40 Fun Facts About Fire Emblem: the Binding Blade

Which crossover fighting game made Roy playable before Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade was even released?

Roy's own game had slipped behind schedule. Super Smash Bros. Melee beat it to shops by four months, so Western players met him before any Fire Emblem was sold outside Japan.

Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade was the first entry in the series made for which handheld console?

Game Boy Advance hardware beat the Super Famicom that hosted the previous entry, so the series could finally go portable. Earlier handhelds had been judged too weak for it.

Which ailing Marquess of Pherae, hero of the prequel, sends his son Roy to war in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Eliwood is too ill to fight, so his young son takes command of Pherae's knights in his place. The prequel shows him twenty years earlier, as the hero of his own adventure.

Which king of Bern starts the continent-wide war that Roy must end in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Zephiel was once a gifted prince, the hope of Bern's people. Surviving a poisoning by his own jealous father convinced him that humanity should hand the world back to dragons.

Which mage, the daughter of Ostia's marquess, is Roy's childhood friend in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Lilina is taken hostage twice in the first eight chapters, and Roy frees her both times. If the two grow close enough during the war, she ends the game as queen of a united Lycia with Roy as king.

Which series staple did Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade introduce to give its many minor soldiers personalities?

Support conversations let pairs who fight side by side talk on the battlefield, revealing backstories the plot has no room for. Earlier games tracked such bonds only behind the scenes.

What is the true name of the Dark Priestess, the final boss of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Idunn was a divine dragon whose soul was destroyed to turn her into a living weapon. In the game's best ending Roy spares her, and her soul slowly begins to return.

On which continent, shared with the prequel The Blazing Blade, is Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade set?

Elibe was a brand-new world for the series, unconnected to earlier games. A war between humans and dragons a thousand years earlier still shapes its politics.

Which princess of Bern steals the Fire Emblem and flees to Roy's army in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Guinivere hopes to end her half-brother's war without bloodshed. The royal crest she carries off turns out to be the key that unseals the game's title sword.

Which childlike divine dragon sneaks away from her desert village to join Roy in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Fae is forbidden to leave home, so she runs after the army on her own, gets captured, and has to be rescued before Roy lets her join. She is one of the last pure-blooded dragons alive.

Which studio developed Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade after scrapping an earlier version planned for a home console?

Intelligent Systems rebuilt the game in about a year, keeping almost nothing from the abandoned version beyond the hero Roy and one wandering swordsman.

Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade began as Maiden of Darkness, a project planned for which home console?

Nintendo 64 players never got their Fire Emblem: poor sales of the console's disk-drive add-on helped end the project, and very little of it survived the move to a handheld.

Which Marquess of Ostia, a hero of the prequel, dies after dueling Bern's king early in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Hector uses his last words to warn Roy that Bern has dragons in its ranks, and to send him toward a dragon-slaying sword hidden near his castle.

Which ageing paladin, also playable in the prequel, guards Roy from chapter one of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Marcus knows he is past his prime and spends the war looking for a successor, a role he can hand to one of Pherae's younger knights. He retires as soon as the fighting ends.

Which adviser hauls the army's item convoy and cannot be permanently killed in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Merlinus is the only convoy in the game: leave him behind and nobody can withdraw stored items mid-battle. If he falls, he simply returns in a later chapter.

What name is given to the ancient war between humans and dragons in the backstory of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

The Scouring ended a thousand years before the game with the dragons beaten and driven out. The popular version of events blames them, yet it was humanity that declared war.

Which blazing sword of the hero Roland does Roy recover from a cave near Ostia in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Durandal was forged a thousand years earlier to cut down dragons, then sealed away by its owner. Legend says a war-scarred land bloomed again when he held it aloft.

Which thunder axe of the berserker Durban lies hidden in the Western Isles in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Armads was so huge that ordinary warriors could not wield it, and its owner came to see himself and the axe as one. His spirit still haunts the cave where it rests.

Which archer of Pherae, the son of Roy's wet nurse, grew up as his milk brother in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Wolt is the son of Rebecca, an archer from the prequel, and he joined Pherae's knights as the youngest of Roy's retainers. He fights beside Roy from the very first battle.

Which hot-headed cavalier of Pherae joins in chapter one beside his partner Lance in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Alen suggests plans without a thought for his own safety, which earns him regular criticism from his partner. His family has served Pherae for generations.

Which youngest of three pegasus knight sisters joins Roy with a band of mercenaries in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Shanna was raised by her eldest sister after their parents died in battle. During the war she persuades her other sister, hired by the enemy, to change sides.

Which mercenary captain, a former gladiator, is hired to reinforce Roy's army in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Dieck once served a noble Etrurian family as a bodyguard and saved the life of its young heir. The heir's little sister grew up on stories about him.

Which swordsman hired by Marquess Laus is the first enemy who can be recruited in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Rutger changes sides the moment he hears that Roy's army is fighting Bern. The girl he freed from Laus's cells tells him so in the middle of the battle.

Which noble troubadour, the younger sister of the archer Klein, joins Roy in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Clarine admires her brother so much that she will do anything for his approval, even mistreat others. He eventually tells her she is still a child.

Which dark-magic shaman is the twin brother of the young mage Lugh in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Raigh and his twin are sons of Nino, the prequel's young mage, and grew up in an orphanage in Araphen. He walked out of it to master dark magic on his own.

Which half-dragon shaman guides Roy across the Nabata desert to her hidden village in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Sophia is first met in a Bern dungeon, tending the wounds of a captured Etrurian general. Win the desert battle quickly enough with her alive and a side chapter opens, with a powerful tome as its prize.

Which Mage General of Etruria, Roy's former teacher, hosts the tutorial of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Cecilia is the only one of Etruria's three generals to escape the coup at home. She and her loyalists hold a besieged castle until Bern's king defeats her in person and she is locked in its dungeon.

Which Knight General of Etruria changes sides on learning Prince Myrddin is alive in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Perceval obeys the coup's leaders only to keep his captive king alive. His deepest loyalty is to the prince he believed dead, so one meeting is enough to turn him.

Which bard of the Western Isles resistance is secretly Etruria's lost Prince Myrddin in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Elffin was believed dead, and his father's grief left the throne open to traitors. Which village the player visits decides whether he or a dancer joins the army.

Which swordmaster, once feared as the Sword Demon, is the last character to join in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Karel waits in the only village of chapter 23, by now honoured as the Saint of Swords. In the prequel, twenty years earlier, he roamed the land hunting worthy opponents.

Which wyvern rider, the sister of Zeiss, defects from Bern to follow her princess in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Melady is ordered to bring the runaway princess home, but is talked into delivering her to Roy's army instead and enlists on the spot. Her lover stays loyal to Bern.

Which vain Wyvern General of Bern is stripped of his rank shortly before his death in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Narcian lures Lycia's lords into treason with promises of power and later engineers a coup in Etruria, yet each scheme is undone by Roy. He considers himself a peerless genius and beauty.

Which hidden city in the Nabata desert is home to humans and dragons living in peace in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Arcadia forbids its people any contact with the world beyond the desert. Bern's generals spend part of the war searching for it.

Which grassland nation of nomadic tribes, home to the Kutolah, lies north of Bern in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Sacae has no central government at all, only tribes that roam the plains. One of them, the Djute, sides with the invaders and wipes out several of its neighbours.

Which snowbound land, too cold to farm, lives off its mercenary pegasus knights in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Ilia's mercenaries are famous for never breaking a contract, even when it puts family members on opposite sides of a battle. Pegasi are native to the region, so no other nation fields pegasus knights.

Which founder of Bern wielded the title sword of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade a thousand years before Roy?

Hartmut led the eight heroes who won the dragon war, yet he refused to kill the Demon Dragon. On discovering she was only a girl, he sealed her away instead.

Which notoriously hard predecessor was Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade deliberately made more forgiving than?

Thracia 776 was so punishing that the team planned this game's standard setting as an easy mode. Beating it once still unlocks a Hard Mode for players who miss the pain.

What must Roy's army collect in full to unlock the true final chapters of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

The legendary weapons light the way to a hidden dragon temple once Bern's king falls. Miss even one and the story stops at his castle, with the real final boss still at large.

Which streetwise mage for hire is the grandson of the Mountain Hermit Niime in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Hugh was raised by his grandmother after his parents died stopping a snowstorm, but he never took to her dark arts. He left home to earn a living casting anima spells for pay.

Which axe-wielding warrior from the prequel returns as the father of the myrmidon Fir in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade?

Bartre can be recruited by his daughter, and he then joins hoping to keep her safe while she trains to master the sword as her mother did.