The game featured a complicated development and initial release period, with the company receiving legal pressure multiple times from Nintendo, who felt that the game's very similar gameplay and presentation, which also featured the art of Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 artist Mayumi Hirota, infringed on their copyrights on their Fire Emblem intellectual property.

[5] The game involves the player moving characters in a turn based fashion across a large grid from a top-down perspective.

Though the two armies travel separately for the majority of the game, they cross paths at several points of the story, allowing the player to switch allocations of fighters and items amongst the two groups.

The game takes place on an island continent called Riberia, which had long been divided and ruled under four kingdoms.

However, these kingdoms were destroyed by the evil Zoa Empire and its devil-worshipping ruler, and the island was starting to regress into a period of instability and darkness.

The origins of the game's development traces back to the creation of Nintendo and Intelligent Systems's Fire Emblem.

[8] This led to the team changing the name of the title to Tear Ring Saga and removing any direct references to Fire Emblem a month and a half prior to release.

[13] Nintendo filed a second lawsuit on appeal, and the second trial began three months after the first, this time under the Tokyo High Court.

[18] Nintendo Life similarly compared the situation to Koji Igarashi creating a Castlevania spiritual sequel with Bloodstained after leaving Konami.

[19] The legal proceedings with the game is also suspected to be the reason for why Nintendo's proposed entry to the series around the time, Fire Emblem 64, was eventually cancelled.

[21][22] Analysts suggest the dip in sales was due to launching at the same week as a number of other Japanese titles, including Namco X Capcom, SD Gundam G Generation DS and Hanjuku Hero IV.