This guide should help any person who has just started to play Fire Emblem Gaiden learn the basics of playing and how everything works out. It is not a walkthrough but only a generic guide to get started.


To begin, click begin and start a new file. After talking to Misen, move your character (Alm) east and talk to Ruka, the boy facing west. After talking to Ruka, talk to Misen west in the village house again and he will say he regrets that you are leaving. Talk to Ruka again. Ruka will now join your group. Talk to the others and each will join your group.

The first battle will take place when you move into Ramvall, east of the village.

Now you are the bluish-grayish units, and the enemies are the red units. Grey, Cliff, Alm, and Bird all use swords. Ruka uses lances. Grey is a villager, Cliff is a villager, and Bird is a villager. Alm is a fighter and Ruka a soldier. Press A while the cursor is on a unit to see that unit's basic information, including name, Hp, class (what kind of person they are), weapon, level, and any items the unit may be carrying. Click on land with no units and you will see a screen with the following commands.

Roster- Allows you to see units in your group, as well as their level and experience (exp)

Assault- Makes your units attack other units and charge at enemy.

Gather- Makes all units gather around together.

Remove- Shows the map and turn number

Quit- Quits the battle.

Configuration- Shows options.

Music- turns music on or off

Animate- turns animations (battles) on or off.

Wait Timer- Unknown effect

End Turn- ends the turn and lets enemy attacks. Is needed to continue game play.

Now, you're wondering. How do I attack, how do I move, and what is experience? Your answers. To move, select a blue/grey unit (the small people on). Then move the cursor to wherever you want to move. Notice how some spaces you can?t move, because your player can't move that far. To attack or fight, click fight when next to an enemy and you will attack them.

Hp is hitpoints. Hitpoints is how much life that unit has. When the hp goes to 0, that unit dies and cannot be used again. This is extremely important and a re-occuring factor in all of the Fire Emblem series.

Next, we have the unit's stats. This includes how strong, fast, skilled (in hitting others), and more they are. Here we go-

Level- the level of skill they are. The higher the better status. When a level increases, so does their skills and status which is based on a random percentage.

Power- The unit's strength. The higher the strength or power the more damage inflicted.

Skill- The unit's skill which affects the hit percentage. The higher the skill the better hit percentage.

Speed- how fast the unit is. This allows the unit to get 1 or 2 hits. It also effects evasion.

Luck- Luck affects different things, like the hit percentage, special (or critical) percentage, and evasion.

Defense- Protection from other attacks, the attack of the enemy unit- defense of the attacked unit is the damage inflicted to the attacked unit.

Magic Defense or M. Defense- Protection from magic, it does the same thing as defense except with magic.

Counter- This also affects whether the unit gets 1 or 2 hits and if it counters or not.

Here is the basic Hp formula.

HP- damage inflicted = current HP.

There are different items you can use, which you will learn later. Now, for the first chapter battle.

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Battle 1
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I suggest that you keep all units alive and that you also train your villagers to be about the same level as each other, and that Alm and Ruka are about the same level as each other. This is because the more trained/leveled up characters will get less exp when fighting enemies than the other units who aren't as trained, creating an imbalance in the characters. Confusing? You'll get it later.

You probably want to move Grey and Alm to the front and Ruka behind them. Bird and Cliff should stay behind for that turn. After ending it, concentrate on 2 enemies. Have Cliff and Bird (the weaker people) finish the enemies off so they get a lot of experience. If one of them gets 12 Hp or less, I recommend moving them back and having the stronger ones finishing the enemies off. Now when you miss, don?t fear, its ok. While you are fighting, you will see a small info thing at the bottom. Hit is the percentage you will hit your enemy, attack is how much you will do, and def how much defense you have. That is the battle.

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Battle 2
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I suggest in this battle to gather up the people manually and use the forest to advantage. You want to have the villagers on the east keeping the bandits busy, while Alm and Ruka defeat the bandit on the west and archer. Cliff and Bird (or Robin) should be kept behind and anybody with 12hp or less should stay behind. Make sure again that mostly the weaker villagers get the experience. The archer should be defeated first- and note, the archer can attack from 1 space unlike other Fire Emblems. If the enemy gets to the pinkish square, either get Alm or Ruka to beat it (the square makes it harder to defeat the enemy as it boosts the unit on the square) or wait until the enemy recovers all its Hp in the square and it to attack you. Then simply finish it off when it attacks you. Another easy battle.

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Battle 3/Thief Shrine
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Here we have the thief shrine. After moving to the next area with Alm, you get into the first battle. Do not worry too much; the damaged units do not attack back (or something like that.) I recommend taking the villagers and teaming the bandits while Alm and Ruka defeat a couple and weaken down any that are giving big trouble. Again, any villagers or units with 12hp or less should retreat to the corner. If there begin to get too many, hide your damaged ones as much as possible with the best of the damaged in front. Then have Alm and Ruka fight on, then the villagers finish off everybody. Make sure in case of real dire circumstances, nobody should have 6hp or less and attacking.

After defeating them, simply move on to the next place and talk to Silk. She is a cleric and will join you. She can use magic to heal your other players. If you continue further, you will be allowed to take 2 of your villagers and have them promote. I recommend getting them to train in the thief shrine (you can go back to it and fight and train in it) until they are at their max (around level 10 is good, but you can go higher, but that is time consuming), and then promote to get the best results.

There you go, a little more complicated then the others, but not that hard either.

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From here on you know the basics to playing this game. There are a lot of other things involved, but at the least you know how to play and can hopefully make it on your own. Good luck and have fun!