Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is now part of Nintendo’s Switch Online + Expansion pack bundle, accessible in the Game Boy Advance app.
This is the first Fire Emblem game to receive an English language localization, coming to America in 2003, and then Europe and Australia in the following year. At the time, Nintendo simply titled it Fire Emblem, but it is actually the seventh game in the franchise, and is definitely set in the middle of the franchise’s continuity.
This is the game where Lyndis, more commonly known as Lyn, first appears. Casual gamers probably know Lyn more than her game, as she became famous as an assist trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, she is one of three lords that the game narrative revolves around, alongside Hector and Eliwood. The three go on a quest to find Eliwood’s missing father Elbert.
As we know, Fire Emblem did not find its true mainstream success until Fire Emblem: Awakening, which arrived nearly a decade after Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, now on the 3DS. At that point, Intelligent Systems did expect that the franchise would get retired, so they put everything they could on it.
The overwhelming success of Fire Emblem: Awakening meant a permanent change to the franchise, as it would become normal moving forward to offer a QOL option to disable permadeath, as well as many other changes.
This is all relevant, because if you became a Fire Emblem fan because of these newer games, you need to understand that Fire Emblem: The Blazing Bladeis a completely different game. It’s a proper difficult old school turn based strategy game, with permadeath. It also requires that the lead characters survive so they can stick around until the end of the story. If you let any of the three main lords die in-game, your game also ends and you have to start over.
Now, it’s also worth noting, that Nintendo of America did consider Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade to be a success, and it prompted the company to bring future Fire Emblem games to the West as well. So if you are old enough to own a Game Boy Advance when it originally came out, you yourself may have nostalgic memories of this game.
Nintendo’s releases of additions to Switch Online seems to be picking up in pace, even if it still isn’t that fast. We have to assume this is because Nintendo European Research and Development, who manages emulation for the Switch, is finishing up on their work. We may expect to see more games continue to join the subscription service in the next few months.
You can watch the official announcement trailer below.
