Collection essentials #190: Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo / Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem (SNES)

This is the third Fire Emblem game in the series, which, as I’ve talked about before, invented the strategy RPG genre as we know it.

This third game in the series stands out in the SNES crowd right off the bat, because you’ll see there are two entirely separate adventures here to play, labeled as “Book 1” and “Book 2”. The first is a full-on remake of the original game, with completely new graphics and sound, and many mechanics changed or reworked. The second is a full-fledged direct sequel to the original, which has a lot of the same graphics but different music. This was highly unusual for the time. It wasn’t very common to have more than one game on a single cartridge back then, and it was ESPECIALLY rare in the realm of RPGs and strategy games. Nintendo probably could have released either of these adventures individually and probably nobody would have had a problem with it. The fact that they went that extra mile to give two games in one is pretty remarkable and awesome. Sadly, Nintendo still seemed to think that these games were too complex and/or difficult for overseas markets, and it’s true that this sort of game only had a niche market at the time and it almost certainly would have had less success than in its mother country.

Mystery of the Emblem was the best-selling game in the series for quite a long time. And while it does certainly bring the series a step forward, the truth is that there aren’t many good reasons to revisit this particular release in modern times. That’s partially because future games would refine the formula quite a bit further, and also because both of these adventures would get remakes 15-plus years down the road which I think most would agree are superior. That being said, the games are still enjoyable and probably worth a try if you’re a big fan of the series, but only in that case. There is an English fan translation patch available now for those interested.

Both of these games feature Marth, one of the most popular heroes of the series, who has appeared in most of the Super Smash Bros. titles. When I first tried the English-localized Fire Emblem games as a teenager and fell in love, I had to see the series’ roots, and I believe this game (the very one shown in the photo) was the first one I imported from Japan. I was able to use guides and figure out how to play it just fine in Japanese. I had fun with it, but the game can be pretty tough especially if you don’t know how to optimally play the game, and I had a hard time, never making it all that far. I think I probably got halfway through it and then wound up moving on to other games when I repeatedly failed a stage. Later on I played through Book 1 on an emulator and cheated just a little bit to progress rather than have the patience to keep trying over and over. I don’t usually do that with games, but I never made an exception. I never beat Book 2, but I played and loved the remake which I will talk about in a post a loooong ways down the road.

Fire Emblem 3 may have been eclipsed by remakes and sequels, but it was still a nice step forward for the series and makes for a worthy collection essential.