A very faithful remake to the very first FE game on Famicom.
It does a good job modernising a lot of mechanics, like bringing in the weapon triangle, making all promotions use the Master Seal instead of different items and allowing you to see the enemies range, making this a much more fluid and fun to play version of FE1.
On top of that, maps now include 1 or 2 save points so you don't need to start over from the beginning if you lose a unit and want to reset.
There is some new content in side chapters and characters but these are only accessible if you have less than a certain amount of characters as they were designed to help newcomers keep their army filled up if they were losing too many characters. As someone who challenges himself to beat these games by recruiting all characters and keeping them alive, it sucks missing out on these side chapters because I don't want to sack off half my army. I understand the idea, it just doesn't work for me.
The artstyle for this game doesn't vibe with me either. The colours are very muted and the character models are not so great 3D DS level models so they're pretty blocky and undefined. I like the portraits and actual artwork for the game, those have a very nice rough old school vibe to them that meshes well with the Archanea cast.
My other big negative with the game is that it doesn't take this opportunity to flesh these characters out. There are no supports and the dialogue seems to stick very closely to the original game that it feels super conservative in what a remake can achieve. I don't mind remakes sticking closely to their original games but with Fire Emblem, something that has made its cast increasingly more in depth to give players greater attachment to them, I think a remake should flesh out its cast a bit more.
Now another new thing this game introduced was the ability to reclass characters. It's a neat feature for those that want it but I am someone who likes having my characters have a designated role and playing around that limitation. For me it helps characters stand out more when I know Caeda is my Pegasus Knight, Ogma is my Mercenary, etc. Reclassing is a nice feature for additional playthroughs but it is something I rarely use.
The last thing to touch on is the European localisation. This game changed a few names from the American one and now that Heroes has essentially unified everything, it leaves this localisation feeling outdated. When Caeda is Shiida and Narverre is Nabarl, it takes you out of the game a bit.
Ultimately this is arguably the best version of FE1. It is modernised to a point that it feels more fun to play than FE1, and doesn't cut chapters/characters like FE3 Book 1 does. It does miss the opportunity to flesh out its story and characters leaving the experience to be a bit dull though
It does a good job modernising a lot of mechanics, like bringing in the weapon triangle, making all promotions use the Master Seal instead of different items and allowing you to see the enemies range, making this a much more fluid and fun to play version of FE1.
On top of that, maps now include 1 or 2 save points so you don't need to start over from the beginning if you lose a unit and want to reset.
There is some new content in side chapters and characters but these are only accessible if you have less than a certain amount of characters as they were designed to help newcomers keep their army filled up if they were losing too many characters. As someone who challenges himself to beat these games by recruiting all characters and keeping them alive, it sucks missing out on these side chapters because I don't want to sack off half my army. I understand the idea, it just doesn't work for me.
The artstyle for this game doesn't vibe with me either. The colours are very muted and the character models are not so great 3D DS level models so they're pretty blocky and undefined. I like the portraits and actual artwork for the game, those have a very nice rough old school vibe to them that meshes well with the Archanea cast.
My other big negative with the game is that it doesn't take this opportunity to flesh these characters out. There are no supports and the dialogue seems to stick very closely to the original game that it feels super conservative in what a remake can achieve. I don't mind remakes sticking closely to their original games but with Fire Emblem, something that has made its cast increasingly more in depth to give players greater attachment to them, I think a remake should flesh out its cast a bit more.
Now another new thing this game introduced was the ability to reclass characters. It's a neat feature for those that want it but I am someone who likes having my characters have a designated role and playing around that limitation. For me it helps characters stand out more when I know Caeda is my Pegasus Knight, Ogma is my Mercenary, etc. Reclassing is a nice feature for additional playthroughs but it is something I rarely use.
The last thing to touch on is the European localisation. This game changed a few names from the American one and now that Heroes has essentially unified everything, it leaves this localisation feeling outdated. When Caeda is Shiida and Narverre is Nabarl, it takes you out of the game a bit.
Ultimately this is arguably the best version of FE1. It is modernised to a point that it feels more fun to play than FE1, and doesn't cut chapters/characters like FE3 Book 1 does. It does miss the opportunity to flesh out its story and characters leaving the experience to be a bit dull though