Wii Fire Emblem review and why is there a shortage of Wii?

Fire Emblem. For lovers of strategy games and Nintendo, this name brings joy to the ears with good reason. There aren't many games in it's genre that can come close.

In general, it plays as a tactical RPG in which you move your characters from place to place, depending on a fixed movement rate, based on class. Each class has it's own forte against other classes, and requires the utmost of thinking before you go into gameplay.

One of the things I liked the most about this game, is also one of the things I dislike about it. It's challenging, and forces you to think a lot about what you're doing. The levels are difficult, but not impossible. This gives you an amazing feeling of accomplishment after beating a map, but frustration during. To put it simply, if you don't think you're very good at Fire Emblem, or wish to play casually, do not begin on normal mode.

The normal difficulty setting is amazingly hard. One misstep, one misplaced unit will easily get killed and will be wiped off the face of your unit roster. They have countered this by implementing a 'Battle Save' feature, which is completely unlike Suspended Data, for those who are familiar with handheld Fire Emblems.

Suspended Data lets you pause gameplay, go to the main menu, shut off your game. But, you can't load any other files, lest you lose your suspended data.

Battle Save allows you to actually save in the middle of battle, at any point. Essentially a quick save, in case you feel that you'll mess up.

Thanks to the difficulty, I've found that in order to not lose any units, you have to battle save every round that nothing goes wrong, which gets aggravating. But, if you don't mind losing a unit or two because you overlooked one foe who could kill you, then the difficulty won't bother you. Just make sure it's not your Commanding Unit that gets annihilated though; that causes an insta-loss and if you didn't save before hand, you'll have to start the chapter over.

Although in parts easy to see through, Radiant Dawn manages to keep you immersed in the storyline with cryptic clues to future plot twists and beautiful cinematics, done in a cel-shaded manner (but cel-shaded in a sexy way).

There's a great amount of characters featured in the game, all of the old ones from Path of Radiance carry over, with the exception of Largo due to a mysterious injury. Most characters are attained mid-battle by achieving some secondary goal, like getting a certain character to another, to convert them to your side. This adds even more challenge to the devoted player who wants all of the characters, and to not lose a single one.

Not only that, but they added a third class allowing you to promote your class twice, into an uber unit essentially. Laguz (humans who take the shape of humans) don't promote at all, but have higher stat caps in general, and a 40 level total.

As I had mentioned before, the cinematics are awesome, although unfortunately they're used sparingly. They're all very detailed and decent voice acting is made use of. The ridiculously dramatic dialog will make you laugh from time to time. It's not a serious problem, but in parts you will roll your eyes.

The inherent flaw at Fire Emblem's core is the random number generation. As you level up, your characters randomly get points assigned to a general assortment of stats that befits their class (Warrior: HP and attack, Mage: Magic and resistance etc). But often they barely get any bonuses, or sometimes none at all.

In battle you'll find yourself in a crucial moment, facing an opponent with a 30% chance to hit, and you with a 75% chance to hit, as the battle system is based off random chance and percentages derived from stats. Entering the battle you'll be feeling good, as you SHOULD be able to hit and kill them before they can land their blow on you.

Strangely, what will happen is that you'll miss, and they'll hit you and kill your unit. There have been times in which I had 98% to hit, and they had 17%. I missed, they hit and killed my unit.

I call this strange phenomenon "Fire Emblem Logic". It's evident in all of the franchise's games. It's the first rule of the game engine; if it shouldn't happen, and if the player's unit will die from getting hit, it'll happen, and the unit will die. If you have patience, or don't mind losing a unit here or there, then this won't bother you. But for those who get annoyed at having to save every round or don't want to lose any units, this will drive you nuts. But then again, the system is what makes it Fire Emblem, and I would never change that to be honest.

Although I wasn't expecting a big increase in graphics, I wasn't expecting them to be an exact copy of Path of Radiance. Nothing is polished. They just added another tier of class promotions, and different attack styles so you don't see the same boring slash every attack for a certain class. Somewhat disappointing, but when I got the Wii, I understood that I was exchanging high-brow graphics for fun games and innovative play.

In all, the flaws are minute. For fans of the franchise, or those with a taste for medieval tactics, this is for you. Definitely a good game, and a strong title for the Wii.

Pros

• Challenging strategy game.

• Riveting plot.

• Long play time (20+ hours) and even a smidge of replay value.

• A LOT of characters to gain, and a new tier of class promotions.

• The few cinematics are awesome and very well done.

Cons

• MUCH harder than ANY Fire Emblem game known to man.

• Based on random chances, often the odds are against you.

• Dialog is corny.

• Gameplay graphics are GameCube quality.

You can blame this year's Nintendo Wii shortage on, well, Nintendo. But consumer frustration over the shortage of Wii consoles is compounded by resellers and retailers who are using the Wii drought as a marketing tool and way to make money.

Blame the Resellers

In 2006, people made a lot of money selling Wii consoles on eBay. There were some gamers I know who bought the Wii for themselves, but decided to make a quick buck by selling their Wii instead of keeping them. Others bought the Wii just to resell it for a substantial profit.

But in 2007 the reseller market has matured in ways that Tony Soprano might be envious of.

I've heard of people who have made a fulltime job out of reselling Nintendo Wiis. Just search for "Wii resellers" on Google or check eBay to see what I mean. There are loads of Web sites and Wii dealers on eBay selling the Nintendo console for at least twice the MSRP of $250 the unit sells for at retail stores such as Best Buy.

I've heard of some resellers stalking UPS drivers that deliver Wii shipments to retailers. Why? so they can get a jump on the stores that have fresh Wii inventory. Other Wii resellers make friends with the inventory managers at stores just to get first dibs on a Wii.

Reselling may sound like an easy job on paper, but it isn't. One reseller told the Web site Consumerist he received death threats from frustrated buyers wanting to buy a Wii at a reasonable price.

Blame the Retailers

Retailers have also done plenty to frustrate potential Wii customers.

The retailers' role in 2006 was fairly simple. Sell the units as they came in.

In 2007 retailers approach to selling the much in demand Wii changed. It seems the retailers themselves began to exploit the Wii hype using questionable marketing tactics. According to an anecdotal report posted to the Web site Consumerist, at one major electronics retailer, an employee repeatedly walked through the store with a Wii in hand, while another employee made an announcement over the public address system that it is the last Wii. The process was repeated every 15 minutes with numerous Wiis, according to the account.

One year after the release many stores like Best Buy, Target, EB Games and even the Nintendo Store in New York City still have consumers waiting in line outside the store for hours to be the first to buy Nintendo Wiis when limited shipments come in. Of course retailers could lessen the Wii spectacle by issuing rain checks to those customers wanting to buy a Wii in advance of a store receiving new ones. But perhaps the media attention of those Wii lines is worth more to retailers than making the lives of would-be Wii customers more convenient.

I should point out, one enlightened retailer Gamespot has issued a rain check system allowing customers to pre-order and pay for Nintendo Wiis. That eliminates the need for waiting in line outside the store.

I'd like to propose some new rules for retailers and resellers when it comes to selling the Nintendo Wii. First, retailers must take down all those Nintendo Wii marketing signs, marquees, and huge in-store Wii promotions until they get more Wii consoles in stock. As for resellers, please just stop creating artificial scarcity by buying up every single Wii when they go on sale.

Okay, I know that's not going to happen.

Lets just hope Nintendo opens up more production plants and Wii resellers turn their attention to scalping Hannah Montana concert tickets instead.