So all right, not too long ago y’all had a listen to the main themes. Let’s get individual for a bit. Well, at least for this week.

In case you didn’t know; I have not played Genealogy of The Holy War. However, my curiosity to find out things about the series continues, and of course, it ends with me finding these two arranged soundtracks. I am no music critic, so don’t even think about getting started on that. All I can say is that I really, really like these tracks, and listen to it ad nauseum. So might as well share it with you guys. Next time I’ll probably post the original OST, but…who knows when that next time will be?

This isn’t too hard. And for ease, I’ve only kept it to the Western releases.

So for almost each series in the franchise, Fire Emblem has had a manga version released. You want to know what those are? Well don’t worry…because A)I will provide a list for you and B)I will be attempting to cover some of them weekly and monthly! So let me show you what’s available!

Fire Emblem

Year Published: 1992

Artist: Masaki Sano, Kyou Watanabe

Original Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten

Summary: Not found, but would have to think it follows the main plotline.

Status: Not translated

Will I Cover It: No…there’s no translation of it. On the other hand…

Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu no Hikari No Ken

Year Published: 1993

Artist: Maki Hakoda

Original Publisher: Enix

Summary: Long ago, Medeus, king of dragonkin, conquered the continent of Archanea, giving rise to an age of fear and despair for its entire people. That tyranny was broken, however, when an unlikely hero intervened. A young man hailing from the Altea region appeared with a divine like blade in hand. Fang of dragon and blade of light locked in battle; and in the end, blade prevailed. For some after, the land enjoyed an age of peace.

However, after a century’s passing, the Shadow Dragon returned. He forged an alliance with a fiendish sorcerer who sought to rule the world, and their combined might topple kingdom upon unsuspecting kingdom. Again, the darkness threatened to engulf the continent. It fell upon the king of Altea, sole descendant of the dragon-slaying hero, to sally forth with the divine blade and fulfill his blood destiny. His son, Prince Marth, remained at home with the boy’s mother, his elder sister, and a garrison manned by Altea’s neighbor and ally, Gra. Thus the boy applied himself to the ways of both pen and sword, until one day…

Status: Incomplete

Will I Cover It: Because there are a decent amount of chapters out there, I will cover this. Until the rest is translated though, this won’t be finished.

Fire Emblem: Gaiden

Artist(s): Masaki Sano, Kyou Watanabe

Year Published: 1993

Original Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten

Summary: This takes place after Alm’s army defeated Dozah’s men, retaking the castle in Chapter 1: To Zofia! and meeting Celica at Zofia Castle. It has a total of 4 chapters in only one volume.

Status: Not translated

Will I Cover It: If I find anything about sure, but otherwise, no.

Fire Emblem: 4-Koma Manga

Year Published: 1994

Artist: Anthology

Original Publisher: Enix

Summary: Fire Emblem: 4-koma Manga is a manga adaptation of the Akaneia Series and Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. It has a total of 6 volumes; the first four volumes are based on the Akaneia Series and the fifth and the sixth volumes are an adaptation of Genealogy of the Holy War.

Status: Not translated

Will I Cover It: I would love to…but it’s not translated. Oh wellz. Would have been nice to get a laugh or 2.

Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo

Year Published: 1994

Artist: Sara Yamaguchi

Original Publisher: Kodansha

Summary: None

Status: Not translated

Will I Cover It: NAH

Fire Emblem: Seisen No Keifu

Year Published: 1997

Artist: Nattsu Fujimori

Original Publisher: Enix

Serialized in: Shounen GAG OH!, Stencil

Summary: This is one of the three manga adaptations of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. This manga adaptation is more of comedic representation of the First Generation. It includes Noish receiving candies from rescuing a village, Oifey hiding in the bushes, and Midayle being mistaken for a pretty woman multiple times. It has a total of six volumes.

Status: Not translated

Will I Cover It: Sure…in my dreams

Fire Emblem: Wind Mage

Year Published: 1998

Artist: Shinshu Ueda

Original Publisher: Enix

Summary: Is one of the manga adaptions of Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Tsurugi. It only has one volume.

Status: Not translated

Will I Cover It: Noooooooooooooooo

Fire Emblem: Seisen No Keifu

Year Published: 1999

Artist: Mitsuki Oosawa

Original Publisher: Media Factory

Summary: Based on the Super Famicom strategy game, Fire Emblem 4 features the son of Lord Byron of Chalphy, Lord Sigurd. Bandits from Verdane made an attack while Grandbell’s armies were away, and now Sigurd rallies the remaining forces to drive the bandits out so he can save his friend, Adean… Little does he know what he leads himself into will lead into a tragic turn of events in the face of Grandbell.

Status: Translated

Will I Cover It: I will. Until I can’t cover it no more of course.

Fire Emblem: Hikari o Tsugumono

Year Published: 1999

Artist: Nea Fuyuki

Original Publisher: Enix

Summary: Hikari o Tsugumono focuses on the Second Generation of the game and it ends around Chapter 9 after Trabant’s defeat. It has a total of five volumes and twenty-one chapters. Some of the characters from the First Generation make a cameo in the manga, in flashbacks and Extra Pages.

Status: Not Translated

Will I Cover It: I wish someone provided us with translations for these, but I can understand why not ;_;

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

Year Published: 2000

Artist: Yuuna Takanagi

Original Publisher: Enix

Serialized in: GFantasy

Summary: Based on the Super Famicom game, Fire Emblem 5 features the son of Prince Cuan(From FE4), Leaf, fighting to regain the land of Lenstar from the forces of Thracia.. At his side are the Fiana Braves and Finn, and a twist of events at the start finally start the steps in which Leaf will finally begin his journey to regain Lenstar…

Status: Not translated

Will I Cover It: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

Year Published: 2000

Artist: Shinnosuke Hino

Original Publisher: Enterbrain

Summary: None, really

Status: Not translated

Will I Cover It: ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho

Fire Emblem: Hasha No Tsurugi

Year Published: 2002

Artist: Koutarou Yamada

Original Publisher: Shueisha

Serialized in: Monthly Shonen Jump

Summary: Is a Fire Emblem manga that depicts the adventures of Al, a young boy with a mysterious past. It is initially a side-story to Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi, but it becomes more of an alternate retelling of the game’s story from Volume 3 onwards.

Status: Translated, completed

Will I Cover It: Yayyyyyy I can actually cover this.

So ok, I think that’s all the manga that’s out there, or the ones I could find. You’ll have to go help me find out if there are others, and also start praying that some kind soul will actually translate all of these. That will be cool. Anyways, I’ll attempt to cover the completed Fire Emblem weekly (let’s shoot for next Wednesday), while I’ll tackle those not so finished monthly (on Saturday). Sounds cool? Cool. Now go join me by finding some place to go read them!

This isn’t very hard. You’ve all played this game enough. So the question is simple: who’s your favorite character in Fire Emblem: Awakening? I’ll get you guys started off by sharing some of my favorite characters.

Severa

• Is a Tsundere
• Is Hot
• Can kick major ass
• I said she’s hot right?

I think my case rests.

Henry

If you think Henry drives you nuts, start questioning your entertainment choices. With his lame puns and crazy personality, he’s that asshole you’d rather want on your side. No seriously, you do. Oh, and he’s an Masochist. It’s hard to hate on someone who likes feeling pain.

Gerome

Gerome combines being mysterious and attempting to act like the next Batman by actually being pretty strong, and you give him the right skills, who cares if he’s wearing the Batman mask?

Gaius

What puts Gaius on my favorites list is his sweet tooth. I can’t hate on a guy who has an eye for sweets. Though I wish he’d have more than just a lollipop in his design.

Tharja

Because of her “Boingy bits.” I thank Nowi for that one.

Cherche

She called herself an old maid. I don’t know, but she seems the right kind of mature and yet still young to me. Oh, and she has some way of speaking to Minerva. Animal speech is great!

What do you guys have as a favorite Awakening character? Feel free to share as many as you want!

Saw this picture and loved it. Might as well use it!!!

Time to go into hiding!!!

So ok, will be honest: things have turned out fairly well since I’ve started this site in March. I have to thank you all for helping me with that!

With that out of the way, I have to go away for a week. Yeah, TL;DR — got some crap to do. Or maybe I don’t, but I’m just being a jerk. Regardless, as I said in the Fire Emblem Manga post, I will be covering the Hasha No Tsurugi manga on Wed, so expect me back then. While I’m at it, I guess I can ask you guys what else you would want for me to talk about pertaining to FE and all. I’ll do my best to oblige. Oh, expect some Fire Emblem GBA content to be all posted and stuff next week. Hold me to that!

For now though, have fun sifting through some of the more commented posts here so far (and a few for those who don’t know the Fire Emblem Lore)…and feel free to comment on the posts there as well =p Or just keep exploring the site at your leisure!

Some Basic Fire Emblem Awakening Advice Time!

What Unreleased Fire Emblem Game Would You Want To Play Today?

Why Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem Was Fire Emblem’s Awakening, Not Fire Emblem: Awakening

Share Your Favorite Fire Emblem: Awakening Character

The Lords of Fire Emblem

5 More Things You Need to Understand About Fire Emblem: Awakening

What is Fire Emblem, Part I

The Fire Emblem Franchise

There are a lot of generic units you get early in the Fire Emblem games. You may get the Cavalier, the Jeigan I mean a unit that’s already advanced a class and will turn out to be useless to you in the later chapters because their growth rates are horrible, and the archer who attacks a space away from your enemy. And then there are these units called Pegasus Knights.

Oh yeah, how about them Pegasus Knights? *Somewhere out there, someone cues some horribad erotic music*

Table of Contents

1. Pegagus Knights
2. Caeda
3. Palla
4. Catria
5. Est
6. Clair
7. Ferry
8. Fee
9. Femina
10. Misha
11. Shanna
12. Thite
13. Florina
14. Fiora
15. Farina
16. Vanessa
17. Tara
18. Marcia
19. Sumia
20. Cordelia
21. Cynthia

Pegagus Knights

While every game in the series will feature new classes, there always will be classes that are standard and will never change. One of them happens to be the Pegasus Knights. These units are your first flying units you’ll get to play as, and if trained right, they can be pretty good to you thanks to their movement range and their high resistance stats. Every Pegasus Knight in Fire Emblem is a woman. This cannot be changed. They generally are able to do what is called a Triangle Attack — this involves having three Pegagus Knights surround an enemy and the third attacker able to do a automatic critical hit. They also use lances. Lances serve as the in-between the sword (more accuracy and light but weak) and the Axe (more powerful but inaccurate), so if Pegagus Knights did not have a weakness, they would be used more often.

But yeah, they do have weaknesses. That’s right, weaknesses. And I’m not even going to get to their true weaknesses! The first thing is some Pegasus Knights do not get high Attack or Defense increases. If you want to have a really good Pegasus Knight, increasing their stats in that category is the best way to go. Then the next weakness is their HP. Some of them just don’t get a nice HP increase, or have high HP in the first place. So that is something that needs to be watched carefully.

Now onto what really can be a detriment: their weaknesses that are debilitating. They are generally dead meat when it comes to bows and wind magic. That is actually realistic of course, but it doesn’t change the fact that you have to keep an eye out on where archers and mage users with wind magic are, or else you’re gonna lose them in one shot. This weakness is kind of why some players may just try and use one Pegasus Knight, or none at all. Of course, you’re not going to get the same type of movement from other units like you will with these ladies, so that’ll be up to the eye of the beholder. Anyways, let’s run down some Pegagus Knights in each of the Fire Emblem games, shall we?

Caeda

Games: Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari No Tsurugi, Monshou No Nazo, Shadow Dragon, Shin Monshou No Nazo: Hikari to Kage No Eiyuu, Awakening

Summary: Caeda is the pure-hearted princess and Pegasus Knight of Talys, and the childhood friend of Marth. She joins Marth in his quest, staying by his side most of the time and is also responsible of recruiting various people, including Castor, Navarre, Roger, Jake and Lorenz. In the end of Marth’s battle against Medeus, Caeda eventually becomes Marth’s fiancée.

Palla

Games: Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari No Tsurugi, Gaiden, Monshou No Nazo, Shadow Dragon, Shin Monshou No Nazo: Hikari to Kage No Eiyuu, Awakening

Summary: Palla is the older sister of Catria and Est, and raised them after their parents died. Loyal to Princess Minerva of Medon, she was part of the Whitewings, an elite Pegasus squad from Medon. The Whitewings wanted to join the Altean army alongside Minerva, but when Prince Michalis heard this, he locked his and Minerva’s younger sister Maria, in jail to prevent Minerva and the sisters from turning on him. When Marth eventually rescued Maria, Palla and her sister Catria set off to look for Marth and Minerva. When they found them, they joined the Altean army.

Catria

Games: Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari No Tsurugi, Gaiden, Monshou No Nazo, Shadow Dragon, Shin Monshou No Nazo: Hikari to Kage No Eiyuu, Awakening

Summary: Catria is a member of the Whitewings, a Medonian squad of pegasus knights commanded by Princess Minerva. When Minerva’s younger sister, Maria, is held in captivity to blackmail the elder princess into fighting against the Akaneian League, Catria and her sisters are forced to fight too. However, as Maria is rescued by Prince Marth, they become free to join his army and fight alongside Minerva again.

Est

Games: Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari No Tsurugi, Gaiden, Monshou No Nazo, Shadow Dragon, Shin Monshou No Nazo: Hikari to Kage No Eiyuu, Awakening

Summary: Est is the youngest of the Pegasus Sisters of Medon, under Minerva. Unlike Palla and Catria, she was late to join, as she had to steal Mercurius before returning.

Clair

Games: Fire Emblem: Gaiden, Awakening

Summary: is a playable character from Fire Emblem Gaiden. Her brother is Clive. She starts off as a Pegasus Knight and can be promoted to a Falcon Knight. She is a knight of Zofia, but was captured by Dozah’s men. She was found by Alm after he and his army stormed an enemy fortress.

Ferry

Games: Fire Emblem: Genealogy of The Holy War

Summary: Is a character from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. She is one of the Four Angelic Knights of Silesse, and is the younger sister of the squad’s captain, Mahnya. Both Ferry and her sister are childhood friends and retainers to the wayward Prince Lewyn of Silesse. She leads a squad towards Sigurd’s army while searching for Lewyn, having been deceived that Lewyn had been kidnapped by Sigurd.

Fee

Games: Fire Emblem: Genealogy of The Holy War, Awakening

Summary: Is a playable character from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. She is the daughter of Ferry, and the sister of Ced. Her canon father is Lewyn, as revealed in the events of Fire Emblem: Thracia 776. Her Pegasus steed is affectionately named Mahnya after her deceased aunt.

Femina

Game: Fire Emblem: Genealogy of The Holy War

Summary: Is a character from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. She is the substitute character for Fee if Ferry was not paired up. She is the sister of Hawk, and is supposedly a ‘fangirl’ of the deceased Ferry and Sigurd, prompting her to join the Silesian Pegasus Squad.

Misha

Game: Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

Summary: Is a playable character in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, and the daughter of Deet’var. She works hard to help orphans in Silesse, and in order to accomplish this, Misha decides to join Grannvale’s army, even though she knows of Grannvalel’s wrongdoings.

Shanna

Games: Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, Awakening

Summary: Is a playable character Fire Emblem: Binding Blade; she is the youngest of the three Pegasus sisters. Shanna’s sisters Thite and Juno were official Pegasus Knights, while she was just a Pegasus Knight in training then. Shanna joined Dieck’s Mercenary crew as part of her training to become a real Pegasus Knight. She used to call Dieck chief but he didn’t like that, and she thinks that Lot has a crush on her although Lot only cares about her as a little sister, which makes her call him ‘big brother’. In her supports she is also kinder to Lot than to Wade because they ended up fighting in their supports.

Thite

Game: Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade

Summary: Is a playable character in Fire Emblem: Binding Blade; she is the middle Pegasus sister. Thite is not recruitable when her sister Shanna speaks to her but only when General Klein speaks to her; this is probably because she is in love with him, although in her A support with Alen she seems to have a small crush on him. Thite has problems with showing any form of positive emotion towards her younger sister in public, and she gets embarrassed easily. This could also be because she doesn’t want to make herself look like a fool in front of Klein. Thite is also very protective of her big sister Juno, and she worries about her and her baby.

Florina

Games: Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem Awakening

Summary: Is a playable character in Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken. She is one of the three Pegasus Knight sisters from Ilia, and a close friend of Lyn’s. Her Pegasus is named Huey.

Fiora

Game: Fire Emblem

Summary: Is a playable character in Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken. She is the impulsive older sister of Farina and Florina, and the commander of the 5th Wing of Ilia’s Pegasus Knights.

Farina

Game: Fire Emblem

Summary: Is a playable character in Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken. She is the middle child between Fiora and Florina, and a famed member of the 3rd Wing (Strongwings) of Ilia’s Pegasus Knights. She is only recruitable in Hector’s Story and joins as a high level Pegasus Knight.

Vanessa

Games: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Summary: Is a playable character in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones; she is one of Frelia’s Pegasus Knights. She is Syrene’s younger sister and harbors a crush on her prince, Innes.

Tana

Game: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Summary: Is a playable character in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. She is the princess of Frelia, and the younger sister of Innes.

Marcia

Games: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn

Summary: Is a playable character from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. She is a knight of Begnion, and the younger sister of Makalov.

Sumia

Game: Fire Emblem: Awakening

Summary: Is a playable character from Fire Emblem: Awakening. She is the mother of Cynthia, and can be a potential mother of Lucina and Morgan. Her birthday is November 24.

Cordelia

Game: Fire Emblem: Awakening

Summary: Cordelia is a member of Ylisse’s Pegasus Knight Squad, and is a childhood friend of Sumia. Her duty is to protect the royal family, though she also guides Sumia when the latter is in trouble.

Cynthia

Game: Fire Emblem: Awakening

Summary: Is a playable character in Fire Emblem: Awakening and the daughter of Sumia from the future. If Chrom marries Sumia then Cynthia will be the sister of Lucina, if Sumia marries the Avatar then she will be Morgan’s sister. Otherwise she will be an only child.

Thanks to Fire Emblem Wiki for the help.

You are about to see the worst FE commercial ever. Don’t say you weren’t warned!

Like…where does one even begin with this one? What are they even saying? What does this have to do with Fire Emblem? And there was a Thracia 776 commercial!

…Damn Nintendo advertises FE weirdly.

I wonder how this is going to turn out. After all, we don’t start off with Roy.

Synopsis

Visuals

Commentary

Synopsis

Taking place on the fictional continent of Elibe and staring Roy, the son of Fire Emblem protagonist Eliwood. Roy leads the League of Lycia’s army against the forces of the militant country of Bern shortly after his father falls ill.

The story begins when King Zephiel, ruler of the kingdom of Bern, finishes the brutal conquest of Ilia and Sacae and sets his sights on Lycia. With the war coming to his own country, Roy is sent home to lead Pherae’s army to oppose Bern, but soon after he meets Guinevere, the princess of Bern and Zephiel’s younger sister, who has escaped from her homeland to search for a way to stop the imminent war between Bern and Lycia.

Upon the death of marquess Hector, Roy carries on the Lycian League and makes many promises: to protect Princess Guinevere and Hector’s beloved daughter, the mage Lilina, and most importantly, to save the entire continent from Zephiel’s mysterious thirst for world domination.

But this story’s hero is Al, son of a Bernian blacksmith. After turning 15, he left his home with his father’s sword to go on an adventure in this continent bound for war.

Visuals

Our hero.

He sucks so much. I wonder what his RNG will be?!?

A dragon? A dragon this early? Really?

The typical knight here.

And there goes the dragon.

Commentary

So the story, instead of starting us with the events of The Binding Blade tells us a homely story about some aimless kid named Al. What does an aimless kid decide to do? He goes and leaves his home to go on a journey. Because this is what people do. Too bad doing so gets him into major trouble, and immediately captured because he stuck his nose in business he shouldn’t have gotten stuck in. However, this moment allows him to get involved in the main plot point, which is finding the Crest of Flames — which I would assume is the Fire Emblem. Along with Gant, a knight he meets up with during his troubles, after defeating that manakete they decide to go journey together to find the Crest of Flames.

Let’s just say if you have a queasiness for shounen, this just won’t work out for you. You have the atypical shounen protagonist who acts all energetic, silly, and moronic, and then you get the guy who has the experience and backbone, but is honorable. You’ll have your deaths (in fact it happens in the first few pages), but you won’t feel anything for them. You don’t get a real sense of the storyline, but that’s expected. It’s simple enough. But let’s just say some really dumb things happen in this chapter.

Overall, it’s just a wait and see on whether or not the paths of Al and Roy will converge. And when they do, who’s going to have the most space?

http://www.serenesforest.net/media/hasha.html

Created this post exclusively to post above Lyn picture. Hot

All right, quick refresher for most of you: Fire Emblem 7 was the first Western released game in the Fire Emblem franchise. It came, it brought forth fans, and the rest is history. But that was 2003. It’s now 2013, and a thought has occurred:

Why did Intelligent Systems bother to include Lyn’s story when, for all intents and purposes, it didn’t serve for much when it came to Eliwood or Hector’s story? So let’s run with a few theories or you tell me why Lyn was created!

1. It was time to have the first Fire Emblem Female Lord. The series had exclusively only had male characters be considered of the Lord class, and with the seventh installment of the series, IS may have thought it was time to switch things up and have her start the series off prominently as opposed to starting with Eliwood/Hector.
2. To serve as a tutorial. That’s right. They couldn’t have a brief tutorial at the beginning of Eliwood’s story, they instead decided to devote 10 (+1) chapters into guiding players into the basics of the game. For long time FE players in JP, this must have been seen as a slight on them! For us newbies in FE, it was great. But in hindsight, did we need such an elaborate tutorial?
3. To add more content. Which, in thinking about it, seems kind of silly since the main quest games were pretty lengthy without the tutorial. And it’s not like Fire Emblem 6 had a ten chapter tutorial! So it may have increased playability, but you could only do so much in Lyn’s playthrough.

What other conspiracy theories do you have as to why Lyn was a featured character? Did you even mind playing the tutorial? Whatever you have on Lyn, talk about it below. I’ll be back playing Fire Emblem again.

Time for a regression to the mean. Ok maybe not so much. I legitimately want to write about as many things about Fire Emblem: Awakening as possible (note: I also want to write about the small things in the Fire Emblem franchise as well). However, this may not be quite as small as least suspected. You see, Awakening has a feature that I think some people playing don’t know about it. I’ll tell you this: I didn’t even know about it and I had 2/3 of the way to go in the main quest until I found out about…the Bonus Box.

What is the Bonus Box?

the internet has failed me…;_;

The Bonus Box is a wireless/spotpass feature that allows you to get additional weapons, paralogues, and teams, whether they are teams from Fire Emblem lore or Awakening teams across your city. The biggest thing is you don’t have to pay a dime to get this content; i.e, you can ignore the DLC maps and get your value out of Awakening by playing the Main Quest, the Side Chapters, and stuff from the Bonus Box.

From there you can parlay (fight) with teams, recruit them on your side, or buy their items. It’s actually pretty simple stuff.

…Ok, did I explain the Bonus Box enough? No? Ok, one more thing that you probably want to ask: how do I find it?

1. Hit the preparations menu on the world map
2. Wireless
3. You’ll see Bonus Box, and all of its features

Ok, now am I done? No? Well I don’t know what else you want from me regarding this feature, so maybe you’d like to share it in the comments. Now let me go back to playing Fire Emblem GBA. I must act like I know what I’m talking about >:(

Found this while searching for an appropriate pic. I guess it works

It’s been a good two months (well, maybe three) since I’ve started this blog. So, let me make things easier for you by highlighting some sites I’ve been following (and you might want to check out or else I’ll go to your house and throw you out your own window!!!)

Classical Gaming

This blog is maintained by Steve Lakawicz, who in real life holds a number of degrees in Music and is a teacher of statistics. He has a love for video game music. I’m no music expert, and I don’t go out of way to listen to music unless it’s from a video game or something else. Like a blog post. Well well, I think Steve’s got that covered! With solid writing and music to listen to, hard to go wrong in not checking out a blog I like. Need examples? Well, him covering Tales of Legendia’s soundtrack (and also explaining what happened to game itself) is pretty awesome. Also the music he linked to is pretty good. Need another example? Try learning about Birdie Try– I mean, Mecarobot Golf. (and yes, you can laugh at the history of that too!) As you can see, this guy rocks. My only criticism? He needs to reply to comments D:

Crunchyroll

LEGAL ANIME SITE HERE

No really, that’s all there is to know. Don’t have quite a lot of time for anime, but they do stream some stuff, and it’s great. Only criticism is that they haven’t actually been “simulcasting” recently, and that’s kind of disappointing.

Flailthroughs

Flailthroughs is an absolutely strange and seemingly hilarious blog where the two owners make a valiant effort to play Japanese games. The problem? They can’t understand (everything) said in Japanese. So with their brazen knowledge and will, they challenge themselves to play these games despite not getting a thing. It’s hard to hate on that. But I do have a problem with them: They’ve been consistent with what they post — in other words, it’s the same thing every week (though it’s changed up a bit this week), and some of it doesn’t interest me. But oh well, it can’t be helped. Now go watch a playthrough of Another Century’s Episode R.

Recollections of Play

Cary is basically my senpai, as she helped break me into blogging slightly, and was the first blog I linked to. It all started with backwards compatibility. Then it evolved into me liking her enough to add her to my sites to check out ^_^ Her posts are pretty fun and informative. Like this post. It’s a reminder that time is of the essence. No really, discipline and time when it comes to anything is a must. And motivation. That’s another thing! But Cary is awesome. My only real critique is she needs to leverage WP more. Why does she only have us see 4 recent posts on her widget? Why doesn’t she use the read more tag? Scrolling is not funnn!!!

Ok I’ll stop whining now.

Super Gaijin Ultra Gamer

I stumbled onto this site recently, so killing it too early with criticism is not cool. That being said, I do have one: Hollo, update your blog!!! I know you have posts you want to write; who cares if you’re busy, make time to post more you fool! =p

But aside from that, this site is pretty cool. He lives in Japan, has a large amount of games I’ll never play (wahhh), and even sells them too (well at least he’s starting now!). I think I’ll enjoy following this blog, and maybe if I’m super special with a chocolatey fudge (or whatever the hell Abridged Yugi says to Grandpa), he’ll gloat about possessing Fire Emblem and I will just cry and shake my head, fist shaking.

I’ll deal with it!

Unlimited Zig Works

Another site that I also followed not too terribly long ago. But I do have some criticism:

I…I don’t get this comment box. I guess it’s something I have to get used to, and that may be more a theme problem, but yeah, it’s weird. Sorry to call you out on that Zig!

But ignoring that, Zig basically covers it all: from covering indie video games to trashing Rurouni Kenshin (Man that New Kyoto Arc has not been liked!), you’ll find something cool to check out. Also, the name of the site is not bad. I’ll digitally send you a cookie if any of you can figure out the inspiration for the name of Zig’s blog. If I can figure out how to do that.

Honorable Mentions (I.E, close enough to be on my sites to check out list but lacking in one more thing!)

The Kilographic

• These guys are crazy
• These guys are loony
• These guys hate Awakening
• These guys cover Fire Emblem too
• Did I mention these guys also hate Awakening?

Ok ok, some of them do like Awakening, but while I can’t agree with the guys that don’t like the game, I do concede the story has issues. Thankfully I came for the gameplay and characters, and got everything I wanted out of Awakening after being saddled with Radiant Dawn and Shadow Dragon for a few years.

Anyways, they’ll be great enough to be on my RSS feed, but at this point, they’ll never be on my sites to add list until one thing happens…they turn themselves into a Fire Emblem blog. They barely cover anything other than FE; they should just admit that’s what they are, stop being so tsundere, and just turn themselves into a true FE blog. There’s not a lot of FE blogs out there. Oh, and they also aren’t totally consistent when it comes to updates. For now!

Satellablog

Don’t have any idea what the Satellaview is? Well, you can go to this site and get all of the information you need, and learn about it. Unfortunately, the recent posts hasn’t gotten me too interested (sorry Kiddo!), but this is an excellent resource that I recommend you check out.

…Yes, I’m again being a stubborn and selective bastard for not adding this to my sites to check out right?

Anyways, what else blogs are you checking out that you like? I might take a look. Always up to finding a few more before shutting myself off from looking for blogs entirely. After all, gotta focus on Fire Emblem! (Or so I claim!)

I was looking for something related to this post. Note the “was” part.

Tired of the static Fire Emblem modes where all you do is just try and outwit your opponents and you’re usually stronger than them in stats? Actually, you’re probably not, considering most of you just like it the way it is, and you want to keep your players alive. Well, too bad. In past FE games — or mostly the ones that never got released in the West –  there was no difficulty levels, but the game was hard anyways. Starting with the unreleased in the West Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade for the GBA, an option to make it harder surfaced…

Let’s just say since then, things have gotten a bit crazier since.

If you’ve been involved in the Japanese gaming scene before or you’ve seen videos of Touhou, the difficulty for games can range from the usual standards to “THESEGUYSARELOCO!!!” Fire Emblem was no exception. Somewhere out there, there are players who are crazy (and talented) enough to want to test their strategic and game breaking knowledge. I can only guess that’s why Intelligent Systems chose to do the one thing that might be considered sane by those people: coming up with new difficulty levels. It only got worse from there. The GBA line was mostly safe, as it only had Hard mode as its highest difficulty (though in the West it was nerfed compared to the Japanese editions). Then it tread new territory for the console games. Path of Radiance had some silly mode called Maniac. Let’s just say that never came to the West, and was replaced by Easy Mode. Then Radiant Dawn came and we also got Maniac as a disguise called Hard Mode. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but let’s just say all’s fair in love and war (so no crying about how many times you lost that chapter). If it was possible though, it got worse after that. For the two DS Fire Emblem games, not only was there difficulty levels, you could set the difficulty levels from 1-5 on Hard Mode. Then for Shin Monshou No Nazo, it introduced Lunatic Reverse. We all know that here in the West as Lunatic+ (Fire Emblem Awakening).

So what’s the big deal with these levels? Well, the biggest deal is of course, their insane difficulty. Each game in the series took the difficulty steps further than it maybe should have. The standards in general is to have more enemies on a map, with higher stats, better weapons, and an inherent desire to kill your units with ease. Then of course you have a mode like Lunatic+ where the enemies attack first on each turn. How does one beat these modes? Well, the first thing is you need to be a major M and deal with the fact that you’ll be resetting a lot. The other thing is for the early parts of the game, you just have to accept that a certain strategy will be the only way to beat the chapter. The last thing you’re gonna need is a lot of luck. And I mean a lot of it.

But don’t take my advice. I mean, I have yet to actually beat any higher difficulty mode except for Hard in Awakening. I’m pretty sure there are players out there who can detail the best ways to deal with the modes better than I can. So how about you share your strategies in dealing with them?

I just recently played Chapter 13x: The Peddler Merlinus in Fire Emblem 7. This map was slightly more difficult than I gave it credit for, and I did make one screw up (man I suck), but in the end, I beat it. But throughout this whole chapter, there was only one thing I could think of.

Why Intelligent Systems, why did you ax this guy?!?

So broken.

For the uninformed: Merlinus was a unit (Transporter) that was your supply convoy: he was able to hold weapons, tomes, staves, everything. You could even deploy him in battle. Yes, that’s right, you could have him appear on the map, and in Fire Emblem 7, he could be deployed separately, so you don’t have to waste a unit spot. And you know what? He was a pretty broken unit. Well, it does depend on if you train him (by making him appear on each map and he survives he levels up), and once you get him to his Wagon class, he’s literally unstoppable (sometimes). Now, I don’t know how something so big and large can actually dodge, but he can, and he did it well. I even used him a few times as part of my strategy, and managed to get away with it. He seems pretty useless at first, but his importance cannot be understated…

SO BROKEN!!!!

…In Fire Emblem 7. I heard he REALLY SUCKS in Fire Emblem 6. Like, he is really bad. The worst is you do have to use him too, so that’s not good. It’s probably because he’s aged too much. So did its horse.

Now, why am I talking about Merlinus, aside from the fact that he rocks? That’s easy: we haven’t had a Merlinus like character since FE7! Sacred Stones didn’t have him, the Tellius Games (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn) had a few characters who accompanied you but didn’t take part in battle (and aren’t quite the personality as Merlinus), Shadow Dragon and Shin Monshou No Nazo were remakes, and Awakening skipped out on it too.

So in other words, it’s been a decade since we’ve had a Merlinus like character in Fire Emblem. In the next installment, they should fix this problem. You don’t need someone exactly like Merlinus, but surely using a transporter as a unit can be good right? Ok so maybe protecting it would be a pain, but the pay off should be great. Intelligent Systems, get on this!

…Now for those who manage to find Fire Emblem 7 lying around in places, you should try and use him. You don’t want to get rid of items and you want to make sure you have a stock of them right? Then use Merlinus. He’s cool. And so’s his support conversations.

…Yes Merlinus even has support conversations. Now if only they had given his tent a weapon or tome to fight…

Man, the internet can be great sometimes. It can also be disturbing. Also, I expect to have nightmares over what I just found. Don’t worry, I know I’m a weak human being. Deal with it. Now deal with me showing you what I discovered.

…Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

No really, I did warn you.

……

…..

…..

….Ok, enough warning you!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Wait, what the hell is Tetris Attack doing on a Fire Emblem blog?

Most importantly, why the hell are you complaining? It’s freaking Tetris Attack!

Oh these were some good times. Back in the day I had this game, I played this so much, and I was really, really good. See, I had not played the original Tetris until way later, but it’s a good thing I played this one. It’s so good. Trying to get combos, using some familiar (and unfamiliar) characters, and dat music…

…Actually, dat music is important. On Youtube you’ll find a bunch of videos with ridiculously long combos. This is the shortest one I’ve found, but it makes today’s trivia all important:

So ok, yeah, it’s been ten billion years since Super Smash Bros. Melee came out. I mean we’re gonna have a new Smash Bros in 2015 (yeah, lol, definitely don’t expect it in 2014). I’ll make a decent attempt to go into Brawl at some point. So let’s go back in time…back to around 2001…well for me somewhere in January…and the part where I ended up meeting some blue haired dude with a sword and looked like a girl…

Because once that moment happened, I became a Fire Emblem fan. No, of course not instantly. I was still a kid for the most part and I just wanted to play Melee. But I ended up making both Marth and Roy my mains, and the rest is history. After that, I’m pretty sure I did some research into the Fire Emblem series, and basically saw things that at the time was difficult for me to explain (well, I mostly saw the artwork at RPGFan. Man, I used to check that and RPGgamer out so much…). There also wasn’t much of a story out (I mean Wikipedia wasn’t created yet), but I definitely wanted to know as much as I could about the Fire Emblem series. Then of course 2003 hit and at E3 Fire Emblem was slated for a North American release. That made me happy. But it probably would have been impossible to get that game had Melee not come and introduced us to Marth and Roy.

So, a good decade and some years later, time to say thank you Melee. Not only were you a good game, but you also was the reason that everyone around the world was able to get to play Fire Emblem, and you are the reason everyone is able to enjoy what looks like will be the best selling Fire Emblem game in America. Now, if you excuse me, it’s finally time to pop that champagne and celebrate. If you haven’t already.

Well…at least we can see the hardware right?

It sucks.

Ok, ok, I don’t know if it sucks. But it is what everyone has been waiting for so…should I care? Now, I should point out that I do own a 360, so…I’m not all about Nintendo (or Fire Emblem). Well, I could just go frequent the big sites to get info, but that would suck too. So feel free to talk about here. While I clean up my room.

Because cleaning up your room is a good thing™

Substitute ‘by the book” with meh

Synopsis

Visuals

Commentary

Synopsis

Taking place on the fictional continent of Elibe and staring Roy, the son of Fire Emblem protagonist Eliwood. Roy leads the League of Lycia’s army against the forces of the militant country of Bern shortly after his father falls ill.

The story begins when King Zephiel, ruler of the kingdom of Bern, finishes the brutal conquest of Ilia and Sacae and sets his sights on Lycia. With the war coming to his own country, Roy is sent home to lead Pherae’s army to oppose Bern, but soon after he meets Guinevere, the princess of Bern and Zephiel’s younger sister, who has escaped from her homeland to search for a way to stop the imminent war between Bern and Lycia.

Upon the death of marquess Hector, Roy carries on the Lycian League and makes many promises: to protect Princess Guinevere and Hector’s beloved daughter, the mage Lilina, and most importantly, to save the entire continent from Zephiel’s mysterious thirst for world domination.

But this story’s hero is Al, son of a Bernian blacksmith. After turning 15, he left his home with his father’s sword to go on an adventure in this continent bound for war.

Visuals

Them stats! You probably will be RNG’d too

EYES…she has none. Freaky Fire Emblem Time

Ha, like there was an age limit back in those days!

Goddamn that horse looks evil. If only that guy was headless

So moe

Commentary

This next chapter pulls a bit of a…I’d say 60°. We have our luck laden main characters get captured by bandits, but as it turns out, those bandits used to serve the Princess that Gant has been looking for — specifically a dude named Warren was one of the main leaders. So they celebrate, get marry, etc, until Gant mentions where the Princess is being held. That’s when anger spills out (also aided by the alcohol) and before you know it, we have liftoff I mean going their separate ways. At least, that’s what it seemed. But in true heroic fashion the bandits end up helping Gant and Al out and they take the fortress. That is when they find the Princess and all’s well that ends well.

This was for the most part a mediocre chapter. I could really only get behind the Princess who is a mage (I wonder how strong she is??!) and immediately struck Al with some sort of magic. I wonder how many HP he lost, and whether or not it was a critical hit. She’s all kind of hot btw. No one will take her from me!

Another thing I got behind was the Fire Emblem style attack. We have just a few units strike the castle/fortress, defeating a large amount of their enemies due to their strength and where they battled. And then just when the enemy thinks it’s one thing, it turns out to be a surprise attack! And they’re completely unprepared. Glorious dark horses storm the fortress!

But other than that, it was nothing really that good. Some of the moments were pretty boring, and the pacing of panels and pages was bad. Everything just moved from one part to another. I still can’t really get attached to the characters. So there needs to be more work on that front. But as long as the Princess has her moments, then I can survive reading this. Oh, I should probably say: the translation had an error:

Which is disappointing. It’s been well translated so far, but how could they have messed this up :/

http://www.serenesforest.net/media/hasha.html

I guess I’m contractually obligated to talk about what I discovered pertaining to the Fire Emblem franchise. I don’t know why–

Oh wait.

You pretty much know that Awakening has been the best selling FE in recent memory. You can go do a Google search on it to find the numbers, or maybe see people somewhere in your area with a game of it and talking about it. It is well deserved of course, as when I see FE selling well, it makes me believe people would be interested in learning more about the franchise as a whole. More good press = more people just being aware of how the franchise is. Oh, and it would make this blog useful

That’s why when I found out about this interview, I gave a bit of a sigh. For the lazy, I’ll post the info here:

Q: Fire Emblem has had a long lifetime. Do you get the feeling it gets harder to release a new episode every time?

Yamagami: No doubt. Truth be told, sales are dropping. The sales manager of Nintendo, Mr. Hatano, told us that this could be the last Fire Emblem. Due to this progressive descend on sales, they told us that if the sales of this episode stayed below 250,000 copies, we’d stop working on the saga. I remember when I came back from the meeting and told the team “My God, what are we gonna do?! The end has come!”. Our reaction was clear: if this was going to be the last Fire Emblem, we had to put everything we always wanted to include. That’s how this new project was born!

I should probably point out that Fire Emblem, at least in the West, wasn’t exactly a particularly good seller. Then it really dropped the ball with Radiant Dawn and it basically cancelling out newbies to the game, and then bringing back Marth with a remake of Shadow Dragon. So with all that said, this could have been the last FE game?

Really IS? This could have been the last one?

Admittedly, considering everything that is packed in Awakening, where they had characters from prior Fire Emblem games appear in the game and features from most of the games packed in here, you could see how, as Yamagami said, “they wanted to put everything we always wanted to include”. And they did exactly just that. Did that make for a strong overall game? Not necessarily, but it was well done enough for me (and others) obviously.

Even so, I have to tip my cap to Awakening for basically saving the franchise. Personally, I had a feeling that while FE was a great franchise, there was something missing that prevented it from becoming something more widespread. Sometimes being too widespread is bad, but personally, with Awakening selling as well as did, I think it is the stepping stone. I think IS has the basis of what great and well received FEs can be. Now they should have the opportunity to improve upon it and make the franchise better so it doesn’t get close to ending so ingloriously.

Oh, and no remakes. Unless you make better changes. (Like Shin Monshou No Nazo).

So ok, it’s time I go and cover the attack themes of Fire Emblem. It’s evolved a lot since it started in 1990. That might be an understatement. Anyways, instead of having it posted in one post, I shall break it down into three parts: Fire Emblem 1 to 6, Fire Emblem 7 to 13, and then the Arena music themes. These will all be the player music themes for now. Sometime in the future I shall get to enemy themes. So let me get started.

Title: Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari No Tsurugi
System: Famicom
Track: Player Attack
Composer: Yuka Tsujiyoko

What is there to say about a battle theme that originated in the 8-bit era? Well, I think what it comes down to is what you one thinks they’ll feel when they hear this theme. It’s a war out there, you’re fighting to help Marth reclaim his kingdom, and what’s that? You get a feeling of “Man, this is too simple!” And it really feels that way; it stays on a consistent track for the whole thing, and when it changes at the end, it lacks a bit of a rush or a sense that a unit is attacking. It could stand to be a bit more polished.

Title: Fire Emblem: Gaiden
System: Famicom
Track: Player Attack
Composer: Yuka Tsujiyoko

For this one, this feels like a slight upgrade, or more like, “Let’s go and fight!” Which is about how it should be when it comes to Celica and Alm. This music feels like we’re taking the challenge to you, and you have to stop us! There also feels like there’s variety here, as opposed to what we got in the first Fire Emblem.

Fire Emblem: Monshou No Nazo Book 1 Attack Theme (Sorry, couldn’t find a single video of it!) Link to part of the track here

Title: Fire Emblem: Monshou No Nazo
System: Super Famicom
Track: Attack (Book 1)
Composer: Yuka Tsujiyoko

Now we get into remake territory, and well, they definitely attempted to remake the 8-bit version! It’s obviously still the same one, but unlike the first one, this sounds impactful, with a sense of purpose, and like it’s time to deliver some justice. Now, would I still think this would be a song suited to reclaim a kingdom? Not entirely sure for me. I just know that this is a nice track.

Title: Fire Emblem: Monshou No Nazo
System: Super Famicom
Track: Attack (Book 2)
Composer: Yuka Tsujiyoko

Book 2 however, steps things up. In this one, Marth and his comrades know they need to hurry as fast as they can to accomplish their goal, but along their way they’ll have to overcome numerous challenges, whether it be from betrayals, loss of close friends, or trying to save the people from their destruction. So when hearing this track, keep all of those themes I mentioned in mind. With a variety of tones to this theme, this is something that works well.

Title: Fire Emblem: Genealogy of The Holy War
System: Super Famicom
Track: Ally Attack
Composer: Yuka Tsujiyoko

When I initially heard Genealogy of The Holy War’s battle track, I liked it a bit. It starts off as a near challenge like mode, with a creative use of beats to start things off then switches things up a bit. I think it’s more varied than the prior FE battle themes above. But for me, it then gets repetitive. And considering this is the entire theme of Genealogy of The Holy War, I’m not certain how much I would be able to listen to it without soon switching to Battle Animation OFF.

Title: Fire Emblem: Thracia 776
System: Super Famicom
Track: Start The Justice – Attack
Composer: Yuka Tsujiyoko

This track however, sounds exactly as titled: Leif, the main character in Thracia 776, is tired of running away from the people out to get him, so along with his allies he sets out to save his friends and take on his pursuers. It’s fitting that for this one, it’s hurried, it feels imposing, and it definitely feels like justice is about to be served.

Title: Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade
System: Game Boy Advance
Track: Attack!
Composer: Yuka Tsujiyoko

Out of all of the FE this point, this track has more variety. You get started out with what sounds like could be a prelude to the battle upcoming, then the music after that is a well timed strum of different sounds that come with the actual attack from your units. And of course, you can say it also sounds heroic too.

Anyways, what battle track’s your favorite on this list? Feel free to share below. Look out for Part 2 of this sometime this week (probably Thursday)