<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Contents
The plot
Talk command and different paths
Support command
Combination attack
Upgraded characters and Colleseums
Repost of my 2/12/03 post on the game
THE PLOT
On the plot, I will say that it has been a very long time since I have had this much fun reading along and following how things are evolving in the game. Generally it deals with a revolution, except it is not similar to the revolutions in Ogre Battle or FFT, rather the revolutionaries in this game turly have evil intentions (but of course it is much more complicated than just that). There are people who you can count on for sure, and others who may not be so dependable, not all who seem to be good are good, and not all who seem to be evil are evil; and it all depends on how things go really.
On the amount of story in the game, it really depends I think, but generally it goes battle then story sequence, battle, then story sequence, like FFT and Ogre Battle (though Ogre battle often has a lot of plot within the battles). You can skip over all dialog in the game just by hitting start (you might want to do this if you've seen dialog already, because some of it is quite long). Included in the story sequences is a lot of artwork showing characters interact with each other (kind of like the shots in Skies of Arcadia at certain points, except WAAAAY more frequent), and characters also each have individual portraits kind of like FFT and OB, except Fire Emblems are far better drawn, and they usually show much of the upper body along with the face and have the background of the town, forest, castle, field, or wherever you happen to be.
TALK COMMAND
The talk command can be used in battle to get certain enemy characters and certain allied characters to join your unit. During battle, your characters show up as blue on the screen, often you will have allied troops who are not under your control, they show up green. Enemy characters and green characters and red characters when talked to by your own characters can convince them to join, often the main character (depending on which path you take in the first 10 chapters will determine the main character. During the first 10 chapters the main character is a girl from Sacae, a land of Nomadic peoples, and she enters the Kingdom of Lycia, a land which isn't under anyones rule, but made up of city states similar to Italy and Germany before their unifications. There are different things you can do which will have some sort of effect on who the main character is later on). The first 10 chapters effect what happens later on, they take place a year before the rest of the game, and are more of a training period than anything.
SUPPORT COMMAND
During battle, when characters are often close to each other, they get to know each other better, and you can use the "support" command periodically to advance their relationships. This also serves to benefit stats within the game somehow (or so it seems). This will also give a sort of alternative view to the plot, and since there are so many characters, there are many different paths. It seems though that it works mainly with characters of the same class, and from the same nation, or who have a potential romantic reason, and it will advance the plot further along (so if one knight hits on a girl in the game, chances are that they are compatable); I am not entirely sure if that's the case, it may just be that it is much more frequent between characters who seem to know or like each other within the main plot. Either way, it is a very interesting aspect of the game, and anyone who likes character development will probably love this feature. In order to get this command to work, characters must be adjacent to one and other for a certain amount of time.
COMBINATION ATTACKS
I have only just heard about these, but if you take characters and position them around the enemy, only certain characters can do this. I guess the closest thing I can compare it to is the Chrono Trigger duel attacks. The example that was used was placing three Pegasus Knights around an enemy, having one attack, and this would result in a devastating attack that is the same as if all three attacked and got critical hits, I'm guessing in most cases it is a fatal blow.
UPGRADED CHARACTERS
I also found that regular classed characters have a maximum of 20 levels, and then they gain no more experience. Once a character reaches level 10, however, they are able to use special items which can upgrade them to a better class, they go back to level one, but retain every statistic they had before, in fact, when they are upgraded they get a major boost to their stats that's the equivilent to gaining 3-4 levels. I only upgrade my units if they are level 20 though, they have a much better chance of getting more powerful that way (since upgraded units gain less experience points than regular units). Anyways, A level 1 hero is better than a level 20 mercenary if the mercenary is upgraded at level 20; so essentially, a level 1 Hero (upgraded from a level 20 mercenary) would be the equivilent to a level 23 or 24 mercenary (since when they are upgraded they gain stat improvement equal to 3-4 level ups), a level 2 hero equal to level 24 or 25 mercenary, and so on.... But level 20 is the maximum level for regular character classes. I find the best place to upgrade characters is in the Colleseum, the only problem is they can be killed here, and I have fought once where I was fighting for 30+ minutes and my character was killed in battle, and when they die, they're permanently dead, no bs; the only way to get them back is to restart from the beginning of the level. There is a save function that can be used to save the progress of the game and turn it off to be played again later; however, this feature automatically saves your game ever step you make, so if you get killed and quckly turn off the game you'll still be dead. Of course, you can withdraw from colleseum matches BEFORE a round of attacks (the game is turn based) and survive, but you gain no experience and lose the gold you wagered (there is a set amount which you have to pay to enter the colleseum competitions).
All in all, I don't think I have had NEARLY as much fun with a strategy role playing game before as I have had with this one.
Here is my first real post on the game (2/12/03)
Fire Emblem Advance thoughts, I really like this game, it has been a long time since I have enjoyed a game this much....
In Reply To:
To: [Anybody]
It brings me back to the old days when I used to get excited about playing a game, it hasn't been since probably Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger that I remember feeling this way about a game.
Storywise: It is far more intensive than I previously thought it would be. The story also changes depending on the characters you have, who has died, and depending on what side missions you decide to take on the course of your adventure. There are A LOT of characters in this game, both evil, neutral, allied, and in your own military, every single one of them seems to play a part. The character development for such a large caste is done quite well, almost phenominally, I haven't seen a game that has done it this well in the past ever.
Gameplay, if you have played a strategy RPG in the past like Tactics Ogre, Shining Force, Final Fantasy Tactics, you will know the basics of these types of games. Essentially you can have many characters in a battle, and you may be fighting dozens. Oddly enough, the game seems to run by amazingly fast, and not slow paced like Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis (which actually involves quite a bit fewer characters. I think the reason for this is that the gameplay seems to be much easier to control.
The map is two dimensional, different terrain offers different sorts of bonuses though, I've seen Forts, forests, plains, bridges, Castles, villages, hills, mountains, and probably others. There's also a rocks scissors paper system involved with fighting: Axes get bonuses over lances and spears, lances and spears over swords, and swords over axes; it just means that if you have an advantage over a weapon, then you have a greater chance of hitting, a greater chance of doing critical damage, and will do more damage per hit. It also works with magic, Light magic over dark magic over elemental magic (and back over light magic again). I am not really sure where archers fit in, but I do know that archers can do an incredible amount of damage to Pegasus Knights and other flying classes.
There are numerous different classes in the game, actually dozens, far more than any other strategy RPG I have played before. They depend on several things; firstly how advanced they are, you can upgrade units to advanced classes; and secondly from the region they are located (there are seven or eight different countries in the game, and each has its own set of character classes).
Weapons work like they do in the Final Fantasy Legend games, they can be used a certain amount of times, and then they break. You can buy new ones, but money is earned in unique ways: the two ways I have come accross with so far are A) by completeing some sort of mini mission within a chapter, B) by entering a village and talking to the locals, C) By fighting for it at the colleseum (oh yeah, you can be killed here so watch out!)
The major feature here is that when one of your characters die, they're dead, you can either continue on with the level, or restart the whole thing from the beginning, the game automatically saves every single move you make, so you can turn the game off at any point and continue from where you left off, but you can not take advantage of the system. When characters die, it will alter the story in some way, there are a few key characters who can't die though, if they are killed, it's game over automatically.
One feature I really like is the ability to set up a tent for weapon and supply storage, that way there is no need to worry greatly about weapon management. If a character needs a weapon or some other item, he/she doesn't have to seek out someone who has one, but rather just has to get it from the supply tent. Also, if a character has too many items and finds another, it will just automatically go to the supply tent (actually you have a choice, you can send it to the tent, or take it and send another item you already have to the tent).
Mostly all towns can be entered, and you can speak with the inhabitants who will tell you secrets, give advice, give gold, give items, give intelligence on the enemy, etc... By sitting in a Fort or a castle you can regenerate lost HP, there are also some units which also heal. A unit that is in danger of dying (because they are damaged, or weak and the enemiy is plentiful and easily capable of killing them) another unit can "rescue" them, which essentially will be picking up a person (hard to explain) so that they can not be hit or attacked, the rescuing unit can then carry the other one to safety and put them down.
In finishing: I'm not even half way through the game yet, but my general strategy is as follows:
I keep my best defended units at the front lines, and behind them I usually keep my units that have ranged weaponry or magic. To the sides and back I generally keep my lighter units, and use them generally as a clean-up crew to finish off the enemy before they have time to counter attack. I try not to expose my weaker units simply because they can be more easily killed. It all depends on the mission goals, and side quests. The enemy can take villages, so sometimes it is necessary to send out a strong party to get to the villages before the enemy does. Missions are all relatively different in goals, and often have quite a bit to do. I am not sure how long the game is yet, I have to finish it first, it will be MUCH longer for those who will reset a mission if a character is killed.</div>
The plot
Talk command and different paths
Support command
Combination attack
Upgraded characters and Colleseums
Repost of my 2/12/03 post on the game
THE PLOT
On the plot, I will say that it has been a very long time since I have had this much fun reading along and following how things are evolving in the game. Generally it deals with a revolution, except it is not similar to the revolutions in Ogre Battle or FFT, rather the revolutionaries in this game turly have evil intentions (but of course it is much more complicated than just that). There are people who you can count on for sure, and others who may not be so dependable, not all who seem to be good are good, and not all who seem to be evil are evil; and it all depends on how things go really.
On the amount of story in the game, it really depends I think, but generally it goes battle then story sequence, battle, then story sequence, like FFT and Ogre Battle (though Ogre battle often has a lot of plot within the battles). You can skip over all dialog in the game just by hitting start (you might want to do this if you've seen dialog already, because some of it is quite long). Included in the story sequences is a lot of artwork showing characters interact with each other (kind of like the shots in Skies of Arcadia at certain points, except WAAAAY more frequent), and characters also each have individual portraits kind of like FFT and OB, except Fire Emblems are far better drawn, and they usually show much of the upper body along with the face and have the background of the town, forest, castle, field, or wherever you happen to be.
TALK COMMAND
The talk command can be used in battle to get certain enemy characters and certain allied characters to join your unit. During battle, your characters show up as blue on the screen, often you will have allied troops who are not under your control, they show up green. Enemy characters and green characters and red characters when talked to by your own characters can convince them to join, often the main character (depending on which path you take in the first 10 chapters will determine the main character. During the first 10 chapters the main character is a girl from Sacae, a land of Nomadic peoples, and she enters the Kingdom of Lycia, a land which isn't under anyones rule, but made up of city states similar to Italy and Germany before their unifications. There are different things you can do which will have some sort of effect on who the main character is later on). The first 10 chapters effect what happens later on, they take place a year before the rest of the game, and are more of a training period than anything.
SUPPORT COMMAND
During battle, when characters are often close to each other, they get to know each other better, and you can use the "support" command periodically to advance their relationships. This also serves to benefit stats within the game somehow (or so it seems). This will also give a sort of alternative view to the plot, and since there are so many characters, there are many different paths. It seems though that it works mainly with characters of the same class, and from the same nation, or who have a potential romantic reason, and it will advance the plot further along (so if one knight hits on a girl in the game, chances are that they are compatable); I am not entirely sure if that's the case, it may just be that it is much more frequent between characters who seem to know or like each other within the main plot. Either way, it is a very interesting aspect of the game, and anyone who likes character development will probably love this feature. In order to get this command to work, characters must be adjacent to one and other for a certain amount of time.
COMBINATION ATTACKS
I have only just heard about these, but if you take characters and position them around the enemy, only certain characters can do this. I guess the closest thing I can compare it to is the Chrono Trigger duel attacks. The example that was used was placing three Pegasus Knights around an enemy, having one attack, and this would result in a devastating attack that is the same as if all three attacked and got critical hits, I'm guessing in most cases it is a fatal blow.
UPGRADED CHARACTERS
I also found that regular classed characters have a maximum of 20 levels, and then they gain no more experience. Once a character reaches level 10, however, they are able to use special items which can upgrade them to a better class, they go back to level one, but retain every statistic they had before, in fact, when they are upgraded they get a major boost to their stats that's the equivilent to gaining 3-4 levels. I only upgrade my units if they are level 20 though, they have a much better chance of getting more powerful that way (since upgraded units gain less experience points than regular units). Anyways, A level 1 hero is better than a level 20 mercenary if the mercenary is upgraded at level 20; so essentially, a level 1 Hero (upgraded from a level 20 mercenary) would be the equivilent to a level 23 or 24 mercenary (since when they are upgraded they gain stat improvement equal to 3-4 level ups), a level 2 hero equal to level 24 or 25 mercenary, and so on.... But level 20 is the maximum level for regular character classes. I find the best place to upgrade characters is in the Colleseum, the only problem is they can be killed here, and I have fought once where I was fighting for 30+ minutes and my character was killed in battle, and when they die, they're permanently dead, no bs; the only way to get them back is to restart from the beginning of the level. There is a save function that can be used to save the progress of the game and turn it off to be played again later; however, this feature automatically saves your game ever step you make, so if you get killed and quckly turn off the game you'll still be dead. Of course, you can withdraw from colleseum matches BEFORE a round of attacks (the game is turn based) and survive, but you gain no experience and lose the gold you wagered (there is a set amount which you have to pay to enter the colleseum competitions).
All in all, I don't think I have had NEARLY as much fun with a strategy role playing game before as I have had with this one.
Here is my first real post on the game (2/12/03)
Fire Emblem Advance thoughts, I really like this game, it has been a long time since I have enjoyed a game this much....
In Reply To:
To: [Anybody]
It brings me back to the old days when I used to get excited about playing a game, it hasn't been since probably Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger that I remember feeling this way about a game.
Storywise: It is far more intensive than I previously thought it would be. The story also changes depending on the characters you have, who has died, and depending on what side missions you decide to take on the course of your adventure. There are A LOT of characters in this game, both evil, neutral, allied, and in your own military, every single one of them seems to play a part. The character development for such a large caste is done quite well, almost phenominally, I haven't seen a game that has done it this well in the past ever.
Gameplay, if you have played a strategy RPG in the past like Tactics Ogre, Shining Force, Final Fantasy Tactics, you will know the basics of these types of games. Essentially you can have many characters in a battle, and you may be fighting dozens. Oddly enough, the game seems to run by amazingly fast, and not slow paced like Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis (which actually involves quite a bit fewer characters. I think the reason for this is that the gameplay seems to be much easier to control.
The map is two dimensional, different terrain offers different sorts of bonuses though, I've seen Forts, forests, plains, bridges, Castles, villages, hills, mountains, and probably others. There's also a rocks scissors paper system involved with fighting: Axes get bonuses over lances and spears, lances and spears over swords, and swords over axes; it just means that if you have an advantage over a weapon, then you have a greater chance of hitting, a greater chance of doing critical damage, and will do more damage per hit. It also works with magic, Light magic over dark magic over elemental magic (and back over light magic again). I am not really sure where archers fit in, but I do know that archers can do an incredible amount of damage to Pegasus Knights and other flying classes.
There are numerous different classes in the game, actually dozens, far more than any other strategy RPG I have played before. They depend on several things; firstly how advanced they are, you can upgrade units to advanced classes; and secondly from the region they are located (there are seven or eight different countries in the game, and each has its own set of character classes).
Weapons work like they do in the Final Fantasy Legend games, they can be used a certain amount of times, and then they break. You can buy new ones, but money is earned in unique ways: the two ways I have come accross with so far are A) by completeing some sort of mini mission within a chapter, B) by entering a village and talking to the locals, C) By fighting for it at the colleseum (oh yeah, you can be killed here so watch out!)
The major feature here is that when one of your characters die, they're dead, you can either continue on with the level, or restart the whole thing from the beginning, the game automatically saves every single move you make, so you can turn the game off at any point and continue from where you left off, but you can not take advantage of the system. When characters die, it will alter the story in some way, there are a few key characters who can't die though, if they are killed, it's game over automatically.
One feature I really like is the ability to set up a tent for weapon and supply storage, that way there is no need to worry greatly about weapon management. If a character needs a weapon or some other item, he/she doesn't have to seek out someone who has one, but rather just has to get it from the supply tent. Also, if a character has too many items and finds another, it will just automatically go to the supply tent (actually you have a choice, you can send it to the tent, or take it and send another item you already have to the tent).
Mostly all towns can be entered, and you can speak with the inhabitants who will tell you secrets, give advice, give gold, give items, give intelligence on the enemy, etc... By sitting in a Fort or a castle you can regenerate lost HP, there are also some units which also heal. A unit that is in danger of dying (because they are damaged, or weak and the enemiy is plentiful and easily capable of killing them) another unit can "rescue" them, which essentially will be picking up a person (hard to explain) so that they can not be hit or attacked, the rescuing unit can then carry the other one to safety and put them down.
In finishing: I'm not even half way through the game yet, but my general strategy is as follows:
I keep my best defended units at the front lines, and behind them I usually keep my units that have ranged weaponry or magic. To the sides and back I generally keep my lighter units, and use them generally as a clean-up crew to finish off the enemy before they have time to counter attack. I try not to expose my weaker units simply because they can be more easily killed. It all depends on the mission goals, and side quests. The enemy can take villages, so sometimes it is necessary to send out a strong party to get to the villages before the enemy does. Missions are all relatively different in goals, and often have quite a bit to do. I am not sure how long the game is yet, I have to finish it first, it will be MUCH longer for those who will reset a mission if a character is killed.</div>
-Insert Inspiring Quote-
