SYNERGY // Luminous Arc/Fire Emblem Review

What a plain new name for Middle Years. I was rooting so much for Millennium Years since that had the same initials. *sigh*. Oh wells, what's done is done.

Finished part 1 of Fire Emblem Wii today. I don't really like Fire Emblem, it's annoying. And has way too little freedom. Even though the game system of Fire Emblem and Luminous Arc are similar, there are some distinct differences to be noted. Also note that Fire Embelm isn't only for Wii, but has been made before for systems such as GBA and DS. This is already one difference: Fire Emblem is a much older game than Luminous Arc which is available only for DS (and is also one of my favourite games of all time...next to FF7.) Please also note that this is the first time I've played Fire Emblem on any system. Hehe, a third note that I really adore MMV animation so that is kind of bias for me.

First things first. Comparing the game system. I want you to ignore the difference between the graphic quality. After all, the wii capabilities and the ds capabilities greatly differ.

Clearly noticeable is the similarity in movement system. I must say, there is absolutely no difference unless you count the arrow that is in Fire Emblem. Characters must move square by square and different classes have different movement range.

I am not going to mention the different classes, for that will obviously be different due to the difference in game.

There are two things in the battle system that are different and I think you should be aware of if you plan on playing the two games.

Notice above that there seems to be a mini fight scene. In Fire Emblem Wii, you may choose to enable terrain fight scenes or disable it. I must say I got tired of these mini scenes after a while since they really stalled the game. They are somewhat fun to watch at first, but later you tire of them.

The second difference is the turn by turn system. In Luminous Arc, every character has his or her own turn. Their speed determines which order they move in. The enemy's speed also determines which order they move in. For example, one character can possibly have two turns while one character has only one. Speed matters. And it also matters for the enemy...if your enemy has a higher speed than your characters, chances are, you're going to get hurt. Badly.

In Fire Emblem, the turn system is Player - Enemy - Ally - Other. You ALWAYS go first. Lucky you. In this way, the difficulty of Fire Emblem is lowered. Every character does not get their own turn. You choose which ones you want to move and in which order during your turn while the enemy does nothing. Your turn also ends automatically when you have used all your characters, in this way, it is hard to forget to use up all your characters.

One last difference in the games I would like to mention is the death system. In Fire Emblem, once a character dies, you cannot use him or her ever again. They don't revive at the end of a match. In Luminous Arc, they do revive. There is no ressurectiong skill in Fire Emblem.

Anyways, that's all for this review. Thanks for reading <3