Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga

Archanea Senki Title screen of BS Fire Emblem.

Developer(s) Intelligent Systems Publisher(s) St.GIGA Release date(s) JPSeptember 28, 1997 Platform(s) Super Famicom (Satellaview) Successor

On partnered sites

BS Fire Emblem: Archanea Senki (BS ファイアーエムブレム アカネイア戦記編, BS Fire Emblem: Archanea War Chronicles), 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 Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Tsurugi/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 BS Fire Emblem chapters were later remade as bonus content in Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, dubbed New Archanea War Chronicles (新・アカネイア戦記); they are the only Satellaview titles to ever be rereleased 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 BS Fire Emblem 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 Monshou no Nazo. 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 fulfil 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 e (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.

Accessing the games

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"; for example, BS The Legend of Zelda: Inishie no Sekiban.

The menu for operating the Satellaview service was BS-X: Sore wa Namae o Nusumareta Machi no Monogatari (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 MOTHER 2. 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 BS Fire Emblem, 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 Seisen no Keifu). Once opened, the game would download and start playing at the correct predetermined time.

Episodes

Episode 1: The Fall of Pales
(Japanese: 第1話・パレス陥落 The Fall of Pales)	Original broadcast date: September 28, 1997, 19:00-20:00
At the onset of the War of Shadows, the Dolhr army has stormed the Archanean capital, Pales. Boah has been entrusted with escorting Princess Nyna out of the castle, but they are stopped by the Dolhr forces.
Playable units: Nyna, Boah, Midia, Tomas, Dolph, Macellan	Boss: Gouber
Victory conditions: Survive the full broadcast playthrough Defeat conditions: Nyna dies	Player: 6 Enemy: 13*

Episode 2: The Red Dracoknight
(Japanese: 第2話・赤い竜騎士 The Red Dracoknight)	Original broadcast date: October 9, 1997, 19:00-20:00
During the Macedon occupation of Aurelis, a band of Macedonian knights have deserted the army and are menacing Aurelian villages. To protect the people of Aurelis, Princess Minerva and the Whitewings form a temporary truce with Aurelis's Prince Hardin, leader of the resistance against the occupation, to subdue the uprising.
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 3: Thief Band of Justice
(Japanese: 第3話・正義の盗賊団 Thief Band of Justice)	Original broadcast date: October 16, 1997, 19:00-20:00
Some time after the fall of Pales, the people of Archanea continue to suffer under the Dolhr occupation. Lena and Rickard convene a small band to break into the palace and steal its many treasures to help the poor (and maybe themselves). They're not the only ones with the same idea, though, and the other group is not so noble in intent...
Playable units: Rickard, Lena, Castor, Navarre, Maris, Dice	Boss: Vaam
Victory conditions: Survive the full broadcast playthrough Defeat conditions: Rickard dies	Player: 6 Enemy: 30

Episode 4: The Beginning
(Japanese: 第4話・始まりのとき The Beginning)	Original broadcast date: October 23, 1997, 19:00-20:00
It has been two years since the fall of Archanea. Princess Nyna is now in the custody of the Sable Order, her only protection against the wishes of Medeus to have her killed. Camus decides that Nyna's best hope is to take her to Aurelis and leave her under the protection of Prince Hardin, but Medeus is aware of his plan and has already sent his forces in pursuit of the two...
Playable units: Nyna, Camus, Roberto, Belf, Leiden	Boss: Brzak
Victory conditions: Survive the full broadcast hour Defeat conditions: Nyna or Camus die	Player: 5 Enemy: 30*

Characters

Main article: List of characters in BS Fire Emblem: Archanea Senki

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 Shin Monshou no Nazo; everyone else was playable in Monshou no Nazo in some form. These new characters are as below:

style="Template:Roundtl; border:none; color:#fff"|Portrait	Character	Class	Found in
	Frost	Bishop	Episode 2
	Dice	Fighter	Episode 3
File:Portrait maris febs.png	Maris	Mercenary	Episode 3
	Belf	Cavalier	Episode 4
File:Portrait robert febs.png	Roberto	Horseman	Episode 4
File:Portrait leiden febs.png	Leiden	Cavalier	Episode 4

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.

• The Fall of Pales: Introduction and download procedure, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
• The Red Dracoknight: Part 1, Part 2
• Thief Band of Justice: Part 1, Part 2
• The Beginning: Complete script

In other languages

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