PLAYER PHASE

Much to my chagrin, I am not a being with infinite time and infinite patience. Playing enough of a tactics game to feel comfortable writing 3-5 paragraphs about it is a surprisingly time-consuming process, especially since I’ve already written about the games I liked enough to play to completion or near-completion. Writing things in general can be hard, especially when the site you’re putting them on feels precarious. This is a personal outlet; having an audience is just a favorable side-effect. I’m not expecting a huge audience to mourn should my 14 years of internet blog just vanish into the ether one day. HOWEVER, just know that I have plans to continue writing things regardless of the state of *this webzone* and if you’d like to follow along (should the inevitable happen) it might not be a terrible idea to keep your eyes on the Deep Listens podcast feed or maybe my Twitch. That’s all I’ma say about that.

With the release of Fire Emblem Engage last week, I thought it pertinent to finish this installment of “Here are all the video games I played with tiles in them which came out in 2022.” Once again, if you’d told me in the year of our lord 2013 they’d be making numerous games like Fire Emblem Awakening, I would’ve been stoked beyond my capacity. Now, to some extent, it turns out I *can* have enough Fire Emblem. I don’t know if playing through all three of Fates’ campaigns back-to-back-to-back broke me, but I’ve found my general threshold for anime tile-em-ups to be less than it used to be. With that said, I present a handful of games clearly inspired by Intelligent Systems’ flagship series. That means tile-based, turn-based, games with bespoke units, often with fixed or suggested classes, and probably some level of character bonding.

Also, in case you’re wondering, I think Engage is a fucking banger if you have any interest in the tactical side of Fire Emblem and aren’t just there for mediocre anime ships. Just thought I’d throw that out there immediately.

Lost Eidolons

Lost Eidolons is the freshman effort from Ocean Drive Studios, a Seoul and Los Angeles-based joint made up of MMO and mobile game veterans. I say this as nicely as possible, because it feels like a passion project, a game that has a lot of moxie, but Lost Eidolons is on the endearing side of “mid.” It’s maybe not something I’d recommend at full price, but in my roughly eight hours with the game thus far it’s grown on me to the point where I think I’m gonna finish it, which I wasn’t initially going to do. Sure, the man who just spent the last week replaying Ninja Gaiden 3 is maybe not the greatest barometer for how you should spend your time, but just know that for the most part this game carries my tentative endorsement.

Its baseline mechanics are different enough to be more than Fire Emblem with the serial numbers filed off, but there’s no denying what it’s trying to imitate. The presence of an optional perma-death toggle should be indicative enough, and like the absolute predictable buffoon I am, I picked the hardest difficulty with that feature enabled. Thus far, I haven’t been incredibly taxed by Lost Eidolon’s map design, but credit where credit is due, I’ve also had to take advantage of the rewind feature numerous times. There are some interesting ideas, especially when it comes to the game’s magic system (i.e. cast a water spell to drench an enemy, then follow up with lightning to do extra damage or ice to stun them for a turn.) and I wouldn’t be surprised if later chapters have even more unique ideas.

To keep the Fire Emblem comparisons going, it’s incredibly evident the devs were inspired by Three Houses when it comes to structure. Which is to say that between maps you can wander around camp, talk to your followers, and engage in obnoxious busywork to earn doodads and beebobs and so on to min-max your squad in various different classes. Moreso than even Three Houses’ monastery, the camp area has a lot of chaff, definitely where you feel that Korean MMO and mobile game DNA seep in a little bit. A lot of it feels like it could be relegated to a menu, or otherwise cut down, but maybe some people are into spending 30 minutes fiddling with gear, wandering around, and engaging in awkward conversation with your friend “Robert.” I, alas, am not one of them.

If there’s a trend you should take away from “ArbitraryWaterman Spending Too Much Time Telling You About Turn-Based Bullshit You Have or Haven’t Heard Of 2022”, it’s that all of these fucking video games need to stop pretending their vanilla-ass fantasy story is worth an hour of introductory exposition. I can’t believe I’ve gotten to this point. ME! The CRPG man! The doofus who read like eight Shannara books in middle school! This was a problem with Midnight Suns, it’s a problem here, and it’s going to be a problem when I get to Triangle Strategy. The tale of a band of small-time mercenaries rising to lead a rebellion isn’t even egregiously bad or anything, and in my time with the game I’ve seen enough to think they’re at least nailing the (trope-y) beats they’re going for. It’s just in need of an editor. And maybe a different art style, if I’m gonna be honest. Something about these very realistic character models stiffly emoting like PS3 JRPG characters feels a bit off-putting.

Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga

Symphony of War is a surprising combination of Fire Emblem and Ogre Battle, made even more surprising by the fact that developer Dancing Dragon Games has managed to cram it all in the confines of RPGmaker. This is a game clearly straining against the limitations of what that software is capable of, and for that reason alone I think it’s noteworthy. For a $20 indie tactical RPG I picked up on a whim? Also noteworthy! It’s a neat little thing! Have I finished it? No. Shit’s long my dudes, and there are at least four more games from 2022 I’d like to cover before it stops being okay to talk about games from 2022. Wait fuck, it’s almost February?

So, as mentioned, Symphony of War has you moving bespoke units of troops around the map instead of individual characters in a very Ogre Battle (not Tactics Ogre) sort of way. Thankfully for all involved (me), it’s not doing the faux-RTS thing but is instead about that tile bullshit. There’s no weapon triangle or anything, but there sure are obvious rock-paper-scissors interactions between different types of units (hey guess what, spearmen are good against cavalry) complicated and made more fun by the way you set your troops up. Unlike an Ogre Battle, you can very much get away with something like a unit of nothing but archers or mages, assuming you ensure they don’t get attacked directly or anything. There’s even artillery n’ shit if you really want to hammer enemies from range.

If there’s a problem I have with it, it’s that the game sometimes falls into the weeds of its own UI a bit. Part of this, I imagine, is due to the limitations of RPGmaker, but like my time with Ogre Battle 64 last year you can just get overwhelmed with the amount of information at your disposal and the ways to access any of it. It can also be difficult to gauge how any given combat encounter might go at a glance, which is something other games of this type have gotten better at. I’ve also heard from people who’ve played more than me that the gameplay never really meaningfully evolves past the first few hours, but I’d have to look for myself to know for sure. And to do that, I’d have to stop playing Fire Emblem Engage, which I’m sorely against doing.

If you haven’t noticed I haven’t talked about the story and that’s because it’s some vanilla-ass JRPG “we played a Fire Emblem and an Ogre Battle and sort of tried to do both of those” storytelling. It’s not really all that remarkable and should probably be shuffled alongside the likes of… Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark, or something in terms of indie JRPG generica. Still, the game as a whole is cool and novel enough that I will not hesitate to recommend it.

Bonus: Dark Deity

Technically a 2021 release, but with Dark Deity being included as a freebie for the EGS, ported to Switch, and in at least one humble bundle this last year, I figured it worth my time to also talk about it. Mostly to warn you away from it. See, while I’d give the two previous games a tentative thumbs up despite some weird gameplay limitations and oatmeal storytelling, Dark Deity doesn’t get more than a “well, you tried” award. Like the prior two games, it’s a Fire Emblem-esque indie title, but unlike the prior two games it does not have nearly enough “moxie” to overcome some really truly baffling design decisions. I’m always hesitant to dunk on small indie games like this, especially from what appears to be a relatively inexperienced team, but this one might just be too rough to escape judgment.

You know the weapon triangle? A pretty simple rock paper scissors deal? Cool stuff, yeah? What if there were FOUR different armor types with varying levels of resistance to NINE different damage types? What if, instead of equipping your characters with different weapons, you just kinda had four different classes of weapon you upgraded individually? See, if there’s one thing I appreciate about “A Fire Emblem” it’s that the math is relatively straightforward. Muddying it with percentile damage variations and fiddly damage/accuracy calculations makes things harder. As always, map design is another concern, though I’ve only played through chapter 8 and don’t feel especially pressed to see if it improves.

It’s a shame, because there’s absolutely some production work done here. The character art is nice and colorful, and the sprite work intentionally evokes the GBA Fire Emblems. Sure the story is, once again, the tale of a group of plucky young upstarts evil empire cult blah blah blah blah but it’s at least not taking itself especially seriously. The best I can say about Dark Deity is that it feels like a particularly ambitious Fire Emblem ROM hack. It doesn’t really nail what it’s going for, but it has the enthusiasm and ambition to try and tinker around with fundamental bits to see what does and doesn’t work. With a bit of refinement, I think my feelings would probably shift. For now? I’d pass.

Bonus ++: Project Ember

Oh, so anyway, Project Ember is a particularly ambitious Fire Emblem ROM hack for Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (AKA the one with Roy, AKA The First GBA one, AKA The one people in the early-mid 2000s were asking Nintendo to localize). The most recent version came out last year and does seem to nail what it’s going for, with the enthusiasm and ambition to try and tinker with fundamentals to see what does and doesn’t work. I’m of the opinion that FE6 is one of the lesser games in the series. It’s definitely harder than the other two GBA entries, but rarely for reasons that feel fair, and rarely for reasons that I find fun. Hit rates are low, enemies are tanky, and maps tend to be overly-large, all of which contribute to the whole thing feeling like a slog. Combine that with some surprisingly stingy promotion item distribution and it’s not one I really want to replay all that much. Until… now?

While I’ve only gotten through the first six or so chapters, Project Ember feels like it addresses pretty much all of my issues with the game. As the person who recommended it to me said “It’s FE6 for people who don’t like FE6.” Admittedly going down a laundry list of *why* this fan made ROM hack for a 21-year-old GBA game that never came out in the United States and 95% of my audience hasn’t played is probably a losing battle, but to sum it up: everyone hits harder, characters are more viable, and you aren’t stuck using the same handful of units every single playthrough. It’s closer to something like New Mystery of the Emblem (wait, fuck, that’s *another* Fire Emblem game that never came out over here) in terms of being more about the player phase. Your characters tend to hit very hard, and so do the enemies, leading to less “Park one overpowered unit in the range of all the enemies to kill them during enemy phase.” It's also, um, harder, if the video below is any indication. I'd call myself pretty good at Fire Emblem, but this one definitely has pushed me harder than some more recent titles.

Uh, but yeah. For the five of you who know what this means and have feelings on Blades-a-Binding, maybe give this one a look? The new and reworked sprite animations in this thing are fantastic, and probably worth the price of admission alone. I’ve already accepted that trying to get people to play the Japan-only Fire Emblem games for more than five minutes is a little like herding toddlers or convincing someone to watch all of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It’s not impossible, but at some point they’re going to want to do it themselves without any prodding from you.

And that’s it for Tactics Emblems! Well, sort of. There’s one more game in this list that I’d consider Fire Emblem-adjacent, but it’s interesting enough on its own merits to not be lumped in here. That, and I’ve already written about four things here.

ENEMY PHASE