First, this game was released as, how should I put it, as a decoy. To keep the fans sidetracked from the upcoming Gamecube title, for the series. Not a lot of thought went into this series. The game is fun, but short. Even with the extra battle modes and unlockables. Shorter than the more linear games before and after it. Not a lot to keep you attached. It's one of those get in/get out, disposable games, that Nintendo does often, to keep the audience busy. This wouldn't have happen if the original creator Shozo Kaga, had been still involved. I'll leave him out of this, like Nintendo has. For another time I will talk about him.
On to the game mechanics, which I'm not real to critical about like other professional sites, such as my favorite http://www.ign.com/. Graphical it has no difference then the previous ones. Certainly, Intelligent Systems made no effort in improving or making new moves in that department. Musically, it has it's style, but nothing like my gal Yuka Tsujiyoko. She supervised over Yoshito Hirano and others. Not much from the short selection of music that I can pick out. Maybe because three composers were involved, same number of directors for this game. Can't tell who did what.
The first half of the game is a breeze. I find it fun. Difficulty is laughable. I like the plethora of units to choose from. Though there were little as one to each category. The summoner was a real neat class, as I like most of the magic users. The best feature of the game is the choices, although its not expansive enough. The places to go, is one of those features, but nothing too attractive about. Nothing that can make me go Tower of Valni a second or third time after everything is unlocked, or even enough motivation to level up units through the skirmishes. In fact, all those map choices made the game a bit too convenient.
What should have been done was, between each chapter, have the ability to have some side plots for the minor characters. They could have upped the difficulty on the next main story chapter, so that extra skirmishes wouldn't be making the map so easy to clear. I like the choices available for unit growth. It's not as one way like before, but that feature was soon discarded. I would actually be hasty as to make Ewan a Sage or Druid. Though with the mine cheat, you can get all four magics as a sage.
I would have liked a little more choices on the weapons side. Especially the magics. I wanted to see different sprites for each individual and the weapons they use. Fire Emblem has a lot of variety, but it calls for more.
Story wise, it's below standard. The things that grabbed me most were the characters that either died or the minor ones. Such as, Orsen's betrayel, and his illusion of being with his dead wife. Then Queen Ismaire's death, La'Rachael and her gangs quest for justice. I found that last one to be a comical situation. For the villians side, Selena and her relationship with the king, to Lyon and his turn to the dark side is most revelating. The twin leads didn't hook me much, but Ephraim was a cool unit to use. I liked that each nation had dual sets of sacred treasure. Since this was a decoy game, a vast world was made but little to no information was bothered to be included.
Character design was really unattractive. I've inserted the images above of my favorite artwork. Minor characters were very weak, in design and personality. Getting through all their support conversations really didn't help much. La"Rachel and her gang amused me, as well as the uptight, Lute. I still don't like her. The villians dialogues are what made me intrigued. Selena was a strong character, as were the other generals, but thats normal for me to like such evil characters. Very few characters had good background stories. It left the characters and therefore, Magvel, a short one-stop place.
One final note is that I wish there was actually artwork for exlusive weapons and worlds. I'm kind of tired of seeing just character artwork and the few epic posters. This is a quality game from Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, though to them, this was bait for us. I'd get it just to enjoy the short story and have fun with many of the new and exclusive features to the series.
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