Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu (translated as Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War in the rest of the world) is the fourth game in the Fire Emblem series of strategy role-playing games. It was developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo in 1996 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, albeit exclusively in Japan. A midquel, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, which explains the events that occurred in the game's twenty-year long time skip, was released three years later.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Very good story, which is considered among the best in the franchise (if not the best) and the best ever written by Nintendo overall. It's also very dark, though it doesn't try too hard to be dark just for the sake of it, failing in the process (unlike games like mh:crappygames:Mega Man X7, mh:crappygames:Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic '06 and mh:crappygames:Bomberman: Act Zero).
 * 2) The story spans two generations (hence the word "Genealogy" in the title). After Chapter 5: Doorway to Destiny, the game skips to twenty years after the beginning, and the story is protagonized by the children of the original characters. Their items, stats and skills depend from their parents, making the game very customizable.
 * 3) While its gameplay style is different, Genealogy of the Holy War is essentially the game that codified the series' gameplay style, introducing several mechanics that would become staples of the series, like the Love system (a variant of the Support system seen in subsequent games), the weapon rank system, the Arena and fixed promotions for each class (unlike previous games, where more classes shared the same promotions).
 * 4) The Love system allows two characters in your army to become romantically involved and have two children (one male and one female, while the identity of the child depends from the mother) whose skills, growth rates, Holy Blood and items are influenced by their parents (every children inherits from the parent of the same gender) and who will become the protagonists of the game from Chapter 6: Inheritors of Light and onward. Every unit has a hidden "Love points" value (which can be checked in castle towns) with other characters that determines which two units will be treated as lovers and who are the parents and the children (i.e.: Brigid's children will always be Faval and Patty, regardless of whether the father is Arden, Dew or Holyn, for example).
 * 5) The game introduced skills to the franchise: each unit has a pool of skills that grant a better performance in combat or unique effects (i.e.: a unit with the Pursuit skill can attack twice, and a unit with the Bargain skill can buy items for half their price).
 * 6) Unlike previous games, which had the "Give" system, this game allows units to sell items at pawn shops (found in every castle town) for another unit to buy them back, albeit at double the price. This, combined with the fact that each unit has his or her own pool of money (which can be shared only with lovers or Thieves like Dew in the first generation and Patty in the second) makes inventory and money management vital to your success.
 * 7) Weapons can be repaired for a price, which allows you to keep reusing them and encouraging you to keep rotating weapons instead of just sticking to the ones with the most durability or the strongest ones.
 * 8) If you don't get all the children (because their mother died or wasn't paired with anyone) you can obtain replacement units in the second generation, which fulfill the children's role in the story until the end. Some units, like Seliph, Julia, Leif, Altena, Shannan, and Oifey will always be available, though.
 * 9) Sometimes, if you meet certain requirements (like being paired with a certain unit) you can view conversations between units that flesh out their personality and yield unique rewards (like a significant boost in two units' Love points, or unique items. This is the only way to obtain the Pursuit Band and the Light Brand).
 * 10) The soundtrack is very well done. Each track fits every moment they are played in. For example, Chapter 5's theme is grim and depressing because of what is going on in the game.
 * 11) There is a secret hidden ending if you get ranked A in all of the categories.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The maps are extremely large and with multiple castles to seize (each one covering an area of equal size to a standard Fire Emblem map).
 * 2) Cavalry units are extremely broken in this game, due to their better movement and the Canto skill, which allows them to move and perform another action after attacking (unlike following installments, where it only allows to move after attacking). Infantry units are often too slow or have too little range to catch up, which offsets their good stats (like with Ayra, Brigid, Shannan or Faval). You can compensate this through clever use of the Leg Ring (which boosts movement) and the Knight Band (which grants Canto to the unit wielding it).
 * 3) *The Armor Knight/General classes are extremely underpowered in this game, due to their low movement (5 movement range, while other on foot units have around 7) and speed in the game with the franchise's biggest maps. This is not helped by the fact that there are only two Generals in the game (Arden in the first generation and Hannibal in the second). To put all this into perspective, Arden begins with a base speed of 4, and when promoted at max level, he has 8 speed on average (the bandits from the prologue have 7 speed when they aren't weighed down by their weapons).
 * 4) Some key mechanics of the series, like critical hits and double attacking are locked behind skills (Critical and Pursuit, respectively). This is problematic, especially early on, as units with these two skills will obviously have a much easier time.
 * 5) The Love mechanic is very poorly explained in the game.
 * 6) Hannibal is one of the characters with the most obscure recruitment requirements in the whole franchise, and he isn't worth the trouble in general due to his class.
 * 7) The final boss, Julius, is one of the hardest final bosses of the franchise (unless you use Julia with Naga) and he's especially tedious, as he wanders around the map until you either beat him or recruit Julia (which requires you to defeat Manfroy first) and has Meteor, a strong Fire spell with 3-10 range, which makes him extremely dangerous to approach and engage in combat.
 * 8) Sometimes children can end up very weak if you mess their pairing up.
 * 9) Adean's children Lester and Lana, since their best fathers (Azel and Midir, respectively) invariably make one of them useless. Midir can pass on to Lester the very powerful Accost/Pursuit/Adept combo, though he can't use the powerful Yewfelle (usable only by his cousin Faval). On the other hand, Azel can pass Pursuit and a good Fire magic rank to Lana, which is especially useful after promoting and make good use of her better availability (the only other good healer, Corpul, comes in the third-to-last chapter in the game).
 * 10) Obtaining Silvia's son Corpul locks you out of the only Berserk staff in the game (since it's wielded by his replacement unit Sharlow).
 * 11) Tailtiu's son Arthur can be very bad, unless you train him up on his recruitment chapter and/or Lewyn is his father, which allows him to inherit the Forseti tome and a boost to his Speed growth rate (however, by contrast, this kneecaps Erinys' children Ced and Fee, who are the ones who benefit the most from Forseti and the Speed growth boost, and pairing her with Claude, while it allows them to wield the Valkyrie staff (only usable by Corpul if Claude is his father otherwise), makes Fee almost useless, as only Ced can use staves upon promotion).
 * 12) Many enemy portraits are reused to the point that a portrait of an commander named Harold is reused in almost every single chapter, with only recoloring to distinguish the commanders.
 * 13) Getting all A ranks is very difficult, especially with the only 3 deaths requirement. You can lose a death if you restart the whole chapter, but it can be tedious especially if you lost a unit before seizing the last castle. Also, killing Julius, the final boss, with a mounted unit, prompts a glitch which nets you the lowest rank because the game thinks every unit died over 80 times.

Trivia

 * The game was supposed to be an open world game, but, early in development, Shouzou Kaga mandated that the game was turned into a regular Fire Emblem game. Evidence of this is still present in the final game, since all the maps are connected to each other.