I never thought I would see the day in which I would write a review for a 3DS game. This is mainly due to the fact that I did not used to be much of a portable gaming fan. After buying a 3DS XL on impulse because I REALLY REALLY wanted to play Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Yeah I can be an impulse buyer at times I suppose. So a month after buying it and completing the game I had purchased the console for I started to experience buyers guilt. There must be a handheld game out there that I would enjoy right? So while going out with friends we passed by a store that sold video games and I saw Fire Emblem. I thought what the hell, the game-play should be something remotely like Advanced Wars, a game I also cherished back on the DS… So I bought it and here is what I think of it.
Story: 5/10
Well, it was your typical Cliche’d anime style story. The goody two shoes prince who is all benevolent to a naieve degree (its a wonder that their kingdom survived for any length of time with that naivety) finds your main character laying down on the ground and just happens to listen to his tactical advice just like that. Funny enough, I enjoyed it. The characters introduced the comedy I generally look forward to in most of the Animes I watch. The characters where cliche’d and some of them quiet frankly ridiculous but on an over all level, the way the characters interacted with one another and developed their relationship was actually something I enjoyed (I personally am not sure why). The plot progression is that of a typical JRPG with the first most obvious villain being nothing more than a middle boss that you are supposed to defeat before you realize who the real boss is. The main antagonist is only truly revealed to the characters later on (though you can figure it out somewhere through the first story arc). Over all? enjoyable I would say and was just right for the type of game. The pieces weren’t just pieces to me in a strategy game for a change! If a strategy game could actually make me care however slightly about loosing a unit permanently due to death by characterizing them then they must have done something right with the story.
Gameplay: 7/10
The game has a pretty steep learning curve, especially for a new entrant to the Fire Emblem series I was practically clueless as to the fact that spell books and weapons broke after a certain amount of uses and confused as to how to what many of the acronyms meant. This meant I had to go through trial and error to figure them out (that or research the net, something I realize would be far wiser than hours of trial and error BUT I seem to be phobic of researching something for myself (unless I absolutely have to such as in cases of work or academic assignments). It also contains some unit types that are just clearly more useful than others. In fact despite what I have heard from others, the balancing is fairly off with some characters just clearly being superior in power and practically invincible if used right. Despite that, there is a WIDE selection of characters to utilise in the game… and I mean WIDE.
Aesthetics: 9/10
For a turn based strategy on a handheld device? The aesthetics are incredible! Graphically it showed an excellent combination of 3d visuals and the cut-scene animations where designed with a more anime/manga look that where really great to look at (especially the opening scene) The battle music was appropriate without being too dull or too fast paced, basically just the way it should be in line with the theme of the game. I tend to believe that the music of a game should set the mood and tone for the story and it did just that!
