Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

The Blazing Blade North American logo and box art.

Developer(s) Intelligent Systems Publisher(s) Nintendo Director(s) Taeko Kaneda Kentarou Nishimura Release date(s) Game Boy Advance JPApril 25, 2003 NANovember 3, 2003 EUJuly 16, 2004 AUSFebruary 20, 2004 Wii U Virtual Console JPMay 14, 2014 EUAugust 21, 2014 NADecember 4, 2014 Game Boy Advance – Nintendo Switch Online WWTBA Rating(s) CERO: All Ages ESRB: E OFLC: G8+ PEGI: 7 USK: 0 Platform(s) Game Boy Advance Wii U (Virtual Console) Nintendo Switch (Game Boy Advance – Nintendo Switch Online) Predecessor Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade Successor Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

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Fire Emblem (Japanese: ファイアーエムブレム 烈火の剣 Fire Emblem: The Sword of Raging Fire), retroactively subtitled The Blazing Blade, is a Game Boy Advance game released in 2003, and later re-released on the Wii U Virtual Console in 2014. It is the seventh game in the Fire Emblem series, the second game in the series to be released on the Game Boy Advance, and was the series' first internationally-released title, spurred on by the sparking of interest in the series caused by Super Smash Bros. Melee and the recent release of Advance Wars.

The Blazing Blade is a prequel to Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, set on the same continent of Elibe twenty years prior to its predecessor's events. It stars three main lord characters: Eliwood and Hector, the fathers of The Binding Blade's Roy and Lilina respectively, and a completely new character, Lyn. The game is divided into two segments: the first segment stars Lyn and revolves around her quest to save her grandfather from his treacherous brother, acting as a tutorial mode for the game. The longer second part stars Eliwood, Hector and Lyn as they oppose the schemes of the sorcerer Nergal, who seeks to summon the long-banished dragons back to Elibe for his own gain.

Plot

In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, the player is given a direct character role in the story, as a tactician who guides the armies of Lyn and later Eliwood and Hector to victory in battle. At the start of the game, the tactician's name, month of birth, gender and (only in the Japanese version) blood type are decided by the player. For this plot synopsis, the tactician's default name, Mark, will be used.

Lyn's tale

Lyn takes care of the amnesiac traveler she found on the plains.

A tactician, Mark, wakes up in a house on the Sacae plains. A teenage girl introduces herself as Lyn of the Lorca, a tribe of nomadic plains dwellers. Suddenly, bandits attack; Mark aids Lyn, who, with a sword, fights them off. The next morning, she decides to travel with Mark, to avenge her dead parents and the rest of the Lorca tribe, who were killed by bandits.

In the town of Bulgar, Lyn meets the womanizing cavalier Sain and his more serious partner Kent, both knights of Caelin, a territory in Lycia. She is disgusted by Sain's nature and leaves the city. Then, more bandits arrive to attack Lyn, and the knights go to their aid. After the battle, the knights inform Lyn, whose name is revealed to be Lyndis, that her mother Madelyn was the daughter of Hausen, the marquess of Caelin, making Lyn next in line for the throne. The bandits were sent by Lundgren, Hausen's younger brother, who aspires to be marquess. Lyn is a threat to this, so her life is in danger; the group decides to go to Caelin.

Lyn unsheathes the Mani Katti.

Lyn takes the group to a shrine to pray for a safe journey. There, her party defeats bandits seeking to steal the sacred sword, Mani Katti. As thanks, the caretaker of the shrine allows Lyn to hold the Mani Katti and pray. She draws it from its sheath, meaning the sword's spirits have chosen her. Since Lyn is the rightful owner, the priest allows her to take the sword.

Lyn sees her friend, the shy pegasus knight Florina, being bullied by a group of the Ganelon bandits. The bandits start a fight, during which an archer named Wil lends a hand. The group then stops at a small fort where they meet Natalie, a woman looking for her husband Dorcas. More Ganelon bandits surround the fort, including Dorcas, who had joined the bandits to pay for Natalie's illness. He is convinced by Lyn to switch sides; after the bandits retreat, he decides to join the growing party. As Lyn approaches the border, two other travelers, the talkative cleric Serra and her escort, a serious mage named Erk are caught up in another fight. Both join Lyn after the bandits' defeat.

Lyn travels to Araphen, whose marquess is willing to help. Suddenly, the castle is set on fire by Lundgren's assassins and Lyn is attacked; however, Rath, a high-ranking Araphen officer and a Sacaean nomad of the Kutolah tribe, comes to her aid. The cheerful thief Matthew joins and helps them enter the barracks by unlocking doors. After the battle, Lyn meets the marquess of Araphen. However, he views Sacaeans as savages and refuses to help Lyn. Rath, who overhears his comments, leaves the marquess's service and joins Lyn.

Eliwood rescues Ninian from the Black Fang.

While passing through Khathelet, Lyn runs into a strange boy, Nils, who requests her help to get his sister Ninian back from a shady organization called the Black Fang. The two are traveling performers: a dancer and a bard, respectively. A monk named Lucius also joins, having heard Nils's plight. Lyn's forces manage to defeat the Black Fang; in the castle, they find that Ninian has already been rescued by Eliwood, the son of the marquess of Pherae. Lyn thanks him and tells him her story; Eliwood decides to help Lyn out. Ninian and Nils also start to help Lyn by using their powers, which allow them to sense approaching dangers. Ninian finds that she has lost her ring, Ninis's Grace, a keepsake from her mother. Lyn and the others are able to track the Black Fang down and reclaim Ninian's ring from them.

Lyn and her allies take down Lundgren.

Lyn continues to encounter more numerous and advanced troops on the way to Caelin. Matthew learns that Lundgren has been poisoning Hausen. Furthermore, he has also been spreading false rumors that Lyn is an impostor. Eliwood helps Lyn by convincing the other Lycian territories to stay neutral in the conflict, leaving Lundgren her only opponent. The group encounters the hearty former Caelin general Wallace, who remains loyal to Lord Hausen and believes Lyn, joining her forces.

Lyn finally reaches Castle Caelin and, after a heated battle, defeats Lundgren. She is finally able to meet Hausen, her grandfather, who is near death because of the poison. However, Lyn convinces him that they still have much they can do together, and Hausen decides to make an effort to continue living and begins to recover. When Lyn decides to stay in Caelin, Florina and Wil enter the service of House Caelin to stay with her. The rest of the characters go their separate ways, as described in their endings. The tactician Mark takes their leave to travel on their own for a time. Lyn’s tale ends here.

Eliwood's tale – Finding Elbert

Eliwood's tale takes place a year after the events of Lyn's tale. A month before the story begins, the marquess of Pherae and Eliwood's father, Lord Elbert, vanished while journeying abroad, along with several of his best vassals. Eliwood leaves Pherae to search for him, along with the paladin Marcus, an old family retainer, and the cavalier Lowen a new but skilled Pheraean recruit.

Eliwood, desperate to find any lead on his father, leaves Pherae. Hector sneaks away from Ostia to accompany him in his search. Elbert first goes to Santaruz to ask Helman, the marquess, if he knows anything of Elbert's whereabouts. Eliwood arrives to find Helman injured by a member of the Black Fang, Ephidel. Helman uses his dying words to inform Eliwood to seek out marquess Laus, Darin.

Eliwood and Hector head for Laus but end up attacked by Darin's subordinates and his son, Erik. Darin flees before he is captured, abandoning his son. After being defeated, Erik tells Eliwood of the strange man, named Ephidel, that is manipulating his father. Eliwood then chases after Darin and the Black Fang; he then finds himself defending Caelin from a Black Fang assault and earns Lyn as an ally.

Nergal controls Ninian to use Elbert's quintessence to open the Dragon's Gate.

Leila, an Ostian spy situated into the Black Fang, appears and informs Hector that the Black Fang and Darin are on the Dread Isle. Eliwood immediately leaves for Badon to request passage to the isle. He is initially unsuccessful, owing to the island's reputation, though eventually the pirate captain Fargus steps up to the challenge.

After arriving on the isle and fighting through a large portion of the Black Fang's forces and encountering Ninian, Eliwood kills Darin and finally locates his father in the clutches of a man named Nergal. Nergal attempts to summon a dragon with Ninian using Elbert's Quintessence, but he is interrupted by Nils and the incompletely opened gate destroys the dragon and Ephidel, who was standing nearby. Nergal reappears after the gate has stabilized, but Elbert wounds him to chase him off. Unfortunately Elbert dies in Eliwood's arms after this and the group leaves the Dread Isle to head home to Pherae.

Bern and the Shrine of Seals

When Eliwood reunited with his father on the Dread Isle, Elbert lived just long enough to inflict a severe but not fatal wound on Nergal, and to warn Eliwood that Nergal would be back and that Eliwood and his friends would have to be ready when he was. During the return journey, Nils and Ninian informed Eliwood that Nergal was somewhere far to the east, i.e. in Bern. They stopped at a fortress near Ostia to rendezvous with Uther and inform him of these new developments, whereupon Uther suggested that they make a detour to the Nabata Desert on the Missur Peninsula to seek the "Living Legend" before heading to Bern.

The Living Legend was none other than the Archsage Athos, one of the Eight Legends of the Scouring, who agreed to help Eliwood and his friends in unlocking the Divine Weapons to aid in combating Nergal. For this purpose, he said, it would be necessary to travel to the Shrine of Seals in Bern. His friends Pent, Louise, and Hawkeye agreed to aid Eliwood as well. Athos teleported the group to Pherae, where they spent the night before setting out for Bern.

Eliwood and his companions clashed with one of the Reed brothers near the Bern-Pherae border, while Pent and Louise sought out an audience with Queen Hellene of Bern to ask her about the location of the Shrine of Seals.

Hellene had problems of her own, however, which she required Eliwood to resolve before she would aid him in finding the Shrine of Seals. Zephiel's coming of age ceremony was fast approaching, but the Fire Emblem, a vital component to the ceremony, had been stolen. Eliwood's task, therefore, was to retrieve the Fire Emblem and return it to Hellene.

Searching for clues as to the Fire Emblem's whereabouts, Eliwood and his companions traveled to the royal castle of Bern and, finding it unguarded, sneaked in. They overheard Prince Zephiel playing with Princess Guinivere, and King Desmond talking to Sonia; the latter conversation confirmed that the Fire Emblem was hidden in the Black Fang's fortress. After nearly being spotted by Sonia, Eliwood fled the castle only to find Vaida harassing Nils and Ninian. Because Vaida was empowered by Nergal, Eliwood was unable to do more than fight her to a stalemate, but eventually she tired of the fight and retreated.

Lyn used her tracking skills to lead the group in pursuing Vaida high into the mountains, to the Black Fang fortress. They arrived in time to eavesdrop on Sonia's next assignment for Jaffar, one of the Four Fangs: to kill Prince Zephiel that night. Eliwood and company were spotted by the Black Fang, however, and some enchantment prevented them from leaving the fortress until they had fought their way through to the source of the enchantment. One of the leaders of the Black Fang had the Fire Emblem in his possession, which Eliwood took before fleeing to the manse where Zephiel and Hellene lived.

They arrived at the manse that night and succeeded in stopping the attempt on Zephiel's life. The next morning, Hellene rewarded Eliwood with a map to the Shrine of Seals.

When they arrived at the Shrine of Seals, they found the surviving Reed brother and the last remnants of the Black Fang guarding it. After Eliwood defeated them, Athos teleported to the Shrine and admitted that while he could have simply teleported everyone else directly to the Shrine as well, he needed proof that Eliwood would not be swayed by the immense power of the Divine Weapons, and that the journey through Bern was a test of Eliwood's strength and determination. They entered the shrine and encountered Bramimond the Enigma, and they convinced it to open the seals guarding the Divine Weapons.

Defeating Nergal

Just as Eliwood and his party were leaving the Shrine of Seals, they encountered Nergal, fully healed and more powerful than ever. He demanded that Eliwood hand over Nils and Ninian on pain of death; Ninian volunteered to be taken hostage in exchange for Nils' freedom. Nergal agreed, and he struck Eliwood down when Eliwood objected. If not for Athos' protection, Eliwood might have died then and there.

More determined to stop Nergal than ever, Eliwood ventured into a cavern near Ostia, where the ghosts of Roland and his most trusted soldiers guarded Durandal, the Blazing Blade. Eliwood defeated the ghosts of the soldiers and obtained Durandal with Roland's blessing. Outside the cave, he was accosted by a huge dragon of ice. Before he could think to do otherwise, he took up Durandal and struck down the creature. Nergal appeared again and informed him that the dragon was none other than Ninian, who had transformed and fled again rather than obey Nergal's commands. She transformed back into her human form just long enough to say goodbye to Eliwood before dying in his arms. Athos fought Nergal, barely injuring him at all, and Nergal retreated with one last insult on the great man Athos once was, and the path that the two of them had once traveled together.

Exhausted and grief-stricken, Eliwood and his friends set out for Castle Ostia, where they planned to rest in preparation for the final attack on Nergal. Their rest was interrupted by a band of Nergal's morphs who had infiltrated the castle and delivered a message from Nergal: "I await you on the Dread Isle." Athos realized that he would need more time to obtain certain other Divine Weapons and alert Bramimond to the threat that Nergal posed to Elibe, but Eliwood was eager to set forth for the Dread Isle and take the fight to Nergal's morphs before he could attack again. Eliwood left Durandal in Athos' care, knowing that they would meet again at the Dragon's Gate, and that when they did, he would not hesitate to take up his ancestor's Divine Weapon again.

Eliwood sailed to the Dread Isle a second time and destroyed most of the morphs guarding the Dragon's Gate before Athos arrived. Together they fought through the reanimated bodies of Lord Darin and the most powerful members of the Black Fang before confronting Nergal himself. With his dying breath, Nergal opened the Dragon's Gate and called three Fire Dragons through.

At that moment, Bramimond arrived and used his magic to restore Ninian to life; with her icy magic she subdued two of the dragons before collapsing from exhaustion, leaving it up to Eliwood and his friends to defeat the third. After the battle, knowing that Elibe would never be safe as long as the Dragon's Gate remained open, Nils stepped through the portal to close it from the other side.

Hector's tale

Hector's tale covers the same events as Eliwood's tale, but instead focuses on Hector as the main character. Several events are changed slightly, and some extra chapters are added:

• Chapter 11 covers Hector's departure from Ostia with Matthew.
• Chapter 15 is a Hector's tale-exclusive chapter that involves Hector's party defending Laus from invaders.
• Chapter 19x pt 2 is a Hector's tale-exclusive side-chapter that becomes available if the party kills Kishuna in Chapter 19x and if Nils was at least level 7 by the end of Lyn's tale.
• Chapter 25 is a Hector's tale-exclusive chapter that introduces a new character: Farina, one of the three pegasus sisters. She will join the party if paid 20,000 gold.
• Chapter 30, instead of dealing with Eliwood looking for Durandal, covers Hector's search for Armads.
• Chapter 31x also introduces a new character: the swordmaster Karla, sister to Karel. She can be recruited after a duel with Bartre, but only if he is at least a level 5 Warrior.
• Chapter 32x is a Hector's tale-exclusive chapter that concludes the Kishuna subplot. It can be accessed if the player completes chapter 32 in 20 turns or less.

In addition, many chapters feature different or additional enemies, so the difficulty of Hector's tale is generally increased when compared to Eliwood's.

Gameplay

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Overall, The Blazing Blade features no significant changes to its gameplay compared to The Binding Blade; though there were several smaller adjustments.

The Blazing Blade reintroduces the ability for enemies to drop items upon defeat, a gameplay feature absent from The Binding Blade. Additionally, the player may now use class change and stat booster items from the preparations menu instead of deploying the desired unit to use the item in the next chapter. The Blazing Blade also removes the ability for units to gain multiple S weapon levels, instead limiting each unit to mastering only one weapon type (with one playable exception).

Thieves and the Transporter were both given class changes; both classes lacked the ability to class change in The Binding Blade.

The Blazing Blade also adds the ability for the player to decline sidequests.

Compared to The Binding Blade, The Blazing Blade has several more gameplay modes; The Binding Blade only has normal and hard, while The Blazing Blade has Lyn's tale, Eliwood's tale, and Hector's tale, with each tale having a normal and hard variant.

Graphically, The Blazing Blade made revisions to several battle animations introduced in The Binding Blade. These revisions include smoothing out some animations and changing the outfits of some classes; for instance the female Sage loses the poofy sleeves on her dress and gains elbow length gloves, the Druid was given a new sound effect when performing a critical hit, the Mercenary's outfit and build were given slight modifications, and so on. Additionally, The Blazing Blade was the first Fire Emblem game to have character portraits blink during dialogue scenes.

The Binding Blade gives every weapon in the game a line of flavor text,* all language releases of The Blazing Blade instead only feature descriptions on regalia or weapons with special effects.

Characters

Main article: List of characters in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

The Blazing Blade features 44 playable characters; however, only 42 are available in any given playthrough, as the player must choose between Karel or Harken and Wallace or Geitz, and two characters – Farina and Karla – are available only in Hector's tale. Of these 44, 13 are playable in Lyn’s tale.

Chapters

Main article: List of chapters in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

From the beginning of Lyn's tale to the end of Eliwood or Hector's tale, the game is 32 (Eliwood) or 34 (Hector) chapters long, counting the prologue and final chapter but none of the sidequests. The game features a total of 46 distinct map chapters, including sidequests and alternate versions of chapters.

Support conversations

Main article: List of supports in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

Development

Game credits

Main article: Staff of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

Pre-release builds

Main articles: Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0206 and Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0219

Two pre-release builds of the Japanese version of The Blazing Blade were leaked to the public in 2008, and are available in patch form. Both builds are dated at approximately two months before the Japanese release and as such the bulk of the game is complete in both builds, but there are numerous unfinished and beta elements such as unfinished or different portraits, missing kanji, CG images which are either preliminary sketches or lacking the grainy sepia overlay, slightly or completely different music tracks, minor statistical differences, and numerous portions of The Binding Blade's interface left intact.

Reception

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade currently holds a Game Rankings aggregate score of 88.3%, which was the highest of any game in the series until Fire Emblem Awakening was released a decade later.

Trivia

Matthew winking to Guy.

• In the Japanese release, certain functions in the game are unlocked by linking The Blazing Blade to a copy of The Binding Blade and transferring data. As The Binding Blade was not released outside Japan, this functionality was removed from international releases, and instead the content is either available by default or unavailable. Linking with The Binding Blade achieves the following effects:
  • Allows the player to skip Lyn's tale on their first playthrough of the game and start from Eliwood's tale instead. No counterpart function exists in the international versions.
  • Two epilogue scenes are unlocked through linking, although both have alternate obtain criteria. A cleared Binding Blade save file which achieved the bad ending (where the game ended at Chapter 22) unlocks the first scene with Eliwood, Hector, Roy and Lilina, which can also be obtained by clearing the game nine times. A cleared save with the good endings (where the game ended at the Final Chapter) unlocks the second scene where Zephiel is confronted by Jahn, which can also be obtained by clearing the game eleven times. In the NTSC release of the game, both scenes are in the epilogue by default; in the PAL releases, both scenes are removed entirely.
• Of the official English localizations of the series, The Blazing Blade is the only one where item names are not capitalized as proper nouns (aside from regalia weapons and the Light Brand), and are rather presented as common nouns – for example, "Iron Sword" is spelled "Iron sword". From The Sacred Stones onward, capitalizing item names as proper nouns became the series standard. The gringe fan translation of The Binding Blade and "Project Naga" fan translation of Genealogy of the Holy War, however, handle item names the same way as this game.
• This game supports the ability to allow characters to wink and blink during dialogue, though the former is used once in the entire game by Matthew in his recruitment conversation with Guy. Because the wink animation plays at the same speed as the blink animation, most players miss it.
• If the player holds Select for a few moments in the game's Battle History in the Extras menu, a screen with a password will pop up. This was presumably used for a contest on the game's official Japanese website, though no official materials outside of Japan are known to acknowledge this feature, despite it being accessible in non-Japanese copies of the game.

Etymology and other languages

Names, etymology and in other regions
Language	Name	Definition, etymology, and notes
English	• Fire Emblem • Fire Emblem GBA • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade	• As the series' first English release, the subtitle was initially omitted outside of Japan, likely seen as pointless in the face of no internationally released predecessors with which to confuse it. This is the title used in the game itself, and in nearly all localized material except Fire Emblem Heroes. • Used in the Mario Kart: Double Dash!! bonus disc. • Used in Fire Emblem Heroes, matching Durandal's title like the Japanese name.
English (unofficial)	Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword	The game was almost universally identified by the fandom by a translation of its Japanese name/subtitle, by its number in the series, instead of by its actual English title, in order to avoid confusion with the rest of the series. Occasionally, the game was referred to by its untranslated Japanese subtitle, "Rekka no Ken". It should be noted that in the English release, Durandal's epithet and thus the game's hypothetical subtitle was actually "Blazing Blade", not "Blazing Sword", but it was universally called by the latter name anyway. With the release of an officially localized English subtitle in Fire Emblem Heroes, this name is starting to phase out of use in favor of the official English name. This name was used on the official website as a "loose translation".
Japanese	ファイアーエムブレム 烈火の剣	Officially romanized as Fire Emblem: The Sword of Flame; literally "Fire Emblem: The Sword of Raging Fire". The title refers to Durandal, the legendary "Blazing Blade" wielded by Eliwood in the final chapter.
Spanish	Fire Emblem	--
French	Fire Emblem	--
German	Fire Emblem	--
Italian	Fire Emblem	--

Gallery

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  Japanese box art of The Sword of Flame.

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  American (NTSC) box art of Fire Emblem.

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  Japanese logo of The Sword of Flame.

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  American logo of Fire Emblem.

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  The game's Japanese cover artwork, with Ninian and Nils removed.

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  Artwork for the game.

Screenshots

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  Japanese title screen of The Sword of Flame.

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  American (NTSC) and European (PAL) title screen of Fire Emblem.

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  Still from the game's opening depicting the Scouring.

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  Creating a Tactician.

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  Sain attacks a Morph.

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  Canas attacks a Black Fang member with Luna.

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  Uther and Hector discuss Pherae's situation.

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  Matthew brings Hector his supplies.

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  Hector about to attack an enemy Soldier.

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  A boss, Bauker, and several enemy units.

• 

  The game's Sound Room.

External links

• Fire Emblem official American website (mirror by Tanas Manor)
• Fire Emblem: The Sword of Flame official Japanese website
• Fire Emblem Wii U Virtual Console website (European)
• Fire Emblem: The Sword of Flame Wii U Virtual Console website (Japanese)