Meh....

by: TheLastBlade

Ever wondered what the first game in the series was like? Ever wanted to play as Marth? Unfortunately, the end product becomes somewhat disappointing...

Pros:
-Alright music: it's not gonna blow you away, but it's not bad.
-3D models animate fluidly enough: At least the models look neat when the land a blow or do a second strike.
-Plays like Fire Emblem...
-It's at least fun to play in a car ride.
-Has wifi?
-The ability to ship long battles.

Sounds ok so far, right? Well, I'm gonna tell you the cons that make it ok.

Cons:
-Poorly implemented characters....: You thought that I forgot about characters, huh? Well, that's because they don't do much outside their introduction and support conversation. In older/later titles, it fleshed them out more. In here, they just didn't care because it still thinks it's the NES game.
-Very NES story: I heard the story for the original game was groundbreaking in Japan. Here it really shows it's age.... It sort of happens and it's full of filler.
-Ugly rendered backgrounds: The 3D models aren't anything to write home about, but they're ok. The backgrounds is another story.... Because the 3D and 2D is there, it makes it look ugly and out of place.
-If you don't raise your characters, you're F***ED: You better look up a guide and find out which characters to take with you on the journey. Because you CAN'T waste time with characters with shi++y characters. That, and you need to train in whatever arenas the game provides you. It's gonna be long and annoying.

Verdict: It's not very hard to find out why people would consider this a bad entry to the series. I found it fun in some areas, but even my fire emblem bias can't escape the feeling of "not trying to change a dated game". You're better off with sacred stones or renting this.

thatrandomdude

No offense, but some of those cons don't make sense. One of your pros is that it "plays like Fire Emblem" and then in the cons section you complain that it is Fire Emblem. The last point is a staple of the series. Also, of course it has a NES like story. It's a remake, not a re-imagining. The story will remain the same as it was, in the NES days. You can have your own opinion about the game, and I don't want to start an angry comments war, I just wanted to point out that some of this "review" doesn't make sense.

TheLastBlade

The whole being F***ED part means that you have a lot of shi++y characters that have bad stats. You can't waste time on most of them because they're NOT worth raising; unlike most Fire Emblem games. That, and Arenas are the only thing to raise the characters properly.

For the NES type story.... It isn't that great. Even though it's an enhanced remake, the bad thing is that the story really shows it's age by being straight forward and forgetting that it has a lot of characters.

thatrandomdude

Those are valid points.I agree that the story shows age and this is no where near the best Fire Emblem. I just wanted to point out some things that confused me.

TheLastBlade

Glad I can help.

CrispyGoomba

First FE game I've ever played. Didn't really like it too much because it was so hard to balance out which character got enough experience or not. After I got tired of the game (never did beat it...), I got my Action Replay and cheated my way through it just to see the different areas and how long the game was. Hopefully FE: Awakening will prove to be a better entry.

TheLastBlade

Not that hard to beat Shadow Dragon :P

TheLastBlade

At least in terms of Quality.

YoshiRider123

You're not really supposed to be balancing all of your characters' experience, anyway. You just use who you like and stick with them to the end. Doing otherwise naturally makes the endgame more difficult.

With how Awakening basically gives you as much experience as you want, there's no excuse for failure yet it's not like it's detrimental to the experience either.

TheLastBlade

No, there's a lot of characters that LITERALLY suck. There's no room to use characters just for looks. Besides, the story sucks enough that the game even forgets it has them.

YoshiRider123

I see your point and I don't disagree, but that's not what I had in mind when I was saying go for the ones you like either. I mean that that there are of course a sizable number of characters worth using, but you typically aren't supposed to be trying to use every single one of them in a manner where you're trying to balance out their experience, since that would eventually spread experience too far to make it worth the effort. Not only that, but since you're spreading experience like that, your characters also won't be as strong as they potentially could've been, which makes the game more difficult in turn. And like you said, just going for looks in choosing who to use...well good luck with that, especially on harder modes.

TheLastBlade

In this particular Fire Emblem game, however, you're pretty much better off with the few amazing units and Marth, than you are with the billion bad ones.