Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is a Japanese tactical role-playing game for the Game Boy Advance, developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The game was released on April 25, 2003 in Japan, November 3, 2003 in North America, and July 16, 2004 in Europe. Upon its initial release, it was simply titled Fire Emblem in the west until it was officially rebranded with its original title upon the release of Fire Emblem Heroes. It is the seventh game in the Fire Emblem series, the second game in the series to be released for the Game Boy Advance, and the first to be released in territories outside Japan.

The overall narrative is a prequel to the events of the previous game, Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, which is set twenty years later.

Development

Development of The Blazing Blade began after the release of Nintendo's crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros. Melee, which featured the characters Marth and Roy on its roster. Influenced by the reception to the Fire Emblem characters outside Japan, The Blazing Blade was designed with the potential new international audience in mind. The game was structured to open with a prologue story starring the character Lyn to specifically serve as an extended tutorial and introduction to Fire Emblem gameplay basics for series newcomers.

Since the release of The Blazing Blade, all Fire Emblem titles save for Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem have been localized and released internationally.

Setting

See also: Elibe Series

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is a prequel to Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, set on the same continent of Elibe twenty years before its predecessor's events. It stars three main lord characters: Eliwood and Hector, the future fathers of Roy and Lilina respectively, and a completely new character, Lyn. The game is divided into two segments: the first segment stars Lyn and revolves around her quest to save her grandfather from his treacherous brother, acting as a tutorial mode for the game. The longer second part stars Eliwood, Hector, and Lyn as they oppose the schemes of the sorcerer Nergal, who seeks to summon the long-banished dragons back to Elibe for his own gain.

Many characters originally from The Binding Blade reappear in The Blazing Blade in younger forms, including Bartre, Karel, Merlinus, Murdock, Marcus, Erik, Zephiel, and Guinivere. Several relatives of the The Binding Blade cast are also among the playable characters. Rebecca and Dart are the mother and uncle of the archer Wolt, the swordswoman Karla is the mother of Fir, Nino is the mother of the twins Lugh and Raigh, Pent and Louise are the parents of Klein and Clarine, the nomad Rath is the father of Sue and the son of Dayan, the shaman Canas is the father of Hugh and the son of Niime, Hawkeye is the father of Igrene, and Geitz is the older brother of the pirate Geese.

Story

Lyn's Tale (Prologue - 10)

The game's narrative starts in the plains of Sacae. The player character, Mark, is found by a girl named Lyn. She was recently orphaned due to bandits attacking her tribe, and decides to travel with Mark. In a nearby town they meet Kent and Sain, who reveal that Lyn is heir to the throne of Caelin. However, Lyn's existence is an obstacle to Lundgren, the brother of Lyn's grandfather Hausen, who desires to succeed his brother as the marquess. Lundgren, already scheming to kill his brother with poison, additionally sends troops to intercept Lyn.

Before setting out for Caelin, Lyn, Mark, Kent, and Sain visit a temple in order to pray before the Mani Katti, a sacred blade. After defeating an attacking group of mercenaries and rescuing the priest, Lyn discovers that she is the chosen wielder of the Mani Katti. With the sword now in her possession, Lyn travels from Sacae to Caelin, meeting new allies and enemies along the way. Among these are the bard Nils and his sister, the dancer Ninian, who are being pursued by a shadowy organization known as the Black Fang.

At the end of her journey, Lyn arrives at Lundgren's stronghold and defeats him, rescuing her grandfather. Though he was severely poisoned, Hausen recovers, and Lyn and Hausen are able to spend their days happily in peace for the next year.

Eliwood's Tale (or Hector's Tale) (11 - Final)

To the Dragon's Gate (11 - 19 (20H))

One year later (Post-Scouring year 980), Lyn's friend Eliwood leaves Pherae in search of his missing father, Marquess Elbert of Pherae. As he and his escorts prepare to leave the area, bandits attack a local village. Eliwood meets Mark at the village, and together, they fight off the bandits before moving on. Meanwhile Ostia, Hector sets out to assist Eliwood in his search for his missing father while his brother, Ostia's Marquess Uther refused to act himself. Eliwood and Hector meet up at Santaruz, where they find Helman, the Marquess of Santaruz, near death after being wounded. Helman's dying words direct the group to Laus, where it is revealed that Darin, the Marquess of Laus, is working with the Black Fang, a group of assassins, and has ambitions of conquest. With him is Ephidel, the assassin that killed Helman.

Eliwood and Hector fight Marquess Laus's son Erik and capture After the capture of Castle Laus, while Darin and his remaining forces flee. Erik confesses that one year prior, Ephidel arrived at Laus and was the one who persuaded Darin to rebel against Ostia. He also claims that Elbert supported this plan, as well, though Eliwood doesn't believe it. During the night stay in the castle, Hector and his men fend off an attack sent by one Eubans.

A couple of days later, Eliwood is informed that Castle Caelin has fallen to an attack from the remains of Laus's army. Eliwood meets up with Lyn and her allies, and they recapture the castle and rescue Lyn's grandfather. The group then meets the Ostian spy Leila, who is working undercover in the Black Fang. She informs them that the organization, behind all of the recent unrest and plotting, is controlled by Nergal, a mysterious man who wants to start a war in Lycia for unknown reasons. In addition, Ephidel is a "morph", a humanoid creature created through magic that serves Nergal, and Elbert is being held captive at Valor Island, also known as the "Dread Isle."

Eliwood and his troops set sail to the island with the help of the pirate captain Fargus. Along the way, they find Ninian in a small boat. She unfortunately has amnesia, and her brother Nils is not with her, which Lyn finds highly suspicious. Eliwood and company reach the island, but along the way, the group discovers Leila's corpse. Jaffar, one of the Black Fang's Four Fangs, killed her when Ephidel discovered that she was a spy.

On their way to the ruins, Ninian and Hector discover a portrait of Nergal and his children implying that Ninian and Nils are his offspring. After Eliwood finds the temple housing the Dragon's Gate, Ephidel captures Ninian, and Eliwood's group assaults the temple to rescue her. After the battle, Eliwood finds his seriously injured father near the back of the temple. Nergal and Ephidel appear with the captured Ninian. Nergal uses Elbert, feeding his soul into Ninian, forcing her to summon a dragon. However, as it emerges from the portal, Nils arrives and brings Ninian to her senses. She immediately closes the portal, destroying both Ephidel and the dragon. Nergal attempts to take Ninian and Nils, but when Elbert wounds him, he flees to recover. Elbert then dies in his son's arms.

To the Shrine of Seals (20 (21H) - 28 (30H))

Eliwood and company head back to the mainland to inform Marquess Uther of what has been happening. Uther is troubled by the news, and suggests that Eliwood go to the Nabata Desert to meet a "living legend." This person turns out to be Archsage Athos, one of the veterans of the Scouring, whose lifespan has been lengthened because of his deep connection to magic. Eliwood also assists a mysterious Sage in the desert named Pent, who turns out to be the Mage General of Etruria. Athos tells them to find the Shrine of Seals in Bern if they want to stand a chance against Nergal.

After Athos teleports Eliwood's troops back to Pherae, they travel to Bern in disguise. When they reach Bern, they hear of Prince Zephiel's coming-of-age ceremony, during which Pent and his wife Louise plan to ask Hellene, the Queen of Bern and Louise's close friend, about the location of the Shrine of Seals. As the group gathers more information on the Black Fang, whose headquarters are in Bern, they are attacked by Linus, one of the sons of Brendan Reed, the leader of the Black Fang. After subduing him, Eliwood persuades him that they are not his enemy, at which point Linus decides to track Sonia, Brendan's wife and the woman Nergal is using to control the Black Fang. However, Nergal's morph Limstella kills him before he can relay information to his brother Lloyd. Upon learning that Linus had died, Lloyd is convinced that Eliwood's party was responsible.

Queen Hellene agrees to provide Eliwood with the location of the Shrine of Seals if he recovers the missing Fire Emblem, necessary for Zephiel's ceremony. Lyn traces the Black Fang to their mountain fortress, where they hear that Jaffar is to carry out a contract to kill Zephiel. Eliwood returns to the Bern Manse and saves Prince Zephiel from a Black Fang assassination, meeting Jaffar and Nino, Sonia's adopted daughter, along the way. A grateful Hellene then gives them a map to the Shrine of Seals.

The group stops by at the Black Fang's secondary base, the Water Temple, where Sonia kills Brendan and Limstella absorbs his quintessence for Nergal. Nino and Jaffar confront Sonia about Nino's parentage, and Sonia reveals that Nino is indeed not really her child, but the daughter of a clan of magic users that she and Nergal killed. Eliwood's troops step in to defend Nino and Jaffar, and finally defeat Sonia. Limstella arrives, but does not absorb Sonia's quintessence because she does not have any, as she was a morph; they just leave Sonia to die of her wounds, alone in the temple, still thinking she is human.

Eliwood makes it to the Shrine of Seals, where he defeats Lloyd. Athos teleports in and takes the group into the Shrine to talk to the other remaining legend, the cautious magic user Bramimond. After talking with Athos, Bramimond is persuaded to open the seals on the legendary weapons used to slay the dragons. Outside the shrine, a fully healed Nergal shows up and tries to take Ninian and Nils. To defend her brother and gain time, Ninian goes with him in exchange for Nils's safety.

Eliwood enters the tomb of Roland and collects the sword Durandal from its resting place, while Hector retrieves the axe Armads. As Eliwood leaves, an Ice Dragon attacks him, and Durandal, seemingly activated on its own, slays the dragon, which is revealed to be Ninian. Nergal returns to gloat, telling Eliwood that Ninian lost most of her memory when she became a dragon, and that the only thing remaining was her love towards Eliwood. Ninian uses her last quintessence to change back to her human form and dies in Eliwood's arms. Enraged, Athos attempts to kill Nergal with the spell Forblaze, but fails. Eliwood and Hector leave the legendary weapons in Athos's care.

Conclusion (29 (31H) - Epilogue)

Back in Ostia, as Eliwood's group recuperates, Athos tells them about Nergal's past. He and Nergal, once friends, came across the hidden village of Arcadia, where humans and dragons lived in peace. Nergal spent his time there learning the secrets of acquiring quintessence, which slowly distorted his soul. Athos and the residents of Arcadia teamed up to defeat Nergal, but he managed to escape and fled to Bern, taking control of the Black Fang while he was there. Hector also learns that his brother has died.

Nergal, back at the Dragon's Gate, uses Ninian's quintessence to open the portal, but he does not have enough. Eliwood arrives at the Dread Isle and defeats Limstella. Nergal then channels quintessence from the most powerful human leaders and creates morph versions of them, sending them out to destroy Eliwood's group, but they fail. Then Nergal himself appears but is also defeated; with his dying breath, he summons three Fire Dragons. Bramimond intervenes and uses his remaining power to resurrect Ninian, who kills two and severely wounds the third. Eliwood's group, using the legendary weapons, manages to slay the last Dragon.

After the battle, Athos collapses from exhaustion. As he dies, he predicts that "an evil star will rise... over Bern... but once again, Lycia will bring hope to cleanse the darkness." Athos's words are a premonition regarding the events of The Binding Blade.

A year after the war's conclusion, Eliwood is crowned as the new Marquess of Pherae in his father's place, and Hector takes his deceased brother's place as Marquess of Ostia.

Fifteen years later, Eliwood and Hector meet each other in Castle Ostia, where Eliwood introduces his son Roy and Hector introduces his daughter Lilina. While the children play, Eliwood and Hector talk about some events in Bern related to Archsage Athos's predictions.

In the final scene, Zephiel, now the King of Bern, talks with an enigmatic man, who asks Zephiel why he awoke the Demon Dragon. Zephiel simply replies with a chilling smile.

Gameplay

The gameplay in The Blazing Blade is very similar to its direct predecessor, The Binding Blade. The game shares the shame fundamental game basics in its general gameplay and combat as most games in the series.

Tutorial

The game opens with Lyn's Tale, which serves as both an introduction to the setting, as well as an extended gameplay tutorial that teaches the player elements of gameplay over its duration. Once the game has been completed at least once, Lyn's Tale can be played with the tutorial elements turned off, or skipped altogether to jump straight into Eliwood or Hector's Tales.

Gameplay Routes

The game features three different routes. Lyn's Tale, as described above, is the shortest and simplest of the three, and serves as the game's tutorial for first-time players. Eliwood's Tale picks up one year after the conclusion of Lyn's Tale, and explores the primary narrative of the game. After Eliwood's Tale has been completed at least once, Hector's Tale is unlocked.

As with all Fire Emblem games, if a unit falls in battle, he or she can never be used again. However, an exception is made for characters in Lyn's Tale, in which characters that run out of HP do not die, but are wounded and are lost only for the remainder of her story. All of the playable characters encountered in Lyn's Tale can be recruited again in Eliwood and Hector's routes, though they will not be as strong as they could have been had they not been wounded in Lyn's Tale. Despite this exception, if any of the Lords (Lyn, Eliwood and Hector) are defeated, even during Lyn's Tale, a Game Over is triggered and the player must start the battle over.

Hector's Tale covers the same story as Eliwood's from his perspective, with additional chapters and other elements that make it a more challenging gameplay experience while revealing additional context to the story's events. These changes include the following:

• Hector, instead of Eliwood, is the lead character. A number of story elements and cutscenes are adjusted to reflect the change in the point of view.
• Two normal chapters (and two Gaiden chapters) are added and several chapters are changed to reflect the different point of view. In all chapters, there are different troops and troop placement, and the level of difficulty is higher.
• Additional details concerning Nergal, Ninian, and Nils' past are revealed after particular side chapters featuring the character Kishuna.
• Two characters not found in Eliwood's mode can be recruited: Farina, the third of the Pegasus Knight sisters, and Karla, the Princess of Swords, sister to the Swordmaster Karel.

Hard Mode

There is a Hard Mode for each of the Lords' tales. Hard Mode changes include more difficult landscape conditions (such as the use of fog to obscure enemies), higher-leveled enemies, and a reduced cap on the number of units that can be brought into battle. It is also more difficult to generate money and sustain the player's force with weapons and resources, as gold is less readily available and earning it is more difficult.

Hector's story is, on the default Normal difficulty, designed to be more challenging than Eliwood's, and Hector's Mard Mode is similarly designed to be even more challenging, making Hector's Hard Mode the most difficult path through the game based on its adjustments to enemy placement and levels, battlefield conditions, player-unit deployment restrictions, and gold acquisition rate.

Combat

The Blazing Blade introduces a more varied range of battle objectives than were available in prior games. Beyond capturing bases and defeating bosses, the game features victory conditions such surviving a certain number of turns, destroying all enemies, and traveling to a predefined space on the map.

The Blazing Blade is also the first entry in the Fire Emblem series in which weather is variable. For example, when it's raining or snowing, it will impact terrain effects that can hinder unit movement.

The game features the traditional weapon triangle in which swords beat axes, axes beat lances, and lances beat swords, giving the unit with weapon advantage in a round of combat a boost to their damage and accuracy. Similarly, magic combat uses the trinity of magic relationship in which dark magic has the advantage over anima magic, anima over light magic, and light magic over dark magic.

Units

There are fourty-four playable units in The Blazing Blade, though not all of them can be recruited in every route. As in other games, Units come in a variety of classes that determine their combat abilities. Units level up each time they gain 100 experience points, and units in base classes can promote into an advanced class should they be at least level ten in the current class, and the unit has access to to a promotion item that allows promotion into their target class.

Supports

In The Blazing Blade, support between compatible units increases based on the number of turns in battle conclude with the units adjacent to each other. Characters with a support bond share a statistical bonus when they are within three spaces of each other on the battlefield, and the stronger the support bond, the higher the bonus.

Similar to other Fire Emblem titles with Support systems, support ranks between characters are measured on an ascending rank of C>B>A. The rank increases with each Support Conversation held between unit pairs. Additionally, each unit has an elemental affinity; the form of statistical bonus from supports will depend on the combination of the elemental affinities of both units. Each character is allowed only one A-rank Support per playthrough, and a total of five support ranks at most across their Support partners. Characters that reach an A-rank support will have different epilogues in the ending.

Upon completion of the game, Support Conversations that were previously unlocked can be viewed again in a Support Viewer option available from the game's main menu.

Multiplayer

The Blazing Blade features a link arena similar to the ones found in The Binding Blade and later The Sacred Stones, in which up to four players can link their Game Boy Advances together and do battle with teams of characters from their single-player save files. Players choose up to five characters and equip them to take on the opposing units. Players act with one character per turn, as opposed to the main game in which the player acts with their whole force on each turn.

The link arena feature also supports single-player gameplay, allowing the player to play against a team of their own units controlled by the CPU.

Characters

See main article: List of characters in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade.

Blazing Blade features 44 potential playable characters. However, in addition to the characters restricted to Hector's route, there are two sets of characters who cannot be recruited in the same playthrough. The player must choose between Karel or Harken, and between Wallace or Geitz. Thus, players will have up to 42 characters in a single playthrough.

Chapters

See main article: Chapters (Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade).

Classes

See main article: List of classes in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade.

Music

See main article: List of Music in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade.

Weapons

See main article: List of weapons in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade.

Items

See main article: List of items in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade.

Version Differences

Throughout the releases of The Blazing Blade, it has been subject to alterations of the script, core mechanics, and overall difficulty, as well as seeing some new additions.

For a full timeline of version differences, see here.

Reception

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade has received critical praise for its story, characters, and gameplay. The game reviewed very well at release, earning an 8.9/10 from GameSpot (making it one of the top twenty rated GBA games on the site) and it has received the Editor's Choice Award from both IGN and GameSpy. In 2007, it was named the sixteenth best Game Boy Advance game of all time in IGN's feature reflecting on the Game Boy Advance's long lifespan. Also on IGN, in 2012, The Blazing Blade was ranked 83rd on their Top 100 RPGs of All Time feature. The game has an aggregate score of 88 out of 100 on the review aggregation site Metacritic based on thirty-one professional reviews.

Legacy

Blazing Blade is the first main series title released internationally and is highly revered among the fanbase as a result for ushering the series for western players. As an introductory game for international audiences, critics have praised the Lyn's tale section as an easy introduction to the franchise, though some fans dislike it for the simplified structure and some deeming it unnecessary. Nonetheless, the title remains highly popular among fans.

Due to this status, many of the game's characters are beloved by fans, especially Lyn, who is the first playable Lord for many international fans. She is the most prolific character of the game, making multiple appearances in later titles and is notably the first character of the franchise to be an Assist Trophy in the Super Smash Bros. series. She is the only one from Blazing Blade to receive a special DLC Einherjar in Awakening. She is the sole Blazing Blade representative in Fire Emblem Warriors. Most notably, not only was she among the initial launch cast of Fire Emblem Heroes as a 5-Star focus unit in one of the first banners. She also placed first overall in the inaugural year of the Choose Your Legends event for Heroes as the de facto most popular character in the entire franchise. In Engage, she was the Emblem to represent Blazing Blade. Lyn was the first legacy character adapted and released into Fire Emblem Shadows.

Though less exposed as Lyn, Hector remains a highly popular character, with many praising him as the first Axe wielding Lord. In Engage, Hector is a DLC Emblem. In Heroes Hector was among the launch cast and won the second Choose Your Legends event overall. Eliwood is somewhat less popular compared to his fellow lords, but still won a Choose Your Legends event, placing fourth overall in the third Choose Your Legends and was also part of the Heroes launch roster.

Due in part to its lasting legacy as the first game released in the west, a decent portion of the game's cast was a part of the launch roster of Heroes.

Trivia

• An interview about the game in the May 2003 edition of Nintendo Dream mentioned that the game was produced in a year, though it was originally planned to be completed in seven months.
• Of the official English localizations of the series, The Blazing Blade is the only one where item names are not capitalized as proper nouns (aside from regalia weapons and the Light Brand), and are rather presented as common nouns – for example, "Iron Sword" is spelled "Iron sword". From The Sacred Stones onward, capitalizing item names as proper nouns became the series standard.
• This game allows character portraits to wink and blink during dialogue, though the former is used once in the entire game by Matthew in his recruitment conversation with Guy.
• If the player holds Select for a few moments in the game's Battle History in the Extras menu, a screen with a password will pop up. This was presumably used for a contest on the game's official Japanese website, though no official materials outside of Japan are known to acknowledge this feature, despite it being accessible in non-Japanese copies of the game.
• All Generics have a Luck stat of 0, making it easy to inflict a Critical Hit.

Gallery

External links

• Official Japanese site