I will break this down into categories: Story, characters, gameplay, soundtrack. Let's begin
STORY
This is pretty formulaic for Fire Emblem standards. But it's also effective at what it does. Zephiel wages war, Roy must stop him, Roy discovers the origins of the dragons, betrayal via Etruria, he had to entrust his army, and former enemies to help him stop it. Roy had to work hard in order to get what he wanted. Becomes the hero we thought he would be in the end. Akin to Marth who came before, Roy has a lot of resemblances. What this game does though, is the light vs dark theme the game has going for it. The evil, was once good, and the good has to remind the evil of who he once was. In terms of plot holes, the story doesn't have much holes. Roy has to deal with leaders who are glorified dicks, had to liberate an entire island after being sent there, had to deal with the loss of Hector, dealing with a sick father, all while going through what he had to go through. Roy had a lot of weight on his shoulders, and Lilina to a lesser extent because she is heir to Ostia.
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| Yamada is great |
CHARACTERS
This is probably one of the game's biggest strength, the cast. If i had to say what Fire Emblem game does quantity and quality well, it's Binding Blade. Roy is basically Marth 3.0 (Seliph came before), Lilina is pretty unique in the sense that she has a strong resolve to help Roy stop this war much akin to Hector and Eliwood, Klein is a young man who is leading things and is shown to want to treat nobles and commoners the same. Milady is in serious moral conflict, Perceval betrayed his men because he thought it was the right thing to do, Niime was an abusive grand mother who learned her ways. Hugh was a mage who does mercenary work to help the sick (much like Castor, but I think Hugh is better), Astore and Igrene's relationship is beyond tragic, Roy's conversation with Fae in the endgame is pretty sad stuff, what Idunn has to do even though she admits she may lose, Karel, this game has no shortage of great characters and is a great example of never judging a book by its cover.
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| wholesome |
OST
I lied, i want to talk about the soundtrack. First and foremost, this game's ost is actually pretty good. Besides the 1st player phase map theme which i find sort of grating, this game has no bad enemy phase theme, all of the other player phase themes are amazing (for the commanders, path of the divine generals), the story tracks that play, Shaman in the Dark, really, the game has some really good stuff. And honestly, this game has one of my favorite overall osts in the series.
GAMEPLAY
BOWS AND SWORDS ARE GOOD
In a game where dodging is at an all time high and most enemies use axes or inaccurate weaponry, it makes swords and bows come across as extremely valuable. Tomes to a lesser extent as well. There's also the fact that Swordmasters are a very good class in this game, netting a 30% crit boost and are fantastic dodge tanks in a game with low hit rates
TOUGHER ENEMIES
This game pulls no punches with its enemies, and the player has to think really hard on how to kill them, the best part is that this game gives out a lot of exp, so it feels really satisfying killing that Paladin in chapter 13. The chapter 7 wyvern riders are really tough, Henning and Randy are extremely tough bosses, enemy swordmasters and berserkers running amok, ballistae and siege tomes, this game has no shortage of tough enemies and it's up to you to find out how to kill them.
AMBUSH SPAWNS
Now normally, i would bash this, but here is the thing, the player will never play hard mode first, and the normal mode enemies are pretty easy for the most part. The reinforcement layout on HM is the same as normal mode, so if the player knows the reinforcements on normal, they know it on hard. Now the added reinforcement on HM however, i don't find it bullshit, because they usually spawn from the beginning of the map, and the player has already beat the map, or most of the map where they can prepare for them. Now there are bad ambush spawns, like the Sacae maps
MAP DESIGN
It's great overall. There are some bad maps, but Binding Blade gets a good grade from me, each map feels like something special for me.
BALANCING
This game's balancing isn't really what i like to call good, but not much FE games have good balance to begin with. I want to talk about some things though. Almost EVERYONE is viable, even Sophia, archers are useful, axe users can be useful with investment, this game is one of the least snowballed games in the series, the maps require team effort to plow through it. Even if Milady is great, she has some moments of weakness, like her speed cap, for one. Units like Dorothy is viable, so is Sue, lance units are still great, but may have to rely on swords to reliably hit stuff. Prepromotes are not OP, unpromoted units are useful, your team may contribute one way, or another. And units on normal are not the same as they are on hard, some units like Marcus, Allen, and Lance are better on normal, units like Rutger, Milady, and Tate are worse on normal, to give a good example.
STORY INTEGRATED IN THE GAMEPLAY
This game's setting is during the war, Bern has invaded as said in the story segment, Roy has to defy all odds to stop them, and knowing the gameplay, Bern does not screw around,neither does Etruria, this helps the player feel more invested in the story because they are fighting this threat, one Wyvern Rider with high stats is just another mook for Bern's army, Zephiel in chapter 13 has a huge army that is well-armed and ready to pounce on you, chapter 21's wyvern army, ready to stop you from advancing to Murdock, you overcoming that gives you a huge satisfaction, satisfaction that was never replicated until Radiant Dawn, and satisfaction that never was replicated again
FINAL THOUGHTS
This game does rip off from Marth's games, but the merits this game has on its own definitely is worth my positive outlook, this game to me gets better the more I play it. Does it have problems? Yup, but i feel like the pros overshadow the cons, and i think the game is one of the better designed games in the series.
