Graphics: 8
Gameplay: 5
Storyline: 10
Audio/Sound: 7
Suspense: 7
Overall: 7.4

Rated E for everyone
Available on Game Boy Advance

Comments: Fire Emblem is back and better than ever. This game features three unique storylines: Lyn's, Eliwood's, and for those of you who wish for a challenge, Hector's. This turn-based game lets you decide as the tactician what happens next. There are many side quests and over 20 different classes. You can use terrain bonuses and upgrade characters once they reach level 10. Your goal? Stop the Black Fang from releasing dragons onto the world of humans.

To be honest the game play isn't all that great. If you are a person who likes to play chess for hours on end, maybe this is the game for you, since it's highly strategic. But basically you have 30+ map battles where you pick a character, move them, attack, let them attack you, and repeat until you run out of characters. Then you wait until they do the same thing. Then it's your turn again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. If that sounds boring, then imagine what it's like actually doing it. The conversations and intros to each chapter also tend to be extremely long, and most of the time, not particularly interesting.

One of the other downsides to Fire Emblem is that once a character dies, they remain out of battle until the next storyline. So if you're a person who likes to keep everyone living, you might have to do a chapter over several times. Also, sometimes the battles seem to drag on, and the auto-save function, while useful in some situations, does not help you in the situation where a character is going to die. This is where tactics comes in. And again, let's be honest: you do the same thing over and over again. If you like turn-based (in all senses of the word) games, go ahead and play this. But I couldn't get through the whole game because it got really boring after a while.

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