Introduction

What's Fire emblem?

Fire Emblem is a long running series of turn-based strategy RPGs, developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The series is probably best known for three things; being the series those guys with swords from Super Smash Bros. come from, permanent death, and its high difficulty. Released on the SNES in 1999, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (normally called Fire Emblem 5) makes nearly every other game in the series look like a cakewalk.

So basically it's a hard game:

Hard barely begins to cover it. The game is designed around making the player suffer as much as possible. Heal staffs will miss, enemy reinforcements will appear and kill your healer on the same turn and much much more. Even when it's not unfair, it's still damn hard. Enemies are strong and vastly outnumber you, and a character dying is always just a step away. (And unlike real war, this thread will have no casualties on our side.)

Why play it then if it's that bad?

While the game is hard as hell, it has its redeeming features. The core game play is solid, and the game introduces a lot of interesting mechanics, some which work, some that don't. And even though it's hard, there's a certain kind of fairness to its difficulty. This is no Hoshigami, making you master an arcane mechanic to stand half a chance, nor is it FFT v1.3, expecting you not only to grind, but to grind the right way. In the end, all you need is a lot of patience and some skill to clear the game, and when you finally clear a hard chapter, it's damn satisfying.

How much content will you be showing off?

The game is nearly entirely linear, so I'll be showing every chapter in the game. As well, I plan on recruiting every character possible in one playthrough, and suffering no casualties over the course of the game. I'll try for every item I can, but I make no guarantees.

Please don't spoil future chapters:

Resist the temptation to talk about why future chapters are incredibly hard, or any other unseen aspects of the gameplay. If you have to, put it in spoiler tags, but don't do it too much. I don't want the surprise to be ruined, nor do I want the LP to look like a classified document. I don't mind so much if you say, mention how hard chapter 13 is after we do chapter 12, but don't explain anything about chapter 13. Leave that part for the LP.

Please note:

Fire Emblem 5 is a midquel to Fire Emblem 4, taking place near the end of the timeskip between 4's two halves. It stands on its own fairly well, but I'll chime in with explanations when I feel it's necessary, and feel free to ask if there's something I overlook.

Edit: There is now an ongoing Fire Emblem 4 Lp, I'd check it out. I'll try and keep unnecessary spoilers to a minimum.

Also, the translation patch for the game is somewhat spotty, and causes some small graphical glitches.

Other cool LPs by cool people:
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, by Fedule
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, also by Fedule
Fire Emblem, by Artix74

Other cool stuff:
Serenesforest, a Fire Emblem fansite with an unbelievable amount of information. Official art and indepth gameplay mechanics are courtesy of this site.