Fire Emblem

At the moment I have really nothing at all to talk about blog-wise, so I'll just write about something that I've had in reserve for awhile:  "Fire Emblem", the series.  Yes, it does actually exist, and not just as obscure bonus characters in "Smash Bros".

"Fire Emblem" is the hardest RPG franchise in human history.  This is a controversial claim, I know, but its true.  In the days since the old Nintendo, video game producers have moved past game development with the mind-set of "how hard can I make this game?" to "how good can I make this game?"  "Fire Emblem" has not.  If you took the sheer insane difficulty of "Ice Climbers", condensed it into solid form, wrote Satanic symbols on it, then fed it to a strategy game, "Fire Emblem" is what would be created (this is actually how Nintendo makes the cartages, by the way).  This is a franchise where if you make one false move then twenty minutes of hard work come crashing down because a single archer snuck through your line and shot down Caeda.  Then she's dead forever.  Keep on going without her and you'll be crippled all game, and you'll lose unit after unit.  Play like that and you're going to have nothing but a ruin of an army with no hope of taking down the - typically dragon - final boss.  Guess what then?  Time to start all over, twenty hours earlier, to the beginning of the entire game.  This is insanity incarnate.  "Fire Emblem" isn't very subtle about how it despises you for playing it.  In fact, "Fire Emblem" is a series that despises all mankind, and if given the chance would eradicate our race.

Yet for whatever insane reason, I honestly enjoy playing this franchise.  Why?  Well, I have a whole post to explain that, now don't I?

My first experience with "Fire Emblem" I imagine is fairly typical.  In "Smash Bros Melee", I unlocked Marth and Roy, two strange men(?) who spoke only Japanese and were never before seen across the Pacific.  To this day I am certain that Roy actually is a girl, and nobody will ever convince me that there is a penis on that person.  Marth was able to prove his manhood in "Shadow Dragon".  Anyway, I was pissed that Japan had their own game franchises that they never shared with us in the West, so I vowed to play these games somehow.

Its been awhile since I largely grew sick of basic turn-based RPGs.  With the notable of exception of "Dragon Quest IX"*, I haven't wanted to play an RPG of that style since the remake of "Chrono Trigger" for the DS.  Luckily, a few years ago, I discovered tactical RPGs.  Like most things involving role-playing games, I found this genre thanks to "Final Fantasy".  It all began with the appropriately-named "Final Fantasy Tactics", a dark title involving a destructive civil war in a medieval fantasy kingdom where people are born without noses.  FFT is ruthlessly hard, with the steepest learning curve in pretty much any video game, because weirdly the third mission is probably the hardest, while the whole last quarter of the game is pathetically easy.  From there I needed to play more tactical RPGs... though sadly FFT's sequels were both kiddie crap that failed to capture any of the charm of the original.  So instead I played the relatively okay "Jeanne d'Arc", the horribly disappointing and creepily loli "Disgaea 2" (one of the few titles whose creators deserve to end up on "To Catch a Predator").  Then there was "Fire Emblem".  I had that series on my "kill list" for awhile, time to move in.

On paper "Fire Emblem" looks terrible.  Its usually linear, which is very bad for RPGs.  There's weapon degradation.  Unit death is permanent.  All stat boosts and thus character strengths are based entire upon the whims of a mad Random Number God.  And the story is pretty vague and limited.  You could not get farther away from a great game like say, "Chrono Trigger", then this.  And yet it has a quality all on its own.

"Fire Emblem" in a nutshell is a franchise about a blue-haired Prince fighting against the forces of evil once his home kingdom was betrayed and conquered by the evil Empire working for the evil final monster.  I've played two of these games, same plot both times, despite both games nominally taking place in different universes with different characters.  Even when it comes to RPGs Nintendo is never original.  Along the way you start out with a small band of stragglers and slowly recruit a full army of colorful anime characters.  I in particular like the idea of leading my own fantasy army across the world leaving nothing but conquest and corpses in my wake.  This not merely a war:  it is a crusade!  A jihad for righteousness as I bring down the Sword of Light upon the Forces of Darkness.  Plus the stories are usually filled with so much betrayal and gruesome implications that I can pretend I'm playing "A Song of Ice and Fire:  The RPG".

The games usually follow some anime cliches, but luckily the overarching plots are pretty minimalistic so there's plenty of room to fill in the blanks.  And they don't end with all the main characters babbling about friendship saves the universe, makes everybody happy, and butters your toast, which is good.  "Fire Emblem" instead is just plain old Good Prince vs. Lots of Evil.  However, I don't know about you guys, but I rarely find that video game stories fully satisfy my desire for plot, so often I'll stage scenes in my mind.  What can the main villain be doing but trembling in fear as my unbeaten army crushes his forces?  All he can do is watch the firestorm rage across his lands, see minions scatter in fear, and then know that my Doom in upon him!  Few games actually have those scenes, but I like to pretend they do...  Also I love to quote "Lord of the Rings":  "Ride out and meet them, for death and glory!"  "Fire Emblem" is loose enough in its story that I can add my own details.

Most battles in this game are easily won, at least through sheer attrition.  But you can't just win a battle, you have to do so with zero casualties or else you're screwed.  This game isn't about a single battle, its about a whole war, remember that.  Pound for pound the enemy units are completely worthless compared to your own forces, and they will break like waves upon your heavier units.  However, you have no reserves, only the troops you're fighting with now so if they take down even a single soldier of yours its a very bad thing.  You can recruit units later on, which you will almost certainly need to do, but doing so can be a dangerous side quest mid battle.  Lose a single archer, your army might be crippled forever.  Time to restart.  Try not to throw the DS though, that can only make the game more difficult because its kinda hard to play with only the bottom half of the system.  Plus there's weapon degradation, meaning that you can waste all your best weapons early on and be forced to fight the Final Boss with crappy iron swords, if you're lucky enough to get that far.  Then money is scarce, and shops are only located mid-battle.  You can't level grind because of the weapons breaking and because the game is linear.  Just beating a single battle, for me at least - I'm not very good - can take a week of trying.

No wonder why the fanbase for this series, which I am all too happy to not be a part of, is full of maniacs.  These are people who will complain that the games are "too easy".  No, none of these games are too easy, shut up.  A "Fire Emblem" game will be subject to more complaints and divided opinions than any "Final Fantasy" game, even FFXIV.  These guys on game forums are like a swarm of betta fish living in one fishtank, they will devour each other.  Then if you want to know even the most basic of things, like, "how do I shop?" they'll laugh in your face.  "Fire Emblem" fans typically have been playing this series since before it was even translated into English, using fan translations.  God does not make nerds more hard-core than these guys.  Scary people, really.  Would not want to be alone with these fans on a moonless night... or a sunny day.

Though the storylines may be minimalistic at times, you do get a certain connection with the characters.  "Fire Emblem" is home to casts of nearly a hundred characters all with unique backstories and personalities... though sadly they on average have six lines a piece making them rather pointless.  The games include a built-in engine for mid-battle conversations, but this feature is easily forgotten and should just happen automatically.  It doesn't seem to do much stat-wise, so its a waste of a turn.  Where your real sympathy for the characters comes is their combat effectiveness.  Sort of like good Pokemon, you naturally find yourself loving stronger fighters like Marth and Franz, and hating characters whom the Random Number God decided to make worthless, like Joshua.  But unlike Pokemon, if these guys lose all their HP, they don't just faint, they die forever.  Franz**, Nooooooooooo!  I can't lose you, Franz.  Then some of the villains are actually pretty cool, like the George Clooney look-alike, Valter, or the mighty Dark Knight.

I'm also something of a huge fan of "Fire Emblem"'s art style.  There is extremely impressive sprite work in these games, like this General here.  Or this bad motherfucker.  The armor in this series is just ridiculous.  Huge hulking monstrosities of metal with massive shoulders and ridiculous strength.  It looks functional at least, completely impossible to move in, but at least with some kind of logic  This is unlike "Final Fantasy" where characters will have front-facing ponytails, or other ludicrous affronts to the very concept of fashion or style.  "Final Fantasy" just mixes random silly ideas in a blender and spits characters out looking like this ("Seinfeld" wants its puffy shirt sleeves back too.)  "Fire Emblem" instead has more subtle but still very colorful characters, especially in their hair.  There is not a color seen by the eyes of man or woman that has not ended up as the shade of a "Fire Emblem"'s hair color.

As for the music, there's only one word:  awesome.

Yes, "Fire Emblem" might be eye-poppingly hard, spine-shatterlingly hard, brain-boilingly hard, but its still finger-licking good.  You just need to be ready for a single bad move to destroy your entire battle strategy.  But that's half the charm really.  Just beating an insanely difficult level alone can be so satisfying.  The odds are so stacked against you that actually beating one of these games is an epic triumph in of itself.  So that's "Fire Emblem".  Can't wait for the next one.

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* Speaking of which, where is "Dragon Quest X"?  It was announced for the Wii three years ago.  Considering that Square Enix stupidly ignored my sage advise and instead blew millions on "Final Fantasy XIV", they kinda need this title in order to survive.  Not like "Versus XIII" or "Kingdom Hearts III" are ever coming.  I'm waiting.

** Franz however is completely unstoppable and never actually died during my quest through "Sacred Stones", so his mortality is actually more hypothetical than anything else.  He was the Rock upon which I built the asskicking of evil.  Equipped with the weakest sword in the game, Franz wiped out scores of the enemies, covering whole fronts all on his own.  Don't screw with Franz.