The Video Game Revue

Zelda: Minish Cap, Fire Emblem

On the subject of games that I have at least finished in recent history (although you might be able to count Battlefield 2, if it didn't go on forever), I polished off Zelda: Minish Cap back in August. You've probably heard it all before, but that's one solid little game, and probably the best Zelda game to have come out in recent years. Everything about it smacks of classic Zelda, and if you're a Zelda fan you'll easily find it appealing, whether you enjoyed A Link to the Past, Zelda 64, or Wind Waker the most.

Another GBA game that I took a stab at is Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. I haven't made it very far, though--only about five maps or so. I'd heard that there's a part in the game where you can get into arena battles, or something, and use that to level up your characters. That might be really handy because the thing I found the most frustrating about the first GBA Fire Emblem is that once a character falls really far behind in levels, it's very difficult to use them anymore. The real problem here is that the enemy AI always employs a strategy of trying to kill at least one of your characters if they can, and once a character dies you lose them forever. I never did get over the idea of just losing a character once in a while and plodding on through the game, so after about 20 maps or so, I stalled on the original Fire Emblem. I should really just check a walk-through and see how much further I have to go to finish the game. Anyway, I wonder if Sacred Stones will end up having the same problem or not. It would be nice if the enemy AI played more strategically and didn't just try to mob the most vulernable unit every time, though--it's clearly as if the enemy is programmed with a victory condition of "kill at least one player character" rather than trying to defend any objectives or anything like that.

Another fault with Fire Emblem is that the dialogue is pretty lengthy and not too heavy on content. There is some genuine drama in there, and the character portraits are nice, but sometimes I find myself wishing that the writing was a bit more mature. I realise that the game is meant to be suitable for younger audiences to some degree, of course.

Overall, I found Fire Emblem to be worth playing, but definitely not without some annoying problems. Minish Cap, on the other hand, was simply a joy from start to finish. They should have added a master quest. :)

posted by Parappa @ 12:07 PM