The first Fire Emblem game released in the US 22 years ago. For most of this time, I assumed Fire Emblem was too hard for me. As a turn-based, strategy series, it strongly encourages patience and planning, both of which I’m awful at, and it has the most feared feature of all: permadeath.

If you don’t know, “permadeath” is a term that refers to the death of a video game character being permanent. In most video games, the player has a certain number of lives or can die infinitely with varying consequences. If a Fire Emblem character dies, they’re dead for good. This means if the main or one of the main characters in a particular story dies, it’s game over, and there’s nothing the player can do about it.

Of course, permadeath is optional in newer entries. I remember when Fire Emblem: Awakening came out on 3DS specifically because it was the first one with optional permadeath. My interest was piqued but not enough to consider spending money. A friend instead let me borrow it years later and I loved it. I may not be a grand strategist, but the gameplay loop of Fire Emblem is irresistible, which is why I was so sad when I eventually got to a level that I couldn’t beat. I sat for hours attempting this desert level, Run the Jewels’s 2014 bop Run the Jewels 2 on repeat, and failing. I gave Awakening back to my friend, heart heavy with disappointment, but I walked away from that experience knowing I’m a Fire Emblem fan.

My friend Ko’s birthday is a few days before mine (which is September 16, if you were curious). In September 2020, I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and he said he wasn’t sure, but he recently acquired a Switch Lite and liked the Fire Emblem games but hadn’t played any since the original DS was contemporary. Luckily for both of us, Fire Emblem: Three Houses came out in 2019 to critical acclaim and huge financial success. Amazon dropped a copy off at my apartment two days after inquiring about presents, and Ko was ecstatic to receive it on his big day. I remember it took him a week to start playing due to his schedule, as I asked him daily if it was good because I wanted to get it for myself. He eventually said it was excellent, and Amazon obliged me with another copy.

This was the one. Holy cow. Not only was permadeath optional, but it also had “Divine Pulse,” which allowed the player to rewind turns and undo actions that went poorly. Now, I could be as simpleminded with my strategy as I wanted! I played Three Houses to my heart’s content (which meant speeding through a lot of the social sim elements to spend as much time as possible in battles) and was absolutely chuffed by the end. Fire Emblem: Engage came out a few years later, and I had a very similar experience with it, though it thankfully cut back on the social sim stuff from Three Houses.

Cut to late April 2025. It’d been two years since my last Fire Emblem. Nintendo adds Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, the second game in the series released in the US. Since I’m already paying for the privilege of having access to it, I decide to give it a go. Beyond expectation, I loved it.

Except for the last few levels. You see, I managed to get through most of the game with only two deaths. The Sacred Stones suddenly has a difficulty spike near the end, though, so in the third-to-last level, I lost some good, important units. Then I lost more in the second-to-last level. I lost even more in the last. By the end, I think I lost around half a dozen units. I was more or less happy that I was able to beat one of the “difficult” Fire Emblems, but losing half my army made the win bittersweet.

Knowing the “first” Fire Emblem was already on NSO, I moved to that next. Somehow, I did even better in this one than I did in The Sacred Stones. I thought older = harder, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, things were going smoothly until the last levels, just like in The Sacred Stones. Out of nowhere, the game spiked in difficulty, and my units started dropping like Tesla’s Q1 2025 stock market value. Unlike TSS, though, I didn’t bother completing it.

Some would say I played the two GBA entries “incorrectly.” Maybe I could’ve anticipated the difficulty spikes, or maybe the difficulty was a result of my poor decisions. Either way, I really wish I could find my modded 3DS, so my simple mind could give Awakening another shot.

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