Fire Emblem

Introduction

Fire Emblem is a video game series developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. It's somewhat notorious for being disproportionately represented in the Super Smash Bros. games.

The mainline Fire Emblem games are single-player turn-based strategy RPGs. You control an army on a grid-based map, taking turns with the enemy AI ordering your army around. You typically play with a numerical disadvantage; the enemy will typically throw large amounts of soldiers against your ragtag army.

This tactical gameplay is matched with a high fantasy storyline. Fire Emblem games' stories are typically very character-driven, following formulaic plots while focusing on characters and their interactions. Every single character in your army is a unique individual who can even develop platonic or even romantic relationships with others in the army; this relationship development feeds back into the gameplay via the Support system, which grants characters with strong bonds combat bonuses when nearby each other.

The development of your units is a big factor in my personal enjoyment of the series. Aside from growing close to their allies, your units also grow in a more personal sense. As your characters defeat more and more enemies, they are able to become stronger. But your characters can also die permanently; if a character's HP drops to zero during a battle, that character will perish, being removed from both the gameplay and the story.

In terms of other Fire Emblem-specific gameplay mechanics is the Weapon Triangle. Starting with Genealogy of the Holy War, the common physical melee weapons are in a rock-paper-scissors-esque balance: swords beat axes beat lances beat swords. This, combined with the fact that characters are often only able to wield one or two types of weapons, makes it all the more important to have a variety of characters (in theory). There are also other weapons like bows or unarmed combat; in particular, both healing and offensive magic are often prominently featured, the latter of which even occasionally having its own weapon triangle, though the specific nature of which is often different on a per-game basis.

Most Fire Emblem games are standalone stories, often taking place in entirely new continents. You could probably get into the series starting basically anywhere -- although I'm not sure you'd want to try starting with something like Thracia 776...

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