Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

I purchased this Fire Emblem game the day it came out, being very excited about this release. I have all the American released games (7-11). The first six games were only released in Japan, this game, "Shadow Dragon" is a updated version of the first japanese game.

Here is a list of my loves and one hate for this game:

LOVE: Simple story, not hours of "info" conversations to read like in the console versions of Fire Emblem.

LOVE: Items can be combined before starting chapters. (for example taking 8 steel axe uses and 12 steel axe uses can be merged to make 20 steel axe uses as one item). This can be done with weapons, staves, staffs, etc. It is a really nice tweak that the developers made for this game. Before I would always sell off weapons that were getting low on uses. Great improvement over previous versions of the game.

HATE: Save feature only at two spots per chapter. Players were abusing this function in the last game Radiant Dawn (#10). There is a random number generator for stat level-ups that was being exploited due to the save feature. The intended purpose was that you could save at any point in the game and reset if one of your characters died. This was so you would not have to start from the beginning of a chapter and waste two hours that some chapters would take. In Radiant Dawn this was needed because it was more difficult even on "normal mode", as the enemies had more hit damage and would critical more often. Radiant Dawn's save feature was better than Shadow Dragon's limited saves of two per chapter.

LOVE: Arenas. One of your guys vs one enemy who fight to the death. You may continue to fight as long as you have hit points, but if you die in the arena you lose the character for good. You win a money wager plus about 30 experience point per challenge if you survive. It is a nice way to level-up certain characters, but most 1st tier characters are not strong enough for more than one challenge per turn. I imagine this is why the Radiant Dawn save feature was taken out of Shadow Dragon.

LOVE: Characters dead for good, and being okay with that. SPOILERS: In previous Fire Emblem games I never wanted any characters to die, if they did it was a instant restart. Yet at endgame you only could use about 15 characters in that chapter, while having 60 to choose from. In Shadow Dragon, when one of your people die all their items go back to the convoy. Great addition Intelligent Systems! In real life you wouldn't just leave the guy's sword on the battlefield if he died, you would take it with you. So in this Fire Emblem you don't have to reset just to avoid losing your items. SPOILERS AGAIN: Plus the game rewards you for letting some of your characters permanently die. I won't go into the details of this, but it is a neat incentive.

All together this is a really nice game. I still prefer the console games (#9&10) over Shadow Dragon, but I like it much better than the game boy games (#7&8) because of the new features stated above. Even the Shadow Dragon save feature is a improvement over the game boy game which had none during chapters. In a future version I would prefer a once-per-turn limit for the battle saves and no saves during arena fights.

I have not had any online experience with Shadow Dragon, but apparently you can fight another player with five of your characters, use various cards for gameplay, and purchase items from an online store.

I am happy with Shadow Dragon for the DS as I will no doubt go back and play this game again and again with a different cast of people. So the many hours of playing was well worth the cost for me. Thanks.

This latest in the challenging and even generally unforgiving Fire Emblem games maintains the overall excellence of this strategy series. Some of the unique attributes of this remake of the first Fire Emblem may be off-putting at first, while others one may find surprisingly favorable.

Cosmetic changes are noticed immediately. The new art style has not been well received--nor is it here--but the 3D animation is pleasing (if basic) and the interface well attuned to the dual screen format.

Gameplay in this iteration backs off some things one may have gotten used to specifically in the GBA incarnations of the FE series. Full support conversations are not in evidence, and those who liked the variety of towers/ruins and random map availability in Sacred Stones will be disappointed.

One thing that many are taken aback by is this game's unique take on the infamous Fire Emblem permanent death scheme. Here the focus for access to "gaiden" chapters is on actually losing characters. Many FE fans in past games refuse to let any character die. But in this game, you will miss many experience-granting stages and some interesting characters if you don't let those who expire...stay expired (rather than restarting).

How does it work? Generally, by maintaining recruitment under a certain ceiling number of recruited characters, a side chapter will then become available. In practice, I became surprisingly open to this extreme compromise. And indeed I now prefer to keep the roster down to a few absolute favorite characters while recruiting these special characters and stages. The first one you can receive is indeed among my favorite recruits in the game.

Finally, one may have read that the game is easier than earlier Fire Emblems. Which on Normal difficulty is true to an extent, but only for veterans. In actuality, the five tiers of Hard difficulty available will challenge any veteran, regardless of dubious claims that the game is still too easy for them.

So, in essential terms, somehow in the mix of changes for better and worse, this latest Fire Emblem evens out to be yet another great entry to the series and one I enjoyed more than I expected to.

I've been a Fire Emblem fan for a few years, beginning with the second American GBA release, the Sacred Stones. Since then I've played every Fire Emblem game that has been released here in the U.S. While I knew from the outset that his game was a remake of the very first Fire Emblem, I bought it on the assumption that it would be updated to modern Fire Emblem quality. While improvements have been made, this game feels very dated and is a comparatively weak entry into the series.

The best thing about Fire Emblem, at least for me, is the characters. I enjoyed getting to know most of the characters in the Fire Emblem games through expository talking head "cut-scenes." These are completely missing from Shadow Dragon. Sure, there are the brief segments at the beginning of each level that outline what the goal is, and the occasional dialogue between the main character and a secondary one, but this feels tacked on and unimportant. You can skip every mission briefing and still know what you're supposed to do. But never do you feel close to the characters. And boy, are there a lot of them. At the beginning of the game you'll regularly get anywhere from two to five additional troops per level. They are given names and faces, but that's it. The game actually encourages you to let characters die, as special side missions become available to those who have under a certain amount of characters. The reward for these side missions? More characters. Also gone are support conversations, another fan favorite and way of getting to know the troops. As someone who liked getting to know individual troops in past Fire Emblem games, this is truly disappointing.

As for the actual battles, they are standard Fire Emblem fare, with turns alternating from you to the enemy, each moving and possibly attacking with one unit at a time. Common conventions to modern Fire Emblem games, like the ability to rescue units and the ability of mounted units to move after attacking are missing. Also, Marth, the main character, is the only one who can visit villages, where one often finds new recruits or gets rare items. This means that Marth is often far away from the action, missing the experience that he should be getting. Also, Marth never promotes to a second class. Instead, his level cap is simply double what other characters can reach. This underpowers Marth, but is remedied when he gets the best weapon in the game.

The battle graphics have been criticized as simply trying to include 3D graphics in a 2D game. And if you look at screenshots the graphics do look pretty bad. Fortunately, they look better in motion and I kind of liked the 3D animation. Unfortunately, the critical hit animations are far less entertaining than previous iterations have been, another favorite of mine that has been stripped from this game. That said, the game does make good use of both screens on the DS, and is very efficient in the way it presents data.

I've tried out the online multiplayer, and found it to be dominated by players who abuse the arena system, therefore making their units vastly more powerful than the average player's. If I were to take the time to do an entire playthrough with the sole purpose of making a super-team, I could probably get some enjoyment out of this mode, but I can't justify spending the twenty to thirty hours it would take to do this. The online shop, on the other hand, is kind of cool, but having to wait several days or weeks to find special items became tedious. After missing one of the days an item was available, I had to stop playing because I didn't want to advance the story without being able to promote a unit who had reached level 20.

BOTTOM LINE
This game is very disappointing, because the potential for greatness was so high. An online enabled, handheld Fire Emblem game practically had me salivating. But in choosing to simply update the first game in the series and not include even basic features from modern Fire Emblem games, Nintendo squandered the potential here. If you are a hard-core Fire Emblem fan, then this game deserves a play-through, if only to see where Marth of Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl got his start. If not, you'd be better off picking up Sacred Stones for GameBoy Advance or Path of Radiance for the GameCube, two games that are superior to Shadow Dragon in almost every way.

It's a tactics-based game (with a bit of RPG-flavor). One commands one's army through a series of battles. The story begins with Prince Marth fleeing from his kingdom which was just treacherously invaded by a former ally; Marth leads his ever-growing army to defeat enemy countries, rescue people, free his own, and eventually tackle the villains behind all the trouble. The graphics are decent (beating, for example, the aforementioned The Force Unleashed), but aren't the best you'll see on the DS. There are a good number of pieces to the soundtrack, and some of it is pretty nice. Morally, I don't think I've run into any particularly objectionable content. But the game is also just not that great, in my view.

My view is influenced by having played the game title "Fire Emblem" that was released on Game Boy Advance. That game featured a more coherent plot, better developed characters, more humor, and in-battle "support" conversations that did a lot to flesh out characters. Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon lacks all those things, at least to the extent that the first FE game to come to America had them. Core gameplay is similar in the two games, but if plot and characters matter...well, I think FE: SD is disappointing. The tactics-focused battle actually seemed kind of easy; only rarely did I have to really ponder a battle and retry it after devising different tactics. If you love Fire Emblem games, or tactics-RPGs more generally, you'll likely enjoy this, but otherwise you probably won't find this all that engaging.

I bought this game on amazon, and it got here a few days after release. You play as Marth, a prince who has had their kingdom conqured. You get other units (soldiers) as you go, and you can use different weapons. I haven't found out how to buy new weapons other than Wi-Fi, but I know you can. The challenge is great, there's six difficulty levels, and unlike most E10 games for DS, it's not really easy. I'm not that far yet, but so far, 5 stars.

If the critics are right, and Nintendo is losing its touch with the hardcore base, then the big-time publisher better be kissing the feet of developer Intelligent Systems. Despite solid gameplay and lush visuals, Fire Emblem is decidedly very uncharacteristic of the Nintendo of this generation. No, the light of heart need not apply here - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is as much about loss and war as it is about knights and mages. Save for a frustratingly unimmersive storyline, Shadow Dragon forges deep, difficult, and satisfying gameplay and holds up extremely well considering it's a remake of the 20-year-old original Fire Emblem.

Series mainstay Marth stars in Shadow Dragon as the prince of Altea, who must defend his kingdom after the shadow dragon Medeus returns to once again take over the continent. The game begins with Marth awaiting his father's return, who has gone to battle Medeus with the legendary sword Falchion. It doesn't take too much foresight to determine what happens next - get used to that feeling, because the story in Shadow Dragon is lacking at best. Marth moves from mission A to mission B, with a little filler in between but nothing substantial. No branch paths are ever afforded to the player, and there is little to do in missions that substantially affect the story. It's disappointing; many tactical RPG's thrive on an excellent story driven by war-time politics and heroic intruige. It's a remake of a 20 year old game, sure, but you can't help but wish you felt more immersed in the kingdom of Archanea.

The combat is done in a manner similar to Advance Wars for fans of that series - a grid system allows each character in your army (usually in the realm of 15 characters) to move a certain amount of squares each turn, and then engage in turn based combat with the enemy if they are close enough. Battles are simple enough - a unique rock-paper-scissors combination of weapons keeps things tactical (in this case, it's axes, lances, and swords) and different classes have advantages over others (keep your flying units away from archers!). It's a solid system that works well - strategy is so key in the early and late game that success feels very satisfying.

In contrast, defeat is a bitter pill to swallow in Fire Emblem. Fans of the series will be on familiar ground in Shadow Dragon - if a character dies, they die for good. No resurrections, no undead, no phoenix downs. They're gone for the rest of the game, and the only way to get them back is to reset your DS and do it over again. Limited save opportunties make every move a heavy decision and every battle an important one. It's likely that you'll at least once or twice reset the system to get somebody back, but death here is unavoidable - some of your soldiers will die. It brings intensity to the gameplay, and weight to the decisions you make. It's rare that a game makes you think about death, but Shadow Dragon (and Fire Emblem in general) will surprise you. It's probable that once or twice you will opt to leave behind some of your favorite characters from the game - despite the lacking story, you grow very attached to individuals whom you've commanded for ten or twenty missions.

Permanent deaths are reflective of the game's difficulty in general - strategy is a necessity or you aren't going to make it very far. The normal difficulty alone will punish newcomers and veterans alike, not to mention the game's five hard modes. It's refreshing for a lot of core gamers, and genuinely difficult games are growing so rare that you'll probably end up appreciating the game for what it is. Victory in absolutely every mission comes with both relief and enthusiasm - you reap what you sow, and in Shadow Dragon it's very satisfying.

The missions themselves can grow stagnant after a while, but Intelligent Systems clearly did their best to keep them varied. Most take place either on a battlefield or inside the walls of a castle with the simple objective to take over a spot on the other side of the map. Ocassionally, gameplay elements are tweaked or an unexpected variable is added to the mission, which helps keep things fresh and forces the player to think outside the box a bit. Despite this, mission objectives still feel rather formulaic and ocassionally bland. Fortunately, the change in terrain and different opposing armies still manage to keep the core gameplay enjoyable.

Fans of RPG's and strategy games will almost certainly find something to like here. Story junkies might be turned off, but it'd be a shame to ignore a game which does a tactical RPG like it should be done. Newcomers to the Nintendo platform this generation may end up struggling through the difficult campaign and death mechanics, but those familiar with Nintendo games of old will feel right at home. If Nintendo has indeed strayed from the path, it's good to know developers like Intelligent Systems are still willing to light the way.

As a strategy game, Fire Emblem succeeds with flying colours. FE provides upwards of 20 hours of enjoyable gameplay. The format of the game is suitable for the DS because it is broken up into chapters lasting around 1/2 an hour each. In between chapters, you have the chance to scout out the next map, and micro-manage the inventory of your characters. It is still satisfying to watch your characters level up, and to work your way through maps. Also, the save points in the map make the game much easier, and will save you hours of frustration.

Unfortunately, since the game is a remake of the first Fire Emblem, it lacks many of the features that differentiate the Fire Emblem series from other turn based strategy games. The biggest omission is the lack of support conversations. In other Fire Emblem games, your units have entertaining banter during the missions that gave them personality. Depending on which conversations you have, you could influence the ending for each unit. These simple text conversations made you care about your characters and gave you incentive to keep them all alive. In this game, the characters are introduced in bunches, and never say anything. I was slightly disappointed when one of them died, but I didn't have that burning desire to restart the mission over again. The other omission was the inability to rescue other units. In later Fire Emblem games, you could have stronger units 'carry' the weaker, hurt units, so they wouldn't die. That gave you a safety net if you accidentally stuck your fragile unit too far on the front line. The extra save points make rescuing units less crucial, but then the game becomes more trial and error with resetting to the last save state, rather than one continuous battle.

For gamers who've played other Fire Emblem games, I still recommend it. It is a solid game overall, but a step backwards from previous FE entries.
For anyone else who is undecided, I recommend Fire Emblem, and Fire Emblem Sacred Stones which are both for the GBA.

Fire Emblem started 18 years ago in Japan; when we got our first game of the franchise it was already well over a decade old. By the time we got to experience one of the greatest strategy games ever made, Intelligent Systems had had plenty of time to develop their ability to write a superb story, build up memorable characters, and work with the accessible but deep gameplay. Shadow Dragon is a remake of the 18-year-old game that started the franchise back in the NES days, giving fans of the series a chance to see how it all began. It's obvious that Shadow Dragon is the first in the series with its somewhat shallow nature, but despite that it's still a solid and enjoyable game.

Marth, who we were introduced to in Super Smash Bros. Melee, is the main character in Shadow Dragon. A former ally betrays his country, leaving the king dead and the land ruined. Marth escapes to a safe place where he stays until he is grown, and once he is old enough he gathers troops to regain his country and the entire continent, and save the world from the evil Shadow Dragon Medeus.

While the tale's premise is cool, Shadow Dragon's story is really quite shallow and disappointing. There appears to be no difference between it and the dialogue from the NES original, because it feels totally stripped of significance and a reason to care about what happens next. The entire story revolves around Marth being told to go capture this place or save this person, and the dialogue in between doesn't involve Marth nearly as much as it should. The other characters are nonexistent in the story after they are introduced, too, which is a big letdown and takes away almost all the strength the other Fire Emblem games have in story. Shadow Dragon shows its age in its story, and it makes for a lackluster adventure 18 years later.

Thankfully, the rest of the game is more solid than the story. The outstanding feature of Shadow Dragon is its turn based strategy gameplay, which is accessible while still being deep and leaving you with a lot to come back to. You take turns with your opposing army, moving each of your characters on the grid and attacking your enemies. Battles are decided by a basic rock-paper-scissors method of hit chances while using the characters' statistics such as strength, defense, and the like. Despite the fact that you are leaving the battles to chance, the game still involves a lot of skill in its strategy and how you use your characters. Fire Emblem has always been very good at this and it still is.

The units at your disposal are very diverse, and within each one you can change their class between battles if you want. This gives you the chance to fully customize your team and find where a certain character fights best. There are also quite a few weapons at your disposal, but not as many as recent games in the series have had. You are able to customize weapons, though, which is a really worthwhile feature and makes up for the lack of variation.

Shadow Dragon is the first game in the series to feature online play, and this is one of the best parts of the game. You are allowed to form a squad of any five units from one of your save files and use any weapons you have to fight against other people over Wi-Fi, and this is one of the biggest inspirations to replay the game. There is also an online shop that has great weapons and is very useful for playing through the story and forming a good online team. The online play is a great addition to the game, and offers a good reason to come back to Shadow Dragon.

To characterize Shadow Dragon as a DS game, it features touch screen controls as an option for those players who dislike the use of buttons. This control scheme is actually quite good and functions almost as well as the good old fashioned way. I use the normal controls because I've played enough Fire Emblem to the point where I move along at a very rapid pace, but the touch controls are good for newcomers or those who are intimidated by buttons (I don't know why you would be, as the normal controls are simple enough, but you never know...).

Shadow Dragon's graphics are an interesting mix of 2-D and 3-D. The map is shown in normal 2-D, like an enhanced verison of the GBA games. The battles have 3-D characters fighting on 2-D backdrops, which doesn't look half bad. The character models look pretty good, and they are always moving slightly to make them more lifelike. The fights, like on the GBA, aren't the most interesting things in the world, so being able to skip them by pressing start is a welcome option. Of course, you can always just turn them off too.

Shadow Dragon does a pretty good job in the sound department. The music is well done and sounds pretty good, and although the tracks aren't as memorable as in previous games they're still fitting to the situations and environments. The sound effects are good as well, with sounds like the clanking of armor or galloping of horses sounding nice and clear.

To sum it all up, Shadow Dragon is a great game that could have been better. Although I have never played the NES original I can tell there isn't much improvement here in some areas, namely that of story and weapon variety. However, the addition of online play and update in graphics are great, making the game look like it's from this decade at least on the outside. Despite its shortcomings, Shadow Dragon is still well worth a purchase for fans, and with online play and six difficulty levels there is a lot of value within the little game card.

Positive:
+ Fire Emblem gameplay is as solid and outstanding as ever
+ online play is fun and adds lots of value
+ six difficulty levels offer great challenges and more play time
+ touch controls work very well
+ you can make a unit whatever class you want

Negative:
- story is very shallow and weak, and it's only 25 chapters long
- doesn't push the DS very far graphically

I have loved playing any kind of Fire Emblem game. I immediately bought this game. Like most of the fire emblem games previous you control an army and gain experience while going through the storyline and trying not to get any of your precious units killed as you speed through.
I found that this was fairly easy as you have the option of arena battles. This game is the only fire emblem game where I had the most money at the end of the game. With so much money gained from the arena I had choices opened to me. Also, your units gained valuable exp points in the battle when they win. The storyline grabbed my attention as well.
There are a few things that I was a little disappointed in. For one, the game was much too short for my liking. Another thing, you couldn't play a cleared game with a little advantage like you could in some fire emblem games, but I suppose that is to be expected.
I was also disappointed with the fact that you couldn't go to certain chapters without killing off so many of your units and I'm a person who hates to lose even one of my precious units.
Overall, the game was fun for me. It has good graphics and yet I felt that Marth wasn't much of an attention grabber as a protagonist. He seemed to be a "forgettable" kind of character or one of those cardboard characters. But he does show up in Super Smash Bros so that's why I remember him. I still believe Ike from the gamecube and Wii fire emblems was much more memorable.
I would like a sequel to Marth's story, though. I can't wait for the next fire emblem.

This game is amazing I would never though how much fun it was until I started to play it. The first and so on chapters took me up to 20 to 30 minutes to complete. I rate this game a 5 out 5 for great graphics and game play. I would recommend buying this game.