Aside from maybe Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, as far as video games coming out in 2016 that have caught my eye, the list begins and ends with Fire Emblem Fates. Coming out this Friday, Fire Emblem Fates is the latest in Nintendo’s premiere turn-based strategy franchise, and like many other fans of the cult classic series, I’ve been waiting on baited breath for months to sink my blade into the latest game.

More on that though in my upcoming review of Fire Emblem Fates though. In the mean time, I figure now is as good a time as any to showcase one of my favorite series’ of video games, especially one that gaining plenty of ground and lots of fans in recent years, remains as relatively out of the limelight as Fire Emblem.

Like many other Fire Emblem fans in the West, my fascination with the series began with the appearance of two characters in Super Smash Bros Melee, Marth and Roy. I didn’t know who these two Japanese-speaking swordsmen were, or anything about the series they came from, but I knew I wanted to know more. As soon as I plugged my cartridge of Fire Emblem into my Gameboy Advance back in 2003, I’ve been hooked ever since.

Of course, the Fire Emblem series is quite a bit older than its debut in the West in 2003. Not counting remakes of older games, there are 12 games in the Fire Emblem series, six getting worldwide release, the first being Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, which came out in 1990 on the NES in Japan. It would set the tone for most of the franchise that followed, and not just that word of mouth from a devoted core of fans that loved the game carried the franchise forward.

Though Fire Emblem games have a mostly different cast in every game, and while they occasionally reuse settings, they all share the common thread that the player is in charge of a rag tag group of warriors in a medieval fantasy facing terrible odds and tasked with a seemingly impossible mission – repelling an invading army, preventing a great evil from being summoned, you know, typical fantasy genre stuff. What has always held the series together, along with common elements like dragons or the titular Fire Emblem rearing their heads every few games, has been a core of solid gameplay mechanics, at times daring storytelling, and meaningful characterizations.

A few small changes and updates between games aside, the gameplay in Fire Emblem has remained remarkably unchanged for a video game series nearly as old as I am. You command an army of characters that act as a variety of units, such as mercenaries or mages, across a grid-based battlefield, defeating your enemies and achieving any given objectives along the way. If your units win, they gain experience, get stronger and maybe earn a promotion or two. If they lose… more on that in a minute.

It’s the same familiar mechanics you see in any number of classic turn-based strategy games like Civilization or XCOM, which as a fan of Sid Meier games since childhood, I took to like a duck to water. This is in addition to mechanics like the weapons-triangle, which gives certain units and weapons advantages over the other, and individual stats that determine everything from strength to luck. The result is a largely stable core of the franchise that allows any number of styles to play the game. Want a core of strong, mounted units as you wash over your foes like the Mongols? You can do that. Prefer ranged attacks and ambushing your enemies? You can do that too.

In terms of storytelling, the Fire Emblem franchise has also remained remarkably mature compared to many other JRPG series. I’d argue one of the key reasons that Fire Emblem has retained such a devoted fan base over the years is that there has always been a focus on relatively grounded storytelling within the series. Compared to, say, Final Fantasy, which even before it descended into self parody, I couldn’t for the live of me explain what the plot of Final Fantasy X is without a series of flowcharts and Wikipedia. Arguably one of the reasons for the decline of JRPGs was that so many games focused more on complexity rather than storytelling, and the results are more off-putting than intriguing.

Fire Emblem on the other hand, wouldn’t look too out of place alongside any Western high fantasy series, almost always striking the right balance of ease of entry and complexity to keep you invested. While more than a few of the games use similar story elements, typically your legion of child soldiers and teenagers with attitude fighting off an aggressive, invading Evil Empire, they all have elements that make individual games stand out. Fire Emblem: Genealogy of a Holy War has enough political and religious discord, incest and unexpected character deaths to have been penned by George RR Martin. In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, a big part of the story revolves around how our heroes hail from a kingdom that had long been allies with the invading evil empire, and figuring out what caused the betrayal is one of the things driving the story forward, and where even most of the villains appear uncomfortable with the sudden change in attitude. In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, there is the lingering racial tension between humans and the shape-shifting Laguz. Fire Emblem has always been refreshing for its ability to integrate complex storytelling while remaining accessible.

Of course, the foundation of what makes both the gameplay and story of each Fire Emblem so compelling is the cast of characters at your disposal. Each one of them has their own distinct personalities, backgrounds and goals as a character in addition to any strengths and weaknesses they bring as a unit. They can team up with and bond with other characters, revealing more about themselves and developing bonds between each other, and in some games, these bonds allow units to get married or has an impact on the ending of the game. Fire Emblem allows you to get invested in the lives and personalities of the soldiers at your command like few other games manage – which makes it hurt all the more when you watch them die.

That’s right, perhaps the most infamous aspect of the Fire Emblem series is that when your units are beaten in combat, they will die. No resurrections, no retreats, no saving grace, they hit zero HP, they gurgle out a few dying words, and then they’re gone for good. Fire Emblem gets you invested in these characters, their lives and personalities, lets you get to know them, all so that with a couple wrong moves or an unexpected action by the enemy, it hits you like a bomb as you watch them fall. It’s honestly one of the most intimidating things about the Fire Emblem franchise, even for veterans of turn-based strategy games. Not just because it eliminates use of zerg rushes common to the genre, but because it drives it home that you’re not just playing a chess match, you’re gambling with the lives of your soldiers with every move you make. It forces you to make every move count, makes every enemy attack an agony, and every victory a small miracle.

Toss in some iconic character design, and one of the most iconic scores in gaming, and its easy to see why Fire Emblem has such a growing army of fans. The well-tuned gameplay, some fantastic high fantasy tales and some of the best-implemented use of characterization in console gaming, and what began in the West with a pair of fighters in Super Smash Bros Melee has grown into one of Nintendo’s flagship franchises. It wasn’t always like that though. In fact, not too long ago, the Fire Emblem series may have had a devoted core fanbase, but in terms of sales, all the series had to show was a number of expensive flops, and Nintendo was ready to put the series to rest.

All of that changed with Fire Emblem Awakening. But that’s a story for another day.