Fire Emblem: Engage

The followup to the somewhat divisive Three Houses, Engage goes back to basics in many ways.  While Three Houses felt fairly overdesigned between its class system, school sim elements and just a generally massive cast, Engage goes back to a being a fairly streamlined and linear adventure.  Characters come and go at the whim of the story, the Weapon Triangle returns, and there's no longer a class system in place.  Given that it was also meant as a celebration of the franchise's 30 year anniversary, its plot also incorporates this in the form of Emblems - heroes from previous games who fight alongside this game's protagonists in spirit form.  Characters can equip rings that grant access to Emblems, and filling the meter to activate an Engage grants them new special moves and bolsters their stats for a few turns; a bit similar in premise to Persona (or Tokyo Mirage Sessions).  As characters use their Emblems more their bonds improve and they gain more passive bonuses.  The visuals have seen definite improvement too, with more expressive characters and a lot of visual flourishes on special attacks, giving it an almost tokusatsu vibe.  That said, the actual plot of the game isn't really anything to write home about - an amnesiac hero (or heroine), four countries entrusted with powerful artifacts, a dark dragon threatening to drive the world to ruin again, you've seen it all before.  Still, if you want a Fire Emblem that goes back to basics while introducing a more streamlined design, an interesting new mechanic and paying homage to games of its past, this is one you may want to peruse.

Developer: Intelligent Systems

Publisher: Nintendo

Released: 2023

Platform: Switch

Paper Mario

The Nintendo 64 was a platform with a serious shortage of RPGs, especially in light of it following in the footsteps of the Super Nintendo, which had so many brilliant examples of the genre that are still regarded as classics today.  Nintendo had planned a new approach to Mario in the realm of RPGs, but as Squaresoft declined to work with them again in favor of developing Final Fantasy VII on the Playstation, the task instead fell to Intelligent Systems.  But does this new approach to a Mario RPG have enough charm to appeal to die-hard RPG fans, or does Paper Mario fall as flat as its namesake?

The Nintendo 64 is the strange middle child of Nintendo's console lineup; choosing to stick with cartridges in an era when optical discs were fast becoming the new standard, as well as utilizing 64-bit architecture that was difficult to program for, alienated many third-party developers from working on it.  Even Nintendo seemingly had misgivings about the limitations of cartridges, as they quickly made plans to develop a disk drive addon for the Nintendo 64; however, ongoing delays led to said peripheral only being released in the system's twilight days and only available via mail order in Japan, making it a significant financial and PR failure for the company.  As a result of this, many games that were originally planned for the Disk Drive peripheral were either reworked to use base hardware (Kirby 64, Ocarina of Time), ported to other platforms (Dragon Quest VII), or ultimately cancelled entirely (Snatcher, Mother 3).

Paper Mario was one of many games planned for the 64DD platform, though as a result of its failure, it was reworked into a cartridge game and became one of the last major releases for the system.  It was also originally developed under the title of "Super Mario RPG 2", though they later changed that as it bore little resemblance to the original Super Mario RPG in terms of design and aesthetic.  Indeed, rather than the prerendered CGI style Mario RPG had used, Paper Mario draws more inspiration from western cartoons and Parappa the Rapper on the Playstation, having soft-edged 2D sprites on three-dimensional backdrops that give the game the look of a pop-up book.  The game plays with this throughout as well, with characters visibly rotating and falling flat in 3D space and switches causing the scenery to dynamically shift and reassemble into new shapes - something Playstation RPGs with pre-rendered backgrounds weren't able to do, and it's quite fun to watch whenever it occurs.

Paper Mario's core gameplay is familiar if you've played Mario RPG beforehand, retaining its minigame-based elements in combat.  Well-timed button presses cause your attacks to deal extra damage and reduce damage from enemy attacks, and special moves often come with unique minigames of their own - pressing the stick to the left and releasing once a bar fills, mashing the A button to fill a meter, and timed button presses.  Some new elements do show themselves, though - the player can now gain an advantage in battle by landing a hit on the enemy before the fight begins, and the enemy can do the same to them, necessitating that they stay vigilant.  There is also significantly less of a party dynamic here - though you get multiple sidekick characters throughout the adventure, used both in combat and to solve puzzles outside of it, only one can be active at a time.  Enemies don't actively target them, either - only Mario - and if an ally takes damage they'll be incapacitated for one or more turns depending on how much 'damage' they took.  SMRPG also had relatively low HP and MP totals signifying its lower-stakes, kid-friendly design, and Paper Mario takes this even further, with your basic attacks doing only one point of damage (two with a timed hit) and generally pretty low HP totals for Mario and his enemies; the absolute maximum being 99.  On the other hand, this does give you a greater expectation of how your attacks can do, and even one or two points of Defense can be a serious hurdle to overcome.

Something that Paper Mario does quite well - possibly better than any other Eastern RPG before it - is giving you free reign to customize your character's abilities.  Each time you gain 100 Star Points from battles, you're given the option to improve one of your three core stats - HP, FP and Badge Points.  HP and FP are fairly self-explanatory, but Badge Points allow you to equip Badges that allow you to customize Mario in a wide variety of ways.  Boosting your base Attack and Defense; granting all manner of new special moves that can rack up the damage (hitting all enemies at once, repeatedly attacking one enemy until you miss a timed press) or inflict status effects; using multiple items per turn at an FP cost; searching out hidden items on a particular screen; or even just changing the sound effects Mario's attacks make in combat.  This affords beginners quite a few ways to give themselves an edge against tougher enemies, while more skilled players can put few levels into HP (or even none at all) and instead just focus on utilizing effective item/special move/badge loadouts to avoid damage and decimate their enemies.

Taking note of the fact that RPGs were becoming less about the main story and more about the journey you take through a virtual world, Paper Mario certainly doesn't skimp on its side content, either.  There are plenty of hidden secrets to discover, side missions to complete, optional minigames to check out, and even a couple of challenging optional battles you can undertake if you really feel confident in your skills.  It may not be as substantial as some of the Playstation Final Fantasies, but the amount of content Paper Mario provides is certainly nothing to sneeze at, especially for a game on the infamously space-limited Nintendo 64.

So, all told, is Paper Mario a worthy successor to Square's famous fusion of Mario's platforming and their own high-quality RPG design?  Well, while it doesn't quite have the same feel and charm of Mario RPG, I still found quite a lot to like in Paper Mario.  The quirky humor, creative presentation and heavy customization make it a game that appeals to both younger gamers and more seasoned ones, and Intelligent Systems - mostly known to this point for turn-based strategy games and RPGs - put their skills to good use here, making a game with familiar core design but some clever ideas that build on them in fine form.  Having more visual feedback on all of your special moves is a welcome improvement as well, making some special moves that were difficult to get the feel for (Geno's Beams, spinning the D-pad for Bowser's moves, the bloody 100 Super Jumps challenge) much easier to pull off.  All in all, I'd call it a fine successor, and easily the Nintendo 64's best RPG.

Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo 
Platform: Nintendo 64, Wii Virtual Console, Wii U Virtual Console, Nintendo Switch Online (+ Expansion Pack)
Released: 2001, 2007, 2015, 2021
Recommended Version: All the later ports are emulations of the N64 original.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

The humble origin of the Fire Emblem franchise, which proved unpopular with critics for its difficulty curve and relatively undetailed graphics but was a big hit with Japanese gamers, who enjoyed its challenge and surprising depth; enough to make it a cult classic that would see fan translations, tons of sequels and spinoffs and, for a limited time, an official release on the Nintendo Switch marking its worldwide debut.  This game introduced the world to many of Fire Emblem's design tropes that would be used for three decades and counting - utilizing terrain and character skills to your advantage, having your equipment degrade with use (necessitating that you find/buy replacements on a fairly frequent basis), and of course the series' mainstay of dead units being lost forever, necessitating careful planning and risk mitigation.  That said, it is a bit slow and stiff to play, particularly compared to many of the newer games' highly polished UIs and memorable character interactions.  Still, it's worth a look for series fans and RPG buffs; if you want to experience the story in full, though, I'd say play the remake (Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for Nintendo DS) instead.

Developer: Intelligent Systems/Nintendo R&D1
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: 1990, 2020
Platforms: Famicom, Switch

Paper Mario: the Thousand-Year Door

The second game in the Paper Mario franchise and one of a handful of RPG offerings to appear on the Gamecube, where it got some relatively high acclaim from fans, especially in light of the very lacking genre offerings on the Nintendo 64.  But is this a fun adventure that is still worth undertaking today, or is it just too dated and living in the shadow of better games?

When it comes to Mario's foray into the realm of RPGs, Super Mario RPG is undeniably the most popular of them all.  Released as something of a "last hurrah" for the SNES platform, it was a powerhouse of Donkey Kong Country styled 3D-rendered graphics (aided by an isometric viewpoint), inventive mechanics that worked mini-games into every element of the gameplay, a killer soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura, and a surprisingly good storyline that felt every bit as epic as you'd expect from a collaboration between Nintendo and rising-star Squaresoft.  The sales certainly reflected that too, as it sold over two million copies worldwide and is regarded as one of the best RPGs on the system (and of all-time) by both die-hard fans and more casual ones alike.

However, with Square splitting with Nintendo shortly thereafter to develop RPGs on the Playstation, hopes for a sequel were quickly dashed (and as of 2019, one still hasn't happened despite several Square games being released on newer Nintendo platforms).  Nintendo did employ their second-parties to try and create some memorable RPGs of their own, with the first being Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64; a game which I have played but never got very far in (and struggle to remember much about).  Still, it was a modest success, kicking off a new franchise that continues to this day, with its latest entry being Paper Mario: Color Splash for the Wii U, released in 2016.

For my money, though, the best game in the Paper Mario franchise is its second entry on the Gamecube, which took the gimmicks of the original Paper Mario and took them to new heights of innovation.  This is evident right away even in the visual style; it retains the same style of having 3D backdrops with 2D characters on, but goes to even greater lengths to resemble a pop-up book, with frequent instances of secrets being revealed by "unfolding" or peeling away elements of the backdrops, or 2D elements popping out to form 3D ones the player can interact with (like stairways).  It adds a lot of fun and suspense to the game when even mundane screens that seem secretless can give way to hidden things in a creative way.

The focus on minigames returns from earlier efforts too, with combat integrating a surprising number of them.  This is evident right out of the gate, as Mario's two main attacks (jump and hammer) each have an associated minigame to allow the player to deal more damage; pressing the button right as a jump attack lands will cause Mario to land another hit, while holding the control stick left and releasing it as the lights on a small gauge fill will deal extra damage with the hammer.  One can also block attacks in similar fashion - pressing the A button just as an attack impacts will reduce damage taken or even negate it entirely.  TTYD takes things a step further, too - the player can perform a "Superguard" by pressing B instead.  This move is trickier to time, but successfully pulling it off will fully negate damage to Mario and damage the enemy instead, making it a very rewarding tactic for more advanced players.  One can also gain an advantage entering a fight by landing a hit on an enemy in the field, which will cause Mario or his partner to inflict some damage on them before the first turn begins; enemies can do this to you too, though, so caution is advised to prevent that.

Combat is made a lot more dynamic in Thousand Year Door, though, thanks to a number of new mechanics.  The first of these are the Special Moves, which have a variety of effects - healing Mario's party, damaging enemies, stopping time temporarily and so forth, for a number of Star Points (the player begins with a maximum stock of 1, but the total increases as they collect the Crystal Stars over the course of the game).  These all take the form of minigames, with Sweet Treat (the healing effect) having the player throw stars at targets; hitting mushrooms will restore HP, flowers restore FP, and Poison mushrooms will stun the player for a few seconds, robbing them of time to get the most out of the effect.  Another example is "Art Attack", which allows Mario to move a cursor around the screen and draw circles around enemies, inflicting 3 damage each time he does so (which can add up to quite a lot if one gets good at the game).  Star Points in turn are refilled via the Audience mechanic, seen below.

A significant new gameplay element surfaces too, thanks to the Audience mechanic.  All battles in the game take place upon a virtual 'stage" in front of an audience, and the player's actions during battle will affect this in various ways.  If they're doing well in a fight (countering attacks, consistently landing timed hits, et cetera) more audience members will arrive, and subsequent attacks will bolster one's Star Power gains by a significant amount; however, if they're doing poorly, audience members will start to leave and Star Power gains will be negatively affected.  On occasion, the audience will interfere in the fight too, doing things like making a character invisible (and immune to damage) for a single turn, throwing objects at Mario or his enemies to damage and/or stun them (though the player can avoid damage with a well-timed button press), toss him a powerup on occasion, or even cause other audience members to be distracted or flee the theater.  The audience varies wildly by the type of area the player is traversing, with hostile audience members becoming more prevalent in later areas of the game and as one's overall level increases.

Another mechanic can affect this too; namely the "Bingo" mechanic that appears early on in the game.  Basically, each turn the player takes causes a random icon to appear in the upper-right corner, and if they get two of the same type, a minigame is played where they try to match up the third symbol via a slot reel; if they do so, they'll gain positive effects like restoring one's HP (mushroom), FP (flower), Star Power (star) or filling every seat in the audience (Shine Sprite).  However, if three Poison Mushrooms are matched, all three stats will be cut by half and all of the audience will flee, putting the player at a significant disadvantage (and giving the player much incentive to fail that roll on purpose).  This does add a significant luck element to the combat, but can also allow one to turn things around in a pinch.

The secondary characters in the game have been somewhat revamped, too.  Unlike the original Paper Mario, each now has their own individual HP values (instead of being disabled after a single hit) and can even gain benefits from certain badges, making them into more fully-fledged party members.  Each has a field command (like being able to blow up certain obstacles to clear a path or leap gaps Mario couldn't clear on his own), and in battle they all have their own advantages and disadvantages; for example, Kooper the Koopa has an innate Defense bonus, making it tougher for weaker enemies to damage him, but this is offset by him having low HP and being able to be "flipped" by jump attacks, leaving him helpless for a turn.  Knowing the particulars of enemies in an area, and which partner to use to counter them, quickly becomes and important part of the game's strategy.

The badge system from the original Paper Mario returns too, and as in that game, it works as both a means of character customization and difficulty-tweaking.  Some badges are simply there for customization purposes and/or humor value (like ones that can be equipped to change Mario's color scheme to that of Luigi, Wario or Waluigi, or change in-battle sounds), while others grant new special moves or bolster Mario's stats, granting extra attack damage, defense or HP.  Others still play into the risk-versus-reward element of the game, such as making timed hits harder to pull off but boosting Star Power gained from them, dealing more damage when HP is low, or causing timed attacks to do more damage but nullifying damage inflicted by non-timed attacks.  This essentially allows less-experienced players to give themselves an advantage and more advanced ones to take greater risks to maximize rewards, allowing it to be a game that appeals to both crowds.

That philosophy as a whole is also what allows all of the Mario RPGs to work - they're deep enough to appeal to die-hard gamers while user-friendly enough to not alienate younger or less-experienced ones.  Thousand Year Door is certainly no exception, bringing a sense of humor and a visual style that seems to cater to a younger crowd, yet having enough to offer discerning RPG fans that it won't alienate an older audience either.  That, plus just being a fun game to play in general, make this a standout RPG for the Gamecube and still my favorite in the Paper Mario franchise.  Well worth a look if you can track down a copy.

Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Gamecube, Switch
Released: 2004, 2024
Recommended Version: The Switch version is a faithful remake of the Gamecube release, albeit with improved visual effects and a reworked soundtrack as well as a few tweaks to key mechanics (timing the Multi Jump badge is now much trickier, for example) and a more comprehensive fast travel network.  It does seem to have a slightly lower framerate in places but in general is a superior version of the game.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

The latest in the long-running Fire Emblem franchise and the first mainline entry to make its appearance on the Switch, Three Houses also introduces several new gameplay elements to the format.  But do these changes make the sixteenth Fire Emblem game a strategy RPG to remember, or is this just a letdown to long-time fans?

Fire Emblem for a franchise has been around for a long time, with its first entry appearing on the Famicom in 1990, but it remained a relatively unknown franchise outside of Japan for a long while.  Like many in the west, my first exposure to the Fire Emblem franchise was through the Super Smash Brothers series, most notably its second entry (Melee) which featured Marth and Roy from the first and sixth Fire Emblem games, respectively.  Fan interest led Intelligent Systems to localize Fire Emblem games for the first time, and from that, the series quickly developed a following in the west.  Sales for later entries steadily declined, though, and the series faced the threat of being cancelled entirely.  However, the unexpected success of Fire Emblem: Awakening on the 3DS (selling 2.1 million copies worldwide - nearly four times as many as the previous international release) brought it back from the brink, driving Nintendo to give the franchise a new lease and allowing Intelligent Systems an opportunity to make it a staple franchise for a new generation of RPG fans.

The most recent result of that and a collaboration with Koei Tecmo (who also developed the Fire Emblem Warriors spinoff game) was Three Houses; a game which worked in some elements of a school sim (not unlike the popular Persona franchise) and allowed the player to build more personal relationships with characters in a variety of ways.  The game also surprisingly did away with a couple of the series' trademark elements - the Weapon Triangle and Magic Triangle mechanics are discarded, allowing for a wider variety of spells and weapons to be utilized.  Similarly, Magic now falls under one of two schools, with healing and supportive magic governed by the Faith stat and offensive magic being based on Reason.

While Three Houses does retain the series' trademark of having no "generic" characters, it does utilize a class system somewhat similar to games like Final Fantasy Tactics.  Each character begins as a generic class (Noble or Commoner) that can use low level magic and weapons, but as their skills with weapon types, Reason, Faith, Riding, etc. are boosted, more classes become available to them.  From Monks (spellcasters) to Fortress Knights (slow but heavily-armored and powerful fighters) to series mainstays like Paladins and Pegasus Knights, there are quite a few to see and use, each with their own skills to learn to bolster one's combat abilities.  One small roadblock, however, is that one requires a Seal item to unlock anything beyond basic classes, and they must take an exam at a specific point of the week with a significant chance of failure, though this decreases as the classes' prerequisite skills go up.

A new feature of Three Houses is the Battalion mechanic, where a character can be "equipped" with a type of Battalion; doing so bolsters their stats based on the character's Charm stat and and allows for special attacks called "Gambits" with a variety of effects - healing all allies in a small area, stunning enemies and preventing them from moving for a turn, or knocking them back a space to allow other units to move in, to name a few.  More powerful Battalions become available to units with a higher Authority skill, making it a very worthwhile investment for some characters.

As mentioned, the game works in elements of school sims to develop its characters and train their abilities.  In a twist on the norm, though, the player actually takes the role of a professor at Garreg Mach Monastery, granting them a very active role in shaping their unit's classes and abilities.  The player is at first given the choice of which of the titular Three Houses to teach for (each with their own set of students and a unique storyline twist later on), and after that they can hold lessons to train students' stats, have them enter tournaments, take promotion exams, or just invite them to mundane activities like cooking or having tea together.  The latter two are necessary in part to keep students' Motivation up, which is required to maximize the number of training sessions they will have in a given week.  One can also help them build bonds with the player character and other students via correct dialog choices, gifts or finding and returning lost items, which in turn helps them synergize better on the battlefield.  One can also recruit students from other houses into their own by boosting the protagonist's stats high enough, which gives them more available characters to use during battles.  As one engages with their students and completes optional objectives throughout the academy, they will earn experience to boost their Professor Level, which in turn will earn them extra funds at the start of each month and more free time to spend on activities.

Combat, despite losing a couple of long-time staples of its design, remains unmistakably Fire Emblem, with lengthy but engaging skirmishes against large groups of foes and just enough of a random element to keep the player focused.  Keeping one's team in a close formation and moving characters to the back of the pack after they take a hit or two is still recommended, lest enemies gang up on individual units and eliminate them (particularly problematic on the Classic setting, where character death is permanent).  Weapons still break after a set number of uses, with special attacks generally doing more damage than a standard blow but depleting Weapon HP much more quickly (and eliminating any chance of follow-up attacks).  Spells operate slightly differently than previous games, not being tied to Spellbook items but only being usable a set number of times per battle.  And of course, knowing the ins and outs of all the units is highly recommended, such as attacking armoed foes with magic or knowing to use archers against flying units.

As with many modern games, Three Houses does work in an online feature of sorts - while the game is solely a single-player experience, connecting to the Internet will cause "event squares" to appear on the field where other players' characters fell, usually granting a dropped item or some extra experience points when a character stops on them.  One can also get training or temporary assistance from other players' characters at the academy that appear after talking to a specific NPC.  While neither is ultimately a big change to the overall experience, they can be handy for getting a little bit of extra aid in a pinch.

It's not a perfect experience, though.  I greatly enjoyed the first half of the game; the story-based sidequests, character building and customization were all a lot of fun, offsetting the series' relatively shallow tactical combat that kept me from getting much into it beforehand.  However, the experience is not nearly as strong in its second half.   The story abruptly shifts ahead five years, which changes up surprisingly little - you're still doing the same school-life elements between major battles, only now there's far less to do in the way of subquests, so you just end up spinning your wheels or doing tedious grindfest skirmishes to pass the time rather than anything engaging.  Combat becomes far less balanced, with your units either becoming virtually-invincible juggernauts who kill everything in one hit or die in one hit themselves (particularly archers and mages), and frequent fights against multi-health-barred monsters just become a slog when you have to take out half a dozen of them back to back in a single battle.  The story all but hits a dead-point, with lots of overlong filler missions that serve little purpose narratively, and on one particular path the secondary protagonist just becomes insufferable, constantly brooding and spouting cringe-worth edgy lines you'd see in a thirteen-year-old's crack at death metal lyrics.  Most of the characters scarcely even acknowledge the time skip - sure, they get new designs (well, most of them), but they barely have a word to say in most cutscenes and their interpersonal interactions pick up exactly where they left off five years prior, as if that game-changing story event never even happened at all.  Even the ending is pretty weak - the cutscene barely lasts a minute and has maybe three spoken lines in it, with all the characters' subplots given resolution in dry text blurbs rather than animated cutscenes.  It's like they had a really good game premised planned out and then were forced to horribly rush-job the latter half of it.  Still a good game overall, but I wish its second half didn't feel so rushed.

All in all, Fire Emblem: Three Houses had me entranced - the Persona-esque character interactions, the customization and even the school sim elements were all pretty charming and a nice change of pace for the series, and even the combat - something that mostly turned me off to earlier entries - really wasn't too bad for the most part, if still not especially deep (and rather unbalanced in some respects).  However, the latter half of the game (felt quite weak by comparison, discarding much the wonderful character interactions and school-sim element and making the whole thing into a desolate, unpleasant and virtually plotless grinding simulator with some pretty questionable balance - you tend to either destroy things in one hit or be completely ineffective and get one-shotted yourself.  Maybe the other story routes are more satisfying - I haven't tried them yet, nor the DLC - but it's still worth a look as a reimagining of a long-running franchise, even if it's a bit uneven overall.

Developer: Intelligent Systems, Koei Tecmo Games
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Switch
Released: 2019
Recommended Version: N/A