Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0206

fe7_0206 Build 0206's start screen, featuring a slightly different subtitle banner.

Developer(s) Intelligent Systems Build date February 5th, 2003, 20:27:53 Final release date JP April 25th, 2003 (build time: March 29th, 2003, 11:59:17) Platform Game Boy Advance ROM

This page dissects the differences between the 0206 build and the final version of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. A patch for this build can be downloaded at File:Rekka no Ken prototype 0206 Patch.zip.

The name 0206 is a name derived from the ROM's file name, fe7_0206; "0206" means "February 6th". This build of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is timestamped as February 5th, 2003, at 20:27:53, along with the name "KATAYAMA". This suggests that this particular build was assembled into a "playable" ROM form at this date and time by Makoto Katayama, a programmer credited in the finished game. The date itself places this stage of development two months before the release of The Blazing Blade. This revision is fairly complete.

In 2008, a set of three pre-release builds of The Blazing Blade and The Sacred Stones were leaked from the Intelligent Systems FTP server and obtained and subsequently released by a Japanese group, eventually coming to the attention of the English fanbase through the message board Fire Emblem: Sanctuary of Strategy. The three builds were internally timestamped as having been assembled a couple of months before the final releases of the games, and as such contain numerous differences of varying degrees of substantiality, and provide an interesting insight into the development of the games.

Start-up menu

The opening menu.

On loading this build, the player is brought to this debug start-up menu with options to start the game from numerous points. In order, these are:

• Release Entry (Japanese: リリースエントリ) starts the game from its opening demo.
• Continue Chapter (Japanese: どこでも再開) resumes an in-progress game file.
• Manual Continue (Japanese: 手再開) resumes a manually suspended game file.
• Initialize File (Japanese: ファイル初期化) prompts the player to wipe all save data. Unlike The Sacred Stones' pre-release build, it is functional.
• The last row is a chapter select function, where the player can press left and right to scroll through the game's maps and select one to start playing from. There are a few hidden functions to this. If a chapter is selected while L is being held tutorials are disabled for the loaded chapter. If a chapter with world map narration is selected while holding R some sort of debug screen with coordinates appears on the world map.

Chapter select list

The chapters are listed in chronological order. Interestingly, the pre-release build labels the chapter numbers based on Eliwood mode, with Hector mode chapters having an H suffix. Sidequests have an X suffix.

Chapter list data
0206 number	Corresponding chapter title
T01)00	A Girl from the Plains
T02)01	Footsteps of Fate
T03)02	Sword of Spirits
T04)03	Band of Mercenaries
T05)04	In Occupation's Shadow
T06)05	Beyond the Borders
T07)06	Blood of Pride
T08)07	Siblings Abroad
T08X)07X	The Black Shadow
T09)08	Vortex of Strategy
T10)09	A Grim Reunion
T11)10	The Distant Plains
01)11	Taking Leave
01)11H	Another Journey
02)12	Birds of a Feather
03)13	In Search of Truth
03)13X	The Peddler Merlinus
04)14	False Friends
04)14H	Talons Alight
05)15	Noble Lady of Caelin
06)16	Whereabouts Unknown
06)16X	The Port of Badon
07)17	Pirate Ship
08)18	The Dread Isle
08)18X	Imprisoner of Magic
08)18HX	A Glimpse in Time
09)19	Dragon's Gate
10)20	New Resolve
11)21	Kinship's Bond
12)22	Living Legend
12)22XA	Genesis
13)23	Four-Fanged Offense (Lloyd's version)
13)23B	Four-Fanged Offense (Linus's version)
13)23H	Crazed Beast
14)24	Unfulfilled Heart
15)25	Pale Flower of Darkness (Kenneth's version)
15)25B	Pale Flower of Darkness (Jerme's version)
16)26	Battle before Dawn
16)26X	Night of Farewells
17)27	Cog of Destiny
18)28	Valorous Roland
18)28H	The Berserker
19)29	Sands of Time
19)29X	Battle Preparations
20)30	Victory or Death
20)30HX	The Value of Life
21)31	Light (Part 1, vs Nergal)
22)32	Crashes, likely intended to be the second portion of Light, specifically the battle against the dragon.
E01)11H	Variant of Another Journey's map used for cutscenes.
E03)13	View of Santaruz castle used in a cutscene for Birds of a Feather's opening.
E04)14	Laus castle used for cutscenes, modified from False Friends's map.
E08)18HX	Nergal's old residence as it appears in the flashback in A Glimpse in Time. The water pools aren't animated for some reason.
E11)21	Extension of Kinship's Bond's map used for cutscenes.
E12)22	Athos' residence map used in cutscenes for Living Legend.
E12)22XA	Name implies it would be a cutscene map used for Genesis, but doesn't seem to actually be used. Does not seem to share any of Genesis' layout like other cutscene maps.
E15)25	Cutscene map for Pale Flower of Darkness (both Kenneth's and Jerme's versions), used when the lords are eavesdropping on the Black Fang, and used for other scenes featuring members of the Black Fang meeting.
E16)26X	Cutscene map for Night of Farewells, used when Nino and Jaffar sneak out at night.
E18)28	Cutscene map for Valorous Roland, the outside of the cave where Eliwood kills Ninian.
E19)29	Cutscene map for Sands of Time, the room where Athos is telling the lords how he met Nergal.
E22)32	Cutscene map for Light used for when Nergal summons three dragons through the Dragon's Gate
SAKABA	Unknown; crashes.
TEST	Test map using a modified version of Victory or Death's map. Features houses that, when visited, display all backgrounds and portraits in the game. There is also a house that tests the transitioning for Lyn's, Eliwood's and Hector's expression changes. Also features some shops, armories, and an arena. There are three possible unit sets for this map, triggered by held buttons while selecting this chapter. Holding nothing provides a small assortment of units. Holding select and start provides a large selection of player units, as well as a large selection of generic enemy units of many classes. Holding select also provides a large selection of playable units, though different ones, and enemy units, also different ones.

Debug functions

Main article: Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0206/Debug functions

Within this pre-release build there are various debug menus that can be accessed in various ways. A lot of these debug functions are identical to those in the 0219 and The Sacred Stones's prototype.

Sound and music

The sound room in action.

Main article: Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0206/Sound and music

Most of the soundtrack featured in the final release is present, however several songs, while clearly identifiable, sound slightly different and/or use different instruments. The songs do not have their final titles, instead using descriptors. For example, Winds Across the Plains is just called "Lyn".

There are also several songs that do not exist in the final release. There is also one song, "Prologue Before Entire Map", while not present in the final release, would go on to be used in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.

The sound room in this version of the prototype is, graphically, mostly unmodified from The Binding Blade's sound room. Going past song 43 will crash the game in up-to-date emulators, though older emulators are able to go past 43. On emulators that are able to go past song 43, it can be seen that some tracks have glitchy names, some of which take a good few seconds to display. It is currently unknown what happens on real hardware.

Graphics

A large amount of the graphics are close to or identical to the final release.

Opening Demo

The art in the opening demo is somewhat different than the final release in a few places. Somwhat notably, the images in this build are bigger horizontally, though the extended image is not shown because of screensize, the final release has these extraneous portions of the image removed.

0206	Final

CG art

Incomplete CG featuring Nergal.

Main article: Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0206/CG images

All of the CG art is in varying stages of completion. The vast majority seems to be complete, it is particularly notable that none of the CG art has the sepia filter applied, and thus appears to generally be more colorful. Some of the artwork was revised for anatomy and other touch-ups as well.

As a general rule, CGs for things closer to the end of the game are more incomplete, though some of the early Lyn mode CGs lack detailed backgrounds and are also still obviously in progress stages. Some of the early Lyn mode CGs also have a border not present in any version of The Blazing Blade's final release.

0206	Final
0206 revisions of the CGs feature brighter colors, are in varying stages of completion, and other changes.

Chapters

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The vast majority of the chapter maps in the prototype are extremely similar, or identical to the final release. However, a small few chapters do have somewhat significant layout differences.

• The Dragon's Gate is white instead of green.
• The ballista in Chapter 8 is positioned in a way that the player can get to it earlier.
• Lloyd's version of Chapter 23 lacks an arena.

Portrait differences

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The somewhat amusing expression resulting from the error in Nergal's portrait.

The majority of the portraits are not vastly different from the final version, though some bosses have shuffled portraits, the vast majority of the bosses in this revision use small portraits from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, despite their full portraits being complete. Some portraits have received minor touch-ups in the final release compared to those here, and, in particular, Lyn and Eliwood have slightly different portraits for their expression changes.

Also of note, the majority of the generic villagers use portraits from The Binding Blade. There is also a minor error in one of Nergal's portraits; his mouth hangs open slightly instead of closing when he is not speaking.

0206 revision

Final revision

0206 revision

Final revision

0206 revision

Final revision

0206 revision

Final revision

0206 revision

Final revision

Eliwood's screen-facing and sad portraits were revised fairly significantly. His angry portrait received some touch-ups.

Lyn's sad and angry portraits were revised slightly.

Heath's hair color was changed from red to green.

Raven's hair color was changed from black to red, the colors of his outfit were also changed slightly.

Jerme's design was changed; he was given a headband.

0206 revision

Final revision

0206 revision

Final revision

0206 revision

Final revision

0206 revision

Final revision

0206 revision

Final revision

Aion's prototype portrait is edited and given to Kenneth and uses a different portrait in the final release.

Kenneth's prototype portrait would later be given to Teodor, while he would receive a modified version of Aion's portrait as replacement.

Teodor uses a recolor of Denning's portrait.

Denning's jawline and facial features were touched up slightly.

Zephiel's portrait received some touch-ups to his eyes and hair.

Classes

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The vast majority of classes present in the final release of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade are fully graphically implemented. This includes the class animations from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade that received touch-ups.

• The Fire Dragon's battle animations and map sprites are implemented; though there are no accompanying sound effects.
• The sound effect that plays during the Druid's critical is not yet implemented.

0206 Final	Eliwood has a different animation than the final release when using Durandal. Final release on the bottom for comparison. In the final release Durandal was made longer, and the animation itself was changed somewhat.
	Lyn has an unused animation for using Durandal. It is unused because she cannot actually equip Durandal in the prototype. Lyn is, obviously, also unable to use Durandal in the final release.
	Dark Druid does not yet have a custom battle animation, and uses the druid battle animations. Also of note and demonstrated by the screen shot, the vast majority of bosses lack their final palettes for their battle animations.

Gameplay

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The prototype's mode select.

The prototype is fairly complete, game play-wise, though there are occasional glitches throughout the game.

• Hard mode is called プロフェッショナル Professional mode.
• The sound room is fully unlocked immediately.
• All magic in the game does half damage.
• Nergal's stat screen occasionally freezes the game.
• Collapsed Nils and Natalie have view-able stat screens, that also freeze the game.
• Chapter 19x pt 2 loads Nergal as a playable unit and erroneously adds him to the player party.
• Sometimes the final door to Nergal's room does not open in the final chapter, making the chapter impossible to complete.
  • Fog of War is present in said chapter.
• The camera occasionally glitches when skipping chapter events with start, making player units invisible, this can be fixed by a suspend and reload.
• The player units start at the bottom of the staircase, instead of the top, in the final battle against the dragon.
• Some chapters do not have accompanying world map narration.

Items

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The prototype largely has all the items that are in the final release, however several items crash the game when their help description is viewed, and many items use placeholder icons.

• The Emblem weapons crash the game when their help description is viewed.
• Regal Blade, Rex Hasta, Basilikos, and Rienfleche use equivalent (e.g. Regal Blade uses the Silver Sword icon) silver weapon icons as placeholders.
• Wolf Beil uses the iron axe icon.
• Flametongue uses the berserk staff icon.
• Ereshkigal's durability is improperly implemented, instead of having infinite durability it has 0 durability and breaks after being used once.

Supports

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A large amount of support conversations and pairs are implemented into the game, including the scripts to the actual conversations, however several pairs say "Test 1" or some variation. Several support scripts vary from the final release.

Classes

• The Morph class variant for Sage does not seem to be utilized.

Status effects

The new dancer ring status effects are implemented and functional.

Trivia

• For some reason the L shoulder button backs out of the options menu like the B button, the final release does not have this feature. This also occurs in The Sacred Stones' prototype.