Playing through Drakengard 1 motivated me to face my past demons so this mf was first on the list



To me I can look at FE6 in two ways

As a "sequel" to FE7, man, this game is balls. The gameplay is worse which I mean that's fair because FE7 is a prequel after all but holy shit when it comes to the writing this is EASILY the most boring Fire Emblem narrative of all time and there’re absolute 0 excuses when it comes to that. It's basically gen 2 of Genealogy but you remove the build-up and intricate character work that went into making that game this grand epic tale of heritage and generational conflict, instead they said "hey let's make a game where most of the army are kids and you vaguely hear about their parents but they're not gonna be developed, established or even count as characters!" and even if you try to connect your brain to FE7 to fill in the holes it doesn’t work because the continuity is all fucked in so many ways. Most of the FE7 cast magically disappears, Hector is straight up disrespected, Eliwood is in it for 1 scene, God knows where Lyn is, PENT AND LOUISE ARE ALIVE AND JUST CHILLING IN THEIR HOUSE EVEN THOUGH THE COUNTRY THEY HELP RULE WAS BASICALLY THE MOST AFFECTED BY THE WAR??????

It's a mess so I’m mostly looking at it in a vacuum



The early game of this entry is easily the most annoying out of all the games in the series I played. The hit rates are obnoxious and your starting units fucking suck. As the game progresses you still have some really annoying level design but once you get some saucy units and they get beefy yeah, it’s still GBA Fire Emblem so it’s fun.

The plot like I said is a mouthful of nothing. The main antagonists are neat but they suffer from little screen time and Zephiel especially kinda ends up feeling like a plot device towards Idunn even though he’s supposed to be this interesting ideal driven character. Roy and Guinevere are the most boring leads imaginable. Roy especially feels like he was written by an AI that has no agency and just reacts to whatever the plot wants them to do in a text to speech manner. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY MERLINUS IS LIKE THE CO-LEAD TOO BECAUSE HE IS A GOD AWFUL ANNOYING POINTLESS CHARACTER. The cast as a whole tho taking supports into consideration is solid, some hard misses and boring ass supports but some hidden gems as well.

I feel like this would be a strong 5 but man the last 3 chapters (which you need to complete a bunch of stupid requirements to be able to play through, but let’s ignore that) are GREAT. Brunnya’s last stand is dope as hell, the dragon history lesson by Jahn is awesome (I really like Jahn he’s rad) and the final fight with Idunn although a bit too easy imo is really nice. The true ending in particular is fantastic. I truly adore Idunn, she’s so interesting and the conclusion to her journey is satisfying as hell. So yeah, those 3 last chapters at least for now kinda got me by the balls and elevated this real nothing burger of a story that features some cool characters into a nothing burger story that has a pretty sick climax that I still think it didn’t deserve. I hope they remake this game Echoes style one day because the foundation for a fantastic story is there, they just need to stop being hostages of Kaga’s vision of Fire Emblem which is ultimately what brings this game to failure, it’s a poor man’s Kaga Fire Emblem game both in gameplay (some maps are straight up copied from Thracia lmao) and in story.






So yeah the manga is better read Hasha no Tsurugi most of the shit I complained about Hasha goes out of its way to make it good here click this link rn pls
https://mangadex.org/title/d320eeff-08d2-424d-9513-77b17b219354

Depois da saída de Shouzou Kaga um dos principais diretores da franquia, a nova direção da franquia resolveu que para seu próximo jogo Binding blade se espelhasse mais em seu primeiro jogo da franquia: Shadow dragon, reusando bastante elementos como: uma história, lord mais simples, arquétipos de personagens e é claro a própria gameplay que retirou muitos elementos dos jogos passados, com o intuito de simplificar a gameplay. Binding blade pode ser considerado como o berço do que a franquia continuou a focar e aprimorar até os dias de hoje.

A história do jogo é simples e direta ao ponto, um cara louco quer dominar o mundo com seu exército e o rei bom de um outro país tá doente e manda o filho de 15 anos pra guerra e foda-se vai lá filhão!!!!! Você vai juntando aliados pra derrotar o vilão e tem dragão no meio e o caralho a quatro, sim é bem foda-se mesmo, o que é algo triste considerando toda a carga dramática que Genealogy e Thracia trouxeram para a franquia, resumindo a história é competente, mas fraca e não muito memorável.

Roy seu main lord, é um protagonista de harem, não exalando muita personalidade ou carisma, em termos de gameplay é uma das piores units do jogo e precisa de bastante “babying” e ganha promotion MUITO tarde no jogo e você é obrigado a seize em todos os mapas do jogo com esse filho da puta com 5 de move (Sim esse filho da puta é uma puta cópia do Marth do primeiro jogo e também recebe uma arma efetiva em dragão só pra mexer na ferida), algo ruim também é que no Smash bros a forma de como o Roy é tratado é completamente diferente de quem ele é no jogo dele (mas isso é mais culpa do Smash do que do jogo), infelizmente tudo isso junto faz com que o Roy tenha uma visão muito negativa na fanbase, pessoalmente eu não o odeio mas sou muito foda-se pra ele sinceramente. O vilão do jogo é bem meh também, seu backstory é bom, mas sua motivação e plano são muito extrapolados, o resto dos personagens do jogo não possuem muito screentime ou importância, consequência disso é do jogo ser mais focado em world building, que aqui é um bom trabalho e felizmente temos um sistema que dão mais focos nestes personagens, sendo ele o sistema de “supports”, sistema esse que todos seus jogos futuros o utilizam e o aprimoraram, sendo esse sistema uma das marcas da franquia.

Como já tinha dito antes,Binding Blade retirou muito das mecânicas de seus jogos passados: dismounting, capture, leadership stars, e várias outras mecânicas do Thracia, nunca mais foram vistos na franquia inteira, já mecânicas como skills e capítulos de protect the throne e escape, não estão no jogo, mas felizmente tiveram seu retorno em títulos futuros, sendo uma exceção o sistema de con e rescue e infelizmente fog of war que se mantiveram; uma alteração que eu não gostei foram a troca de master seals por itens limitados que upam para cada classe, que tão aqui provavelmente para balancear mais a variedade de suas units, mas prefiro como era antes só um item foda-se, upa quem você quiser, que felizmente jogos depois dos de GBA voltaram a ter. Em termos de melhorias o jogo concerta/facilita várias mecânicas retardadas do Genealogy e Thracia, fog of war são mais toleráveis devido a você agora poder ver o mapa e só as units serem ofuscadas, a quantidade de usos de balistas foram reduzidas e agora são visíveis, o sistema de canto foi nerfado, aqui você não pode mais se mover depois de um ataque e nem equipar suas armas, mas pra todo outro tipo de ação sim, e agora você pode mudar a posição das units no seu mapa CHUPA THRACIA. Em comparação com o Thracia o jogo é muito mais fácil, mas em comparação com outros jogos da franquia ele ainda é difícil, causa disso seria o jogo ainda possuir same turn reinforcements, que os jogos futuros deletaram (menos hard mode do Shadow dragon e Awakening filhos da puta) e problemas de balanceamento que abordarei em baixo, pois é longooooooooo.

O jogo é bastante desbalanceado, muitas units ruins e outras que quebram o jogo, os mapas do jogo são bem grandinhos fazendo com que knights serem inviáveis e a porra do item que upa a classe deles é compartilhada com a que upa de cavalier, quem será que você prefere escolher em? As que mais se fodem no jogo são as units de machado, pois, grande parte das armas sofreram um decréscimo de hit no jogo e possuem os piores hits da série foda-se, não só isso, eles são fudidos pelo novo sistema de hit rates do jogo, “double roll”, o que é essa porra? Bem, o cálculo feito que se o teu golpe acerta ou não é determinado por um dado nos jogos passados, se você tem 40 de hit você vai atacar com 40 de hit, double roll são dois dados e isso significa que agora você tem mais chances de acertar um hit caso esteja acima de 50 e mais chances de errar caso esteja abaixo, ou seja, some isso com o decréscimo de hit mais o fato de units de machado naturalmente terem baixa skill, e tenha personagens constantemente errando golpes. Algo que eu sinceramente não gosto é que o jogo continua dizendo que o teu hit é como se fosse de 1 dado, ou seja, o que melhora a experiência do jogador que não sabe disso, mas convenhamos o jogo tá literalmente te enganando.

Em termos de mapas muitos aqui são ótimos e alguns poucos são exclusivos de rotas o que aumenta um fator replay, mas cara, tem muito mapa ruim também como: arcadia, possui um puta spike de dificuldade; o mapa da água subindo é uma merda; o capítulo 21 é um mar quase infinito de reinforcements; a rota de sacae inteira e ficar brincando de pega pega com o Douglas pra desbloquear o capítulo secreto é uma merda. Outro grande problema dos mapas é todos serem seize the throne, coisa que Thracia já tinha concertado, gerando pouquíssima variedade.

Mas agora vou me aprofundar no maior problema do jogo que é a falta de explicação da mecânica de support e os requerimentos do final verdadeiro.

Indo para os supports, são uma evolução completa do que tínhamos no Genealogy, aqui temos várias conversas entre dois personagens que os contextualizam além do que é mostrado na história e ainda garantem bônus em stats para ambas as units se ambos estiverem perto um do outro (igual a bond supports dos jogos passados), sendo um desses hit, que é uma puta ajuda contra os chefes em tronos do jogo. Esse sistema que até hoje é usado na franquia e uma de suas marcas mais famosas, uma ótima mecânica com um ótimo começ… não, porque o jogo não dá uma foda para explicar como ele funciona, ou quem tem support com quem, ou o que os bônus garantem, porra nenhuma, não só isso os supports são MUITO demorados de se obter, sério, os supports mais demorados do jogo são em torno de 200 turnos para obter de C à A, os bônus são ótimos, mas sinceramente não vale a pena, não só isso os supports tem um limite de 5, ou seja, se tiver interesse em ver algum em específico, vai ver no youtube ou wiki mesmo. Minha dica gaymer é só upar o support do Roy com a Lilina pois somente necessita de 36 turnos, isso pode ajudar a Lilina a ser seu boss killer.

Indo ao final verdadeiro, os capítulos “gaidens” do jogo são desbloqueados por certos requerimentos no capítulo passado, naturalmente manter um ou outro personagem vivo mais terminar o capítulo em um determinado número de turnos, nesses capítulos gaidens se você terminá-los você ganhará uma arma lendária que é extremamente forte, mas precisa de S rank em seu tipo de arma (que serve como um bom equilíbrio) e se você recolher todos você desbloqueará mais 2 capítulos que é o final canônico do jogo, legal e interessante né? NÃO PORQUE O JOGO NÃO TE DIZ PORRA NENHUMA, ele não te diz qual é o capítulo que desbloqueia um gaiden, nem os requerimentos, nem que você vai ganhar algo por pegar todas as armas e nem quem você tem que manter vivo, E QUER SABER MAIS? Se você gastar inteira umazinha arma se quer PAU NO SEU CU, sem final verdadeiro pra você, e adivinha… ele não te diz isso, e sinceramente, esses últimos capítulos possuem as melhores partes e resolução de pontas soltas da história. (vilão secreto também que é bem melhor que o principal).

Tá onde essa porra de jogo fica pra mim? Ele exclui a gameplay mais complexa do Genealogy e Thracia, mas também serve como berço onde os futuros jogos se basearam e melhoraram, especialmente os jogos de GBA, animações fodas de sprites? Ótimas músicas que ficam ótimas em um GBA? Uma gameplay mais simples e eficiente e que tirou várias demências do Thracia? Começou tudo aqui porra, mais respeito, os outros jogos de GBA só pegaram a mesma engine e melhoraram as mecânicas daqui, agradeço muito, mas se for para comparar não tem jeito, ainda é um Fire Emblem competente mas um dos meus menos favoritos da série, infelizmente.

I'd rather force my head inside of a particle accelerator than play this game ever again.

Even playing it on an emulator with save states can help make the experience a little bit better.
This game ruined my life, pissed on my wife, killed my cat and flushed my country's economy down the toilet.

I cannot recommend it to anyone who wants to explore the Fire Emblem series, and I'd recommend to just read a wiki, because even if you play the game to get to know the characters, you're going to spend 100 turns per map to gain a single support level so you can read the support conversations.

I hope it never gets localized or remade, the only good thing about this game is that Roy is actually good in Smash Bros.

Notes for my Series Replay:
- The plot feels very safe. Apart from the first game, this feels like the most formulaic story so far. Very standard case of invading neighboring country evolves into conflict with some supernatural beings/dragons. Not saying this is bad, but just very safe for the first FE post Shouzou Kaga.
- The gameplay feels significantly more defined with characters fulfilling specific niches. Classes have different stat caps, and thus characters have specific roles they're more tailored to rather than FE5's sandbox-ish style of gameplay. Also thieves are glorified keys now, as they have little combat potential, can't steal equipped items, and there is a general lack of valuable items worth stealing in FE6.
- Map design is... a thing. Most of the maps in FE6 are questionably large for the lack of enemy density in the normal difficulty. Many of my turns were just spent moving units up to the next encounter, which got to be a little frustrating on some of the more tedious maps. Speaking of which, there are many of those. FE6 maps aren't as large as FE4's maps, but they only sometimes have a gaiden objective, and they're mostly just standard seize maps with very little complexity. Sure, there are some memorable maps, and some notoriously bad maps, but overall I just felt meh on FE6's map design.
- Speaking of gaiden chapters, I have absolutely no clue how the average player is supposed to figure out how to reach them. Thracia is also guilty of this, but this game is mostly just turn limits reqs on maps that are needlessly slow and tedious (I'm looking at you, Chapter 14).
- FE6 somewhat weakened support units and put combat units back in the spotlight compared to FE5. There are still status staves and warp, and the like, but they have been severely hindered from their previous appearance. They have either limited range or accuracy checks to mitigate their performance this time around, and as such, I found myself relying on them as a viable strategy less often.
- But hey guess what, siege tomes and ballista are back. They are not nearly as threatening as in FE5 but still frustrating as hell sometimes. FE6 tends to group together status staves and it makes a somewhat uneventful map turn into a "oh fuck did i bring restore" check. Luckily there are very few maps where this is an issue, but I still felt it was worth noting.
- The one thing I REALLY liked about FE6 was the world building. The nations and their politics made the story of this game really fascinating, and I found myself wanting more of that and less of the dragon stuff to be quite honest. But maybe that's the consequence of playing these games back to back like this.

Overall, I like the vibes of FE6 and the world that it creates, but I feel like the gameplay is just kinda "eh" and after the spectacular gameplay of FE5, I felt a little disappointed. It's a solid game, just a little too safe after what felt like a great leap forward for the series.

Genuinely my favourite Fire Emblem game. Its a game known for being janky as hell and that's pretty true, with wack units, low hit rates, gimmicky and annoying gaiden chapters, and there's probably more that can be said.

In spite of that, it has really solid maps and those shaky hit rates and gaiden chapter requirements force you to think a lot. I find a lot of fun in using the game's wack ass nobody characters like Dorothy or even Sophia because you can find ways to level them up or give them a purpose in a chapter. Even with very strong units like Rutger, Perceval and Melady available there is still room for other characters to contribute. Roy is infamously bad, but he becomes more like a king on a chess board where you need to think carefully to keep him alive and that ties really well into his character. Not for everyone but he isn't without merit.

Story is simple and could use more characters for Roy to interact with but it does its job. Elibe is a well realised setting, with each country having a distinct and memorable role. Supports were introduced in this game, and while they can be too short and simple at times the game has a lot of good ones. Roy, Shanna, Sue, Lugh, Igrene, Echidna, and Dorothy just to name a few. Just read them on an FE wiki tho, the GBA support system sucks.

I struggle to call Binding Blade a bad game, but I can’t really call it an amazing one either. I have both a lot to say about this game alongside absolutely nothing unique to remark on it. Maybe. I’ll do it anyway though.
Compared to the other FE reviews I don’t have much of a personal history with this one aside from knowing Roy as “the guy from smash” and trying the game on an emulator once. I dropped it after Bors died in less than one minute of gameplay because I was like “oh wow oh gee oh golly oh gosh this game really is as hard as they say!”
That’s not a hyperbole btw.
Anyway I gave the game a second chance after finishing FE7, this time with the Project Ember patch (which was a mistake) (don’t do that). Dropped it at Chapter 12 because I kept dying to the overpowered enemy units before eventually learning that PE copy pastes minibosses across the maps compared to the original. Oops! Started playing Genealogy of the Holy War instead and Binding Blade remained in the back of my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about that desire to finish it. Yeah ik the game kinda sucks but at the same time I want that satisfaction of saying I finished it alongside the fact I kept gatekeeping my FE pfps to exclusively games I finished/currently playing to completion (weird mind rabbit hole ignore it). So after I finished Genealogy I hopped on Engage while letting Binding Blade, this time the vanilla version starting up in the back burner. Yes I am clinically obsessed with Fire Emblem. How could you tell?
I finished this game before Engage too lmao. Ok let’s talk about the game now. Binding Blade is rough. This game barely functions correctly but that sort of gives it appeal. Maps are ok/mediocre/annoying, player units are ass, hit rates are less accurate than the Percy Jackson movie adaptations, the story is just ok blah blah blah. But also like, this game loops back into being entertaining because of it’s faults. Why out of all of these games, it’s FE6 that takes swordmasters, a class of dubious quality in basically any other FIre Emblem game, and transforms them into crit spamming dodge tanking Gods among men. Rutger is already a pretty good boss killer at base but the second you get him promoted his crit rate is increased by a guaranteed 30% which makes him nigh unstoppable for most of the game.
I’ll just use this to branch discussing player units into it’s own little paragraph here. FE6 player units are laughable. Like, hilarious. It’s not that this game doesn’t have good units but the bad units are just… really, REALLY bad. Both of the fighters you get early on are bad, the two unpromoted archers are bad, Gwendolyn (sadly) and her armor knight besties are bad, and don’t let me get started on Sophia. At the same time though…. that actually kinda adds to the density of this game, albeit unintentionally on the developers’ part. Because it’s entirely possible to make these trashy units viable if you try hard enough. Sophia, despite being one of the worst units in the entire franchise, CAN become actually adequate if you train her up and get stat blessed enough, which is insane. Same deal with Gwendolyn (see: Mekkah FE6 HM Ironman). Like, bad units in Fire Emblem games are fun because I like seeing how players can push them to their limits. This game is probably one of the best examples. I don’t have much to remark on the good units in comparison, but I do recommend Milady, Perceval, Rutger, Lilina (normal mode) etc.
Like for example Lilina is considered an ok-ish unit to many, but in my normal mode playthrough she became so incredibly stat blessed and dodge tanky that she was decimating most of the enemy spawns late game, to the point where I used her so much she hit the level cap after promotion. I’m sure other fans have had similar experiences, which adds to the discussion in a good way imo.
One major point of contention I have with this game is the ending system. To my knowledge this is one of the very few if not the only Fire Emblem games to have a secret hidden ending route with several chapters, and unlocking them here…. is not fun. At all. PLEASE use a guide when doing this. I’ve never seen an ending system that feels so counterintuitive to what the design philosophy of the series is. Requiring the player to keep so many specific units alive in a game where you can lose these units forever is bad design especially if they are required to see the ACTUAL ENDING OF THE GAME. On top of that, the gaiden chapters you unlock after fulfilling the requirements for each one aren’t good either. They’re long and boring. Despite having their own unique gimmicks they are probably the most uninteresting chapters in the game. To make matters worse, simply completing all these gaidens STILL isn’t enough, because if you break a single one of these (very limited usage) legendary weapons obtained from these chapters, that’s it. No true ending for you. Try again. Awful.
If you know about these requirements and use a guide beforehand, it’s manageable, but still really annoying. And that’s sorta just what this game is in general. Annoying. Enemy spam? check. Large maps? check. Same turn reinforcements? right here. Actually I’ve already said enough about the maps for now let’s talk about ambush spawns (same turn reinforcements). This is an awful mechanic. Adds nothing to the game. You could remove them and nothing of value would be lost. There’s no fun strategy or fun engagement to the concept of ambush spawns, simply having random enemies appear out of nowhere and immediately move the same turn is something completely out of the player’s control unless you know about them beforehand. It’s possible to mitigate many ambush spawns if you have prior knowledge (use a guide for chapter 21 I am begging you), but for the average player they don’t see any of this shit coming, It just happens. Thracia 776 also has many ambush spawns but that’s in a game where your player units are actually pretty durable and enemies are really weak so it somewhat balances out.
Difficulty. Chances are if you are involved in FE6 discussion online you’ve probably heard how this is one of the hardest games in the series. Uh… not really? Ok well the game certainly isn’t easy but it’s not necessarily impossible either. I think the game is moreso difficult at certain points, like chapters 7, 14, 21, 22 etc. A majority of the chapters post 7 are honestly pretty tame, annoying at worst. Chapter 24 can be kinda tough, but it’s also the best chapter in the game probably and it actually uses ambush spawns in a clever way for ONCE. I’ve also seen people call this game a “budget Thracia” or whatever, and I really have to ask: what? Thracia 776 is a hard game, sure, but that game is difficult for different reasons. Pardon if I’m incorrect on this because I haven’t played that game past chapter 2 currently, but Thracia is a hard game that gives you multiple tools to deal with it’s nonsense, which gives the game a sandboxy, creative appeal. You can’t really do that in Binding Blade. The game is hard because the enemy units are very strong while the player units aren’t. Even the most durable units can only withstand so much, they aren’t invincible. You really just have to hope for the best. Once again, there’s appeal to how imbalanced FE6 is, but the difficulty comparison to Thracia 776 is nonsensical.
That’s mainly what I wanted to talk about with this game. I know it was mostly negative but I still think the game is alright, but easily my least favorite in the series so far. It’s worth playing at least once to see the beautiful mess that was IS having their first go at a Fire Emblem game without Kaga, but the other GBA games are much better. I still like the game for it’s positives (graphics, music, character designs, the actually good maps), but I’m probably done with this game unless I play the “Plus” hack which actually looks pretty enjoyable. Also don’t be like Mister Magical Mage and play this game 776 times despite saying you hate it. I know what you are.

before reading this remember that I overall liked this game so I don't get death threats in the comments (or if you want to wish me death do it using an @ so I get the trophy lmao)

listen . i wanted to love fire emblem binding blade i really did . like theres some part of me that really wouldve ended up loving this game to death if it wasnt for the fact that its absolutely fucking tedious to play its not like this has no redeeming qualities but its pretty hard to just close an eye or maybe actually both eyes to some of the stuff that this throws at you

binding blade has actually a lot going for it bomb presentation amazing animations and art design addictive gameplay (:3 blatant lie) and the usual fire emblem flare in the story department but it really works a lot against its favor in many different ways

before I get to the weird stuff I want to really have a moment to say that the pixel art is incredible every single battle animation is intoxicatingly good and when you get to advanced spells there's some real eyecandy there im just gonna say this every single character portrait even if pretty simplistic drives the charm and the worldmap designs (in terms of aesthetic) are a delight to look at and even the backgrounds during the cutscene segments have a lot of details here and there that really add to the experience

unfortunately apart from this (that will become a staple for the other gba games anyway) I found this game kind of mid in every single aspect and you won't believe how much this ENRAGES ME UGHHJJ i swear I did my best to like this entry but it has too many downsides to actually say that this is at least at the same level of awakening for me . not even talking about echoes because that one is beyond everything else entirely

the story is pretty simplistic and doesn't get too many interesting plot points through a whopping amount of 25 chapters + like what 7 other chapters and thats a fucking shame apart from the beginning of the game and I'd say until you rescue lilina (one of my favorite character in this game actually) it really slows down for the entire game and picks up again only in the last chapters and since its just gonna be 20 chapters of absolutely nothing its a damn fucking flaw if you ask me most of the beats are gonna be like "our nation is against this nation and we are gonna defeat the main lord of this plot of land and then another and them another and then another until we get to the final boss and everyone's happy" and even when they get to interesting bits like the dragon lore stuff or the demon dragon infodumb in one of the last chapters I was so fucking exhausted of the story so far or lack thereof that I just wanted this torture to end im not even joking here

also I don't understand why the true ending is locked behind some extra quests whose conditions for their unlocking are a mystery to me as of yet I followed a guide so idc

granted there's some high points here and there again the whole lilina affair is probably my favorite part of the story and the dragon stuff is also cool and the final boss and ending are sad enough to make me at least enjoy the closing act but apart from that there's not a lot of stuff that I can say about the story besides its a fucking slog throughout but that's not gonna be so bad if the characters are charming !!!

they're not

this game strangely has a large cast of characters to the point that I only used like ¼ of the entire roster (which were also the only good ones anyway lmao) and yknow what happens when you make a game with too many characters ??? none of them will be properly developed thats right and thats a fucking shame if you ask me

tell me 5 characters in this game without looking on the Internet I'll wait

even the characters that should be the protagonists have to take a backseat most of the time because when you recruit the chapter character they're gonna steal the one liners for the most superficial character design ever and then get in your caravan and never speak again which means that most of these people won't have character development or anything ALTHOUGH !!! the supports DO give a little insight on the character relations and whatnot and when you recruit a new character that doesn't join automatically sometimes youre gonna need a specific character to make them do the talky talk but realistically apart from this theres absolutely nothing

clearly roy is gonna be the most deep character of the bunch and even there ? he's not really the deep anyway its like they put a shonen protagonist into the fire emblem universe and called it a day hes lawful he wants to kill the bad guy and can do nothing wrong DISCLAIMER echoes became one of my favorite games here and alm has the same problem you can get tanjiro from demon slayer and put him in the shoes of alm and it would be the same my problem is not about ROY but how generally this game handles characters and character development

other characters do have some kind of depth like fae which is a little dragon with a big heart and some kind of lore implication lilina is the love of my life and my sweet little angel but again after you save her she's just gonna sit her ass in the caravan and do her magic things I guess and … I already forgot who else there is

hector and eliwood are interesting but they're gonna be explored better in blazing blade anyway so whatever the red and green knights are as bland as ever there's dieck who is actually just zoro from one piece and there's also another reason why I want to fuck him shanna is very pretty and clarine is fucking funny sue is also an interesting character with zero depth apart from my tribe is very rural and we eat raw meat and I think I wanna sit on noahs face but I never really used him in battle anyway thea and larum are also very cute cath is an exception because I remember her for ruining my life milady can put her stilettos in my urethra and I want perceval to cum all over my face sophia is BEAUTIFUL but doesn't last 2 seconds in battle zeiss is also another face I'd sit on and I want douglas to choke me and fuck me raw

and guinivere is cool I guess not a fan of the damsel in distress just sitting around not doing anything trope

now again most of the characters are gonna just say a one liner and dip but some of them are really hot so I can excuse them

now the gameplay is basically usual fire emblem I'm not even gonna talk about it but I'm gonna say that this is definitely the most weirdly balanced one of the bunched I've played so far which is not a lot but still

some of the characters I mentioned are completely useless and again most of the characters you're gonna use are just gonna be like what 10 ? maybe even less because most of the characters here just suck and aren't even worth to put into battle to just then getting killed before even acquiring a level this game is so fucking unreal and difficult for no reason like who the fuck thought about ok let's make this game difficult by making the maps too large and/or intricate for their own good and making the hit rate be like 10% what am I even supposed to do with that im gonna go insane

so yeah basically if you want my advice just use Allan Lance Dieke Rutger Shin and maybe Sue Milady and then idk I also added to the bunch clarine and perceval now lilina is probably not good and you should just go with lugh but I wanted to use her in battle so I ended up leveling her up like hell and she became a fucking tank thank me later

and I guess that's basically it I can say that the music is also cool doesn't really excel in anything if I'm being really honest but it's serviceable and works well for the game in general so at least I'm gonna give this to the game I already talked badly about it long enough and I think there's some really interesting tracks here and there and for some reasons I ended up being a sucker for the sad songs like distant utopia is definitely an highlight if you ask me and the theme of guinivere just being depressed and miserable somehow ended up being my favorite theme out of the entirety of the tracklist idk it's such a beautiful song what the hell oh also I guess the polar region one is another highlight and there's a battle theme that I can't fight but yeah there's this one too if you're interested the name is [????????????] I'm pretty sure there's some other cool stuff I listened during my campaign I will be sure to check them out

(this is a consideration as soon as I finished the game maybe if I listen to the ost alone without getting frustrated at the game I'm gonna change my mind thank you)

all in all this is a fine game I just expected more from the "core fire emblem experience" if I had started from this one I'd have dropped the series marathon so fucking hard what the hell

this game is fucking impossible without savestates I want to talk with fire emblem fans who say umh achtually rebooting the game when a character dies is part of the whole experience hehe umh bro just say you got suicidal tendencies and go

i'm at the last few chapters of my current replay, and i'm not too sure i'm going to finish it so i'll just log it now.

the binding blade is an oddity. it's the first fire emblem after the departure of series head shouzou kaga as well as the 2nd version of what would eventually become fe6 and both facts seem very apparent. the map design is either bland and empty, cluttered and awful, or an odd mix of both and the only map in this game i can actually say i had fun playing was chapter 17 on the sacae route. between the engine for the gba titles not being as refined as in 7 or 8 and the entire game just being seize chapters playing the game is entirely an act in tedium and time wasting. i know the sacae route is worse than ilia but i really did want to give it a shot if only because not a single map in the game is appealing to me and i at least wanted something new to keep me occupied.
something especially frustrating/silly about binding blades maps has more to do with blazing blade, which on one hand realizes that the sacae maps in 6 weren't that good and avoided redoing them at all costs just for one of the worst ones to rear its ugly head again in engage but also brings back some of the least interesting maps with either minor/no iteration, and in the case of the laus chapter iteration that makes it even less fun to play. no idea how that happened.

well if the actual gameplay part is unsalvageable, at least a good narrative can make something at least somewhat worthwhile. too bad binding blade decides to just give us neither!
the story is mostly just the broad strokes of interesting ideas that had a lot of potential, but the execution makes it all so painfully boring. in a game with some of the absolute best side characters and even main characters, there is absolutely zero excuse for the main story to be taken over almost entirely by roy and fucking merlinus, neither of whom are very interesting and compelling within the main narrative of the binding blade.
characters like elffin and guinivere and lilina are either good and interesting or at least have the potential to be, but outside of a few chapters around their introduction lines that could've gone to them just go to merlinus unless the devs actively thought "it would be weird if merlinus knew/said this so let's have one of the other guys do it" and it is so deeply frustrating. despite the story starting out as roy retaliating against potential bern invasion to lycia, it quickly becomes much more about roys army assisting etruria on the western isles and ultimately the story that takes up the most of the games chapters is the etrurian army vs bern army, which makes the fact that elffin and guinivere don't get much very frustrating. i would've loved a fire emblem game focused on these two if only because i enjoy their characters and a refresher/mage lord duo is a really cool concept, and more fire emblem games focused on both sides of a warring continent is something i'd love done well more often. i'd hate to see games like genealogy or thracia skipped in terms of remakes, but i hope that when/if we get around to binding blade that they can take what's here and iron out the issues because between a theoretical main cast of roy/elffin/guinivere (with more of a grasp on writing) and the entire conflict with zephiel could be really good, but part of me doesn't think they'll do an echoes style overhaul for a story that was held back for reasons other than hardware.

the binding blade is a game that ultimately has a lot of potential, but falls short of reaching most of it. the cast is stellar once you get past 80% of the early game characters, but it makes such little use of it that you'd be forgiven for thinking it had one of the weaker groups. gameplay isn't much better either, with it hands down having my least favorite maps in the series to the point where i'd take cindered shadows or celica's route in echoes over them any day. i mostly just went back to this one because elffin is in it and he's my favorite character in the franchise and as of now he isn't really recognized as important enough to get any content outside of his game, and i can't really say i feel like i used my time well. i know a lot of people like this one, but in pretty much every aspect you'll find that other games in the series do it much better.

A very solid game that sets the precedent for FE going forward without Shouzou Kaga. It is the perfection of the gameplay and tone of the series, giving Intelligent Systems a comfort zone for making high quality games. FE6 is proof that you can make a good game in a series without its creator, if you can stick to the qualities held by said creator, which Intelligent Systems continued to do respectfully until Awakening, when they threw out all these values in favor of impressing Nintendo. Of course, Nintendo was the villain in this story, because Intelligent Systems had no choice but to adhere to their demands, otherwise their fate would be sealed. The respected team of developers had to throw out and reimagine their comfort zone in order to keep Fire Emblem and Paper Mario in line. Kensuke Tanabe and even Shigeru Miyamoto ascertained the destruction of Fire Emblem’s sister series, Paper Mario. This means Intelligent Systems is usually not to blame for their nowadays lower quality games – it's almost always influenced by the company that owns them: Nintendo. Apparently, this is what poor Intelligent Systems deserves for developing Super Metroid and Mario Paint, just for being one of Nintendo’s most ardent developers.

However, traveling back to the past, when Intelligent Systems had far more control over their franchises’ creative visions, Fire Emblem 6 is, on a fundamental level, a pure Fire Emblem game, and being Intelligent Systems’ first fully fledged game, it goes by the standard Fire Emblem story of defeating an evil Empire bearing ties to ancient evils. The way the writing is handled is honestly brilliant, with the main antagonist, Zephiel, being insanely intimidating whilst also doing a great job showing his horrific past. While it was hard for them to show Desmond’s hatred for him since it’s a GBA game, the dialogue does a fantastic job of proving that Zephiel had no choice but to assassinate his own father in order to ascend the throne. He didn’t want to, but his father is a scumbag, who actually feared his own son out of jealousy, so he tried to kill him, which is an ACTUAL motivation for being evil as opposed to Blaise Debeste, who just does evil things for the sake of the plot. Zephiel’s not like Simon Keyes who failed to prove his sad backstory, because the dialogue was done so poorly in GK2, which was released 9 years after this game.

The characters are excellent, save for one: Roy. Honestly, I think Roy’s this game’s biggest blemish, because he could’ve been so much better as a protagonist. I know Marth is not much to write home about, but at least he had a clearly defined personality. Roy’s personality is just being serious. Objective. Expositionary. Constantly turning down Merlinus, who is much older than he is, implies that Roy is very intelligent for his age, which wouldn’t be a problem if he had any real personality. I vastly prefer Sara Chidouin from Your Turn To Die, as while she’s just as intelligent, she at least has a defined personality. They’re both WAAAAY too intelligent for my liking, however. I would prefer if they both made some mistakes and weren’t always right all the time. Wouldn’t it be awesome if poor Merlinus was right for once? Wouldn’t it be awesome if Roy had actual moments of weakness? Compared to his father Eliwood, Roy sacrifices personality for nothing, because both characters have agency in their stories. Eliwood from FE7 is a much better protagonist because he has real motivations, moments of weakness, guilt, and just acts like a PERSON in general. It’s what made FE7 so much better than FE6, which, while a solid game in its own right, is taken down by a protagonist who is so bland I have no idea why he is in Super Smash Melee and Ultimate. To say Roy is a GK2 character is still inaccurate however, because nothing he does is at the whim of the story – his actions are what drive the story forward, as it should be. In addition, I have seen merit in his support conversations with Lilina. They are so well written (Lilina is a wonderful character by the way) that I wish Roy had been this person in the real game, but that’s about it for grievances, since FE6’s not a game known for having problems.

The gameplay is good for obvious reasons: it’s a GBA Fire Emblem game, which represents the peak of the series in terms of gameplay and often characters. There’s a reason why there are so many mods of these games – it's because their skeletons are really well built, and as GBA games, they are easy to mod (not for someone like me who lacks coding experience and would rather go by SRPG Maker, which still requires a little coding) given their small size. Now the music is quite bland, and I can forgive it because Yuka Tsujiyoko had to work with a much weaker piece of sound hardware than that of the SNES, which has better music overall. While FE7 has the best OST on the GBA, the cloudiness of the GBA soundchip messes with the individual songs of each of the 3 games. There is an audience that likes the cloudiness, and that audience is synonymous with people who prefer Fire Emblem on the GBA over other platforms, even though FE is best on home consoles most of the time. Because FE6 was never localized by Nintendo officially, the only other credit I’ll give Roy is that because Sakurai loved him, he got into Super Smash Melee with Marth. This decision would change the fate of Fire Emblem forever, as for many of us, we fell in love with Fire Emblem through Melee, which is the best thing that game ever did. The effects were felt immediately - just one year after this solid game, we got a masterpiece of a prequel that is Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword.

man is this rough around the edges, it picks up a lot in the back half when you've managed to build units up to be decent but there's an overabundance of absolutely dogshit filler units and virtually every map being a Siege map gets really repetitive. I get why the hardcore ironman crowd might relish the challenge but that ain't me. The story isn't terribly interesting until right near the end either, but the true ending is pretty great even if the gaiden maps needed to get there can be fucking dreadful. Man is this game really fucking pretty tho the spritework and animation is top notch.

made it about to mission 13, doing an ironman and got my shit scuffed

i think that everything that made rekka no ken great is here but this is three failed playthroughs now, two out of apathy and now this one. the maps are too big, i feel like the enemy power ramp is too quick, i dunno. i remember running into this even when i was reloading fights, it just required too many reloads of long fights. and i refuse to get better or smarter!

to be real tho i really do like the idea of doing ironman playthroughs in these games, but without the freedom to train back benchers (they get mulched by a random wyvern knight) its pretty precarious. i might try rekka no ken this way, we'll see if that works out better.

stray thoughts:
1. its cool that roy can marry his social studies teacher
2. echidna is the baddie of all time

Truly baffled as to why this was recommended to me so highly. I love the other GBA FE games, as well as Tellius and FE4, and I heard so many people gas this game up and recommend it as the peak of this era of FE. On the contrary, this is my least favorite FE game that I have played. Painfully bland characters, mediocre maps, absurd requirements for actually fighting the final boss, horrible ambush reinforcements and worst of all are the bosses. Too many instances of bosses with 30+ crit rates, making them effectively a coin flip at the end of the chapter. Having your own coin flip to combat them with Rutger is very little consolation, I had to reset at the very end of a chapter due to the boss getting a lucky crit too many times. Just obnoxious while offering nothing to bring me back to it over another FE game. Do not play this on original hardware like I did, at least not on a first playthrough, because this game is so full of garbage, unfair bullshit you could never properly prepare for without prior knowledge of the game, forcing you to reset. Play on an emulator and savestate every turn. I am not joking, it is truly cruel. The visuals are all that saves this from being lower, as a GBA FE game, it is full of gorgeous animations and character designs, and deserves credit for being the basis upon which the other GBA FE games built off of/reused.