Multi-Character Spotlight:  Morphs

Enough of the heroes, I want to talk about some of the villians in the Fire Emblem series, starting with Rekka no Ken’s Morphs. The morphs are creations made by Nergal to do his bidding in the case of collecting Quintescence for resurrecting the Dragons. Their skins are a pale white like plaster, which amplifies the already evil yellow-gold eye color to ultimate evil levels, along with jt-black hair and blood red lips. They have different personalities, but with one thing in common: an overall disdain for humans coming from the fact that they are not controlled by their emotions. This disdain is told through different ways: Ephidel sees all humans as pawns; Sonia believes that she is a “perfect” human being and is therefore higher than other humans. Denning has no discrenable personality. Limstella is the only exception to this statement. They could be considered to be equal to the Homonculus from Full Metal Alchemist. There are 5 total morphs in the game that the player will come face-to-face with or fight. They are: Ephidel; Kishuna; Sonia; Denning; and Limstella.

First off is Ephidel, he is the main villain for the first half of Eliwood or Hector stories, attempting to sow seeds of rebellion in Lycia to start a war. The reason for this is that after the war and all the armies return, Nergal can take the deads’ Quintesscence for his plan. While Ephidel is the first morph the player meets, he does not actually fight, simply standing at the sidelines watching the chaos, which spawned from that his own archetype: a villain who does not fight the player and instead directs all of the footsoldiers, but is the subordinate of the Gharnef character, in this case his creator Nergal. Ephidel perishes at Chapter 19/ H 20 when a failed attempt to awaken a dragon causes him to be sucked into the gate and disappears from Elibe. He would have been an interesting boss, if given the chance, and perhaps instead of getting stuck in the gates path, he would be weakened by the fight enough to break down.

The next morph that is introduced and most likely the first one that the player fights is Kishuna, the Magic Seal. He can only be fought on sidequests, and usually is very hard to defeat until the last sidequest on Hector’s story. He is the first morph the Nergal created and also a failed creation because of him being unable to fight and unable to collect Quintesscence, being a frail being. However, Kishuna could actually be considered an anti-morph because of his ability and class title. His class is Magic Seal, which as it suggests nullifies, or shall I say seals the use of magic within a certain area, and since most of the morphs use magic, he nullifies their fighting capabilities. Usually in the first couple of stages, there is some room from magic units to be used, but on the last fight with him no magic units can attack because his area covers essentially the entire stage. During his stages, he remembers being created, but then being called a failure, compared to the other morphs. He dies with his body crumbling to dust.

The third is Sonia, the most human of the bunch, but still inhuman. Sonia’s first job was to disguise herself as a homeless woman to let herself in on their house. She then holds their baby daughter, Nino hostage, to allow her master to gain information on the Dragon’s Gate, then killed them but kept Nino on Nergal’s orders. Her next assignment is getting into the Black Fang’s highest by marrying Brendan Reed, thus making Nino his stepdaughter. From that position, she then orders the Black Fang to capture Ninian and Nils, the keys to open the gate, as well as deal with Lyn and her crew in her story, and fight Eliwood and Hector with the full might of the Black Fang. She has a personal follower, Ursula the Blue Crow, who learned from her and hangs on her every word, believing that she is cut from the same cloth of leaders. However, Sonia believes that as Nergal’s creation, she is perfect and thus beyond the comprehension of humans, similar to Homunculi from Full Metal Alchemist, the closest personality to them. This however is her greatest downfall, as in the chapter where she is the boss, Chapter 26x, she flaunts her supposed perfection, but dies with that perfectionist image in ruin as her body crumbles to dust. If the player does not go on the sidequest, she injures herself defeating Brendan and is met with Limstella telling her that her services are no longer necessary, and destroys her. Her use was to control the Black Fang, and now that she has lost all of the Fang’s members, she has outlived her usefulness. As a boss, she is a Sage, with balanced stats, including Defense, which is a rarity for Magic units. The one thing she lacks is Luck, which at level 10 is 0. She is also the first boss unit to be able to cast Bolting, the long range anima tome with frightening accuracy and power. Her secondary spell, after she’s done sniping at the units is Fimbulvetr, the A rank magic spell, devastating in most units’ hands. She also carries, and drops after she is defeated, a Fell’s Contract, the promotion item for thieves.

The first mandatory morph boss is Denning. Denning seems to be created not as a actual morph for battle, but as a messenger. The only thing that he says is “This is a message from Lord Nergal ‘ I await you on the Dread Isle’” over and over again like a broken record. Actually, when he dies, he does sound like a broken record, saying the exact same thing but pausing inbetween words as his life is extinguished. He is also the only morph that would not be affected by Kishuna. As the boss of Chapter 27/ H29, he comes as a level 19 Sniper equipped with the best bows of the game, excluding the S rank bow, with similar stats to Sonia, and the same Luck.

The last morph is Limstella, the boss of Chapter 30/ H32, and the only morph the player has to defeat if no side         quests are taken. Limstella, quite the opposite of all the other fully fuctional morphs, is very calm, composed, and aware of her limited life in exchange for power given to her by her master. Before the chapter the player faces her, Nergal tells her that he has given her magic beyond powerful, and beauty, calling her his masterpiece, but stating that before tomorrow, she will die of a corrupted body. He then tells her that it is an honor to die in his service, which she accepts. In her fight with the player and subsequent death quote, she states that both her body and her emotions, thus her feelings towards death, are constructs, showing that she understands and accepts her death as something that was going to come. The beauty part comes in earlier as she deals with Sonia, if the player doesn’t go on her sidequest, being the one who notifies Sonia of her outlived usefulness. Her class is, like Sonia, a Sage with higher caps and 0 Luck, but she as a higher level unit, has higher stats with the same Luck. The biggest difference is that she doesn’t have Bolting until hard modes, but she can dish out higher damage than Sonia did with the same tome.

Personally, I feel that the morphs could have gone farther in the story, because they are well written each with a very distinct personality. As I mentioned earlier, they are similar to the homunculus in Full Metal Alchemist, but the homunculus get some form of redemption when they are killed. On the other hand, only Limstella really has any redemption, and she was more aware of her faults. For the remake of the game, I would suggest allowing them to gain some kind of redemption, perhaps a past scene from their pasts before becoming morphs, or the tactician turning them into humans again.

With Halloween just around the corner, I think it’s time for the monster killing game of the series, Fire Emblem Sacred Stones. From zombies and giant spiders, to a final boss demon sealed into several stones, this game brings out the lighter version of the post-apocalyptic world of monsters.

Sacred Stones follows Eirika and Ephraim, Princess and Prince of Renais, as they fight Grado after being invaded under orders of Emperor Vigarde. Ephraim fights his way through Grado territory trying to distract the enemy army so Eirika could escape.

Eirika on the other hand, starts out as the main character, trying to escape from her kingdom in an effort to get to Frelia, a neighboring kingdom and an ally with Renais, after which she finds that her brother is still fighting Grado in the heart of its country, so she decides to fight more until she meets up with her brother. Along the way, they find monsters, only thought to be a legend.

Meanwhile, Ephraim fights his way through Grado, low on supplies and weapons but not on courage. Using small numbers and deception to win and escape, he is betrayed by Orson, one of the veterans in his ranks. Orson leads Eirika into a trap on false information that the Grado army had captured Ephraim.

The two are reunited and head back to Frelia, where they find the true goal of the Grado army: to destroy the Sacred Stones, holy stones that once sealed the demon Fomortis away 800 years ago.  This refers to the monsters appearing as the seal on Fomortis has begun to weaken. The two then split up and take two different approaches to dealing with Grado. Ephraim volunteers himself to go into Grado territory again, while Eirika goes to Jehanna to request assistance. After arriving at the locations and annihilating the Grado armies that guard the palaces, they discover that Lyon, prince of Grado, is the mastermind behind the whole scheme. Afterwards, they regroup in Jehanna and deal with the remainder of the monsters and Grado army, finally arriving at Renais again, releasing the true power of the bracelets that they were given by their father, King Fado, promoting them and allowing access to their sacred stone.

Unfortunately, Lyon takes advantage of their kindness, and shatters their sacred stone, so they go to Rausten to acquire their stone, and finally facing off with the demon’s body by sealing his soul inside the last stone.

This game takes back to the second Fire Emblem game, Gaiden, and employs several of the old mechanics in the game. The first is a traversable map, allowing the player to go back to former locations and purchase weapons from that place if they need it. For example, most classes, when they promote, start with an E rank in their new weapon, so a player might go back into an earlier location to buy the items that they need to build up the rank to their current level of weapons. The only problem with this is the fact that the shop’s items from the map are different from when you buy them from the battlefield. Another thing is that after the game is finished, some stores also change their stocks, in particular the secret shops in Grado or Jehanna. One thing that players can buy there is Stat up items, one use items that permanently increase a specific stat by 2 points, except for HP which goes up 7 points.

This however, reduces the value of a perfect unit. Usually, a player would be proud to have a perfect unit because that meant that they were lucky, but in this game, a perfect unit doesn’t mean as much. Not the biggest downside of the game but as a Fire Emblem Perfectionist, this does bug me.

Originally in Gaiden as well were monsters and skirmishes. On the map, either after completing a chapter; going into the Tower of Valni; the Lagdou Ruins; or just letting time pass between playing the game, a monster sprite would appear at a location. Mind you not all locations were able to have monsters on them. Only places that had monsters could be places for skirmishes. In these battles, players would fight against a group of monsters and gain gold from drops. The main enemy boss was the sprite used on the map, so if the sprite was a Minotaur, the boss would be a Tarvos. The monsters were: Renevants- Entombeds; Bonewalkers -Wights (skeletons using any physical weapons except axes); Tarvos- Maelduin(horse units with axes and bows for the promoted form); Mogal- Arch Mogal (dark magic); Cyclops (Axe wielding giant) to name a few. One of the greatest things about a skirmish with an enemy boss that had weapons was that they might drop it for the player. This means that early on in the game a player could get a Spear; a Runesword; a Tomahawk, or a Longbow. Of course the player could also get another basic weapon, but it’s worth the gamble to get those kinds of weapons early.

One of the main new aspects of the game is the split story. When Eirika and Ephraim spilt up, the player has the choice of who they want to go with. The main difference is when the player recruits certain characters. For example, on Ephraims route, the player will recruit Cormag, the Wyvern Rider of the game, in Chapter 10, but for Eirika’s route not until Chapter 12. One where characters are recruited earlier on Eirika’s route are Innes, Tethys, Gerik, and Marisa in Chapter 11. Marisa is recruited in Chapter 12, Gerik and Tethys in Chapter 13, and Innes won’t be recruited until Chapter 15 on Ephraim’s route. Also, some units will come with different items or different levels. Innes and Duessel, the two early recruitment exclusive characters, will come at higher levels when recruited later. Also on each story are two chapters, Chapters 11 and 12 that come back to back, meaning that the player will have no time to rest between those two: they’re stuck with what they have. This is where the game made one of its biggest mistakes: the arenas.

Arenas have been a staple for Fire Emblem ever since the first game. An arena works as so: the player moves a character to an arena tile; they enter and either pay a certain amount of money or exit and enter until they decide get an amount that they like; then they enter into a battle where the character fights until either character is defeated, or the player forfeits. If the player loses, then the wager is lost, but if the player is victorious, the character gets EXP just like a regular battle, and the wager is returned to the player times two. So, if a player won a battle that cost 680 Gold, he/ she would get back 1360 Gold. This was the main way to earn massive amounts of gold in those chapters as well as get units that the player was using a lot more EXP, so the other enemies wouldn’t go to waste because the higher level units were being EXP hogs. Later games, instead of letting the player fight multiple rounds, allowed each character could only fight once per turn, but this didn’t hamper most people’s ability to use the arenas. Healers, while unable to enter the arena because they couldn’t fight, could get more EXP for healing the other units that just came out of the arena, thus every turn they’d gain EXP for healing.

My main problem with the arenas in this game comes not from their difficulty, but from the number of arenas that were in the game. In Fire Emblem 6, there were 5-6 arenas in the game, but in Sacred Stones, a game of similar length going 21 chapters long, there were only two arenas in each story. The first one was on Chapter five, which was nice, allowing some characters to level up to the max, but with no promotion items at that point, this arena had limited use. The second arena’s location was different for each story: on Eirika’s story, the arena was on Chapter 10 right before the back to back chapters, whereas in Ephraim’s story, it was on Chapter 12, the second chapter of the back to back chapters. This gives Ephraim’s characters a huge boost as they most likely would be higher leveled and the player would have more money, but again the same problem persists. No arenas come at a good time. it is unlikely the player will have much to bet for the first one, and for the second one, especially for Eirika, few promotion items have been discovered. The arenas have much more limited usage than in Fuuin no Tsurugi or Rekka no Ken, where the arenas are more bountiful and more usable. The main reason however, is the Creature Campaign which can be considered a substitute for the arenas.

Another new feature is the Creature Campaign, a game feature that starts after completing the main story of the game. Two locations: the Tower of Valni which opens after Chapter 8 right after the story spilt, and the Lagdou Ruins opening after completing the game, become new spots for monster hunting. While the player can visit the Tower of Valni any time during the playthrough to gain EXP, the Campaign bonuses only take effect after the game. In each location, the player is challenged to a gauntlet of monster battles, much like the skirmishes on the map, but the difference is that while the map bosses are random, the Tower of Valni and Lagdou Ruins have the same bosses for specific floors. The weapons may change, but the boss will not. Also, during the campaign, when a player completes up to a certain floor or completes a location 3 times (yes completing the tower or the ruins 3 times) the player will be rewarded with a secret character, much like the trial maps from Fuuin no Tsurugi. Out of the 10 secret characters, 6 of them were enemies, and the rest were NPCs, and all except one are dead as of the final chapter. These characters are already high level with little chance of maxing out any stats, but they do come with an A rank in every weapon they can use, so Fado who is a General has an A rank in Swords, Lances and Axes. Hayden, the only secret character remaining alive at the end of the game, is a Ranger with an A rank in Bows and Swords. This base however, is somewhat wasted by their low growing potential, fixed by buying the stat ups, but more so is that they can only get on S rank, the maximum rank for any weapon. With the other characters, it’s less pronounced because when they promote, they only get an E rank in their new weapons, just like I mentioned before. While this feature is nice, it still doesn’t even out the few limited arenas.

The game is also the first to have two new additions to the promotion tiers: trainees and branching promotions. First the trainee units are akin to Baby Pokémon like Pichu and Magby, they are the beginning units. They start out weak, and by that I mean really weak, but they have the chance to become the stronger of your units. They also have more potential because they get to become one of two classes in their set when they reach level 10. The first is an Axe trainee named Ross. Ross has the typical stat growths of an Axe unit, but with the bonus of either changing into a Fighter like his father, or becoming a Pirate, the only one in the game. The second trainee is Amelia, a Lance wielding Recruit, who can change into a female Knight or Cavalier. The last Trainee is Ewan, a Pupil who can become either a Mage to further his Anima Abilities, or to a second Shaman, gaining the Dark arts in exchange for his Anima magic. Note that Ewan’s promotion is one of the few exceptions to the E rank to new weapon rule because there are no E rank Dark tomes, which is the oddest thing to me.

Another promotion they get is not to change their class names. By going through each story once in any mode, the player has the choice to make their trainee into a basic class but the same name. For Ross, he can become a Journeyman; Amelia becomes a Recruit, and Ewan becomes a Pupil. These again lead to the “Super Trainee” class, which again has the same name but with a special bonus that comes along with the class. The only one that has no actual potential, unfortunately, is the “Super” Journeyman. This class gains a Critical bonus, but it’s essentially like the Berserker class, with a lower strength cap. However, this does not match with Ross’s strength growth, which at the cap the Journeyman gives, maxes out at level 10, leaving much too much room ungrown. Amelia becomes a Super Recruit, which gives the same kind of Bonus to critical as the Journeyman. However this class gives Amelia the best Speed cap out of all her class choices. With Amelia’s Speed growth, she uses the 28 point cap to its best efficiency level, as opposed to the 24 average cap that she has, or the 23 cap for the General. Ewan’s promotion to Super Pupil, while not adding any critical bonus, allows him to use all three Magic types. Essentially, he becomes an Archsage class from the previous game, but without the use of Staffs. While this may be the best class in terms of versatility, the stat caps are not truly the best, as the Sage class has better offensive caps and the other classes make him a viable healer. This, combined with the fact that all units can only get one S rank for all their weapons, being able to use the other magic types doesn’t give him enough room to build them up.

As somewhat mentioned in the previous paragraph, the other addition to the game is branching promotions, allowing each character to change into two different classes when they promote, except for Eirika and Ephraim. Using the Trainee units for example, Ross either changes into a Fighter or a Pirate; Amelia into either a Knight or a Cavalier, and Ewan into a Mage or a Shaman, but it’s not just for the Trainees. The Fighter class can go either to a Warrior or to a Hero; the Troubadour becomes either a Valkyrie or a Mage Knight; Cavaliers become either Paladins or Great Knights. Now, with this increase of choices for units to transform, they added new units. The units they added were: Mage Knight, a mounted magic unit akin to the Valkyrie of the past games; Great Knight, an armored mounted unit that could use all of the Physical weapons except Bows; Summoner, a dark magic user who could summon an ally Phantom unit, akin to the druid of former games; the Rouge, an upgraded thief capable of opening doors without a lockpick, and a Wyvern knight, the flying unit with only lances and a dangerous skill. They also changed some units’ choices of arsenal: Valkyrie uses Light magic instead of Anima; Paladins no longer could use Axes, while Generals gained the use of Swords, and Sages and Druids each gained Light magic and Anima magic respectfully.

Some units also got skills, a feature from Fire Emblem 4 and 5, giving certain units an advantage in battles. Rouges had the Lockpick ability. Generals gained Great Shield, which nullified an attack. Summoners had Summon ability. Assassins once again had Silencer/ Lethality. Snipers had Sureshot, which when activated made the attack have a 100% hit rate. Wyvern Knights had Bierce, a skill which nullified the Defense of the opponent when activated. Bishops had their own skill as well for the Creature Campaign, Slayer, which tripled their damage output against monsters.

Now with all the new classes, there was bound to be some unevenness between all the classes, as well as some redundancies. One of the biggest inequalities is the General and Great Knight. Both classes can use the same weapons, but the General has both better stat caps and the Great Shield skill, causing the difference between the two classes to be very large.

The Sniper class has the Sureshot skill, but the class has the highest Skill cap as well as using weapons, Bows, that are very accurate, so the Sure hit bonus is somewhat wasted, even more so with the buyable Stat up items. The Bishop and Valkyrie, and similarly the Sage and Mage Knight Classes fall under the same imbalance of bower. Both the Bishop and Valkyrie can use the same Light magic and Staffs, but the Bishop has Slayer and a better Resistance cap. what the Valkyrie does get over the Bishop does not make it anywhere near making the classes even. Similarly, the Mage knight uses Anima and Staffs, but the Sage has Anima, Staffs, AND Light. Another thing between these two classes is the type of unit their caps allow: the Sage is a more offensive class having higher Magic, Skill, and Speed caps, whereas the Mage Knight has better Defense and Resistance Caps, and better Build rate. Again, this comes down to high AS high damage, or better surviving ability.

So, that’s it for Sacred Stones. Join me in future reviews, as I cover Path of Radiance and also some Character Spotlights, featuring Characters that either appear in Awakening or just ones that I like.

More terms for Fire Emblem: Terms started from Fire Emblem 1 unless noted

• Cain and Abel: a pair of Cavalier serving under the main character’s household, and students or squires to the main Jeigen of the series. This Archetype comes from the cavaliers Cain, who wore red armor, and Abel who wore green armor. The cavaliers have different stat growths but will usually balance each other out, similar to the Bord and Cord pairs. The Cain character is either brash, or headstrong and impulsive, and will have higher Strength, HB, and Defense growths, whereas the Abel is more calm and serious, or conserved, focusing on Speed and Skill, with slightly more resistance. This archetype has gone through the ringer, with Fire Emblem 7 having the colors switched, and 8 having the balance shifted, so Cain has more Skill and Abel has more Strength.
• Lilina/ Sophia (FE6): a female mage that has skyrocketing Magic scores but ends up having little to no Skill and Speed, these units are the definition of Glass Cannons: they can dish out huge amounts of Damage, but can’t take the same kind of punishment. Sophia types are more inclined to grow some resistance, but have a similar problem with Skill and Speed. These types should not be confused with the Linde types, which are more balanced female mages. This archetype’s main creator comes from Lilina, protagonist’s childhood friend and potential love interest.

Character Focus: Ray/ Raleigh/ Rei

The second character that I will focus on is Ray or Rei in some translations and Raleigh in Awakening but for my purposes I’ll use Ray, is a character in Fire Emblem Fuuin no Tsurugi.

Ray is the orphaned son of Nino from Fire Emblem 7 and the Twin brother of Lugh. He originally lived at the orphanage, but left saying that he needed to study more of the outside world to further his interest in Dark magic. In stark contrast to his brother’s cheery optimistic attitude, Ray has a more cynical view, and is more sarcastic and dark, but he can still show kindness.

Ray starts out as a level 12 Shaman with very balanced stats, and high Skill growth with everything else being slightly above average. Compared to Sophia, a Shaman who comes later, they somewhat balance each other out, but compared to Niime, the prepromote Druid, they have similar basic stats, just with Niime having less potential.

Ray will usually max his Skill and have higher Speed than any other Dark user, which helps because of the Dark tomes weight and low accuracy in exchange for bower. He will have an easier time doubling enemies and getting off some more hits than Sophia can, and with Dark magic being the highest damaging magic in the game, with the S rank Spell Apocalypse having 22 base might, it’s no surprise that more people choose Ray for their Dark user.

In Awakening, Ray is a Level 16 dark mage with the same bonus skill as his brother, Movement+1, perhaps representing their upbringing and needing to move a lot due to the war.

Character Spotlight: La’ Rachel

The first character in the spotlight is La’ Rachel from Sacred Stones. Her character is best described as an attention seeker, where in the game, she is constantly vanquishing monsters (or so she says). She can also be described as self-focused, or self-centered, and humorously oblivious to her flaws. The example for this is in her support conversations with her countryman Dozla, she laments that no one knows about her Anonymous monster exterminations, the key word being perhaps anonymous. She, hailing from the Holy land of Rausten and in fact is the kingdoms princess, is very celibate (again so I think), as in her B support with Ephraim, she asks to see his battle scars to heal, but suddenly snaps back, accusing him of trying to seduce her. A puzzling, if not interesting character.

La ‘Rachel is the games only Troubadour, and as a Troubadour she is limited in class choice to the Valkyrie or the Mage Knight. However, saying that she is bad simply because she is limited is far from the truth, in that she has some of the best growths in the game. Her Luck is the most prominent feature she has, maxing out the highest and hardest stat to max by level 11 or so. Her Resistance is of similar caliber, maxing that out as well. Her Magic and Speed are lower, but she still has a good chance to max them out.

She is however, limited by that choice of mounted magicians, as she is weak to horse killing weapons like Zanbatou, or Horse Killer. This is coupled by the fact that her one Achilles heel is HP, meaning that she can’t take large amounts of damage, and her Defense score is what can be expected from a Magic unit.

Out of all the unprompted characters in the game, not including the Trainees, she has the most average stats maxed out by level twenty in both of her classes, whereas some units will max only two.

Her growth rates are so good that she could be considered to be the Est of the game, but her potential is hampered by her class cabs restricting her abilities. She does fall into the same archetype as Clarine, as they are both princesses or nobles, they are both Troubadours, and they both have very good luck and resistance growth.

In Awakening as a Spotpass Character, she comes as a Level 18 War Cleric with much more balanced stats, along with a Berserker and a Trickster, Supposedly to represent Dozla and Rennac of her band of merry monster slayers. She is the only character to do this, as most have at least eight units of have their roster fully filled. Her additional skill is Rally Resistance along with her class skill Rally Luck, represents her two stats that she would max out in most (if not all) games.

I would really like to see a support conversation with Maribelle, because they fall into the same Archetype, and because their personalities are so similar.

Fire Emblem has been a series that I have loved ever since the first game that touched the American shore, and with what can be put as an anniversary title recently released, I feel it only necessary to go through all the titles that I have played and compare them to each other.

The first title that I will cover will be Fire Emblem Fuuin no Tsurugi <F.T.>, the last in succession to be Japan exclusive until the second remake. F.T. follows the story of Roy( SSB-M anyone?) as he prevents the king of Bern from handing back the world to the dragons 820 after the war fought between humans and dragons for control of Elibe, the continent on which the story takes places. His main goal is to reach the homeland of his childhood friend, Lilina, but then turns to defeating Bern after the Lycia Alliance is decimated. The quest takes him towards all areas of Elibe from his birth home of Lycia to the barbaric Western Isles; from the desert of Arcadia to the holy land of Etruria, and either from the frosty mountain land of Illia or the Plains of Sacae to ending at the kingdom of Bern. Along the way, Roy meets denizens of the lands, and some of those denizens lead Roy to the Eight Sacred Weapons, used by the Eight Sacred Generals against the dragons in the Scouring.

F.T. was the first game in a couple of years to utilize the old system, but with a new battle calculation that produced higher dodge rates, making battles so much more survivable for characters, as well as better graphics. There were also a slew of characters that interacted with each other nicely in the support conversations. While the game was not spilt to allow children characters, it did have coupling of characters in the game for the epilogue. They also started using a weight based system where characters with higher build stats could carry bigger weapons without suffering any speed penalties, but not allowing the build to grow did cause some characters to be stuck with having lower speed. The game also continues the original archetypes like Cain and Abel; Jaegan; Est; Hardin; and Ogma. Characters like them were in the game, but the game also built off of those types and changed the attributes of them. For example, in the original Fire Emblem, we had Jaegan a pre-promote with little growth whatsoever, we got Marcus mirroring the original, but also Percival and Klein, pre-promotes that are actually usable without being required to use them for harder difficulties. Another example is the original Linda with balanced stats focusing on Skill and Speed, whereas Lilina was a full on Magic growth mage. We also get what the game calls “Side quests” which are quests that come after chapter in which there is one, usually requiring the player to complete the chapter in a certain number of turns or keep a certain character alive. In this game, the side quests are necessary to get to the true final boss and one of two different endings. I would also be remiss if I didn’t note that the game has one of the best enemy battle themes, as well as some of the longest but most inspirational magic animations, in particular Apocalypse.

However, some of the major problems occurred with comparing some of the characters on different routes: for example Gonzales was a Brigand whose level varied based on what route the player takes. If A is taken, he is at level 5 with a D rank in Axes, but if B is taken, he comes at level 13 with an E rank and the exact same stats. This could mean that the developer either made an error or they wanted the players to take the A route, but this may never be figured out. Similarly, whereas some pre-promote units were made to attempt to surpass the unpromoted units of the same class like Percival to Allen, Treck, Lance and Noah, and sometimes successfully doing so, some units were easily overshadowed by other units. Gonzales and Geese, a pirate recruited around the same time as the former, are somewhat the polar opposites of each other, but in a bad way. Gonzales has heavy focus on HP; Strength and Speed, with moderate Defense, whereas Geese is more balanced, evening out the holes that Gonzales has in his remaining stats like Resistance and Luck, and most noticeable Skill. However, they both change into Berserkers, a class which has a higher speed cap than skill, Geese will end up hitting more, but Gonzales will do more attacks with not only better speed, but higher Build. Another factor is that Gonzales has more to grow as he comes a battlefield earlier. On A route especially, he comes 5 levels lower, meaning that he has more to grow as well.  Another Example is Ray and Sophia, similar to the last example with a slight difference. Ray comes mid-game as the first dark-magic user, and at level 11, boasts balanced stats and growths as well as a high Build, whereas Sophia comes 2-3 chapters later, assuming the player got to the side quest, as a level 1 Shaman with low base stats, focusing on Magic and Resistance. Now, applying what was said from the last comparison, Sophia would be better because the Druid, second form of the Shaman, has high Magic and Resistance caps, but since Sophia comes so late and is hard to train, most people usually go with Ray. Another factor is that Lilina is very similar to Sophia in that they both are Glass Cannons( high damage output, but frail) most people will just use Lilina, and drop Sophia.

Another flaw in the game is the imbalance of power between magic units and physical units. In this game, tomes (books used for magic) are very light, whereas Swords, Lances, Axes, and Bows are heavier. This leads to Mages being faster than certain physical units like Myrmidons, Pegasus Knights, and Nomads, and female units taking the biggest hit. For example, Lugh can wield almost all Anima Tomes with little to no speed penalties, whereas Thany, a Pegasus Knight, can only wield a Slim Lance without any penalty. This can be construed as magic units being overall better than physical units, but of course this handicap allows some classes to shine like the Knight, where Defense is the main focus, and Fighters (actually most axe users are the same in this regard), who usually have high enough Build and are more focused on power.

Now, one of the two biggest problems in the game is the late forced promotion of the main character Roy. Some people may ask, “why is it such a big deal that he promotes late”, and the answer is that the promotion is meaningless when he gets it. It’s not in the middle of the game, nor two-thirds through, but one chapter before the normal ending: at the end of Chapter 22 in a 23-25 chapter game. Roy’s promotion would make more sense if he became a game changer, but in reality the Master Lord class boasts only mediocre stat caps and no extra weapon or weapon bonus. Take Myrmidons: when they becomes a Swordmaster, the unit gains a critical bonus in exchange for only being able to use swords, or the Paladin, which gain the ability to use Axes when they promote from Cavaliers. In most cases, Roy will be out powered by other characters simply by this late promotion. Yet, this is not truly the absolute worst flaw in the game, rather the second worst, although they are just about tied.

The final flaw in the game is the true Final Boss, which can only be achieved by going on all the side quests; keeping the items gotten from them unbroken (usage not down to 0), and defeating the final boss for the normal ending. the sidequest requirements go as follows: Chapter 8x-keeping Lilina alive; Chapter 12x- Complete Chapter 12 in 20 turns or less; Chapter14x- Complete Chapter 14 within 25 turns and have Sophia alive; Chapter 16- Keep Douglas alive; Chapter 20A/B- Complete Chapter 20 within 25 turns and if on A route have Yuno, Zealot, Thany and Tate alive, if on B route have Dayan Sue and Shin alive, and finally for Chapter 22x complete Chapter 22 within 30 turns with Miredy and Zeiss alive. If the player does this, they will be rewarded with one extra chapter and the final chapter. For all that work, getting through the 24^th chapter and the long range weapon the boss carries, and the multitude of fire dragons on the next chapter, the final boss is a pushover. Roy, with his Sword of seals, defeats her in one round; Fa, the Est of the game, does the same thing. In fact, Fa is so powerful she spawned her very own archetype. In other words, for all the work that the player does to get to the final boss, it ends up being a real disappointment. Normally, the last boss is supposed to be worth the challenge.

Many of these flaws were either fixed or lessened to make the game harder in the next game released. The first title released overseas and the 7^th title of the series in japan: Fire Emblem Rekka no Ken, or just Fire Emblem to anyone else. This game is the unknown prequel to F.T., staring Eliwood, Roy’s father; Hector: Lilina’s father, and Lyn. This game was also the first to have three separate if not linked stories. Lyn’s story shows her gaining her rightful heritage as the granddaughter of the marquees of Caelin from her mother, while thwarting her great uncle’s plot to rule the land for himself by poisoning his older brother. Eliwood’s story or Hector’s story follows, with little actual difference between the two. Eliwood attempts to find his missing father. On the way, he discovers the plot to bring the dragons back orchestrated by Nergal in a bid to harness the power. He also is accosted by the Black Fang, a mercenary group, led by Nergal’s creation, Sonia, into believing his group carries bad intentions, but the main goal of the group being the favor of the current king of Bern by assassinating his next heir and son. Hector’s story follows the same plot but with little add-ins and more into Hector and his brother the Marquees of Ostia.

This game, as said before, was the first to feature three separate story lines, with Lyn’s story being the beginner’s level, and Eliwood’s being the last half of the story. Hector’s story added some extra difficulty with bosses having different weapons; enemies being in different places, and more chapters and side quests. This game was also the first of its kind to bring physical units up to snuff. The Tomes were made much heavier, putting magic units on par with physical units in terms of penalties, as well as making all the weapons more accurate, which bonuses the Axes the most. While we don’t get as diverse a unit roster as in F.T., we still have a nicely diverse enough cast, from the Sacaen Lord Lyn growing up in a tribal society, to the sheltered daughter of a count Priscilla; to the feminine Lucius to the eccentric Pent and wife Louise, and from the deserter Heath to Marcus serving the second generation in Elbert’s name (Eliwood’s father). The game also furthers weather conditions on the battlefield. The first ever weather was fog of war, limiting the unit’s sight and hiding enemy units that were not within range, and this game furthered it with rain, slowing all units movement.

The usable Jaegan from the previous game continues, but with the first Jaegan, Marcus, being so good, beginning players might be tempted to use him all the time. This is, however, the first time that every pre-promoted unit has potential, allowing players to have a pre-promote only playthrough, and also the first time a player makes his/her own Pre-Promote via the forced event in Lyn’s story right before the end.

In the previous game, they called the extra chapters for the sacred weapons “Side Quests”, but you had to go on them if you got them. In this game however, players are not required to go on the side quests if they wish not to, but like the previous game, the side quests have value to the story, by changing Nergal’s death quote, but having no effect on the ending. The side quest requirements are also less varied, being turn based, keeping someone alive, or defeating a boss.

There are some features in this game that are nice for players: first the main Lord’s promotion occurs near the end of the game, but not AT the end. This gives player’s time to work them up to speed so they can fight along their comrades without slowing them down, and the other lords can promote via a Heaven Seal, but the main thing is that the promotions usually end up being between Chapters 24-28. Second, in F.T., thieves were only usable for the first couple of chapters, and then they were outclassed simply because they could not promote, but in earlier games the thieves had special stat caps to compensate. R.K. introduces the promoted form of the thief: the Assassin. While losing what made a thief a thief, which was the ability to steal items, they gain better, if not basic, stat caps, they also gain the skill “Lethality”. This skill allows the unit, when it’s activated, to kill any unit regardless of HP, Defense, and any other factor, and gain double EXP from that kill. In fact, because of this skill, the programmers placed no assassins as enemies in the game, or if they did, they could not use the skill. The third is unique battle sprites. In the past game,  Roy only got a change in his battle animation when wielding the Sword of Seals, and unit sprites were generic, but in this game all the lords look different, with each one having an unpromoted sprite; a promoted sprite, and a promoted sprite using their sacred weapon: Eliwood- Durandal; Hector-Armads, and Lyn- Sol Katti. There was even a Lyn with Durandal sprite and an Eliwood with smaller Durandal in the beta, showing up on YouTube, but it never appeared in the game as Durandal is Eliwood only. There also was a Berserker sprite without the mask exclusive to Hawkeye, but that might just be extra.

This game is also the first in the series to use an avatar for the player, in which the player enters the name and birth month for the character. This allows the player to be a part of the cast of the game and not be like a chess player where they are simply just moving the pieces around. However, this aspect is not needed in the game the way that it is, for all the avatar is ends up being just that: an avatar for the player. While the player can use the avatar as the figure for decision making in the game, it does no more than that: no extra fighting character; no character to support the other characters, and no actual in game sprite for the avatar. If Nintendo ended up deciding not to put the avatar in the game, there would only be fewer conversations, but the gameplay would not change.

We also get the Magic Seal, Kishuna, adding a new strategy to play. Within the area of the sealing, marked by a dark red area on the map, magic units cannot use magic, meaning that in the area, you cannot use mages, shamans or, monks, nor can you heal in there, and this goes for both the player and the enemy. This can actually make the map easier on the player, taking out a possible threat, or harm them by removing their best units.

We also get fewer comparison cases in this game, mainly because no character is without fault, and very few characters with the same class join at the same time with such a huge difference in stats or gains like Gonzales and Geese had. The only one I can get is Dorcas and Bartre, two fighters who join at the same time in both Eliwood and Hector stories. Both are similar: the standard Fighter class with high Hp, and Strength; low Defense and Resistance. The only difference is that Dorcas has higher Skill and Resistance, whereas Bartre has more Speed and Defense. With the Warrior’s 26 speed cap, it is not a fast unit, but some people still choose Bartre because of this simple edict: “Tis better attack twice and miss than to hit once”. This simply means that units that are faster will do better than units which are more accurate, because a higher Speed score will do more for a unit than a high Skill stat will. Dorcas also has a slight advantage to this because the player, should they have gone on Lyn’s story, will have used him earlier in the game, so while Bartre starts at level 2, Dorcas might be at level 3-7 depending on how much the player used him.

Sometimes, Erk and Nino, two mages are compared, and I have done this sometimes, but they cannot be compared as equals like Dorcas and Bartre. The simple reason is that there is too big of a gap between the two units. In Lyn’s story, the player gets Erk halfway through, and again in Eliwood’s/Hector’s story at around Chapter 14, whereas Nino doesn’t join until Eliwood story Chapter 26 (28 for Hector story). By the time players gain Nino, Erk could be very highly used in the main party. Nino is also considered the main Est Archetype for this game, as she also has very good growths and comes at a low level.

I originally owned both this game and a Japanese copy of F.T., and one thing I got annoyed at for both games is the growth rates for the characters, more so in F.T. than in the other game. In different playthroughs, some characters would have grossly different stat gains. Some characters, like Sue and Thany, would have stats akin to their growths, but some other, in particular Lou and Roy, had stats that went all over the place. In one game I had, Sue had maxed Speed; had gotten high Skill, and had decent Strength; Defense and Resistance, whereas Thany had similar stats with the exception that she had gotten no Strength gains. Lugh and Roy, on the other hand, were receiving stat gains that were completely out of left field: Roy had high Skill and Resistance; Average Strength and Defense, but low Speed, while Lugh had low Magic and Speed, but good Skill and Defense. Another game had Lou and Roy’s stat gains reversed. R.K. has never had this problem to that degree, with the only character having shaky growths being Eliwood. His growths are similar to Roy’s growths, minus a point or two from some stats, adding them to others, but I never had a problem with Eliwood that I did with Roy.

However, this game is not without flaws like the previous game, but these flaws are less daunting. First, story wise, I would prefer a bit more action between the members of the Black Fang and the player’s party, because the fights are somewhat short, and they ended up leaving me feel like they were just extras. Similarly, there was one boss that I wanted to fight, Ephidel, mainly because he seemed like he would be an interesting boss.

Second, the last chapter disallows any ability to move your units around in preparation, meaning that choice of unit order becomes important. Same with the final stage, there are times when I wish the doors wouldn’t open so fast, as I have gotten surrounded with high annoyance level enemies fast.

An annoyance that I had after discovering the last Pegasus Knight could only be found on Hector’s story, meaning that the famous “Triangle Attack” an attack that allows for a unit performing it to always critical the enemy, offsetting the set up for the attack. This leaves the already weakling Pegasus Knights with their low Strength and abysmal Build, even more unusable in harder modes due to that low strength holding them back, as well as getting double attacked because they can’t hold any of their weapons that do damage.

The final boss made a huge leap in difficulty from the previous game by making all the weapons effective against it not as damaging or heavier to lower attack speed, thus making it less likely that the player could double attack. However, the dragon had one weakness that could be exploited in that the tome Luna could kill him, or at least do a large amount of damage. Luna’s effect is that it negates the opponent’s resistance and does damage solely on the Magic stat of the user. In addition, the tome also had a high critical rating, so a Druid with maxed Magic can do base 29 damage, and a base 20% critical chance, doing 87 damage, or with Athos’ 30 Magic cap doing 90, cutting the dragon’s HP down to  ¼ of its max. It is this that makes the boss actually worse because this was not meant to be the way to defeat the dragon: players were encouraged to use the weapons from the final chapter to defeat him, not to defeat him in one turn. On the other hand, players do cheat in games like this, so it’s not the worst aspect, but what is the worst is the link between F.T. and R.K.

Originally, this game was released after its supposed sequel, so this game was made so the player could play without needing to play the sequel, which is the right way to do it. at least, that is what I think to be true, but the truth’s somewhat more eschewed then that.  in fact, it should be the opposite, because that way players can feel a connection between the future past and the past present, or the sequel and the prequel. We even see Eliwood and hector in the previous game as well as being able to use characters in R.K. originally from F.T.

With the most recent release of Fire Emblem Awakening, this got me thinking that the fact that the games had no actual link got to me even more the more I thought about it. this is especially so since in F.T., we have no clue who the mothers/ fathers are for some of the characters.

This brought me to a conclusion: both games need to be combined into a remake for the 3DS or maybe the WiiU, with the main feature being who married who. For example, if Eliwood married Fiora at the end of the game, their son, Roy, would have something passed down from Fiora and different growth rates than if Eliwood married someone else at the end of the game. Some new characters might also need to be made so characters in R.K. could have more choices to pair up. An example of this is to allow some of the Black Fang members to survive and marry for a new character, and the same would go for the morphs, saving one female and one male to make a couple for a child.

The story is also very straight forward, no real surprises in the game, as if it was trying to keep itself simple so players would not get scared away by a plot twist. However, again using Awakening as an example, games need plot twists in them to make the story interesting. I’ll do a full review on Awakening later, but something coming from the future is definitely a plot twist, and the main character being the “perfect” vessel for the final boss is again a plot twist. The story has some surprises, like the dancer being a dragon, or a hero of the scouring being alive after a war that happened several hundreds of year before the current story, but these are not truly surprising twists.

Overall, the two games are good on their own, but compared to newer games, they fall short in both story and gameplay. I, as one player, really enjoyed these two games, despite their flaws (perhaps because I didn’t finish one of them), and would like to see them redone with the changes that I thought of. Even, if only one game was to be remade, some of those changes would still remain true. These games can be considered two jewels of the past, as they are good games that led us to the future.

The next game I will cover will take back to Fire Emblem 4 and 5, and make more of a Halloween story, so join me for the next title in the series: Fire Emblem Sacred Stones.

Basic Terms for Fire Emblem

This is a list of terms that I might have used for my reviews of fire emblem for people that have not played the game or gone to a fire emblem fan site like the emblem wikia, or Serenes Forest. I thank those sites for this information, and unless noted so, I claim nothing to be my own.

-        Jeigan (FE1/ 11): a veteran pre-promoted unit that joins early in the game with high damage output, but in most cases would end up being weaker than the other units that the player has given that he/ she takes the time to train them. These are known as “Pure Jeigans” whereas units like FE7 Marcus fall under the subtype of Jeigans called “Oifeys”. Oifeys start out more mediocre than Jeigans, but they have more potential. Think of these units as a crutch for just in case of that boss who is too powerful (which in harder modes is not that impossible). They are, however, EXP hogs because another unit might get a better level up from the enemy that the Jeigen took down. Most Jeigen units are horseback units, usually Paladins. This term was coined from Jeigen, an elderly veteran knight in the service of the main characters kingdom in FE1 and the remake Shadow Dragon for DS. Right now, more of the Jeigens are Oifey type at this point.

-        Est (FE1/ 10): an unpromoted unit that comes very late in the game at a low level, but has very high potential. Units under this archetype have a tenancy to be young and come off as inexperienced, but that’s part of it. again, this archetype comes from the last of the white wing sisters in FE1/ 10, Est comes in at Chapter 18, about ¾ into the game as a Level 5 Pegasus Knight, low since most characters at this point are either promoted or close to promoting, but with the ability to max every stat she had. These units are hard to train, but EXTREMELY worth it in the end as they surpass even your best units.

-        Fa (FE 6)/ Tiki (Chiki FE1/10): a subtype of Est archetypes, this refers to units, usually mamkutes or manaketes, that do not promote, but have even better growths than Est’s.  These units will grow at least one point for each stat in every level up, and sometimes two or three points for some stats. Their Achilles heel is their weapon, dragonstones, giving them additional stat boosts, but being the only one in the game, makes them useless without, as they cannot hold weapons, limiting their use. It’s definitely a fair trade, even higher potential than Ests in exchange for limited attacking ability. This archetype’s two creators was Fa, a character in Sealed Sword, is a legendary divine dragon, one of the last of her kind, and Tiki is the same case in Shadow Dragon. Fa joins at Chapter 16 out of 22 (24 for final ending), as a level 1 divine dragon with very weak stats, even with her dragon stone boosting her, but as she level up, her stats start to catch up to the other units, especially her Luck with a 255% growth rate for it, meaning that she will always gain 2 points of Luck and sometimes 3. Tiki is the same case, joining 2/3 through the game with similar gains. This is more commonly put under Tiki’s name, but for me, Fa came first since I never played the original Fire Emblem.

-        Merric (FE1/10): This archetype refers to a young male magic user who studies under a master of magic who will usually join the party later, and will usually end up surpassing him. The character, Merric, from Shadow Dragon, is a young mage, studying under the Bishop Wendell character. Usually the unit will come with some form of wind spell if available. They usually will produce good results if trained, in some cases focusing more on Skill, but most focus on Speed. Another similar archetype that stems from this is the Elleren archetype, a fellow student and rival of this archetype. This type sacrifices some Skill or Speed for Magic or Strength if they are physical units.

-        Wendell (FE1/10): A Bishop, or in later games a Sage, who is the main teacher of the Merric Archetype character, just as Wendell was the Teacher of Merric in the original Fire Emblem. They have balanced gains compared to both the Merric type and the Elleren types, but will always be surpassed because of them being prepromoted.

-        “Tis better to miss twice than to hit once”*: this comes from what is the most important stat, and the answer usually comes out speed because of the ability to double attack. Most cases, it’s better to have two chances to hit rather than one guaranteed hit, especially because you have a chance as well to hit twice, whereas hitting only once might not be enough to KO the enemy, but if you had that one extra hit, he would have been dead. Furthermore, if the opponent gets the chance after surviving your turn, they hit first and might end up killing your unit if given the chance. Speed also helps in avoid rates, so the higher a units speed stat is, the less chance they have for getting hit.

-        Bord and Cord: This archetype comes from two Fighter class characters of the same name who’s stats mirror each other, and by that I mean that one will focus on Skill in exchange for Speed and the other will do the exact opposite but aside from that, they will end up with similar HP and Strength with minor differences in Defense and Resistance.