Fire Emblem: love, glory and great battles
by Simon LaroccaFebruary 9, 2025
Nintendo has always created legends.
Immortal sagas that still endure today, strengthened by their ever-expanding worlds and a publicity campaign that, it must be said, never lets up, bold and combative exactly like the heroes of the mythological epic we studied at school.
Why this reference, you may be wondering.
Because there is a game series that, arriving in the West guilty late, has like no other managed to embody the epicness of the battles and the motivations penned by Homer, while never distorting the all-encompassing and evocative vision of Japan, with its precepts, its sense of honor, country, and why not, family.
Fire Emblem. A magnificent title that, in the very act of uttering these two simple words, conveys the ideal of strength and legacy, of a story that continues and evolves, tracing a red thread that connects the past to the present.
In short, it is a Strategic RPG, which unlike the various Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Xenoblade series, bases its gameplay on a more thoughtful approach to battles. No Time Battle Bar, then, nor frantic duels driven by frantic button mashing on the gamepad, but rather tactics, resource management, and heterogeneous groups of soldiers to move depending on the objective to be achieved.
Fire Emblem showcases the best of the fantasy genre and does so with memorable design (also crafted by Sachiko Wada, by the way, an artist of considerable stature), which reflects archetypes from Homeric and heroic epic. We cite one as an example for all: Marth, the quintessential hero who answers the Call, a character who therefore does not choose to fight for himself or for his own ends, but who wields the Falchion, a legendary and iconic weapon in Fire Emblem, to save the people he loves and his people, oppressed by endless tyrannical violence.
There is enough of it to fill volumes with myths and stories to tell around the fire, right? But who is behind a legend of such proportions?
Potrei rispondervi con la scuderia di programmatori che lavorava per Intelligent Systems, a company that practically served as Nintendo’s right hand, operating seemingly behind the scenes, but in fact it is to them that we owe Super Metroid for SNES, or more recently Paper Mario. Yet there was someone who, with his vision, changed everything, the person who had the Idea, the creative spark necessary to shape Fire Emblem and its worlds.
I am, of course, talking about Shòzō Kaza.
As a matter of fact, Kaza gave birth to the forefather of the series, that Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light released for NES and that Switch resurrected from the past for the delight of those who do not speak the language of the Land of the Rising Sun.
As of today, between main installments and spin-offs, Fire Emblem boasts nearly twenty titles, outlining a fantasy world with influences from other subgenres, dominated by winged creatures, fierce monsters, and necromancers addicted to power, not only spiritual power.
The villain of the first game, in fact, is none other than a usurper of the throne of Akaneia (where most, but not all, of the games in the series are set), and as a long-time video game player, I remember that even back in the Nineties, his characterization, as well as that of the party we would build during the campaign, was truly remarkable.
What makes Fire Emblem great, in fact, is the maniacal care given to the script, the stage presentation, the graphical and structural rendering, as if it almost wanted to step aside to make room for the grandeur of the epic story, which unfolds through chapters that become increasingly intense on an emotional level, giving us cut scenes and interludes that will keep us on the edge of our seats.
The motivations behind what kept this saga away from the West until the early 2000s are varied, and must be sought in the complex localization and in the very particular approach that Fire Emblem, as you could read in the previous lines, devoted to world building and the hybrid "philosophy" that ran through every scenario and game chapter.
Aspets, which perhaps Nintendo considered a little too challenging for markets beyond Japan's borders, however, someone in Kyoto managed to be forward-thinking, because on Game Boy Advance first, with Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, and then on GameCube and Wii later, giving us Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, the sequels to the games released exclusively in Japan finally arrived.
E the things changed. For the better. For the fans, certainly, but also and above all for Nintendo.
Con la sua meccanica di gioco e il sistema di battaglie semplice da imparare, but articulated and deep, Fire Emblem filled the void that was missing for owners of the aforementioned consoles, who were amusing themselves with Advance Wars, another title not to be forgotten, but who wanted a fun game that could weave mature narrative plots, capable of engaging them during the hours of battles among forests, caves, and castles to be recaptured.
The chief programmer who, in a sense, revitalized the series, modernizing it without, however, distorting its nature in the transition from the old millennium to the new one, was Toshiyuki Kusakihara, art director at Intelligent Systems of course, responsible for the latest installments Echoes and Three House, released for the hybrid Switch console.
Kusakihara took up the spiritual legacy in 2008 with Fire Emblem: Awakening, collaborating with big N executive Masahiro Higuchi, someone who knows quite a lot about marketing strategies and broad, big-picture visions.
Awakening guarantees hours of gameplay steeped in mythology and with a special focus on the chivalric aspect, an element that has always recurred since the dawn of the series: the Middle Ages and classical antiquity go hand in hand for the Japanese, it seems, but after all we are used to hybridizations and blends of genres and strands, including literary ones, so this should not surprise us.
Se there is one thing I have always appreciated about the handover, symbolic but only up to a point, it is the respect of the new Fire Emblem titles toward the games of the past: the passage of time has not, in my opinion, dulled the dazzling beauty of a true playable book, with its legends and a mythology still being defined, that spark, as I said earlier, sprung from Kaza's snap of the fingers.
Curiosity, or fun fact as it is often said today: in Japan, the characters in the series are either hugely loved, or hugely hated depending on the case, and they have often been the subjects of popularity polls.
Nothing new, you might say, but the fact is that the votes had important repercussions on the future of these characters, because also on the basis of the approval rating achieved, the programmers would have determined if and when they would return in the future in other chapters of the series!
Unother foundational feature of the series, which had its greatest splendor in the Game Boy Advance versions and is finally making a comeback, is the dating sim aspect, derived directly from dating simulators that, in the Land of the Rising Sun, but not only there, have been wildly popular for generations: we will therefore be able to unlock, through dialogue and gameplay situations, romantic interests for our characters, a dynamic that certainly appeals to a wider pool of players and makes happy those who want to leave an even deeper mark on their campaign.
![[In Fire Emblem, true love stories can develop between the characters depending on how much they interact with each other and how they communicate]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.thegamesmarket.com%2Fapi%2Fv1%2Ffile%2Fproxy%3Fkey%3Dstaging%252Fmagazine%252Fcontent%252Ffire-emblem-amore-gloria-grandi%2520battaglie-img-0.png&w=3840&q=75)
This game mechanic, inspired by Japanese visual novels, draws most of its inspiration from Tokimeki Memorial, the legendary Konami series that represents for dating sims what Fire Emblem, in fact, symbolizes for turn-based role-playing games.
Fire Emblem, initially a niche title, has managed to become beloved over time and through the passion of those who still believe in video games as a medium.
9
Pro
A mature plot built around gameplay mechanics with a classic feel
suggestive chart area
Deep connection between players and characters: the death of the latter is definitive and will spur you to work harder to keep them alive
Contro
Some levels will have you swearing from start to finish. Yes, resources are not infinite
Japanese can be a stumbling block
Difficulty not always perfectly calibrated
Complete
25,88 €New
83,00 €Graded
91,30 €
Simon Larocca
Mi chiamo Simon Larocca, e sono un videogiocatore, collezionista e amante della cultura pop in tutte le sue forme. Vado al cinema ogni volta che posso, leggo da quando porto gli occhiali, quindi da sempre, e ho la passione per lo storytelling in tutte le sue forme, così dirompente da farla diventare una professione. Ma come direbbe Doc di Ritorno al Futuro, non ci sarebbe presente se non si guardasse al passato con rispetto e ammirazione, ed è il Simon bambino di più di trent’anni fa, anno più anno meno.
Simon Larocca
Mi chiamo Simon Larocca, e sono un videogiocatore, collezionista e amante della cultura pop in tutte le sue forme. Vado al cinema ogni volta che posso, leggo da quando porto gli occhiali, quindi da sempre, e ho la passione per lo storytelling in tutte le sue forme, così dirompente da farla diventare una professione. Ma come direbbe Doc di Ritorno al Futuro, non ci sarebbe presente se non si guardasse al passato con rispetto e ammirazione, ed è il Simon bambino di più di trent’anni fa, anno più anno meno.