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Jeigan

2 (9.1%)

Kain

1 (4.5%)

Abel

0 (0%)

Gordon

1 (4.5%)

Doga

2 (9.1%)

Sheeda

2 (9.1%)

Barts

2 (9.1%)

Maji

0 (0%)

Saji

0 (0%)

Oguma

2 (9.1%)

Navarre

3 (13.6%)

Julian

1 (4.5%)

Kashim

1 (4.5%)

Wolf

1 (4.5%)

Zagaro

0 (0%)

Roshe

0 (0%)

Biraku

1 (4.5%)

Hardin

1 (4.5%)

Machis

0 (0%)

Marth

1 (4.5%)

Rena

1 (4.5%)

Total Members Voted: 5

[Tawa]

Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo, or Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, is a turn-based strategy game, released exclusively in Japan in 1994 for the Super Famicom. It was a smash hit; according to Famitsu sales records, Mystery of the Emblem is the best-selling Fire Emblem game of all time. It was the first Fire Emblem game with an actual budget, and was successful enough to make the series Nintendo's flagship strategy title.

Mystery of the Emblem is a two-part epic that tells the tale of Prince Marth of Aritia. The first part is a remake of the original game, Dark Dragon and the Blade of Light; the second half is an entirely original story. In the first part, where we'll begin, Marth is exiled from Aritia after a hostile takeover by the country Durhua. Marth seeks asylum on the island Talis, where he regroups and assembles an army to find the holy sword Falchion to defeat Medeus, the dragon emperor of Durhua.

This Let's Play will cover the whole game, starting from Marth's humble beginnings fighting pirates on Talis to his dramatic showdown at the end of Book II. I'm looking to have a fair amount of viewer interaction here, so I'm going to put several things up for vote:

- After the player gets a reasonable number of units, they aren't allowed to deploy all of them; I'm going to put the teams to use up for vote. And for (religious figure)'s sake, don't insist I bring Jeigan every map or something like that.

- I always have a pile of stat-boosting items that I never know what to do with, so that's going up for vote. Note that in this game, Marth can't promote, so he's a prime choice for the items. Fighters can't promote either, but they also are only present in Book I.

- There's this weird bit in the first book where there's two characters you can get, but you can only choose one of them. You guys can pick which one.

Akaneia

Spoiler: Those of you who have played the 13th game might notice something familiar (click to show/hide)

Yeah, Awakening is basically one big love letter to Mystery of the Emblem and the two games before it (and to a lesser extent, the nine games after it.) Geography doesn't appear to have been kind to a lot of the straits between the islands of Akaneia.

First update coming tomorrow.

[A Thing]

Akaneia

Thebes? Macedonia? Orleans? I'm going to be disappointed if we don't see Egyptians, Aristotle, and jazz bands.

[highmax28]

PTW. I have never seen the ones before Sacred Stones, so this should be interesting

[Tawa]

Well, I was going to write an update today, but as it turned out exactly 0% of the screenshots saved. But I swore to myself I'd post something, so I might as well set the scene, right?

Durhua Empire, led by the Mamkute King, Mediuth. The people lived in fear and despair. The Holy Kingdom of Akaneia, which had always guarded the world, was also destroyed by the horrific power of the Dark Dragon. The world was facing ruin.

However... A miracle occurred.

Anri was a youth from the town of Aritia. He went on a perilous journey to obtain the divine sword of light, Falchion. And used it challenge and defeat the Dark Dragon, Mediuth. With Mediuth's fall, the Durhua Empire was vanquished. The Kingdom of Akaneia was restored, and the world entered an age of peace. Taking lead from the Kingdom of Aritia, many other countries also began to rebuild themselves.

But, 100 years after the war with Durhua.

After many years had passed, Mediuth resurrected at Durhua. He allied with the neighbouring kingdoms of Grunia and Macedonia, and restored the Durhua Empire. Also he joined forces with Khadein's Archbishop Garnef, who shared the same ambitions of ruling the world as him, and launched an attack on the Kingdom of Akaneia.

Akaneia fought to the death, but under Grunia's General Camus and Mediuth's might they suffered terrible losses. Aside from Princess Nina, the royal family was wiped out. Aritia's King Cornelius, who possessed the bloodline of Anri, left to defeat Mediuth. He took the Falchion, the divine sword of legends, to battle, but was betrayed by Aritia's ally, Gra, and died in battle. Following him, the Kingdom of Aritia also fell.

Prince Marth, just 14 years of age, managed to escape with the help of his elder sister, Princess Ellis. And he fled to the distant island country of Talis...

So we have our power players set here. Pretty much every Fire Emblem game has at least one "Big Bad Evil Country" where the ruler is an unabashed lunatic. Here, there's like three. Later games played with this pretty much every time; like, in Genealogy of the Holy War, it turns out [YOU'RE from the Big Bad Evil Country, or Path of Radiance has Daein, who has a Social Darwinist leader and racism out the wazoo, but then in Radiant Dawn it turns out [a country that aided you in the last game as one of the "good guys" is actually controlled by a cadre of asshole megalomaniacs].

Anyway, now we move onto more exposition.

Empire. He was protected by the Aritian knights, led by the veteran knight, Jeigan. And he escaped, after much struggle, to the eastern island kingdom of Talis.

The Kingdom of Talis was a small country, without even its own knights, located at the frontier. The King of Talis lent his eastern fortress to Marth, and offered him assistance. After the death of both his parents, and his beloved sister's capture by the Empire, Marth felt anxious.[/i]

"Prince Marth... I understand your concern for your sister. However you're only 14. You're too young to fight with the Empire. Please wait for now. Here you can train, until you become strong enough..."

What are you talking about, you old loon? Everybody knows that 14-year-old kids with swords are unstoppable forces of destruction.

Under the caring protection of the Talis citizens, Marth had passed 2 years at this country. Right now, it is fast approaching the day that he becomes 16 years of age...

     
We receive a nice panorama of Talis, which is -really- tiny. It pans down a little for the second one, which is why it's unaligned there.



shit, magic ocean people



And they immediately walked right onto the land from the water. Maybe we're fighting an army of Jesuses?



Meanwhile, Marth is standing out doing fuck-all in a box in a field while a pink man wrecks a village in the south.



A pegasus rider flies directly over the units to talk to Marth, something blatantly impossible in normal gameplay.



This is Jeigan. I'll expound on him more in a moment.

: "What? Sheeda, what's happened to the castle?"

This is Marth, in case you've never played Smash Bros. Everybody had wacky hair like this until the sixth game rolled around, by the way, but it was toned down considerably in 5 after reaching a peak in 4, where some of the characters had straight-up mullets.

: "Marth, am I glad to see you! The Garda pirates suddenly attacked us. They took over the castle, and killed lots of people! Please, you've got to rescue my father!"

This is Sheeda, the princess of Talis.

: "Don't worry, Sheeda. The bravest Aritian knights are here in this fort. We won't lose to those pirates. Come, let's go to Talis castle together."


And with that, the game begins and Marth spontaneously gives birth to 4 people.

First, let's look at our units.

Spoiler: An introduction to Fire Emblem stats, skip if you're already familiar (click to show/hide)

Characters have three important factors. Their "bases", the stats they come with; their "growths", the percentile chances their stats will go up on a level-up; and their class, which determines their movement, weapons, and what weapons they can use. Joining at a high level is actually a bad thing in Fire Emblem; they have less room for their level-ups to be bad, so there's little room for RNG error. You can "promote" characters into prestige classes, usually called "advanced" classes; the upshot of this is that they have twice as much room to grow than before, and in most games they receive a very nice boost to their stats upon promotion.

This is Marth. As you can see, Marth is made out of tissue paper. His stats are very good, some of the best in the game, rivalling only gods like Navarre. He's built sort of like the Myrmidons of later games: he has good growths in Speed and Skill, but practically no Defense. (Like better Myrmidons such as Joshua and Mia, he also has a damn good Strength growth.) His big issue is that he can't promote to a better class, but this can be somewhat offset by the use of stat-boosting items.

Jeigan's stats are miles above Marth's, save for his Luck. He's on a horse, so he can move 10 spaces at a time instead of Marth's seven. He can use lances and swords, and comes with a kick-ass lance to boot. What's not to love?

Answer: he never gets better. A comparison:

Marth's growth rates: 90 HP, 50 STR, 40 SKL, 50 SPD, 70 LCK, 40 WLV, 20 DEF, 3 RES. (Everybody has a 3 RES growth, by the way. Basically nobody gets RES, ever.)
Jeigan's growth rates: 10 HP, 10 STR, 10 SKL, 10 SPD, 0 LCK, 0 WLV, 0 DEF, 3 RES.

Do you see this? Jeigan can grow in 4 out of 8 stats, and of those 4 stats each one has a 1 in 10 percent chance of growing. And this is with 19 chances to get stats. Jeigan is terrible and he should feel terrible about it.

There's a Jeigan in every game. They're a crutch for new players who screw up very badly. Jeigan here is so infamous these characters usually get called "Jeigans". Later games changed some of the ideas behind the Jeigan; the fourth game had a character named "Oifey", who was overleveled and could get used as a nuclear option if you screwed up badly, but he had good growths and could be a normal team member when everyone else caught up. Most of the characters in Western-released FEs are "Oifeys".

Anyway, back to the stats.


Kain and Abel. They aren't brothers, and Kain's actually pretty chill. They both have swords they can't use. Kain focuses on being an indestructible wall, while Abel focuses on being an untouchable ninja. We'll probably be replacing at least one of them in due time.

Every game has two guys like this, although for some reason both Western-released GBA games swapped around the characters' focuses in relation to their colors. The recently-released Fates games have ninjas instead.


Gordon, our Archer and the most boringly-named person on the team for the time being.

He's no Freeman, but he's surprisingly adequate if you get lucky. Otherwise he's probably better off replaced by later units like Wolf and Kashim.


Doga, our resident brick wall. Basically everything on the map can deal a whopping 1 damage to him, but he's slow as hell as an Armor Knight. There's plenty of replacements for him, too, if he doesn't turn out.


Lastly, Sheeda, our Pegasus Knight. Pegasus Knights have a reputation for being able to eat magic attacks for breakfast and being fast as hell, which Sheeda does quite nicely. She's also instrumental in recruiting lots of characters; if she gets killed, you're screwed out of some of the best characters in the game.

Real update tomorrow if I can wrangle my emulator into submission and get those screenshots.

[highmax28]

So... Is Seth and Fredrik Jeigans or Oifeys? I swear Seth has good growths to be a solid party member... He is almost as good as Ross (but Ross is more fun because he just rips everyone to pieces as a berserker)

[Tawa]

Seth and Frederick are Oifeys, and Seth is widely considered the best Oifey ever; generally the only way you can go wrong with him is by making him a core team member before, oh, I'd say the route split would be a good time to start using him. Seth solo runs are infamous for often being easier than the regular game! :v

Seth is so good because of his biggest break from tradition: one of Jeigan's many flaws was that his base stats didn't hold up to the standards of his own level; real level 1 paladins beat him out every step of the way. Seth, though, has stats on par with his peers; he could definitely take another 1st-level paladin any day of the week.

Frederick is a low-tier Oifey. He's quite serviceable throughout most of the game, but he's sort of like Oswin in FE7: his bases are a huge part of why he's good, so his mediocre growths catch up to him at the end and usually lead to his replacement by a more capable unit or relegation to support role.

Of course, since this is an RNG here, your mileage may vary. My first Frederick was on my endgame team.

Pure Jeigans do have one use, though, which we'll see when I update for the prologue.

[highmax28]

Oh you... I know what you're doing and when I played shadow dragon for the DS, I did that and thought he was like Seth and thought I made a mistake. Didn't know I was doing myself a favour (though honestly, I HATE archers. It's why I usually benched Gordon as soon as possible.

Then again, my teams were usually heavy defences and strength with casters as heavy sources of damage. In sacred stones, that was pretty much run as Cormag (my Favorite character in all FE), Amelia, Gilliam, Ross, Saleah, Ewan, and Artur. I had Joshua of course as well, and pretty much had him do what he did best, rolling with Seth (because Seth was awesome and in sad others didn't compare to him...), Ephiram and Colm. Considering I played a strange playstyle similar to the Rolling Barrage maneuver that us Canadians used, I send my walls up, slowly pulling in enemies and unleashing hell with my casters and ranged fighters (aka Ross with a tomahawk) and let the others come in as cleanup crew, or in Joshua's case, pick off enemies that didn't come to my wall.

I also ended up benching Fredrik really early. I feel bad because I thought he was exactly like Seth. I was wrong, and I ended up beating the game with Chrom and the avatar paired up and soloing the fight with occasional healing from the healer. And weirdly enough, I only ever seen the need to use a healer was in awakening, because in sacred stones, I either never took damage or I never got hit. And on the odd chance I did, I had healing items for that, and because of my tactics, it didn't change anything.

I'm sad to say I never got far with Shadow Dragon for the DS, mostly because the insta-class change was confusing, and I lost my game...

[birdy51]

Oh Jeigan... It's not your fault you beautiful man. One day you will ride again like in the days of your youth. And the nations will weep.

[Tawa]

Last time, we looked at everybody's stats, wrote a short essay on Jeigans, and prepared to save Talys from the pirates.



Our first order of business is to have Jeigan hand his sword to Marth...

...and his lance off to Sheeda. Jeigan will not want any weapons for his holy mission today.

Kain runs off to stab the purple thief who burned that town down before we could do anything. This screen shows HIS stats for the fight; you have to compare them to the enemy's. But I come up with a better plan first:

Abel will use his javelin, which has a range of 2, to weaken the thief so that Kain can finish him off.

This screen has the enemy's stats. You just have to subtract the attacker's "At"(tack) value from the enemy's "Def"(ense) value, and that nets you your damage. I'm not quite sure about the logistics of A(ttack)S(kill), Av(oid), or Ac(curacy), but you're highly unlikely to miss this level, so it doesn't matter all too much yet. I will be checking up on hit for next time though.

Attack, Abel!

Damn it. This bodes well, doesn't it?

Kain runs in and I realize neither of them were ever in danger anyway, since their Defense values are equal to his Attack, rendering his moves null.

Marth drops by this town to say hi to the locals.

This is what the villagers gathered up. All together there's 5000 Gold. Please use it to make preparations, and then rescue this country from the Garda pirates.

This old guy hands us our war chest for the start of the game. We can make do with this for now; at the very least, it's not the lone red gem Hector had to go on.

After Marth discusses the economy with the old guy he equips Jeigan's sword to save uses of his more powerful Rapier.

Scanning the enemy lines, we see where the fighting will begin. Everywhere within one square of the highlighted area is liable for attacks. (This, if I might add, is one of the huge improvements made by Mystery of the Emblem; the first two games made you count squares manually, like Radiant Dawn on Hard Maniac Mode. It wasn't until Genealogy of the Holy War that they highlighted the squares enemies could attack from, though. Which reminds me... I oughta do a LP of that one next, GotHW is a damn good game.)

Our lines at the start of Turn 1. Doga will absorb a decent amount of enemy attacks, while Gordon will provide cover fire. The rest of our forces will move in next turn, with Abel arriving and Kain the turn after after he beats the thief.

The enemy's lines at the start of our next turn. Those guys in the north will force defending the northern coast in a couple of turns, while the secondary forces in the south will just be a clean-up job, more or less. The boss and his cronies don't move because they're guarding the gates of the castle.

Kain finishes the thief.

Jeigan moves into the forest, totally unarmed. Abel throws javelins over his head at the enemy.

God damn it Abel.

Our forces this turn. Now we'll face real combat!

Doga knocks him down to half HP for his trouble.

This is my master plan with Jeigan: meatshield. The reason I unarmed him is simple: the game's attack priority is as follows.

Units Who Can't Counter -> Marth -> Everyone else based on a variety of factors like counter damage and damage they can do.

Normally this works OK; the idea is the enemy will prioritize healers and archers who are frail and can't return fire. But you can use Jeigan as a meatshield in the early levels by sticking him in enemy lines without any weapons; they'll all go after him and do scratch damage, but then you can come in with your real characters and take them out while they focus on the unarmed 59-year-old.

Meanwhile Marth is fighting the pirate.

OH YES~

Our first critical hit isn't redundant? I have a good feeling about this game.

Marth prepares to finish off the guy Doga weakened.

what the fuck marth

Doga goes after that archer to stop him from being a nuisance to Sheeda. You'll notice that I moved Jeigan; the enemies recognized the cover the forest he was parked on was giving him, so I moved him to nowhere in particular instead.

Freeman fires upon the enemy and scores his first kill. O mighty RNGsus, please let this be a good Gordon

Abel finishes the guy Doga started. That archer had no idea what he was doing, just standing around in the open like that.

Jeigan exceeds expectations.

Next turn, the enemy is almost at the north coast. Doga and Abel focus their efforts on the guys Jeigan is luring.

Abel -finally- hit somebody with a javelin! Hell yeah! Kain and Gordon moved up with Marth, who's going to fight the enemy from that fortress. Fortresses provide badass defensive cover and heal you to boot, so they're super handy.

Gordon takes another shot and gets a second kill under his belt.

Business as usual, really. Abel, Gordon and Marth will receive the pirates landing up north while everybody else prepares to converge on the southern forces next turn.

You're doing very well as a dodgetank, Jeigan.

Marth and the pirate exchange blows. Marth has his first round of combat ever that doesn't involve him gouging out the other guy's heart or something.

Gordon takes aim to give Marth that last bit of help he needs.

WHAT THE HELL MARTH ANOTHER ONE

As it would seem, Marth has an insatiable bloodlust and has mastered the art of unnecessarily violent blows to destroy the enemy.

I have a personal belief that the first level-up in a Fire Emblem game affects the qualities of every other level-up in the game.

So, we have a reasonable level-up, I guess.

I should probably give a run-down of the stats:
-HP... you've played a video game before, right?
-Strength determines the unit's ability to deal damage.
-Skill determines their ability to hit and affects critical hits to some extent.
-Speed determines dodging ability; if it's high enough, the unit can attack twice. Marth and Sheeda are the only ones who can do that right now.
-Weapon Level is the precursor to the letter-grade weapon levels seen in every game from Genealogy onward. You don't actually need to max it out to wield all the weapons, but practically everybody has a ridiculously high growth in it. Except for Jeigan.
-Defence is directly subtracted from attack strength to calculate damage.
-Luck is used for all kinds of things but primarily chance of critical hits on both ends.
-Resistance is like Defence but for magic.

So Marth got a reasonable level. It'll help him become the critical-hit-machine he seems to want to be.

Abel starts fighting the southern pirate.

We can't finish them this turn, so I position Kain, Marth, and Sheeda so that nobody can attack Gordon.

We head in for the kill.

Uh, Skill is good, right? :v Stop pretending to be Marth, Gordon.

Doga goes in to finish the vanguard...

Damn it, Doga! Don't do this to me!

Sheeda gets her first kill.

With most of the enemy forces eliminated we make our way to the boss. Marth drops by the village.

"It's like a dream to be able to see you..."

Hey, what the hell? I was supposed to get Riff here! >:v

(Riff was a cleric in the original, Dark Dragon and the Blade of Light, who joined you if you came here. They couldn't fit him onto the SNES, though, so they replaced him with a healing item. Such is life.)

Abel weakens one of the boss's cronies.

Sheeda goes in with Jeigan's lance to finish him.

It's one hell of a lance.

Kain goes after the left guard...

...who kills himself on the counter-attack.

Kain got Speed? :O

I have a good feeling about Kain.

Next turn, Abel begins the assault on the boss.

"If we let you guys walk all over us, it would ruin the name of us pirates! ...Die!"

We wear him down to his last legs, and Sheeda went for the kill...

...but then the game crashed.

Thankfully, I kept a save state from the FIRST time I beat the level, so we're OK.

Marth seizes the castle gate and saves Talys. The king who had the gall to doubt the abilities of a teenager in a JRPG congratulates him.
"Oh, Prince Marth. I am glad to see you're safe. We are all very grateful for your actions. Is that so...? You're finally heading out to Orleans? In that case, I will send some soldiers to aid you.
These men, led by Captain Oguma, are all brave warriors. I'm certain they will help you in battle."

"Before you go, I have some important advice for your highness. From now on, during your highness's travels, you will surely find many people who despise the Durhua Empire. Some of them are hiding in villages, while others have been captured by enemies. There may even be some that have been forced to work for Durhua. Finding these people and fighting together with them is crucial. Do you understand me, Prince Marth...? Well, the time has come! You must be determined during your journey. Good luck!"

That last bit is a big hint to one of the most famous mechanics in Fire Emblem: in more or less every level for the first 2/3 of each game, there's at least one person who you can recruit for your army. Sometimes they're handed to you for free. Sometimes they're third-party combatants who you need to talk to with the main character, or hiding in villages. Most infamously, they could be an enemy soldier who doesn't support the cause, was forced into service, or has friends or family on your side; if you can talk to them with the right person, you get a new character.

Next time on Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem: Book One: The War of Darkness:
"Prince Marth, I am Oguma, a Talis mercenary."
"Taste my Hand Axe!"
"Please forgive me, Sheeda..."

[highmax28]

I'm sad about Doga's level up... Did the stats change much from the save state game?

[A Thing]

You're finally heading out to Orleans? In that case, I will send some soldiers to aid you.

Get ready for some intense sax action in the next part of Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem: Book One: Despair My Eyes: Chapter Two: Sweet Jesus: There Are: So Many: Colons!

By the way I've never played the game so for all I know the soundtrack could be awful, but linking to it (if it exists) would be nice.

[highmax28]

Wait... Is Oguma this game's mercenary? I recall that from somewhere...

Also, how many Knights (or in this case, Armor Knights) are in this game? I know there usually is only one, MAYBE two in most games

[Tawa]

I'm sad about Doga's level up... Did the stats change much from the save state game?

I think that somebody else got that level, actually. Doga saw more use this run :v

You're finally heading out to Orleans? In that case, I will send some soldiers to aid you.

Get ready for some intense sax action in the next part of Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem: Book One: Despair My Eyes: Chapter Two: Sweet Jesus: There Are: So Many: Colons!

By the way I've never played the game so for all I know the soundtrack could be awful, but linking to it (if it exists) would be nice.

Shoot, I totally spaced on that!

The soundtrack pales in comparison to FE4 but it's rather catchy. (Unfortunately, we still have like 3 chapters before we get to Orleans proper. :c )

Wait... Is Oguma this game's mercenary? I recall that from somewhere...

Also, how many Knights (or in this case, Armor Knights) are in this game? I know there usually is only one, MAYBE two in most games

Yep! He's the forefather of legends like Raven, Gerik, and Gregor. Later we'll meet metaphorical living god Navarre, who is nominally a mercenary but is more like later games' Myrmidons. (He even has to be recruited from the enemy side, like Ayra, Guy, Joshua, Marisa, Zihark, and the like.)

This game gives you -loads- of units; I think there's 3 or 4 Armor Knights. There was no metagame or fan community, so the practice of making sure everybody survives hadn't grown yet, leading to mountains of replacements. (Heck, the famed Bord and Cord actually come with a third, objectively superior unit, Barts.)

[highmax28]

I like armor knights a lot, and I love how strong they get when they become a general. I like Wyvern Lords the most, mostly because their versatility in using swords an spears makes them fantastic, and they also specialize in attack and defence, so they can be as tanky as a knight. Hell, I remember Cormag being able to take 0 damage from silver bows by the end of Sacred Stones. I think the only problem I had with Cormag was the wind sword almost insta-killed him when I fought the boss at Jehnna Hall... I forgot the boss's name, but I know he was an asshole. On my first run, where I had no idea what I was doing, I lost Ross, Amelia, Garcia, Artur, Joshua, and I think I also lost Tana, Venessa and Moulder, so I already had lost a good chunk of the units I could use to really do well in this game. I sent Seth, Gilliam, Doza, and I think Franz/Forde after him, and I lost ALL OF THEM. I killed him with Saleah, but as soon as I started the next level, I was screwed.

And then I beat the game like 3 times without losing anyone

[Tawa]

Oh, that reminds me! Wyvern Knights are the promotion of Pegasus Knights in this game. Dunno exactly why. :v