From Final Fantasy To Fire Emblem: What A Change

RPG video games are ordinarily longer and more complicated than the usual run and jump, defeat the enemies in your path kind of game. But when a video gamer has grown accustomed to playing the Final Fantasy variety, playing one from the Fire Emblem series can have its moments.

While on a la Final Fantasy mode, the player is usually able to level up or earn sufficient experience points before going in to boss battles. And when you enter into battle, the only kind of strategy you have to worry about is whether you have enough heal potions or if your mages have heal spells. With Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword game for the GBA/Nintendo DS system, I found this and a few other elements quite challenging.

First of all, you have to plan your battle strategy before the battle begins. This can be fun, providing your fighters are strong enough to handle the enemies because in Fire Emblem, if your ally dies in battle he/she cannot be revived. The good thing about this is, you, the player can restart the level or chapter and keep on fighting until you have managed to win the battle with all your fighters intact.

Let’s face it, you might not be able to complete the game without that particular fighter or ally, so proceeding without him/her would not be a good idea. And they level up on the battle field. You can also heal your almost depleted fighter with something called vulnarys and there are magicians you encounter along the way who join your group and have heal spells.

But in order for these magicians or mages to heal your fighter, said magician has to be positioned close enough to the fighter who is need of healing. And the fighter obviously also has to have vulnarys in his/her possession. If not, you can have another ally trade or give you one of his/hers.

When I first started playing this game, little did I think I was going to get through the first three chapters with all fighters intact, but so long as you plan your strategy well, you will prevail. It is a great game and long enough to keep any gamer tuned to it. And planning all those strategies on the battlefields, game play and progressing with all your fighters in one piece can be addicting.