Finally got it to work. I tried everything you suggested - I reinstalled with my antivirus turned off (Mcafee), I ran it as an administrator - and was getting nowhere. But once I set it to render as software, the game worked. Thank you very much for your help and patience. I am looking forward to playing the game - I used to love playing Fire Emblem in the past.
Just one further question, once you are back at base, and saved the game, how do I quit back to desktop?