The first Fire Emblem game to be released outside Japan, Fire Emblem for Game Boy Advance, will be added to Nintendo Switch Online’s Expansion Pack tier next week, on June 23.
Also known as Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, the 2003 game was actually the seventh entry in the tactical role-playing series. Nintendo decided to try localizing it for an international release after having great success bringing developer Intelligent Systems’ other great strategy series to a global audience with 2001’s Advance Wars.
The Blazing Blade was the debut of popular character Lyn, who appears in latest release Fire Emblem Engage as the Emblem of Blazing. Like all Fire Emblem games prior to 2012’s Fire Emblem Awakening, it features character permadeath which can’t be disabled; as the press release puts it, “in this Fire Emblem game, if your soldiers meet their end, they’re gone forever.”
Nintendo is steadily working through the list of games it said would be coming to the Game Boy Advance collection for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers when library was added to the service in February. We’ve had Metroid Fusion already; still to come are Golden Sun, F-Zero Maximum Velocity, and Kirby and the Amazing Mirror.