The latest installment of of the Fire Emblem series does exactly what we’d like of it – give us the same exact thing that we’ve come to love and know and put it on a portable. Swords still beat axes, axes still beat spears and spears of course topple swords. With the various items that reverse the combat-triangle scattered around the game world (I’m still not sure how a ‘Lance Reaver’ works, and how it’s different from a regular sword, but hey let’s just go with it.)

There is some wonderful nitty gritty to this adaptation of the Fire Emblem saga though; your characters can change classes. Yeah that’s right; the useless cavalier that you have 15 of? Pow, turn him into a backup healer. Now you can’t have more of a class than the game would normally have given you, plus one, so obviously you can’t turn all your footmen into cavaliers and have an entire horseback army, but you can come mighty close. Obviously heroes are an exception to this rule as well.

Your story is cliche and typical for a Fire Emblem. There is a bad guy, in this case a giant Dragon, who was stopped by one of your ancestors and of course has resurfaced with the intent to take over the world once again. As the last remaining descendant of said slayer of dragon, you must take up arms and kick some tuckus. Also your family has been murdered and you must rally the nations and old allies to your side.

Right, you’ve got all your other elements of a Fire Emblem in there as well; there are some sacred relic weapons you’ll need to find, some incredible mages whom have been hiding/lost for years. Also lets not forget that thing where pretty much every map has a character that you can convince to join your little rag-tag army whom is headed up by Marth (that’s right the guy from Brawl whom nobody knew where the hell he was from.)

Now I’m not saying this is old-hat by any means, it’s what we play Fire Emblem for. I’m just letting you know that if you’re expecting a lot of change you wont find it here. The game-play is still solid, the tactics are rough in spots and if you play like a perfectionist like me – not letting anyone die, ever – it does get very hard. Though they do give you plenty of extra characters, plenty, to compensate for any deaths you might have.

Now this information and my experience with it is based on the UK’s version, we won’t have it here state side till next month, the 16th of February. So make sure to go order yours now if you like the tactical RPG’s, there’s something satisfying about being able to take the strategy with you.

-The Reverend Lei