I started FE6 back in August, took a break during September, and finished it today. I had played through it twice before in Japanese (once blind—got the bad ending—and once with a sidequest chapter guide), but this is the first time I played it in English.
I became acquainted a long time ago with the popular fan translated names, which themselves were based on English transcriptions of names as presented in character art/the manual. In this updated translation Thany => Shanna, Tate => Thea, Yodel => Yoder, and so on. It escapes me why they changed Alan back to Alen, and Ellen to Elen.
The first 14 or so chapters are fun. Somewhere after that, they began to feel too similar—in my case I fell into heavily manipulating the level-up RNG to get around what seemed to me like the game’s sense of cruelty (+1 HP or + nothing at all), but it unfortunately made the late game too easy; past a certain point playing the game felt like building IKEA furniture, just a matter of putting your characters in the correct position, which was usually obvious. Usually the last two chapters of a Fire Emblem game tend to feel this way, but that imo is acceptably in line with taking a victory lap before fighting the final boss. Here it was at least 10 chapters of perfunctory play, and the story didn’t do much to make up for what I had inadvertently turned the game into. I don’t think it was all my fault, though: in the second half of the game the level design begins to feel the same from one chapter to the next, and when it deviates from the standard it isn’t anything you don’t see in the first half of the game.
Figured the story must be at least close to as compelling as its prequel successor, but I was mistaken. FE7 is certainly more focused on the personal dramas of its main characters than the Tellius games and, from what I’ve seen, the Kaga games, but there’s enough substance there to hold interest. 6, on the other hand, tries to translate the more politically oriented story of a SNES Fire Emblem to a handheld console, but many of the inter-chapter Warren Report-style summaries of geopolitical activity feel pretty disconnected from one another, and on top of that don’t really influence the story of Roy and his allies. If anything I’m impressed the team was able to change their approach to this aspect of the game when developing FE7 while preserving the good stuff (in addition to adding things like varying mission objectives and unique level designs).
I have an abiding fondness for FE6 as part of the GBA trilogy—and it certainly earns credit for establishing much of what makes its sequels good, like the speed and feel of gameplay, elegant character menus, and the best battle animations in the series—but am glad to have had this opportunity to see it for what it is: a stepping stone on the way to better games.
Special recognition due Taeko Kaneda and Sachiko Wada for their art, and Yuka Tsujiyoko for her music (even if I disagree with whoever decided one Player Phase and one Enemy Phase battle theme was sufficient for the whole 30-hour game).