This is one of the games I bought along with my DS. I got it at a shitty Gamestop located in the Courtland Center mall, which you can see in the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 when a bunch of military recruiters are preying on teens, trying to get them to sign up to be killed in a war. Anyways I would play this on my lunch breaks during the first few months I worked at Old Country Buffet and I can say that it is just okay. It is a competent minigame collection that cannot hold a candle to something like WarioWare.

A beautiful looking game, and a game that comes across as stronger than many of the games inspired by it.

-

The game has a big focus on the diorama aspect of the stages, setting each one up like a little theater scene, and very expressive sprite pantomime acting, leaning in to what gave FF so much identity with the SNES sprites. Characters coming in from offstage and having great characterful animation while a scene plays out on a nicely decorated stage never stopped charming me, and I think it’s one of the games greatest strengths.

The music really grew on me too, I’d heard it out of context before and never felt much for it, but it ends up fitting the game well.

The writing is also remarkably terse and effective compared to all the purple-prose-choked scripts that plague every game inspired by it. The main story itself is mostly standard fantasy beats but the execution is confident and compelling, only somewhat hampered by the awkward translation (though it’s still perfectly readable outside very optional backstory menus). The game also ends very strong, I was very impressed with that final scene, just great stuff.

the class system is horribly flawed and the academy shit makes me want to tear my hair out bc i hate dating sim-like mechanics but edelgard is a revolutionary in the realest sense. most of the other students are far better characters than 2010's fire emblem games deserve too, the way the sociopolitical world enters their lives in these insidiously interconnected ways just makes el's cause more just. and i enjoy that the protagonist expresses herself only through choices, makes her feel both more like a PLAYER-character and a weird endearing robot woman at once somehow.

Imagine you live on wrestle planet, where the only form of entertainment is wrestling, and everyone settles their grievances by grappling. You're at a new school, struggling to fit in, and have to try and learn math in a classroom of deranged freaks, while the teacher is on the floor in an armbar, he's on fire and screaming, so you decide to escape the lesson by digging tunnels to every part of the city, including a moving bus, but then your principal chokeslams you for playing truant and hospitalises you by tossing you in front of a moving train. And it's only your first day. Genius.