fe7 is an incredible example of doing more with less.

full credit should go to fe6 for all the gorgeous sprite work that this uses -- just an absolute masterpiece of pixel art. however, in all other ways this is simply a complete improvement on 6. maps are shorter, more interesting, less grindy and with more varied objectives; your lords (yes, even poor wretched eliwood) are both mechanically and personality-wise better than roy; characters are (i think) fewer, but more fleshed out and play off of each other better, and even the ones that you have no earthly reason to use add a ton of colour and detail to the world if you go out of your way looking for it.

writing-wise, it's truly fantastic. the limited text boxes enforce a precise style, character voices are distinct and interesting, and their portraits add a ton of life and expressiveness. the story, although it looks like by-the-numbers medieval fantasy, has a degree of thematic cohesion and thoughtfulness that you rarely see in any game to this day; as with the entire series, ideas of "family" and "history/memory" are central and treated with a degree of thought and care that i feel both 6 and 8 kind of lack.

unfortunalely, yes, this one has the "funny" gay bandits bit too. can't win em all.

7 was my favourite before three houses, and maybe it still is? i'm not sure. it's one of my top two anyway.

Only reason why I haven't beaten this gsme myself yet is because I didnt own it until I got it on my wii u- growing up i could only find sacred stones at my local gamestops and had no other used gamestores (and forget getting my parents to order me things from ebay) and thus everytime I played it until then it was emulated and I swear the rng gods sre real bc usually after a freak accident happened and broke my computer snd thus i lost all my progress 😅

I finally got it on the wii u when it bevame available on the eshop as an adult but during a bad time in my life and i just need to get the motivation to get my wii u system all hooked up properly and play it fully, finally. Not just watch others. 😅

a fun time for sure, I recognise that this game isn't incredibly written or has amazing map design or anything like that, but nevertheless I found myself growing attached to these characters and having fun playing through the whole campaign, I wasn't taking it super seriously so whenever the game hit me with actually good stuff it was always a treat, and I felt like the game was trying to be a silly goofy romp anyway so I basically immediately vibed with it and had a great time as a result
playing the game normally did lead to it being a little too easy for my tastes because I was locked into Eliwood normal mode but I definitely want to go back for Hector hard mode and see how the game feels when it's more demanding of me, which I can see making my appreciation for it grow substantially
I'll admit it's a bit of a guilty pleasure game for me, although I should maybe do away with such a concept altogether

I had a pretty good time playing this game actually. I was unsure how I would feel about it before getting started since these types of games aren't usually my jam. It's not as hardcore as I thought, at least on normal mode. I think the difficulty for me as an inexperienced player was good until the last map which, while possible, felt really sudden.

I don't think very highly of the random stat gains. I understand that it adds a bit of variance but I dislike the idea that units you like can be rendered mediocre. I also understand the stakes that come from having permadeath but I'm always just gonna restart if I lose someone I deem important. As a result it's just more of an annoyance.

I love the sprite work and all the animations. The music is pretty average overall, but there are songs here and there that I enjoyed. The story is presented like 90% through conversation which made it hard for me to get invested. Too many places and names for me to keep track of so I eventually just started skimming or skipping. I got the general idea though and I'm very indifferent to it but it's not that important to me.

Playing this takes a lot out of me, and it feels like a commitment. I wouldn't say I'm a fan now, nor that I am in a hurry to play more. I still found it to be pretty enjoyable and I'm glad I can say I've played a Fire Emblem game.

Story is easily the weakest of the franchise and given how FEs story quality isn't the best on average this is saying a lot. The reason for this mediocrity is largely due to its presentation: There barely happens anything for the first two thirds of the game, its just characters running around trying to accomplish their goal and being stopped by obstacles which then forces a battle to happen. Around the two third mark, a major event happens which causes the story to actually move and be somewhat interesting. By the time this happens its a little bit too late, as the game basically goes from 0 to 100 with how much it wants you to care about the story all out of a sudden. This is best examplified at emotional moments: the game really wants to make you feel emotional at certain points of its endgame. This fails however, due to the game not being able to make me invested in the story or characters enough to care about these scenes. Emotional scenes must be earned to feel impactful, and Blazing Blade sadly fails to give the foundation for that narrative impact to work.

Gameplay is decent. It is GBA FE and that foundation is solid enough so it cant go wrong even in its worst incarnation. Most of the infamous bullshit maps aren't THAT bad, with only one of them really deserving its infamy. The idea of dancers being able to buff their allies is really cool and I wish more games in the series did that.

A gameplay do jogo é algo que eu não tava muito acostumado. Nunca fui de jogar jogos de estratégia como esse e pelo que eu vejo Fire Emblem VII é um dos mais difíceis de sua época. Mas foi divertido jogar, tive uma experiência bem boa com a história e principalmente as animações de combate e os aprimoramentos de personagem foram o que me mantiveram jogando.

Mas chega um momento na vida de uma pessoa que é necessário aceitar as próprias limitações. Fire Emblem não é uma franquia com a qual eu me relaciono, e a sua gameplay, apesar de nova pra mim, não me agradou tanto. Em outras palavras: o jogo é muito difícil, e por mais que eu goste do estilo de arte, das animações, de planejar algumas batalhas, o final especificamente se provou um pouco demais pra mim. Eu reconheço que isso é um problema meu, mas eu me diverti nas incontáveis horas que joguei mesmo sem terminar.