Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade Is An Epic Gba Game With 32-bit Graphics

Intelligent Systems and Nintendo published Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. 2003’s Game Boy Advance version. First Fire Emblem game outside of Japan, seventh overall. It’s a prequel to 2002’s Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade.

Fire Emblem Plot

It’s set in Elibe. Humans and dragons lived happily before the game. This peace ended when they went to battle during The Scouring. Dragons were vanquished and disappeared. The first 11 chapters (12 counting the optional chapter 7x) focus on Lyn, heir to a kingdom in Caelin (one of the Lycian League’s independent regions), as she tries to stop her granduncle, Lundgren, from seizing Caelin.

Eliwood, Lyn’s buddy and Roy’s future father, stars in the second and primary half of the game. Eliwood’s father disappears after a year. Eliwood joins Hector, Lyn, and other characters to find him. Eliwood finds his father, but the latter is slaughtered by the Black Fang, who intend to revive The Scouring’s dragons. The heroes want to foil Black Fang’s ambitions.

It’s Awesome

• This was the first Fire Emblem game released outside of Japan, opening a new era for the genre.
• When a unit dies, it’s gone permanently, therefore the player must plan every step carefully to gain the best results and adapt to elements like terrain, unit level, and strength, weaponry, enemy numbers, and strength, etc.
• Every unit has a name, portrait, and backstory given in Support dialogues, making the scenario more immersive and encouraging the player to care about the characters and keep them alive.
• In Fire Emblem, each unit’s stats have growth rates: when leveling up, each stat has a defined chance of rising, expressed as a percentage. The player must know the strengths and weaknesses of each unit to form a balanced army.
• Weapons are expensive and hard to replace, therefore item management is also important. Many uncommon or rare things should be preserved for special occasions, but their cheaper, more frequent variants remain legitimate choices throughout the game.
• Each character’s class determines their strengths, weaknesses, and weapon proficiencies. All classes can be promoted with particular goods, resetting the character’s level to 1 and granting stat and utility boosts (for example, mages, which can use Anima magic, can become Sages by promoting with a Guiding Ring item and gain the ability to use healing staves).
• The game contains a vulnerability system called the Weapon Triangle (sword beats axe, axe beats lance, lance beats sword), which enhances the attacker’s hit rate while diminishing the defender’s chance to dodge the attack. The Trinity of Magic (Anima beats light, light beats dark, dark beats Anima) functions similarly to the Weapon Triangle.
• Faster characters can attack twice in a row. This isn’t as straightforward as it appears because weapons have a weight that, if higher than the unit’s Constitution, slows them down and reduces their hit rates.
• The game is packed with material, including Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector’s stories, Hard modes, support talks, and the Link Arena (where you can battle a friend’s units).
• Very good plot delivered in manga-style sequences. Heroes and villains are unforgettable.
• The game addresses its predecessor’s troublesome RNG system (which caused hit rates to differ from what was displayed on the fight screen), so the values presented on the screen mirror the RNG values. Weapon hit rates were also increased to reduce skill bias.
• Unlike Fire Emblem 6, you have more freedom in choosing units, and later units can be as good as early ones. Several early-game units can be weaker than their late-game counterparts, allowing players to experiment with team combinations.
• The maps are well-designed and include both mandatory (defending a space, defeating a boss, surviving a specified number of turns) and optional objectives (visiting villages, recruiting characters, opening chests to find items, supporting conversations, and the list goes on).
• At several moments, you can unlock an alternate version of the same chapter with different objects and characters. This boosts replayability.
• Some chapters open a side-quest with its own tale and map. The following chapter’s cutscene will reflect most of these. Bonus chapters contain objects and characters.

Excellent Music

• Some locales from Fire Emblem 6 are visited in this game. Like Genealogy of the Holy War, many characters in Fire Emblem 6 are unit parents.
• At the end of the game, your rank affects the ending and encourages you to play again to improve it.

Flaws

• Some characters and equipment are special to or hard to find outside of Hector’s Tale, such as the only Runesword in the game.
• The adversaries are weak compared to past games in the series, therefore most of the challenge comes from bosses, map layouts, and objectives.
• Some extra chapter criteria are tricky. The worst offender is Chapter 19xx: A Glimpse in Time, which can only be unlocked by leveling Nils to Level 7 in Lyn’s Tale (a difficult and time-consuming task, since Nils can’t fight) and defeating bonus boss Kishuna in Chapter 19x: Imprisoner of Magic (another difficult task, due to Kishuna’s high stats, which allow him to the tank or avoid most hits, and because he leaves if you don’t The chapter also reveals a big part of Nergal’s past, which is previously unknown.
• Fog levels are unjust. The map view is covered so characters can’t see foes or wander carelessly, stopping if they collide. The adversary can see through this fog and attack even if they shouldn’t have that unit in their sights, which means that stronger adversaries or ones with excellent mobility can surprise strike your characters without consequence and that hiding vital units won’t work. This feature isn’t in sequels or prequels.

Hints

• Using Hector’s Devil Axe is perilous since it can backfire.
• Fire Emblem Wiki and Serenes Forest are credible game databases.
• The Delphi Shield, found in Chapter 26: Battle Before Dawn, protects fliers from the bow and spell damage.
• Canas is the only recruitable dark magic user and can only be recruited in Chapter 16x (the second bonus chapter in Eliwood’s tale and the third overall), which requires keeping one of the Caelin troops alive until its end. To accomplish so, kill the Dark Mages in the room next to the troops, then use the Rescue function to carry one of them to the boss room. After beating the boss, have Eliwood claim the throne to continue.
• When the fortune teller in the Preparations menu tells you to bring a certain character, do so. That character is needed to recruit another character. Recruit the principal lords if the fate teller gives no clues.
• In Chapter 30: Victory or Death, a secret shop sells promotional products (albeit for a high price). A Thief in Chapter 19: The Dragon’s Gate can steal the Member Card.
• Unlocking side chapters requires:
• *7x: Clear Chapter 7 in 15 rounds or fewer; *13x: Visit the northwest settlement and chat with Merlinus; *16x: Keep at least one Caelin soldier alive until the chapter ends.
• *18x (19x in Hector Mode): Complete chapter 18 in 15 turns or less; *19xx (Hector Mode): Level Nils to level 7 in Lyn Mode and beat Kishuna in chapter 19x; *22x: Earn 700 EXP or more during Chapter 22.
• *26x (29x in Hector Mode): Have Nino converse with Jaffar in Chapter 26 and keep them alive till the conclusion; *29x: Unlocked automatically after Chapter 29.
• *32x (Hector mode): Clear chapter 32 in 20 turns Certain requirements change chapters.
• Four-Fanged attack layout, boss, and recruitable character alter based on Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector’s combined level. If their total level is below 50, they’ll battle Lloyd, Wallace will be recruitable, and the chapter will have Fog Of War. If they’re level 50, they’ll face Lloyd’s brother Linus and recruit Geitz.
• Pale Flower of Darkness changes if your physical fighters’ (Dorcas, Bartre, Raven, and Guy) levels are equal to or higher than your non-mounted magic users (Lucius, Serra, Erk, and Canas). In the first case, the player will combat Kenneth and recruit Karel. If your mage’s level is greater, you can recruit Harken and combat Jereme.
• Bring Canas, Legault, and/or Matthew to Chapter 22: Living Legend to find several good items hidden in the desert, including a Hero Crest (required to promote Raven, Dorcas, Guy, and Bartre) and the only Ocean Seal in the game (required to promote Dart, as Pirates can’t promote with an Earth Seal) excluding secret shops.
• If you want to unlock the additional chapter, rescue Pent and carry him away from foes to avoid him earning too many kills and leaving you without enough experience. In the meantime, send your main Lord to the south of the map to recruit Hawkeye. This gives you time to uncover hidden things. After enticing Paul and Jasmine far enough to avoid their A Support, strong and promoted sword users like Guy and Raven can easily defeat them. Matthew or Legault can steal Paul’s Guiding Ring.