Fire Emblem (series)



Fire Emblem is a popular turn-based strategy RPG video game franchise, developed by Intelligent Systems, and published by Nintendo. It is the first of its genre, (the tactical role-playing game) and it is based on medieval times.

The series currently has 14 games, which cover the Famicom (NES), Super Famicom (SNES), Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Wii, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS.

International Release
From the first game (released in 1990) to the 6th game (released in 2002), this series was only released in Japan. In 2001, Nintendo released Super Smash Bros. Melee, a fighting game with characters from many different Nintendo games. The Japanese version included Marth and Roy, from previous Japan-only Fire Emblem releases. In North America, the game went through debug testing, and Nintendo of America decided to keep them in the North American version. It was because of their popularity in North America that Nintendo of America decided to localize and market the Fire Emblem franchise to North America and Europe.

As well as Melee, Super Smash Bros. Brawl also had Fire Emblem characters, being Marth and Ike (Roy was one of only five characters who did not return in Brawl).

Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken, the seventh title in the series, became the first Fire Emblem game outside Japan, though it was simply titled "Fire Emblem". All Fire Emblem titles since then have had an international release. So far, only five Fire Emblem games have been released in North America and Europe; Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem ~Heroes of Light and Shadow~ is to be the sixth.

Games
The series currently has 10 original games, 2 remakes, and 2 arguably unofficial, promotional games.

Games predating Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken were released only in Japan.

Characters
Unlike most video game series, many of the Fire Emblem games have completely different characters. Although a few Fire Emblem games are prequels and sequels, there are still many characters in this series, which include Marth from Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi, to Ike from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Each unit possesses a different background on their life.

Permanent Death
"If the enemy reduces a unit's HP to zero, that unit will be removed from the game. Lost units are gone for good; you won't be able to use that unit again after that point."

- Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon in-game guide.

In the Fire Emblem games, when a character's health points reach zero, they will die permanently and be left out of play for the rest of the game. This is a deviation from most traditional RPGs, where characters would reach zero health and be merely incapacitated or can still be revived. This leads players to be mindful of their units and use care in deploying them into battle, keeping back any significantly injured units. If a character other than the primary protagonists (whose deaths result in a game over) who are important to the story have their health points hit zero, they end up receiving a crippling injury that prevents them from ever fighting again instead of dying (an example is Soren from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance). Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon features side chapters (also called Gaiden chapters) that necessitate loss of units. There is a new mode in FE12, casual mode, that brings characters back to life in the next chapter if they die. This is to ease the difficulty, letting new gamers into the game more easily. Avoiding loss of units is made easier using emulators, since many of them can create "save states" that overrides the save mechanics of many Fire Emblem games. If a character's health points reach zero, players can load save states to recover the data where the character was last alive. In Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken, units that are killed in Lyn's story are brought back to life in Eliwood's or Hector's story, although this may be excused due to this game being a prequel. NOTE: Units that are killed come back without the stats that were given to them.