they really put the “Fire” in Fire Emblem with this one

FE4 is easily the most ambitious Fire Emblem so far. at this point Kaga is done messing around, as of this point he now begins to showcase his full potential where it comes to this franchise. I don’t got much else to say right now so let’s just get into it.

no more Akaneia, no more Falchion, no more Marth, we’re heading to uncharted territory now; welcome to Jugdral. the story begins with the Kingdom of Grannvale, one of the many nations founded after the Holy War that took place a century earlier. although many years of peace take place, reports of the Isaach nation besieging Darna reach Grannvale and as Darna was an important landmark during the Holy War, Grannvale declares war on Issach with most of its military charging forward to deal with the situation. while this happens, the army of Verdane from another a neighboring nation invades House Jungby and kidnaps Lady Aideen (or Edin or Edain whatever translation you prefer). however Sigurd of House Chalphy (the son of Lord Byron who’s partaking in the war against Issac) has been left to defend Grannvale in his father’s absence and once he hears about this he sets forward to rescue Aideen with what little soldiers were left behind. unfortunately these events are what begin the next war of Jugdral and many tragedies will occur during this time. since it’s 2024, most people at this point are aware of the Second Generation that occurs during the second half of the game so I’ll provide a very brief summary of what happens there while trying not to delve too much into spoiler territory. seventeen years after the events of the First Generation, Sigurd’s son Seliph is now in refuge at Tirnanog, a village located in Issach (ironic huh) where after word of this hiding place is discovered by the new empire of this generation, Seliph emerges and begins a revolution to free the nations who are now under rule of this empire.

storywise FE4 feels like a more mature version of what Kaga was trying to achieve with FE3. no more long and/or crazy lore dumps outside of like two of them near the end of the game, the storytelling is very natural and delves into much darker topics than FE3, and FE3 was already darker than the first two games so you can imagine how serious it can get. of course there are some comedic moments though a majority of them come from optional conversations you can have with members of your army (a first for the series and something I expect to be in every game from this point onward) and a lot of those also come from Sylvia/Silvia: one of the only characters in the game that doesn’t take anything seriously to the point where she can have a potential conversation with another character named Alec where during the climax of the First Generation, she blames him for unintentionally getting her pregnant, and that’s not even close to being the craziest relationship in this game. besides those couple of moments this is very much the “seinen Fire Emblem”; protagonists and antagonists are betrayed left and right, children are abducted to work for the empire, other children are hunted down to appease a dark god, one of the female characters gets sexually assaulted (thankfully off-screen), another female is tortured to the point that she loses the will to live (also thankfully off-screen), and an important character is unknowingly manipulated to marry his half-sister who gives birth to the vessel of the Antichrist, no I will not elaborate on that. FE4 gets kinda wild, and for me the perfect example of the different direction that FE4 takes is none other than Sigurd, the Lord of the First Generation.

spoilers somewhat for the first half of the game, I’ll try to refrain from mentioning the big stuff since you really got to experience it for yourself but if you haven’t played the game yet you can skip this next paragraph.

Sigurd is a brilliant character since at first you’re expecting him to be like Marth or Alm and Celica from FE2, and well he is for the most part. he’s a noble, he’s friendly, he wants to do the right thing all that usual stuff. in fact he even accomplishes stuff better than the others since right away he starts off OP gameplay wise and he even gets married very early compared to the other Lords where that only happens at the end of their story, but the thing that separates him from the ones that came before is that everything he does has consequences. for Marth and the others while some bad stuff does happen to them, the things they accomplish benefit their world and they eventually get their happy ending once things are done, Celica admittedly screws up at least once during her journey though things do work out for her too, Sigurd on the other hand is what would happen if instead of having one major screw up, he’s constantly making screw ups during his entire journey. his early accomplishments are genuinely good as he rescues Aideen which in turn lets her convince another character to side with them, and then he saves Deirdre who he quickly falls in love with leading to their marriage and the birth of their son, however his rescue mission to save Aideen takes him to Verdane itself where he would get involved with the affairs there which ends with him seizing Verdane Castle. some of the heads of the neighboring nation Agustria views this as a threat so they chose to wage war against Grannvale and go after Sigurd’s army, which only leads to Sigurd getting involved over there and he ends up seizing the southern half of Agustria and uses it as headquarters as per orders. it gets to the point where Lewyn, a new recruit, calls him out for his actions and even Sigurd’s best friend Eldigan begins to think that he and Grannvale are attempting a conquest. although Sigurd has good intentions and didn’t intend for things to get so out of control, nonetheless he still plays a big part in contributing to just that. by the time you get to the end of the First Generation you realize that Sigurd has become an unwitting pawn for the antagonists and is responsible for a domino effect of war and bloodshed. it all cumulates to the point where after everything possible has gone wrong, he throws away his nobility and curses the enemy who broke the last straw.

in summary: Sigurd is a deconstruction of the typical Fire Emblem Lord that the franchise has established at this point. it’s all the more funny that the game that introduces the most complex Lord so far also introduces a basic traditional one for its second half. nothing against Celice—err Seliph by the way, I have no hatred towards him he’s a good character, unfortunately he doesn’t really bring anything new to the table like Sigurd does, Seliph’s not really that much different from someone like Marth in my opinion though I guess that’s not too much of a negative since Marth’s cool af. according to Kaga, there was supposed to be a Third Generation where characters of both the First and Second Generation would join together but it didn’t end up happening, probably because they were already pushing the limits of the SFC as is but I don’t think there’s an actual confirmed reason, anyway I think that would have been a good opportunity to flesh out Seliph a bit more but it is what it is. another character I really like is Alvis Presley, or Arvis for short. unfortunately any discussion involving this guy is major spoiler territory so as much as I’d like to I won’t be discussing him here, just know that out of them so far, Arvis is the best one at what he is from a character standpoint. okay story time is over, now it’s time to discuss the gameplay and there’s a lot to unpack there.

let’s get the obvious out of the way. this is the first map of the game. it’s also the smallest. FE4 is a big departure (pun intended) in that all the maps of the game are jumbo sized and have multiple castles to siege, essentially making each Chapter in FE4 at least triple the size of the ones in the previous games. due to this, high movement units excel here while the lower movement units will usually be at a disadvantage since it’ll take them a while to get into the action and earn themselves EXP. it’s no surprise that the best units in the game are the mounted units AKA the ones with the horses who get a very nice 8 movement speed while others like Priests and Sword Armors (they’re just Knights with a different name) only get a measly 5 movement and while that’s only 3 less than the horses those extra three movements make such a difference. to help movement go a bit faster, there’s a new terrain called “Road” that only use ups 0.7 of your movement which will help alleviate the unmounted units while the horse units become even better. flying units don’t get this movement bonus because….well they’re flying but they’re still really good since being able to fly over forests and mountains is very valuable, also roads have -10% avoid so you have to be careful during the enemy phase if you end a unit’s turn on one. now you may be wondering why the maps are so huge, and it’s that in this game you’re actually traveling through the entire country the Chapter takes place in. a detail I really like is by the time you get to the next Chapter you actually start off in the same area where you ended your previous Chapter. FE3 did this a few times but here in FE4 this occurs after almost every Chapter making the world in this game feel really connected, and it is. as cool as this is however, this makes going through the maps in this game quite annoying as a good amount of them either have slow pacing or force you to hurry to get some useful items in time, a lot of these are actually during the First Generation so it creates a very rough first impression. Chapter 1 forces you to go through a giant forest (the section over at the bottom left) where all your units are forced to have all their movement speed sapped away while you also have to send another unit to recruit an enemy unit in the forest while making sure they don’t die because they’re also surrounded by a bunch of Archers, fun. Chapter 2’s another mess where you need to quickly get your horse units (your unmounted units are not getting there) to the castle nearby to rescue a new unit as well as three green units who are protecting said unit from a bunch of enemies and if one of those green units die at any point of the Chapter then you lose out on a very important and useful item and you don’t want that to happen. also if you’re not fast enough to get to the next castle after that (Turn 11 or earlier) then you risk the chance of a Brigand destroying a village with another important item before the two playable units that appear after the castle is seized to show up in that area, that village is also the first one that ends up getting attacked, granted villages take multiple turns to get destroyed in this game but still. Chapter 4’s not too bad but after you seize the castle at the top right you need to backtrack your way down to the two castles at the bottom as the pathway is blocked before then, you can Return or Warp your units back down but it’ll cost you a lot to repair those staves (yeah you can repair weapons in this game too) and at least one unit with one of those staves will have to make their way back on their own. the Second Generation’s maps are less of a hassle though they do suffer from some annoying enemy placement like in Chapter 7 where a bunch of Dark Mages are placed nearby your starting point and later on where you have to try to recruit another character surrounded by enemy units while making sure you don’t accidentally kill said character during the enemy phase. yeah can’t say I’m a fan of the map direction in this game even if I think it’s cool how they match up perfectly with Jugral’s layout, a shame since I’d like to stream this one to my friends but those huge maps are certainly going to make it a pain to everyone watching. every other game after this goes back to the smaller maps and personally I think that’s for the better.

besides the maps there’s still a lot of gameplay changes this game does to differentiate it even further from the earlier games. each Chapter you get a sort of base of operations in the castle you start off in. here you can do a good amount of preparation before you send you characters out, most of the actions you perform here doesn’t take up any turns (besides giving gold to another unit but I’ll talk about that later) so you can take your time in these castles which you should since using their services are pretty helpful. Blacksmith allows you to visit a blacksmith that’ll repair all your equipment at a cost, a first for a franchise and probably something that won’t reappear that often because this is just way too good. Pawnbroker replaces traditional trading in this game as now you’ll have to sell your items here and have another unit buy them if you want that unit to use them, in a way this is a downgrade since you now need to cough up some cash to give items to other units (the Ring items are especially pricey) but when you think about it it’s really only a necessary evil because most of the items you get in FE4 are surprisingly overpowered and freely being able to trade them off to characters back and forth could have destroyed the difficulty balance (Sigurd gets a Silver Sword in the Prologue there’s no way trading was going to happen lol). Supply lets you store items in case you have too many items (the max you can hold has been buffed from 4 to 7) and you want to keep them on the same unit to save them for another time, it’s not something I bothered with in the First Generation but it did have its niche uses during the Second Generation where the items can start to pile up. the Arena is an area that’s actually been in FE1 and FE3 but I never brought it up since I felt it’s not too important in those games, for a summary: the arenas are an area in various Chapters that allow you to fight opponents that are surprisingly more difficult than the ones you fight in the actual maps, defeating them rewards your unit with EXP and some good old cash. however the catch is not only can you not control your unit for this (a CPU will have your unit attack for you) but your opponent can actually kill your unit off so it’s very risky. (if you’re not abusing save states), in FE1 you actually can’t back out once you start but in FE3 you at least have the option to do that by pressing the B button during battle at the cost of not getting your money back and your unit being at low health. the FE4 arena is a little different as in this game each unit has a finite seven opponents they can face rather than the unlimited amount in FE1 and FE3, failing also doesn’t end in the death of your unit but rather they’ll only be reduced to 1 HP. after every Chapter the Arena resets with seven new fighters so it makes a great place to get units EXP and gold, provided that they’re able to equip a weapon. Augury is where you can find out the lover of your unit or the one they’re falling in love with while the Second Generation also lets you check who the parents of your unit are (another mechanic that I will explain later). lastly the Armory is where you buy weapons, though this time they’re in a limited capacity so you can’t just keep buying them over and over. new weapons will get added per Chapter plus they’ll stick around so if you can’t afford it or want to save a weapon for a later Chapter you can do just that.

besides the town stuff, you can also have a character guard the castle which is a new mechanic as enemies can now invade your castle to destroy it resulting in an automatic game over, though while this sounds crazy you really don’t have to worry about it since there’s only one or two Chapters where your castle’s in genuine danger since enemy units are rarely ordered to go after them and during those moments you can easily send one to guard with a Warp and Return staff that you should have at that point. guarding a castle provides the usual evade boost as well as a small HP regen after every turn like the forts from previous games, enemy castle guards also get these boosts too so you’ll have to be careful around them compared to regular enemies. class changes have been reworked in this time to only take place in your starting castle and well as needing to be Level 20 to class change rather than Level 10, though this time you won’t need an item nor will your level be reset (the max is now Level 30). staff use and dancing can be done in the castle at the cost of your unit’s turn, though I don’t know why you’d want to do that in the castle I didn’t even you can before I did this research for this review. lastly, units can give gold to each other as in this game each unit has their own amounts of gold they can hold (up to 50,000), a neat little detail that showcases this is how a character named Beowolf is recruited if you talk to him with a unit that can pay him 10,000 gold and once he’s on your team he has the 10,000 gold in his own inventory. the gold sharing is limited though as outside of the Thief class who can share with everyone, normally units can only give gold to their relatives or lovers which is a nice Segway into possibly FE4’s biggest new feature.

units can fall in LOVE. yeah that’s right you thought Awakening did it first? nah FE4 beat it to the punch almost 16 years earlier. brag all you want about Awakening saving the franchise (for better or for worse (probably for the worse considering the FE fans that I’ve associated with)), but there’s no denying it couldn’t have done that if it didn’t take one of its most well known features from Genealogy of the Holy War. kneel to your ancestors baby, you wouldn’t be here without them. anyway let’s go back to pretending it’s 1996. many of this game’s playable characters can fall in love with the opposite gender through methods such as ending a turn next to each other or having conversations with each other at points of the game which will boost both their love points and a slight stat boost, though there are a good amount of non-lover conversations that also boost stats so you’ll definitely want to have these conversations to make things a little easier. of course you could always have them fall in love naturally but if you want to do the cheese strat then you can clear all the enemies currently on the map then have the two soon-to-be lovers next to each other while you keep ending your turns until they fall in love, though just know that this method stops working after the 50th turn of each map so it may take another Chapter for them to reach the maximum love points. the only units you can’t make fall in love are Quan and Ethlyn who are already married by the time they appear in the game, Sigurd and Deirdre who automatically fall in love with each other because the plot demands it, and a few of the Second Generation units. the reason why you want units to fall in love is because not only do lovers get small stat boosts where they’re nearby as well as a small chance to get a critical hit if they’re next to each other (something you can’t do in normal circumstances in this game), but during the Second Generation you can get access to units who are not only the children of the characters from the First Generation but these units will also inherit items, stats, and skills from their parents which will make the tides much more in your favor. if you don’t pair up the First Generation units then the ones that didn’t score will have their children replaced with substitute units who don’t inherit anything and have inferior stats, though in turn the conversations they can have will provide bigger stat boosts so they don’t die to a small gust of wind, that said I wouldn’t know what they’re like myself since I made all the females in my playthrough have children (don’t take this out of context). I heard the dancer substitute is technically better but idk I really wanted Sylvia’s daughter to inherit the Knight and Leg Ring since extra movement along with movement after an action is OP, also it helps that dancing now refreshes all adjacent allies rather than just one.

speaking of Sylvia, Kaga decided to pull a funny prank regarding her and her potential lovers. there’s a conversation in Chapter 2 that Sylvia can have with another unit named Alec where the two will get 100 love points with each other. ideally you don’t want them to fall in love because Alec is a JOBBER you do not want him to pass his JOBBER genes to Sylvia’s children because you wouldn’t want your own children to be JOBBERS would you? you can always just not have them talk or be next to each other but then in Chapter 4 you can have another conversation with her and Erin/Fury/Ferry/whatever the hell your translation patch calls her where they discuss about Lewyn. Erin and Lewyn are probably both the best pairings for each other (and apparently canon according to FE5) so this is good because it gives those two 25 love points, but then it also gives him and Sylvia 50 love points and Sylvia starts off having 200 love points with Lewyn when she first joins your team uh oh! at the end of the day though, Sylvia’s children aren’t really combat units so if you get her a bad pairing then it’s not a big deal, and later on in Chapter 4 Erin and Lewyn get their own conversation that gives so many love points that Lewyn straight up tells her “I love you” wow Kaga really wanted these two to make out

alright some of the other changes and additions I haven’t mentioned yet. this is the first game with the “weapon triangle” system where certain weapons are given a boosted hit rate when facing a foe that’s equipped with a weapon less effective than yours. the easy way of putting it is: swords beat axes, lances beat swords, and axes beat lances, though in this game it’s more like: swords beat almost everything, lances beat swords sometimes, and axes are the “I want to die” weapon. there’s also a trinity of magic which is like the weapon triangle but more balanced: fire magic beats wind magic, wind magic beats thunder magic, and thunder magic bests fire magic, unless you’re the Forseti and Mjölnir tomes in which case you beat everything because you’re OP. the weapon level system has also revised to include weapon ranks where instead of leveling up until your unit’s skilled enough to use a weapon, the weapons they can use are instead based on their class and what weapon rank the class is capable of using, for example: Cavaliers can use up to B rank swords and C rank lances (stuff like steel swords and iron lances), Priests can only use up to B rank staffs (pretty much any staff that isn’t Fortify or Rescue), Axe Knights can only use up to B rank axes (not a good thing), Sword Fighters can only use up to A rank swords (good thing), and the rare Master Knight can use A rank everything and C rank light magic (you’ll never need them to use light magic) though only two characters get this class you’ll need to get them to Level 20 for them to access it. for me this is a lot easier to understand then in FE1 and FE3 where you won’t know when a unit will be able to use a powerful weapon until their skill is high enough to where the game says “okay you can use this now”, this is a welcome feature. this game also introduces the skill system which kinda has the same function as the Ability system in Pokémon where each unit has their own unique skill to differ from one another, though in the case of Fire Emblem a unit can have more than one skill at a time. lets take a look at Alec and Noish (or Naoise some of these official names are weird), the Christmas Cavaliers of the game. these two seem identical at a first glance but the skills they have make them a bit different from each other. Alec has Follow-Up which lets him do a follow-up attack if his speed is greater than his opponent’s and Nihil which protects him from critical hits and other combat skills. The Noish gets Critical which lets him perform critical hits and Accost which lets him repeat a round of combat if his speed is fast enough. these skills give them each different niches in the game so it’s up to you to decide which one you want to use in combat more often, but really both of them are pretty mediocre and you’re better off using almost every other unit (horses won’t be saving them much). lastly (I think) there’s the Holy Blood system where characters can have minor or major holy blood depending on their ancestors or in the case of the Second Generation depending on their parents. major holy blood allows them to use the holy weapon of the ancestor or parent they came from which are basically the OP game breaking weapons though you’ll have to go out of your way to earn a lot of these holy weapons through conversations or events. minor holy blood doesn’t do this but it does provide weapon level boosts and specific growth rates, which major holy blood already does to greater effect. since most of the characters in the First Generation have various kinds of major and minor holy blood, the pairings you create here can give their children in the Second Generation their own major and/or minor holy blood depending on their parents which can help them get the growth rates and weapon ranks that they’re in need of.

oh yeah there’s this funny thing that I haven’t mentioned yet. on very rare occasions, you can access secret events by having certain units end their turns on specific places of the map. how are you supposed to know about these secret events? I don’t know! the three secret events I did was having Lex (the axe user of Generation 1) end his turn at a cliff (he also needs an Iron Axe for the event but he should have that in his inventory) so he can get a Brave Axe (Silver Axe but better), having Arden (Sword Armor) end his turn at a beach in Chapter 2 for a Pursuit Ring that he’ll pawn off to Rick Harrison because he will not benefit much from its effects, and Seliph heading south to the beach right before he seizes the final castle in Chapter 10, once again I don’t know how you’re supposed to know about these which is why I’m telling you how to access these events myself. some of the substitute characters have their own secret events but since I didn’t have any in my playthrough I can’t help you on those ones, I love Guide Emblem

the graphics got a glow up from the previous game as now the maps don’t look like the NES ones with more colors (not that that’s a bad thing). unlike the previous two games though there’s not as many cool set pieces like pirate ships or swamps or volcanos or all that other stuff as all the maps of this game take place mostly on grassy terrain with the occasional desert and one-time snow area, if there’s something visually FE4 really drops the ball on it’s that. FE4’s battle animations are also the best they’ve looked so far in the franchise and although they’re not as flashy as the GBA games with their fast anime movement and spinning weapon flex, I still appreciate the more grounded animations in FE4 while still having some cool movement on rare occasions (the pre-class change Seliph crit where he does the Final Cutter from Kirby is awesome). unfortunately it’s hard to find FE battle GIFs that aren’t from the GBA games so you’ll just have to play the game yourself to see what they look like :^))). the music also might be the best in the franchise so far and I think a contributor to that is every Chapter has its own map theme, we’ve come a long way from FE1 having a singular map theme for most of the game. here’s the Prologue theme and yeah this is fine it’s what I expect to hear from Fire Emblem nothing too amazing but it’s a nice theme to start off with. then Chapter 1 drops this banger out of nowhere and then I go “WHOA okay then”, it’s a very lovely and upbeat track which is kinda funny because this is one of the most frustrating Chapters gameplay wise and the beginning of when things start going out of hand story wise. Chapter 2 isn’t as catchy but it does have those Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and that’s always welcome, and once again there’s that mood dissonance with the calm tone because this Chapter is pretty annoying. Chapter 3 is another Mystery Dungeon-like track or perhaps Final Fantasy-like track since Kaga did take some inspiration from FF, anyway pretty chill, bad stuff happens. Chapter 4’s got those chiming bells which is a welcome instrument in my book and you can really sense the loneliness and uncertainty in this one even if you got a whole army to keep you company in this dire portion of the game. Chapter 5 is the turning point, no more positive or relaxing melodies (at least for the time being), things will go down, things will get worse before they get better, there will be bloodshed. that’s all the Chapter themes I will share here, but did you know there’s also unique enemy themes for every different army in the game? Verdane Army is the main army for the Prologue and Chapter 1 and they got a somewhat threatening theme but they aren’t so bad considering the majority of them are axe users. Agustria Army has a more militaristic vibe to it which makes sense so they’re more refined compared to the more savage Verdane Army, also these guys have horses so that helps. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. Silesia Army is the army theme for Chapter 4 and it’s every bit as cold and chilling as the Chapter it comes from, you know because there’s snow in this map? Thracia Army is the theme of the army that’s named after the fifth Fire Emblem game and while their theme has a slight goofiness to it, these guys are entirely composed of Wyvern Riders and they’re really dangerous, unless you got some good bow units. what a leisurely track. Neutral Army is a neutral sounding theme that plays when a neutral army begins their phase, but don’t let the name and music fool you, whenever this track plays, something bad always happens and there’s nothing you can do about it. all the castle town themes have their own unique tracks as well but I’m not going to post them all because there’s a lot of them so here’s the one that sounds like a Kirby’s Dream Land 3 map theme. here’s this game’s battle theme or otherwise known as the Silver Sword theme. personally I liked the one in FE3 more but this one gets the job done. the enemy battle theme is probably one of the weakest tracks in the game but idk I felt like including it, I don’t have much to say here other than there’s been better enemy themes. Mid-boss theme, second verse, same as the first. this theme is what plays when all the axe guys are dead and now you have to deal with the big boys (and girls), very intense track I like it it’s very much the “get serious or someone’s dying” theme. this is the first ever enemy recruit theme of Fire Emblem and I’m not sure if there’s more of them later down the line but either way it’s cool and has that “hey maybe there’s more to this enemy then you think" vibes, also this is me when I listen to this theme. ending things off here’s the Fire Emblem theme of this game that does a neat subversion with the mysterious intro before switching to the usual motif, I really like this version it’s definitely my favorite so far and I hope to see how far they can top it in later entries.

there’s still some other stuff I forgot to mention like how getting 50 kills on a weapon gives them a crit chance or how there’s a ranking of your performance at the very end of the game but god I have to stop somewhere, you could probably write a whole book talking about the stuff in this game. I’m simultaneously disappointed and impressed with FE4. there were some questionable gameplay decisions while there were some welcome ones. some of the plot twists I saw coming from a mile away but there were others that genuinely caught me by surprise. after finishing this game, I finally understand why all the other FE fans wanted a FE4 remake after news of it supposedly leak; it’s not because this game is the pinnacle of everything Fire Emblem and peak fiction, it’s because the game sucks. of course that’s an exaggeration, I really did enjoy this game, it actually reminds me of Super Mario Sunshine in that I love everything about it except for the actual gameplay (sometimes the gameplay is great though so it’s better than Mario Sunshine), maybe I’ll give it a higher rating if enough FEs disappoint me down the line. I do think it’d be cool if that remake ever happens so we can see all the gameplay improvements that the later games have probably done, also it’ll mean they can get rid of all those enemy portrait recolors of the same two sprites, all you FE4 players know what I’m talking about. I’ll be looking forward to Thracia 776 going back to the small maps because these big ass maps made this game took longer than I expected it to take, I thought I’d be at FE7 right now but here I am still lingering around back over here. I need to get a move on so instead of typing down my closing remarks, I’m just going to end the review right here, lol

if you ever think you’ve had a complicated love life, at least you’re not Lachesis

Whenever this game's remake is coming out, I felt like making a wishlist of things I'd like to see fixed and/or changed. I understand FE4 fans may not agree with everything here but hopefully this wishlist ultimately gets across a lot of how I felt about the original overall:
(also keep in mind I have only beaten this game once years ago, a lot of what I remember stems from me just being in the fanbase and hearing discussions about the game)
(also I'll probably edit this list now and then as I might think of more stuff or need to edit current points)

Writing changes I'd like to see
- while the character writing of the original is overall pretty solid, half the characters don't really have much characterization and Supports feel like an inevitable thing for the remake. hopefully they are consistently solid and well written, and there's no bad eggs; but I have no expectations, just hopes.
- Shadows of Valentia quality localization overall
- the main plot should be unchanged for the most part but it may be worth fixing some of the less tactful parts such as a certain two scenarios that have to do with Manfroy
- develop Miletos as a country somehow. like seriously it's just some place where important main story stuff happens but it itself is hardly compelling as the other nations.
- some of the love pairing choices in the original were questionable or problematic. get rid of them.
- no avatar pls

Gameplay changes I'd like to see
- (by far my biggest wish) add rescue-drop as the most elegant solution to making footed units more viable and just generally fix this game's issue of there being way too many turns spent tediously moving your army around. please if nothing else I hope they fix these two crippling issues however they do it.
- fix how bad axes and lances are. they were way too heavy and insanely outclassed by swords.
- make flyers stronger somehow. they're usually one of the best unit types in the series but they don't really stand out in this game much.
- add a battalion mechanic of sorts since it fits the narrative. just don't make it super busted or anything.
- keep all the secret events, but do hint at some better.
- tone down some of the maps where there are a stupid amount of filler enemies and reinforcements. less enemies in more interesting scenarios/formations = better. I'm sure they can pull that off while retaining the macro war-epic feel of the original game.
- tone down sleep staves in the late game. or at least provide more status effect healers or something. I think the sleep status spam felt tedious for many players.
- get rid of Pavise on bosses. it's stupid in every Fire Emblem.
- get rid of same turn reinforcements. it's stupid in every FIre Emblem.
- get rid of being able to save every turn. only should be able to save at Castles. that + Sigurd's OP-ness were the two things that made this game one of the easiest games in the series. (keep Sigurd's OP-ness though)
- make Dew/thieves at least somewhat stronger and easier to use. that alone feels like an elegant solution to solve some of the issues a lot of people have with the money system. but do please keep the money system at least because it was unique.
- 2rn or Fates/SoV/Engage quirky rn. 1rn sucks.
- explorable castles feel inevitable. hopefully they don't have the Monastery/Somniel issue of 30-50mins of preparation bloat and optional-but-helpful activities everyone feels obligated to do. I have no expectations though.
- also lighten the arena experience. I think FE4 arena in concept is cool, needing everyone to train a little before going out, but sometimes I think it leaned towards tedious in practice.

- unique map changes (could probably say a lot more about this but again I haven't played this game in years):
- Ch.1 and Ch.2: condense these. they feel way too long and tedious honestly. I know many fans consider these to be some of the worst maps at least.
- Ch.4: maybe re-design the whole thing (same scenarios, different execution). I know I didn't enjoy this one and I know FE4 fans generally don't either.
- Ch.5: make the desert less tedious to go through.
- rest of the layouts I don't mind being mostly the same. at least don't change Prologue and Ch.3 because they're arguably the most well designed maps in the game.

Presentation changes I'd like to see
- artist: Rika Suzuki or Mitsuki Oosawa (the FE4 manga artist). please.
- ost: Yuka Tsujiyoko's original compositions + modern IntSys sound team arrangements + bring back Rei Kondoh for some arrangements too pls = goat raw fire peak
- more detailed and varied map aesthetics. please don't bore the player with the same looking grass and mountains which comprised most of the original game. add more detailed things a country with good worldbuilding would have, within reason. add more colours too. make it look as visually great as SoV and Fates.
- Shadows of Valentia or Tellius tier character designs.

If the remake has at least a majority of the above, I'd be happy, and it could potentially be one of my favourites in the series.

genealogy of the holy war is, like gaiden before it, an attempt to emphasize the RPG in SRPG. to that extent it does an excellent job; genealogy has a more interesting and diverse cast of characters than prior installments, the plot has genuinely compelling thematic ideas, denser worldbuilding than can even be conveyed in it's runtime, and the gameplay interweaves with those thematics very well. genealogy blows every prior fire emblem story completely out of the park, it really is not close at all. i had trouble believing that this game was even written by the same person, though part of that is probably that the quality of the modern fan translation for genealogy is much much better than the translations for 1-3. also like gaiden, there's lots of big experiments for the franchise; the entire structure of how chapters play out is rethought, abilities have been introduced to freshen up combat, the famous generation gap exists, weapon rank has been introduced, the weapons triangle has been introduced, it goes on and on. the majority of these additions are really interesting and add a lot of depth, which is definitely welcome after fe3 felt a bit like an fe1 expansion pack. the biggest defining characteristic of fe4, to me, is that the game just feels HUGE. you're going through huge maps on a huge story with a huge army that has huge stats... and it takes a huge amount of time. 4's achilles heel is that it's a very padded game, the emphasis on the revamped arena system means that you can often spend over an hour optimizing and grinding units before a chapter even starts, and the chapters usually are equivalent to about 4-5 standard fire emblem chapters crammed together, most of them taking me anywhere between 1-4 hours to complete. the scale shouldnt be an inherent dealbreaker, but unfortunately these maps are just so large that much of the time spent in them isn't really in meat and potatoes SRPG stuff, instead you spend a lot of time walking across countries and maybe grinding out relationships on the way. when combat does happen, you're incentivized to finish it as quickly as possible, because fe4 has a habit of putting large blocks of enemies together and having them all swarm your units at once. the end result is a game where you're spending much more time prepping for a very intense 1-3 turn battle than actually fighting, which is definitely a bit disappointing. i get what they were going for, because elements like the arena grinding are interesting power fantasies at first and it does feel exhilarating to watch your stronger units go up against a swarm of soldiers like it's no problem, but it definitely wears on the player after 40+ hours of it. the weapon rank system is also very rough here, again leading to the issue i mentioned earlier where strong units get stronger and weak units get weaker over time. it is an absolute struggle to get some of your early game units (looking at you alec and noish) to be on par with your stronger units because they're locked to bad weapons. on the other side, your good units will often have more weapons than they know what to do with. once i get a brave lance on erin or a brave axe on lex, why would i ever use anything else? the other main issue i had with genealogy is more of an inherited issue from the games that preceded it, i felt the story was often told in too abstract a manner to connect with it emotionally. a lot of key plot points happen off screen or are portrayed through map sprites, and i found it hard to feel personally invested in the stakes of the story as a result. it also often felt to me that the story's dialogue being limited to castle seizes and the beginning of chapters meant that some of the more interesting topics (child hunts, radicalization, persecution, poverty) couldn't get explored as deeply as i would have liked. i can't fault them too much, because obviously they were simply using the format that they had used for 3 games, but considering how radical of a departure FE4's gameplay is, i wish they had been more willing to experiment with the way the story is delivered as well.

(horse emblem, here we go)

i personally, REALLY like genealogy. it won't be enjoyed by some, but depending on how you like your fire emblem games you're either gonna love it or hate it i feel

you can tell some units are just built completely different. sigurd is a pre-promoted lord who gets a silver sword on the first chapter, and once you get 50 kills you get a critical bonus on it, meaning more likely than not, sigurd is going to one-round every unit in the game

then part 2 happens

shit does not change. mfs with wind tomes giving them +20 spd, ares simply existing, etc.

genealogy is a power fantasy game and i love it

Fire Emblem owes so much of its identity and gameplay to this excellent title. This is the most engaging story in the series and characters really pop despite having so few conversations. They make up for it by having most of those conversations matter a lot both in story exposition and conveying personalities and feelings. A shorter chapter count isn’t even an issue because every mission is so dense with content that you’ll be there for hours. The challenge of each mission makes great pop-offs when things work out. Promotions are very strong and well worth the effort invested into each and every character. The skill system was a bit finnicky as a first attempt but still very fun to play around with. I’m stunned this game was born so early in the series lifespan. It’s nothing short of a masterpiece.

If I were to name downsides, one would be maps so expansive that units without horses struggle to keep up with the ebb and flow of your army, enemy armies and changes in the battlefield. This isn’t as bad in generation 2 where pairings are more of an afterthought, but in generation 1 this results in leaving certain units out of the fight until their pairing is done; further crippling your offensive and defensive capabilities. The other main issue I encountered was boss balance varying wildly, namely the ones with holy weapons. Their stat leaps are far stronger than your own to the point almost every unit you have is guaranteed to die without some major luck involved.

FE4 is A Very Different Fire Emblem game. You pretty much have to learn to play in a different style than what you're used to. This doesn't hamper it from being one of the strongest entries based on its pretty good story, mostly the first generation, and the replayability it has with the second generation. The payoff of seeing what the children of the future do makes for a really good gameplay experience. It, alongside Thracia, commonly get thrown in a bin labeled "obscure games only weirdos play" but a lot of the series wouldn't be where it is without FE4. Skills, child units, battle conversations and lovers are all owed to it. Awakening's revival of the series is arguably most influenced from FE4. A lot of the same themes are present here. Once we get that remake, people will acknowledge it. Trust. It's real. Please be real

If I played this game back when it first came out it would have been a 5 out of 5 experience for me, but that's just not how it all panned out for my experience. It's an old game, so of course things in it have not aged well, and I could technically say the same for a game like Super Metroid if I were to play it and judge it without my nostalgia glasses on just to be fair.

Instead of doing a pros and cons list like I generally do, I will just talk about the good and bad about each thing I think is important for the game below:
1. Maps- The maps are big, and are the biggest of any Fire Emblem game I have played, so it definitely has that to set itself apart from the other entries. There are multiple objectives and castles to seize, and you could say that seizing each castle is its own chapter in itself. It does a good job of making each map feel like a war with how long and drawn out they are. I won't get into specifics about each map, but of course some are better or worse than others in the game and you can tell the creators tried their best to have different things happen in each chapter. The only thing that makes having maps this big bearable or fine is it being coupled with a save feature, so you do not have to worry about spending way over an hour or even multiple hours to beat a chapter in one sitting or leave the game running. Typically you cannot save in the middle of a chapter in a FE game, but the maps in this one are so big I see why they let you do it. Some maps can be boring, and some can be awesome, but most feel like a slog unfortunately. The maps feel too big at times, even for cavalry units. Foot units are so bad in this game because of their lack of movement, so unless the unit is really good you are not going to want to bother waiting for them to catch up. There were a good bit of times for me where I just spent turns moving units trying to get to the next objective. It is what it is, the map size is a preference thing overall, but it could be improved with a remake.
2. Hidden Items- Let me preface by saying you do not need any of the hidden items to beat this game, as overall it is not a hard game (Mostly because of the built-in save feature, although this game's difficulty is harder than most of the newer FE games), but this game suffers from the old cryptic game syndrome where it has hidden items, conversations, and other secrets that the game does not tell you about at all or does not do a good job of telling you about. The only ways you are going to encounter these secret items and conversations are by getting lucky and stumbling across them, using a walkthrough or official Nintendo guide if there was one. Some hidden items are fine to stay hidden as they make the game too easy, but I am of the mind that the holy weapons should not be hidden with how important to the story they are. I know they are not as well-hidden as other stuff after looking at a guide after beating the game, but I missed them myself and it just feels crazy you can miss them, like Forseti and Yewfelle.
3. Unit Balance- I ain't saying FE has generally good unit balance in most of its games, but I think it's worse or more obvious in this one. Cavalry units are about the only ones worth using, unless the foot units are broken in someway like Shannan. Some cavalry units are still not good in both generations where you struggle to make them work to where you feel like you would have an easier time just having your busted units run through the game instead of trying to use your other weaker units.
4. Story- I see why people say the story in this one is the best of the series or at least up there. I think it's either the best story in the series for its time that it came out (Meaning the story got worse as it aged due to advancements in storytelling and what you can do in video games now), or still among the best in the series. There are some things in this game that should have been better explained or not left vague, and some plot holes or what not, but what happens in chapter 5 is one of those wow moments if you have not been spoiled on this game's story yet. I unfortunately was to a certain degree before I played the game, so it is what it is.
5. Arena- This is a fun mechanic, but later on it drags and gets boring with how many units you have to use it for and how you can't skip the animations for each round.
6. Trading- Sucks that you gotta sell items to a pawnshop to then buy it for double the value with another unit in order to trade. Gold is easy to get in this game cause of the arena for units that can complete it, but it's definitely a product of its time. If this game were made today I believe you would be able to freely trade without using this as a mechanic.
7. The bandits pillaging the villages are on it in this game. You gotta be on your toes to get every village safe from them, as they do not play around and wait for you to turtle or take your time.
8. Generations- My first time playing this game I did not bother stressing about any love matches for kid stats and all that, I just played the game and what happened, happened. I found Generation 1 to not be as fun as Generation 2. Generation 1 is more for the story and to gawk at how cool Sigurd is I feel. Generation 2 I feel has better designed maps and more fun units to use than in Generation 1.
9. Combat speed- Even with combat speed set to fast and animations off each turn takes a while to get through. It has the same issue that most older FE games have, and that is turn speed. I literally went to go take a dump during one of the enemy phases, and when I came back the enemy phase was still going on.
10. Sleep staff- Bro, just bro. The sleep staff is busted for the enemies. They have infinite uses, and its range is yuuuge, and has a 100% success rate?! This really slows the pace of the game down on the last few chapters where enemies abuse it. I'm glad I had a restore staff, but still when you got 6 or 8 ppl lullabying you to sleep every enemy phase, just oof man, oof. I got through it, but that was not fun. It was definitely an experience.

Overall good game that is still good despite its age. Hoping for a remake eventually, as I think one would really give this game a time to shine overseas, since it never was officially localized.

One of the most under-appreciated gems in the gaming sphere.
Cons: no official translation, fanbase spoils everything for anyone wanting to play the game, remake will probably spoil everything in reveal trailers (haha :)
Pros: Each map connecting to each other through starting castles is really cool, and actually makes a cohesive map when put together. It's story is by far the best in fire emblem even though it's an snes game. Sigurd, Arvis, Lewyn, Seliph, Leif, Finn, etc. The motif of the song in prologue being used in endgame as you start at chalphy for both chapters. Has one of the best osts I've heard in my life. Peak Kaga-slop.
Peak. Fiction.

>incestual pairings
>eugenics
>child murder
>patricide
>immolation
>jihad warriors
>dense politics

Yeah, I'm thinking five stars.

For context this is the oldest Fire emblem I have played so far (the others being 7,8,13-17) so forgive me if I am just talking about classic FE and not this game specifically.

It's a hard game to rate, but I think It was fun in a challenging masochistic way, because every time I got frustrated with the game I always made it through the challenge being to figure out the strategy to win, which is probably just the appeal for the series.

what makes this one unique is the size of the maps and its time skip being split between gen 1 and gen 2. The large maps are also to make up for this game having less chapters but I liked how it made each chapter feel like little story in that continent and capturing bases and having the enemy armies respond while this is cool it does mean most of the game is moving units around and if they aren't on horse it will take extra long.

This series has always been good at tying narrative and gameplay but this game is on another level especially with the twist of gen 1.

The time skip works for both narrative and gameplay, pairing gen 1 units together for insanely overpowered units in gen 2 as well as the games theme of fixing the problems caused by the previous generation, and for a SNES game it's very impressive for what it does with its story, world, and in game politics.

My only major issue is I felt like it was hard to grasp the mechanics of the game, they don't explain it very well

But overall I enjoyed my time with it and can see its influence in the rest of the series and can see why its a fan favorite.

Long Review Warning: opening with the fact that I love this game. I have completed it MULTIPLE times, including on official hardware. Out of every game I've played, this one is absolutely among the most important to me personally and for my development. I have made so many great friends and taken part in many discussions thanks to this masterwork.

Very few pieces of media have moved me so much emotionally, yet this game gets the honor of being one of the strongest examples personally.

The first time I played through this game, I KNEW about the spoiler event at Ch. 5, prepared for it, and used to joke about it and all. I still remember the sheer dread I felt upon the event playing out. I didn't cry but I can distinctly remember the feeling of the sky outside my window going grey, a chill sent down my spine, and the emotion being so powerful I had to put down the game for an hour and just soak it in.

However, the feeling afterwards was equally as powerful. The opening for Chapter 6 is one of my favorite video game moments of all time. The swelling music and the bleak state of the world after the fallout of Chapter 5 contrasted with the light and hope put into the player's hand is nothing short of magical. You empathize HARD with Seliph's struggle in the second half of the game. This story is very nuanced and easily the biggest detractor to the "Fire Emblem stories are never good" myth.

The gameplay is top-notch as well. While players of modern games may bemoan the lack of features like trading items, these systems are all interwoven so delicately to support one another and make the experience quite mechanically cohesive. Every system supports and builds up the Love mechanic in the game, which has great story, gameplay, and game feel pay-off, in addition to adding an intense amount of replayability.

The soundtrack is among my favorites in video game history. Each one perfectly suits the mood and events in the story and game feel. To shout out a few: The title theme is EASILY the best version of the main Fire Emblem theme period, with its mysterious lead into the bombastic, war marching-tempo main part of the song. Girl of the Spirit Forest is wistful and exciting, frequently being the lead "lovey dovey video game song" example that comes to mind for me. Dance in the Skies is a different pace from the two songs before and suits the winter environment with its Sleigh Bells and somber tones better than most Christmas-y BGM I can think of. The Final Holy War is one of my favorite BGM period, tying the narrative of the whole story together just through song, and empowering the player to push through the final act.

This review is already very long, so to wrap up without rambling more: I absolutely adore every thing about this game, the secret events, the units, the maps, the mechanics, the music, the story. I know deep within my heart that were this game localized for the West, it would REGULARLY be in league with games like The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VI for conversations regarding the best video games of all time. An absolute masterpiece I think needs to be experienced and I eagerly anticipate a potential remake that would allow more to do so.

KINO
PEAK FICTION
GREATEST OF ALL TIME
This game is pretty much fucking perfect like holy shit
The maps
The characters
The story
I thought that second gen wouldn't be able to live up to first and that the children would feel like a worse version of their parents
But that's not at all what happened, Almost every character feels complete in story and battle with the children feeling like their own distinct characters even when there are some with identical roles
And every one feels good to play and manoeuvre around these massive maps
The size and scale of the maps is probably my favourite thing about this game and is sorely missed in every other FE game I've played
The multiple capture points expands the scope of the game as well as add heightened strategy especially in the later parts of the game
Fucking hell mate it just felt fucking good to play like holy shit it's amazing

Loptyr felled
Belhalla Seized
Jugdral liberated

A phenomenal game that aged better mechanically than you would expect. The world building, story, characters, presentation, writing, music, and scope of the game are honestly stellar and incredibly ambitious especially for the time. Should note that I did do a bit of research into specific items, but I had a great time regardless. Sigurd and Seliph's story are just great to see unfold and it's amazing how the worldbuilding is put into the gameplay as a reward for helping save villages.

I definitely don't think this game will be for everyone in regards to its gameplay, especially with how later games would improve upon it with a lot of quality of life features such as trading. However, a lot of the gameplay mechanics were carefully picked to give a lot more strategic depth and management, especially for the preparation stages of chapters. I do also really like how this game incentivizes to replay the game again to get the most optimal route, as well as fully understanding the grand story that the game wants to tell.

All in all, this was a fantastic game all around.

FE4 is another "Game I would rate 5 stars in my heart but I just can't bring myself to do it" style of game. I absolutely adore this game. It's my favorite FE. For a very long time it was probably my favorite video game, period, and it's still up there.

For a SNES game, the tale is really good. One of my best friends did a dissection of FE4 once and it doesn't necessarily hold up to scrutiny perfectly, but with enough suspension of disbelief and if you don't focus on the timeline exactly (Vylon being a big problem here) it's a great story and one of the most ambitious ones that Fire Emblem has ever told.

The gameplay is largely great, though the balance tends to come undone largely at the end of each generation. Gen 1 is largely fine even if a couple of people struggle to keep up. Gen 2 can really hamper unit's usability in the endgame if they don't have a holy weapon or one of a few very useful classes. The regular weapons and less broken classes just don't stack up to what you're up against in the end of the game. There's also the problem of horses and flying units having significantly better movement than foot units you get, with armors and priests especially slow.

But for me, most of that ends up truly not mattering. The game paces itself nicely from castle to castle where you can usually go slow if there aren't villages to save. There are very few reasons to go as fast as possible beyond a couple of particularly difficult villages to reach and perhaps a couple of recruitment scenarios, so the worst that happens is you waste some turns so the others can play catchup. Which I understand isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I don't particularly mind it. The vibes are immaculate and the story gameplay integration is peak. I love this game.

The character balance is dubious at the best of times, and downright laughable at worst. The maps are the definition of slogs. Most characters are really flat and are in desperate need of fleshing out. The gameplay is so obtuse and confusing that you will need a guide in order to not make the game completely incomprehensible to you.

And yet this game's story is so good, so full of ambition, and so well executed that I can't help but forgive these flaws. It's incredible how much was done in the confines of the SNES, and how even with the limited cartridge space of it, this game was able to create such a richly crafted world that is still highly praised even today and how it blows its successors of the GBA era out of the water in terms of its story. It's still got its flaws, however, and this game would greatly appreciate a remake of its own to iron out many of its… quirks, to say the least, but on its own? It stands as a very competent video game, in my humble opinion.

Personally not a big fan of this one, I think it has some of the best worldbuilding in the series and it really tries to give you the impression you're fighting a war with all the giant maps that look exactly like they are on the continental map. But I still did not enjoy going through it at all, you have to sit on your ass to play through these chapters for way too long, like a lot of segments of the game is just moving your units at a snail's pace because the 5 mov units slow you down like crazy so you're away from a lot of the action for a very long time, if you cut down the maps' gigantism in this game, it would probably be the shortest experience in the serie. The way the inventory was handled in this game wasn't my cup of tea either, I hated having to exchange money between units or having to go through the arena to gain money to put specific items on specific units, I don't understand why they couldn't just let us trade between units.
I will most likely not revisit this one but who knows.

At this point I'm in the rabbit hole of fire emblem and this game got my curiosity because it's considered the darkest in the series and I wanted to know why. The gameplay is different from the rest of the series with every character having their own inventory and money which at list can get convoluted. If you want to give items to other characters there's also arenas which do not kill off the unit if they lose which makes it a good option to level up. There's also fixable weapons as you can have Sigurd run the sliver sword for the rest of the game without worrying about it being gone forever. The marriage system ends up being a predecessor to the support system which ends up having some nice dialogue around the mid point of the game. The game has the largest maps in the series as there is only 11 maps (prologue and 10 chapters). The story is probably my favorite of the series due to having great characters and due to it having one of the biggest twists i seen in an rpg. The protagonist is great both gameplay and character wise with his interactions with the various characters in the game. I'm really hoping this game gets a remake for it to fix its quirks

One of the most interesting games I've played, further showing what a leap the SFC was in terms of getting really creative and unique games, especially RPGs.

Older FE games are stuck with the limitations of having to tell a lot of the story through gameplay scenes, which makes it all the more impressive how compelling this game manages to make its plot. The whole game really flexes its ludonarrative power constantly. I love how the giant maps make it feel like a truly epic war always, how the support conversations always really add to the lore and worldbuilding, and how there are points where the game makes you purposefully powerless to stop a story moment from happening on the field.

The pairing system is one of the coolest mechanics in anything I've played though. It's funny to see how IntSys tried to replicate it in Awakening and Fates but it's really done the best here, since its downright made to sell that fantastic mid-story shift. Insanely cool overlap between story and gameplay mechanics and I love how the impact of each character is shown through their children.

Kaga thought that the gameplay was sacrificed a bit for the story and unfortunately he is a little bit right. I don't think it's actually bad, there are a lot of really fun levels and I appreciate this game specifically for how unique so many of the mechanics are and how they tie in thematically. I will point out the most obvious complaint though and say that the big maps definitely can limit the fun a lot. It's a really cool idea and I respect that they did it but SOOO much time is spent just moving troops around large stretches of land and there is really a ridiculous amount of backtracking at times too.

It's a bit of a hard game to give any score too but I still really enjoyed Genealogy and I think it's one of the most impressive games I've ever played in terms of creativity. I think it would benefit from a remake honestly, would love to see them give it Echoes level presentation and also make a lot of the cool mechanics a bit more clear. So many of the unique parts are integral enough to the game that I don't worry too much about them being too dumbed down. Either way, definitely one of my favorite FE games I've played so far.

Putting into words how much I love this dumbass game is something I find some difficulty doing. I first played this game when I was 13. The extreme grandeur of everything in this game was astonishing to me. The maps were huge, brigands were razing down villages halfway across the map, the angelical soundtrack that accompanied it all, the ability to deploy every unit you recruit all at once, the fact you can't trade normally between units, and the fact they all have their own amount of income, the unique skills they come with, makes every character feel like they bring something to the table, like they're worth using in someway no matter how minor. Not to mention the story takes place between 2 generations of people. Planning what units to ship and what items to pass down during generation 1 so I can have some overpowered units during generation 2 is always fun. Not to mention the amount of secret items you can discover. Everyone should give this game a shot, maybe the giant maps aren't for you, and maybe the way gold and item trading works isn't your cup of tea but the way this game is able to paint out the continent of Jugdral through it's gameplay and story is something you shouldn't pass up. At least give it a shot, it'll be worth a try.