Retrospective Fire Emblem, but this is Tear Ring Saga (2001)

It may seem strange to you that in the retrospective of the Fire Emblem series, the game suddenly found out without Fire Emblem in the name, but also for the console PlayStation. One could not pay attention to what the creator of the series did there, but still (in my author’s gaze) the story of Tear Ring Saga, and not about Thracia 776, draws a line between the era SNES and Sozo Kagi at the steering wheel of development and subsequent era Game Boy Advance, where development managers will change almost every game of the Fire Emblem series.

So, Sozo Kaga tore off the relationship with Nintendo and founded his own studio Tirnanog. Kaga got his moment of fame during the development of the third part of Fire Emblem, so finding the publisher for the next game was not difficult. Japanese company Enterbrain, engaged in the publication of manga, games, as well as developing RPG Maker, She quickly took Sodzo into circulation and presented his future Sony game. This game was to be called Emblem Saga.

Apparently, Sozo is a rather simple guy who is not particularly interested in laws and all sorts of corporate nonsense. He thought that he could simply make another game in his style, because he was the founder of the series and worked on the plot of the first five Fire Emblem. Therefore, for example, there will be nothing if the game for the PlayStation will appear ManaketeRasa Dragons from Fire Emblem). And in general, if more often in an interview for the Japanese press to connect your new game with Fire Emblem, then everything will be fine.

And, to surprise, there were no problems almost until the release of the game. But Nintendo appears a few weeks before the release. Nintendo, in the claim, explains that Emblem Saga by name and concept is too similar to one episode, a competing series, and the intentional mention of this series for advertising purposes is a deception of a potential consumer. It just so happened that Nintendo has the rights to this series, therefore, through the court, Tirnanog is accused of violation of copyright, and at the same time Nintendo believes that it would be necessary to ban the sale of Emblem Saga.

Tirnanog and Enterbrain are still decided to release the game, despite the court. The name changes to Tear Ring Saga, all possible connections with the “emblem” are removed from the script, and the design of some characters, just in case, is slightly changed. Everything is done in a modest couple of months, which the release of the game was delayed.

The act is brave, but there was simply no alternative. Surrending Nintendo without a fight meant the end for Soszo himself and for all people who worked with him in Tirnanog. Therefore, the game comes out at the same time and the trial begins. The release was even more angry with Nintendo, and they file an additional claim for a violation of copyright. In the claims – Tirnanog must pay compensation in the amount of 258 million 300 thousand yen (about $ 2 million at the time of filing a lawsuit in 2001), And the game, despite the change of name, should be prohibited for sale.

On trials with Nintendo

The trial went on for more than a year. Nintendo then did not have a huge judicial experience, which is not surprising, because Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for Game Boy Advance has not even come out at the time of filing a lawsuit. So, in November 2002, Nintendo remains with his nose – the Tokyo District Court completely rejected the claims of the plaintiff. Naturally, this end does not satisfy Nintendo and appeal immediately. This process will last two years-in November 2004, the Tokyo Supreme Court partially satisfies the requirements, undertakes the publisher of the game to pay 76 million yen compensation and refuses to recognize the violation of copyright and prohibition of sales of the game. This decision also did not fully arrange Nintendo and they again appealed, but the court left the past decision in force and Nintendo calmed down.

This trial, even despite the fact that it is only related to the Japanese legal field, had a great influence on the video game industry. Kaga showed that even after leaving the big owner, you can still release what you like without changing yourself. If Kodzi Igarasi wants to create a spiritual heir to Castlevania, he can make BloodStained;If Bungie wants to make futuristic shooters, having left Microsoft, they can make Destiny;If Caeii Inafune wants to make Mighty no. 9, then … okay, in this case it could be stopped by a person ..

You rightly ask how this court could influence something if the appeal still had to pay money? If you believe the documents available on the Internet, the appeal is lost due to the Emblem Saga name used in the framework of the game. The plaintiff did not prove the need to use the phrase, and the analogy with Fire Emblem is obvious, so although the name of the game was changed, this did not cancel the already done. And Kaga was not shy about promoting the game from the position of communication with Fire Emblem. For example, in an interview with Famitsu magazine on January 21, 2000, he said that the game takes place on the fourth continent (Before that there were Arkaneya, Valencia and Igdral) and here also live manakers. Of course, he wanted to tie the created worlds, but in the end it became evidence of guilt in court. Although the headings from the press, where it was sometimes said by direct text, said that Fire Emblem comes to PlayStation. By the way, the court was not against Sozo. The defendant was Enterbrain, to which most magazines belonged to wrote such.

Visual novel Tear Ring Saga

Tear Ring Saga is perfectly described by the phrase “Ultimatic Fire Emblem”. With one important mark for your time. This is literally a cocktail from the ideas already used by Sozo in past games, diluted with a couple of new ingredients and thoroughly mixed. The biggest difference from five parts Fire Emblem is the plot.

In fact, Tear Ring Saga percent of 40-50 consists of text. That is, it will have to be read no less than in some visual novels, and everything is visually implemented in the style of a visual novel, except that there are no animations. Even the change of characters on the screen is made as budgetary as possible – the spells of the characters are unchanged, even the expression of the eyes or face does not change. Which is quite sad, because visual changes could give at least a little to the eyes of some variety.

There is a couple of missions for which you will leave a couple of moves. At the same time, read before and after the task you will have to text 10-15 minutes.

For some it can be a minus. I met several opinions from foreign fans of the game that the text is too much, and it is difficult to keep track of new characters, which is actively thrown by Sozozo Kaga. In my opinion, for the story of Tear Ring Saga, such a volume is a definite plus. Indeed, in the game it was possible to perfectly show all the aspects of the plot: a lot of time devoted to partners and their stories, dialogues of potential allies and enemies are shown. In a word, between the battles we gradually get to know the world of the game and each character used in the plot of the character. Yes, there are really many characters, but still it is quite easy to keep track of the main ones, and the momentary villains, dying at the end of the chapter, have always been in Fire Emblem.

Even despite the fact that Soszo Kaga rewritten everything that Tear Ring Saga can connect with Fire Emblem, the plot was still strong. The main minus of history is that the tie is almost no different from the past work. There is an evil empire, there is a escaped crown prince who is destined to defeat evil. I would even say that Genealogy of the Holy War is used here, for our escaped prince, like Sigurd from the fourth “emblem”, owned only one of the principalities as part of the Great Kingdom. But the plot has an important nuance. More precisely – there is a nuance in the game, for this nuance affects the gameplay.

Tear Ring Saga uses Fire Emblem https://bookmakersnotongamstop.co.uk/review/prive-casino/ Gaiden chip. There are two characters: Runan and Holmes. At some point, their stories will go in different ways, and we will play for the army of Runan, then for the army of Holmes. Moreover, the adventure of Runan is almost linear, unlike Holmes. The Holmes army is able to walk on the map and participate in random battles, as it was in Fe: Gaiden .

The goals of both armies are similar – to weaken the influence of the empire, in order to eventually win it. As in Genealogy of the Holy War, we help loyal principalities, get new allies and prepare for the final confrontation. In both stories there is a place for funny moments and, in particular, drama. In addition to the fact that the death of the character in the battle is permanent, there are sad scenario events that cannot be left. Again, comparing with Genealogy of the Holy War, where there was a scenario equator shocking with its cruelty, in Tear Ring Saga, the dramatic component is more uniform and goes on growing to its climax.

The main plot drama is also not new and was already in Fire Emblem. The evil empire here again submits to the no less evil dragon, whom they want to awaken the rite of sacrifice. The victims should be four innocent champs associated with the elements of water, fire, earth and air.

The drama ultimately ends with an excessively sweet ending. Shamanok girls are killed and ritual is carried out, which is initially damn shocking, because these two girls are parts of the Army of Runan and Holmes, respectively. But the victory over the dragon liberates the power of the good goddess of the Earth of MiDonna, and she resurrects the dead girls, so that we can happily go into the sunset.

In addition to the volume of the text, the volume of variability is also amazing. Here it is immediately worth clarifying that the variability in the game is extremely complicated, that is, sometimes it is impossible to understand in advance what you need to do so that this or that side event takes place. At the same time, this does not mean that you need to climb into the guides and be sure to know everything in advance so as not to miss. On the contrary, it is better to avoid guides and do as you think it is necessary, because the number of these events is huge, and in any case you will fall into several of them, and try to get everything and at once, at least.

So, depending on the composition of your detachment, the game will delight with diverse events. And it’s not only about the Fire Emblem moments already familiar in the series, where only a certain fighter can talk to the enemy to lure him to our side (There are almost dozens of such events here). It happens that your weak healer will be abducted into slavery if you accidentally go to the wrong door. You can arrange a meeting of two lovers so that your fighter receives a unique increase in class. Or there is an option to collect almost blood enemies who will arrange a stabbing before the battle, which is why both fighters will begin with one unit of health.

Sometimes such interactions go into some hidden quests. For example, a healer Letin with a unique staff passed me. To get her, it was necessary to do a number of actions, not the most logical.

For example, it is necessary that after the separation of the armies, one of the horse fighters, which was originally with Runan, moved to the Holmes detachment, and you bought or knocked out a powerful healing potion in battle. And after a certain mission, you need to return to one of the cities passed with this potion in the inventory of this horseman. But these are trifles, because, in addition, it was necessary in one of the starting missions, where we were offered to choose a detachment to one of the four fighters, to choose exactly a fighter with an ax, because he is needed for this storyline.

This example is the most inadequate. Basically, everything is much easier and many such events fit into the logic of the game, where there is a characteristic of support. That is, fighters are friends with each other, or even love, which is why being nearby increases combat characteristics. Sometimes, so that such a connection appears, you need to talk during a certain battle, but some of the fighters are already familiar with each other in advance. Information about friends can be seen on the screen of character characteristics.

And such bosom friends sometimes simply arrange a side dialogue between the missions for an additional disclosure of the character of the heroes, and sometimes a special event takes place in the spirit of gaining another friend or special weapons.

And then a stumbling block is laid. On the one hand – all these events are interesting and give the game a bonus for reigla. On the other hand, we have before us a mixture of tactical jrpg and a visual novel for 50 hours. To recall this kind of gaming content will be a very narrow circle of people, it is still lowering the brackets that we are talking about exclusive for the Japanese market with a fan translation. That is, emotionally I want to say that the chip with these events is given by Tear Ring Saga Bonus glasses. And so. But these bonus glasses will be appreciated only by one who will be interested in passing at least the first 3-4 missions. Will Tear Ring Saga fall in love with the genre of an outside person? I am sure not.

About gameplay. Combat gameplay

The most obvious question is: are there any differences from Fire Emblem, if we talk about combat gameplay?

Global – no. Tear Ring Saga works on a familiar foundation. Functionally, it is closest to Mystery of the Emblem, the third part of the FE series. A familiar and convenient system of inventory, where all management takes place in the break between missions, and on the task you are focused on the battle. Familiar battle, without a stone-tin-paper system, but with an already established system, where archers are strongly hit on flying fighters, and magicians are perfectly clogging fighters in heavy armor. The clergy are all the same fragile and die from a pair of blows, and a good swordsman who received an advanced class is able to endure ordinary enemies with one wave of eyelashes.

Bosses are passable, but there are damn dangerous. At the same time, keeping the game during the battle, in order to load with an unsuccessful move, not so easy. For this function, one of the fighters has a magic staff that spends charges. In cities you can buy a blacksmith’s hammer to fix this staff and any other weapon, but as a fact – saving in the battle is slightly limited. But it helps with bosses very much. There are a couple of individuals with the crazy chance of Crete, and losing valuable warriors because of them is not very pleasant. The storage of conservation helps to return and not give a precious swordsman to eat an imbalanced enemy.

Balance here is a separate item for discussion. In general, the game is not difficult and inferior to the fourth and fifth “emblems” (according to my modest sensations). Especially “Thrace”. But some cards suddenly throw you into the hellish bee, because of which it is quite possible to think about abandoning the game. There are few such missions, you can count on the fingers of one hand, but they take “quality”, not quantity. The complexity in these missions is most often connected with bosses. The situation when your best swordsman is quite calmly cutting out the way to the boss, but as a result flies away from Crete in the face-quite standard if you see a sword with a unique name in an inventory and 3-4 skills in the characteristics window.

Yes, Tear Ring Saga has skills of fighters who appeared in “Genealogies”. Some copy those that were in the past Fire Emblem, but there are new skills. Approximately the same things are with the classes of fighters: almost everyone will be familiar, except for a couple of new. A ax warriors, for example, are now able to get promotion. And in general, guys with axes are stronger here than in all previous parts.

Also in the game there is another pleasant chip from past FE parts – personal weapons for some fighters with unique abilities. Such, for example, is the storage of conservation, but there are also more suitable things for the fight. How do you like a sword giving immortality to a warrior? It sounds imbalanced, only the combat characteristics of the weapon are inferior to competitors. And using a fighter with this sword as a “tank” is not as effective as sending a real tank. By the way, there are real tanks – not warriors with powerful protection, but a straight metal combat vehicle with a gun. So unique, the game has a setting, although in fact, besides tanks, nothing beyond the scope of classic fantasy is falling out.

Something is taken from Gaiden. In addition to two characters and moving on the map, there are still monsters in Tear Ring Saga. Zombies and all such evil spirits. The fighters have weapons and skills with increased damage on monsters. Or there is an unusual archer among the allies – she swore not to take human lives. In a battle against the soldiers of the human race, she leaves them 1 point of health. But she does not regret monsters.

The Tear Ring Saga combat system leaves a double impression. On the one side (If we consider the combat separately) – For me, this game is on the same level with Mystery of the Emblem, which I consider the best work of Sozo. On the other (Looking at the whole game) – the walls of the text in the mode of the visual novels create a contrast. After all, in addition to these walls of the text, there are also missions that are called English -speaking fans “Himmic“. That is, these missions have a plot goal. For example, to show how we go to the Union thief, but in the end he runs away with a half of our gold. In these hymmic missions, Soszo Kaga is trying to additionally advance the script directly through the gameplay, and this leaves a double impression. The balance of the balance between battles and the script for me is the Mystery of the Emblem, but there were very interesting missions in Tear Ring Saga.

The problems of the game are not only in the text as such. Tear Ring Saga – a huge game. But with a limited budget. Financial restrictions here are literally striking: some of the tasks take place on the same maps, and the repetition begins in the very first missions. And even if the map is not repeated, then the modeling houses are used the same. For a short game, this would not be critical at all, but when you stick it for tens of hours, the monotony is very noticeable.

The game starts with trump cards. Here is a mission 1.

But mission 3. Yes, the location is justified plot, but it is more interesting to fight on the same map from this

Static, unemotional sprites of characters during the text part also do their job. And the picture itself seemed to grow older than 16-bit games of the FE series. Combat animations probably looked epic at the time of exit, but now these blurry figures will not impress anyone. There are exceptions (Animation of the dancer, for example), but ordinary fighters tire their long attacks. By the way, you cannot completely turn off the combat animations. On the bosses and some special enemies they will turn on.

Tear Ring Saga is definitely good Fire Emblem, no matter how strange it may sound. Sozos Kaga clearly wanted to make a game from the Fire Emblem series, and he made it, but in other conditions, with another team, for another publisher and another console. Given that Kaga left Intelligent Systems before the release of “Thrace” was not any other option, and there was clearly a conflict of interest. Or not only interests, but not the point.

Successful (relatively) release and future

Tear Ring Saga was a success, what reviews and sales are talking about. Sales data have been available only from July 2001, that is, two months after the release, and it states that more than 345 thousand copies were sold. This is not the level of Mystery of the Emblem, but the Tear Ring Saga still Debut Stuzo on PlayStation. And at that time, the console could boast of the assortment of the best tactics: from Final Fantasy Tactics and Front Mission 3 to Brigandine and Tactics Ogre . Famitsu magazine appreciated Tear Ring Saga 32 out of 40 points. This is higher than that of the Genealogy, but Famitsu and Thrace were rated at 35 points ..

Whether it is success or not – not so important. For the duration of the trial with Nintendo, apparently, it was not up to the games. The next project from the Soszo Kaga will be released only after the end of the court, and it will be something far from Fire Emblem. Tear Ring Saga continued to exist in the format of Ranobe.

Four volumes were supposed to be released annually from the moment the game was released, but due to litigation with Nintendo, the last volume lingered for a year. On this, the story of Tear Ring Saga is over. Schozo was looking for a new formula for future games, and Nintendo and developers from Intelligent Systems were looking for their way for the Fire Emblem series. They had in their hands a handful of Fire Emblem developments for Nintendo 64, but after the departure of Sozo, this project was frozen. The future of the Fire Emblem series is connected with its defrosting, where there was no place for a sodzo. The name “Sheodzo Kaga” was not mentioned until the release of the first part of the series on Switch, where Kaga remained in the credits. In various artbooks and publications, they mentioned the heroes created by Sozo, but not his own. So we can safely say that on this note its story within the framework of the retrospective Fire Emblem is over.

Like today’s retrospective. Thanks for the attention and Happy New Year to the New Year!