Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade — A Series Send-Off to a Better Future

Roughly 2.5 years after its last entry, Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (or Fire Emblem 6) was released on March 29, 2002 in Japan for the Game Boy Advance. Being a tactical RPG in line with the rest of the franchise, you command a young fighter named Roy in the all-new setting of Elibe with a history all of its own — meaning past and future games aren’t a requirement to start playing.

The game’s box art, courtesy of Serenes Forest

Often compared to chess, you move a select number of soldiers in a grid-based map across many “chapters,” being the game’s levels, to defeat the enemy army. You recruit more as you progress through the game, eventually amassing into a legion of your own. And when a unit dies, that’s that, they’re no longer usable. Either restart the chapter, or think your next few moves very carefully.

This marked the beginning of two new eras for the franchise: one where Fire Emblem was mostly known to stay on portable systems rather than home consoles, and another where series creator, director, and game designer Shouzou Kaga left the series for good. Why? That’s a bit of a story in of itself, but I’ll try to be brief.

Fire Emblem 5 had a bit of a wonky development cycle, and during that time period a prototype known as Fire Emblem 64 was in the works — intended to be the series’ first 3D entry for the Nintendo 64 console. The game was tucked away after some unknown issues, the ideas were saved for a rainy day, and they wound their way into three different games. Fire Emblem 5, the current topic Binding Blade, and a different title intended to be a Fire Emblem game that Kaga tried to create for the original Playstation due to its superior hardware. It’s also worth noting that after FE5’s release he left the development company Intelligent Systems to start his own, known as Tirnanog Company.

Nintendo, being the owner of Fire Emblem’s rights, was naturally furious and ordered him to stop. He technically did, but from what’s known ended up changing all the names and made his own tactical RPG series called TearRing Saga that lasted for a total of 2 titles. Meanwhile, Intelligent Systems did some light restructuring and ended up finishing development for Binding Blade. Also, if you weren’t aware, Fire Emblem is still making games and is now considered one of Nintendo’s most well-known and profitable franchises. Oops.

Additionally, while not too much is known about the development cycle of Binding Blade (or at least, translated in English), what we do know seems pretty busy. Lost builds for the original project Fire Emblem 64 (later code-named Fire Emblem: Maiden of Darkness) have screenshots and not much else. Though it is noteworthy for having characters from Binding Blade like Eliwood and Idunn present, as we’ll later get into.

Scrapped on September 24th, 2000, its ideas were heavily reworked into Binding Blade and later titles. American news sites were reporting on it and an official international version seems to have been discussed, but never came to fruition. Now the main way to play in English is via the fan translation first released in 2006, which is how I experienced the game. And unless a remake or remaster occurs in the future, I suspect it will stay that way after over 20 years of nothing.

This character in particular, Ephraim, would later get his own leading role in Fire Emblem 8

Putting all of that aside, FE6 still managed to come out well in spite of the shenanigans going on all around it. While people do love to have a trigger finger and point all of the creative decisions to the director, Kaga had an undeniable impact on the series and pushed it in bold directions for all 5 entries. FE1 practically invented the genre, FE2 drove the Famicom console to its limits and had split stories, FE3 was two games in one with a number of gameplay additions, FE4 was an epic told across two generations, and FE5 more mechanically rich and pushed first-time difficulty to the roof. Where do you go when your main man is gone and the series has stretched its boundaries in so many directions? Repeat everything that worked!

Yeah, in a weird way it is that simple (even if the game explores a few new ventures).

I hate to call Binding Blade unoriginal, but it does feel like a culmination of most entries and executing them in an okay manner. It has a story tone that feels like an in-between of Marth’s two games (FE1 and FE3), being serious but not too dire of a tone so that it isn’t depressing or overly dramatic. While we’re talking about the story, it’s almost beat-for-beat FE1’s plot with later elements thrown in. Even still, what does Binding Blade do for itself, if anything at all?

If It Ain’t Broke, Combine Every Trope

Very minor spoilers ahead, but you play as Roy, son of the nobleman Eliwood in the Pharae region. Bern, the largest army, led direct attacks on nearby nations (such as the allied Lycia) and Etruria, the second-largest region. Given Eliwood’s poor health, Roy stepped up and became the commander of the Lycian forces, very quickly discovering that the two biggies are without a doubt working together.

From there on, King Zephiel and the “demon priestess” Idunn are given the most focus and presented as your end goal. Dragons are also quickly thrown into the discussion, and with the threat of not just a Bern conquest but a total dragon invasion, Roy makes it his mission to recruit an army, gather the 8 legendary weapons made for killing dragons, stop Etruria and Bern, and defeat whoever’s behind it all.

Brunnya, one of Zephiel’s advisors making note of Idunn to him

If you’ve played any other Fire Emblem game (especially any of Marth’s games), you might recognize that it sounds eerily similar to…well, pretty much all of them. It feels like a fusion of FE3 in particular, with a leading ruler in the biggest nation suddenly being evil and invading, the threat of a dragon uprising, etc. There are also elements I didn’t mention that are either common tropes throughout the franchise or plot beats more-or-less ripped from FE1/3/5, like cults, the way the main character and love interest bounce off of each other, character archetypes being very blatant copies, etc.

The story does diverge, don’t get me wrong, but it’s roughly every single Fire Emblem trope put into one story — and even elements from past games that don’t become tropes later. It’s not bad by any means, and in some areas I actually think it’s executed better than in FE1/3. But plot undeniably feels like an afterthought for the majority of the game. Which is a shame, because Binding Blade does have its shining moments from time to time.

The two main antagonists, Zephiel and Idunn, make for an interesting pair in their goals and reasonings. Zephiel is immediately known to everyone, but Idunn is only revealed to the player while the Lycian forces are left wondering who she is and what her powers are. It isn’t until near the very end where they and the player find out her true role in everything, along with her actual powers. Though admittedly the game may have shifted its focus a little too hard, because once the game rips off the “There are dragons?!” band-aid the characters stop worrying about Zephiel so much. And that stinks, because he absolutely steals the show when they give him something to do. But I suppose a total dragon invasion is a pretty important event.

It also helps that he has a massive sword that deals crazy damage

Overall the story is far from bad, and at worst just reuses past ideas or has one or two crazy exposition dumps. It is a bit of a shame though that it’s just retreading the same water as before, especially with how bold the last two games were. It’s one of those things where the average person won’t care, but it is a bit of a bummer that the plot plays it so safe. If you take away anything from this, know that the story plays it very safe, but is still perfectly fine.

One thing that was a slight step back from past games are the side arcs other characters went through. They weren’t integral to the main story, but served as a neat bonus that didn’t detract from the plot if you managed to keep a character alive who was hint-hint nudge-nudge’d to be important. Mid-battle conversations are still there, but a lot less prominent, don’t have a story and just serve as quick flavor text, and don’t give any benefits. This does sound like a downer, but it is made up for in other ways.

Sprites on the map are a lot more dynamic, having cutscenes either before, mid, or after battles to spice up the usual characters talking as portraits. You see people dancing, fleeing for their lives, and my personal favorite, the main villain coming out and absolutely ROCKING someone’s world. Even the typically dry character portraits talking to one another got spiced up, with sprites moving closer or further away to indicate tone or just have some fun. It helped give a lot of personality instead of solely relying on text alone, which was far from bad could use some new life.

For example, your advisor Merlinus is usually right by Roy’s side. His advice is usually wrong, but it’s the thought that counts.

Speaking of adding in some personality, Binding Blade also introduced one of the most iconic series staples: the Support system! It’s very neutered compared to later entries, but hey, you have to start somewhere. Certain characters either know each other or are willing to talk, and having them wait next to each other by the end of the turn will fill up their Support gauge. If it gets high enough, they can earn up to 3 tiers of conversations (C, B, and A) to see them bond. Supports also give light bonuses to stats corresponding to a character’s “element,” but these are hidden and pretty minor.

There are two pitfalls, however, with the first being quite a big drawback. A character can only have 5 Support conversations total. So let’s say Roy, for example, reached A with one person and B with another. That’s it, no more Support convos for him. This also counts for 2 B’s and one C, and whatever other combination you think up. The other downer is how long they can take, with characters earning a set number of points that can range from 1–4. And to get a convo, you need 60, 120, and 200 points respectively for each letter.

They can happen anywhere, anytime…as long as the two units are next to one another

It is true that they don’t have a huge impact on the game, but I think they’re a decent trade-off for side characters having their own story…even if I miss them. With a whopping 143 pairings total, the average character now has more depth instead of just a select few being chosen to have focus. No longer is the random soldier you got just a bloke who’s good with a sword, but they have goals, aspirations, silly little goofs, or at the very least, something to make them stick out. And while the limits are a bummer, they also inspire replayability beyond simply shaking up your strategy to get better. Plus, at the very least, YouTube uploads always have your back.

While we’re on the topic of new systems, how about that gameplay?

Scaled Back, but Refined

Like the story, Binding Blade doesn’t really usher in a huge barrage of gameplay changes and instead opts for small, more concise additions/modifications. Except in this case, I think it works in the game’s favor.

Despite expanding on most pre-established gameplay elements, I would argue that Binding Blade is the most accessible in the franchise thus far. The first five games no doubt have their merits (and FE4 is one of my all-time favorites), but the one major snag is that they’re not approachable to newcomers. Playable, no doubt, but very guide-heavy with 1-hit KOs around every corner or potentially investing a lot of resources into someone who isn’t worthwhile.

Binding Blade eases you in without actually sacrificing the balance, making sure that you always have the right tool (if not tools) to make a chapter easier beforehand while heavily alluding to their importance. If you don’t care, then you can just ignore the advice villagers give out during the first few chapters in the game. Enemies are placed in such a way that most units early on will have a purpose — teaching you when to use what weapon and magic like a puzzle where everything falls right into place. Then later in the game, test you by having particular combinations or a barrage of strong units that could have destroyed you early on.

One of my favorites are thieves. While they have a limit to their experience and get targeted often, their evasion is so high that you can use them to bait enemies.

The series staple weapon triangle returns, being that swords beat axes, axes beat lances, and lances beat swords in a rock-paper-scissors-esque format. It doesn’t guarantee victory (since you have a whole page of stats to gauge strategy), but picking the right weapon for the battle will give you a damage and accuracy bonus that can go a long way. Bows also return as ranged options, being neutral against all weapon types but super-effective against flying foes and a good all-arounder.

Magic also returns in elemental and light/dark flavors, but instead of the elements themselves having their own triangle and the other two being strong against all of them, things are more simplified. “Anima,” or elemental, is good against light, light beats darkness, and darkness beats elemental. Magic staves also appear as both healing items, buffs for your units, and debuffs for enemies, making units who can use them almost always worth bringing along.

Overall most weapons return from past entries, but with a few new additions to spice things up. The “reaver” series of weapons flip the weapons triangle on its head, turning all advantages into disadvantages to help cover a unit’s weakness. This is especially good for axe users, who may sometimes struggle against the abundance of sword wielders. The aforementioned legendary weapons also give stat bonuses in addition to being super-effective against dragons. Nothing too crazy, but that’s far from a bad thing.

One thing that is crazy, though, are their animations. Hot DANG.

Classes dictate what weapon(s) a unit can use, with a unit slowly gaining experience to use stronger weapons (on a scale from E-S). And, with the right item, units can be promoted to a better class anytime from levels 10–20. However, there is a very noticeable change that became the standard for a few games. Physical and magical units are split apart, meaning a sword user can’t use staves, or a mage with a lance. Strength and Magic are considered the same stat but with a different name to indicate the divide.

Shanna promoting from a Pegasus Knight to a Falcoknight, giving her a major boost in most categories

It does help simplify things and eliminate the problem of a mage accidentally getting buff when they can’t use a weapon, but also feels like a step back in unit variety. There’s also a last category of the Dancer/Bard, who both serve the same function of being able to make a unit go again but are unable to fight themselves (unlike past games where they could still fend for themselves). It feels like the developers were worried about making the game too overwhelming, and as a result tried scaling back units as much as they could to focus on making combat as balanced as possible.

Also, since there really isn’t a better place to put this, MAN did they pop off with the animations and graphics! The jump from 8-bit to 16 was definitely a step up, but with the GBA’s new hardware they clearly made the most of it all. The legendary weapons, of course, steal the show, but even regular attack and critical hit animations have style and pizzazz to them. As much as I like the newer games having 3D models, the 2D animators really added a lot of life to everyone’s movements. The music is good as well, I just don’t have much to say since it’s pretty standard “chiptune mimicking orchestral” that fits the game quite nicely.

They make the most of all those extra frames to have a range of movement — something that the later GBA games only expand upon

Finally Striking a Balance

After the mechanical monster that was FE5, it’s pretty understandable why the developers scaled back the game’s complexity to focus on consistent difficulty. Map objectives are simplified to defeating a boss and capturing the goal point. No defending, no escaping, you don’t have to defeat every enemy to move on, and chapters splitting into two paths is more streamlined. At first that may sound like a bad thing for variety (and I do miss the extra objectives), but Binding Blade does expand on the map types themselves.

“Fog of war” where you can only see the surrounding area has returned from Thracia 776, except much less brutal. You can look ahead further with every unit, thieves have a much larger sight radius, and you can see an outline of the map instead of pitch-darkness. They may have gone a bit too far in making them easier, but I appreciate the developers trying to improve upon them. Optional “Gaiden” chapters return as places where you get the legendary weapons, usually accessed by clearing important stages in a short time frame. These give you the aforementioned legendary weapons, which in turn unlock the true ending if you get them all.

Note the darkened bits of sand surrounding the blue units, obscuring your vision

Maps are also more mechanically rich than just terrain types changing how easy it is to hit/get hit by an enemy. While not present in all chapters, some (primarily in the Gaiden ones) have additional weather effects or traps that can activate if your units get too close or happen to be in the wrong spot. Most either have an obvious pattern or an indicator to warn you, which helps spice up the maps besides more enemy variety or tighter quarters. While they are minor and don’t amount to too much, they do help at making the game more engaging as a whole and set a foundation for the series to roll with.

While a bit hard to make out, note the brick tiles with red spots on them. Every turn, a random number of them activate and shoot out fire.

There is one slight downside, though, and that’s getting the true ending itself.

So yes, you complete the Gaiden chapters to get the weapons, and in-turn they give you the true ending. Since you only go through a chapter once, it can be very easy to miss one and be forced to either replay a chapter (if you have the save file) or accept getting the bad ending. On one hand it does encourage replayability…but it’s very discouraging to play through a 20+ hour long game only to be told, “You didn’t know these hidden requirements, try again!”

Gaiden levels are always unlocked by completing specific chapters in a set number of turns and/or having specific units survive, but since you’re never told this or given hints, online guides such as this one on Serenes Forest are a borderline necessity. Which means, unfortunately, Fire Emblem still hasn’t escaped its guide hell by the 6th entry. At the very least you can still play through the game casually — and believe me when I say that’s still a big step-up. But it is a fatal flaw regardless, falling in the same trap as FE3 where you aren’t told to collect the special objects that give the true ending until partway through.

On top of that, if ANY of the legendary weapons break, you can no longer access the final chapter. This includes the Binding Blade, so be careful.

Even still, in spite of my griping, Binding Blade nails most of its goals when it comes to making maps interesting and combat thought-provoking. It no doubt has its hiccups, but is a heck of a lot more balanced than every game before it. Scaling back that ambition in favor of something more controlled did pay off and made the game challenging in a fair way. Binding Blade isn’t trying to be something crazy or BS, it’s trying to give a fair challenge new players can get into and older fans can have fun with. And heck, that isn’t even mentioning the other options!

Yeah this game has a hard mode, available after beating the game once. Enemies have higher stats, tweaked different positions, and different inventories. You can also no longer buy basic weapons in-between battles if you’re all out…though to be honest that’s not really a huge issue. Unlike the first hard mode in FE4 that just made the enemy AI smarter, Binding Blade’s is like a remix of the main game as a fun little challenge. And hey, hats off to the devs for making harder versions of every chapter — because it’s definitely a step up in difficulty with how many options the enemy has now.

This handy guide from Fire Emblem WOD isn’t kidding around. Some stages aren’t too different, while others are a major step up.

Last but certainly not least, the game added in “Trial Maps” as optional challenges for after you beat the main game. They serve as a playground where you can use units that have survived, and even a few characters from the main story you could never obtain by beating the game a certain number of times. There are nine maps total, four being event-only maps that are no longer accessible. Two are unlocked by beating the main game in any difficulty, one from getting the true ending, one from beating the game on hard, and the last by getting the true ending in hard.

Funnily enough, these do have some of the different completion goals I mentioned earlier. Defeat all of the enemies, survive for X number of turns, and defending a set point are all there. I’m guessing they didn’t want the gameplay to shake up too much in the main game and saved the different objectives as a post-game treat, but hey, at least they’re there in some form. As a whole? While some of the unlock requirements for the Trial Map characters are extreme (beat the game 9 times? Christ), it’s not half bad. Even if the game has its dry spots, it’s more than replayable with its extra bells and whistles.

With unlockables like these, how could you not want to spend a few hundred hours on this game? From aforementioned Serenes Forest.

Does it Hold Up?

Pretty much.

Binding Blade isn’t the most original Fire Emblem title, to where if you’ve played even just one other game in the series you’ll likely raise your eyebrows at the copy-pasted tropes and ideas. But it does expand on the gameplay department and tighten up the overall experience to mitigate frustration while still being thought-provoking.

In my opinion, a good Fire Emblem game (or any tactical RPG) doesn’t need to be brutal for the gameplay to be good, it needs to make you think. It should present a situation where you need to look over your options to avoid death, then make you feel smart for overcoming the odds of a plethora of reinforcements or a really strong boss. And when things don’t work out, have you review your options and go, “Oh! I’m a goof, it would have been better to do this instead,” instead of, “How was I supposed to know that would happen?”

FE6 strikes that good middle-ground of being fair. And while it can be a bit easy on the normal difficulty for a chunk of its maps, it also has the options to make the game harder and give that challenge. Also despite being Japanese-only, it’s actually one of the easier titles for inexperienced gamers to get their hands on.

Normally companies love to strike down pre-patched ROMs since those are their games in full, but for whatever reason Binding Blade is like the infamously unlocalized Mother 3 in that the pre-translated game pops up almost right away. Maybe Nintendo knows a translation isn’t in the pipeline so they’ll let the fandom keep their bone? Who could say.

If you care about the dialogue, then playing the fan translation is as simple as downloading an emulator like mGBA, then finding a trusted website to get the ROM+translation or pre-patched .GBA file. And if you couldn’t care less, Nintendo has announced they’re releasing it as a part of their Nintendo Switch Online service in Japan. You’ll need to download the Japanese NSO app, but it’s still available in all regions.

It’s good for newcomers, and still an enjoyable time for fans looking to explore what the older games were all about. And thanks to Marth and Roy’s inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Melee boosting overseas interest like crazy, the next game would take the series to heights never seen before…