The West’s introduction to Nintendo’s storied tactical JRPG franchise, Fire Emblem 7 is perhaps the best-presented Fire Emblem game, containing some of the best animation and sprite work on the GBA. It has some glaring issues, though, like a story full of painfully generic fantasy JRPG tripe that can’t help but fizzle out every time it threatens to go somewhere interesting, battles that are best played on an emulator with a fast-forward button, cutscenes that inexplicably autoplay dialogue at a dismally slow speed, and a late game full of inconsistent difficulty spikes if you're not aware of how best to min-max your party, how to get the good equipment, or which characters turn out to be useless or outclassed later on. I appreciate a challenge, but this game frequently isn’t, until it is.
I love the series’ trademark permadeath system, but I find it better in theory than I do in practice. It adds weight to your decisions, ups the challenge, and forces you to make tough calls about who you’re REALLY attached to. It also results in the game handing you a lot of useless duplicate class characters which frequently either replace ones you have or add little of value. Besides that, there are simply too many for all but a few to get any real character development. The way they’re referred to as “units” rather than “characters” is telling. Yet several plot-centric characters are capital-R Required, so upon “death,” either they become incapacitated so as not to affect the story, or you get an unceremonious game over. Now go replay the past twenty minutes because another swordsman with no personality died. See, this one has red hair, so he’s important.
I'd rather Fire Emblem take a page from western RPGs and give us a story that adapts to how we play, offering multiple endings and branching paths as consolation for our mistakes--and as a reward for our successes. Instead, FE7 opts for half measures. Choices have substantial gameplay weight, but are let down by a narrative that doesn't care about them. I understand this kind of design is a big burden on development, but I’d gladly take 10-20 chapters in a world that reacts to my choices, has characters worth caring about, and allows me to fail forward over this game’s set of 30+ linear, occasionally bland, frustrating chapters.
Of course, that’s asking a lot of a Game Boy Advance game. The gameplay, when everything falls into place and the challenge feels tuned precisely to your skills, is still sublimely satisfying. A character surviving almost-certain death with a lucky dodge or crit is as exhilarating as it is frustrating to lose an essential one to the same things. Out-maneuvering the opponent feels supremely rewarding, which makes it all the more annoying when an unannounced reinforcement punishes you for simply playing how the game had encouraged you. (Some Fire Emblem games have reinforcements that can move and attack on their first turn--at least I don’t recall this happening in this game.) Fire Emblem at its best--when it lives up to its promise--is incredibly fun. I just wish this one did so more often.
I love the series’ trademark permadeath system, but I find it better in theory than I do in practice. It adds weight to your decisions, ups the challenge, and forces you to make tough calls about who you’re REALLY attached to. It also results in the game handing you a lot of useless duplicate class characters which frequently either replace ones you have or add little of value. Besides that, there are simply too many for all but a few to get any real character development. The way they’re referred to as “units” rather than “characters” is telling. Yet several plot-centric characters are capital-R Required, so upon “death,” either they become incapacitated so as not to affect the story, or you get an unceremonious game over. Now go replay the past twenty minutes because another swordsman with no personality died. See, this one has red hair, so he’s important.
I'd rather Fire Emblem take a page from western RPGs and give us a story that adapts to how we play, offering multiple endings and branching paths as consolation for our mistakes--and as a reward for our successes. Instead, FE7 opts for half measures. Choices have substantial gameplay weight, but are let down by a narrative that doesn't care about them. I understand this kind of design is a big burden on development, but I’d gladly take 10-20 chapters in a world that reacts to my choices, has characters worth caring about, and allows me to fail forward over this game’s set of 30+ linear, occasionally bland, frustrating chapters.
Of course, that’s asking a lot of a Game Boy Advance game. The gameplay, when everything falls into place and the challenge feels tuned precisely to your skills, is still sublimely satisfying. A character surviving almost-certain death with a lucky dodge or crit is as exhilarating as it is frustrating to lose an essential one to the same things. Out-maneuvering the opponent feels supremely rewarding, which makes it all the more annoying when an unannounced reinforcement punishes you for simply playing how the game had encouraged you. (Some Fire Emblem games have reinforcements that can move and attack on their first turn--at least I don’t recall this happening in this game.) Fire Emblem at its best--when it lives up to its promise--is incredibly fun. I just wish this one did so more often.