Part 29: Epilogue

Epilogue

Upon defeating Mediuth, the following conversation takes place if Sheeda is still alive, complete with a special song:

Final Conversation



Yes.... Sheeda, I need to thank your father, but then I must return to Aritia.

Marth, savior of the world but still oblivious to women's feelings.

I see....



Haha. Marth, you're trying to trick the most important thing to you? Go and meet Sheeda!

Nina.... Uh.... This isn't good.... Sheeda....

Ah! Y-yes!

Could you...come to Aritia with me?



From there the screen fades to black....



But what happens if Sheeda isn't alive?



Uhh...for one thing, the text that appears immediately after defeating Mediuth is apparently somewhat different...and not translated. Oops. Moving on.



But to you, the price to pay was too high. I am truly sorry.

Nina, please don't say that. Sheeda died because of me. But I won't forget her. I'll remember her until I die.



Both you and me lost our loved ones yet obtained victory.



And either way, the screen fades to black, though in this case with a bit less of an upbeat feeling....

Ending Theme - Omnibus

A long track containing most of the music in the game starts playing.



Words slowly scroll up the screen, seemingly implying a future sequel....



The game's cast of characters then roll up the screen in some order.



There's a lot of recruitable units in the game, if you hadn't noticed.



A grand total of 53, actually, an unheard of amount at the time, right up until the power-unit Gato that they throw at you in the final chapter. I was actually intending to sacrifice him in the end, but Daros just beat Mediuth too quickly - and I figured the RNG gods had feasted enough, anyway.



Next up is a slow stroll through each chapter, their official names, and how many turns I spent in each one. Chapter 4 was where I for some reason spent 40 turns power-leveling Rena.



The longer turn counts here were mainly from waiting out reinforcements.



Hoo boy did I ever take forever on these chapters. Chapter 16 was Oguma's Arena trial. Chapter 17 took some time raiding the Secret Shop for large piles of Reblow Wands and Torron Tomes. Chapter 18 was Est's recruitment and subsequent arena training. Chapter 21 was the second Secret Shop and the beginning of the creation of our army of gods.



I spent the most time in Chapter 24 making every unit in our army into maxed-out demons. The result is that the final chapter was blitzed through in record time. A grand total of 1074 turns spent throughout the game - not exactly a speed run.



The scrolling stops and the regular credits begin.



Two of the biggest influences on this first game in the series.



Just four programmers and four artists.



A couple musicians and five other random guys, probably testers/QA.



More famous for the Game Boy, Yokoi also produced the first Fire Emblem. Grand total of 18 people credited. I think it takes more people than that to render a strand of hair these days.



These characters slowly appear one at a time for dramatic effect, leading into....

Ending - Parade

Another Fire Emblem tradition - the ending parade. A new track begins to kick it off.



Many people ask for his help.

The "where are they now?" character stories at the end of the game are a tradition that started with the very first title. I'm not sure what the order is supposed to be, but it appears to be roughly reverse recruitment order.



It's good to be royalty.



Lawrence had no personality going in or going out.



That's...a little creepy, honestly.



Paola was one of the three Pegasus Sisters and friend of Macedonian princess Minerva.



Noble and bland describes 90% of these.



Machis is so forgettable they forgot to translate him. (Actually this text is what appears if the unit didn't survive, here's the real thing.)



Yea, that was worth replaying the game and keeping him alive this time. Ah well.



Astria is the boring Hero recruited by Midia in a late chapter.



Rumor has it that this was meant to be Abel. Obviously not in our case. Est was pretty much our MVP for the last few chapters, though.



Wendel alas was not memorable enough to survive the bloodthirsty audience. It doesn't look like he wouldn't done anything productive, anyway.



Sure, the guy who can transform into exact copies of other people 'disappeared'.



Beck was not a fan favorite, either. And he would've somehow gone off to fight bandits, too!



Probably the same one we recruited him from. His counterpart, Alan, has a similar line.



Boa was a Priest rescued somewhere in the middle of the game and immediately forgotten so completely that no one even remembered to sacrifice him.



Because we didn't murder him.



Driven to suicide by Marth's wicked ways. And he would've been another village-rebuilder, too. Darn.



I had to double-check to make sure this was actually a different character.



George would have made a decent Sniper if Gordon hadn't somehow miraculously turned out well. Akaneia's loss.



If by 'sealed' you mean 'used up almost entirely' then, sure.



One of the least useful pre-promotes in the series, immediately outclassed by every other Pegasus Knight right upon promotion.



What now? Isn't she Minerva's sister? Shouldn't she be going home now, especially with Marth flying off with Sheeda instead?



Pretty sure we saved every village, not sure which ones all these people are rebuilding.



Yet another prepromote.



And another sacrifice to the RNG gods. Some poor woman is all alone now.



Hail, Caesar! Guess he kinda disappeared either way, huh.



Ah, Banutu, your only purpose was to get us the far superior Chiki.



As a wise sheep once said, RIP Machis and/or Biraku.



Heck, I don't even remember who he is.



Wolf's obviously inferior cousin. I guess the Orleans Army isn't going to get rebuilt very well.



He's not a great unit, but plenty useable in certain tactical situations.



...of Akaneia.

I think Marth got ripped off, here, personally.



I guess being a Hero wasn't as appealing to him as the Mercenary life.



Never really picked up on the whole 'Marich likes Marth's sister' storyline, either. Come on, Marich, you're a hero of the realm surely you can get some action out of that, even if you are wearing a dress.



Rena got hit in the head one too many times in Chapter 4.



...a father....

Looks like Julian was getting some action with Rena between chapters.



Forget Marth, Daros is the real savior of the world. Obviously he sailed off to go save other continents.



I'll start a rumor - he started up an Arena in Talis and challenged anyone to break his record.



Far too many of these are really lame and/or boring.







His buddy Barts is off restoring the realm, but Maji is just going to sit around goofing off. Sounds about right.



Alas poor Saji didn't survive his own honorary trial-by-Devil Axe. Although I wonder how that thing would work on cutting wood.



Riff just wasn't cool enough to level up with an axe to the face. Instead you all deprived the world of a monastery somewhere.



Ricardo - Julian's less-competent buddy. I apparently forgot to recruit him on my other file, so someone make up a bland line for him.



Geez, Gordon, way to make me feel bad for razzing on you all game.



Doga's somehow smart enough to realize that wars just beget more wars.



Abel's sacrifice led to the rise of Hardin, and we were all better off for it. Well, except for his would-have-been wife, I guess.



Kain showed up at the beginning, never saw a single battle, and managed to hang on until the very end.



Jeigan - twice sacrificed, never missed.



Sheeda was a pretty good unit while she was around, but just couldn't hold a candle to a fully-trained Est.



Marth saves the world and then goes home to sweep out the piles of dead bodies from his castle.



Future Fire Emblem games would take the parade concept one step further and give the kill count of each unit, leading up to a top-5 countdown, but unfortunately we don't have that tracked here. You'll have to use your imagination because I'm not going back to do a count either.



1990 is pretty late for a Famicom/NES game - the Super Famicom released in Japan the same year - and yet Intelligent Systems still hung around to put out a second one before moving up to the newer system.

And that's it! Hope you enjoyed taking a look at the first game in a series that has now seen 13 entries. It was ground-breaking enough to see most of its gameplay innovations carried forward throughout the series, yet primitive enough that no one ever actually wants to play it themselves.