Yep I agree with your thoughts on Fire Emblem 6 pretty much entirely. You're giving me a craving to try and play Seisen no Keifu and Thracia 776 now. Just out of curiosity what was your team like? Did you get the true ending?

Does the Zodiac version fix the problem of the game playing itself? Because if not, that's pretty much all I have to say about the game.

Other than that, it's been way too long since I've played The Binding Blade (Brawl confirms this as the official translation) to remember much outside it being balls hard. For whatever reason, all I can really remember is that Zephiel chapter at the "end" giving me some major headaches. And maybe another on the plains of Sacae.

But on your plans to tackle the first three games:

1. There's no battery save, but it does save your progress as long as the game is turned on. This means you either need to use save states as a makeshift save system, or kill Marth to preserve everybody so you can load a save from the main menu. That's the only reason there's a continue option on the title screen.
2. I don't remember too much about this, other than spells working differently than in other installments. I think it was an MP system? Or they cost HP? I just know it isn't merely books.
3. Skip that first book immediately. Book 2 is the only reason to play Monshou no Nazo, unless you like a condensed version of the first game with worse graphics and slightly worse music.

And as long as you're "acquiring" these PS2 games, why not some Namco x Capcom or Dragon Quest V or.....no, that's pretty much it, unless you're willing to jump into Berwick Saga blind.

Hey, I found your blog! Of course, it happened to be a Fire Emblem blog, so I guess I didn't exactly luck out here. But whatever, I'm not here to deride Fire Emblem, that would be petty.

Instead, I'm going to pettily change topics to all these weird Indie RPGs that GOG's been shilling on Twitter/email for the past few weeks: Eador, Anodyne, Driftmoon and the like. Have you tried any of these yet? I'm getting so far behind in the CRPG scene, which I guess is because I mostly abandoned it back in the early 00s.

(I really liked FFXII for what it's worth. Sure, it plays itself, but that just expedites the mindless grinding part. For the bosses, espers and hunting marks, you can't really rely on the gambits alone and need to experiment a bit. Gambits are basically a shinier "auto-attack" button for those random encounters you couldn't care less about anyway. But yeah, there's no excusing Vaan. Just power through the early parts of the game and leave him out of the party once you have the whole team assembled.)

@video_game_king: Good lord, do I have a list of non-PAL PS2 games I need to "acquire" once my computer is powerful enough to efficiently run a PS2 emula- uh, I mean, powerful enough to "go on various online stores and import all those PS2 games legally from their respective foreign locales at great cost." But I suppose they can wait until after the adventure games, the Genesis games, the SNES fan-translated RPGs, the-

I'm just going to @arbitrarywater here too, so he knows I posted. Notifications will be back one day, I know it. So will the "Followed User Blogs" sidebar. And Game Room will get Sunset Riders and all those Dreamcast ports too.

@mento:

I'd continue this conversation, but I have the odd feeling that a mod's lurking just outside our field of vision. That's what I get for choosing the card with a smoky skull on it. *goes back to playing Persona 3*

Don't have time to read the whole thing right now, but Nintendo's apparently official English subtitle for the game is The Binding Blade.

@hailinel:

Beat you to it.

@hunter5024: Yeah, I did get the true ending, and other than the whole "Keep Sophia alive because holy crap everything kills her in one shot" I didn't find it all that difficult to acquire. My team was pretty simple, to be honest. Alan, Lance, Dieck, Oujay, Miledy, Lugh, Hugh, Ray, Saul, Clairine, Rutger, Fir, Lot and Sue were pretty much the only units I used throughout the game. And Roy, obviously, but his job is to stay out of trouble and not die while the competent characters do their thing. The Sealed Sword is absurdly powerful, for what that's worth.

@video_game_king:I haven't unlocked gambits yet, but I'm guessing "No". And yeah, I'll probably skip book 1 because I'll be playing through the original at some point too. Spells cost HP in Gaiden, but I'm pretty sure it's normal everywhere else. I think Berwick Saga is probably the line for me though. It uses hexes. HEXES. I also have a physical copy of American Final Fantasy XII, in order to convince myself that what I'm doing is ok.

@mento Eador Genesis is fantastic, and not just in how obviously "made in russia" the whole game is. It's pretty much a mish-mash of all of my favorite fantasy turn-based strategy games and I liked it enough to put it pretty high on my GOTY list.

@video_game_king: @hailinel: They don't get to have an official english subtitle unless they officially release it in english. I won't allow it.

I just got a 3DS and Mario 3D Land. And it's probably the best Mario game I've played... ever. I got Etrian Odyssey 4 instead of Awakening, but Awakening is pretty much next on the list.

As for FF12 I've heard several times that Basch was supposed to be the main character, but executive meddling wanted another fucking androgynous teenager so Vaan was made the main character. I have also hears that he pretty much drops out of the game's story in favor of better characters.

The truth.

Well, it's the title that Nintendo is using for the Awakening DLC and when they mention it in their DLC announcements, so *Insert Nelson laugh here*.

Or did you?

Yeah, you did.

Or did you?

But yeah, Binding Blade isn't among the better entries in the series. I can understand why people are interested in it, and it would have been nice had the game been released officially in English, but at the same time, its prequel, which was actually designed with the western market in mind, is better in every respect.

On a side note, If I were to be a crazy person and start my own Operation __________ campaign (because that's what all of the kids are into these days and the success of one campaign obviously means that all of the others should succeed too), I'd petition Nintendo release a 3DS or Wii U Genealogy/Thracia compilation with updated visuals and mechanics, because holy shit that would be awesome.

It's not that Vaan really drops out of the story. It's just that the storyline is much more dependent on the world and the events going on in it than the characters themselves. The party members all have their roles in the story, but aside from being the quote-unquote "lead" and the figure used to introduce the world to the player, Vaan isn't any more or less important than the other characters in the long run.

@arbitrarywater: Ah, I see. This Eador (Masters of the Broken World) is apparently its sequel and due out next month. If I didn't have a dozen other games lined up (and a TG16 game to play through this month) I'd check out that original, since it costs hardly anything right now.

I probably never get a chance to play Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi being exclusive to Japan. (unless someday, Nintendo fulfills its promise.) My little sister enjoys both Fire Emblem and Sacred stones.

I thought Roy would be good in his own game as he was in Melee. It would interesting to play a lord with bad stats. I remember watching a weird video on lords from different Fire Emblem games, and the person had a statement about the correlation between the number of potential relationships that lead to marriage. Roy was the worst, and he had the most girls that he can pair up with. On the other hand, Ike is one of the best lord, and he has no relationship that ends in marriage. The person comically put a picture of Ike and Soren and proudly ships them together.

You want to play a game that contains a lord with bad stats? Mystery of the Emblem has you covered. Who needs a class advancement when you can simply bump Marth's level cap up like the manakeets of later games? Though to be fair, all stat caps in Mystery of the Emblem were bullshit.

To be fair, Ike/Soren is a popular pairing among certain members of the fandom. I can understand why they'd think that way, too. Which makes their reactions to Priam absolutely priceless.

@takashichea: Really, you're not missing much from not playing that one. I'd be more remiss about missing the SNES games to be honest. Also, I'd argue that Sigurd is a better lord than Ike because he starts broken and never stops being broken, whereas Ike only becomes a one-man wrecking crew after promotion. Man, the Fire Emblem community sure is crazy and weird.

@turambar:We talking SNES or DS Mystery of the Emblem? Because Marth can actually do his part in New Mystery, and I haven't played enough of the SNES one to make any sort of informed opinion.

@hailinel:To be fair, Ike and Soren do have a super special super secret epilogue in Radiant Dawn if you import a PoR savefile with them having an A support and then going through the rest of the super secret New Game + stuff. I'd say the developers were certainly implying... something? Nah. As I said, Fire Emblem community is bad news.

Oh, I'm perfectly aware of that. All the same, Priam's existence has some of the Ike/Soren shippers out there fuming, because how dare Intelligent Systems suggest that their hot lovin' ain't canon?

But then again, Awakening is kind of weird in a lot of relationship respects. Like "Lucina and Owain being able to S-rank" weird. My goodness.

@arbitrarywater:

Man, I was so close to unlocking all the secret dialogue for Radiant Dawn and use Pelleas for the first time after the Black Knight keeps murdering Ike in the swamp chapter. My Ike was RNG screwed in speed, so he got doubled. It took 25 or so tries until Ike finally survived with a sliver of health. When I finally get to transfer the Path of Radiance, I found out my Radiant Dawn data was deleted and corrupted. I was so mad. I haven't started over yet.

@hailinel:

I couldn't find this one gag comic image that was posted on Fire Emblem Wikia, but this one fan complained that there was no gay marriages. He or she mentions that the couple can adopt a kid since it's biologically impossible to make a kid. It was hysterical. I wanted to share it with you guys. Considering Fire Emblem, the game is pretty conservative.

@turambar:

I need to experience the whole Fire Emblem shebang (if I'm using the word correctly). I've been only to exposed to Fire Emblem (GBA), Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, and Radiant Dawn. It would be a challenge to play Roy's game given his weird situation.

@hailinel: Incest and Fire Emblem go together like Peanut Butter and Nutella, uncommon but not unanticipated. At least Lucina and Owain's S rank is more like "Life Buddies" than straight up being in a relationship like the Japanese version.

@takashichea:The New Game+ stuff is worth it, considering the magnitude of some of the craziness that ensues. Pelleas is neat because he uses dark magic, but in the grand tradition of the series, isn't actually super useful. I'd say it's all worth a look, but that would require you to play through Act 1 of Radiant Dawn again, which is about as entertaining as ramming your head against a brick wall.

@takashichea: I'd say if you want some more Fire Emblem experience and want to play a fan-translated one, forget Binding Sword and go with Geneology of Holy War for the SNES, and see how the whole marriage system got started. It's a far better game with some interesting systems, especially when you go down the dark path of breeding to create blood purity.

@arbitrarywater: I actually mean the new one on the DS.

I'm currently working on S-ranking Owain and Cynthia together, with Cynthia being Lucina's sister.

I cannot recommend this enough. Both playing the game and promoting incest in said game. Hell, the plot can't move forward without it. (Spoilers.)

Could it be this? I'm still surprised at how mainstream (for lack of a better word) Awakening has made Fire Emblem recently, especially given how I have yet to play it.

@video_game_king:

Sorry for the late reply. It's been getting hectic over there.

Yes! That's the one I was talking about. Are you still looking for a physical copy of the game? I know it took me about 2 weeks to get it after phoning Target, Wal-mart, and Gamestop.

Edit:

You'll find it. I guarantee it.

@takashichea:

Nope. I got my copy a long time ago. I'm putting off playing it, though, because Persona 3 comes first. Speaking of which, I should go update my P3 thread.