The story follows Roy, a young nobleman from the small independent nation of Pherae as he leads a growing army against the forces of King Zephiel of the kingdom of Bern, who is gradually taking over Elibe with the aid of a mysterious power.

One of Intelligent Systems' main goals was to make the game more forgiving to newcomers than the notoriously difficult Fire Emblem: Thracia 776.

Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is a tactical role-playing game in which players control main protagonist Roy and his growing army as they take part in battle across the land of Elibe.

[7] Battles take place on grid-based self-contained maps and are governed by a turn-based system where units on both sides are given their chance to move and act.

When attacking, the game transitions from the top-down view of the map to a side-view battlefield, where a cinematic battle plays between the player and enemy units.

The story begins when King Zephiel, ruler of the kingdom of Bern, finishes the brutal conquest of Ilia and Sacae and sets his sights on Lycia.

Roy leads his forces to Ostia, another region of Lycia ruled by Eliwood's friend Hector and his daughter Lilina.

The kingdom of Etruria contacts Roy and assigns his army to travel to the Western Isles, where heavy bandit activity is being reported.

Though the Lycian Army repels the bandits, they discover from either a royal-in-hiding named Elffin or a dancer Larum that Etruria's nobility have allied with Bern and are enslaving the people on the Western Isles to work the mines.

To learn more about them, the Lycian Army travels to Arcadia, a hidden city in the vast desert where humans and dragons live in peace, and gain stronger insight from the elders.

Combined with the Fire Emblem, Roy is granted its incredible power and wields the Binding Blade in the final assault on Bern's capital.

Guinevere tells Roy that King Desmond's betrayal caused her brother to become bitter, and lead to his decision to resurrect the dragons in order to return the world to them.

If the player has collected them and they are unbroken, Roy learns that Zephiel ordered his remaining forces to gather elsewhere in Elibe and continue his plans.

The Divine Weapons suddenly emit a light that leads the Etrurian Army to this location: an ancient temple that had long ago been built by the dragons.

Her power was locked away until Zephiel, disgusted at humanity's failings, released her out of his insane desire to return Elibe to the dragons.

As she has no emotion or free will, Idunn continues to follow Zephiel's orders even after his death and threatens to raise a dragon army that will destroy everything on the continent.

While development of a handheld Fire Emblem title had been considered for earlier games, the team felt available hardware lacked the expression to realize their vision.

[10] Compared to earlier titles in the series, the story for The Binding Blade was made deliberately simple, with clear heroes and villains, and an obvious objective for the player to complete.

[1][2] The Binding Blade became the more common modern translation,[27][28][29] and in 2017 it was used by Nintendo when detailing Roy's series origins for his character profile on the website for Fire Emblem Heroes.

[30] The game was later re-released in Japan on Virtual Console for Wii U on September 2, 2015,[31] and on Nintendo Switch Online's Expansion Pack service on June 23, 2023.

One reviewer noted the slight alterations to the series formula with the shift onto the GBA, but said that it was still unmistakably a Fire Emblem title.

A third reviewer praised the drop in difficulty from Thracia 776 despite preserving some challenge, and positively noted the fast reactions of the game AI, enabling a low-stress experience for players.

[8] Mike Moehnke of RPGamer, writing a retrospective review for the site, praised the game's tactical gameplay and the difficulty being noticeable without being overwhelming.

His main criticisms of the title were intuitive item management between battles, an underdeveloped and restrictive Support system, and the fact that Roy was a very weak character for the majority of the game.

[1][15][17] Combined with the positive reception and sales of Advance Wars, which altered Nintendo's view that tactical role-playing games would be unsuccessful in the West, this resulted in the next Fire Emblem title being localized.