Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.
Twelve year old Miyazaki squatted in the corner of a bookstore, completely absorbed in an obscure fantasy novel he held in his hands.
"Miyazaki! Are you buying that or not?"
The shop owner walked past carrying a stack of books, shaking his head helplessly. This kid, whose family wasn't well-off, came to his store almost every weekend just to read without buying anything.
"Kids your age should be out in the woods catching rhinoceros beetles."
He glanced at the title of the book in Miyazaki's hands. If he remembered correctly, it was a rather serious fantasy epic. Sometimes he really couldn't understand what was going on in this kid's head.
"Oi! I'm talking to you!"
Seeing that Miyazaki was so engrossed that he hadn't heard a single word, the owner twitched his eyebrows. When Miyazaki remained completely captivated by the book, he sighed, rummaged through his pocket, and pulled out a raffle ticket.
"Here, I got this from a drawing at the shopping street today, now it's yours."
He waved the ticket between Miyazaki and the book, finally snapping the boy back to reality. Miyazaki looked up with an embarrassed expression.
"Take it. Go walk around the shopping street once in a while. You're way too young to be growing mold inside a bookstore."
Ignoring Miyazaki's reaction, the owner bookmarked the novel for him, returned it to the shelf, stuffed the raffle ticket into his hand, and practically carried him out of the store.
For some reason, the shopping district was especially noisy today, even more so than usual. Miyazaki originally intended to avoid it, as he instinctively disliked noisy places.
The last time he had worked up the courage to wander around the streets, three dogs had appeared out of nowhere and chased him all the way home.
Looking down at the raffle ticket in his hand, he saw it belonged to a game store somewhere on the street. Video games, his eyes blinked.
His family wasn't wealthy. Even something as inexpensive as an Famicom was beyond what they could afford.
Even if this ticket actually won a game cartridge, it wouldn't mean much, but if he could resell it, or simply exchange it for cash, it would at least help support the family.
"It should... be here..."
Miyazaki looked up and froze on the spot. The line outside the store wound around several times, almost blocking the entire street.
"Celebrating the launch of the NovaBox Japanese Edition! Shop here to receive a raffle ticket!"
"Grand Prize: A GAMENOVA flagship console, bundled with the hit title Pokémon, plus one mysterious blockbuster game!"
The blaring loudspeaker made Miyazaki's ears ache. But he clearly understood what was happening.
"Hey, you've got a raffle ticket, so you don't need to line up. Just go through that door over there and head straight to the drawing."
The passerby standing in front of him turned around, looked him over for a moment, and then noticed the raffle ticket in Miyazaki's hand.
"Thank you..." Miyazaki thanked him in an extremely quiet voice, lowered his head, and hurried toward the door the man had pointed out.
Thunk.
His forehead slammed straight into the door. "Sorry, kid. This door can't be opened from that side, come on in."
After seeing the raffle ticket, the person inside pushed the door open and let Miyazaki enter.
Miyazaki spun the raffle drum with all his strength as the balls inside rattled noisily against one another.
Rumble.
A small ball rolled out through the opening. "White. Alright then, the consolation prize is a pencil."
The man's voice stopped abruptly. He picked up the little ball and held it under the sunlight for a closer look, this wasn't white at all. It was a pale golden, translucent ball with a tiny star embedded inside.
"The... the Grand Prize has been won!!!"
Even after Hidetaka Miyazaki returned home carrying the large NovaBox-branded cardboard box and two floppy disks, he still couldn't believe what had happened and his mind was buzzing.
He had originally planned to sell both the precious console and the game cartridges immediately. But somehow, when he saw the floppy disk labeled Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, a voice in the back of his mind told him to keep the console.
He truly loved this kind of fantasy.
"Mom, can I use the TV for a while?"
[The Kingdom of Bern has decided to launch invasions against its neighboring nations.]
[They first invaded the regions of Sacae and Ilia, advancing with unstoppable momentum.]
[Afterward, they set their sights on Lycia.]
The beginning of the story was, as expected, rather conventional. Instead of the grand epic Miyazaki had imagined, it was simply a straightforward tale of kingdoms at war.
"So, the protagonist is this heir to a lord named Roy."
Like so many other stories, the plot was set into motion by a series of coincidences. As the protagonist Roy was hurrying back to the castle, a band of brigands launched an assault on the city.
[Lance? What's wrong? Why are you in such a panic?!]
[Lord Roy! Bandits have surrounded the castle! They're attacking!!]
"Alright. So, my objective is to wipe out all the bandits."
Miyazaki scratched his head as the actual gameplay finally began. Several houses were scattered across the map, along with a handful of axe-wielding enemies.
The game cleverly made use of its limited color palette, distinguishing allies and enemies with blue and red. At a glance, it was easy to tell who belonged to which side.
"So, I can control a total of six characters..."
Miyazaki selected each character in turn, checking their attributes.
"Three cavaliers, one armored knight, one archer, and the protagonist."
After understanding the basics, he immediately selected the frontmost cavalier, Lance, the very one who had just ridden out of the castle to report the attack.
The moment he selected Lance; a large number of tiles appeared around him on the map. These tiles were likewise divided into blue and red.
The design felt as though it struck directly at the part of the human brain responsible for intuition. The game's use of color psychology demonstrated its value perfectly.
Miyazaki hardly needed to think before instinctively realizing that the blue tiles represented places Lance could move to, while the red ones marked unreachable areas.
There was no reason to hesitate. He immediately moved Lance directly in front of the nearest bandit and selected the Attack command.
"I have to choose a weapon too? What's the point of that?"
Looking at the two options that appeared, Javelin and Iron Sword, Miyazaki couldn't immediately understand why this feature existed.
"The Iron Sword has lower attack power, but higher accuracy and avoidance. The Javelin hits harder, but only has 68 Hit... I see."
"Let's try the Javelin. He's a cavalier, after all."
However, the moment he selected the Javelin, a red downward arrow appeared over the lance icon in the submenu. Conversely, a green upward arrow appeared over the bandit's axe icon.
"Hmm? What happens if I switch to the sword?"
Sure enough, after changing to the Iron Sword, the two arrows reversed. Lance's Might stat also gained an additional +2 indicator.
"Axes beat lances, lances beat swords, swords beat axes..."
Hidetaka Miyazaki silently committed this information to memory. This kind of gameplay, where you had to calm down and carefully think through your strategy, suited his tastes perfectly.
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A.N: If the name Hidetaka Miyazaki doesn't ring a bell, then games like Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne probably will.