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Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga

From Fire Emblem Wiki, your source on Fire Emblem information. By fans, for fans.
Archanea Saga

Ss febs titlescreen.png
Japanese title screen.

Developer(s)

Intelligent Systems

Publisher(s)

St.GIGA

Release date(s)

JPSeptember 28th, 1997[1]

Platform(s)

Super Famicom (Satellaview)

Predecessor

Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

Successor

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

On partnered sites
Nintendo Wiki BS Fire Emblem: Akaneia Senkihen

Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga (Japanese: BS ファイアーエムブレム アカネイア戦記編 BS Fire Emblem: Akaneia War Chronicles Section), commonly called BS Fire Emblem, is a collection of four standalone Fire Emblem series maps for the Super Famicom, set in the Archanea universe before the beginning of Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light/Shadow Dragon and focusing on members of the games' cast other than Marth. The collection, usually counted as a single game, was playable only through the Satellaview satellite radio streaming add-on/service. The first broadcast of the collection's first episode took place on September 28, 1997; the collection's last broadcasts occurred in 1999.

The four Archanea Saga chapters were later remade as bonus content in Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, dubbed New Archanea Saga (Japanese: 新・アカネイア戦記 New Akaneia War Chronicles); they are one of the few Satellaview titles to ever be re-released in any form. The remakes omit many of the features unique to the originals and reframe the maps in the gameplay mechanics of the Nintendo DS remakes, also making adjustments to the number and type of enemies present in each.

Gameplay

Perhaps the most famous quality of the Archanea Saga chapters is that the games were, using the functionality of the Satellaview system, played alongside a streaming audio track featuring full voice acting for most of the cast. Every chapter opened and closed with a cutscene consisting of static picture panels accompanied by narration and voice acting. The game consists of two segments: the ROM containing the actual map and gameplay, and the streaming audio played alongside it including the soundtrack, new covers of tracks from Mystery of the Emblem. The former was saved onto a memory device, if intended to be done so temporarily, whereas the latter was not and is therefore permanently lost outside of recorded archive footage of the chapters being played, found on sites like YouTube and Nico Nico Douga.

The game uses the Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem game engine, with a few modifications: the game features no battle animations and minimal written dialogue, the latter facilitated through the voice-acting. As in normal Fire Emblem games, each episode has one or two designated "Lord" characters who fulfill the normal purpose of a Lord: their death triggers a Game Over equivalent, where the map resets to where it was immediately after the previous voiced dialogue interlude (or, in modern attempts to emulate it, where said interlude would have been); they also act as an item convoy. During the game, if a player makes a mistake, they can press the L, R, Start and Select buttons in combination to restart the game from where it was at the time of the last voiced interlude.

In all episodes, the "victory" requirement is to survive the full broadcasting hour while gaining as many points as possible; points are earned by fighting and defeating enemies, opening chests and visiting villages. There is no seize point, and defeating the boss or routing all enemies does not end the episode; if either criteria is fulfilled, the episode will continue, spawning reinforcements every turn, until the ending cutscene. Any recruitable units are not recruited by talking to them; instead, they automatically join the player's army at fixed times in the playthrough, accompanied by audio discussing their decision to defect to the player.

At the broadcast's conclusion, each episode calculates a password from the player's score by the end. The purpose of the password was to be written down and sent in to ST.GIGA within a certain period following the episode's airing, in order to enter an unidentified contest.[2]

Accessing the games

Wikipedia.png This article or section is a short summary of Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga.
Wikipedia features a more in-depth article.

The Satellaview was a satellite radio modem service for the Super Famicom, a joint venture between Nintendo and satellite radio company St.GIGA. The service streamed audio and visual content related to games and Nintendo, delivered by St.GIGA's satellite radio infrastructure: this included magazines, variety programmes, and sometimes entire Super Famicom games. One particular unique variety of game downloads via the service came in the form of SoundLink games: games set up to play alongside a radio streaming of audio specific to that game, often including voice-acting. Many of these games were more or less completely new installments in prominent Nintendo franchises. Games of this variety were prefixed with BS, a common Japanese abbreviation for "Broadcast Satellite"; another prominent example of this was BS The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets.

The menu for operating the Satellaview service was (Japanese: BS-X それは名前を盗まれた街の物語 BS-X : The Story of The Town Whose Name Has Been Stolen), a cartridge "game" BIOS/interface visually reminiscent of EarthBound. Programming of various types could be accessed from places in the town, sometimes taking the form of a new structure related to the game in question. For Archanea Saga, in the lead-up to the time of broadcast, the access point to the map of that night would appear in the Town in the form of a castle (oddly, the castle design used is from Genealogy of the Holy War). Once opened, the game would download and start playing at the correct predetermined time.

Episodes

Episode I: The Capital Falls
(Japanese: 第1話・パレス陥落 The Capital Falls) Original broadcast date:
September 28th, 1997, 19:00–20:00[1]
Cm febs 1.png
"During the War of Shadows... The royal palace of Archanea, the largest kingdom in the continent, was in a truly hopeless situation, under the merciless onslaught of the Dolhrian army, led by the Shadow Dragon Medeus. As the footsteps of the imperial soldiers started resounding through the palace walls... King Archanea, with no other alternatives to consider, gave a secret order to the bishop Boah."
Playable units: Nyna, Boah, Midia, Tomas, Dolph, Macellan Boss: Gouber
Victory conditions: Survive the full broadcast playthrough
Defeat conditions: Nyna dies
Player: 6 Enemy: 16+∞
Episode II: Red Dragoon
(Japanese: 第2話・赤い竜騎士 Red Dragoon) Original broadcast date:
October 5th, 1997, 19:00–20:00[1]
Cm febs 2.png
"Aurelis: a nation situated in the north-eastern plains of the continent. A verdant kingdom, sharing the deepest bonds with the Holy Kingdom of Archanea since its foundation. However, as a result of the aggressive attack of the Macedonian dracoknights led by Princess Minerva, Aurelis had already ceded most of its territory to the Dolhrian empire. As Princess Minerva returned to her post in Aurelis with her subordinates, a certain village caught her eye..."
Playable units: Minerva, Hardin, Catria, Est, Wolf, Roshea, Frost Boss: Ruben
Victory conditions: Survive the full broadcast playthrough
Defeat conditions: Minerva or Hardin die
Player: 7 Enemy: 20+∞
Episode III: Righteous Thieves
(Japanese: 第3話・正義の盗賊団 Righteous Thieves) Original broadcast date:
October 12th, 1997, 19:00–20:00[1]
Cm febs 3.png
"A few days after the Kingdom of Archanea fell and the royal palace with it... A man and a woman stepped foot in the palace town. The man's name was Rickard, and the woman was Lena."
Playable units: Rickard, Lena, Castor, Navarre, Malice, Dice Boss: Vaam
Victory conditions: Survive the full broadcast playthrough
Defeat conditions: Rickard dies
Player: 6 Enemy: 30
Episode IV: The Beginning
(Japanese: 第4話・始まりのとき The Beginning) Original broadcast date:
October 19th, 1997, 19:00–20:00[1]
Cm febs 4.png
"Two years have passed since the millenial palace was seized by Grust's Camus the Sable. Emperor Medeus of Dolhr ordered Camus to take full control of the palace. However Camus defied his orders, by continuing to shelter Princess Nyna. As time passed, Medeus lost his patience with Camus and ordered his men to take Nyna captive."
Playable units: Nyna, Camus, Roberto, Belf, Reiden Boss: Brzak
Victory conditions: Survive the full broadcast hour
Defeat conditions: Nyna or Camus die
Player: 5 Enemy: 30+∞

Broadcast dates

The Archanea Saga series was broadcast three times throughout the Satellaview's lifespan: its original airing in September-October 1997, and two series reruns in November-December 1997 and April-May 1999.[1] During a period in which it was being broadcast, each episode would be broadcast every night for a week at the same time every night, to be replaced with the next episode the following week.

Episode
The Capital Falls Red Dragoon Righteous Thieves The Beginning
Original airing September 28, 1997 – October 4, 1997
19:00–20:00
October 5, 1997 – October 11, 1997
19:00–20:00
October 12, 1997 – October 18, 1997
19:00–20:00
October 19, 1997 – October 25, 1997
19:00–20:00
Second airing November 30, 1997 – December 6, 1997
18:00–19:00
December 7, 1997 – December 13, 1997
18:00–19:00
December 14, 1997 – December 20, 1997
18:00–19:00
December 21, 1997 – December 27, 1997
18:00–19:00
Final airing April ??, 1999,
??:??–??:??
April/May ??, 1999,
??:??–??:??
April/May ??, 1999,
??:??–??:??
May ??, 1999,
??:??–??:??

Characters

Main article: List of characters in Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga

There are 23 playable characters across the four episodes; the only character to be playable in more than one episode is Nyna. Of these 23, six are completely new characters who were unique to this game until New Mystery of the Emblem; everyone else was playable in Mystery of the Emblem in some form. These new characters are as below:

Portrait Character Class Found in
Portrait frost febs.png Frost Bishop Episode II
Portrait dice febs.png Dice Fighter Episode III
Portrait malice febs.png Malice Mercenary Episode III
Portrait belf febs.png Belf Cavalier Episode IV
Portrait roberto febs.png Roberto Horseman Episode IV
Portrait reiden febs.png Reiden Cavalier Episode IV

Archived broadcast content

Translated scripts

These scripts were translated by Kiddo, the owner of Satellablog, a blog extensively documenting the history and games of the Satellaview, from Japanese transcripts documented by this website, and were posted in this discussion thread on Serenes Forest.

Video footage

These are videos containing complete playthroughs of each chapter as they were originally presented, complete with the original voice acting, audio and cutscene slides. These were uploaded to YouTube by Kiddo, and were originally found on the Japanese video service NicoNico Douga.

Trivia

  • Traditionally, Archanea Saga is not counted as a "full" Fire Emblem series game and is skipped in naming schemes which refer to each game by number in release order (eg. Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light is "Fire Emblem 1", Gaiden is "Fire Emblem 2", etc). However, there was a brief period around the releases of New Mystery of the Emblem and Awakening in which Nintendo and Intelligent Systems counted Archanea Saga as the fifth game in the series and that the series consists of fourteen games in total.[3] Though this appears to have stopped, as the Japanese Fire Emblem World website's listing of games in the series now once again skips Archanea Saga and attests that there were thirteen games as of July 2013,[4] the Iwata Asks for Fire Emblem Fates in both English and Japanese refers to Fates as the fifteenth entry in the series.[5][6]
  • Archanea Saga has the lowest amount of representation of any Fire Emblem game in Awakening's SpotPass and DLC, with only one character originating from it featured: the aforementioned Malice, in this case built around her Archanea Saga class.
  • The game's CG images, in addition to separate pieces of artwork for six characters, were illustrated by Rika Suzuki, who fifteen years later provided Seliph's DLC version artwork for Fire Emblem Awakening.[7]

Etymology and other languages

Names, etymology, and in other regions
Language Name Definition, etymology, and notes
English

Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga

Used in Legacy of Archanea.

English
(unofficial)

BS Fire Emblem: Archanea War Chronicles
BS Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga
BS Fire Emblem: Record of Archanea Wars

Varying translations of the Japanese subtitle. "Archanea" and the European/Japanese name "Akaneia" are here used relatively interchangeably.

Japanese

BS ファイアーエムブレム アカネイア戦記編

BS Fire Emblem: Akaneia War Chronicles Section. The presence of hen "section [of a book]" alludes to the names of Mystery of the Emblem's two parts, 暗黒戦争編 "War of Darkness Section" and 英雄戦争編 "War of Heroes Section".

French

Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga

Used in Legacy of Archanea.

Gallery

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 スーパーファミコンアワー番組表 (Super Famicom Hour Program Guide), サテラビュー歴史館 (Satellaview Museum), Retrieved: February 25, 2011[dead link]
  2. BS Fire Emblem Information, Serenes Forest Forums, Retrieved: July 11, 2013
  3. Iwata Asks: Fire Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow, translated by Serenes Forest, Retrieved: July 11, 2013
  4. SERIES (Japanese), ファイアーエムブレムワールド 【FIRE EMBLEM WORLD】, Retrieved: July 11, 2013[dead link]
  5. Iwata Asks: Fire Emblem If (Japanese), nintendo.co.jp, Retrieved: October 22, 2016
  6. Iwata Asks: Fire Emblem Fates, nintendo.com, Retrieved: October 22, 2016
  7. 鈴木理華 (Rika Suzuki), Wikipedia, Retrieved: July 11, 2013
Fire Emblem series
Main series Shadow Dragon & the Blade of LightGaidenMystery of the EmblemGenealogy of the Holy WarThracia 776The Binding BladeThe Blazing BladeThe Sacred StonesPath of RadianceRadiant DawnShadow DragonNew Mystery of the EmblemAwakeningFatesEchoes: Shadows of ValentiaThree HousesEngage
Spin-offs Archanea SagaTokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FEHeroesWarriorsWarriors: Three Hopes
Crossover games Super Smash Bros. (MeleeBrawlfor Nintendo 3DS and Wii UUltimate) • Club Nintendo Picross+Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.Project X Zone 2WarioWareDragalia Lost
Unreleased games and prototypes Fire Emblem 64The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0206The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0219The Sacred Stones prototypeFire Emblem Wii
TearRing Saga series Yutona Heroes War ChroniclesBerwick Saga
Vestaria Saga series War of the ScionsThe Sacred Sword of SilvanisterLucca GaidenChronicles of the Norden Civil War
Related titles Mario Kart: Double Dash!! bonus discLINENintendo Badge Arcade
Versions and releases List of version differencesLocalization of the Fire Emblem seriesVirtual Console
Other References in other mediaReferences to other media
Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga
Playable characters Episode I BoahDolphMacellanMidiaNynaTomas
Episode II CatriaEstFrostHardinMinervaRosheaWolf
Episode III CastorDiceLenaMaliceNavarreRickard
Episode IV BelfCamusNynaReidenRoberto
Non-playable characters King of ArchaneaMedeusPalla
Bosses BrzakGouberRubenVaam
Regalia Gradivus
Episodes 1: The Capital Falls • 2: Red Dragoon • 3: Righteous Thieves • 4: The Beginning
Locations ArchaneaAurelisEmpire of ArchaneaMacedon
Groups, objects and concepts Sable OrderWar of HeroesWar of LiberationWar of ShadowsWhitewinged Order
Related topics Name chart • Other games (Shadow Dragon & the Blade of LightGaidenMystery of the EmblemNew Mystery of the EmblemShadow DragonAwakening) • Timeline