Fire Emblem

Most of this information is based on the Fire Emblem Games that were officially released in the United States. For most of us cannot read, write or speak Japanese.

Stats and you.

The max level is twenty; to gain a level a character must get 100 experience.

HP or hit points are (like in most games) the amount of damage a character can take before dying.

Strength affects how much damage a character can do with non-magic attacks. The higher the strength the more likely the opponent's corpse will be unidentifiable.

Magic affects how much damage a character can do with magic attacks. The higher Magic stat a character has the more likely the body of the opponent will be decimated.

Skill affects hit chance percents, critical hit percents, as well in some games, increasing the chance for an ability to activate. The higher the skill the more chances of landing a successful hit to the opponent's nads.

Speed affects the number of attacks a unit can make and makes it hard for an opponent to hit.

Luck affects ability to hit attack and dodge though it is hidden on battle information, I may say 1% chance to hit but luck boosts it to be higher. Also affects finding items on desert maps.

Defense reduces damage from non-magic attacks.

Resistance reduces damage from magic attacks.

Constitution is how big a character is and determines what kind of weapons a unit can carry without any penalties. Also affects rescuing. The higher the constitution… the more likely the character is overweight if they are not on a horse.

Extra Boosts.

Support Level and Conversations.

Fire Emblem is known for giving each character background and personality. Each character has a list of people that they can have a conversation with in battle, this is called a "support conversation". After the conversation the character gains a level with the person they had a conversation with. There are three levels C, B and A. After reaching a C support level those two characters are granted a bonus when near each other depending on each ones affinity. Example: A character that is attack while near a person with level B light affinity will gain 1.0% more attack, 5% more hit chance and 5% more critical. Also the conversation is something that you will read, the start of a level C conversation may have two characters talk about cooking and character 1 likes fruit cake. At level B character 2 made the fruit cake but there was a problem with it. At level A the characters may start falling in love (if 1 and 2 are different genders) or talk about something about an act of care because character 2 tried to make the fruit cake. Also Support Conversations can affect the ending on what happens to one or both of the characters.

Each character has an affinity which is what bonus stats another character may receive if they have a support level with the other character. Each affinity grants a different bonus, example being light gives more of an offensive and defensive boost while a fire affinity grants more of a pure offense. Bonuses are dependent on support level.

Game play.

Fire Emblem's gameplay is quite interesting it has many different mechanics. From battle to each character having a background.

In Fire Emblem each battle takes place on a map in which you deploy the desired characters to engage enemy units in battle after getting in range of an enemy. Each map has a main objective; it can be defeating the enemy commander, seizing a fortress or killing all enemy units.

In battles there is a system called the weapon triangle and the trinity of magic.

The Weapon triangle works like paper-rock-scissors except you do not automatically win if you use your paper against a rock; instead the character receives an advantage.

With physical weapons, swords beats axes, axes beats lances and lances beat swords, And bows do not beat anything, instead they get a bonus against flying units. In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, knives were introduced for use for mages (if the player wanted to have a mage to have a physical attack), thieves and assassins. Knives do not have a weakness or any advantage.

There are weapons that reverse the order, meaning an axe can gain an advantage over swords but gain a weakness to lances.

A more badass way of paper-rock-scissors.

In the trinity of magic, anima beats light, light beats darkness and darkness beats anima.

Staves fall into the magic category but staffs cannot do any damage instead effects and healing, but in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn a staff user can perform a physical counter attack which usually does not do much damage.

More different ways to play paper-rock-scissors.

In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn the trinity of magic is changed to wind, fire and thunder. Wind is strong against thunder, fire is strong against wind and thunder is strong against fire. Light magic is present in the games but does not have a strength or a weakness.

Weapons and tomes have a limited amount of uses, once they hit zero they break and will equip the next thing in their inventory, if they have nothing they are useless.

Also each wepon type has a skill level, higher weapon and magic skills allow characters to use stronger weapons and magic.

Before a battle you will see a screen to show how much HP each unit has, the amount damage will be dealt, the hit chance and critical hit chance.

During the battle itself, you will see a table on each side which shows the the hit chance, which is in percents, the damage that will be dealt with each normal attack and critical hit chance, which is also a percent. Probability plays a big role in battle so it is possible for an enemy with a 1% chance to critically hit your unit out of no where make you rage due to it.

Critical hits are equal to the amount of damage that a unit will do times three also each class has it's own critical hit animation.

Fire Emblem has the command to rescue to firendly units. Which one unit protects another unit while it shares the same space on the map. The constitution of the unit must be lower than the other to be be rescued. Rescuing a unit gives the rescuer a drop in speed and skill while the rescued is protected from all damage.

If a character loses all hit points they are dead, no second chances unless it the unit says they are "retreating", even then they are unusable to a point. This can lead to many resets and retrying, as well as raising awareness of enemy units.

Classes

Fire Emblem can be compared to Square Enix's game "Final Fantasy Tactics" on some levels.
For an example there is a range of different classes. In Fire Emblem you can promote your characters to a better class by reaching at least level 10 and using a special item or a master seal. In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn promotions happened automatically after reaching level 21. It is always best to promote at level 20 just because doing it to early while make the unit weaker in the end. From the fire throwing mage to the walking death-wall generals. Each class has its ups and downs, the following is a list of some classes from games of the Fire Emblem series.

Archers are the basic ground unit who specialize in bows and promote into Snipers. On Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Snipers possess an ability to randomly get a automatic hit, which is known as "Sure strike". Downside is that both classes cannot attack back in melee range combat and are quite weak in defense.

Fighters are the basic axe using class. They tend to have high hit points and strength, okay speed and weak defense. Fighters promote to warriors, who then can use bows and a boost to hit points, strength and some speed. Downside either way both classes lack defense and high speed which makes them an easy target for sword using classes and magic using classes.

Mercenary is a class that can only use swords and have a high amount of skill, good amount of strength and hit points but lack resistance and luck. Mercenaries promote to the heros class which then gains access to axes. Heros are a very well balanced class and can become very powerful.

Myrmidon is another sword user only class who deal more accurate and stronger attacks then a Mercenary, also Myrmidons promote into Swordmasters. Swordmasters are a lethal class that has a high critical chance, high hit chance and evasion.

Thief a your basic run around and steal things unit. Thieves have the ability to steal items and open doors and chests with a lock pick. Thieves have a high speed stat, thus making them harder to hit, only problem is that they lack defense and attack so most of the time one or two hits on a thief will kill them. Enemy Thieves usually go around the map steal items from chests picking some locks to get to a chest and destroying houses and villages. A Thief can promote to an Assassin or in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, a Rogue.

Assassin's overall mostly hit and evade spells and attacks aswell as a chance to instantly kill an opponent with one strike, this is known as Silencer. Down side is if they are hit they may take a lot of damage and when thief is promoted to an assassin it loses the ability to steal but does not lose the ability to pick locks with a lock pick.

Pirates are an axe wielding class that are like fighters except pirates are more accurate, have more strength, have less defense and can travel on water, pirates can promote into Berserkers possess a high amount of HP and Strength but lack defense and skill, they also get a 15% chance to critically hit.

Knights are a high defense lance using class, which can promote into gerenals. Generals in all Fire Emblem games possess a great amount of defense a high amount of attack and surprinsingly a good evasion. In most of the Fire Emblems games, the General class has had the most useable weapon switches through the Fire Emblem series. In one game a General can use lances and swords and in another a General could use all physical weapons, swords, lances, axes and bows. In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones Generals had an ability called "Great Shield" which Negates all damage on the opponents next attack. This ability cannot block the effects of silencer and sure strike. Downside to knights is the general lack of speed and resistance which makes them easy prey for mages.

Cavaliers are a horse back mounted unit that can equip swords and lances and can promote to paladins. Paladins can use also use axes, cavaliers and paladins have no strength or weakness they are balanced. Paladins also have the largest movement range of all the classes making them very mobile except on a desert map.

Mages is the basic anima magic specialized class. Mages can promote to Sages which can then use staves. Sages have high a magic stat thus making them a powerful unit and have a high resistance stat. Downside is weak defense average evasion which makes them an easy target.

Shamans are the basic dark magic specialized class. Shamans promote to Druids. Druids gain a significant boost in magic, defense and hit points. Downside both shamans and druids is that they lack speed for evading and skill for hit chance.

Monks is the basic light magic specialized class. Monks promote to Bishops which then grants the ability to use staves. Bishops are both effective healers and offensive light magic users with all around magic user stats. Downside, like every caster they lack defense so it isn't hard to kill them. Also Bishops use to be enemy only units in two games.

Priest and Clerics which are the same thing just different gender for each class are the basic healers which can promote to bishops.

Pegasus Knights are a flying class that use spears and promote into Falcon Knights which can use swords. Pegasus Knights and Falcon Knights have a high resistance stat, skill, speed and movement. Also if you surround and enemy at melee range with 3 Pegasus or Falcon Knights (they have to be the same class but not in all games do they have to) the will perform what is called a Triangle Attack which is somewhat difficult to pull off since it has to be set up right. The Pegasus and Falcon Knight downsides include weakness to arrows; low overall hit points and low defense.

Wyvern Riders are also a flying class that use spears and promote into Wyvern Lords which can use swords. Wyvern Riders and Wyvern Lords have high hit points, strength and defense. Basically it is the opposite of a Pegasus Knight and a Falcon Knight. Downsides include low resistance, skill, and speed as well as a bow weakness.

Lords are the main characters which the story follows they promote after events in the story.

In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, players were introduced to a different promotion system, which allowed non-lord classes to have a choice to what to promote into. Example is a Myrmidon can either change into a Swordmaster OR an Asssassin. Making it so more classes then a thief can be an assassin. Some of these changes can grant an exclusive class such as a Summoner or Rogue. Fire Emblem: The Scared Stones had three characters that were known as "trainees" which was a weaker class that automatically promoted upon reaching level ten to a choice of two basic classes, making able to promote twice over all.

Character Backgrounds

Each character has a back ground and a personality, from the Princesses with the personality of a spoiled child to the lone wolf hermit who has a strange fetish in furries, Fire Emblem has a range of them. These also like stated early will affect some of the dialog for the support conversations. Some of the conversations can be funny while others can be dark and a waste of time.

Reoccuring things in Fire Emblem that is not gameplay.

The early game super unit.

In all Fire Emblem games there is always a character that is already promoted and comes early in the game. Most of the time as a Paladin, these characters can ruin experience distribution just because they have a high killing power at that point of the game. Some players will remove all weapons on the character and have as meat shields since enemies seem to always attack a unit without and defense or weapons. Also at the end area of the game these units will have the lowest stats compared to units that started out weak. Even if they were matching levels the use to be weaker unit will tower above the early super unit.

The weak low level character recruited the past the half way point.

Fire Emblem seems to love throwing these characters in, they start at a low level not promoted but are not bad either. These characters have high stat growths so they become better then some of the high level characters you have at that point.

Stuck to the chapters.

All Fire Emblems except Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones progressed the story after each battle. The only part that was between the previous battle and the next one is a preparation menu. And in the end after the last part the story happens no more gameplay unless you make a new file. In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones you are given a map, which you can use between chapters to fight skirmishes, and once you finish the story you can start what is called the "creature campaign" which is a playing extra content that you had access to during the story but you get bonuses for doing it this time.

The psychotic enemy Commander

All Fire Emblem games released so far in the United States have always had an enemy commander that is a psychopathic terror. These characters can usually be a challenge to fight mainly because of the level there level is based on who they are but they have an interesting selection of dialog.

Warning interesting dialog.

Fun facts

Fire Emblem was first seen in America wide spread through the game Super Smash Bros. Melee with two unlockable characters, Marth and Roy. Marth was the first ever Fire Emblem protagnist while they added Roy to melee in order to promote the Fire Emblem game, "Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi, which was released on March 29th, 2002. Both Marth and Roy have identical attacks except Roy's attacks where more powerful but Roy is slower.

Fire Emblem also has anime based on the third Japanese Fire Emblem game.