Once, dragons and men coexisted.
They shared a peace forged in wisdom,
a peace that lasted many generations.
All that was lost when mankind disrupted
this balance in a sudden onslaught.
Man fought dragon in a savage war
that shook the foundations of their world.
This war was called The Scouring.
Defeated and humbled,
dragons vanished from the realm.
In time, man rebuilt and spread his
dominion across the land and
on to the islands beyond.
A millenium has passed
since those dark days ended.In 2003, Fire Emblem, the seventh game in the Fire Emblem series made by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo, was released in the West for the Game Boy Advance due to the popularity of Marth and Roy (neither of whom appear in this game) in Super Smash Brothers Melee. In Japan, it had the subtitle "Rekka no Ken" (depending on who you ask, that means "Blazing Sword" or "Sword of Flame"; I prefer the former), but being the first Western release, it had no localized subtitle.
Fire Emblem is a series of turn-based strategy games, the video game equivalent of tabletop wargames; you move your units, have them attack the enemy, brace yourself for their counterattack, rinse and repeat. It's also half RPG; units have hitpoints, classes, and levels, and experience points are a core mechanic (to the point that the classic way the games trip up newbies is to have a temporarily overpowered character who will steal experience points from everybody else if you use them too much.) One thing distinguishing the series is the permanent death of fallen characters; units who die in battle never, ever get back up, with a few rare exceptions--the most recent games allow units to return after falling in battle, and a couple of the older games have a special staff that can be used to bring characters back from the dead.
Fire Emblem 7 (referred to as "Blazing Sword" from here on out) is set in the world of Elibe. It's a prequel to the game before it, Fire Emblem: The Sword of Seals (or possibly The Binding Blade), and is about Eliwood, the father of the protagonist of Binding Blade, searching for his own missing father and fighting a band of assassins called the Black Fang; this is basically everything I know about this game, because I'm going into it blind.
Also, I'm going to be using the in-game mugshots and pasting in dialogue from a text dump instead of posting screenshots of all the cutscenes, because most of the text in the (emulated) game is screwed up for some reason that likely involves the multiple layers of transparency and my computer's 2006ness.
The game begins with telling me that I'm a tactician travelling the world of Elibe and asking me to input personal information.
"Are you awake?"
"I found you unconscious on the plains. I am Lyn, of the Lorca tribe. You're safe now."These games get straight to the animé hair, with the very first character Westerners were introduced to having a lengthy green/teal ponytail. Thankfully, it's not compounded with the mullets and 80s' metal hair everybody had back in Genealogy of the Holy War.
"You're safe now. Who are you? Can you remember your name? Your name is Tawa? What an odd-sounding name... But pay me no mind. It is a good name. I see by your attire that you are a traveler."As an aside, I always thought these translations were nice. They're not full of Ye Olde Butcherede English, but they're usually also not too modern-sounding, either, making sure to use vaguely archaic synonyms when applicable.
"What brings you to the Sacae Plains? Would you share your story with me? Hm? What was that noise? I'll go see what's happening. Tawa, wait here for me."As you can see, I'm dead silent, much in the same way as Link.
Lyn heads outside for a second.
"Oh, no! Bandits! They must have come down from the Bern Mountains! They must be planning on raiding the local villages. I... I have to stop them! If that's all of them, I think I can handle them on my own. You'll be safe in here, Tawa! What? You want to help? Well, can you use a weapon? Ah, I see... So you're a strategist by trade? An odd profession, but... Very well. We'll go together!"And the game starts in earnest. This is the tutorial level, so don't expect very much actual playing yet. Don't worry, we'll get to the real fighting in due time.
Lyn starts in the bottom-right corner of the map. Her job is to get to the northwestern corner of the map, kill the bandit standing there, and get to the village.
We begin by moving Lyn closer to this bandit here.
The bandit comes to her and we prepare to attack.
We move into the fight scene. Being under the command of the player character gives Fire Emblem units the magical ability to duel their enemies in a magical pocket dimension with floating numbers everywhere.
Lyn and the bandit take turns poking each other with pieces of metal on sticks until the bandit dies. The bandit's friend never comes over to help. This is because he's a boss, and the bosses almost never move.
Lyn stops for a moment to tell me what our next move is:
"There's another bandit over by the ger to the west. You don't know what a ger is? It's a type of round hut. Many nomads live in huts like these."Well,
that was
totally relevant.
We quickly advance to the northwestern corner.
Since there's no way you can read that:
"Who do you think you are? You think you can stand up to Batta the Beast?"Lyn and Batta exchange blows on her turn. Lyn is knocked down to six hit points, and Batta to thirteen.
On the enemy's turn, Batta thankfully misses...
...and Lyn, after hitting back once, performs the following spectacular critical hit:
thereby killing the bandit. Critical hits in Fire Emblem triple your damage and generally involve violations of the laws of physics and lots of spinning.
Then Lyn levels up!
This is a beautiful first level. You can't read that at all, but Lyn (who is of the Lord class) got +1 to HP, Strength, Skill, Luck, and Resistance. Aside from not getting any Speed, that's still a very good level!
I should probably give a quick summary of stats:
HP is, well, hit points. It determines how much damage a unit can take before dying.
Strength determines how much damage a unit's attacks will deal; magic-using units get Magic points instead of Strength points.
Skill determines how often attacks will hit.
Speed determines how good a unit is at dodging; additionally, if the unit's speed is high enough compared to their opponent's, the unit can "double" their opponent and strike twice.
Luck does a lot of stuff and isn't as important as most of the other stats, but is handy to have a good amount of anyway.
Defense and Resistance determine how much damage the unit receives from physical and magical attacks, respectively; enough of one stat will nullify weak attacks of that type entirely.
Constitution, the last stat on the screen, doesn't go up by level and determines the unit's ability to wield heavy weapons and is related to "rescuing"; more on that later.
The reason I was concerned about her level being "good" is that units in most Fire Emblem games (with a few exceptions) only ever gain 39 levels, tops, and the stats you get at each level are randomly determined from percentages. One infamous Let's Play of the 9th game ended with a traditionally high-quality starting unit, a Fighter named Boyd, getting no speed whatsoever and getting benched pretty early on, while a character often considered mediocre at best, a healer named Mist, getting higher stats than the infamously overpowered main character, Ike.
Anyway, back to the Let's Play.
"Whew... That was close. I sorely underestimated him. Sorry if I worried you. I'll need to be stronger if I'm going to survive... Strong enough that no one can defeat me."Lyn gets to the 'ger' the bandit was in front of and completes the level.
The Next Day...
"Good morning, Tawa! Are you awake yet? That fight yesterday must have taken a lot out of you. Say, Tawa... I want to talk to you about something. You have some experience in the ways of war, I can see. Would you allow me to travel with you?"
"What? You want me to get permission from my parents? My mother and my father... died six months ago. My people --- the Lorca--- they don't... I'm the last of my tribe. Bandits attacked, and... they killed so many people. The tribe was scattered. My father was our chieftain, and I wanted to protect our people. I am so young, and my parents are old- fashioned. They wouldn't follow a woman. No one would follow me.
I had to reread this twice to realize what she was saying; Fire Emblem is very equal-opportunity as far as video games about war go, with entire classes being completely exclusive to female characters and several main characters being women.
"Sniff... I'm sorry. I've been alone for so long... No. No more. I will shed no more tears. Thank you. I'm better now."
"Tawa, I want-- I must become stronger, so that I may avenge my father's death! Yesterday's battle taught me something. I won't become stronger by sitting here alone. Agung, tell me you'll train me, that you'll let me travel with you! You will? That's wonderful! Thank you! Oh, thank you! We'll be better off working together, I know it. You'll be my master strategist, and I'll be your peerless warrior! We can do it! Right?"
Travel with Lyn, Tawa. Give her your aid, and master the art of combat.
Complete the tasks set out in each chapter, and help Lyn in her quest.
Turn the instruction windows on or off by pressing SELECT.
And so ends the first update. Stay tuned for (hopefully more exciting) tactical wargaming action!
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Topic: Let's Play Fire Emblem: Chapter 1: Dialogue and Parrot Exposition (Read 1679 times)