Sense of scale and epicness Fire Emblem 4 is able to provide with relatively simple 16-bit visuals on a 4MB Super Nintendo cartridge is just mindblowing.I can understand how some people simply don't like the map designs of this game because of how massive, time consuming and exhausting they can be,but the strategic planning and scale it provides is unlike any other SRPG i've played.This is the first Fire Emblem i've finished,but i've dabbled a bit on Awakening and gameplay just didn't do for me.But the uniqueness of FE4 was more than enough to keep me engaged from start to finish
Unfortuntely,i can't give the same praise for the story,while it starts off incredibly strong,and peaks at the end of Chapter 5,everything after it just feels....empty.It loses it's dark,political tone and becomes a pretty standard "Rebels Vs Evil Empire" kind of story.Even the music suffers from this shift in tone,while the map themes of the first 5 Chapter perfectly balances between feelings of melancholy,determination,and epicness in it's tunes,which fits to the tone of those chapters perfectly,rest of them are much more upbeat and a bit forgetable.Which don't get me wrong,those tracks are still bangers,but i rarely came back to listen them
My rating may look a bit too high for all of my critisicms,but don't get me wrong,i've enjoyed this game,and the first half of it's story a ton.It's score is between 4 and 4.5 for me,but it could have been easy 5.Still,i'm very excited to play more from this franchise