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Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga

From Fire Emblem Wiki, your source on Fire Emblem information. By fans, for fans.
Revision as of 22:37, 3 September 2013 by Moydow (talk | contribs) (Text replace - "Shin Monshou no Nazo" to "New Mystery of the Emblem")
Archanea Senki

Ss febs titlescreen.png
Title screen of BS Fire Emblem.

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

(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; 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 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 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.

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

The menu for operating the Satellaview service was (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 Genealogy of the Holy War). Once opened, the game would download and start playing at the correct predetermined time.

Episodes

Episode 1: Fall of the Palace
(Japanese: 第1話・パレス陥落 Fall of the Palace) Original broadcast date:
September 28th, 1997, 19:00-20:00[1]
Cm febs 1.png
At the onset of the War of Shadows, the Dolhr army has stormed the Archanean capital. 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: Crimson Dragoon
(Japanese: 第2話・赤い竜騎士 Crimson Dragoon) Original broadcast date:
October 5th, 1997, 19:00-20:00[1]
Cm febs 2.png
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: Thieves of Justice
(Japanese: 第3話・正義の盗賊団 Thieves of Justice) Original broadcast date:
October 12th, 1997, 19:00-20:00[1]
Cm febs 3.png
Some time after the fall of the Archanean capital, 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, Malice, 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 19th, 1997, 19:00-20:00[1]
Cm febs 4.png
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*

Broadcast dates

The BS Fire Emblem 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.

style="Template:Roundtl; border:none" width="70%" colspan="11"|
style="Template:Roundtl; border:none; background-color:#222222;" width="20%" rowspan="2"| Episode
Fall of the Palace Crimson Dragoon Thieves of Justice The Beginning
Original airing 09/28/1997 - 10/04/1997,
19:00-20:00
10/05/1997 - 10/11/1997,
19:00-20:00
10/12/1997 - 10/18/1997,
19:00-20:00
10/19/1997 - 10/25/1997,
19:00-20:00
Second airing 11/30/1997 - 12/06/1997,
18:00-19:00
12/07/1997 - 12/13/1997,
18:00-19:00
12/14/1997 - 12/20/1997,
18:00-19:00
12/21/1997 - 12/27/1997,
18:00-19:00
Final airing April ??, 1999,
??:??-??:??
April/May ??, 1999,
??:??-??:??
April/May ??, 1999,
??:??-??:??
May ??, 1999,
??:??-??:??
colspan="5" style="Template:Roundb; border:none; background-color:#222222" width="100%"|


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 New Mystery of the Emblem; everyone else was playable in Mystery of the Emblem in some form. These new characters are as below:

style="Template:Roundtl; border:none; color:#fff"|Portrait Character Class Found in
Portrait frost febs.png Frost Bishop Episode 2
Portrait dice febs.png Dice Fighter Episode 3
Portrait malice febs.png Malice Mercenary Episode 3
Portrait belf febs.png 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.

Trivia

  • Traditionally, BS Fire Emblem 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. Ankoku Ryuu is "FE1", Gaiden is "FE2", 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 BS Fire Emblem as the fifth game in the series and that the series consists of fourteen games in total.[3] This appears to have stopped, as the Japanese Fire Emblem World website's listing of games in the series now once again skips BS Fire Emblem and attests that there are thirteen games.[4]
  • BS Fire Emblem 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: Malice.
  • The game's CG images, in addition to a separate piece of artwork for Midia, were illustrated by Rika Suzuki, who fifteen years later provided Seliph's DLC version artwork for Fire Emblem Awakening.[5]

Gallery

Gameplay footage

Template:Youtube Template:Youtube Template:Youtube Template:Youtube

Etymology and 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.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 サテラビュー歴史館: スーパーファミコンアワー番組表 (Japanese: Satellaview Museum - Super Famicom Hour Program Guide)
  2. Serenes Forest Forums: BS Fire Emblem Information
  3. Iwata Asks: Fire Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow (translated by Serenes Forest)
  4. ファイアーエムブレムワールド 【FIRE EMBLEM WORLD】: SERIES (Japanese)
  5. Wikipedia: 鈴木理華 (Japanese: Rika Suzuki)
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