It's a fire emblem game, so the combat is fun. Some of the cast is nice. However, this is another game where I can't really wrap my head around why people like it so much. The story isn't particularly attention-grabbing and I don't really notice any moments that stood out enough for it to be more than just your standard fire emblem experience. I'll go over what I like about it first before I forget..

To start with, one thing I enjoyed was the 'how's everyone' feature on the preparations menu. I thought it was a pretty good way to get dialogue from characters you don't get to use or interact with. And I enjoyed the amount of support conversations that were in the game, I just wish more of them were between other characters that weren't my protagonist. I enjoyed a good chunk of the characters in this game, my favorites were Malice, Minerva, Sirius, Arren, Linde, Navarre, and Palla... they were all pretty interesting without falling too much into a single trope, and their designs are pleasing to look at. The art in this game is very good but I especially enjoyed the drawings that would show up during key moments and in between chapters... I don't really know the name for what they are but the point is they looked very visually distinct, I almost wish the whole game was made in that style. And the attack animations are very smooth too, which was a nice surprise.

That's all the praise I can really give this game. Personally, I can not stand Marth. But maybe even more so, I can't stand our custom protagonist. I obviously chose to be a female, and the way this game writes your female protag is very much indicative of how the series would end up in its next entry. Constant mentions of how my character wasn't 'feminine' enough and how much that truly worried her, multiple scenes where characters were talking about her body being 'manly and rough' and there were even a few anime-esque moments involving my characters chest. Very obnoxious... if I'm choosing to be a girl then why would I find it blasphemous that she's capable of fighting? And I gave my character a really short haircut too, I obviously don't care that she doesn't look like a pin-up girl. Beyond that, she only cares about training and Marth and fighting and it's really exhausting when every support conversation is just about one of those three subjects. I got to choose her backstory, which is nice, but I didn't know making her an orphan would give her an abusive grandfather that raised her from day one to be in the army. Which is uncomfortable but the game talks about it like it's a laudable thing. I did not enjoy playing as a fantasy boot-boy.

The gameplay is nice but aggravated me more than any other fire emblem game besides Echoes that I've ever played, and I had save states. Where do I begin.... well, it's very confusing that every character but Marth lacks a distinct sprite. I had several swordmasters and they all looked the same on the map, leading to me accidentally moving characters that I didn't mean to pick. And they all look the same in the zoomed-in attack scenes that happen too, which is maybe more understandable, but it's still off-putting. And on that subject, there are far too many characters in this game. There is someone you have to talk to to recruit every chapter, and it's very very stressful. It gets exhausting really quick, especially when these characters are set up to be your enemies and you don't want to kill them or else Marth will get sad at you despite the fact that he's a prince and therefore is destined to screw people over by the nature of how monarchies work. But anyways, most of these recruitment characters are not interesting at all and are mostly filler, which makes it even more of a chore to have to recruit them. And only Marth can talk to them most of the time, which is very inconvenient and difficult to plan out. Besides that, your armory never upgrades so it's always selling iron weapons which is very annoying. The amount of people you can take into battle seems really low for the amount of characters in the game. I also had to reset constantly because even my strongest units died far too frequently for my liking, even during drills, which is a really aggrivating descision that you can permanently lose a unit just from training (that you pay for).

The story was not bad but I also felt no attachment to it either, partially because I do not have any interest in stories like these that revolve around princes and princesses and very fantastical politics. That's why I liked playing fe7 as Lyndis, and my favorite fe game overall is Path of Radiance. And my final regret with this game... the process which you have to go through to get Tiki is really frustrating, and I missed out of her; one of my favorite characters that I was really looking forward to finally seeing. That obtaining her relies on getting missable items that are very easy to kill a unit trying to obtain them is very unfair, and even on a second playthrough is incredibly easy to miss and never have another chance at it again.

Overall I didn't have a very fun time with this game. It was very stressful and grating, and I feel like there was not enough to coarse me to finish it. I spent more time strategizing on how to not kill certain recruitable units, which really interrupted the flow of the game for me. And some of the writing makes this game feel reminiscent of Awakening, which isn't what I play a Fire Emblem game to see. I think I found my match in Path of Radiance, so I think this is the last fe game I'll check out. That and the gba games are enough for me!

as far as these games go this is probably the most dry fire emblem experience you're gonna get without it getting boring, I found the maps to be consistently challening and it really felt like the game was rewarding me for trying to play a lot more aggressively and employ a lot more player phase-focused strategies, the game telegraphs everything pretty well to the point where I didn't even mind something like ambush reinforcements
the story bits were decent and had a good amount of stuff to work with, the arc with Lang and the separate story with the assassins were good but after you pass a certain point in the game it felt like the well of cool ideas has kinda run dry, with the only notable highlight left being the final showdown with Hardin
but despite its dryness and maybe a somewhat undercooked story it's a game that knows how to have fun, why else would it have Jagen scold you for letting too many units die or having a shit speed stat, why else would it have a healthy amount of funny support conversations that it didn't have to make, why else would it have stupid hats you could put on your avatar character (whom I didn't mind at all btw and found to be more likeable and unintrusive than any other avatar character in the series) scattered all throuhgout the game, and I could go on really
this is a tough game to rank because I can see how I could have absolutely loved this had it had more story content and generally more developed characters but I was still surprised by how solid an experience it was overall

Notes for my series replay:
- See my SD review about this games' presentation (if you care).
- I want to get the elephant in the room addressed before I talk about anything else. Kris is a fucking wild addition to this game. I think that the drawn-out prologue the exposition dumps Kris and Katarina's relationship is kinda terrible, and their chemistry even worse. Kris absolutely obliterates any semblance of balance that Mystery had, which wasn't much to begin with, mind you. Kris is the most malleable unit in the game, with essentially infinite potential. I don't know how they didn't expect this character to snap the game over their leg, or maybe they just didn't care, but honestly Kris' presence diminishes Marth's story in this game, and I didn't really care for it. FE3 is fucking awesome because Marth travels the path of Anri, this untouchable hero whose legacy he's expected to fulfill, but rather he rises above that and breaks the curse of Anri and Artemis, as well as putting Medeus back in the ground. So tell me why they decided to put his OP Gary Stew bodyguard in this remake, completely negating that entire arc for Marth??? Wild.
-Previous anger aside, I think that this game is super interesting from a gameplay perspective. Kris obviously trivializes the difficulty, but this game has so many tools for the player to abuse other than Kris, I wanted to note a few. The Again staff is a dancer staff that is never seen again after this, which is a shame. Warp and Rescue are back, as well as Hammerne. This game has an abundance of powerful staves, making it feel like this game very breakable aside from Kris (on lower difficulties, that is).
- Seize maps. Again, it's a remake, I get it. But seize maps that are fucking massive, which involves moving Marth long ass distances across the map, despite being a foot-locked unit. Those boots can't come fast enough. Oh, and no rescue dropping either, just like Shadow Dragon.
- All of that hate aside, I still love the reclass system, as having half a dozen Dracoknights bowling across a map is really satisfying. It also helps a lot with getting through some of the tougher maps in the mid-game, as there are flying dragons, and if you don't intercept them, they can be a serious threat to your weaker supportive units.
- I gotta hop back on the hate bus for my last point, but I honestly prefer the FE3 soundtrack to this game. I find that the tracks lose a lot of their luster given the more "grounded" tone they were going for this time. For instance, "Holy War" sounds a lot less emotionally driven in this game, which was a huge blow for me. There are some tracks I prefer in this game, like the Hardin battle theme, but ultimately, this game feels like a more washed out take on the original's OST.

I feel bad writing such a negative review on this game, as it's honestly not too bad to play, but having just played the game it's based off of, I found myself sorely disappointed in many areas. It's kind of ironic, because I get on Shadow Dragon's case for being too close to the original source material, but then most of the changes this game made were kinda downgrades, so I still prefer Shadow Dragon of the two? It's strange. Tl;dr, fun gameplay, but seriously neutered version of FE3.

If FE11 was the gold standard for a remake, FE12 is the exact opposite. It does everything it can to impose itself onto the original and ruins all the good that FE3 had to offer.

Similarly to FE11, the plot of this remake doesn't do much to deviate from the original. Unlike FE11, FE12 seems to have absolutely no respect for the original game and constantly tries to inject its own concepts with such gracelessness that it makes what good is left difficult to enjoy. FE12 will be damned if it doesn't try to ruin FE3's story every step of the way. The way it tries to do this most is through the one, the only, Kris.

Kris is a self insert character brand new to FE12. This as actually not FE's first swing at this type of character, but FE7's Mark is so irrelevant that most analyses of FE7's story don't even mention them. Kris on the other hand is painfully relevant. They are constantly inserted into story scenes to the detriment of every single character around them. They make Jeigan seem weak and Marth frequently makes out of character decisions in the service of making the player avatar seem cool. Even if you ignored all that and tried to examine Kris in a void, they're still a horribly written character. They frequently act differently which makes it hard to pin down what their personality even is but the one constant is that they give characters bad advice that somehow just works out in the end. For example, in Arran's support with them he confesses that he once killed a village of people who were rebelling against their corrupt king. Kris' response to this? To tell him he isn't to blame. No, Kris, Arran does share some of the blame. He can't just kill an entire village and claim innocence by virtue of "following orders". But of course Kris isn't challenged because they need to do everything in their power to make Kris seem cool.

FE12 brings in every single Archanea character (including those absent from FE3) and makes previously unrecruitable characters available as well. This removes a lot of weight from the story as you're no longer fighting former allies, now you just need to convince them to join your side and they automatically do so no matter how improbable it is for that character. An example that really irks me in this regard is the case of Midia's group. In FE3, it's said that Midia took part in a rebellion within the kingdom and many of her soldiers died. The game never says it but we're meant to assume that Dolph, Macellan, and Tomas are included among the casualties. While they weren't the most memorable characters on earth, the fact remains that people who you once knew are dead because of this war. Not in FE12 though! They're right here ready to fight alongside you. Can't have the player thinking about how deeply war affects people when they're supposed to be engrossed in a self insert power fantasy where every pre established character loves them unconditionally.

FE12 gives at least one support to every character in the game. This seems like a good thing given how little characterization this cast got in FE3. That is it seems that way until you learn that a majority only have one support and that one support is with Kris. The supports tend to focus more on Kris and I walk away from them feeling that I learned as much about the other character there as I did through their minimal (or even non existent) dialogue in FE3. It doesn't help that the writing is atrocious. This easily takes the cake as the worst writing in FE so far, with characters feeling like walking clichés instead of people. Let's take Cecille for example. Her entire character revolves around the fact that she is a woman who doesn't act stereotypically feminine. There are scant scenes that don't revolve around this quirk. This goes for just about every character in this game with all of them having some character trait that the writing completely latches onto. They had the opportunity to better flesh out this cast and they completely dropped the ball.

FE11 introduced new chapters that were fairly inoffensive in terms of writing. They mainly felt like filler but they weren't too bad and it was clear that they designed those chapters with gameplay in mind rather than the story. The opposite is the case in FE12. Granted, they don't have any impact on the main plot but that doesn't atone for just how horribly they're written. It's comprised entirely original material which means that since it can't just look to FE3 for what to do we're treated to 14 chapters of melodrama between pieces of cardboard. The whole assassin guild whatever the hell makes no sense. I cannot believe I am about to complement a GBA game, but even FE7's Black Fang was handled better than this. At least I halfway cared about dome characters in that group. Further, Kris is the sole main character of these chapters with Marthipan taking a backseat which just makes it all the worse. Gameplay wise it doesn't fare well either. The maps range from frustrating to boring and I'm just left wondering why these are here at all (that's a lie. The reason these are here is to make the player insert seem even cooler and give them a waifu in the form of Katarina).

Being a carbon copy of FE11's mechanics, the gameplay is pretty alright. I feel that FE3's map design isn't quite as timeless as FE1 but it's by no means bad. Though bringing over FE11's mechanics verbatim seems ill considered. FE3 was already flyer dominant but reclassing just makes it even worse. In FE3, you could trivialize maps with your group of 5 uber charged flyers. In FE12, you can do the same but this time with 7 fliers and reclass means you can make any unit you want into one of those fliers.

I think the flier problem stated in the previous paragraph is exacerbated by the fact that unit individuality has been completely forsaken in FE12's pursuit to make every single Archanea character recruitable. There are 77 recruitable characters in this game. It doesn't take long before you just start getting pelted by pre promotes in every chapters and they all blend in with one another as generic blobs of stats with nothing to make them stand out. I know I praised FE11 for consistently giving you new units, but this is absolutely too much.

The difficulties of FE12 are also questionably designed. The lower difficulties are fine, but at higher levels the game starts to crack. The ambush spawns are particularly egregious. They're incredibly strong which results in many maps devolving into trial and error and the enemy strength often results in maps just becoming more tedious.

FE12 added a base which is pretty alright but it makes grinding way too easy. There have historically been 2 ways to grind in FE, either going to optional maps or visiting the arena. Both of these are balanced by their unpredictability. You never really know what you're getting into meaning that there is always a risk of death. The arena present in FE12's base is not unpredictable, it literally gives you a battle forecast beforehand. There's also no time investment given that you can access in battle preps, meaning that all it costs is a couple thousand gold and maybe 5 or so minutes to make a unit into a juggernaut.

There's also FE12's biggest change, casual mode. Permadeath is one of the core tenets of Fire Emblem and removing it does nothing but water down the game for the purpose of appealing to the lowest common denominator. FE should resist players who don't want to engage with the game, not bend to their whim. What if a Zelda game had an optional mode where it would automatically tell you the solution to puzzles? What if Final Fantasy had a mode where you would start the game at max level? What if Resident Evil had a mode that gave you infinite resources? Just because it's an optional mode doesn't make it a good addition and if a series' core mechanic scares you away from playing it then that's on you, not the game.

The one good thing I have to say about FE12 is that it remade the Archanea Saga stories. They're devoid of anything original to FE12 making them actually enjoyable. There are some dlc chapters but I haven't played them and, knowing what the next few games are like, I would honestly prefer not to discuss dlc in these reviews.

After FE11 was a nearly perfect remake, FE12 was thoroughly disappointing. Easilt the worst writing in the series and uninspired gameplay makes this one of the worst games so far. At the very least Intelligent Systems can learn from this and get rid of that "Kouhei Maeda" guy and get on a director who knows how to make a half decent game. Haha.

Upon writing my Gaiden review, I pointed out that I plan to finish reviewing every Fire Emblem game on this site before moving onto other things, including Engage/Warriors: Three Hopes, which I finally managed to finish.

So yes, they will be added to help finish off this review Marathon, but what I failed to mention specifically was that I won’t include Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, the first game in the series released in 1990, and the best selling game in the series before the advent of Fire Emblem 7, Mystery of the Emblem, the first SNES game, released in January 1994. Now why did I decide to leave those out? Well, it’s because there’s nothing to say about them. FE1 and FE3 are, in my opinion, obsolete and can be skipped for any reason besides curiosity. That’s not to say they are pointless games. They ARE in fact, very important, but because they have not stood the test of time, it’s only natural that Intelligent Systems would take its last intelligent initiative, to remake these two games into two DS games, for the purpose of localizing them to the West so we can finally witness the story of Marth, the mascot of the series.

And while Shadow Dragon was faithfully localized... New Mystery of the Emblem, Shin Monshou no Nazo, was not. It remains a Japanese exclusive to this day, and like GK2, the motive to keep it Japan exclusive was because of the poor sales behind its predecessor. Also like GK2, FE12 was developed using the same engine, with some new additions incorporated into it, proving that both games were relatively cheap to make compared to their respective box office flop predecessors. This is also proof of my belief that Fire Emblem and Ace Attorney are really not all that different from each other, considering everything released before and after 2010 and 2011 respectively speaking, was properly localized. However, that is not a real problem, because unlike GK2 fans who whine about GK2 being ignored by Capcom in favor of the “FAR INFERIOR” DGS Duology just because they got localized over it even though that decision makes more sense, which is something I explained in greater detail in a video I’ve already made...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdN4a-niEt0

Funny enough, I’m completely fine with FE12 being Japan exclusive. Not because I don’t want it to get localized, but because I am so happy to have played a FAN TRANSLATED PATCH of it. That’s right, this game was professionally translated by a group of fans who took it upon themselves to archive this forgotten masterpiece, breaching the language barrier. I owe my deepest respects to The Heroes of Shadow for localizing this game, just as I do the fan team who localized GK2 out of love for the series. Unlike GK2 however, the script for this game was incredibly expressive, resulting in a very smooth translation. The difference between FE12 and GK2, is that the latter is the worst game in its respective franchise, and should arguably remain JP exclusive because of its awfulness, whereas the former is easily one of the best games in the entire Fire Emblem series, and it is constantly overshadowed. I kid you not, GK2 is FAR more well-known than FE12 will ever be, as evident from the higher view count of any GK2 related content compared to FE12. GK2’s Pursuit theme has almost a million views on YouTube while the amazing Preparations Theme for FE12 is very difficult to find in full loop in a satisfying quality. That’s how obscure FE12 is, besides just being a JP exclusive game.

Considering hardly anyone ever talks about FE12, and whenever someone DOES talk about it, they usually call it out as an inferior remake to FE3, when that is hardly the case at all. If FE15 is proof of anything, people apparently like badly written garbage more than a remake that is actually faithful to its source material. I stated in the FE15 review that FE11 and 12 are fantastic remakes as opposed to FE15 because of that distinction. However, FE12 makes a lot of interesting changes that turned an okay SNES game into one of the greatest works of art I’ve ever seen.

Because this game is incredibly amazing, I must first get any grievances out of the way. For one, there’s this rather annoying cleric character whose name I forgot about, whose only personality trait is her flirting with Marth, but she’s an outlier and not the norm. The rest of the characters are fantastic, and because this game is so consistently perfect, I can’t find anything that can count as even a minor blemish outside of that. This game was also the first in the series to add Casual mode, which a lot of people hate for making the game easy, but I never once thought it was a problem, considering it makes complete sense. The best part is the fact that it’s optional, so if you want permadeath, play in Classic mode. This is how you add things without destroying what already existed – make them optional. I actually played it on Casual mode and enjoyed it immensely, not because it was on Casual mode, I would’ve still loved it to death even whilst playing in Classic mode.

Now let us look at the elephant in the room: Kris. Easily one of the most hated parts about this game, particularly because it was they who championed this self insert protagonist, a concept that often spawns a lot of problems in the later games. Now, I acknowledge that the self insert protagonist started here, and sadly became a staple in the series even after the damage has already been done thanks to Kouhei Maeda, who stopped directing Fire Emblem games after Heroes and Fates. However, the concept itself is not the problem. It’s the execution of said concept. For example, a story premise is a concept, and it can be executed well, or it can be executed poorly. As the final True Fire Emblem in the series, it makes sense that this idea was executed tastefully. Sure, Kris was still an important character in the overall story, but they were integrated as a SHADOW, in other words, not as the main protagonist. Using a self insert to be yet another vassal for Marth was the best possible way to make this idea work, and while most people despise the added story content to accommodate Kris’s addition, which is the assassination subplot, I actually think it enriches the entire narrative once you consider that it does make sense, and acts as yet another piece of the puzzle without retconning anything from FE3. The main point of contention with Kris is how they somehow shaft Marth in a way that is never explained by the detractors. This is a feeble argument that has no evidence to support it aside Marth not appearing in the tutorial chapters, which mimics Kaga’s omission of the main protagonist in some missions from Berwick Saga onward. Just because NEW content shows the avatar protag, doesn’t mean Marth’s screen time is reduced in any way, because that’s not what happened. Marth is still the main character of his story, and the writers understood this completely, keeping him the central focus amidst the additions. I still remember how Marth felt so bad for Lorenz (the cool guy with the eyepatch, not the ugly purple haired guy from Three Houses) when the latter committed suicide, and how guilty he felt over Hardin’s betrayal. All this was still in the original game, so the emotional tension remained, and it hit just as hard, arguably even harder once you consider the beautiful new images added to the game. The assassination subplot transitioned well into the main story, somehow not feeling off or forced. It ties in nicely with the fact that Jagen has grown too old to fight, considering he is now a drill trainer, which was a fantastic idea for a tutorial. Seeing Jagen, Athena, and Cain return from FE11 as drill trainers in the tutorial chapters is everything a Duology player could ever ask for, and they all retain the same voice and personalities, proving once and for all that FE12 is a sequel done right, unlike GK2. This is a perfect take on modernizing an already good story, making it completely timeless, a feat that is honestly difficult, and the writers must be commended for that.

New Mystery of the Emblem is pure perfection through and through. Though people tend to dislike Katarina, she is actually a really good character. Katarina is a creation of evil, forced to do horrible things, but even with all that, she is still able to feel emotion, and so much that it’s enough for her to cry when puppets like her supposedly cannot when you confront her for the final time. It was already shocking to see her betray you so early in the game, especially considering you were already building a bond with her as soon as she appears, because the writers knew how to utilize that limited screen time. It’s like Kristoph Gavin from GS4, if you ask me, considering Katarina was already acting as a tactician in much the same way Kristoph was a mentor to Apollo. The horrifyingly normal appearance of the evil bishop, Eremiya, is a compliment to the fact she saved many orphans from death, which is a contradiction to every game succeeding FE12. She and her team of orphan assassins bear ties to Gharnef, expanding on Gharnef’s influence and with it, the game’s narrative itself. Clarisse is an incredibly cool secondary antagonist, along with Roro (called Legion in Heroes, I assume), acting as villains in Gaiden chapters, perfectly tying together the new with the old. This is not even mentioning how perfect the additions to the old content were, proving that the writers were completely intent on not only modernizing, but also improving a story that was already great. Marth’s 2nd Book was already fantastic to begin with, and the fact that so much of that precious FE11 gold was added to it, even moreso than FE11, is why this game is so perfect. It was the most addictive game I’ve ever played, refusing to put it down ever since I picked it up. HowEVER, when I completed the game, I couldn’t help but feel so... Satisfied over how wonderful it all was. It was all a very cohesive experience, and despite falling in love with it, I never saw myself needing to play it again for a long time, even though I really should’ve played it over 10 times by now, considering I first picked it up in 2017 right after completing Fire Emblem Gaiden. I remember I would play it on road trips, and would use whatever opportunity I could to play it, but it wasn’t toxic addictiveness like with League of Legends. It was the kind that makes you look back on it fondly, and since I haven’t played it for like what, 5 years as of writing this? FE12 has had a profound impact on me, and I always considered it to be the peak of Fire Emblem, even when compared to FE7 and 5, which are better only for the fact that they’re longer and grander in scope, albeit only objectively, for I still consider FE12 my personal favorite. In the case of Fire Emblem 5, the story was better because of how much was done to show the darkness and grief, but this game has more than just a great story. It also has some of the best support conversations ever written in the history of this series. Xane’s shapeshifting shenanigans, Cecil’s fun training mentalities, female Kris (I STILL remember my Kris’s name by the way, even though I emulated FE12 on an eroding tablet. Her name was Sophia, as a reference to Sophia from FE6) sharing her sentiments with the broken Gra Princess Sheema, Barst’s awkward social interactions, Darros’s regret of being a bad pirate, among many, many others. Seeing FE9’s best feature, manifesting as the amazing base support conversations, return, was the greatest gift I could’ve ever had. So much for being a Japan exclusive – FE12 is the best in the series, hands down.

And I’m STILL not done. The good things just keep piling up, which creates an endless loop of happiness. The developers and writers packaged in prequel content from a nearly inaccessible platform containing four missions setting up the original Mystery of the Emblem’s story, the Archanea Saga, as bonus content. Considering they make up the hardest levels in the entire game, they were added in, alongside the Gaiden chapters, to make up for the main campaign’s rather short length, proving they cared about the complete package of perfection. No other game in the series does that, not to mention a music gallery, with awesome pictures showing the Starsphere shards, corrupted Emperor Hardin, Katarina crying, Marth meeting up with Caeda apparently to discuss something, Marth smiling towards the camera, a flashback scene of Nyna and Hardin, and those are just what I can remember off the top of my head. Despite playing this game over 5 years ago, I remember so much of it because it really is that good, and it is tied with GK1 for the best DS game of all time. GK1 has better gameplay, but that’s about the only difference between these masterpieces. Ask me every time what my favorite Fire Emblem is, and my answer will always be the same: it’s FE12, which is the summation of everything that makes Fire Emblem great. Besides the developers pouring so much care, love, and passion into this game, the new additions made it feel so advanced past the SNES that it never once felt like it originated from the SNES. It always felt like a game made for the DS, well after the series has lived long enough to implement so much nuance, which returned in the form of Shadow Dragon’s new mechanics and quality of life changes, the greatest support conversations since Fire Emblem 9, and the greatest OST in all of Fire Emblem. Can I take a moment to explain that last bit? Starting off with the remade FE3 tracks, they’re just as perfect as the remade FE1 tracks. The new songs, composed by Hiroki Morishita, are incredibly good, sounding surprisingly consistent with Tsujiyoko’s remade songs, to the point I used to think she was still the only composer until I finished the game and saw the credits. It’s like this game was made with the expectation that this would be the last one in the series, so the developers, writers, and composers gave it their all. I personally ADORE this game to the point I wish every game in the world was like it. All that heart, all these wonderful characters, the fact people from Intelligent Systems actually cared about not only preserving something, but expanding on it without destroying it. FE12 is a love letter, both from Intelligent Systems for making it in the first place, and the Heroes of Shadow for localizing it. Despite being directed by Kouhei Maeda, the very person who destroyed the series, it’s very clear that this game’s staff did everything in their power to save it, and made it not only the greatest Fire Emblem game of all time, but also the greatest retrogame remake of all time.

… It is here where the great Fire Emblem series should’ve forever rested. On its 20th anniversary, on a very peaceful high note. I would rather have Fire Emblem perish forever on July 15, 2010, with its profound legacy permanently unstained, than to have it revived and continue the rest of its life as a solace shadow of its former self. Fire Emblem as I knew it, was essentially revived by Shouzou Kaga himself, in the form of Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions, originally in 2016 in Japan, then localized in 2019 worldwide. Heck, the best revelation of 2022, an overall awful year for many people including myself, was to hear Vestaria Saga II being released on said year. Perhaps Fire Emblem can live on, with its ardent, respected creator bringing an ancient series back to the modern day, which only furthered my respect for Shouzou Kaga. The fact he cares so much about Fire Emblem, a series he created over 30 years ago, to the point he would literally keep producing Fire Emblem games as an indie developer, is proof of his undying passion.

fire emblem: new mystery of the emblem is one of my very favorite fire emblem games, topped only by thracia 776 and in some respects genealogy of the holy war. it has some of the most solid map design in the series and accomplishes the herculean task of making fe3 into a game that is actually enjoyable to play. it's also the first fire emblem game to have the now controversial "my unit" system, and the only one that's actually done well at all, which may be a surprise when the follow up to the well implemented kris were robin and corrin. i guess there is an argument to be made that kris is why we got those two but the issue is less the idea and more the implementation.
the art direction in game also isn't the best, but when the low points of the art in the series range from "seasonal harem anime" to "90s cult classic young adult manga" it's really hard to complain. the actual art done for promotional material is also some of my favorite in the series, only topped by the wonderful sachiko wada's work on sacred stones and units in heroes. musically new mystery is among the better fire emblem soundtracks, with holy war and dark emperor hardin being obvious standouts, but there isn't really anything as spectacular as genealogy's doorway to destiny or the masterpiece that is end of despair.

this is the last fire emblem game we got before the series devolved into a hollow shell of itself focused more on the dating sim/vn elements than the narrative or gameplay, so i treasure it deeply and it's always a lot of fun to play, even if just to pick up and do a few maps in.

EDIT: i dont agree with a lot of this review atm but keeping it up anyway

I got a bit of whiplash going from Echoes to this, which I guess is to be expected, since, you know, this is an older game. It still holds the same general formula of speedy combat and quick growth, and is still highly addicting, but it misses the mark in a few areas, namely in it's story and character interactions. This is a direct sequel to Shadow Dragon, which itself has a fairly dull plot. Despite how unmemorable the game's story was, it was wrapped up quite succinctly and felt like an appropriate conclusion. New Mystery, as a result, just feels like it retreads the exact same ground. It's especially unfortunate given how strong the story was in Echoes. While I haven't played Gaiden, from what I understand it retains the major story beats in it's transformation to it's remake. New Mystery is a massive step down in creativity and intrigue.

And this leads to what the game's biggest flaw is, at least to me: The characters. One thing which was added to this version of the game was a new main character, Chris, who I can best describe as "a person". Chris is meant to take the mantle of the player's avatar/self-insert, which is fine to an extent, but doesn't work in this case because Chris is completely pre-written without a chance to give the player any sort of choice in how they engage the world of the game. So what exactly is the point of their inclusion? Well, it seems they are put in as a method of fleshing out every other character, because Chris is the only character who has a significant number of support conversations. I think, throughout my playthrough, there were only two couples who had support conversations without Chris. Because Chris has no legitimate personality, all of the dialogue given to these characters feels wooden at best and nonsensical at worst. I did play a fan translation, but I can't imagine it's not been thoroughly revised and made to be as close in tone to the Japanese original as possible. This cast of characters is incredibly bloated, and all are defined by simple, one-dimensional traits rather than any actual development. I can't honestly say I remember anyone's personal stories, though I didn't see all of them to be fair.

And because the cast is so massive, it further cements how my ability to enjoy these older games is quite limited. New Mystery has such a large cast because it was meant to be a game where allies would die permanently. This is a series staple which has been phased into an optional setting in the modern day, and New Mystery is the first game to actually allow for ally revival upon map completion, and it shows. Newer titles have put a lot of effort into establishing their characters as capable of being fully fleshed out. The removal of required permadeath made for a higher need to keep players engaged, and this is done through the fun character interactions you achieve by experimenting with your units and allowing individual relationships to blossom. New Mystery has so little in the way of intriguing character interaction that it hardly assists in allowing the player to grow any sort of attachment to the cast.

It's evident to me that Fire Emblem is just a different breed of game for me. For my money, Fire Emblem's most important qualities are the character interactions and speedy statistical growth. But these earlier titles aren't meant to represent that ideal. Old Fire Emblem is about careful decision-making and optimizing your combat potential, things which I don't actually care about in the context of the series. Neither interpretation is incorrect, there's just a pretty clear divide between the old and new, and the inability to initially capitalize on what a removal of permadeath could do for the franchise only serves to show how wide that divide is. Of course, I have not played any version of any game 4-10 so who knows, maybe I'm just talking out of my ass? 3/6