Fire RMNblem

Intro

"Fire RMNblem" is a turn-based strategy/tactics game that was created as part of the RETROMANIA event by Dyhalto using Sim RPG Maker 95. For the curious the RETROMANIA event was held to celebrate the site's 10th birthday. And if you can guess based on the game's name alone this game is meant to both celebrate the site's history by having a lot of in-game nods to community members as well as a tribute to the Fire Emblem franchise. The latter of those elements is a bit bittersweet for me. On one hand I really like to play strategy games. On the other hand, I really hate when those games include perma death since it forces the player to be more cautious and results in battles that can drag and make the game lose any sense of proper pacing. And this is definitely an issue for this game since if you want to make it to the end without losing anybody you'll need to do a lot of grinding against low level enemies and probably save-scum a lot as well so you can ensure your level-ups always result in you gaining a lot of stats. Admittedly that last part can be avoided to a certain extent, but I'll explain that in a little bit. For now I'd like to discuss the game's plot.

Story

You play as a ragtag group of rebels being led by Liberty whose decided to join a rebellion against King Kentona. Apparently Kentona has gone mad with power and is now ruling his people with an iron fist. Though getting to the King will be quite a struggle and require the player to recruit new allies and visit shrines for valuable blessings (class upgrades) for your units. A task that is definitely exhausting. So much so that you'll probably want to visit town after forcing Kentona to move to a different castle. I'd make a joke about the king being in a different castle, but the game does that for me. Just don't expect me to go digging through my files for it since I have dozens of hours of footage for this game.

Though I do know if you pay a visit to Liberty's hometown after forcing Kentona to move to another castle you can get some Liberty fan service.



And I have to agree this game can definitely be exhausting. So it's probably worthwhile to take a nap or two on your journey to complete this game. Though after tracking down Kentona and beating him for real the game then reveals that Kentona was just a distraction for the true villain who had turned Kentona into his slave using the power of the Game of the Year Misao. And if we don't stop the real villain he'll inevitably destroy the world by taking over the mind of the system administrator.

Though why bad guys always think they can control such primal forces with tools they created is beyond me. And of course the villain de jure gets what's coming to him upon awakening the system administrator. I suppose he should look at the bright side. At least he died by my hands instead of being turned into a playing card and destroyed like Heishin in "Forbidden Memories" for the PS1. Though, I still call bullshit on the story even getting that far, but I probably shouldn't get into that right now.

Gameplay

Gameplay wise this game operates a lot like "Fire Emblem Gaiden" for the Nintendo Entertain System (NES). As such if your familiar with that game there really aren't going to be any major surprises here. For those unfamiliar "Fire Emblem Gaiden" is a bit different from most Fire Emblem games in that Archers can actually return fire on enemies that attack them directly since bows have a starting range of one. Though oddly enough this is one of the few aspects of that game that didn't carry over.

Another oddity about "Fire Emblem Gaiden" is that the weapon triangle doesn't exist. This isn't to say that certain units don't have clear weaknesses to certain types of weapons, but that largely boils down to flying units taking extra damage from bows and that only applies if the archer has an attack value in excess of the flying units defense. Other wise the attack does nothing since the bonus damage can only be applied if you inflict damage in the first place.
This is also applies to the holy weapons that are super effective against the undead zombies, mummies, skeletons, gargoyles and zombie dragons you'll run across. Though oddly enough the holy weapons are a must if you want to see the game's damage cap.



Another thing to keep in mind is that you get to attack multiple times if your speed is at least three points higher than your opponent. This means really fast units like Kloey can utterly devastate enemy units, but this multi attack ability only triggers if your the one attacking. You and the enemy still only get to respond once when your counter-attacking the enemy for inflicting damage. And that only applies if the unit that was attacked is both alive and has a weapon with enough reach to hit the enemy back. A factor that can be readily exploited if you can pin an archer on all sides or are attacking a melee unit with long range weapons like bows which can shoot up to five spaces away once you've acquired a steel bow.

Another factor to keep in mind that the damage formula in this game is super simple with melee damage being calculated by simply comparing a unit's strength stat versus the target's defense stat. In fact, if all of your units on the field are impossible for the enemy to hurt. They'll simple move to surround Liberty. At least if they've been given permission to move since some units will maintain their position in order to guard an area either indefinitely or for a certain number of turns.

Magic damage works slightly differently with spells providing additional damage on top of the user's magic stat. The user's magic stat also influences their magic defense as well with every two points in a unit's magic stat equating to one point in magic defense. So even if a unit can't cast spells. It's still important to have a high magic stat in order to resist incoming spells. This is why certain defensive units in this game are utterly useless. While they may have a solid physical defense. Their low magic stats means they'll sometimes take upwards of 25 points of damage if they get hit by a fireball launched by an enemy wizard or witch.

Another thing to keep in mind is that your stat gains are luck based. Every time a unit levels up they have a chance to gain a point in their various stats until they've reached the cap for that stat. This means it's a good idea to save before every level up in order to ensure you always get a decent amount of points upon leveling up. You can ignore this advice but it does mean your units will be weaker and nowhere near the stat caps for their unit. This also means it's a really bad idea to promote units early since you'll effectively be losing out on over half a dozen chances to gain points. This is something I definitely came to regret in my run, but I was working under the false assumption the game was only two chapters long when I did it. An assumption that was very wrong. Thankfully my growth on certain units was pretty good and I was able to reinforce a few units to build a key party around using gear, but I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had waited.

Albeit the game does give you a reason to kill off and revive a few units upon recruiting Ozzy. This is because he comes with a ring that gives your units an enhanced growth rate which can be used to ensure certain units you recruit near the start of the game can easily reach the stat cap or at least get close to it if you level them up again. Though you want to be careful if you do this since you can only revive up to six units in this game. And this can only be done at two different shrines which are protected by dangerous groups of enemies.

Another thing to keep in mind is that gear in this game is very expensive if you want anything beyond the basics. In fact, the best shield in the game costs 20,000 maker score while the best item you can reliably farm for money is worth 1,000 maker score. And this item can only be found by fighting random groups of enemies in a forest near the end of the game. So unless your willing to dump dozens of hours into this game. You'll probably only be able to afford one or two of these shields at most over the course of a run.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this game is very grind heavy. In fact, you'll really want to pump those stats if you can in later parts of the game just so you can keep your units alive since you'll frequently find yourself getting swarmed by both ranged and melee units. At least if it's possible for the enemy to do so. So you'll want your defense stats to be really high in order to ensure you can take four or more hits in a row in certain fights and be able to survive even if one or more of them was a critical hit. Unfortunately if they get too high it means the battles in this game can turn into a very drawn out affair since the enemy will only attack the player if they can at least inflict a single point of damage.

In fact, I frequently found myself in a lot of places in this game just slowly crushing my enemies with a small number of units like Yellow and Kloey since they were the only units they had enough defense to withstand the enemy consistently enough to remain useful. Especially in fights where the game tossed half dozen or more witches at me. And you definitely don't want to take witches lightly since they can move farther than mounted units in this game. In fact, on certain maps they can effectively reach almost any point on the map on their first turn.

Bugs

One time I fought in one of the graveyards near the start of the game and got warped onto a square in the forest that is otherwise inaccessible and had to reload from my last save. Thankfully I didn't lose too much progress on a unit I was leveling up while using Ozzy's ring, but it was still annoying. Unfortunately since I was grinding at the time I don't have any footage of that incident and I didn't think to take a screenshot of where I ended up either. Thankfully this doesn't appear to be a bug that pops up regularly since I only had it happen once even though I spent hours grinding that particular field in order to level up Rose, Ozzy, and a bunch of other units.

Another issue I noticed is that the Excalibur spell can miss in this game. This is a bug in my opinion since the spell's in game description says it's 100 percent accurate.



Graphics

Graphically the game borrows a lot unit sprites from "Fire Emblem Gaiden" while including a few custom sprites as well as those probably lifted from other sources. Though I'll admit the differences in the look of some of the sprites is very noticeable. Probably one of the biggest offenders is the bigger bandit whose sprite is both larger than every other unit excluding giants and certain bosses. It also feels less detailed as well. As a result it doesn't match up well with the smaller and more detailed sprites. Though maybe I'm wrong and that sprite really didn't come from the game and it always stood out from the rest.

On the mapping side of things the game is rather boring since a lot of maps include a lot of open space for moving units around. So you have large swaths of area where the three tile rule is being ignored. Something the game itself points out. At least if you take a certain character with you into the game's final battle.

Music

Honestly this aspect of the game was just meh for me. This is because the game really doesn't include any songs that caught my interest enough to listen to them outside of this game nor does it use the background music in a way that really sells a scene. As such I don't have anything particularly negative or positive to say about this aspect of the game.

Conclusion

"Fire RMNblem" much like the game it's inspired by suffers from severe pacing issues due to how grind heavy both games are. As a result the story can feel like it's dragging on without an end in sight for hours at a time. To make matters worse if you do the required grinding the battles in this game become mind numbingly easy, but do to how spread out the enemies are on most maps it means battles can drag on for way too long. As a result I have a love hate relationship with this game. On one hand I love the turn-based battles and the need for positioning your units in certain fights in order to stymie the enemy. On the other hand most fights in this game are so devoid of tension that I just find myself wanting to go play something else since it feels like the game is just wasting my time needlessly with certain fights.