Editing Fire Emblem (section)

=== Elibe and Magvel/Legendary Weapons/Purple ===
In ''Cipher'', characters from these games focus on support skills, which still fits as the ''modern'' incarnation of the Support system started here. Characters from Magvel (which isn't actually in the same world as Elibe as far as we know, but doesn't have any other games set there and is linked with them through all being on the GBA) often have anti-monster effects or (in one case) monster tribal, fitting as non-dragon monster enemies were introduced as a major factor in their game. As of this writing only three Purple monsters were printed and only 5 monsters were printed overall, so it isn't utilized all that much. More recently introduced are legendary weapon skills, which activate when a character's other skill is activated multiple times in one turn.

* ''Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade'' (''ファイアーエムブレム　封印の剣''), known by early fans as ''Sword of Seals'' (since it is related to a building translated as the "Shrine of Seals" in the next game), was the 6th game and released on the GBA. With his father, Eliwood, ill and the League's official leader, Hector, dead, young Roy is pressed into leadership of the Lycian League after it is invaded by its belligerent neighbor Bern. Very much a back-to-basics title after the wild-but-sloppy experimentation that characterized the Jugdral era, with a simple plot and no map objectives other than seizing the throne/keep or killing the final boss. Map design is unexceptional, but mostly playable outside of a few awful tire-fires involving mounted units and terrain that slows them to a crawl.  Units often join weak and have shitty growth rates that leave them open to having the RNG gods bend them over and go in dry without lube, emphasizing prepromoted characters in a way that's an acquired taste at best; this is further complicated by awful weapon hit-chances.  Enemies miss all the time too, but they're probably stronger than you, they probably have better crit rates than you, and there're a lot more of them so they'll have more chances to try and get lucky than you will. Returning from the previous game are branching story paths, based on which routes you wanted to take on your quest around the continent, leading to different sets of recruitable characters and treasures, though, unfortunately, it was done sloppily and many of the routes are just better-designed and more-rewarding than others. One new feature that remained with the series going forward was changing hit calculations to be based on the average of two random numbers instead of just one. The mathematical result is that displayed hit rates of 50% or higher are more likely than stated, but those lower are less likely than stated. The practical result is units with high accuracy are less likely to miss on a 90+% chance and units with high evasion can dodge more consistently.  Both are great in further games but marginal improvements (if not outright negative) here where most of your units are already struggling to hit and dodge. It's not ''bad'', but it has the misfortune of being surpassed by both its successors on the same system and in the same engine, though some fans who like to play "Ironman" style sometimes prefer it.
** ''Champion's Sword'' (''覇者の剣'') is a manga that set concurrent to this game. It starts as a side-story but eventually becomes an alternate telling of the game's story, and introduces characters and concepts that fit with the game's plot but are never mentioned or revealed within it. Character unique to the manga appear in Cipher as purple cards.
* ''Fire Emblem'' (''ファイアーエムブレム 烈火の剣'') was the 7th game, also on the GBA, and the first to be released in English, sans subtitle. It is known as ''The Blazing Blade'' in English releases of spinoff titles and older English fans sometimes refer to it as ''Blazing Sword'' or just ''FE7''. The story for this game is unusual in that it not only lacks a full-scale war, but has three main Lords (Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector) rather than one, each of whom gets their own "story," though Hector's is basically a retelling of Eliwood's from his point of view, with a few chapters being radically different and a few exclusive as a result. Lyn's story involves her carving through an army of assassins on the way to her mother's homeland to reclaim her birthright from her scheming uncle, Eliwood and Hector's both pick up a few years later with them setting off to find Eliwood's absent father and elbowing into the machinations of a mysterious mercenary company/crime syndicate called the Black Fang. It also introduced the concept of the player being inserted into the game as a character in their own right whom the other characters converse with, though unlike later incarnations, the player takes the form of a faceless "tactician" who never speaks, doesn't directly fight on the battlefield, and is only minimally customizable. Generally seen as a huge step forward from its predecessor, with a wonderfully-original story (for this franchise anyway), popular cast of characters, fun maps, well-written localization that threads the needle between sounding too modern and too purple, the introduction of static-painted cutscenes to add drama when sprites talking to each other won't do, and great replay value. The biggest black mark against it is that the player has to first clear Lyn's story to access later content, and Lyn's story is an elaborate, ten-chapter tutorial teaching a player who's never touched a strategy RPG how to play ''Fire Emblem'', meaning that while it makes a great gateway drug to the rest of the series, it can feel dull to repeat players who have the basic nailed down. Some have also criticized the plot for being ''too'' sprawling and experimental for its own good, arguing that the machinations of the main villain, though compelling in terms of characterization, make little sense. It also has a number of callbacks to the less-interesting and never-localized game that preceded it, but that's what wikis are for.
* ''Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones'' (''ファイアーエムブレム 聖魔の光石'') on the GBA was the 8th game in the series. Set on the continent of Magvel, where a long-lived peace is shattered when the Kingdom of Renais is invaded by its former ally, the Grado Empire. Grado's apparent motive is to destroy the Sacred Stones of each country, a disturbing revelation as these stones are all that hold back the banished Demon King from reemerging. The twin heirs to Renais, Erika and Ephraim, embark on separate quests to end Grado's assault.  The first few chapters largely focus on Erika, with occasional cutaways to Ephraim, and the two splitting off into their own routes and quests about a third of the way into the game before reuniting for the last few chapters.  Notably, a few characters and story beats are slightly different for each protagonist.  It reintroduces many lost mechanics from previous games, especially ''Gaiden'', such as a world map, very-limited form of class-based skills (in the last title, only the Assassin class had a skill in the form of the ability to kill any enemy with a critical hit, while here several (though not all) promoted classes have special skills, like Bishops doing bonus damage to monsters), recruit characters that start weak but offer huge growth potential via a whole 'nother tier of levels, unplayable "monster" enemy units on some maps rather than human armies, and dungeons where XP and items can be ground for from respawning enemies.  It also expanded the concept of offering multiple options upon class changing to every class in the game, offering huge variety since every promotion can fork one of two ways. Despite being very easy, even without using the ability to grind infinitely, the base gameplay is solid, the story, though full of many series and JRPG cliches, actually has an interesting and complex villain for a change, and the characters are just as charming as ever.  A popular source for FE GBA romhacks, given the large ROM size and depth of mechanics.