I’m very glad I played Sacred Stones before this one, because Jesus, it's unbelievable how 2 games made with the same engine are vastly different ends of the quality spectrum. It's one of the most punishing games I’ve ever played, and I don’t even know if I can bring myself to finish it. I’ve been putting off playing Kaga’s FE games because I find them to be either ancient or exceptionally daunting, but they are probably going to be a breath of fresh air compared to the video game equivalent to waterboarding myself.

I apologize for the scathing opening paragraph. Let me calm down a little. As I’ve said this is one of the most punishing games I’ve ever played and it goes without saying that this is one of the hardest as well, at least in the Fire Emblem franchise. I think the previous holder of that, from the FE games I played, was Engage, partially because I started on Hard mode. But Engage had many ways of making its difficulty interesting, such as occasionally having two chapters strung together and you're forced to use the same team for both, and taking away all of your Emblem rings halfway through the game, as well as other map gimmicks. Binding Blade has somewhat interesting ideas, locking the true ending behind extra Gaiden chapters, and not allowing you to shop in between chapters(which I realize is something older FE games probably did, but as discussed, I haven't played them), but then just puts you in large, foggy maps with endlessly spawning Wyverns and mages with long range Berserk staffs. I always enjoy some Fire Emblem gameplay, but this can be a rather miserable experience at times, especially without a guide.

I said “opening paragraph” like I had more than 2 paragraphs to say about it. If you’re new to the Fire Emblem series, don’t start with this one. I;d be really surprised if I enjoy any of them less than it.

Edit: Did actually finish it. The last few chapters are considerable less painful than the rest of the game, althoughstill a bit annoying. Decided to give it a little more credit than I did because of that, and since I probably didn't play this game completely optimally, although it's still my least favorite Fire Emblem that I played so far.

man is this rough around the edges, it picks up a lot in the back half when you've managed to build units up to be decent but there's an overabundance of absolutely dogshit filler units and virtually every map being a Siege map gets really repetitive. I get why the hardcore ironman crowd might relish the challenge but that ain't me. The story isn't terribly interesting until right near the end either, but the true ending is pretty great even if the gaiden maps needed to get there can be fucking dreadful. Man is this game really fucking pretty tho the spritework and animation is top notch.

Genuinely my favourite Fire Emblem game. Its a game known for being janky as hell and that's pretty true, with wack units, low hit rates, gimmicky and annoying gaiden chapters, and there's probably more that can be said.

In spite of that, it has really solid maps and those shaky hit rates and gaiden chapter requirements force you to think a lot. I find a lot of fun in using the game's wack ass nobody characters like Dorothy or even Sophia because you can find ways to level them up or give them a purpose in a chapter. Even with very strong units like Rutger, Perceval and Melady available there is still room for other characters to contribute. Roy is infamously bad, but he becomes more like a king on a chess board where you need to think carefully to keep him alive and that ties really well into his character. Not for everyone but he isn't without merit.

Story is simple and could use more characters for Roy to interact with but it does its job. Elibe is a well realised setting, with each country having a distinct and memorable role. Supports were introduced in this game, and while they can be too short and simple at times the game has a lot of good ones. Roy, Shanna, Sue, Lugh, Igrene, Echidna, and Dorothy just to name a few. Just read them on an FE wiki tho, the GBA support system sucks.

made it about to mission 13, doing an ironman and got my shit scuffed

i think that everything that made rekka no ken great is here but this is three failed playthroughs now, two out of apathy and now this one. the maps are too big, i feel like the enemy power ramp is too quick, i dunno. i remember running into this even when i was reloading fights, it just required too many reloads of long fights. and i refuse to get better or smarter!

to be real tho i really do like the idea of doing ironman playthroughs in these games, but without the freedom to train back benchers (they get mulched by a random wyvern knight) its pretty precarious. i might try rekka no ken this way, we'll see if that works out better.

stray thoughts:
1. its cool that roy can marry his social studies teacher
2. echidna is the baddie of all time

After Shouzou Kaga's departure from Intelligent Systems, it feels like they weren't sure what to do next. While all Fire Emblem games make use of the character archetypes established in the original Fire Emblem, the early game recruits are functionally identical to Shadow Dragon's. You even start the game with an identical set of units to Shadow Dragon, minus a stand-in for Caeda. This improves as the game goes on.
The maps seem to borrow from past Fire Emblem as well. The large waves of reinforcements and overall large size of maps make some chapters play out like a small Genealogy map. The layout of Chapter 7 of Binding Blade is Thracia's Chapter 6.
The Binding Blade is post-Kaga Fire Emblem at it's core. If you strip away all the bells and whistles of every succeeding Fire Emblem game (maybe not Three Houses though) this is the game you're left with. And it's good.

Pretty middle of the road FE. There isn't much variety in chapters since the game basically consists of siege only maps. There's a lot of really bad filler units that the game constantly gives you, when in the end I just kept using the same characters for the whole game.

Story is also nothing too special. It just feels like a combination of Archanea and Jugdral's stories, and it doesn't really do anything special with them. The true ending however is pretty sweet, and I wished the game had more focus on Lilina, Fae, and Idunn since I think that's what the game really excelled at.

Nothing else much to say tbh. This game is whatever and the foundation is greatly improved with later GBA FE titles.