can reach by going the long way round. I send Marth and Ellis east along the safe path, accompanied by Hardin to defend them from enemy Manaketes. Tiki blocks the hill pass, backed by Gording and my spellcasters, while my air force takes up positions along the mountain slopes. Tiki proves to be an amazing unit, slaughtering the Manaketes that try to attack and doing major damage to the humans. The Snipers fall easily enough and Shiida takes down the one Thief; spellcasters also fall away, giving me some breathing room.

Est and Catria move east to meet up with Hardin while the rest of my army goes south to liberate the temple. Tiki takes out the boss and, because there are four forts surrounding the castle, I set her to guard the approach from reinforcements. No major issues, but after eight turns, an insane number of enemy reinforcements start to pour out of the forts. The southernmost fort churns out Pegasus Knights, who prove no match for Gordin and his trusty bowgun that he's been carrying since Talys. I manoeuvre Hardin and Catria into a position whereby a single Manakete will approach Hardinn and get mostly killed, allowing Catria to finish it off for a ton of experience. Est takes up position slightly to the west to take down the Manaketes that spawn from the adjacent fort, racking up the kills; due to her insanely high growths, she's maxed Spd and Def while her tier 2 level is still in the single digits, with Skl not far off, and she now joins Cain and Abel in the ranks of unstoppable superbadasses.

Meanwhile, Palla, Shiida, and Minerva take up position on top of three of the four forts surrounding the castle so that only a single Hero can spawn each turn. He keeps making a beeline for Palla, allowing her to get a pair amount of Exp. Merric and Lena pair off at a fort next to the temple, where a Manakete keeps emerging and only attacking Merric; the two of them make a good pair, and it looks like Lena's Bishop growths are subpar; I guess the devs intended her to be a healer and nothing more.

Marth moves clockwise around the map, battling where he can, and Falchion has a really cool animation - stars appear all around it and are drawn in, then Marth does a flourish and a cool attack followed by a backflip to his starting position.

When Marth reaches the castle, I've gotten bored of grinding so I position units on the forts to repress enemy reinforcements; then, because all that grinding has done a number on my weapons, I send everybody who needs one to the Armoury to pick up a new silver sword. Marth seizes the castle, and suddenly Medeus! Medeus boasts that, even though I've come to his castle, he'll still kill me, so come and meet my doom!

Levelups: Shiida, Minerva, Palla, Catria, Est, Hardin, Nabarl, Gordin, Merric, Lena, Linde, Wendel, Tiki

Previous instalments: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 -15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23

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Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, chapter 25: Chosen by Fate.

The final battle has come. Can Marth and his comrades defeat Medeus and restore peace to Akaneia?

This is a pretty simple indoor map with lots of walls dividing the castle into multiple rooms; this is also the very first appearance in the series of staircase tiles. For somebody who nominally hates all humans, Medeus sure does employ a lot of them.

Screw levelling up, it's time for the big guns to make their final assault. Cain, Abel, and Ogma return to the battlefield, joined by Shiida, Minerva, Catria, Palla, Est, Hardin, Nabarl, Gordin, Lena, and Linde.

As soon as the battle begins, Gotoh joins me, explaining that while he refused to speak to humans for the longest time, Marth has proved that they're not all bad. He's a Bishop who comes with Thoron, Worm, Recover, and Fortify, which is nice.

What isn't nice is that my army is scattered around the map. Tiki, Catria, and Nabarl accompany Marth in the south; Cain, Abel, Ogma, and Gordin are grouped in the northeast; Shiida, Est, Hardin, and Linde appear in the northwest; and Minerva, Palla, and Lena take up positions in the centre. The centre group is close to a Paladin, a Ballistician, a Hero, and a Manakete, so I move them to the wall and have them sit tight. The rest of my groups all move toward Medeus' throne room, most of them doing quite well because they're the cream of the crop. Cain in particular has Gradivus, which allows him to effortlessly tear through Medeus' guards. He's my best unit without Gardivus, and with it he's unstoppable.

The central girls manage to break past their attackers thanks to Lena getting a lucky dodge while Cain and Abel block the staircase to the throne. As my army progresses, doors actually close behind me, which is a mechanic I haven't seen before and I'm not sure it was used in any other games. Based on the timing, I'm guessing the doors close at fixed turns, locking units in if they haven't moved quickly enough. It's a bit of a dirty trick, but it does serve to impart a sense of urgency and keep the player moving.

Also, as the turn count climbs, the final level gives us another Fire Emblem first as reinforcements start to appear on the staircases. Yes, the final level throws in a second twist with indoor reinforcements, and idea which would later become a common trope. However, by this point the doors are closed, and only those who appear in the throne room are even a slight threat, and since Cain is there, soo joined by Tiki and Marth, they really don't matter.

Marth strides into the throne room and attacks Medeus with Falchion. While Medeus is just classed as a Manakete rather than the now-standard practice of giving the final boss a unique class, he does get a unique sprite. In his dragon form, Medeus appears as an enormous alligator with a pair of stubby, vestigial wings. Also, rather than the standard Manakete transformation, Medeus has a whole animation of his dragon form emerging from the ground; sure, it's only three frames, but it still looks bloody cool for the technology it's on. Unfortunately for him, I don't get to see his attack, because Marth immediately crits him, winning the battle in one hit. As he dies, Medeus curses Marth, warning that as long as there is darkness, his manifestations will continue to appear... and as long as there is light, there will always be darkness!

And with that, the Akaneia Alliance wins the war. No need to seize the throne - in yet another first for the series, this map is won by defeating the boss. A narrative box informs me that, after three years, the war is finally over. Doluna disappears into darkness, and Akaneia is bathed in light once more. And Marth's journey is at an end...

But then there's one final cutscene. Shiida asks if it's time to return to Talys, and Marth says yes; he'll also have to thank Mostyn for his help before returning to rebuild Altea. Nyna then prods him to do the important thing, and I imagine Marth is super-hesitant and stumbly as he akwardly asks Shiida if she'd maybe like to come back to Altea with him...? Shiida says yes! Awwww.

And now we get the first Fire Emblem ending. There's a list of all units plus Nyna (no portraits or anything, just a simple list), and then the standard list of every chapter's performance. In this case, it just lists the chapter and the turn count, no MVPs. There are also credits, and wow the staff for this game was small. Only 18 people are listed and five of those are under 'special thanks'; game development was a different beast in the 8-bit era.

And after that, we get the epilogue, an eternal staple of Fire Emblem detailing who died (nobody!) and what the survivors went on to do. Likely due to NES space limitations, several characters share a common ending, such as "He's working to rebuild $country", "He became the leader of a ruined village"; even Marth himself just gets "He's working to restore his country". Still, others do have unique endings. All we get of Caesar is "He disappeared", and we are told that Ogma returned to serve his king and "there are no rumors about him". Hardin's mentions that he married Nyna, though Nyna herself doesn't get a look in as she's an NPC. Much like the rest of the game, this is a bit primitive, but does the job well and the epilogues of future games are clearly descended from this one.

And after that, there is a message for me the player, advising me that the next war will come sooner than I think...

Fin

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Overall thoughts

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light has aged poorly. The interface is awkward and clunky, and having played the modern games, it's quite annoying not being able to see the enemy's movement range. Even with the limited NES controller, there are probably better ways to implement it.

That said, I actually think this game holds up pretty well. Yes, of course the sequels improved on it in every way, but that's what sequels do. Even the interface, when you get over its quirks, does its job quite well, and the modern control schemes are clearly a refinement of what was present from the beginning. The most annoying aspect is item management, since there's no way to change inventory in the pre-battle screen, and while characters can give each other items, there is no way to swap items between characters, so if someone has a full inventory, they can't accept anything else. Also, starting formations are determined entirely algorithmically instead of letting the player choose where to place each unit. However, it introduced almost every standard aspect of the series we love so much, the biggest exceptions being the weapon triangle and support conversations.

I've seen the graphics described as "ugly even by NES standards", and even Kaga himself wished they had been better. Sure, they're really nothing to write home about, but they did grow on me after a while, and they are perfectly functional. Honestly, I think they look fine to good by overall NES standards - this game looks as good as Super Mario Bros. or Zelda: Hyrule Fantasy, but it came out when the likes of Zelda II, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Faxanadu were available and showing just how gorgeous NES games could look; compared to them, Fire Emblem doesn't look that great, but as we've been saying for decades, gameplay is more important than graphics, and this game has plenty of gameplay. While the maps aren't enormous by modern standards, they're still a decent size and give considerable challenge with a grand scope and considerable tactical potential, and I had many nailbiting moments wondering if the one unit I'd sent to lure out they enemy would be able to survive an unexpectedly large onslaught after and unlucky critical lands.

Moreover, there is a lot of story here. The narrative is a straightforward heroic fantasy, but there are plot twists and even characters who exhibit moral complexity, such as Minerva and Astram fighting for evil because their loved ones are threatened, Camus refusing to join the heroes because he's too honourable to violate his oath of service, or the fact that in every enemy country there is at least one decent person who ultimately decides to do the right thing, often thanks to Shiida because she da man.

Heck, even the villains have personality. Medeus is a pretty standard Orcus, but Minerva and her Whitewings are scripted to show reluctance and refusal to dishonour themselves, Gharnef takes to the battlefield to try and kill you before the showdown and also manipulates Tiki, and Michalis is assigned behaviour to match the Medonian warrior culture that Minerva exhibited, flying out to meet the enemy instead of holing up in a fortress.

Overall, I still have to say that this is one of the most impressive and even artistic games on the NES. It probably isn't a great place to start for a newcomer to the series, but if you're a fan, I do recommend playing it. It's interesting to see where it all came from, and for all its flaws, this is still a good, enjoyable game.

Previous instalments: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 -15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24

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About the art: All the art was done by the developers of the game. They didn't have the budget to hire full-time professional artists until Genealogy. A lot of the supplemental art is awkward and marred with technical mistakes, while there's a ton of sprite swaps in the game itself. Even so, for what they had, the game was definitely ambitious. I don't like playing it just because of all of the early awkwardness, but it's quite the project, especially on a console as limited as the NES.

Medeus I feel is underrated, even though in the end he doesn't actually get to do a whole lot on his own. In some ways he's a victim too; I actually like that he has a very good reason for despising and fighting humans in his backstory. The whole "evil dragon as final boss" would recur and many would see it as played out from here, though. Maybe too much.

Archanea as a whole is marred with Seinfeld Is Unfunny to me in a lot of ways due to the somewhat standard fantasy trappings it exhibits feeling kinda bland, and the fact that until New Mystery, not a lot of non-main characters got development that put them past their archetype. Even so, there are still glimmers of what I would come to love later in the series, and I can appreciate it for being the beginning of one of my favorite game series.

I do have a strange fondness for the in-battle sprites in this game. They're limited as heck, but...something about their animation is just so pleasing to watch.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Feb 1st 2019 at 4:55:53 AM

Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.

Wait, the art of the original Fire Emblem was done by the developers themselves? I guess that explains why the character designs look kinda wonky.

Though I must really thank them for (No Joke) creating Marth's pantsless design, which I am always amused of.

Edited by dood9780 on Feb 1st 2019 at 5:05:33 AM

"Death's vastness holds no peace. I come at the end of the long road—neither human, nor devil... All bends to my will." -Demifiend.

Yup! And the first game had a definite Greco-Roman-ish flavor in the designs of some characters, like the pantsless wonder in a tunic, laurel crown and sandals.

Plus Pegasi being in. Later games dropped it completely to focus on a standard European look. I wonder what Archanea would look like if they had run with that theme instead...

...Wait. Marth. Mars. Greco-Roman. Derp. Just made that connection.

Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.

Don't forget gigantic buck-toothed Abel.

The handsome fellow two of the Pegasus Sisters fought over. So sexy.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

Anyone have any tips for Hidden Truths 1? I always get SO CLOSE but the lack of healing items always gets me in the end.

Japan loves to include pegasi in their Greek-inspired works (more than the West) usually as one of the good guys.

Edited by MayIncon on Feb 1st 2019 at 6:08:29 AM

Get Out of Our Home.

I have fond memories of killing Medeus in two turns after the chapter started. No wonder Warp was nerfed in later games.

De Romanīs, lingua Latina gloriosa non fuī.

Can't you kill Gharnef in one turn by simply zapping whoever has the Super Effective weapon over to him?

Congrats on the playthrough, Vampirebuddha. Damn you put some effort into that.

I don't think I'll ever do a playthrough myself, given that the OG games lack gimmicks or characters that really hook me. Hell, my favorite things in Echoes are all stuff they added for the remake, like Berkut. So hey I can live vicariously.

Starlight isn't super effective against Gharnef. It is simply the only weapon that can damage him.

And since magic damage is unaffected by the user's stats, it only does 13 damage which higher than average for FE 1 tomes (compare with Imhullu's 14 might). Meanwhile, Gharnef still has 34 HP but 0 RES as is the case with literally every single unit, both player and enemy except Gotoh (and every playable character also has a 0% RES growth so the only way to raise RES is to temporarily boost it with the Barrier staff). And Gharnef has 18 speed (weighed down by 9 due to Imhullu) and Starlight weighs 5 do doubling Gharnef isn't the simplest thing.

There's a reason you can skip Gharnef and the game treats this as a legitimate option.

Too bad there's nothing about that in-game. I have no doubt that was always his backstory, but was that in the manual or was it just something expanded on in later games?

... Greece and Rome are both in Europe.

Also, Elice. Eris. Eris is Ares' sister. Ares is Mars.

Hmm, come to think of it, while Altea is definitely Greek, Grust looks very French. Fates has a similar but more drastic contrast, where Hoshido is Japan and Nohr is the Holy Roman Empire, complete with Camus clone in the form of Xander. There's also a definite Arabian feel to Khadein, and Aurelis has a bit of an Indian thing going on with Hardin's portrait.

Yes, if you get a crit. Otherwise it'll take two turns at least.

I saw that more as an antifrustration feature in case the player either didn't obtain Starlight or lost the character who was armed with it. (You can also boost Res permanently with a Talisman, but there are only two Talismans in the entire game).

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As far as I recall, it wasn't until Shadow Dragon and New Mystery expanded/explained the human-dragon conflict in much more detail that Medeus' backstory and whole (very justified) beef with humans was revealed. Before that, he was...evil old human-hating dragon guy.

He had a few quotes referencing backstory elements in first Mystery though, but some of it is generic villain "I'll destroy you," "How could I be defeated" spiel.

Yeah, but Mediterranean is not what people mean or picture when you say "European fantasy." They picture Norse, Celtic or Germanic influence, which the visual style of Archanea moved toward after some of the designs of the first game.

Except for the Asian-inspired countries, the majority of FE countries are inspired by one of those visually.

And...Wow, I never made the Eris connection with Elice. There's a lot more pseudo-Greco-Roman influences in the game than I thought.

edit: Though now that I think about it, Shadows of Valentia put more of that Greco-Roman influence in the design seemingly as a nod back to those days. The UI has a lot of Greek pottery elements, Duma's pre-degeneration look is very Greco-Roman soldier.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Feb 2nd 2019 at 10:34:44 AM

Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.

Are Xenologue deaths "real" deaths?

It's basically about being able to maximize damage. This makes the Umbrella one of the better choices for weaponry throughout the fight. One thing to note that isn't very intuitive is that the Ninja will be afraid of Owain's counter damage if he has the Levin Sword equipped. I'm not entirely sure why, since they could easily win through attrition by putting up those debuffs, but you can use that knowledge to let Owain get some free heavy damage in on their buddies while the more durable Severa or Inigo draw the shuriken fire.

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi