Fire Emblem Love

Today I'm posting about my love of the Fire Emblem series. If you don't know what Fire Emblem is, its a series of games developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. It was one of the first turn based strategy games ever made and unlike others of its kind, a large portion of the storyline revolves around very charismatic and memorable characters.


Basically, the game mechanic is this: There is a battle map divided into squares, most of which are traverse-able. There are your forces and enemy forces (and in some battles, ally forces). You begin by moving each of your numerous units around the map and bringing them adjacent to enemy units. Then a battle takes place depending on weapons you chose to attack with, and damage is given and taken. Stats and levels are gained and thus its a strategy RPG game.

Unlike other games of this genre, when a unit dies, it dies for good. This vastly increases the difficulty of the game(s) and keeping your favorite characters alive becomes imperative.

Most of the games are just so darn addictive I've played through most in the series. There are a total of 12 FE games, on consoles from the humble NES to the Wii. Recently, the latest in the series, Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Ken was released for the DS in Japan. It is a remake of the original Fire Emblem game on the NES, with enhanced graphics and both local and online Wifi. A localization has not yet been released but its likely that there will be, as the protagonist of the game appears in Super Smash Brothers: Brawl (Marth..) so English speaking players will have an incentive to buy the game.


I guess the FE series could be considered a niche genre, but I like that fact. Most people find the game pace to be too slow and the difficulty too punishing, but that's what i love about it. There's that feeling of critical decision making that makes the game very cut-throat. You've been playing for an hour and a half, trying to beat that one map, and BAM! your favorite character dies. Do you restart or abandon your favorite character? It was always the former for me, so I sunk much more time than is normal into the games. But hey, that's what I like, and if you haven't tried it yet, so might you.

Now, I'll pop up a few of my favorites from the entire series (they're all great games, mind you, but these are my personal favorites):

1. Fire Emblem Seisen no Keifu
   
   Wow, this is the one that started it all for me. Great charismatic protagonist Sigurd, and my personal favorite, Holyn (swordmaster, gotta love this guy). Some very unique things happened in this one compared to the rest of the games in the series like 2 generations of characters (the second generation consisting of characters from the offspring of the previous generation (who you pair up by making them fall in love)).
   
   

   download: here. This is the english patched rom, just boot it up in zsnes or any emulator of your choice.
   get zsnes (super nintendo emulator): here.

   
   
2. Fire Emblem (GBA)
   
   The first FE on the GBA, this has a different art style. I prefer Seisen no keifu's style, but this game is a great portable FE experience. Highly recommended. The story is watered down compared to the SNES titles, but this is to be expected since the GBA was a very child oriented console (in western countries, anyway).
   
   

   download: here.

   
   
   
3. Fire Emblem : Path Of Radiance
   
   This game was an awesome experience from start to finish. Its a GC (Gamecube) title that was admittedly hard to find, but was well worth the hunt. If you guys drop a few comments, I'll dig up the links for it and hey, you can enjoy the game for yourselves. You play as Ike, a mercenary's son, who finds himself in a complicated war in which he is helplessly entwined. Highly recommended.
   
   comment if you want me to dig up the links for this one, guys!

Well, I know its been a long post, if you've survived this far, good for you and happy Fire Embleming. If you want to take the new DS FE game for a spin, try out this link: HERE. If you want me to sum up what i think is good and bad about it, comment away!

Happy Gaming Guys!

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Dragon Quest The Chapters of the Chosen Impressions

Big news people! The much anticipated Dragon Quest title has been released in English! And more importantly, its a Europe release.

Now, I'm going to test this badboy out on my M3 and see what its all about. If you want to know what an M3 is, check my post on Flashcarts.

I'll report my initial findings on this title. I've been really anxious waiting for this game, I played the fan translation on the super Nintendo but... lets see!

Update: Ok, all I can say is I have a new obsession. I've snapped a few screenshots for your viewing pleasure.



Impressions: The gameplay runs smooth and feels very solid. The battle animations are very smooth and the camera moves very nicely. To be completely honest with you, I could never get into dragon quest games because well the battle system was just so oldschool. I always preferred the style where you see your guys and the bad guys. This new detail in battle, I loved.I will surely play this game.A little more on the aesthetics, the game's camera can be rotated 360 degrees and the world is rendered in 3d while all characters are nicely colored sprites.

After smashing a whole bunch of boxes, I talked to a frog (wont post any spoilers here...hehe) and continued to fight my first battle with...wait for it...you guessed it...a SLIME! Oh, I'm excited. Now to post on Pokemon Platinum... what a great night!

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The Flashcart world: Which product is for you?

First of all, lets make sure we're on the same page here. If you have a DS, you owe it to yourself to purchase a Flashcart. Why, you ask? Well, a Flashcart will enhance your experience with your DS tenfold. With almost any Flashcart, you are able to listen to music, watch videos, play games, read text files, and most importantly use homebrew. Heck, homebrew alone would make a Flashcart purchase worthwhile!

So what is a flashcart you ask? A flashcart is a device which allows unsigned software to run on the DS. This in turn opens up all the doors. You cant illegally download games onto your ds with ease, you can utilize homebrew and so much more.

So which Flashcart is for you? In a sea of products, there is actually a very few products you must choose from. First, lets start from my personal favorite - the M3 Real.

Now, you can read much more about the M3 Real at gbatemp.net, but I'll give you a quick summary. With the new sakura firmware, the M3 R has the best user interface hands down. It has a perfect compatibility with all commercial roms working. It supports SDHC, so up to 32gb of roms can be rammed into your ds. Oh lordy!

With the slot 2 expansion ram, you can also play ALL GBA roms on your DS and also use the Opera web browser. This is a huge advantage and the sole reason I prefer the M3R. The price is reasonable considering the features.

Now lets move to a cheaper alternative. The Acekart 2, a great product, solid build, nice features, SDHC support, good skinnable UI and respectable compatibility list. This product is the poor mans Flashcart, but is in no way a dud product.

Finally, we have the rich mans Flashcart - the CycloDS revolution. This is the premier flashcart, with better compatibility than all others, premium build quality, SDHC support, in game slowdown, Real time save and an active community. The only reason i prefer the M3 over this is the Ram expansion pack (ie GBA rom support).

Finally, a warning to those looking for a Flashcart. STAY AWAY FROM R4! I'm serious, this product is pretty much out of commission and you can pick up a Acekart 2 for much cheaper most places i looked (online, of course.).

Where to buy (only aussie sources, sorry guys):
www.ozmodchips.com.au
www.acegamestore.com.au

For further information, look at the reviews section at gbatemp.net.

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Tales of Innocence Translation Projects News

Tales of Innocence is, for those who don't know, a very ambitious game developed by Alfa Systems and published by Namco Bandai. The game was released on December 6th 2007 in Japan. There has been no word on an English release, much to the distress of the English speaking world.

If you haven't seen this game, do check it out. Its amazing. The game features voice acting in key scenes, multiple characters, a complex storyline which is not childish, amazing graphics considering the DS'es limitations, and great gameplay.

Basically the game could be described as an action RPG, and a quick play of the game shows how addictive this can get. You don't slug through menus choosing attacks and watching the show, you actually take direct control of any of your characters in a 3D battlefield and are able to guard, attack and perform special abilities. But I'm not here to review the game (not this time, anyway) so lets get to the meat of the problem. Lets just say Tales of Innocence received a 9/9/9/8 (35/40) score from Famitsu. Nuff' said.

So we cant play the game if we don't know Japanese. And when I say know Japanese, I mean it. This game is literally swimming in text. The storyline is an important element of the game and is pretty much necessary to enjoy the experience. So you have 2 options right now: Learn Japanese, or Wait for a translation patch (provided you have a Flashcart /or plan on playing on an emulator).

I don't know about you, but I'm currently learning Japanese. I don't think I'm getting very far very fast, but I'm moving. At this point in time, I'm waiting for which comes faster. Now, lets get to what has been done and whats being done.

There are 2 projects that I know of working on Tales of Innocence. The first patch to appear was by a guy called psycoblaster. He's released a fairly low quality patch at the moment and he's changed the main thread of his translation over at gbatemp.net to a new location. Here's a slice from his post:

"Current Progress:

Main Menu - Done
Options - Done
Sub menus - Done
Skills - Started
Style Skills - Started
Items -
Stats - Done
Item captions -
Skill captions -

Known Bugs:

Because I've changed the font, many things are misplaced, especially in the character stats menu. The name is misplaced, and the stats (ATK, DEF, etc) are misplaced due to the font height. (check screens)

Many graphic glitches on the Emulator. Hope this doesn't happen on a DS.

Crashes everywhere. Hope this is also only because it's an emulator."

Quite an unspectacular patch but considering this guy knew pretty much nothing about romhacking before he started this project, its a good achievement.

Now lets move to a more ambitious and 'serious' project. The brilliant team of translators at zettaizero have announced that they are taking on Tales of Innocence. These guys have done Tales of Phantasia on the PSX and its an awesome product. Extremely professional. If you want to see some screens on how these guys are going, jump into their site here.

In short, they've completed the item names, some menus and some dialogue. They are not disclosing a completion date for the project but the lead translator throughhim413 said:

"We're talking about this project being done in months, not in years." Link.

They have also disclosed that their project will be released only when it is 100% complete and ready to be enjoyed by gamers. They have also stated that there will be a CLOSED beta phase.

In any case, their project is extremely professional and I for one believe that they will provide us a full patch soon.

I will keep you guys posted on the developments for these patches and any others that crop up.

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