Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is a Japanese tactical role-playing game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The game was released on March 29, 2002 in Japan, is the sixth game in the Fire Emblem series, and the first of three games in the series that have appeared on Nintendo's Game Boy Advance handheld. It was the last Fire Emblem game to be released exclusively in Japan until the release of Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem. The Binding Blade was followed by a prequel, Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, set twenty years earlier.