Fire Emblem: Paving the Way Trailer, My Thoughts

 In 1990, a new series of games debuted for the Famicom, the Japanese counterpart to the Nintendo Entertainment System: Fire Emblem.

Fire Emblem was a series of tactical RPGs that had a notable feature: If a character died, they stayed dead. Over the years, there have been sixteen core games in the series and four spin-off games. The series never was released out of Japan officially until the characters of Marth from the first game (Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light) and Roy from the seventh game (The Binding Blade) appeared in the Nintendo fighting game Super Smash Bros. Melee. The characters became popular with fans. The popularity of another tactical RPG, Advance Wars, convinced Nintendo that Fire Emblem could have an audience in the West.

The games have maintained a popular following, and the series has become known as the defining tactical RPG series. In 2020, the series celebrated it's 30th anniversary. In celebration, Nintendo officially localized and released the first game for the first time on the Nintendo Switch. Let's look at the trailer!

Yeah, Fire Emblem is a long-running series. 

I wonder why so much of the series was Japan-exclusive. Maybe they thought the West wouldn't like these games?

I have played the Fire Emblem game that came out on the Game Boy Advance. It was alright, but you have to have a mind for strategy to play them. Huh. Maybe that's why the series never came to the West for a long time.

Yeah, this is less an army, and more like the Magnificent Seven.

Permadeath sucks.

What this is basically saying is that you can really screw things up if you do the wrong thing. Be lucky this world hasn't discovered nukes yet, I guess.

I admit, I am happy to see the first Fire Emblem game come to the West officially for the first time. Most people there have never played this game. This would be seen as a lost piece of NES history that is finally seeing the light of day. I think I'll give it a try. I did play the seventh game for the GBA, so I am curious to try the series' beginning.

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