Fire Emblem (Japanese:ファイアーエムブレム 烈火の剣Fire Emblem: The Sword of Raging Fire), retroactively subtitledThe Blazing Blade, is aGame Boy Advance game released in 2003, and later re-released on theWii U Virtual Console in 2014. It is the seventh game in theFire Emblem series, the second game in the series to be released on the Game Boy Advance, and was the series' first internationally-released title, spurred on by the sparking of interest in the series caused bySuper Smash Bros. Melee and the recent release ofAdvance Wars.^[1]

The Blazing Blade is a prequel toFire Emblem: The Binding Blade, set on the same continent ofElibe twenty years prior to its predecessor's events. It stars three mainlord characters:Eliwood andHector, the fathers ofThe Binding Blade'sRoy andLilina 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 sorcererNergal, who seeks to summon the long-banisheddragons back to Elibe for his own gain.

Plot

InFire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, the player is given a direct character role in the story, asa tactician who guides the armies ofLyn and laterEliwood andHector to victory in battle. At the start of the game, the tactician's name, month of birth, gender, and (only in the Japanese version) blood type are decided by the player; by default, the tactician's name isMark.

Lyn's tale

Mark wakes up in a house on theSacae plains. A teenage girl introduces herself as Lyn of the Lorca, a tribe of nomadic plains dwellers. Suddenly, bandits attack; Mark aids Lyn, who, with a sword, fights them off. The next morning, she decides to travel with Mark, to avenge her dead parents and the rest of the Lorca tribe, who were killed by bandits.

In the town ofBulgar, Lyn meets the womanizing cavalierSain and his more serious partnerKent, both knights ofCaelin, a territory inLycia. She is disgusted by Sain's nature and leaves the city. Then, more bandits arrive to attack Lyn, and the knights go to their aid. After the battle, the knights inform Lyn, whose name is revealed to be Lyndis, that her motherMadelyn was the daughter ofHausen, the marquess of Caelin, making Lyn next in line for the throne. The bandits were sent byLundgren, Hausen's younger brother, who aspires to be marquess. Lyn is a threat to this, so her life is in danger; the group decides to go to Caelin.

Lyn takes the group to a shrine to pray for a safe journey. There, her party defeats bandits seeking to steal the sacred sword,Mani Katti. As thanks, the caretaker of the shrine allows Lyn to hold the Mani Katti and pray. She draws it from its sheath, meaning the sword's spirits have chosen her. Since Lyn is the rightful owner, the priest allows her to take the sword.

Lyn sees her friend, the shy pegasus knightFlorina, being bullied by a group of the Ganelon bandits. The bandits start a fight, during which an archer namedWil lends a hand. The group then stops at a small fort where they meet Natalie, a woman looking for her husbandDorcas. More Ganelon bandits surround the fort, including Dorcas, who had joined the bandits to pay for Natalie's illness. He is convinced by Lyn to switch sides; after the bandits retreat, he decides to join the growing party. As Lyn approaches the border, two other travelers, the talkative clericSerra and her escort, a serious mage namedErk are caught up in another fight. Both join Lyn after the bandits' defeat.

Lyn travels toAraphen, whose marquess is willing to help. Suddenly, the castle is set on fire by Lundgren's assassins and Lyn is attacked; however,Rath, a high-ranking Araphen officer and a Sacaean nomad of the Kutolah tribe, comes to her aid. The cheerful thiefMatthew joins and helps them enter the barracks by unlocking doors. After the battle, Lyn meets the marquess of Araphen. However, he views Sacaeans as savages and refuses to help Lyn. Rath, who overhears his comments, leaves the marquess's service and joins Lyn.

While passing throughKhathelet, Lyn runs into a strange boy,Nils, who requests her help to get his sisterNinian back from a shady organization called theBlack Fang. The two are traveling performers: a dancer and a bard, respectively. A monk namedLucius also joins, having heard Nils's plight. Lyn's forces manage to defeat the Black Fang; in the castle, they find that Ninian has already been rescued byEliwood, the son of the marquess ofPherae. Lyn thanks him and tells him her story; Eliwood decides to help Lyn out. Ninian and Nils also start to help Lyn by using their powers, which allow them to sense approaching dangers. Ninian finds that she has lost her ring,Ninis's Grace, a keepsake from her mother. Lyn and the others are able to track the Black Fang down and reclaim Ninian's ring from them.

Lyn continues to encounter more numerous and advanced troops on the way to Caelin. Matthew learns that Lundgren has been poisoning Hausen. Furthermore, he has also been spreading false rumors that Lyn is an impostor. Eliwood helps Lyn by convincing the other Lycian territories to stay neutral in the conflict, leaving Lundgren her only opponent. The group encounters the hearty former Caelin generalWallace, who remains loyal to Lord Hausen and believes Lyn, joining her forces.

Lyn finally reachesCastle Caelin and, after a heated battle, defeats Lundgren. She is finally able to meet Hausen, her grandfather, who is near death because of the poison. However, Lyn convinces him that they still have much they can do together, and Hausen decides to make an effort to continue living and begins to recover. When Lyn decides to stay in Caelin, Florina and Wil enter the service of House Caelin to stay with her. The rest of the characters go their separate ways, as described in their endings. Mark takes their leave to travel on their own for a time. Lyn's tale ends here.

Eliwood's tale – Finding Elbert

Eliwood's tale takes place a year after the events of Lyn's tale. A month before the story begins, the marquess of Pherae and Eliwood's father, Lord Elbert, vanished while journeying abroad, along with several of his best vassals. Eliwood leaves Pherae to search for him, along with the paladinMarcus, an old family retainer, and the cavalierLowen a new but skilled Pheraean recruit.

Eliwood, desperate to find any lead on his father, leaves Pherae.Hector sneaks away fromOstia to accompany him in his search. Eliwood first goes toSantaruz to askHelman, the marquess, if he knows anything of Elbert's whereabouts. Eliwood arrives to find Helman injured by a member of theBlack Fang,Ephidel. Helman uses his dying words to inform Eliwood to seek out marquessLaus,Darin.

Eliwood and Hector head for Laus but end up attacked by Darin's subordinates and his son,Erik. Darin flees before he is captured, abandoning his son. After being defeated, Erik tells Eliwood of the strange man, named Ephidel, that is manipulating his father. Eliwood then chases after Darin and the Black Fang; he then finds himself defendingCaelin from a Black Fang assault and earnsLyn as an ally.

Leila, an Ostian spy situated into the Black Fang, appears and informs Hector that the Black Fang and Darin are on theDread Isle. Eliwood immediately leaves forBadon to request passage to the isle. He is initially unsuccessful, owing to the island's reputation, though eventually the pirate captainFargus steps up to the challenge.

After arriving on the isle and fighting through a large portion of the Black Fang's forces and encountering Ninian, Eliwood kills Darin and finally locates his father in the clutches of a man namedNergal. Nergal attempts to summon a dragon with Ninian using Elbert'sQuintessence, but he is interrupted byNils and the incompletely opened gate destroys the dragon andEphidel, who was standing nearby. Nergal reappears after the gate has stabilized, but Elbert wounds him to chase him off. Unfortunately Elbert dies in Eliwood's arms after this and the group leaves the Dread Isle to head home to Pherae.

Bern and the Shrine of Seals

When Eliwood reunited with his father on the Dread Isle, Elbert lived just long enough to inflict a severe but not fatal wound on Nergal, and to warn Eliwood that Nergal would be back and that Eliwood and his friends would have to be ready when he was. During the return journey, Nils and Ninian informed Eliwood that Nergal was somewhere far to the east, i.e. in Bern. They stopped at a fortress near Ostia to rendezvous with Uther and inform him of these new developments, whereupon Uther suggested that they make a detour to the Nabata Desert on the Missur Peninsula to seek the "Living Legend" before heading to Bern.

The Living Legend was none other than the Archsage Athos, one of the Eight Legends of the Scouring, who agreed to help Eliwood and his friends in unlocking the Divine Weapons to aid in combating Nergal. For this purpose, he said, it would be necessary to travel to the Shrine of Seals in Bern. His friends Pent, Louise, and Hawkeye agreed to aid Eliwood as well. Athos teleported the group to Pherae, where they spent the night before setting out for Bern.

Eliwood and his companions clashed with one of the Reed brothers near the Bern-Pherae border, while Pent and Louise sought out an audience with Queen Hellene of Bern to ask her about the location of the Shrine of Seals.

Hellene had problems of her own, however, which she required Eliwood to resolve before she would aid him in finding the Shrine of Seals. Zephiel's coming of age ceremony was fast approaching, but the Fire Emblem, a vital component to the ceremony, had been stolen. Eliwood's task, therefore, was to retrieve the Fire Emblem and return it to Hellene.

Searching for clues as to the Fire Emblem's whereabouts, Eliwood and his companions traveled to the royal castle of Bern and, finding it unguarded, sneaked in. They overheard Prince Zephiel playing with Princess Guinivere, and King Desmond talking to Sonia; the latter conversation confirmed that the Fire Emblem was hidden in the Black Fang's fortress. After nearly being spotted by Sonia, Eliwood fled the castle only to find Vaida harassing Nils and Ninian. Because Vaida was empowered by Nergal, Eliwood was unable to do more than fight her to a stalemate, but eventually she tired of the fight and retreated.

Lyn used her tracking skills to lead the group in pursuing Vaida high into the mountains, to the Black Fang fortress. They arrived in time to eavesdrop on Sonia's next assignment for Jaffar, one of theFour Fangs: to kill Prince Zephiel that night. Eliwood and company were spotted by the Black Fang, however, and some enchantment prevented them from leaving the fortress until they had fought their way through to the source of the enchantment. One of the leaders of the Black Fang had the Fire Emblem in his possession, which Eliwood took before fleeing to the manse where Zephiel and Hellene lived.

They arrived at the manse that night and succeeded in stopping the attempt on Zephiel's life. The next morning, Hellene rewarded Eliwood with a map to the Shrine of Seals.

When they arrived at the Shrine of Seals, they found the surviving Reed brother and the last remnants of the Black Fang guarding it. After Eliwood defeated them, Athos teleported to the Shrine and admitted that while he could have simply teleported everyone else directly to the Shrine as well, he needed proof that Eliwood would not be swayed by the immense power of the Divine Weapons, and that the journey through Bern was a test of Eliwood's strength and determination. They entered the shrine and encountered Bramimond the Enigma, and they convinced it to open the seals guarding the Divine Weapons.

Defeating Nergal

Just as Eliwood and his party were leaving the Shrine of Seals, they encountered Nergal, fully healed and more powerful than ever. He demanded that Eliwood hand over Nils and Ninian on pain of death; Ninian volunteered to be taken hostage in exchange for Nils' freedom. Nergal agreed, and he struck Eliwood down when Eliwood objected. If not for Athos' protection, Eliwood might have died then and there.

More determined to stop Nergal than ever, Eliwood ventured into a cavern near Ostia, where the ghosts of Roland and his most trusted soldiers guarded Durandal, the Blazing Blade. Eliwood defeated the ghosts of the soldiers and obtained Durandal with Roland's blessing. Outside the cave, he was accosted by a huge dragon of ice. Before he could think to do otherwise, he took up Durandal and struck down the creature. Nergal appeared again and informed him that the dragon was none other than Ninian, who had transformed and fled again rather than obey Nergal's commands. She transformed back into her human form just long enough to say goodbye to Eliwood before dying in his arms. Athos fought Nergal, barely injuring him at all, and Nergal retreated with one last insult on the great man Athos once was, and the path that the two of them had once traveled together.

Exhausted and grief-stricken, Eliwood and his friends set out for Castle Ostia, where they planned to rest in preparation for the final attack on Nergal. Their rest was interrupted by a band of Nergal's morphs who had infiltrated the castle and delivered a message from Nergal: "I await you on the Dread Isle." Athos realized that he would need more time to obtain certain other Divine Weapons and alert Bramimond to the threat that Nergal posed to Elibe, but Eliwood was eager to set forth for the Dread Isle and take the fight to Nergal's morphs before he could attack again. Eliwood left Durandal in Athos' care, knowing that they would meet again at the Dragon's Gate, and that when they did, he would not hesitate to take up his ancestor's Divine Weapon again.

Eliwood sailed to the Dread Isle a second time and destroyed most of the morphs guarding the Dragon's Gate before Athos arrived. Together they fought through the reanimated bodies of Lord Darin and the most powerful members of the Black Fang before confronting Nergal himself. With his dying breath, Nergal opened the Dragon's Gate and called three Fire Dragons through.

At that moment, Bramimond arrived and used his magic to restore Ninian to life; with her icy magic she subdued two of the dragons before collapsing from exhaustion, leaving it up to Eliwood and his friends to defeat the third. After the battle, knowing that Elibe would never be safe as long as the Dragon's Gate remained open, Nils stepped through the portal to close it from the other side.

Hector's tale

Hector's tale covers the same events as Eliwood's tale, but instead focuses on Hector as the main character. Several events are changed slightly, and some extra chapters are added:

• Chapter 11 covers Hector's departure from Ostia with Matthew.
• Chapter 15 is a Hector's tale-exclusive chapter that involves Hector's party defending Laus from invaders.
• Chapter 19x pt 2 is a Hector's tale-exclusive side-chapter that becomes available if the party kills Kishuna in Chapter 19x and if Nils was at least level 7 by the end of Lyn's tale.
• Chapter 25 is a Hector's tale-exclusive chapter that introduces a new character:Farina, one of the three pegasus sisters. She will join the party if paid 20,000 gold.
• Chapter 30, instead of dealing with Eliwood looking for Durandal, covers Hector's search for Armads.
• Chapter 31x also introduces a new character: the swordmasterKarla, sister to Karel. She can be recruited after a duel with Bartre, but only if he is at least a level 5 Warrior.
• Chapter 32x is a Hector's tale-exclusive chapter that concludes the Kishuna subplot. It can be accessed if the player completes chapter 32 in 20 turns or less.

In addition, many chapters feature different or additional enemies, so the difficulty of Hector's tale is generally increased when compared to Eliwood's.

Gameplay

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Overall,The Blazing Blade features no significant changes to its gameplay compared toThe Binding Blade; though there were several smaller adjustments.

The Blazing Blade reintroduces the ability for enemies to drop items upon defeat, a gameplay feature absent fromThe Binding Blade. Additionally, the player may now useclass change and stat boosteritems from thepreparations menu instead of deploying the desired unit to use the item in the next chapter.The Blazing Blade also removes the ability for units to gain multiple Sweapon levels, instead limiting each unit to mastering only one weapon type (with one playableexception).

Thieves and theTransporter were both given class changes; both classes lacked the ability to class change inThe Binding Blade.

The Blazing Blade also adds the ability for the player to declineside quests.

Compared toThe Binding Blade,The Blazing Blade has several moregameplay modes;The Binding Blade only has normal and hard, while The Blazing Blade has Lyn's tale, Eliwood's tale, and Hector's tale, with each tale having a normal and hard variant.

Graphically,The Blazing Blade made revisions to several battle animations introduced inThe Binding Blade. These revisions include smoothing out some animations and changing the outfits of some classes; for instance the femaleSage loses the poofy sleeves on her dress and gains elbow length gloves, theDruid was given a new sound effect when performing acritical hit, theMercenary's outfit and build were given slight modifications, and so on. Additionally,The Blazing Blade was the firstFire Emblem game to have character portraits blink during dialogue scenes.

The Binding Blade gives every weapon in the game a line of flavor text,* all language releases ofThe Blazing Blade instead only feature descriptions onregalia or weapons with special effects.

Characters

Main article:List of characters inFire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

The Blazing Blade features 44 playable characters; however, only 42 are available in any given playthrough, as the player must choose betweenKarel orHarken andWallace orGeitz, and two characters –Farina andKarla – are available only in Hector's tale. Of these 44, 13 are playable in Lyn's tale.

Chapters

Main article:List of chapters inFire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

From the beginning of Lyn's tale to the end of Eliwood or Hector's tale, the game is thirty-two (Eliwood) or thirty-four (Hector) chapters long, counting the prologue and final chapter but none of the side quests. The game features a total of forty-six distinct map chapters, including side quests and alternate versions of chapters.

Support conversations

Main article:List of supports inFire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

Development

Game credits

Main article:Staff ofFire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

Pre-release builds

Main articles:Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0206 andFire Emblem: The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0219

Two pre-release builds of the Japanese version ofThe Blazing Blade were leaked to the public in 2008, and are available inpatchform. Both builds are dated at approximately two months before the Japanese release and as such the bulk of the game is complete in both builds, but there are numerous unfinished and beta elements such as unfinished or different portraits, missing kanji, CG images which are either preliminary sketches or lacking the grainy sepia overlay, slightly or completely different music tracks, minor statistical differences, and numerous portions ofThe Binding Blade's interface left intact.

Reception

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade currently holds aGame Rankings aggregate score of 88.3%, which was the highest of any game in the series untilFire Emblem Awakening was released a decade later.^[2]

Trivia

• In the Japanese release, certain functions in the game are unlocked by linkingThe Blazing Blade to a copy ofThe Binding Blade and transferring data. AsThe Binding Blade was not released outside Japan, this functionality was removed from international releases, and instead the content is either available by default or unavailable. Linking withThe Binding Blade achieves the following effects:
  • Allows the player to skip Lyn's tale on their first playthrough of the game and start from Eliwood's tale instead. No counterpart function exists in the international versions.
  • Two epilogue scenes are unlocked through linking, although both have alternate obtain criteria. A clearedBinding Blade save file which achieved the bad ending (where the game ended atChapter 22) unlocks the first scene with Eliwood, Hector, Roy and Lilina, which can also be obtained by clearing the game nine times. A cleared save with the good endings (where the game ended atthe Final Chapter) unlocks the second scene whereZephiel is confronted byJahn, which can also be obtained by clearing the game eleven times. In the NTSC release of the game, both scenes are in the epilogue by default; in the PAL releases, both scenes are removed entirely.
• Of the official English localizations of the series,The Blazing Blade is the only one where item names are notcapitalized as proper nouns (aside fromregalia weapons and theLight Brand), and are rather presented as common nouns – for example, "Iron Sword" is spelled "Iron sword". FromThe Sacred Stones onward, capitalizing item names as proper nouns became the series standard. Thegringefan translation ofThe Binding Blade and "Project Naga" fan translation ofGenealogy of the Holy War, however, handle item names the same way as this game.
• This game supports the ability to allow characters to wink and blink during dialogue, though the former is used once in the entire game byMatthew in his recruitment conversation withGuy. Because the wink animation plays at the same speed as the blink animation, most players miss it.
• 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. Despite rumors claiming that it was meant for a contest on the game's official Japanese website, no contest forThe Blazing Blade has ever been held, nor were plans even made for one.^[3]

Etymology and other languages

Gallery

• 
  Japanese box art ofThe Sword of Flame.
• 
  American (NTSC) box art ofFire Emblem.
• 
  Japanese logo ofThe Sword of Flame.
• 
  American logo ofFire Emblem.
• 
  The game's Japanese cover artwork.
• 
  Artwork for the game.

Screenshots

• 
  Japanese title screen ofThe Sword of Flame.
• 
  American (NTSC) and European (PAL) title screen ofFire Emblem.
• 
  Still from the game's opening depictingthe Scouring.
• 
  Creating atactician.
• 
  Sain attacks aMorph.
• 
  Canas attacks aBlack Fang member withLuna.
• 
  Uther andHector discussPherae's situation.
• 
  Matthew brings Hector his supplies.
• 
  Hector about to attack an enemySoldier.
• 
  A boss,Bauker, and several enemy units.
• 
  The game'sSound Room.

References

External links

• Fire Emblem official American website (mirror by Tanas Manor)
• Fire Emblem: The Sword of Flame official Japanese website
• Fire Emblem Wii U Virtual Console website (European)
• Fire Emblem: The Sword of Flame Wii U Virtual Console website (Japanese)