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Will you stop dying Ninian?
When it rains it pours. Way back in 1998 the world received the best console strategy RPG in the form of Final Fantasy Tactics. Eighty hours later, FFT safely mastered, the legions of fans scoured the stores for something to fill the void in their Napoleonic hearts. Sadly there was nothing for them to play on their TV’s and many migrated to the greener pastures of the PC, where strategy RPG’s were often delivered.
Eschewing many of the norms of the strategy genre, Fire Emblem was one of the first to give every unit under your command a part in the story, follow more than one plot line, and even kill off characters in the story. To add to the illusion of actual people under your rule, once a character was killed in battle, he/she was gone for good. I spent a lot of time hitting the off switch and cussing out my Game Boy. This led to an interesting story involving me almost getting arrested on an airplane over El Paso, which probably ended any chance I had of running for public office. As I finished this remarkable game I thought that a Gamecube version would be just the thing for the fantasy-starved console. In May, E3 took place and surprise, a Gamecube version was unveiled, with five really gorgeous screenshots.
Realizing I had psychic powers I quit my job and took to playing the lottery with the remains of my anorexic bank account. While I wait for the results to come in I thought I’d write a little guide for Nintendo, a hint book if you will, on what to change and what to keep the same for the console version.
Character death. While this makes every move a critical thought process, it also neuters the most useful piece of strategy games. You see, every strategy video game has essentially been an expounded form of chess, a game that just wouldn’t work without its pawns. Military leaders, from Sun Zu to Gomer Pyle will tell you the same thing; to make an omelette you must break a few eggs. Fire Emblem needs to fix this flaw, and I know just how to do it. With all the character classes available why not give one the opportunity to raise dead allies from the field? To keep the intensity intact, make the character “wounded” and have a waiting period before they could be used again.
Diversify the characters a little more. I understand the GBA is only capable of so much, but at the end of the game, all characters were using the same weapons and fighting more or less in the same manner in which they started. Your fighter might be able to use a bow and arrow but more customisation could help the console version exponentially. I would like the ability to create weapons, or even change the look of characters. Little touches like these make every play through unique, and add to the overall experience.
Balance out the character strengths. Some characters in this game were just doomed to sit in the back row and cheer. With enemies that actively seek out the weakest unit, and the fact that those units could often die in one hit, compounded with the permanent deaths, this was the most annoying thing in the game. Maybe a little change in how the characters level could change this. Instead of only allowing healers to level by healing, give them a side quest or mission to undertake. This is probably the most difficult thing to accomplish in a strategy game, but it can be done.
Give me lot more of everything. The handheld version was so amazing I’d love to sit in front of my Gamecube until my ass falls off. Nothing in the gaming world is as satisfying as finding a game so engrossing that you cut ties with your family and denounce your slave name in favour of an impossible to announce 1337 sp34k name. Fire Emblem has the potential to do this if the very minor quibbles of the GBA version is fixed. MD
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Intelligent Systems
UK Release: 2005 |
| 8/10 |
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