Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

Intro

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is a remake of the first Fire Emblem game, that was released In Japan April 20, 1990. (Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryu to Hikari no Tsurugi) Shadow Dragon is a Turn based strategy game where you take control of troops that go by the name of The League. In command of The League is the Prince of Altea Marth. Most of you will already know of Marth from the Smash Bros series where he is most well known.

Story

The Shadow Dragon was slain in Akanea by Marth’s ancestor with the sacred blade Falchion. Hundreds of years has passed since that day and the Shadow Dragon has returned. This time around he forms a strong alliance with a dark sorcerer Garnef.

As the game starts there is a disturbance at the castle and a guard requests that Marth go meet with his sister Elice. When reaching his sister he gets news of his father being betrayed by Gra of the Doluna- Grust allied forces. Soldiers sent by Gra attack the castle in an attempt to take control of it. Elice tricks Marth into leaving the castle without her, knowing full well that he could possibly be the only person capable of wielding Falchion and stopping Medeus the Shadow Dragon. It then becomes Marth’s quest to build up an army of his own, reclaim the blade Falchion and restore peace to the land by slaying the Shadow Dragon

The twisted sorcerer Garnef

Gameplay

Before starting on a new chapter you are given the option of making preparations. Preparations from the other games in the Fire Emblem series are here as you would expect. Picking the units you want to send into the chapter as well as where you want them positioned on the map, and the option to trade items around in the inventory to ensure your units have the best possible weapons before going into battle. There is a new option that has been added to this game that I found quite interesting. The option to change the Class of one of your troops to another. Now if you haven’t played any of the games in the series you won’t know about the classes so ill go over it briefly. In the game you can recruit lots of different fighters that all have their own strengths and weaknesses. An example of this would be Archers are great against anything that can fly like a Pegasus knight but will be picked off easily in a close range fight. With the new re classing option you can make up for what weaknesses you might have on a certain map by having the right classes to get the job done. There is a slight trick for the re classing that stops you making an army of knights and cavaliers though. Every character has a weapon class that determines how good they are with a specific type of weapon. To find out there weapon class you select a character and next to the picture of the weapons it will have a letter, E is the weakest class meaning they can only use iron and A is the strongest so Silver can be used. So you could have a general who has a class A with spears but when you re class him to a hero his sword class would only be D so it isn’t worth it. The re class option is something that can really be played around with to find the best possible class for a certain character. It is especially helpful if you have one too many archers that you could make into a knight.

Swords out prioritize axes. Sword>Axe

Once all preparation are complete you go into the map where the story will progress or you will be given hints and new members that you can recruit from the other team. When you get into the main game you have the ability to move everyone in your team. How far you can move on the map is shown by blue squares and with your movement you can choose to attack your enemy if they are in range, visit buildings/shops or trade/wait where they are. A new feature that’s been added to this game is the ability to see where on the map you can be attacked by the enemy and where you are safe. To do this you have to press the X button and a red outline will show where you can get attacked from. When you attack the game will go into an animated cut scene of the two characters exchanging blows. Looking before you attack the game shows you how much damage you will do and the chances of them evading the attack. This helps you decide whether or not it is a good idea to attack. After exchanging blows your character will gain Exp whether he kills the enemy or not. (Obviously you gain a lot more for a kill) With a certain amount of Exp a player can level up making them stronger and possible increasing the weapon class of weapon used. Once a player has reached Level 10 they can use an item that will upgrade them to a higher class. (Think of Pokemon evolving) If one of you men happen to die in battle they are lost forever and won’t return in the chapter ahead, so you have to be careful of the moves you make. With each level there is a main boss that you must defeat. Once defeated Marth must stand on top of where that enemy was and seize is. By doing this you complete that chapter and move onto the next.

Your grid based movment on the bottom screen and map on the top

Being the first Fire Emblem on the DS there had to be some Wi-Fi. The online play is kind of what you would expect. You take five of your players from your one player mode and use them the battle your friends or a complete stranger. Sadly there are only six maps to play on but it’s better than one right? There are two ways you can win an online game. First way is to take control of the castle for a set amount of turns or simply kill everyone on their team. If the time limit runs out the person with most turns in the castle wins. There is also an online shop to buy weapons in just in case what you had in your single player wasn’t enough. The last online feature is the ability to loan members from your game to your friends. I haven’t tried this myself so I’m not 100% sure if they can use your loans in their single player campaign and lose them or if it’s just for the online battles. I’m pretty sure it would just be for online battles myself though so I wouldn’t worry.

Graphics

Graphics are what you would really expect from a Fire emblem game on the DS. If you have played the GBA games then it’s pretty similar with the graphics boosted slightly. The fight cut scenes are a lot better but I’ve noticed something a bit weird with talking scenes. The pixels on Marth and a few of the other characters are rough on the outlines. Other than me being picky with that I don’t see anything wrong graphic wise. Its exactly what you would expect. Nothing great but it isn’t bad either.

Either Marth needs a better barber or I was right about those pixels.

Overall

It is a Fire Emblem game, what else can I say? If you’re a hardcore fan then you obviously have to pick this up. If you haven’t played a game in the series yet then now is a great chance to do it. This is the original game buffed so you can start the series like you were suppose to. Not start like most of us with the seventh game in the series. Then if you’re just a fan of Marth in the smash bros series you can play his original game and see why he was put into the smash bros series. This game doesn’t release until February in the US but any of you EU guys out there should just go out and get this now. See you on the battlefield.