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Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
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Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu (ファイアーエムブレム 聖戦の系譜, Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War) is a Super Famicom game released in 1996. It is the fourth game installment in the Fire Emblem series, and the second for Super Famicom. The game is set in the same universe as its predecessors, Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Tsurugi and Monshou no Nazo, but over a thousand years in the past and in a different part of the world; contemporaneous events and civilizations from Archanea are referenced in the game[2].
Seisen no Keifu is set in Jugdral, a land whose rulers bear the holy bloodlines of the Twelve Crusaders. The game is split up into two halves, separated by the timespan of a generation. In the first generation, while most of his nation's army is off to war in the eastern nation of Isaac, Lord Sigurd defends the dukedoms of Grandbell from a sudden invasion by the neighbouring Kingdom of Verdane, but is rapidly embroiled in a conspiracy against his father, Vylon, in the events which ultimately lead to the birth of the Grandbell Empire, and in the machinations of the Lopt Sect to create a human vessel for their dark god Loptous - the same tyranny fought by his son, Seliph, seventeen years later in the second generation.
Plot
Template:Spoiler Hundreds of years before the beginning of the game, the world of Jugdral suffered under the grip of the Lopt Empire, whose lineage of emperors acted as vessels for their "dark god", the Earth Dragon Loptous. This changed in the year 643 with the Miracle of Darna, where twelve dragon gods led by Naga descended upon the city of Darna, the last bastion of a battered resistance force, and in a blood bond bestowed their power upon twelve warriors. These twelve became the Twelve Crusaders, and under their leadership the Lopt Empire fell after a decades-long holy war. The Crusaders then parted, with seven of them forming the Kingdom of Grandbell and its six duchies, while the other five founded their own kingdoms: Isaac, Agustria, Silesia and Thracia, which itself later partially splintered off into the Manster District.
First generation: Sigurd's story
Verdane's invasion
In the year 757, war was beginning, with the bulk of Grandbell's army deployed to Isaac in retaliation for what they perceived to be an unprovoked strike against Darna. With no perceived opposition, King Batou of neighbouring Verdane took the opportunity to launch an invasion of Grandbell at the behest of Sandima of the Lopt Sect, and his son Gandolf conquering Jungby Castle and abducting its Lady Adean. In response, Sigurd of Chalphy led his limited forces in defense of Grandbell and pursuit of Adean, later joined by Cuan of Lenster and his wife Ethlin, Sigurd's sister, and by Lex of Dozel and Azel of Velthomer. After reclaiming Jungby and realising that Adean had been captured, Sigurd was visited by Velthomer's Lord Alvis, who passed on the well-wishes of King Azmur and a silver sword.
After seizing the bordering Evans Castle, Sigurd received a royal messenger informing him of his elevation to the status of "Holy Knight" of Grandbell, and then led the group in a direct foray into Verdane itself. On the way, he encountered the errant Princess Ira of Isaac, forced to serve Verdane while her nephew Shanan was held hostage. Sigurd liberated Shanan and convinced Ira to defect to his army. Meanwhile, Prince Jamka released Adean and Dew from their imprisonment, then left to confront his father about his misgivings over the invasion. Batou continued to parrot Sandima's claims and defenses and ordered Jamka to launch a full offensive against the invaders, but after Jamka left, Sandima killed Batou for asking questions about his claims. After conquering Marpha Castle, Sigurd encountered Diadora; the two instantly became enamoured with each other, but Diadora nonetheless fled. They met again as his forces passed through the Spirit Forest, and Diadora offered to assist in combating Sandima and confessed her newfound love for Sigurd.
After killing Sandima and conquering Verdane Castle, Sigurd found the dying Batou, who passed on to him the news of the machinations of the Lopt Sect, their efforts to revive their "dark god" and how they had infested much of the world. Some time afterward, Sigurd and Diadora married.
Attack from Agustria and subjugation
Agustria's rebellion
Exile and civil war in Silesia
Return to Grandbell
Second generation: Seliph's story
Uprise in Isaac
To the rescue of Lenster
Invading Thracia
The last battle against Grandbell
Gameplay
Seisen no Keifu is an unusual beast among the series. Its general gameplay is rather different, and it boasts a large number of unique systems and features alongside introducing several gameplay points which would go on to become series staples.
Holy Blood and Weapons
- Main article:
Holy Blood
One of the core themes to the game is the legacy of the Twelve Crusaders, reflected in gameplay with the Holy Blood system. Some units possess one of thirteen lineages of holy blood, which enhance the unit's growth rates and weapon ranks. Holy blood comes in two forms, minor blood and major blood; characters with minor blood receive the standard stats bonus and one more level to its weapon, while characters with major blood are gifted with double bonuses and a * rank in the Crusader's weapon.
- Example: Azel, a Mage, possesses minor Fala holy blood. As a result, he starts with a C rank in thunder and wind magic but B in fire magic; without it, he would have had C in the three, as that is the rank borne by all Mages. He also receives a bonus increase of 20% to his HP growth rate and of 30% to the Magic growth rate, the bonuses given by the Fala blood.
With each holy blood lineage comes an associated holy weapon, one the weapons once wielded by the Twelve Cruasders. Only the crusaders' descendants who have inherited major holy blood can wield them, with one such descendant normally being born per generation. These weapons are vastly more powerful than normal weapons, but their maintenance is conversely much more expensive.
Love and children
- Main article:
Love
With the game split into two generational parts, a key aspect of this is that many of the units of the second generation are the children of those of the first. During the first generation, the female playable units (except Diadora and Ethlin) can be paired up to fall in love with male playable units and bear two children, who will go on to comprise the bulk of Seliph's army in the second generation. As long as they fall in love and remain alive until the end of Sigurd's story, their children will be available in the second half; otherwise, they will be replaced with a matching substitute characters.
- Main article:
Inheritance
This is one of the main factors in Seisen no Keifu's replayability; since the women can be paired with almost any men, who heavily influence the children, units in the second generation are quite variable. A child's stats, growths and skills are determined by those of their parents, so different fathers will yield different combinations and accordingly different results. Additionally, a child's starting inventory is mostly comprised of the inventory of their same-gender parent as of the end of the first generation, though they will only inherit weapons if they are capable of using them by default with a few exceptions.
Skills
- Main article:
Skills
Seisen no Keifu was the debut of the skills system, abilities possessed by individual units designed that can change the course of a battle. Here, skills are classified into two groups, albeit some of them, such as Pursuit, can be in both.
- Personal skills: These are skills that are inherent in some units. They can be passed down to children.
- Example: Tailto, a Thunder Mage, has Wrath as a personal skill. No other units of that class have such skill in the first generation.
- Class skills: These abilities are present in all units of the class. They cannot be inherited.
- Example: All generals, barons and emperors have Great Shield, which gives the ability to receive no damage from the enemy's attack.
These abilities are a factor to be taken into account when battling, as they give the characters an edge over their opponents - skills are not limited to playable characters.
Skills can also be passed down; the children will have the personal skills of both of their parents. The only exception to this rule are the sword-related skills: Shooting Star Sword, Sun Sword, and Moonlight Sword, which can only be inherited by non-mounted, sword-wielding children.
Outside of inheritance, this incarnation of the skills system is the only one where skills are completely static and cannot be removed, swapped or otherwise externally altered.
Weapons
Unlike other games where weapon durability is more variable and limited, ost weapons in Seisen no Keifu have a durability of fifty uses. After that they break, as normal, but the remnants do not disappear as in other games. In allied castles, weapons can be taken to a weapon repair shop to be restored to full uses, for a fee equivalent to a portion of their worth depending on how many uses need to be restored. On the other hand, their availability is very limited; there are not many of each type, and only some bosses give one when defeated.
Also unique to Seisen is its weapon kills stat, which corresponds to the amount of enemies defeated with an individual weapon. Once it reaches 50, the weapon gains the Critical skill. For each killing after the fiftieth, the bonus increases*. Conversely, the standard crit stat normally possessed by weapons does not exist in lieu of this system; the few killer weapons which exist in the game instead give the Critical skill by default.
Weapon triangle
- Main article:
Weapon triangle
Seisen no Keifu marked the debut implementation of another series staple: the weapon triangle. In its incarnation in this game, whenever a unit attacks, they receive a 20% bonus to their hit rate if their weapon bests the enemy's choice according to the weapon triangle; should the opposite situation be true, though, the unit receives a penalty of 20% to their hit rate.
There are two weapon triangles, one concerned with physical weapons and one wtih tomes:
- Physical weapons: Swords -> axes -> lances-> swords
- Tomes: Fire magic -> wind magic -> thunder magic -> fire magic.
Bows, light and dark magic are excluded from these triangles. Light and dark magic are both strong against fire, wind and thunder, while bows are completely unaffected.
Characters
- Main article:
List of characters in Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War's cast is divided roughly equally by generation. 24 units are playable in the first generation, while 25 are playable in the second generation, counting child units and their equivalent substitutes as one unit per pair; however, in the second generation, only 24 are playable in a given playthrough, as the player must choose between recruiting Johan and Johalva. Finn is the only character to be playable in both generations. The game's total playable cast - first generation, second generation, both children and substitutes - consists of 62 characters.
Although the player has access to fewer classes than in other games, they cover the whole weapon and almost all magic spectrum; the only enemy-exclusive form of attack is Dark magic.
The following table shows the mothers, the children and the respective substitute characters:
Chapters
- Main article:
List of chapters in Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu
At twelve chapters, Seisen no Keifu is ostensibly the second-shortest game in the series, behind Gaiden; however, each chapter is more comparable to numerous individual chapters contained within one, being enormous and requiring the seizing of multiple castles per chapter. It is also the only game in the series where the entirety of gameplay takes place on exterior siege maps, with none of its action occurring inside cities, villages, castles, fortresses, ships or anything similar.
Gallery
Trivia
- In this game, the Fire Emblem (referred as Honoo no Monshou, or Emblem of Fire) is the symbol of the House of Velthomer.
- Sigurd is the only main character in the series who is already promoted at the start of the game.
- This game features the only class with the ability to use almost the entire weapon/magic spectrum: the Master Knight, which wields everything except dark magic, totalling the ability to wield nine weapon types. No other playable class in the series ever has access to more than four weapon types; the only other class in general to exceed this number is Order Incarnate, a boss-exclusive class, with access to six.
- Along with Thracia 776, Seisen no Keifu is the only game in the series which existed as of 2008 to not be referenced at all in Super Smash Bros. Brawl; every other game in the series has some degree of representation, whereas Seisen and Thracia do not.
Fan translation
A fan translation patch was completed as late as 2007, by Twilkitri and j2e of the board Fire Emblem Sanctuary of Strategy[3]. The main story of the patch is largely complete, but there are points such as couple coversations at the main castle and the opening demo where the text remains untranslated, and as a result of the means by which English text was implemented is rendered as an assortment of gibberish; furthermore, attempting to view the ending simply crashes the game. As of April 2012, an effort is currently underway to improve the patch[4].
In other languages
Names, etymology, and in other regions | ||
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Language | Name | Definition, etymology, and notes |
English (unofficial) |
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War |
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References
- ↑ GameFAQs: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu Release Data for SNES
- ↑ Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu Player's Guidebook; notes translated by Serenes Forest
- ↑ Fire Emblem: Sanctuary of Strategy: FE4 Translation
- ↑ Serenes Forest: Improving the Genealogy Translation Patch
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