I've been meaning to settle the score with Fire Emblem 7 for quite some time. For whatever reason I've always been fascinated with FE7, going back to the days when I was into Smash Brothers. "Oh, this is the one with Lyn and Roy's dad!" When looking into the series on my own time back then, I had read on a lot of pages that this one was considered one of the easiest FE games alongside the first available in English, so it made me want to start there. One problem though. The game was EXPENSIVE. Even back then mfs on eBay were scalping the hell out of these games, so my hopes of ever getting to play it dwindled.
That was until I was introduced to the world of emulation, and shortly after one of my priorities was this game. I started it... And stopped playing. Why? I forgot. Then this other time I borrowed my girlfriend's Raspberry Pie which had this game loaded on it, so I tried going through the game again. Dropped it. Then I tried an emulator a second time, starting from the beginning because I had switched emulators. I stopped playing. For the life of me I could not stick to finishing this game because I kept changing my method of playing it.
Fast forward a year or two and I had randomly been enticed to play a Fire Emblem game from start to finish, that being The Sacred Stones, and I really liked it! "Now that I'm a fan of this series, maybe this is my chance to finish 7 already!" I said, so I started playing aaaaand... I put it on hold. Yakuza had already consumed my life at that point. THEN after two months I picked up this game again and was absolutely motivated to finish it, and I FINALLY GOT IT DONE.
So onto the game itself, it's very similar to the other one I had played, Sacred Stones, which isn't a bad thing actually. I really liked the gameplay of that one so hopping into this felt really easy to do. I still had to trudge through the overly long tutorial (which at this point I had experienced nearly 5 times), but once I got to Eliwood's story things started to pick up. The gameplay of the GBA Fire Emblems is very quick and snappy, combined with stellar presentation and battle animations. I like the class system and weapon triangles which add an extra layer of depth to the combat mechanics. As for the maps, I liked most of them although the later ones can suck shit at times, especially with enemy spam. The final boss chapter was also just awful, I almost wanted to stop playing from how unforgiving and long it was. But still, I managed to pull through.
Fire Emblem 7 really stuck the landing for me because of it's characters. I already mentioned Lyn and Eliwood but HECTOR steals the show for me, he's so cool and immensely overpowered at points, alongside just being a cool character. Priscilla, Florina, Rebecca, and Marcus were also some characters I really liked, just to name a few. While many of them aren't really deep in terms of writing, they deliver by being distinct and charming in their own ways. Eliwood especially goes through a lot of tough shit throughout the story, I felt kinda bad for the guy. At the time of this review I still haven't played Hector mode but I definitely will in the future, because it adds a lot of characters and story moments to make the experience more complete. Even so, FE7 as is has a simple but fun and engaging narrative with a cast of very likable helpers.
So was it worth the wait and countless resets to finish Fire Emblem 7 to me after all this time? I'd say so. While the game is definitely very flawed, and I can see why in the grand scheme of the franchise it isn't very special, it means a lot to me because of my needlessly complex history and fascination with it. Definitely would recommend at least trying this one!