Fire Emblem was always one of those innovative series that made you scratch your head trying to figure out why it never made it to the West, especially when numerous titles influenced by it were flooding the market here. The strategy RPG genre was more or less pioneered by Fire Emblem, and refined by Shining Force. So, why exactly did the series never come out here? Nobody is quite sure, although strategy RPGs definitely had a dedicated audience. Of course, eventually Nintendo DID catch on that the series should come out here, but only after Fire Emblem 7 (Just plain Fire Emblem in the U.S.) was released. So, as a result, we’ve still been missing out on the first 6 games. And, of all of them, the one i’m most puzzled about not being localized is this game: Fire Emblem 6. This game is a DIRECT SEQUEL to Fire Emblem 7, plus FE6’s main character Roy appeared in Super Smash Bros. Melee, and became pretty popular in that.

Visually, there’s not much difference between FE6, and the later GBA games. Many sprites, animations etc. are re-used between the games. Even still, the graphics are quite well done.

Anyone who’s played any of the Fire Emblems, or even other strategy RPGs in general, shouldn’t have too much trouble figuring out how to play this. The most important difference from other strategy RPGs is that Fire Emblem utilizes a weapon triangle system. i.e.: sword beats axe, axe beats lance, lance beats sword. Magic has a triangle system as well. Another change from other strategy RPGs is that once a character is defeated in battle, he/she dies for good. This makes you want to be extra careful with every unit, and planning ahead to prevent possible deaths. As a result, this game requires more actual strategy than most strategy RPGs.

Not only can characters die, but sometimes they can die quite easily. Even your strongest units can fall fast against certain enemies. Get well acquainted with saving and loading, since you’ll be using it a lot if you hope to make it through alive. And also, take a break if you repeat the same level too many times…if only to spare some sanity. This game isn’t lacking in challenge. Especially if you try hard mode…

According to the readme, this translation has a ludicrous amount of work done for a relatively recent project. Most of the dialogue and stuff has been done, leaving the prologue and some hard hacks like the class demo and opening movie be for now. The current patch adds work-in-progress hacks for menus and chapter headings. There are some things that are broken, bugs and errors, but that’s part and parcel of playing an in-progress translation, I guess.

• Fire Emblem - Fuuin no Tsurugi (Japan).gba
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