Once upon a time I wanted a friend of mine to check out Persona 5. At the time this game was pretty much the coolest thing ever to me and I wanted to spread the word. I do not remember the exact details of how it played out but he ultimately agreed to play the game on the condition that I play all 3 main Kingdom Hearts games. My renewed interest in video games was starting to flourish at the time so I did not mind the arrangement. After completing each game we gave long winded reviews over text discussing what we thought of the game. And after he beat Persona 5 and I eventually completed the Kingdom Hearts trilogy we decided to continue the trade with a new batch of games. Thus the game trade was born, and this review is the result of one of those game trades. I figured since I have this blog site I’ve barely written anything in this would be good content. Furthermore, I took so long to complete this game so a longer form review seems fitting. And so, here are my thoughts on Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade.

The Story

First of all let’s consider the story of Blazing Blade, which is quite the topic considering how much of it there is, and how the longer part of the game has two versions of the same story. And yet, there’s plenty to say. Before I start I figure I must say that this review contains heavy spoilers so if you haven’t played the game and you care about that don’t read this. It’s a good game that I highly recommend, so play it and come back to me alright? Or don’t, either way is fine.

So the game starts in classic Nintendo fashion by you naming your silent protagonist with no discernable personality. I named them Meep personally. So the story starts in a rather unsuspecting way with protagonist-kun waking up to see a cute girl.

She notices that there’s bandits outside and swiftly decides to head out and fight them to protect her people. Thankfully there aren’t too many of them.

And so after some basic and easily understandable tutorial stuff Lyn defeats the first guy and faces down a powerful villain.

Batta the Beast is a tough guy who looks like he has never found fulfillment in his life. Like yep, he’s made it to his 30s. The best he can do to make himself look large is threaten indigenous girls with his cool nickname his homies came up with. If this were your average girl he’d probably be right, but this is a girl that can miraculously land a crit with a 1% chance. And after she cuts him down she gives him the most genuine acknowledgement of any woman that he ever met. And thus concludes the story of Batta the Beast.

Batta is just the first of many villains that come and go in this story, and some of them genuinely have interesting mini stories. Batta on the other hand has me extrapolating his life based off his design and 2 lines of dialogue. Even so, he was a worthy opponent.

Also, before I continue commenting on the story, I must say this is a good tutorial level. It is highly scripted and pretty much makes you do what it says, which arguably runs counter to the rest of the game. However, it explains things step by step in a way that makes sense. Lyn says she needs to get closer to the enemy, so you move her closer to them. One of the bandits spots her and moves closer to her during his turn. She defeats the bandit but is injured in the process, so you need to access her items to give her a vulnerary for healing. And then she has the final battle which introduces you to crits showing that seemingly uphill battles aren’t always as unwinnable as they initially appear. It teaches the basic gameplay in a way that contextualizes what you’re doing. This way it feels less like you’re just controlling anime pawns but more like you’re guiding people through battle. Tangent concluded.

Alright, so Lyn wants to travel with you and you’re responsible or whatever so you tell her to ask her parents. Protagonist-kun’s responsibility or whatever-ness makes you step on a landmine and suddenly Lyn has a tragic backstory. Here it is:

(It’s not exactly the most elegant solution to have 8 screenshots in a row of Lyn making the same face on the same background admittedly. This game really would have benefited from giving he lords more facial expressions to work with instead of them just having the same 😐 face 90% of the time. Oh well.)

Lyn is someone who had everything go wrong at once. She lost her family and her community in quick succession due to a bandit attack and she doesn’t even know why it happened. She got hit with the double whammy of genocide and then patriarchy in quick succession. The fate of the Lorcas reminds me of the fate of indigenous people in North America out west. I do not know if the writers took inspiration from the North American natives specifically. Perhaps there are groups of people closer to Japan that had more direct influence. Regardless, communities being destroyed and scattered by senseless violence is depressingly common globally. The Lorcas may not be real, but the countless real-world examples that inspired the Lorcas were.

And after the bandits attacked the rest of her tribe didn’t want to follow a young girl so they just abandoned her completely. Oppressed groups can have some problems themselves I suppose. Lyn’s explanation for why they left her is surprisingly mature too, she’s clearly trying not to blame them too much. However, even if she understands why they abandoned her, the fact remains that they did. Poor lass.

So after Lyn joins the party we travel to some place or other and idly stnad by while Lyn gets hit on.

So we get to meet Sain, whose personality revolves around hitting on every girl that he sees. Under usual circumstances this would be incredibly obnoxious, but for whatever reason I love this dude. He’s a man with good intentions and a certain way with words. Homie’s got a poetic flair that’s particularly effective on ladies who aren’t used to the attention.

There’s also Kent, the straight-laced boring good guy. Together they make a pair of dudes Lyn does not want to deal with. She leaves the city and gets jumped immediately. This chapter’s hobo doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about killing her, but a job’s a job.

The hobo army proves slightly too large for Lyn to handle on her own, but the fuckbois come in to help her out. And thus, we get another simple tutorial map to duke it out on. As someone who has played quite a few Fire Emblem games before, this type of simple highly controlled gameplay is not exactly the most exciting thing ever. However, I think it is incredibly effective as a tutorial. Every new gameplay mechanic is introduced in a way that fits the context of the story. Like how we learn about weapon triangles because Sain got clapped for bringing a lance to an axe fight.

And after the tightly written, highly scripted fight concludes we learn a little something about Lyn’s family history. As it turns out that family history has a lot to do with Lyn’s recent bandit troubles.

Apparently Lyn’s mother was a lord’s daughter that ran off to the plains with a Sacae guy because her father did not accept their relationship. While his daughter lived and died on the plains lord Hausen became a lonely old man with regrets. He had only a vague idea of what his daughter was up to until he learned of her death. But with that heartbreak came a new hope as he also learned that he has a whole ass granddaughter that’s still alive. Through the power of loneliness he overcomes his prejudice and wants nothing more but to see his granddaughter. He ordered Kain and Sent to find his granddaughter and escort her back to Caelin so they can meet.

Another thing we learn is that Lyn’s birth name is Lyndis, but only people who know her noble background would know of that name. So it is mighty strange that a random bandit would know her name’s Lyndis huh.

As it turns out her uncle wants the throne and the fact that Lyn exists makes that fact more difficult. If he had left Lyn and her family alone I’m sure they would’ve gladly stayed in the plains and never bothered to claim that seat in the first place. Nevertheless, the uncle is a power hungry asshole that assumes they’d want it because he does.

So that’s the set up, Lyn goes on a journey to reunite with the only family she has left. She has to deal with a lot of bullshit she didn’t ask for along the way because of other people’s selfish ambitions. Incidentally, I could say something similar about Eliwood’s story later on. It’s almost as if the lives disrupted and destroyed in the wakes of people’s ambitions for power is an important theme of the story or something!

This review will take forever if I keep on commenting on the story chapter by chapter so I’ll stop doing that now. The rest of the story of Lyn mode is just following up on what was set up. Lyn gets a cool sword, gets jumped a bunch of times, helps villages under attack, finds new friends, and ultimately meets her grandaddy and it all works out kinda.

So that’s the story of Lyn mode. What do I think of it? I think it’s pretty good. It is nice to see a gorgeous lady go through so much shit, persevere, and end up happy at the end. It’s a satisfying story, doesn’t feel bloated or rushed, and has some good messages within. I have nothing bad to say about it really. And yet this is Lyn mode, which, from what I gather is widely considered the worst mode in the game. So obviously something must be wrong with it right? Well, a non-zero amount sure but I think Lyn mode fulfills its role exceptionally well. And what is that role exactly? Perhaps the cover of this game may give you a hint.

Almost everyone who still cares about Blazing Blade these days is either a fan who played it from the start or someone older who probably got into the game from Awakening or Three Houses or whatever. In both cases they are people that probably know how to play Fire Emblem. However, at the time the game was released that was not a safe assumption. In 2003 many people playing the game were completely new to the series. Furthermore, many of those new players were children. Fire Emblem may be T for teen these days but that isn’t the case for Blazing Blade. Fire Emblem is a somewhat complicated game and trying to explain it in a way that a child could understand without them getting frustrated or losing interest is a difficult task. And yet Lyn mode does an excellent job at it.

Lyn mode is a 10 chapter tutorial where they gradually give you more characters, mechanics, and gradually more difficult maps to play around. It is highly scripted at first, but gives you more room to screw up in later chapters. And it’s not too tedious because the new mechanics are explained in a way that relates to what’s happening in the story. Perhaps it could be a bit shorter, or perhaps the later maps could be made a bit more interesting. Regardless, Lyn mode is good, and it prepared me well for the rest of the game.

So that takes us to Eliwood mode, where we follow the dude as he goes on his quest to find his dad. It seems this guy has a pretty cool dad if he wants to do all of this for him. I would talk more about Eliwood mode but to be honest the last time I played it was months ago so I don’t remember all that much that was different from Hector mode. I know Hector mode has a lot more Hector in it, but it still had most of Eliwood’s scenes that I remember. So Hector mode has good Eliwood content and good Hector content. Eliwood mode has good Eliwood content with a lack of Hector content. Therefore, Hector mode wins in this regard (and gameplay to a lesser extent). But since the main story’s pretty much the same and it’s in more recent memory let’s talk about Hector mode’s story instead.

Hector mode is a story that had relatively simple beginnings. He just wants to help out his homie Eliwood so he dips. His brother knew what was going on and let Hector go even though he probably could have used Hector’s help. This is because Lord Uther is a bro in the truest sense of the word. So he gets jumped on the way out but escapes with his thief buddy Matthew regardless. Oswin and Serra join Hector because why not and then they find Eliwood while he’s in the process of getting jumped himself. Hector doesn’t really understand what’s going on but he throws himself into the fray without hesitation.

By the way we learn quite a bit about Hector in a short amount of time from these early chapters. We learn he’s a headstrong dude that will help his friends out without hesitation (at least none that the players can easily pick up on). We also learn that he’s pretty used to violence and will perhaps make use of it quicker than he probably should. He’s a violent fellow, but he just so happens to be violent for the right causes. And there’s just a little bit of tension throughout with us wondering if he’ll stay that way.

Regardless, they defeat whoever the fuck they have to fight this time and the bros reunite.

As it happens Eliwood didn’t actually ask Hector for help. As such it came as a surprise to him that Hector showed up out of nowhere. Hector’s just the kind of guy that runs to help a friend in need regardless of whether or not they ask him to. Eliwood was confused at first but when Hector explained the situation he accepted the help. It seems like Eliwood’s quest is turning out to be a lot more dangerous than he ever planned for after all. Hector’s got that network of spies and contacts going for him so he’s more conscious of the danger than Eliwood is. To Eliwood’s credit he’s quick to pick up on things. Besides, regardless of how difficult it gets that sure as hell ain’t stopping him.

So the two push forward along with a crew that constantly grows in respect to both numbers and ability. The pace of this growth feels rather natural and proportional to the increasing danger their quest is taking them towards. The dragons and magic nazi zombie clones they deal with towards the end of the story are a far cry from the bandits you fought at the start.

What’s great about the story here is that such a progression somehow feels natural. With each chapter the plot thickens, you start seeing a bit more of the darkness underlying all the bullshit your squad’s dealing with. You don’t go from the bandits to the magic corpse clones right away. Instead, it gradually builds up to that point.

What’s great about the story here is that such a progression somehow feels natural. With each chapter the plot thickens, you start seeing a bit more of the darkness underlying all the bullshit your squad’s dealing with. You don’t go from the bandits to the magic corpse clones right away. Instead, it gradually builds up to that point. First we learned that a shady assassin organization called the Black Fang seems to be involved in the plot. And these Black Fang guys are pretty tough in their own right. Later on you realize that the Black Fang are not the main villain but rather are being hijacked and manipulated by something much darker. The increasing strength of the opponents make sense as you get closer and closer to the center of the darkness. Perhaps it would have been cooler if the center of that darkness wasn’t just some comically evil old boomer with a 600 year old chip on his shoulder, but even that is rather fitting in its own way.

Well, we can save the discussion of Nergal for later, as I don’t want to brush over the early stages of the game completely. Because honestly at least story wise these earlier chapters were quite possibly the strongest part of the game for me.

From my experience Fire Emblem always has a vaguely medieval setting to it, and there’s always some element of fantasy. Some games throw you straight in to the zombie army or whatever (see Fire Emblem Awakening) while others ease you in a bit. Blazing Blade is a good example of the latter. It actually gives you time to enjoy the good ole’ tomfoolery that occurs when a bunch of different lords own different plots of land and don’t always communicate effectively. Also phones don’t exist in this world so people have to walk all the way to the castle to have a good conversation. And sometimes people stand in the way of meeting each other so those good conversations don’t happen. So instead of battles for the fate of humanity you get battles for the fate of whether Eliwood gets to talk to some old dude… which secretly might have something to do with the fate of humanity. These sorts of disputes fit the scale of your team, which at this point is mostly just a bunch of teenagers with limited battle experience and a couple older knights. They can handle some soldiers, but we don’t have to throw the zombie army at them right away.

In some Fire Emblem games it feels like there should be more people in your army than there actually are. Like they’re in a large scale war and yet you’re somehow winning fights with like 12 people at a time. Three Houses addresses this issue by making your students platoon leaders of sorts with a bunch of other soldiers going along with them. Blazing Blade writes conflicts of a scale where the size of your army actually matches well with what you’re up against. At the start we’re just looking at bandits or the limited armies of some feudal lords with some assassins thrown in. Later on as your team gains more powerful allies, and everyone else gets stronger (or dies) you start seeing fantastical conflicts of a greater scale. These later conflicts feel cooler because they’re a departure from where you started and the whole game was building up to them. They’re earned. Furthermore, there are some nice little stories within the greater conquest that adds some intrigue.

Blazing Blade is perhaps a bit unusual in how much time it spends showing what the villains are up to. If we were solely anchored to the main lord’s persepctives it would feel like the game’s just throwing one random asshole after another. We also wouldn’t really understand why some of these recruitable enemies are fighting us in the first place.

However, since Blazing Blade does spend some time showing what the enemy’s up to we get to see a bit of their stories. Some of them just need the money, some of them are genuinely just bloodthirsty, and some of them were successfully manipulated.

You can see the humanity in some of these villains, and it invites you to think what senseless cause is leading our crew to fighting them in the first place. This game has a surprisngly anti-war message for a game where every level is another battle. I suppose if there must be war games it’s better to avoid turning away from the harsh realities of it. In a more adult oriented story this is often done by highlighting the trauma and brutality associated with war. Since Blazing Blade does not have the luxury to explicitly show violence it must take a more nuanced path.

For example we’ve got Eliwood’s quote above, which is one of my favorite quotes in the entire game. Eliwood is both clearheaded about the occasional necessity of war and the human cost of it. By this point we have already seen multiple examples of that human cost. The way Lyn’s family and tribe got targeted due to a hereditary dispute for instance. Or how protecting villages from being raided is a whole ass game mechanic in many of these battles. All for reasons that have nothing to do with the victim’s actions. Their only crime is happening to live in a place where there’s another target. And oftentimes that target doesn’t deserve all this shit either. And yet Eliwood presses on because dad’s still missing and he can’t just roll over and let people take and destroy what they please. Though as it happens there’s a bit more than just “foolish politics” at play here.

So I guess it’s time to talk about Nergal. The evil magic man that wants to burn the whole world down by summoning dragons because power or whatever. To be honest the first time I played through this game everything to do with Nergal was my least favorite part. He felt incredibly one-dimensional and listening to the gray beard guy lore dump about him wasn’t particularly interesting either. Even on my Hector mode run I still felt infinitely more interested in most of the people he’s manipulated and the people his underlings manipulated than Nergal himself. Nergal’s a selfish asshole that cares about nothing except power and himself. There’s not much to feel empathy for, unless you agree that his grievance about the car his old friend left him was valid af.

But yeah, this is definitely a case where the plot is cooler than the man behind it. Even so, Nergal serves his narrative purpose well and I wouldn’t want him to be a sympathetic character. He doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of sympathy for others himself after all.

Furthermore, he’s a fascist wizard. OK, perhaps fascist might not be 100% accurate but he’s definitely a wizard. Nergal’s self-interested power grabbing schemes don’t match any existing political ideology 1:1. This makes sense since this takes place centuries ago in another universe and also it’s a Nintendo game. Even so, homie raised a magic zombie army where some of its members have convinced themselves they are the master race. I suspect there’s some real world influence there, just a hunch. So he’s about as close to a fascist wizard as you can get in a Nintendo game.

Part of the reason I bring up political stuff at all in regards to Nergal is because of his intentional contrast with Eliwood and co. Nergal is a self-interested boomer obsessed with centuries old grievances trying to subjugate everyone. Eliwood is a bleeding heart lib joined by a motley crew of people from vastly different backgrounds. We’ve got a gay mercenary, a biracial lady that wants to fight the patriarchy, fucking dragon people, criminals, and at the end they’re supported by the powers of an ancient NB icon.

So we’ve got the guy that wants to kill everyone indiscriminately against the guy who accepts damn near anyone for the cause. Also like 90% of the other villains you fight are older white dudes. There is certainly a limit to how much real world politics can be read into this game. However, the general slant of the writing seems to point in a certain direction if you ask me. It’s not just Eliwood being a lib either.

It’s not exactly clear what the peer system is, but the way Hector talks about his aspirations for Ostia sounds vaguely left wing to me. They’re striving for more equality much to the chagrin of the local elites after all. So in conclusion Lyn’s a radical feminist, Eliwood’s a lib, and Hector’s a socialist. I will hear no arguments to the contrary, my selective incomplete quotes tell the full story I assure you. Am I reading my personal politics into this game too much? Yeah probably, but I really do think the writers of this game are left leaning. I think their message is curated to fit the distinct political context of the game and to avoid alienating people with something more direct. Even so, the general thrust of it seems clear to me and I’m here for it.

So any ways, after quite the long journey they eventually face off against and defeat Nergal. Nergal summons a few dragons with the last of his strength though and then Ninian comes back to life somehow to help the squad stop them. Oh right I forgot to mention that Ninian died in the first place.

So yeah that was a thing that happened. Poor Eliwood got tricked into killing his shy dragon girlfriend. I didn’t really expect her to stay dead though, and lo and behold she lived. Any ways, there’s an incredibly underwhelming fight with the last dragon, they win, and then the world is saved!!!!!! (Until whatever happens in Binding Blade goes down any way).

So yeah, that’s the story of Fire Emblem Blazing Blade. I brushed over a LOT of it and it still feels like I spent a ridiculous amount of time writing about it. Suffice to say I am quite fond of it though. I will admit the story got a lot less entertaining any time Athos or Nergal were on screen, but even then they have some good moments. It’s a well crafted story that compliments the gameplay incredibly well.

The Cast

Now with that discussion of story out of the way, I would like to talk a bit more about some of the characters in this game. Through the snippets of story between battles and the support conversations within you’re able to get a pretty good understanding of your units. Because they’re given robust personalities your units feel more like people and you feel more like an asshole if you let them die. This is true of every Fire Emblem game I’ve played, but some pull it off better than others. I think Blazing Blade safely falls in the “better” camp.

Other than Blazing Blade I have played Awakening, most of Fates: Conquest, Echoes, and Three Houses. Of those I think Blazing Blade’s cast tops all but Three Houses. Perhaps it’s because Blazing Blade integrates its non-lord cast into the story a lot more than say, Awakening does. Perhaps it’s because the cast is just that good. This is not to say I find literally every character in this game compelling. There are certainly a lot more stand outs than I expected though. So let’s talk about them, starting with the ladies.

So why talk about the ladies first? Well, I usually start these reviews by stating who the best girl is. Because reasons. Even if they’re only best girl by default or if the answer is incredibly obvious to everyone I will still declare a best girl. (The other guy does this too for the record). And indeed this is one of those instances where the best girl pick may seem obvious. I think it’s pretty clear who’s the most remembered of the cast, though admittedly it is not exactly a fair contest. So before crowning Lyn as best girl let’s consider the competition.

First we’ve got Lyn’s bff Fluttershy- I mean Florina. Uhhh… keeping her alive is a pain and I don’t have much else to say about her. Her hair’s cool I guess? Moving on~

So how about Serra?

Yeah what Matthew said. Even though I don’t think she’s best girl I think she’s one of the best. Sure she has an incredibly inflated ego, but I don’t mind. Nothing she says really crosses the line, and she looks out for people when need be. I’m amused by the idea that someone like Serra even exists in Fire Emblem’s world at all. She’s a modern woman born centuries too early. Also she has my favorite death line in the game.

Let’s see who else… there’s the other two pegasus sisters I suppose. Fiora is pretty damn boring honestly. Farina isn’t boring, but I didn’t have the money to spend on her and then she died so uh… Yeah rip Farina.

We’ve got Rebecca, who is a total sweetheart and it’s really fucked up that I let her die in my last playthrough. Poor Lowen man. Even so, I think it’s safe to say anyone I don’t instantly feel compelled to reset for is not best girl.

Priscilla has little discernible personality whatsoever, and Ninian only has slightly more.

I have nothing negative to say about Louise but she’s not really my type. Her and Pent make a good power couple though. You don’t get too many power couples these days. The newer titles want to make sure MC-kun can hitch it with damn near everyone after all.

Nino has a decently compelling story and I hear she’s a good unit if you put enough exp into her. But I was not impressed when I tried doing so. Maybe it wasn’t enough, but I wonder how much disproportionate investment into her would be enough? She was pretty average at her peak for me. Also personality wise she’s mostly just a nice kid and not much else comes to mind.

And then we’ve got Vaida, the butch wyvern rider. I am pro-wyvern myself, but screw her. She’s ridiculously hard to fight against. And when she joins you it doesn’t get all that much better. Look at the kinda shit she says to my boy Canas in their support conversations:

And finally there’s Karla, who I never even recruited. I never really used Bartre longer than I had to so y’know. Design wise she’s very much my type. Long black hair is an instant W for me with vanishingly few exceptions. She’s got big boobs too and a decent outfit too, more Ws. Even so, she’s a last minute recruit with a few support conversations. There’s not that much to work with there, and it’s not like I’m super drawn to her every word or whatever. She’s pretty normal honestly.

OK maybe normal is not the right word exactly. But in a cast full of strong personalities her low-key cool demeanor is on the normal side of the spectrum. Honestly she’d probably be my best girl if she was in the game more, but there’s only so much to her at the moment.

So with all other possibilities out of the way, that brings us back to Lyn. Yeah Lyn is best girl. She’s cool, she’s inspiring, and she’s gorgeous. It is completely understandable why so much of the Fire Emblem fan base simps for her. I wouldn’t call myself a straight up Lyn simp myself, but I do quite like her. It definitely helps that she gets more screentime than all the other ladies in the game. Even with so much screen time, I do find myself wishing she had a more active role in Eliwood/Hector mode. She’s just kind of along for the ride and around for the other guys to talk to. And when it comes time for the legendary weapons she just kinda gets a cooler sword. I’m not sure what I’d do differently with her role in Eliwood/Hector mode, but I feel like they could’ve done better. To give you a slight sense of what I mean, here’s my awkward Lyn in Hector mode gallery~

And on that iffy note, let’s talk about the best boys. Like best boy Eliwood, who talks all the shit he wants to the queen but silences Lyn immediately when she speaks her mind. To be fair, what she said really wasn’t helping things and two people pestering a queen might be a bit much. Even so 😡

But setting aside this one specific scene, I love this dude. He’s smart, he’s a relentlessly good person with a strong moral core, and he’s got good looks too. If anyone could lead such an incongruous group to save the world from wizard Hitler he can. When he found and then lost his father he fulfilled his original reason for going on this journey. But when he saw the greater evil at play he pressed forward against Nergal without hesitation. Also he just has so many great lines. I only started collecting screenshots when I was in chapter 20-something of Hector mode (and went back on youtube to fill in the gaps). As such, there’s a lot of good Eliwood content I missed. So here’s the gallery of random Eliwood screenshots I haven’t used already that I like~

So yeah, Eliwood’s dope. And Hector’s dope too for that matter. He could have easily just been the hot headed strong guy, but he’s got a surprising amount of depth to him. Well, I suppose it would be a bit problematic if he had a whole ass mode dedicated to him and he didn’t have any depth. One thing I find interesting is the way in which the games gives depth to his character. Like how Eliwood talks about him.

Eliwood knows Hector well and is able to see through Hector and articulate his nature. He does a great job explaining this to the audience since a lot of them aren’t likely to pick up on such subtext just by seeing how Hector acts. The game also makes sure the audience knows which traits of Hectors are admirable and which are dangerous. Young kids were part of the audience for this game. The writers likely wanted to make sure he could be seen as a role model while also being a human with flaws. If you want that role model for impressionable children to have flaws, you better make sure those kids understand that those flaws are not meant to be emulated.

Hector’s a bad ass, always looks out for the people he cares about, and is also quite good looking. To be honest that applies to arguably every Fire Emblem lord, they’re kind of meant to look good. While I think Eliwood’s best boy, I also think Hector’s best boy. They can be best boys together. He’s also got plenty of banger lines himself.

One other important aspect to note about Hector is that when he left his brother behind said brother was dying. Lord Uther doesn’t have too many lines in the game directly, but every detail you get about him is great. It really speaks to a character’s greatness when you can barely have any lines in the game and still be a great character. To be fair, this is made possible by other people talking about him.

What a guy. It’s cool seeing some mature ass people make some tough choices in a video game. Not a common sight.

Speaking of mature ass people, let’s consider another one of my favorites, Canas. He’s purple, he’s a dark mage, he’s got the cool professor vibe, and he canonically fucked his canonical wife.

This man is truly on a level above a very large portion of the people playing this game. Because he’s Canas and he’s just that cool. It seems as if nothing phases this man. Well, perhaps the dark arts may have consumed him eventually just like they did his brothers. But sadly, the blizzard took him out instead.

I’d also like to give a shout out to Hawkeye, one bad ass motherfucker who destroyed everything in his path. OK I’ll admit he falls off a bit in the last few chapters but even then he holds his own. Hawkeye is a rather simple character in most respects. He’s a strong man of few words who used to protect the desert and is temporarily working to protect the world. He was fully prepared to die and leave his daughter behind to carry on his legacy. But after he spent enough time murdering everyone in his path and not dying he had a bit of a change of heart.

Hawkeye is not a particularly complex character, but he doesn’t need to be. He’s a grown ass adult that already found his place in the world. No drama, just murder. That’s the Hawkeye way. Godspeed Hawkeye, Godspeed.

The last of my top favorite FE7 dudes I haven’t mentioned already is Raven. For the record Sain’s also one of my favorites but I talked about him already. But man I love me a good edgelord and Raven’s quite the fine specimen of one.

Also Raven’s probably gay, so that’s cool.

Also, while I wouldn’t call him a favorite, shout out to Renault for having the best recruitment lines.

What a guy, he’s fighting just to get all the magic zombies off his lawn.

Other Assorted Stuff I Want to Talk About That Don’t Fall Under Gameplay

Before I talk about the gameplay in this video game, I might as well mention some other factors that don’t neatly fall into that category. For starters there’s the music. The music is pretty good, particularly for a Gameboy game, but it definitely sounds like Gameboy music. It serves its purpose well, but I don’t think I’ll be replaying the tracks from this game too much.

The art of this game is pretty damn good. It’s never anything too flashy, just a bunch of anime people with nice natural looking backgrounds… Except when said backgrounds are deliberately fantastical any way. There’s nothing super flashy about any of it, but I have nothing negative to say about it. It is of course a Gameboy game full of pixel people so there’s a limit to how flashy you can be in the first place. Even so, there’s some dope stuff in the combat animations.

From what I gather most of these animations are reused from the previous game, but hell if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I especially appreciate the high level magic animations that just go crazy and most of the crit animations. It gives all the characters a chance to show off and look bad ass. Hard to say why our crew gets crits so much more often than the enemies, but I ain’t complaining.

Gameplay

So with all that other stuff out of the way, let’s talk about the gameplay. Like every other Fire Emblem game I’ve ever played I quite like the gameplay here. Grid strategy games are cool and Fire Emblem does a great job with it. I like strategically placing anime people on wildly varying maps and watching them fight (generally) less attractive anime people. It’s a fun thing to do. And unlike Disgaea the RPG elements aren’t overwhelming and kinda confusing to navigate. Your characters grow stronger as they fight more and you can find cool weapons to give them. These weapons all have strengths and weaknesses and have good and bad matchups. I won’t say these weapons are perfectly balanced (the archers feel a tad bit underpowered in this game for instance) but they are decently balanced. The things I liked about other Fire Emblem games largely apply to this one.

So what makes Blazing Blade different from the rest I’ve played? Well, it’s older and some mechanics you see in newer games aren’t present here. So if you want to turn back time to save Serra from getting blasted by an archer you gotta do it the good old fashioned way. Even though some of the new mechanics aren’t present there are some mechanics here that aren’t present at all in newer titles as well. For instance there’s the rescue mechanic, which I suppose may have been a precursor to the pair up. I like rescue, it came in clutch quite a few times. It makes it a lot easier to protect squishy and vulnerable units, and I think it’s well balanced by the loss of potential moves.

Another aspect where Blazing Blade differs considerably from later titles is the unit promotion system. In later titles there’s loads of customization here with class changes, branching paths, etc. Meanwhile in this game everyone has one possible way to upgrade and you either take that path or don’t promote at all. As someone who often feels comfortable taking the default path in later games I don’t mind this at all. Furthermore, the promoted classes are pretty well thought out. Many of them are designed to cover the weapon triangle weaknesses of their previous class and some modestly cover their stat weaknesses as well. For instance Lyn, whose rather squishy by default now has a way to avoid direct direct combat with her newfound bow capabilities. Also she’s not quite as squishy.

Personally, I think this promotion system works pretty well for this game. It’s straightforward and effective. There’s also a pretty wide variety of classes even with the streamlined upgrade system. I think it’s probably for the best that later games added more customizability to promotions, but this game doesn’t need it.

One effect of the limited customization is that you’ve got less opportunities to make characters stupidly broken. The only stupidly broken characters are ones with good stats, good growths, lucky rolls, and/or disproportionate investment from stat boosting items. Or I guess you can do some good ole’ arena abuse to grind your characters far beyond the level they’re expected to be at that stage. There’s not really any need to do this because the experience from regular combat is sufficient to progress. Even if one does partake in arena abuse there’s a limit to how much a character can level up. As a result the game feels pretty balanced in normal mode. None of my characters, not even Hawkeye, can single handedly destroy everyone without some degree of support. OK, Hawkeye could almost do that in Eliwood mode, but not so much in Hector mode. As for hard mode, I haven’t played it but I imagine it’s even harder to rely on just one unit.

Speaking of supports, let’s talk about the support system. From what I gather the support system was first introduced in Binding Blade, so this is one of the earliest incarnations of it in the series. I think it’s safe to say later games improved. In the other Fire Emblem games I’ve played I never felt compelled to just stand around skipping turns to get a support conversation. I did that a bunch of times here though. And you can only get 5 support conversations total per character. If you want to get anyone to max support level then that means they can only talk to two other people once or one person twice. So if you don’t plan things out it’s very easy to lock yourself out of A rank. It is incredibly annoying. I understand the balancing purpose of that limit since support convos come with some in-game benefits. Even so, later games figured out how to make that work without arbitrarily limiting the amount of conversations units can have with each other. Not exactly a major issue but yeah this is one part where Blazing Blade shows its age.

There are other differences I haven’t mentioned, but overall it’s still a Fire Emblem game. They don’t reinvent the weapon triangle every time. They don’t need to though, because Fire Emblem’s core gameplay is already in a good spot. Just having new characters and new maps to play with alone provides unique experiences. And as it happens, the map design is one of this game’s biggest strengths.

So what do the Blazing Blade maps have going for them? Well, pretty much everything I can think of. In Hector/Eliwood mode they travel all over for their quest, bringing you to a wide variety of locations and environments. In the same game you siege a fortress in the snow, protect a sacred desert, and infiltrate whatever the hell this place is.

These varied settings aren’t just aesthetically different. Their unique environments often impact gameplay in some manner. For instance the desert and snow levels feature intermittent sand/snow storms that limit movement when they occur. In the snow level this movement effect only applies when you’re outside so you can still freely move your units when they’re inside buildings. And even when there’s no weather effects to worry about the terrain itself can have unique effects. Like those purple platforms that can just kinda disappear on you if you wait around in the same area too long.

Regardless of the setting these maps are laid out in a manner where there are multiple ways to approach the challenge. There’s usually branching paths and you have to decide whether to split up the squad or pick one route to go down together. If you do split up you can have wildly different results depending on which characters you choose to send where. And while keeping the army together is usually safer it’s slower and you might lose the chance to save a village, recruit a character, etc. And if you deploy Merlinus he’s probably going to get jumped if you leave him behind unattended. This isn’t an issue once he hits level 20 and hires a donkey though.

One other way the maps in this game are unique is the healthy variety of objectives. On the majority of maps you have to either wipe everyone out or seize the throne. But certain maps get a bit more creative when the time comes for it. Like the pirate chapter where you can either fight the hard ass pirates head on or sneak around the side to talk to the captain with minimal pushback. Or the stages where you simply have to stay alive for a certain amount of turns against an enemy onslaught. There’s also that Hector mode map where there are 3 different castles you have to seize in different parts of the map to succeed. You don’t see this kind of creativity in objectives in the newer games so much and that’s a shame.

So yeah, overall Blazing Blade’s gameplay is strong because it takes the good ole’ Fire Emblem formula and executes it incredibly well. It is remarkable how much depth there is to this rated E Gameboy game. If you like Fire Emblem or like RPGs/strategy games there’s no reason not to give this one a shot.

Overall

So yeah, that’s Fire Emblem: the Blazing Blade. In spite of this largely positive review I spent quite some time finishing it. Why is that? Well part of it is that this game is pretty damn long if you play through it twice, which is effectively what you do when you play both Hector and Eliwood mode. It’s also not the kind of game that keeps you in your seat the whole time. When you fuck up and have to play the whole chapter over that’s both demoralizing and time consuming. When that happens I usually end up taking a break or putting the game down once I finished that chapter.

So I played through this game chapter by chapter with large breaks in between and rarely beating more than 1-3 chapters in any given day. I started this game in like, May iirc and I’m posting this review in late October. (As it happens I took my sweet time writing this review as well. At least I have the grad school excuse for this part). Even with all that justification in mind it’s certainly true that I found it a lot harder to put down say, Three Houses. Some games make me want to just keep on playing all day every day until the end, and Blazing Blade is not one of them. Nevertheless, it is an excellent game.

Blazing Blade is a well paced epic that puts on a master class in integrating story with gameplay. It is not a flawless game, but it comes a lot closer to being one than almost any other game I’ve played. I can definitely see where the old school Fire Emblem fans are coming from here. This is some good shit, and some of the great aspects of this game didn’t fully carry over to later titles. Even so, this game still exists to come back to.

So with all that being said, what’s the arbitrary number that sums up my assessment of this game? A certain someone is quite invested in the idea that I give a double digit score to their suggested game. Should I give it to them? Hmmmmmm… On one hand, I can’t say I like this game QUITE as much as all the games I currently have as a 10. On the other hand it’s closer to perfection than most of those games. On one hand that dragon fight at the end kind of sucked, but on the other hand Moon Presence was underwhelming too. Well, I’m half tempted to give it some shit like 9.7 or whatever, but I normally give my ratings in .5 increments. As such, sure it’s a 10. That’s what I have it rated on Glitchwave any way.

And with that I’m finally done with this game and overly long review. Y’all can expect to see my next blog post… yeah idk when that will come out, but it almost certainly won’t take as long as this one. I’m in grad school at the moment though so y’know.