I'm adding this fresh post because I don't believe I've done Thracia 776 justice. Sure, in my Previous review I pointed out a lot of its quirks and flaws through its mechanics, but I wanted to talk about everything else about the game because it actually is quite a gem when I think back upon it, and it's kind of tragic that it has to be hidden behind such obtuse gameplay.
The story is quite simple, as far as Fire Emblem games are concerned. You start in a small town, fighting bandits, the usual, but then suddenly - you're captured! Yes, there's an entire jail/dungeon arc at the very beginning of the game, spanning 4-5 chapters (depending on if you hit bonus chapters, of which there are many). During this arc, you meet the final bosses of the game, only to never hear from them again for another 20 or so chapters. And this is fine - they are staying put, and you are running around and eventually working your way back to them, on your own terms.
Leif is a charming lord as far as FE lords are concerned. Sure he's no fan-favorite like Hector, but he's also not weak or naive, like Marth or Corrin. He's fifteen (or so), and sometimes has bad ideas, but his advisor(s) are counseling him, like good advisors should, yet still letting him make the calls, as he is technically the one in authority.
Throughout the game, Leif goes through very human emotions, constantly criticizing himself for not being better, not being able to save everyone, taking so long to do what others have miraculously done in so little time. He compares himself to Seliph and Shanan constantly, and struggles to see the bigger picture. Eventually, his advisor August tells him something I think everyone needs to hear at some point or another - "Heroes aren't born; they're made."
This game is about the MAKING of a hero, not just the life of someone who's always been a hero. And even when Leif meets Seliph, someone he's idolized and always looked up to, Seliph is the one praising Leif! He couldn't have done any of what he did had Leif not been holding off the brunt of Manster and Thracia's armies, and he knows this. It's a great story - or at the very least a great continuation of one.
This is another brilliant yet problematic design decision - you need to have played Genealogy first in order to truly appreciate what's going on. Thracia 776 fills in many of the gaps left by Genealogy, taking place in the time starting just before Genealogy chapter 6 and leading up to Genealogy chapter 8. Leif is clearly an important character, yet in Genealogy we barely got any of his story, so it's cool to see things work out this way.
You also get to see the fate of several other characters from Genealogy revealed. I won't spoil their stories here, but you actually meet one or two characters whose fates were unclear at best - or death at worst - from the parent generation of Genealogy, opening the doors for nearly all the other unexplained parent generation characters to still possibly be alive somewhere.
Another issue with the story of Thracia is that its ending assumes the end of Genealogy, not just of this game. All the character epilogues talk about "after the war," referencing not just the end of Thraica, but the end of Genealogy. It doesn't necessarily spoil the ending of Genealogy, but without knowing what goes on there would be a bit of possible confusion.
Beyond the story, though, the rest of the presentation of this game is quite good. The music in particular is spectacular. There may not be as many tracks as the massive OST Genealogy had, or even most other Fire Emblem games, but the tracks they do have are pretty solid. They mix up the chapter songs enough that not only did I not mind that there were only five or six, but I was excited for the theme from early chapters to make a comeback later on in the game.
Apparently the game even has a "near defeat" theme, which plays whenever you fail certain bonus objectives, lose certain units, or the like. It's a neat idea, but kind of weird since a lot of players will never hear that track if they're obsessed with having a perfect run, like I was.
A minor issue I had with the music is that the "approaching victory" theme played whenever the enemy had five or fewer units left - whether you could see them or not. This kind of spoiled some otherwise-tense moments in fog of war maps, but also led to some weird situations where I honestly felt I wasn't anywhere close to victory when the theme started, and then it kept changing back and forth as more enemy reinforcements would show up and/or get killed.
Weird as it is, I feel the story and music of Thracia are honestly some of the most simple, straightforward and yet still very moving and powerful that Fire Emblem as a whole has ever had. It's only a shame that such a clear and simple story is hidden beneath a cavalcade of obscure and frustrating mechanics and design choices.
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