Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

Originally released in 2003, Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade was the game that quietly brought Intelligent Systems’ long-running strategy RPG series to a Western audience, following many players’ first brush with Fire Emblem through Super Smash Bros. Melee’s Marth and Roy.

Join Adam and Austin as they recount Austin bumbling his way through Elibe as a pre-teen, geek out over the game’s ageless animation style, break down why Blazing Blade became Fire Emblem’s Western foundation, and discuss how this entry earned its legendary status.

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Transcript

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Dynamics that are kind of playing off in this part of the story. Holy shit. I had an alarm go off there. That's unfortunate um, I can I don't know Welcome back to another episode of the games gone by podcast. It is january 23rd at the time of this recording I'm your host adam and joining me as always the gaming expert and enthusiast and fire emblem historian Austin, are you ready to discuss fire emblem? The blazing blade aka fire emblem 7 aka fire emblem I am so ready. I love this game. I love this series. I mean This is in my top five of all time. Love this game I when you suggested it I was like, is it happening? Are we finally are we finally doing it? So yeah, no, i'm very very excited for this. That's awesome Um, you know I'll say I'll say from the top I didn't think I had played much of this game and then as I was playing it I was like have I played this game because there was a because I knew I'd played some of it because I was really Into like emulating everything I could find on the game boy and super nintendo in like 2004 2005 So right after this game would have come out And I don't think I ever quite finished it because the last few missions did not feel familiar to me But I do think I had played a good portion of this game, although it was 20 years ago So it was still more or less a fresh experience and uh, i'll go ahead and say up front, dude I had a great time. I really really enjoyed playing this that that makes me so happy Because I was so worried you were not going to like it. I feel like every conversation we've ever had Why would you think I wouldn't like a japanese game where people have one's colored hair? Every single conversation we've ever had about fire emblem. It's just like that stupid baby's first rpg Strategy game that's on the game boy with the anime stuff like every single one of them Yeah, so I was like, oh, this is gonna be a disaster Uh, but no come to find out like you're constantly like yes, this is a great game. I'm like, yes It's funny too because other than the fact that some of these people have like purple and pink hair It's really not that kind of quote-unquote anime, right? It really kind of feels like something that could be straight out of dragon age or something along those lines Uh, you know, I mentioned you're the historian you have played a lot of these games Is it have you played all of them not necessarily finished? But have you played every single one of them? I have finished all the western games and i've played at least a little bit of all the japanese games as well Okay, what about the uh? did you read those people that spent like three hundred dollars on the mobile game or Uh, I I spent I think ten dollars on the mobile game Uh when it first came out when it first came out I was I was in it i'm like yes the fire emblem mobile I had a lot of fun with it, honestly Uh, but I only ever spent like ten dollars because i'm not a crazy gacha person like some people Those games you always just hit a point where you're like, well, this was fun But now in order to progress at any reasonable rate, I have to give like my monthly salary over to this company and thankfully The fire emblem heroes the mobile game Never gets like that bad at it There are a couple moments where it's like, all right if I don't spend money here Like what's even the point but it took a long time for me to get there So well since you are the historian i'm gonna let you lead us through the kind of history introduction here something that i've I've really been wanting to do with our podcast episodes more and more because I think especially with some of these older games It's just really interesting to kind of explore Well, you know how they came about where they came from so man, how did fire emblem get started? Yeah, so fire emblem began in 1990 as a passion project By shouzu kaga at intelligent systems. He is a you know, intelligent systems works with nintendo for most of their titles They're like like a second-party developer, I guess um, because they pretty much put everything on there. They also made advanced wars and Then a couple other things too. I think they even were involved with like pokemon pinball or something So like oh wow. Yeah intelligent systems big big in nintendo and this first game here was called fire emblem Shadow dragon and the blade of light only released in japan It didn't really gather a lot of attention at first But they they started to grow steadily throughout japan and it would come to the super nintendo And the game boy advance and then super famicon. Oh, you're sorry my bad uh, and then in 2001 that's when Uh smash bros melee was released and that of course included marth and roy Who are now like iconic and and some of the most memorable characters in the series? And that's kind of what what sparked interest in the west for this series at all So that's what I was gonna say is I feel like you and me and almost everyone on the western hemisphere first True exposure to anything fire emblem related was seeing marth and roy in in smash bros Right. Well, and I remember it being such a like who are these people like who even is this? He's cool. He's awesome. But who I love the sword guy But like what? nintendo game is this and uh, so obviously with that and then also Advanced wars had come out in the west first and it you know, it had gained popularity I guess like they felt military strategy game would do better in the west than like fantasy dragon strategy game which like when you say it like that, it's like yeah, duh, I can't believe I even think of that So I guess you know, but but with that success and kind of being a similar-ish game They were like we're gonna localize fire emblem We're gonna try it out and in 2003 fire emblem in the blazing blade was released in the West. That's what we're talking about today It was released just as fire emblem It is crazy that the seventh one just came here as fire and woman really reminds me of the early SNES Final fantasies where it was like two was four and three was six and they were just I was thinking the same thing when you said that because it really does feel like that where it's like nobody in the West for so long knew that it was anything other than like they just assumed it was the first game I imagine because You know, why wouldn't you why wouldn't you I actually I have a really funny story about how I acquired this game that I don't know If I've ever even told you but I had a friend who at the time He I guess is like mom picked it up. Whatever. I was like in 2003. I would have been eight. I Hadn't played a ton of games by this point Right, but my my friend had this copy of this game called fire emblem and he was showing it to me at his house We were playing it and I was like, oh This is kind of neat and he was like, oh you can you can have it like I don't really like it It's not really my style. You can have it. I was like I can have it sweet So I took the game from him and I started playing it and I started to get further in and I kind of seeing some Of the cool stuff in it. So then a few weeks later, like I showed him all the cool stuff I was doing and he was like, oh I want it back And I told I like we got into a big fight about it and his mom was like you gave it away so now it's it I I still have that copy of fire emblem from nowhere You still have that one that exact same copy is still the one I have that poor bastard. I know That the series would end up doing okay in the West for the it, you know The the next Game Boy game did pretty well sacred stones and then it would release games on GameCube and Wii and By that point the sales that started to decline Nintendo is kind of like yeah, we don't know The series isn't doing what we what we kind of thought it would so They they gave intelligent system is basically an ultimatum They said if you don't hit two hundred fifty thousand sales on the next game like two to three thousand units then we're just gonna we're gonna in the series and That became that game became fireball awakening in 2012 and it is the game that basically reset fire emblem It was a huge success. It sold nearly two million copies like it's it's the game that Inspired that series it's led to 3ds games switch games the mobile game that we talked about There's a there's a crossover musical RPG called Tokyo Mirage Sessions. This fascinates me Please tell me exactly how this works and what this is. Yeah. Yeah, so Tokyo Mirage Sessions is developed by Atlas so it has a very like persona style battle system and you actually like Summon in fire emblem heroes and they're like they're like song stris They're like singers who like sing things, but they also fight with you It's a really weird game. It's it's super odd It's like it's as weird as you would think it would be Okay, yeah, because I thought I thought it was pretty weird It's just as weird as you think it would be they don't they don't do anything to like rationalize it or make it make sense It's just there's no strategy. It's like a very persona based game Just with like fire emblem characters super weird It's fun. It's it's like if you like that kind of thing They actually just released another mobile game within the last few months. I called like Shh, I think it's fire emblem shadows And it's like a it's like an Among Us clone. It's like a like a Imposter game, huh? Yeah, I don't know. I've never actually tried it Yeah, I downloaded it because I was like fire emblem, but like I don't have to play It's probably their thought process to is there like it doesn't matter the genre of fire emblem Right, but it's like I don't have friends to play this fire emblem imposter game. So That's that's fit. That's super fascinating for those who don't know the actual fire emblem nothing like those Styles that you just mentioned is very much a kind of a turn-based tactics game, you know strategy Whatever you want to call that it does differ from a lot of other games I would think up to this point at the time, you know in the West we had XCOM way back in the day Do you remember playing on your mom's computer the old-ass? XCOM I do you and I would do that like when I was there on Christmas vacation and we it was horrible I mean we're terrible. I don't think we could be the first level No, it was so I mean it might even be a decent game, but I didn't know how to play it Yeah, sorry. I don't mean the game was horrible. I mean our experience was or where we were Yeah, but this this game I think sets itself apart from that or something like advanced Wars because it emphasizes like kind of permanent characters in your roster and when they die they're gone and they're all wrapped up in the story and They all have personalities and it's a really cool pivot away From something like XCOM or advanced wars Which I think was really the only types of strategy games like that that people were used to in the West You know, maybe we had you could say with something like Starcraft you had a little bit of story in there There's some characters but for the most part most of your units are disposable in this game None of them are and then that really lends itself to like a really interesting play style Why don't we get into some of the development history of this? We kind of talked about them more or less like cultural context of it and other things at the time But give me a little bit of information About the big players involved the names and and really how this comes together Yeah, so by this point in Fire Emblem's legacy Shouzu Kaga had actually left the company I think he worked up until like the fourth game and then he left and this one was led by Toru Narihiro and Takahiro Izushi, I believe is how they would be pronounced and it was supervised by Nintendo's Hitoshi Yamagami so So again, right Nintendo is like funding intelligence system say here make our game So I thought that was interesting that like Nintendo's basically supervising this process. They're like so it's not internal studio of theirs, but it's one that they were basically like we're keeping a close eye on It's kind of like what they do with Game Freak honestly, like it feels like what they basically do with Game Freak I know Game Freak has a couple other projects that are outside of Nintendo, but it feels very similar the game was directed by Taiko Kanata and Kintaro Nishimura and it was designed as a prequel and a kind of a companion game to Fire Emblem 6 the binding blade Which is the game that Roy is from and I find this interesting because they never bothered even in all these years They've never bothered to localize binding blade Like yeah, the one that has the characters from Smash Bros that we all first found out about this universe from it's so it's so odd like I get Initially like okay, we're gonna bring the next one over and it's a prequel so like we'll have a tie-in to Roy there and it's like people can kind of see that connection, but I always found it really weird Is that like they they never they've never bothered to bring binding blade over at this point That is strange The the gameplay initially was like almost one-to-one with binding blade, but they they added a couple small Inclusions as they went along development they added in a player avatar tactician So like obviously we talked about this is a tactics game You're making decisions you're kind of leading an army and you do this by putting yourself into the game you name a character That's the tactician. He's helping you make these choices But like he is you which I thought was kind of an interesting thing the first time I played it I was like that's an interesting way to include you in the story and have like a player avatar without Without like having to worry about your name and like making you a central part of the story You're just kind of like there and it is a little weird because the characters will look at the screen when they talk to the Named character and I got used to it and I actually ended up liking it by by the end But in the beginning it really felt kind of fourth wall breaking and especially if you name it like your real name It's just like hey, I don't what do you think? I'm just watching Right, like I don't think anything I'm just but you do though but that and I thought that was the interesting part is like you do because instead of like Putting you into the story and then like you're experiencing somebody else's story But you've named it like you are the person making these calls like you are the tactician So I thought that was kind of an interesting way to do it Do that that they also add in Lynn's story, which is a full like tutorial campaign That was never intended ten chapters I mean, it's it's a decent chunk of the game that was never intended to be in the game like upon initial development and they they realized what was happening is like new players were getting interested because of melee and they were struggling with the series because it was known for its difficulty at the time and People were really struggling with it So they they added in this mode that kind of really walked you through all the steps To kind of get you used to it and this was totally optional in Japan You you had to like I think you had to own binding blade and there was like a way to like link cable To like prove that you own binding blade. Whoa Yeah, yeah, it was weird. Like it was optional but like you had to do some steps for it to be optional in the West there was no sort of option because you couldn't prove your Own binding blade because it wasn't here. You still can't Right you you cannot prove your own binding blade That's super fascinating and I and I and I can definitely understand that because I'm sure they did Well, I say I'm sure I don't know I wonder if they actually did any type of real marketing test or surveys to find out that Oh Western players will struggle with this or if they just sort of assumed Oh those Americans if there's not explosions, they won't fucking get it I mean Nintendo has a history of assuming that Western gamers are stupid So I wouldn't be not undeservedly sometimes Well, like like Mario 2 is literally just like another game like reskinned to be Mario 2 Like that because Mario 2 in Japan was Mario the Lost Levels and they were like this Mario is way too hard Like we have a poison mushroom that kills you. We can't do that to the stupid Westerners. They can't tell their blue from their red Yeah, it's it's it's really interesting how that kind of turned out and you know I don't know if I don't know how you felt about the tutorial as someone who kind of Has played this series a lot at this point. I thought it was a good tutorial but like by chapter 2 I was like, oh my god, like I know It does kind of seem like something that they wrote the story for first and then try to like break gameplay across those ten chapters Because there's a couple where I feel like there's just no justification for introducing me to things like movement this slowly or or whatever Right. So sometimes it does feel a little slow paced but I think because The characters in the story are kind of interesting and they're engaging and you get a new one each mission It does come together pretty well I mean, I definitely was glad I was able to skip it when I started Hector mode But I really enjoyed going through it the first time and I think it does work pretty well That's good. That's good. Because I know like as I was going through it. I was like man I can see this being pretty glacial but But that's as somebody who's played this game alone probably six times Like I've played through this game a dozen times and I've played every other Fire Emblem So it's like I know how this goes It works, but I remember it being useful when I first played it. So One of the things I really want to talk about because it's just a really a fantastic aspect of this game And I think it's it's such a reason why it's still regarded So well, it's kind of the all of the artsy parts of it, right? So the the sprite art style the music the sound effects. They're so good, dude I think this style to me is peak. It is peak video game art I don't care what happens the next 50 years nothing will ever look as good as that kind of SMS era or SNES era influence style of sprites I love for this shit so much and man saw me and my wife have been watching these these YouTube videos that are just like Guess the n64 game guess the ps1 game those games of all aged horribly and and not even just graphically a lot of the times a lot of times you look at the gameplay and it was this really awkward time in between like So we it's like in on the Super Nintendo and Genesis era They were really aware of the limitations of the console and then by the time we get to the ps2 and that kind of thing We've really gotten the processing Power to be able to do really cool things and in between was just some really weird-ass games Especially anything that involved shooting had the worst controls ever because we had not standardized the two-stick thing So I'm watching like Mega Man legends and this dude is just like rotating 90 degrees to shoot straight in front of them Oh, it's just awful But but really the part that stood out to me and I was thinking the whole time watching these videos is like holy fuck fire Emblem looks so good compared to these games dude and in granted Fire Emblem's what 2003 but but it's kind of carrying forward An art style that existed in the 90s and I still think is just gorgeous and man this game does it as well as anything Yeah, the the character designs are primarily credit to Sachiko Wada and I think they are awesome like like you were saying kind of in the beginning like They are clearly like Japanese anime influenced and inspired But it never goes like so far where it's like huge boobs crazy or like like just unrealistic character proportions like they all feel like they could be real people in like a medieval era and They they just have like colorful hair like that That's it You know and and so many of them are just really memorable like you see the character for the first time and you're like That's cool characters on I'm gonna remember that person Yeah, I there are so many characters in this game But I feel like just by looking at their sprites I could probably name all of the recruitable characters at least the ones I got You know, I think I think I missed a couple right? Yeah, they're very memorable Which is crazy because there's a lot of Recruitable characters in this game FF6 is cast was large. This is like three times that I was crazy Yeah, but but they're all just so memorable and they all like kind of lean into that that like Realism because they all have like armor and they you know They all look like they you would expect them to look of that era and it's obviously like a fantasy land But it's very like medieval inspired. Yeah, and it's not just the art, right? Those those sound effects and those animations are so fluid, you know so obviously from The tactical battle map it's like these tiny little sprites which still look pretty good pretty detailed But then when you go to attack, you know It brings up this little battle scene of these two characters just attacking each other a couple times back and forth The animations are so smooth. They're so good and the critical hits especially I Hoping by the time this episode comes out I have put up a short That's a compilation of some of the critical hits and you guys should definitely go look at that because they're just so cool I mean they look so good. They're awesome and the sound effect when the critical hit hits is just so good it's it just makes you feel alive you're like yes i just murdered that dude there's a lot of games that don't find a way to blend their animation and their sound together so well it's like yeah they'll be good enough they don't necessarily stand out from each other too much but this it's like they are a lockstep every second of the way of it and i i absolutely loved it the the soundtrack itself is really good like the the main the main fire emblem screen the the battle themes like every time you're you're fighting somebody it's really memorable pieces of music and that the composer yuka sujiyoko this is her her last fire emblem game that she composed was this one but she ran out with a bang because it's a really good soundtrack like i can't i can't like remember the battle music exactly now because it's been a few days since i've played it but i can remember i was i was sitting on the couch playing it and then i would just like pause it to like watch something with my wife and then i'm suddenly just like oh on the couch and she's like what are you humming and i'm like i'm not oh my god it's the fire emblem battle music that that's what i'm hoping it's the fire of a battle theme that's what i have to it's it just gets stuck in your head and and it's just yeah as soon as i turned the game back on it's been a while since i've played it but as soon as i turned it back on there's just like this this flood of nostalgia of like man this music is so good this art is so good like everything just it felt warm it's it's like it's it's a comfortable design aesthetic you know yeah and you know i'm always ranting about how like that era of video game music is the best it's the catchiest it's the most memorable i don't need your orchestras yada yada yada which obviously it's a bit of a meme i mean you know we loved uh clair obscure that kind of you know the skyrim music halo there's great there's great orchestral soundtracks but this to me just highlights why i love that style and that i think it's so timeless and i don't think it does not matter when you play this everything about this game ages so well uh and the thing is it's not just all of the artsy stuff we've been talking about it's not just all of the artsy stuff we've been talking about that ages so well i was so shocked to find out that like a battle system that's 25 years old 20 years old was really really engaging for me um and before we get too deep into some of that i do want to talk about what a little more you know we mentioned earlier what does make this game different from those other games like why why do as much as i loved advanced wars why did this hit different than something like that and uh i think like we said it all starts with the characters because not only are they so well designed visually but the dialogue in this game is like pretty solid most of the time i would say the it someone's got this like shakespearean bent to it at time because trying to like be you know medieval and from a past time but it still is very approachable it's very readable and i don't you know who knows how well the localization job was done i don't know yeah i don't know japanese right so maybe it ends up being very different but it works it lands and these characters their backstories their interactions with them uh just everything about these characters their classes their unique uh animations just i could not i could go on all day about how well they do the characters and it's and it's such a large part of why this game lands and why it hits yeah i think that really is because like you were saying earlier like no other game at this time was doing the they call this a strategy rpg right because you are building a party you're building a group of companions you're building an army but it's an army out of like real people that you're meeting and talking to and and you you the game gives you a mechanic you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you support conversations where like you can actually as you're playing through the game build up your relationships with individual units and they'll like talk to each other and explore their past or talk about how they're feeling about you know things around them and like talk about just different elements of the world and it adds so much flavor and and you know depth to these characters that could have just been very one-dimensional like you meet them one time and that's it but it gives you that extra layer and the real thing about fire emblem that like i think people most know it for is it's permadeath mechanic which is you know it's it's become its iconic thing of when you lose a unit in battle that unit is now gone forever they don't they either die or they make like a a retreat because they've been gravely wounded like and you know you have a couple characters that can't die if they die the mission's over um yes yes but it's really surprising that even this exists at all because you know we're talking about x-com yeah you're your characters are permanently dead in that too but they're kind of just what you know one size fits all characters right they don't have a whole lot of personality and backstory to them these are like fully they're easily replaced like at x-com you just you get another one right like exactly here the that person that that you know not human but like that human is gone like that that is such a different and you can't just replace them like yeah you may get another unit of that class but you may not like you may have already passed that unit of that class but the other units of that class or whatever it might be like you might never be able to get that particular type of unit ever again and now they're gone and like that's that's a crazy thing to have to deal with and and they do a pretty decent job of continuing to give you more characters at a rate that's like if you are really having them drop like flies you can still be fine to a point i mean there does go a point in the game where it's like you probably do need to start playing pretty smart if you want to finish because you can't just be having two characters die every single mission but they do come at a pretty decent rate and i think that's a really good pretty steady pace and they're usually pretty interesting and yeah some definitely have much more interesting stories than others and some are more involved in the main plot and others and some have better dialogue than others but i wouldn't call any of them poorly done i didn't think a single one where i was just like this person sucks and they're not going to join my party you know what i mean which most most party-based rfgs has at least one of those people where i'm like this guy sucks and he is not coming along for the ride right i never want to see your face this game's got 40 of them and they're all good enough and i i really appreciated that yeah i think that the i love that you can recruit the enemy characters like that's one of the coolest things about fire emblem to me is like there are certain enemy units that you can talk to with a certain person and they will join your side you can convince them to like come to the other side and it's like there's always a reason or like a story kind of context that you can and they're usually pretty good at like foreshadowing what that is like oh my past i met this guy named matthew and then you have a character named matthew and then you have a character named matthew in your party and it's like well hmm yeah it rewards you for paying attention to what they're saying for sure exactly uh but you were talking about like you have to be careful i when i was a stupid kid and like you know you know playing this at eight or nine or whatever i soft-watched myself midway through the game because i had lost so many units that like i couldn't i could not finish the level like no matter what i tried to do i couldn't do it i every different strategy i could think of and i just kept getting crushed because i didn't have enough units to do so so like i had to restart because i just i sucked at the game but like you have to be careful you know yeah and and you know that's really something that makes it stand out from you know this this company's like partner series advance wars is like in advance wars if you beat that level you're good you're on to the next one with a fresh start that's how it works in this one you can have a pyrrhic victory like you you can win but still feel like damn i don't know if i really won because i i just i don't know if i really won lost one of my favorite characters or one of my most powerful or whatever it is and it really does place this emphasis on kind of like the long term all the consequences of your actions today can matter 10 chapters down the road when suddenly you're like damn if i still had that pegasus night this mission here would be way easier because the floor is covered in lava or whatever the hell and i don't have them anymore because they died and and there's just something really cool about that to me it can it can sometimes mess with you because you're like oh god no i have to start over like i can't i can't do this i have to start over i can't do this i can't do this i can't do this i can't start this level over because i don't want to lose this person and but but i think that's just part of the fun of it part of the tension is you really have to make those decisions of like am i gonna play that 45 mission over minute mission over again because i lost my archer or am i just gonna deal with it going forward and i really enjoyed having to kind of weigh those decisions as i went through the game i think that's the struggle of literally every firebloom fan like do i restart this mission or do i just take this loss i'm like you know most people call it like an iron man run right like you know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know you're not gonna restart you're just gonna take every death and like i tried to do that in this run and like by mission like three i was like never mind i can't do it well i didn't lose anybody that early but like sometimes you just come like i was doing pretty good on my second playthrough with hector and then i got to a mission where like in two turns four people died and i was like okay there's no way i can get away with this like and it was all my fault right i put i put people in really stupid positions i didn't use a torch because i was like i don't need storches and um i ended up getting like four of my best characters killed and think maybe the fourth one was lynn so i had to start over anyway and i was like you know what fine that's probably good um right yeah but i i love that aspect of it and i would say uh the last the last thing that really really sets it apart to me is you have your weapon triangle so what this is is like swords beat axes axes beat lances lances beat swords you also have a magic version which is basically like dark versus anima which is kind of like elemental versus light versus dark so these things are kind of like a rock paper scissors but i think it's kind of like a little bit more of a what's unique about that to me because tons of games have like units that are better against one or the other but you have so many character classes that can equip more than one of these and you change them in battle and that just adds such a strategic element to every single encounter and when you promote your units to like their advanced classes sometimes they'll get access to another type of weapon that just totally changes their play style you know you also have bows right so you have like long range stuff and some characters will get like a sword and a bow some classes will get axe and uh you know lances some characters like paladins will break the game because they can use all of it and um i just i really like that part of it man because it it felt so much better than just your typical yes x is good against y which is good against z which you really have instead is like x is good against y which is good against z but i'm not fucked in this situation because i can just equip my sword and maybe this character doesn't have as high weapon skill with sword because i don't use swords as often maybe i have an iron sword instead of a silver sword so it's not as powerful but it's still way better than a sword so i think it's a really good way to better than using the wrong weapon type especially early in the game when you don't have a huge hit score and and um you know because mostly what the weapon triangle does is it gives you like a one point damage bonus and then like a 15 chance to hit that might be all it does but that's actually really significant in the early part of the game it can be the difference between dying and not and and i think another thing that they they do really well with this is like periodically introducing little elements that'll mix it up like you'll have a sword that's actually good against lances oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's like you have to be careful because you you see a unit and that unit might look like they have a sword but when you actually examine the unit and see what weapons they have on them they have the lance reaver which is the sword that will then crush your land so it's like i was screwed a couple times bringing out characters that like i was like oh easy like i'll crush this guy and i bring it out and then i find out they have the they actually have a weapon that's better against the thing i have i'm like oh no oh no and then i would have the kind of reverse problem where i'm going to hit that guy with lance reaver and it's a sword so i'm thinking to myself i'm gonna go hit that guy with the axe but the reverse applies since it's a sword that's good against lances now it is now bad against axes so you have to balance that and and of course there's the weapon durability right god you'd think after tears of the kingdom i would never love in any capacity what so fucking ever a durability system but with this game because of the way you have to switch them and because there's such a management of resources aspect to the long term of this game it is so crucial that you manage these special weapons well and it's so crucial that you manage your rare weapons well and that you don't just spam them constantly because they will really come in handy at a certain point and they don't drop like flies there's little shops and levels so you can restock with a lot of the basic equipment but you have to manage your resources and i just all of these elements come together into an experience that i just found is really not super like a lot of other tactical games i've played it really has carved out its unique niche yeah 100 and i think what's like that that inventory management is so crucial to me of especially these early fire emblem games because some of the later games actually get rid of weapon durability which is a very controversial decision amongst fire emblem fans and it works in some ways and doesn't work in other ways but at least in these early games like paying attention to what you have in stock what you have in your like convoy that you're carrying all your additional weapons like knowing what you have resource wise is so important and you know like you're not going to be able to have all your you have heal staffs or you have healers who can heal you but those also have a durability so if you're not constantly stocking up on your heal staffs or like making sure you're using them smartly you could run out of heals in the middle of a in the middle of a map and then like now you have no healer and like that's that's bad in certain scenarios you get you know get a little bit of an aside here you get this character named merlinus who's really a merchant he's not one of your kind of army playable characters and he he's nice because he kind of allows you to organize your and if your character gets an item in the mission while with a full inventory you can just send it back to the merchant and that's kind of like your storage right but what's interesting to me is this character appears in a side mission and side missions in this game are totally optional now the one he appears in is the first one and it's really easy to meet the requirements for it it's actually almost like if you're not actively trying to not meet them you probably will meet that requirement but you can very much just not get the guy that gives you a core mechanic to manage your inventory and your weapons is that you think that's intentional like it's like hey if you want to play a hard version of this game skip merlinus that that would be interesting if that was a i i it's so interesting i never really thought about it super hard because like i've always just gotten him yeah because it's like you said it's it's it's so hard to miss him that it's like but yeah like there is a scenario where you can go through this entire game without ever being able to like have a backstock of weapons and that just sounds insane to me i can't imagine playing it without him i really can't and like some of the later fire emblem games will do like path of radiance which i've also been playing lately because now i'm like full-on fire emblem mode and uh path of radiance will actually separate your weapons and your like bonus items so like your vulnerabilities your um like that like like if you get like a a red gem or whatever right like those things will go into like a bottom a bottom assortment of like four items and then you have like your weapons that you can carry so you have eight total slots so like it it gives you a little more flexibility with stuff like that but in this game it's like you have five slots and that's it there were times where i thought to myself do i bother taking a torch or a voluntary which is like a potion because i kind of want a weapon there especially on my paladins i i got a lot of weapons i can use i need i need all the space i can give and uh but i love that kind of stuff because anytime a game forces me to think about a choice in the consequences of it i feel like you're you're making your game well you're designing it well i love that part of video games right make me think about the consequences of the actions i'm taking and this game has a lot of them but there's a lot of decision points throughout the game as you're going through it where you have to kind of make these choices and and they can be hard choices and that's that's what makes it so interesting so i think what i want to do here is i want to go through what i've called phases i've just tried to sort of group large sections of the game together kind of both in like a mechanical and story sense so i'm going to start with the one we talked about earlier lynn's story and this is really like your mechanical onboarding and your emotional setup right because you have as we mentioned it's it's getting you used to the mechanics of the game but it's also establishing that this like green-haired girl in the middle of the plains that found unconscious uh domji or mark or isn't that like his default name is like mark or something yeah mark's the camera man so you're you're the tactician and for some reason you're passed out in a field i don't know if the game ever reveals how that happens it's not that important nope nope you're just passed out in a field yeah exactly and then you're like oh my god i'm gonna have to do this again and then you're and she nurses you back to health and but over the course of that 10 chapters you you sort of find out that she's not just some orphan she's actually the descendant of a person who's like a no nobility right he runs one of the kingdoms in in the world is that right yeah it's so like the world's split into five different territories or six different territories there's like burn lisia etcheria um the sassay or sake however you pronounce it uh none of these things ever pronounced so i've been pronouncing it one way my entire life there's no voice acting so who knows right i have no idea of any of the way i pronounce anything in this game is right um but there's like five different kingdoms or and then within the kingdom of lisia there's like a bunch of different houses and she's the granddaughter of the ruler of the house of kaylin in okay so it's like it's like a you know like a state i guess in the country of america is it kind of like um you know there's like in game of thrones there's like house stark or whatever yeah yes kind of like that yeah that's the vibe i get for sure george george rr martin really was inspired by uh oh of course yeah but fire even though i think i think the first game of thrones came out like 95 but no it's okay he actually played the original fire emblem and was like i this is that's true and and this one's interesting because the game does ultimately you know we're talking about all these different regions it does develop a sort of political feel to it there's a lot of political machinations going on between the different factions and the different kingdoms but the first 10 chapters are really more personal than that it's really all about her and her discovering her identity and obviously that leads into political things because she is attached to this this kingdom but it does start off mostly just being her and you slowly recruiting uh a few allies at a time as you're getting used to the mechanics and uh you know the first couple guys you get are these two horsemen named sane and kent and they are your your cavaliers which can be used to be a little bit of a challenge for you to get to the lances and swords they are the ones that eventually evolve into the paladins evolve like it's pokemon but promote promote whatever promote into the paladins so they get the whole weapon tree they're some of my favorite but they're i remember you telling me that you really liked sane because he is kind of this so we were playing okami and you have that little cricket and he's just a fucking pervert like there's no other way to describe it he's just a pervert sane is like the elegant version of that he's right he's very interested in the ladies but he's in this way that's just like oh yes uh milady let me let me hold the door for you that kind of thing he's like very he's like persistent but respectful and he doesn't come across as like a like a weirdo um and he is kind of the almost like squire to kent so kent is always trying to like kind of keep him in line and it's a it's a really cool group of characters for that beginning you also get to meet florina who is a pegasus knight which like when you're playing a medieval type game if you don't know that exists yet i think florina's character really caught me off guard i was like oh shit that's awesome like you get horses but they fly but they fly and you know since the terrain in this game matters mountains forests all these other things that can influence whether you can literally like can you travel through it on the map but also if you're in a forest or a mountain you'll get you know better defensive abilities it's really cool to have characters that just kind of ignore those mechanics and this game does a great job throwing niche characters at you right you get a guy called nils in the first in chapters two who his whole thing is he can't attack but he just makes someone go again and in a turn-based game in which everyone is like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm one move and then you know the whole round ends a character going again can be extremely powerful in the right circumstance and uh yeah i i love the cast of characters in the first 10 story or first 10 missions is there a particular one of these that is like your favorite uh you know i i think lynn is really like i i think of the lords in this game i really like lynn which is the green-haired girl i don't know if i said yes sorry i don't think we actually said her name yeah lynn is the green-haired girl lynn is the main character of this entire story i said lynn's story beginning they can be together um but i actually really like lynn i think she there's just something about her that's very like innocent but righteous and like she she wants to do good but she has she has like a really strong moral code that stems from her life in the plains of of sasa or sake having pronounced this word um and like i love how they they emphasize a lot like the the the nomads of of these they never lie they're like they're very honest they're very honest people and that like recurs throughout the throughout the game and when people meet her they're like drawn to her and and her her honesty and her genuineness and i've always really liked lynn i think her character design is awesome yeah like it's it's it's like boring right like she's the main character whatever but like i she just really like something about her really stands out to me but but you're right they're all so good and i think like florina is a character i use every single run because she's just so good she flies all over the map just stabbing people from her winged horse it's so cool um i just i yeah i love i love love love all of these characters in this game and again this was my introduction to fireball and this was my introduction to the style of game so like i have a i have a more personal connection with a lot of these characters because i'm just i'm most familiar with them but man that they really do a great job of introducing like a lot of different types of characters and different types of characters and different types of characters and different types of personalities in these early parts there's a lot of just adorable gifts in the discord gif library of land that i've been spamming you with and i think i assume some are from some like maybe heroes or some mobile game or something because they look like they're actually from a game but then others just look like some goofy some goofy animations that someone made that are just really right like so like somebody like fan art them yeah but there's there's a great cast of characters in this introduction uh as we said with like all the dialogue and personality but also just mechanically they give you a great variety so you have your two horsemen you have horse lady you have will who's your first archer and that's that's you know always a big part in these kind of tactics games because it's like oh someone that can hit from one square away and not take damage is just like a game changer then you have dorkus who is it's just like i can't even say that name sometimes because it sounds like it's so silly it's so silly it's like one of the shitty high school movie from the 80s where someone's like get out of my way dorkus and like shoves him in a locker like that's that's what i think of but he's so good he's got a big axe and that's the first time you get access to someone who has he has an axe and he's got a big axe and he's got close range but then he has the hand axe which you can use to throw from a square away so it's like okay this guy can do both but if you're left um with a certain thing equipped you won't be able to respond right so it's like if you have your iron axe equipped and someone shoots you with the bow you'll just get hit but if you have your hand axe equipped and someone shoots you with the bow you can counter-attack so there's a whole element to like which one do you attack with because that's going to be the one you're defending with during the enemy's turn and that and so upon getting dorkus you're just like oh my god there's there's a whole new element to to the combat i didn't even consider up to this point and what's so great about that particular chapter where he's introduced is there are like a series of walls so you're surrounded by walls and it's like okay i can now hide behind a wall and throw my axe like through the wall yeah like which like is a little a little goofy but mechanically works very well mechanically it's like okay now i have a defensible position and like okay now there's a crack in that wall but if i put a unit in front of dorkus to to block the wall then dorkus can just throw axes from behind that unit so it's like it introduces this whole new layer of like how do i place these units in the map where do i put them to get the most optimal use out of them one of the next characters you get is sarah she is your first healer this is also a really interesting thing because she does not attack until she promotes we'll get to that later god i love this so sarah's your healer and it's the same deal you have a healing staff it has durability you can only use it you know so many times you have to get another one and that's how she gets exp is by healing people so naturally really early on i'm like you know what every time someone is damaged one hp or they're missing one hp because they just leveled up i'm healing that shit because i'm trying to get her some experience points right uh you get irk who is a magician which suddenly you realize not only is there a whole separate magic triangle but the interaction between magic and physical characters is really interesting because some characters will have really high defense so i hit him with a physical weapon and does like one damage but then you get little irk over there and that guy's only got one resistance so he does you know tons of damage to him that's a great introduction to that and you end up with lucius who's uh uses the holy magic so irk uses you know anima magic you get wrath in one of the first 10 chapters who is a horseback archer now you're like okay now now you're really throwing crazy things at me you got a guy who can move really far and he attacks from a range and then of course you end up with wallace who is just this giant hunking thing of steel what is the character called uh general or night yes the evolved i'm gonna say it i'm just gonna say it i'm just like evolved the entire time there's no stopping it's understandable i get it uh i've been listening to our pokemon episode too much i think half those downloads are me but that's that's fine uh so wallace is cool because he's you can really the way he's kind of using that mission that you get on well first i think they showed you how to promote in that last mission so you were him they show you how to promote and then you can just lock down a position you were talking about with with uh dorcas and that other mission yeah wallace is the perfect unit for that kind of thing right then the knights and the generals because they can just hold ground like nobody else can except when a mage comes along right it's like that's the you know because they're they're the ones with the weakest resistance i think and probably in the entire game and like if you put them out there and two mages show up like suddenly you're in trouble yeah so it's again it's a lot of that like thinking through and thinking about what's the most optimal path forward and i think the the tutorial does such a good job of introducing you to so many different concepts like all the things we just talked about are all done in the tutorial so you learn all of these things as you're going through the tutorial and and that's it's a long tutorial right i mean it's it's 10 chapters it's significant but it teaches you so many things and it it's so self-contained that it's like okay i've learned all this stuff and now i can take all that into the main game and it's it really is very self-contained because there's even like kind of like a credit screen almost right and it kind of tells you the fates of some of the characters yeah it kind of mimics i thought that was really interesting because it kind of mimics what the actual end credits will be and i didn't remember it did that but it it's the same idea where like it tells you what each character does after the story what they go and so like in lynn's story even if someone dies they they don't actually die right like we've talked about perva death they they will come back later in the main story so like they don't die here in lynn's story they just they go away and their stats reset so like if you know you will carry their stats over into the main into the main game if you will but their stats will reset if they die and that's a huge loss if you're trying to build something like that so i think so like there's still a punishment there but because it's a tutorial they're like giving you a little bit of leeway and i think it's like the perfect middle ground for it and you know the whole party gets reset at the end of the campaign anyway right as you hit mission 11 and get into is it ella wood eli wood how would you say that i think it's ella wood is what i've always said okay so once you get into ella wood's campaign it was sort of the main campaign all those characters are lost but they do eventually come back over time and it's and i think it works so well because you really develop a bond for this crew you meet them all the tutorial ends the game resets it's like a year fast forward and in terms of the game years and then you will slowly get them back over the next few missions uh except for a couple he get way later but and it but it's really cool because you're like oh hey like those guys i remember them i really like i know you i've been missing my cleric i've been missing this and that so that that was such a cool feeling to get them back in the main thing but i just thought this tutorial was great like yeah maybe it's a little slow for sure especially if you're kind of a experienced strategy game player you don't necessarily need them to hold your hand quite as they do but because of the way they're introducing the characters and because of the way they're introducing the story and they're setting everything up i just think it works really well and i and i'm really glad that i did not have the option to skip it because knowing me i might have decided to and i and i would have i would have not realized how much i would have regretted doing so so i'm glad i didn't i i would have forced you to play it don't worry don't you dare skip the tutorial because it is a significant story but but it it does lead into the the next chunk of the game which gives you ella wood and starts to introduce you to some new characters and a lot more of the kind of political machinations that are going on so so we fast forward a year and we're introduced to ella wood who is of the town or the kingdom of ferre i believe is how i've pronounced it yeah and you actually meet ella wood in lynn's story for like a brief moment yeah the little ella wood saves the the character nils we were talking about him and his sister like on the run from this like assassin group in lynn's story and ella wood actually appears there and i you know right as the guy who's played this game a bunch i'm like oh boy i know that guy meanwhile you're probably like yeah that's a guy he looks like roy from right so i was like he's probably important he's probably important but but you actually get to take on his story now and he is going out to meet him or to find his father missing when you start his story right his father this is a year removed from lynn's story and his father lord elbert has gone missing and ella wood's like i'm gonna go out and we're gonna figure out why and along that path you meet hector who is ella wood's friend from a different kingdom in lycia uh ostia ostia and that's kind of like the biggest kingdom in this area right it's like that's like the the primary kingdom and he's like oh my god i'm gonna go out and i'm gonna go out and when people talk about this land right so you meet hector and you kind of form up together to go figure out what's going on here and it's really interesting because eli so ella wood i'm gonna call him eli for now on hector and lynn end up being your lords and that means that one they kind of have their own unique class but two they cannot die well they can die but they then you have to start the mission over is what i mean right you have to protect them they will they they will end the game if they die and uh sometimes especially like the first few missions when i was using lynn i think just kind of incorrectly playing a little too aggressive i was like these lords suck that is not the case the lords were good you just have to kind of figure out how they work um but at the beginning i was like why would you ever use any of these freaking people that walk on two feet when you can have these four-footed beasts that roam the map um but yeah i really enjoyed the beginning of the ella wood campaign because it slowly starts to introduce characters again you know you get doricus back and you get sarah back and you get all these guys but you also get some new ones including lowen another horseman let's go uh so now i could finally start my four horsemen of the apocalypse strategy between him marcus kane and scent right or kent insane if i say kent insane you're close you're close but then you you get uh you get a little bit of redundancy too right you get will back but you also get rebecca another archer he's going to die maybe one of them already has um you get bartru i don't know he's i like to say it really french because i just think it's funny i don't know but he's like he's like the least french guy from the entire game yeah he's just like like a redneck or something i don't know um he's awful he's awful he's truly the like like his story's okay he has really good hp growth and i think everything else sucks like i i never use that guy ever like any run of this game i've done i've never used him i was trying to in hector mode but in one mission he dies and i was like i just don't think i want to replay this one so i guess he's gone but you know what was weird he died early in my first campaign too but he doesn't die like at one point i think there's a scene where he would be talking to lynn with dorkus and dorkus says something along the lines of like oh yeah bartra had like a barker still recovering and then just decided to stay home or something it was weird i'm gonna try to find that for you because i was very confused by that there are okay they're just considered gravely wounded i think in his particular case i think he's in binding blade like i think he's actually in six so he couldn't die die because canon wise he's still that makes sense that makes sense so then there's a couple characters like that like i think wrath is maybe in um binding blade as well and there's a handful of characters that make the jump to binding blade that would so like they they won't actually die die a couple more you get a oswin who's basically just like but he's like uh i think he's like kind of hector's personal bodyguard essentially yeah like yeah like like a i think he's just like a royal guard but he's he's kind of assigned himself as hector's personal bodyguard and because hector's a bit of a bit of a rogue as far as the lords go of the land he just kind of does what he wants yeah i think his brother complains about his impulsiveness like instantly when you first say oh god this guy speaking of guy you get a character named guy he is your your your first sword uh swords master swordsman i forget what they're called uh he's a a myrmidon or myrmidon myrmidon however you pronounce that word um it as his base form he becomes a sword master in his promotion that's right he poke evolves into a swords master yeah yes yeah you got it you got it he's a fun one because he's he's kind of like lynn in that he has a lot of lighter stats high speed higher evasion but only can use swords but he gets this weapon called the killing edge which is a rarer sword in the game there's a few sprinkled about it but it's a sword but they have really high crit rate and really high hit rate so he's very fragile but he will just end someone's day and he almost always attacks twice so that's that's a cool character to get you get priscilla who is my favorite a character you already get on a horse so it's your your horse healer it's perfect um and then you get raven who is what they call a hero i believe and uh he starts out heroes the the poke evolve a mercenary to hero mercenaries the mercenaries the base class yeah so they they use swords i think the hero critical animation is the single coolest one in the whole game they like he throws his shield up and then he jumps up and grabs it and like slams him with the shield doesn't even use his sword it's so silly but it's so awesome um so that's a great character you get lucius back you get florina and will and all these guys uh you know you don't get wrath back you don't get wallace back immediately but almost everyone from the tutorial comes back within the first five chapters of ella wood's campaign right so it really does feel like this like there's enough time for you to miss them because it's like where are those guys like i got dorkus back because i think dorkus comes back like really quick he's like in the second mission maybe um but then like lynn is by like the fifth mission of ella wood's campaign so it's like it takes a little while to trickle everybody in but another thing that i think is really cool about this is like the mission that you get irk you already have sarah and you know that sarah irk have a connection from lynn's story yep so like you see irk in the build-up to that mission and you're like okay i know who this is i need to bring sarah into this and like there's a fortune teller lady that you can talk to in the menus and she'll like tell you who to bring and all these missions which is like fine but i love that the game also very naturally is like you know who this is you know she has you know irk has a connection with this person that you already have in your and it's like that's awesome yeah and then when you recruit irk he uh he's like talking to someone in the village and he says something about how he knows that he had a contact down in the city of the south of the south of the map or whatever the village and you end up seeing her talk to someone and you're like okay i need to get someone down there to go recruit her so the game is good at kind of hinting at who who you need to go recruit who or if you can just get anyone to go recruit that person and i really appreciated that the fortune teller is there is that is that kind of like the lynn mode or is that kind of like the lynn mode or is that kind of like the that was like a western thing i i kind of wondered that i i yeah it's something i don't really know because like every every game going forward has something kind of similar it's not it's not always as like overt as like here's a fortune teller who will tell you what to do um but a lot of the games have some sort of like hint system to kind of help you prepare for the for the battle um but it definitely does feel like a western edition where it was like hey yeah so this this section you know ella wood sets out to find his father he joins up with hector who's of course like yeah bro i'm gonna help you find your dad and uh the politics of lycia really start to come into focus we we kind of see that there's like every mission there's this like mysterious guy in a purple cloak who's very clearly manipulating some of these lords and these nobles and you you know they're trying to like start some sort of uh rebellion or mutiny and these things are getting covered up so you're really starting to get some of that political stuff but there's also starts to be a little bit of a hint like well okay who is this guy in the purple cloak there's very clearly some of the things that they're trying to do and they're something going on here more than just your typical mutiny your typical group of like belligerents and bandits there's something else going on here and i think the game does a good job just like slowly building into that and this whole phase these first five missions i think work really well because they really force you to sort of understand what you learned in the previous 10 and your choices and and like who you decide to invest your your experience into because i think it becomes obvious early on then it's like well okay you only get experience points for these which i always found kind of funny it's like kind of insignificant but at the same time i had a strange number of times that a character had 99 experience points so getting hit once and leveling up and then if they got hit again once like hey my character just gained a point of defense they just gained an hp they just gained a resistance so now they're like slightly more powerful for the next attack so sometimes that would line up well and it's fun but for the most part you're doing actions to get experience that becomes obvious early on and so in these first five missions you you start to get to the point where you have more characters and you have more and you can take in every single time so it's like okay who do i want to take in do i care if this character falls behind or do i want to bring them in and make sure they keep up with everyone else and so immediately in the main campaign this game is allowing you to make those choices and that's really important later on because those those decisions really have impact later and i think this game does just such a fantastic job of immediately throwing into you into like meaningful decision making with your party construction the the point like at this point in the game is is when you're really starting to form what your what your long-term party will be like obviously you don't have to stick with anybody or anything but like you said experience is hard to come by like it doesn't you you don't get a wealth of it in later games there are like maps that you can grind multiple times so you can get level ups for for weaker characters uh path of radiance actually has like a bonus experience thing where if you meet like certain win conditions you're given extra experience that you could then like distribute after the mission so you could use that bonus experience to maybe level up like weaker characters or whatever but in this game it's really just the characters you bring in the only that's the only thing that you that you can get experience for is those characters so you really have to start making decisions early on here to decide like who is important and that becomes especially in the next couple of chapters when like you might start losing people things get a little bit more complicated and then you get harder like the the recruitment conditions getting people it's harder to get people in some of the later chapters they become stricter it's it's you know there's a lot of risk reward involved in a lot of these decisions as you're going through these next couple of chapters and what you're calling phase three yeah so so phase three is what i took as uh 17 through 22 chapter 17 through 22 so basically this is when like the black fang emerges and you start to realize that assassins that are really the ones kind of manipulating all these bandits and of course you will find out that there's yet yet another manipulator above them but for now we're like oh yes the black fang these these are the guys making all the all the maneuvering behind the scenes and when you're talking about the experience this is when it really comes into play because you're realizing like this is yet another thing to be managed just like the durability just like the weapons this is another resource that i have to make sure i am carefully applying the way i want and then i'm not just throwing it at people who i don't actually want to use now sometimes you don't realize that you don't want to use some of these characters like marcus seems really powerful at first you're like hell yeah marcus well marcus is sort of meant to be a guy that's really strong in the early game if you need him but his growth first off is just literal percentages chances of stats leveling up upon level are a lot lower than other equivalent paladins but also he starts promoted which means he has less total levels that you can give him over time so his max capability is just inherently going to be lower than other characters this is not something that's super obvious per se at first but i do think like it's not a huge deal if you do give him stuff because he's still pretty decent right but yeah that that whole experience management really starts to come to play in this chapter because like you said this is when enemies really start to like actually become a bit of a challenge you can you can die you can lose your only this or that right you don't necessarily have a you may have a horses falling out of your pockets at this point but a lot of characters you only have one of them you're only really get like one guy right um right yeah so so some of these characters are just are just really interesting in that regard because they're rare and like you do eventually get another pegasus knight but for a long time you don't realize that so she is one of those where you're like i am not letting the unicorn lady die there's like no way right and and and the pegasi are really weak to arrows and i know like mileage may vary on how much they actually pose a threat depending on how you play yeah but if you're not smart about it you're just like i'm gonna take the pegasus and into the middle of combat and she gets lit up by arrows like you're not gonna get another pegasus back for for a while and honestly i don't know if you can get phoria without florina you might like you have to there might be a package deal yeah you might be bottlenecked and that you can't get phoria without florina so like if you let your pegasus die you may never get another one yeah and that's just one of the things that this game starts to make very apparent by phase three is like yeah these things matter don't let them die if you plan to use them and consider if they're worth keeping um we've given you two big brutish axemen so maybe one of them dying is okay but we've only given you one flying force so you better you better hold on to that yeah but this is the part where the black thing really emerges as like the primary antagonist and then there's this guy named nurgle who is and that's when you sort of also a silly name it is dude we got nurgle he is then also kind of manipulating now you don't really find out exactly what nurgle is for a long time but at this point you do realize that he is sort of like okay he's even above the black thing he's he's not necessarily manipulating them you don't realize at that point but you think he's in charge of them at the very least right they do kind of they do kind of like tease in here that um i remember a specific piece of dialogue it might be from the character leila who's an mpc who like dies around this time really kind of amping up the the stakes she's like in a relationship with matthew the thief that you get who's like running with hector and like they kind of have some some dialogue and she dies but i think there's a piece of dialogue that she says about like the black fang changed in the last year like they were almost like robin hood type figures so like they they went after like corrupt lords and and people like tormenting uh the poor and they they say like within the last year the black fangs changed they started going after anyone or like they've you know they're taking on any contract or whatever like that so like there's this hint that there's something wrong with the black fang that like the the black fang that the kingdom knows is not quite what you're seeing represented yeah so it's like it's an organization that's been around for a while but they're no longer quite as familiar to the citizens of um lycia or no that's just the kingdom right what's the whole world's name uh aleeb is the uh whole world e-l-i-b-e so the citizens of aleeb this is a different a different black fang they're not quite right like they're like wait a second i don't this isn't the black fang that i know like and you know you you mentioned leila's death uh this is really i think the point in the game where there's there's kind of a dark tone that starts to overwhelm parts of the game i wouldn't say overwhelm it starts to creep up right like it's it's fairly serious grounded story but there's still plenty of light-hearted moments and you know again if either like like bartra just kind of goes off or it's they just don't have dialogue anymore but when when leila dies and you like you find um her body like tied to a tree as a warning to you as you're approaching and matthew's like super upset about it and it really does hit kind of hard i mean i know you were asking me the first time and i was like i don't know i wasn't paying attention she was just yet another person who died to by jafar or whatever right but playing through it again on hector mode it was like no this is actually um now that i kind of knew what to look for they really do introduce her a few times before that and then i was like oh my god i'm going to And I think now that I was actually paying attention, I was like, no, this actually lands pretty hard. And yeah, it's a really neat moment. I mean, it's like, because you're like, wow, okay, there are stakes here. You know, this kind of seemed like your typical three anime teenagers on an adventure thing a lot of the time. But now it really feels like, oh, God, these guys are actually trying to stop something that is serious and it's dark. A couple other interesting things about this section of the game is it introduces the fog of war mechanic. And now maybe it might have been in an earlier chapter, but this is really where you get a mission that's like really impacted by the fog of war. Because I think the first one is a defense mission. So it's like, does it really matter if you can't see past the bounds of where you're defending? Aesthetically not a defense mission. It's the first one you get, it's the one where you recruit Wallace in section one. And like in Lin's story, that's the first time you experience fog of war. I was thinking the Merlinus one, right? That one is the first one in Ella Wood's story. Okay, okay. It's not. It's not a super tough one. I don't think this one that you're talking about is the first one that like fog of war really sticks out to me. Yeah. And it's interesting because it's more or less like fog of war for most games like this. But there's a little bit of a difference in that you can use a torch that will dissipate the fog around the character that uses the torch for a number of turns. I think it like slowly shrinks back around them over time. But it just allows you to kind of more readily explore into the fog so that you don't make a super blind move. And it's a great addition. Because. Because, yeah, in advanced wars, I'll just throw an infantryman out there to explore. And if he dies, he dies. Well, you don't want to do that in this game. You throw someone into the fog and suddenly they're surrounded by four units. They'll get obliterated, right? So I thought that was a really cool mechanic. You get a couple of interesting characters in this part of the game. You get Dart, who is, he kind of feels like the axe people, like Dorcas and Bartula. But he can move normal speed over water, which is pretty interesting. Because I'm pretty sure every other character in this game, it's either like, well, they're flying. It doesn't matter. But otherwise, they either can't. They can't move in water or they move one square at a time in water. So having someone that moves normal speed is pretty cool. It's not ultimately that useful throughout most of the course of the game. But it does just kind of highlight this game's proclivity to continue to give you like new units that do new things. And that's something that I really appreciated about it. Because it just adds to that variety. He's also the only one you get in the game. Yeah. Like he's the only pirate. And then he can turn into a berserker like Hawkeye later. But Hawkeye, you know. Yeah, he's like pre-promoted. Right. He's pre-promoted. Dart is the only pirate that you get in the game. So. For sure. This is also where you can get another thief named Legault. Another Pegasus Knight, which is the sister of Florina, Fiora, or Foria. I don't know if I typed that wrong. You can get Ninian at one point, which I can't remember what part of the game this happens. But her and Mills are just identical. And they just kind of swap roles whenever one of them is, you know, busy being captured by the big bad. And the other one joins your party. You can get Isadora. Isadora, basically a Marcus that doesn't have nearly as crappy stats. So immediately replaced one of the other horsemen in my four horsemen lineup. You get Wrath, who you had in the beginning, which is the horse archer. You get Hawkeye, who you just described, a big berserker, big, large HP, big axe. Honestly, the strongest base stats of any unit in like the whole game. Like as soon as you recruit him. He's kind of insane. Yeah. He's actually insane. His stats make really no sense for this part of the game. But I think he's a good horse. I think it's just one of those things where it's kind of insurance policy for you. Because it's like, have you lost 40 HP worth of units? Well, here's a guy that has 50 HP. So, you know, here you go. And then Heath. I just want to talk about the Wyvern Knights for a half second. Heath and all the Wyverns are ass. I think it's the worst unit in the game by a country fucking mile. And part of it is because I think the idea is, so the Pegasus Knights are a little more resistance oriented. So magic defense. Then physical defense oriented. But their physical defense is still not bad. For whatever reason, the Wyvern Knights are like 100% on the physical side. And their resistance is shit. And that ends up being a problem. Because what the NPC Wyvern often want to do is they want to attack your lowest HP people. Well, really most units do. But they have a big range. So they will like swarm on your healers. Well, as soon as you promote your healers, your healers get offensive magic staffs. Which means they counter. Dude, the amount of times my healers would just. Just kill a Wyvern Knight when they got attacked by one was too high to count. It was so dumb. So I had so much experience obliterating the Wyverns up to that point. That when it gave me one, I kind of just decided I didn't want to use them at all. And I never did. And honestly, he kind of sucks, right? Like you bring him into. I brought him into the desert mission. Because I think this part of the game is really when the maps start to get kind of interesting. Oh, yes. So many of the maps at the beginning are like. They're just like, here's some planes. And maybe there's like a river that you have to traverse. Like some foresty areas you have to traverse. But like in this section of the game, you get the pirate ship. Where like you're battling on a pirate ship. And there's like ships that are lined up on the side of you. And like a ship will come in during the mission. If you take too long, like another ship will come up to you. And you have to start dealing with that. And like there's a desert map here. Like all of your movement is really slowed down. So I was like, oh, let me bring in the Wyvern. That'd be great. You can fly around the map. He got like obliterated almost instantly. I was like, yeah. Yeah. Never mind. He's dead. Like, I don't care. I think this is also the part where there's that mission. Where that weird dude spawns and has the big anti-magic field around him. Yeah, yeah. That's a bonus mission. But yes. Yeah, it is a bonus mission. But it's really interesting. Because basically the boss of that mission is a heavy magic user. Who's like bragging in the intro about how he's going to crush you. But then this thing. I don't quite understand why it exists. But we won't worry about it too much. He spawns and he casts this big anti-magic field around half the map. So your magicians and your healers can't really go in and be effective. But it also means the boss can't fight back. So you can just take whatever unit you really want to feed some experience points into. And have him take four turns to kill the boss. And it's fine. Because bosses always give a ton of experience points. So I really like that aspect. And like you said. This is just the point in the game where they start to get a little more creative with the maps. It works really well. This is the point in the game where they really start to make you ask that question of. Is it worth starting this mission over? Did I really need that? That person that died. And it's the point where I felt like I was having so much fun making those decisions. And ultimately where we end up in the story here. Is we end up in this desert. That's where you meet Athos. Who becomes really important later. You meet a couple other characters. Pent and what's his wife? Louise. Louise, yeah. Who are upgraded. Poke evolved mages and archers. Really powerful. You don't actually recruit them for a few more missions. But you first get introduced to them story wise here. And the desert mission is cool. Because there are all these dragon bones scattered around. Which is kind of our first hint at like. Oh, there's dragons, right? And there's treasures buried near all these dragon bones. And you can find this out by talking. I don't even think we mentioned. There's like these little huts and stuff you can go into in these missions. And sometimes they're just sort of flavor. But if they have a red roof on them. They're usually either an item you can get. A person you can recruit. Or just really important information for the mission. And this one was telling you that like. All of these bones. Have items nearby. Now I think it's just. Do you just have to land on the right square? I think you have to land on the right square. With like a thief or something. There's like certain. You have to do certain things to get it. But they are there. And if you explore. You can find them. And the sand slows you down a lot. Particularly cavalry. So I really enjoyed this mission. Because it basically stared me straight in the face. And said hey. You know that strategy you've been using. Every mission up to this point. You need to rethink it. So I went in without any horses in that one. And that was. That was a lot of fun. So yeah. I thought this phase of the game was great. It's like kind of where everything really starts to click mechanically. And you're just. If you've been taking advantage of your opportunities. Experience wise. And managing your weapons. You'll have a much better time than if you hadn't. And I think it just really highlights the importance. Of all the things coming together. And sort of the story really starts to pick up. We kind of get that introduction. To the more fantastical elements. There's this part. I think it's in this phase. It might be in the next one. But Hector is talking to Elwood. And he basically just says like man. Just yesterday we were talking about ending a rebellion. And now it's the end of the world. At first I was like oh my god. I hate this so much. But it really isn't that out of place. Given it's like a Japanese RPG. It's based off of a series that has already established. Stuff like this. It's 2003. And honestly it works fine. Despite the fact that maybe the plot gets a little. Like big bad guy into the world. The dialogue stays strong. The characterization stays strong. The world stays interesting. So it really didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. When I first saw that scene I was like god damn it. But within 10 minutes I was like. That's where we're going. But within like 10-15 minutes I'm like back into it. So really fun part of the game. I think this. And this next section. The story is some of the most grounded. That it actually gets. In this immediate next section. Because it deals with some like political. You know chicanery. Yeah. So Athos. This sage tells you. This like grand you know. Arch sage who you know. Has lived for thousands of years. He's a living legend. You kind of learn about the scouring. Which is this like ancient war. That happened between dragons and humans. And you learn about like the eight legends. That fought in that war. And you kind of learn some of this stuff around this time. And Athos tells you like. You need to go to the shrine of seals in burn. And that's where you'll. You'll find the weapons. You need to defeat Nurgle. Like that's where you'll. You'll get what you need to beat Nurgle. So you go with Pitt and Louise. You go off to do that. And you. Because they're like yeah. We're actually important people in Etruria. Which is like a different kingdom. And we know the queen of burn. And burn is kind of making some moves right now. That look like they're about to attack Licia. So it's like all these little political things. That are kind of moving. And all these pieces. And when you get to burn. You like uncover a conspiracy. Basically where the king of burn. Is trying to have his own son. Assassinated by the black fang. Because he wants his daughter. To inherit the throne. And not his son. And like the queen of burn. Is like no that's my son. Like because the king of burn. Has like two you know. Two baby mamas. I guess right yeah. Basically yeah. Basically and the queen of burn. Is like no like my son. Will inherit the throne. Like you can't stop him. He's going to go through his ceremony. Like tomorrow. And he's in the background like. And no I'm going to assassinate him. And so he hires the black fang. Or he's working with the black fang. To do this. Because it's all part of like Nurgle's plan. But I really loved all of this stuff. Like this is probably like my favorite part. Of the story. It's the part that reminds me most of like. Game of Thrones. And those like deep political. Dramas like there's all these different things. Happening and all these parts coming together. And I just I really love this section. It works really well. And you bring up Game of Thrones dude. It reminds me so much of the way Melisandre. Manipulates Stannis. And eventually he like decides to sacrifice his daughter. In order to try to get the throne. Well that I think you mentioned his name. But the guy who's got like Lloyd. And what's his name his sons. Basically leaves one of his sons to die. Because the Nurgle. Or maybe it's Ephidel. I can't remember. But one of the. The antagonist basically convinces him like. Well if you want the throne. This is what needs to be done. And it reminded me so much. Of that part of Game of Thrones. And like I don't want to exaggerate. It's like depth or detail or elegance. Compared to like an HBO show. But it really does hit some of those same notes. And it's really effective. And I agree with you. It went from me thinking. Oh my god this is the freaking end of the world direction. We're going to like no this is actually pretty compelling. And you even get these really individual stories. That are really good with Nino and Jafar. Right? Jafar ends up defecting away from the Black Fang. And then Nino and the prince are like friends. And you learn that like. Both of their mothers suck. One sucks a little more than the other maybe. But like. And it kind of leads into why they behave the way they do. And then eventually you can recruit Nino and Jafar away. And it just it really is. So much more engaging. Than I would have ever thought it would be. Especially because at this point. I'm starting to lose track of the amount of antagonists. But a lot of them are really introduced for one mission. And then you kill them. But. The main ones stay pretty clear. And you eventually start taking them out one by one. As the game progresses. And yeah. It comes together surprisingly well. I always really like the Black Fang. Because it has that Japanese tendency of like. Here's a conglomerate of villains. Like Kingdom Hearts does this really well. With the organization 13. Like it's the 13 hooded figures. And like they all have unique personalities. And special weapons. And stuff like that. That the Black Fang kind of reminded me of that. It's like there's this like. It's a distinct group. There's the Swordmaster Lloyd. There's the hero Linus. There's you know. Sonya is married to Brendan. Brendan's the leader of the Black Fang. And like Sonya's manipulating him. Because she's Nurgle's like morph. But she doesn't think she's a morph. Like she thinks she's human. She thinks she's like a normal person. And like you find out. When you kill her. Or one of the other morphs. Which is like Nurgle's puppets. He like creates these puppets. Out of like human life force essentially. Which is what he's trying to gather. That's like the whole point of this whole thing. We never even mentioned the quintessence. It comes in a little late. But yeah. He's trying to gather this like life force essentially. And you find out that like. Sonya the person who's been manipulating. All the Black Fang. And is like supposedly Nino's mother. Is like she's just a morph. She's one of Nurgle's. But she thinks she's human. And like all the other morphs. They know what they are. But like she has convinced herself that she's real. And so like when she has this realization. That she's just a morph. It like breaks her. And it's like oh that's interesting. That's compelling for this character. Who is just kind of a bitch. Like now there's like this compelling moment for her. And there's another really compelling moment. That I love in this part of the story. Where the Queen of Burn. When you say. You save the prince right. The prince is going to be assassinated. You save him is one of the missions. A mission that I really enjoy. When you save him. The Queen's immediate reaction is like. Ah the fire emblem is safe. Like the crest is safe. The coronation can go on. Perfect. And Ella Wood's like. Do you not give a shit about your son that we just saved? Like do you not care that he almost died? And like I thought that was a really interesting moment. Because it's like there's this real moment. Of a character that you're with going. Are you like just a monster? Like you have no emotions? Like what are you? And it's just some really interesting like character dynamics. Your characters are sort of just like. The goody two shoes with the heart of gold. But never in a way that feels so dumb. And stereotypical. They're actually just decent people. Trying to navigate a like complicated political landscape. And I always thought that landed really well. You get a lot of cool characters. This chapter we talked about. We talked about Peyton Lewis. Promoted mage. Promoted archer. You get Corell and Harkin. Which I believe. Were they a sword master and a hero? Yes. You only get one of them though. Okay right. It's one of the others. You only get one. Yeah. It depends on. There's so many things in this game that like. Oh that's right. There's the lawyer thing too. It's very like under the hood. Yeah. It's like. There's a chapter where you fight either lawyer or Linus. But you don't know. Like it. What certain things you do. Will determine which one you fight. But it never tells you. Right. And like. Corell or Harkin will show up on two completely different maps. And you'll get those maps depending again on what you do. Like. One playthrough of this game. You will not see every map. Because there are a couple chapters that have different maps. Depending on what you do. There's a union. I need you to tell me how you actually get her. Because she appears. She appears in a map where it's basically saying like. Don't go near that Wyvern rider. Because she's really deadly. And you should just avoid that part of the map. Which I took as an extreme challenge. Because I was like no. No Wyverns suck. I don't believe you at all. So I went and killed her. And I was telling you about that. And you were like. Oh shoot dude. You can recruit her later. So like. I just never. I never got her. Yeah. So she shows up in chapter 27. Which for me. And I think for most people is the. Like 500 units. Like there's so many enemy units. And she shows up at the end with like the Wyverns. And you just talk to her like Ella Wood. Or you talk to her with any of the Lords. I think. And she joins. I mean I never use her. Because like by this point. I like have the party that I want. Yeah. It's like there's really no reason. To bring anybody else in there. But she's good filler I guess. Like if you lost Heath. Like I did. But I just. I don't like the Wyverns. Yeah. So we talked about you get to recruit Jafar. Because he like turns from the Black Fang. So he's an assassin. God I love Jafar. Which is like the advanced. If you're able to upgrade a thief. Which is. You know we talked about promotions. You basically get. You get these tokens throughout the game. As loot you can buy. I think there's like maybe a couple shops. You can buy one. But for the most part. You get them as drops. For the thieves. You just. Oh there's even one. There's one called like the Earth Seal. That lets you promote any class in the game. Except the thief for some reason. And then you can only ever get one thief contract. And you have to steal it. From one of the characters. So that's really fitting. It was a little annoying. Because I was like. At a level 20 Matthew. That I was just waiting around. Like when am I going to be able to promote this guy. And then you get Jafar. And he's better anyway. So it's like fine. Whatever. You get Nino. Who's really interesting. Because she starts as like a level 1 mage. Or a really low level mage. But she has like the single best growth stats. In the whole game. So if you. If you can manage to funnel enough EXP into her. In the little bit of time you have her. She can actually be insanely powerful. And then you get Wallace back. Or you can get a guy called Geitz instead. I can't remember what. The condition there. It was something along the lines of like. If in mission 10 with Lynn. You just don't talk to Wallace. Like you just don't recruit him. You get this other guy instead or something. But yeah. Really interesting. Really cool characters. They start to give you just pre-promoted. Insanely powerful ones. To round out your party. Because they're probably hoping like. If you're not. If you're not just restarting. Every time someone dies. You probably have a couple significant gaps. At this point. So we'll let you fill them in. Yeah. This section of the game. Is when things really start to ramp up. You start to realize that like. If you haven't promoted someone yet. You probably better do it. Because by the time you hit the end of the game. It's like. If you don't have a promoted level 20 unit. You have in some sense like. Wasted their potential. Now it doesn't need to be exactly 20. Right. But the point is like. You don't want to promote too early. Because then their promoted level hits max. And you've basically missed out on pre-promoted levels. But you don't want to promote too late. Because then you missed out on promoted levels. So there's really this sweet spot. Kind of in the beginning of this phase of the game. I think. Where you need to start making sure. You've recruited. Or promoted the people that you want to. Or you've kind of waited too long. But all of that comes together so well. Like if you've really been getting into the mechanics. This is when everything meshes together. You get all kinds of crazy levels. We mentioned the sand earlier. You have one with snow. You have one with lava. Great, great part of the game. This is also where your lords start to promote. So like your lords. My Lynn capped out at like. I think level like 22 or 23. Or maybe even earlier than that. She was already at level 20. And I'm like. Well I guess I just can't use Lynn anymore. Because I don't want her to steal experience. But this is where you start to get the. They're a certain seal. I think it's a heaven seal. That you get to promote the lords. And then they suddenly become a lot more useful. Where it's like. Oh okay. The lords are now. Are now valid again. Perfect. Yeah. And it's unfortunate kind of how late it comes. I would say Lynn and Hector. While it's late. You get them in time for it to be useful. Poor Elowood gets his promotion. So now we're in phase five here right. Chapters 28 through 30. By the time Elowood gets his promotion. It's almost like. All right buddy. But at the very least what's good about it. Is he gets a horse. So as long as you have thought he was useful to any degree. He will now be significantly more useful. Because he gets lances. And he gets more movement. Which is great. But it does feel like it comes a little late. And like you said. If you have been using your lords a lot. They'll cap out at level 20. And then you feel really compelled to not use them. Because it's just wasted experience. Which we've discussed is a very precious resource. In this game. But the game. The game will force you to bring the lords. Into certain missions. So it's like. I just left them by Merlinus's tent. As bodyguards. Yeah. So in these last couple missions here. The story gets over the top. But in a good way. You start to really understand like. Nurgle and Athos's kind of connection. They were two of the ancient warriors. That defeated the dragons. But now Nurgle's like no. We must bring them back. So that I can kill them and absorb their essence. And become like. You know the Nurgle lord. The Nurgle lord. You're kind of right. Nurgle wasn't one of the original heroes. Or one of the original. He was like an apprentice. In the village of Arcadia. So there's like this hidden village. Where humans and dragons are living together. That's right. In that village. Nurgle started to learn. About the dragons. And started to learn about their power. And like. Initially him and Athos were really good friends. And like. They were learning about dragons together. And where Athos wanted to. Share this knowledge. And like kind of. Expand the idea of Arcadia. Nurgle wanted to. Take the dragons power. For himself. And wanted to you know. Write evil villain shit. And so Athos. Stopped Nurgle. And that's whenever the dragons. Went through the dragons gate. To go into their own world. And they didn't live with humans anymore. Okay that's right. So that's kind of where we learn a lot of this stuff. Yeah you know there's this mission around like 21 or something. Called the dragons gate. And that's when you first sort of learn about this gate. And Nurgle has kidnapped Ninnian and Nils to open it. And it's funny because. Toward this part of the game toward the end. There's a piece of dialogue. That honestly just made me feel like such a fool. Because Nurgle's basically like. Did you ever wonder why I needed these two to open the dragon gate? What sense would it make. That I needed a human to open the dragon gate? Like no. These two are dragons dummy. That's basically what I feel like the game is saying to me. And I was like oh my god. How did I not figure that out? And you're like shit. You're right. I am a dummy. Yeah right. So I thought that was really well done. And of course there's like this sad scene. Where your characters don't know this. And this is when you get the legendary weapons right. Which sort of have a little bit of lore significance too. So he, Elowood main character. Gets this like dragon slaying sword. And Ninnian gets turned into this dragon. By being like I don't know. Pushed to the limit by Nurgle. And she kind of escapes. And she comes toward Elowood. And of course like his sword starts to glow. And he kills it. Because it's like a big dragon. And then it turns out it's Ninnian. And it's like oh man. Like you know that's kind of sad. But it's a cool emotional moment. The reveal. Even if you've kind of seen it coming. I think the reveal with Nils and Ninnian is pretty cool. Nils rejoins the party at this point. I loved his little extra turn thing. There's this one mission where. You're kind of in a defensive posture. And there's like. They're assaulting your base with ballista. So there's these ballista that archers can get in. That basically just allow them to shoot a bolt. Like really far on the map. If you're careful with your paladins. And Nils. You can basically rush the first archer. Kill him. Spread your guys out. And I managed to set it up. To where they didn't get a single ballista shot off. Which then just allowed me to use my pegasus knight. To like dominate the map. It was such a rewarding experience man. Because it made me feel like I kind of outsmarted the game. And I was able to. To play right into what they didn't want me to do. And still be effective. And it's a great moment. Yeah Nils. It's weird because they also have these buffs. Nini and Nils. They have these items that are like. It's like increased crit chance. Increased defense for a turn. But I can't. They're just not useful compared to giving someone an extra turn. Almost ever. And in fact. In the very last level. Which we'll get to soon. I was trying to use them on Athos. Because I was like. Maybe he'll be able to. No. It literally doesn't make him take any less damage. From the dragon. So I don't know what the point of those damn buffs are. But the extra move is so good. That I appreciated these characters. Yeah. In this section. You do get one additional character. You get Renault. Who's a bishop. Oh yeah. Which is the promotion of Lucius. Is the mage. The light mage. And I just have never really understood this. I guess it's just like one last. Here we're going to fill somebody. Just in case you're running really low. Because it's just so. Late in the game. It's like. If you don't have your party at this point. Like why even. Like what are you doing. By this point in the game. It's such a late add. It's like I never use him ever. Because you literally get him in the last mission. My only thought is. Moving into the true last mission here. Nurgle is surrounded by like. Four dark mages. It's true. So maybe that's why they're trying to give him to you. But one of my problem with archers and mages in this game. Enemy archers and mages. Is that like. If they were in range to hit me. They were in range to get hit by a paladin. Which means they were dead. They were dead before they could do anything to me. So I didn't bother to use him either. Because I just sent horses after those guys. So yeah. It is a little. A too little too late with that guy. But I do. I do appreciate that they're like. Hey. Maybe you lost Lucius this last mission. Maybe you lost one of your magic users this last mission. Here's another one. Literally until the very end. They're giving you more guys. Right. It is nice. It is nice that even up until the very end. They're giving you somebody. This section is cool. It's like the build up. And the lead in to. What I think is a pretty challenging final mission. Oh god. Yeah. I was at the point where. In like the second to final mission. I was like. I am a god. I can't believe they thought this was going to stop me. I just rampaged across this map. They sent like. There's a lot of units on that second to last mission. Scattered around the map. And I was like. Easy peasy. I have dominated this game. Then you go. You get into the final mission. And it's basically like. You start in this little corridor. And every couple of turns. These rooms open up. Where. What is it like. Morph versions of various characters. You've defeated up to this point. Surrounded by a couple bodyguards spawn. And they're really deadly. And the first one is. Was it Uhai? One of the horse archer guys? Uhai. Uhai. Something like that. That guy will mess your day up. I had to restart that a hundred times. To not get him to just obliterate. Like Ellawood. In the very beginning. And I finally found. Yeah. A good way. To do it. But I was actually really impressed. With how difficult they made that last mission. I mean. You really have to think about it. And play it very properly. And it. It really emphasizes. Like making sure that you've. You've built up a strong army. You know. Their usefulness. You. You have a variety. Because all these enemies. I mean. There's. There's sword guys. There's axe guys. There's mages. There's bow guys. There's like. There's so much variety here. In this last chapter. And it's like. You need to have a varied party. That. That can. Counter all these things. Or else you might struggle. And like. You do get Athos. In this last chapter. Oh yeah. Like he. Athos joins you. To fight. And he is awesome. I mean. He brings in like. Great weapons. Like his magic is insane. The animations on his magic. Is crazy. It's super cool. Yeah. It's awesome. It really does feel like. This like. Kind of. Reward moment. Of like. You made it. Here's the. And here's this like. Really sick unit. That we're going to give you. To use. I did. I just want to reemphasize. Like. The way this mission works. You know. The previous one. They throw 40 mission. 40 units at you. This one. There's like 12. But they are hard. It really flips from like. Quantity to quality. As far as what they're throwing. At you here. And it just. You have your lowest margin. Of error ever. In this mission. You have to play everything. Perfectly. And then dude. You beat the four. Four or five. Reincarnated bosses. In the room. Then you have to go fight. Nargile. And I'm thinking. Well it's over after that. Right? So I just went. Balls to the walls. Charged him. Well. I got one of my healers killed. And I got like. My strongest paladin killed. And then you have to fight. A fucking dragon. And I literally couldn't do it. I don't think I had the units. Necessary to do it. Especially because my. My lords got a little unlucky. In my first playthrough. And they weren't surviving. Even one hit. From this dragon. So. I ended up having to replay this mission. And keep a healer. And then do. There's a mechanic called rescue. Where basically like. Certain characters can pick up. What is essentially like. Smaller characters than them. And carry them around. And you can use that to pull people out of. Disadvantageous positions. Before you end the round. Right? So if you've. If you've left someone kind of exposed. You can use someone to grab them. And either just. Protect them. Or move them out of the way. And so I ended up doing something creative with that. To kill the dragon. But bro. You have to fight an actual dragon. Whose HP is question mark. Question mark. And. And at first it's like. I don't know how much health this guy has. And I ended up basically like. Having. What's his name? Athos attack. And then healing him. And then pulling. The healer away. And then ending the round. And then having the healer. You know. And cycling this a few times. I was eventually able to get it. But yeah. Really challenging last couple missions. And I was actually. Really pleased with that. Because I was thinking. Man. If I just. Like if I power game too hard. If I made this game just a joke now. And that last mission said. Oh no buddy. We've. We've got something for you. Well. Well. We're gonna. We're gonna test you. And it's. It's interesting. Because like. You talk about your strategy. To beat that one. And. And. I got pretty lucky with my lords. But they. They could not survive. The one attack. And the counter attack. Yeah. They could survive the one attack. They could not survive the counter. So it was very like. Okay. Athos is gonna go in. And he's just gonna sit there. He's gonna let the dragon attack. And then. He'll counter. And then he'll elixir on his turn. And then we're gonna rinse repeat that. And then. I finally got the dragon down enough. That I was able to send. You know. Hector. Lin. And Elowood. All to each take a strike at him. And so it was cool. That like. Each lord got a chance. To hit the dragon. And Elowood actually finished off the dragon. So like. It was a cool. Satisfying moment there. Of like. Kind of. Gameplay and story. Uniting. In a nice way there. And really. You're supposed to use Elowood. Because his legendary weapon. Is like a dragon slaying thing. So the same way. That bows had a bonus. Against. Flying units. His sword has a bonus. Against the dragon. But it didn't matter. He sucks. Because mine died. With one counter attack. So I literally. Couldn't fucking use it. But you know what. I figured it out. It's fine. But yeah. I. Really challenging last mission. Really satisfying last mission. And then. I really enjoy the epilogue. Of this game man. Because it quite literally. Goes through. Every single character you have. And unfortunately. If they died. All it says is. Died at this battle. But. If they lived. It gives like. A whole paragraph description. Of what they get up to. After the game is over. And it reminded me a lot. Of Final Fantasy 6. Where. It's a little different. Because in 6. Instead of it being. Like in this game. It's just text. And nothing else. In 6. It's just animations. That you see as the credits. Scroll over it. But it's just. They realize. Like you have a big cast. And you want to know. What the hell happened. To these people. In both Final Fantasy 6. And this game. Both realized. Like yeah. We need to make sure. The players get closure. For every single one. Of these characters. Even if it's just a paragraph. Even if it's a three second scene. We do want people to understand. That these guys. Matter. And they didn't just dissipate. After the. Things over. And I really love that aspect. Of the ending. And what's. What's so cool about that. Right. Is like. When a character dies. They. They do get. The just. They died text. And you see that. And it's like. Well that's disappointing. But it's like. They died. Yeah. Like. It's like. That's. That's the consequence. For letting them die. Like it. It just re-emphasizes. That permadeath mechanic. Even at the very end. Of the game. And what's so cool about this. What I love that. All the Fire Emblem games. Do this. To some degree. Right. Like every Fire Emblem game. Does this epilogue. With. With character text. Or animations. Or whatever. To kind of say. What happens. Next. And. What's really cool. About this. With the support mechanic. That comes into play. Is like. If you get an A-level support. With certain characters. They'll get married. And go off together. Or like. Like. Yeah. So like. Like. Their epilogues will change. Depending on what level of support. You have. It has to be an A-level support. But like. If Hector and Lynn. Have an A-level support. They'll get married. At the end of the game. And Hector's. Child. Is actually. You know. Hector and Lynn's child. Oh. I didn't realize that. That's really cool. Yeah. So like. And all the characters. Depending on what their A-level support is. They'll. They'll do something together. Like. It's. You know. Sometimes. Like. It's a brother and sister. Or whatever. Like. It's like. Raven and Priscilla. Like. They're related. So they're not getting married. But like. They'll go off together. To like. Rebuild their house. Or whatever. Right. So it's like. Every. Every character has. A connection. That. That you can build. With their support. That will affect their epilogue. So I. Really. Like. The fireball that belongs for that. And then. The way this ends. Ultimately. Because this is a prequel. To. The sixth game. Is that. That little prince. That you had to guard. That you had to rescue. In that one mission. Turns out. He's a little nefarious. Little fucker. And he's. And he's up to something. And you know. There's kind of like. A 20 years later. Whatever. Whatever. And it shows him talking to someone. And I can't remember exactly. What they're discussing. But it makes it very clear. That like. Oh. This guy sucks. And he is very clearly. Going to be. Like a villain. And you know. The story. As it proceeds from here. Yeah. You also get to meet. Like. Roy. And. Lelena. Which is. Hector's daughter. Who's also in. Five from six. Okay. Yeah. You get to meet. You get to meet Roy. And the. Roy's like. Love interest. They're not like. Necessarily. Definitely love interest. But kind of. Sort of. In. In five from six. So you get to kind of see. That relationship. Start here. And like. Hector is a big part of six. Ella Wood. I think is dead. At the start of six. Like I think Ella Wood. Dies at the start of six. But. Like Hector. Is a big part of six. So like. You kind of see. Some of these pieces. Put into play here. So I. Really liked the ending. For that. So I think at this point. We've covered. Most of the game. Most of the major things. There are a couple of things. We mentioned up to this point. That I want to go a little further. In depth in. Before. Before we get out of here. I think one of those is. The support system. I. I've. I have not been very critical. Of this game at all. Up to this point. Because I have enjoyed. The shit out of this game. And I'm not even going to be. Overly critical of support. But I do think. There's a little bit of a weakness here. Because the game is not overly clear. How to level up supports. It's not. Well. I guess it's like. It does tell you. If they're like. They fight together. They get support. Right. It's not clear. Exactly what that means. It turns out. Literally just in the turn. Next to each other. But. You also have to do it. A lot. Like a significant number of times. And then it spawns a conversation. And then everyone has an affinity. That's like an element. And what. Each person. Affinity is. And the pairing. Determines what bonuses they get. When they're next to each other. But I. I don't think that part. Is literally in the game at all. I don't think there's. Any explanation for that. Nope. And then there's just. There's a. A huge combination of. Of characters. And like which. And who they can. Do support with. I found this very overwhelming. And even as a. You know. I had this crazy Excel chart going. For my Hector playthrough here. Right. Like calculated all of the growth rates. Of each character. And then what. And just use a little math of like. What would their. You know. If they're level 10. What would you expect. Each stat to be. And how far ahead or behind. Are my character stats. And I was really enjoying that aspect. Of being just like a nerd. With an Excel sheet. I tried to do the same. With the supports. I just quickly gave up. And I was like. This game did not at any point. Convince me. That caring about this. Was worth my time. So. Supports were introduced. In this game. I believe. I believe this is the first game. With supports. And it's. It's very clear. That it's in the rough stages. Yeah. Of what that is. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. Because. I think. Later games. Like Awakening. In particular. Is the one that I think. Really brought supports. To a new level. Because in Awakening. You can actually pair up units. So like. You could. Not only stand. Next to each other. You can literally combine them. And they'll like. Attack is one unit. So you get like. A double attack. And like. They'll. They'll both. Have damage. That they. That they each do. So you can get up to like. Four attacks. In one turn. Because they can both attack twice. Stuff like this. Right. These. These mechanics. Very clearly. Show support build. It shows like. A little heart. Above your character. To say like. Support's been built. Like. You get a chart. Way early in the game. That shows like. When you click on a unit. It tells you. Who they can support. Like. Just. On that unit's page. Right away. All this stuff. Is just very like. Obvious. This game doesn't do that. Unfortunately. Like. You don't even know. Who can support. Until like. The middle of the 20s. Yeah. When. Nils. Is like. Hey. By the way. Here's this other option. I have in the menu. Where you can see. Who can support. With who. And at that point. It's far too late. For a lot of characters. Right. Like. You're going to struggle. To get them. To that. To those higher support levels. But I think for me. The biggest downside. In supports. Is that they limit it. To five support conversations. Per character. So. In. In the later games. You can. Support. With. All the characters. That you can support with. You can get them. All the way up to A. And you can get one character. To S. Which is like. The. They get married. Like they. Live their life. After the game. Tier. In this game. You can only get one character. To A. With somebody else. Which is the highest tier. It goes. And. If you get. Like. Two C's. And a B. Or whatever. Like. You can cap that. Or if you get like. Two B's. And a C. You can't get anybody. To A. Now. So it's like. You can't get that epilogue. You can't get. Like. The. The. Last conversation piece. Because they cap you. And I think that really hurts. The. The desire. To engage with it. Because. For me. It's like. Well I know. I won't be able to finish it. With. Anybody. Besides one person. And that's only if I do it right. Cause like. With my Lynn. I had two B's. And a C. And I was like. Well. Now I can never cap anybody's support. Because I've. Just forgot how that. That's how it worked. And. And it is a shame. Because. A couple conversations I got. Were pretty cool. I remember. I got. Since I was using Florina and Fiora. Right next to each other. All the time. I ended up getting theirs. To like B or A by the end. And. You know. It starts off. When you first meet Fiora. She's like. I just lost. My whole unit of Pegasus Knights. Because of a bad mistake I made. Because of that. Florina. I want you to come home. I'm being super protective. Of my little sister. And through their conversation. She's basically like. Trying to beg Florina. To like. Hey. Whenever we finish up here. Like. We have to go back. Like. It's too dangerous. And over time. Florina basically. She's like. No. Like. If I'm going to be a Pegasus Knight. Like you. Which by the way. You're still a great Pegasus Knight. Don't get. Don't you know. Don't let you get yourself down. If I'm ever going to be like you. I have to do this on my own. And it's just like. A real. You know. It's nothing super deep. But it's. It's cool. It expands the characters. And it's really. Like I said. The dialogue in this game. Is never bad. Maybe it's not always great. But it's never bad. It's always solid. And so. So I did enjoy those conversations. And. And even though. From a mechanical perspective. It's like whatever. I just practically ignored it. I would have liked to see more. Of the dialogue. Right. So that. That's a little bit of a shame. I think. For me. Like Awakening. Does a really good job. Bringing it in mechanically. Because if you get. S tier supports. You. There's like some time travel. Like timey-wimey stuff. In that game. So you actually like. You can recruit. The A supports children. Or the S supports children. Later in the game. So like. If you get an S support. Their children will show up. If you don't get that S support. You'll never get that character. Because they never marry. And that child is involved. That's interesting. So. Yeah. So like. Later games do. More compelling stuff. With supports. I just think. It wasn't until Awakening. That they really find. Their stride and support. Because all the games. Up until Awakening. Have this like. Five conversation limit. And I think it just hurts. Your ability. To get invested. In the characters. Because you can't get. Their full story arcs. Except for one character. I got you. Yeah. Okay. So when you had first told me. Like. Five isn't enough. I thought you meant like. Each character had five different people. They could have a relationship with. And I was like. How is that not enough for you? What is five times like. No. But I understand what you mean now. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like. You can't finish the arcs. And like. That's so frustrating. Yeah. It's like. I want to. I want to know how their arc ends. But you can't actually finish it. Because. You can only do that with one character. Or none of them. If you don't plan it out correctly. So. I think that's frustrating for me. And I love that the later games get rid of that. Like. Awakening. If a character has 12 supports. You can finish that whole arc with all 12 of them. If you want. You can only marry one. But you know. You can do that whole arc with all 12. Yeah man. We. I think we've talked this game to death here. Our final thoughts. You know. As I said at the top. I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Almost every aspect of it. Far more than I ever expected to. We did our little. GGB awards at the end of the end of the year review. And I had a category for biggest surprise. Definitely an early front runner for biggest surprise. I thoroughly enjoyed this. And as I was putting this document together. I thought of that Sun Tzu quote. That's like. Every battle is won before it's ever fought. And to me. That is such a large part of why I like this game. Is because everything you prepare for each mission. Is so important. And coming up. And like looking at the battle map. Assigning your different equipment and items to each character. To figure out. Who you're going to bring into battle. And coming up with a plan. And then executing it. Especially because. You know. Every mission toward the end. Throws some twist halfway through. And adapting to that. It just feels so good. It's. It's got great writing. It's got great music and animation. It's got an incredible level of management. That's like. I love management in games. Right. So I love that part. It's got the micro management of the individual battles. I just can't say enough good things about this game man. I really can't. And if. And if you've ever looked at this. And thought for reasons like my biased self. Oh it looks anime. It looks this. It looks anime. But you don't want to play it. Please give it a chance. Because I was absolutely blown away by this. And I had such a good time. And you know. Go buy a legitimate copy on the switch or whatever. And then download it on your phone. Delta emulator. So you can play at work. Because like. I just had so much fun playing this game. And I. And for. Dude. I was telling you. It ruined my sleep schedule for like a straight week. I was just playing this on my phone in bed. Till like three in the morning. It was insane. One more. One more mission. One more chapter. I know dude. I mean. I mean. I still have memories. Of. Growing up. With this game. Under my. You know. Under my blanket. When I'm supposed to be asleep. Because I have school in the morning. And I'm like. One more. One more mission. One more chapter. Like I. You know. It's just such a core memory for me. And. I love that you loved it. As much as. I still love it. Right. Playing it again. I was immediately sucked into it. Everything. That I knew about it. And like. Loved about it. From. From being a child. And loving it. Like. It immediately just flooded back to me. And I was like. This game. This game's still so good. And I mean. It still holds up wonderfully. I have some issues with the support system. Compared to what like. The later games do. But everything else. Is just so good. It's still one of the tightest. I think. On just like. Core mechanics. Map design. Like. Just. That. That core experience. Of Fire Emblem. Is so pure. In this game. Right. Like. A lot of the later games. Will add in different mechanics. Or like. In Sacred Stones. You. You have like. Branching. Promotion trees. Right. Like. You'll promote. And you can either. Say like. I want to go. A paladin. Or I can be like. A great knight. And you know. They'll do slightly different things. So like. That's a great update. And there's. There's so many like. Things and. You know. Whatever that. Have been added. Throughout the series. But the core experience. Is so strong here. The writing. The story. The characters. The pacing of it all. Like. It's just so strong. To me. And you know. Some of this. Is just nostalgia talking. But. This is my fourth. Favorite game. Of all time. Like. Yeah. It's in my top five. I adore it. And I've played it. You know. Probably seven times now. With this last one being like. My seventh run of this game. And I just. I love it. Every single time. And it always. Reminds me of like. What made me fall in love. With this series. In the first place. I completely agree. With your assessment there. And you know. Yes. Of course. I'm sure. Further entries. Have tweaked things. And improved on. A couple things. As happens. In a long running series. But it's just the fact. That like. So much of this game. Has aged. So gracefully. So well. At worst. It's a. It's like. Like. Aged fine. But most of it. Is aged like. Just so well. The music. The art style. The core mechanics. The story. Everything you said. Super impressive. I can't recommend. This game enough. I have a feeling that. This will soon be ending up. On my top. A hundred. Of all time. That. That makes me so happy. You have no idea. How happy. That makes me. Because I was really worried. Coming to this episode. That you were gonna. You know. Do the thing that you do. And hate on it. Because it's. Because of what it is. Right. Yeah. But. I knew. If there was any game. In the series. That had a chance. To like. Win you over. It was this one. Because of how. Grounded it is. Compared to some of the later entries. And like. I'm so glad it worked for you. And I'm so glad. The mechanics worked. And yeah. I know you were like. Ah. Baby's first RPG. But there's so much. There's so much more to it. Than that. And it's not the hardest game. Of all time. Like you know. It is not. The most challenging thing ever. But like. Play it on hard mode. Right. Like once you beat the game. You can play it on hard mode. Yeah. And like. That gives you a whole new challenge. So it's like. There's so much to this game. And I think it really stands. The test of time. And it's. It still holds up. As one of my all time favorites. That about wraps up our episode. On Intelligent Systems. Revolutionary. Strategy RPG. Fire Emblem. The Blazing Blade. You can find this episode. As well as all of our other episodes. On Spotify. Apple Podcasts. Or your favorite podcasting platform. And of course. You can find everything we do. On our website. At gamesgoneby.com. So. Signing off. For Games Gone By. I'm Adam. I'm Austin. Thanks for listening everyone. We'll see you next time. Outro Music. Outro Music. Outro Music. Outro Music. Outro Music.