Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

"Pretty good for burning some time."

Fire Emblem, a long standing series has come to the DS with a remake of the original. It's quite a nice series, belonging to the Strategy-RPG genre, with a few interesting twists that set it apart from other S-RPG's, such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Advance Wars. This remake returned to the roots of the series in many aspects, both good and bad unfortunately.

Story (4.5/10) - Not that great. I understand that this is a remake of the original, where the plot was quite linear, however, they had more than ample time to add interesting dialogue to the series. Supports factor into the story as well, and since they were non-existent, that takes out quite a lot of the dialogue. The prologue chapters were quite well made however, because they are new content, so that's a plus. There is some dialogue in between chapters, however this is a weak foreshadowing of the next chapter. Dialogue during chapters is practically non-existant.

Gameplay (7/10) - Quite good. There's no mucking about with skills that can be abused over and over again, or ridiculously difficult maps. Difficulty can be from fairly easy (Normal Mode) to quite difficult (H5, or Merciless Mode). There are 6 different difficulties in total, Normal and Hard Mode (1 star through 5 stars). It's like other Fire Emblem games in how each chapter is played, so if you're looking for a completely different game, try another series. An interesting new addition is the class-swap, however some classes appear to be superior to others due to the stat boosts (stats are changed because both characters and classes have bases stats that are added to each other. Stat progress is tied to growth rates, which is the likelihood of a stat increasing upon level up. It may seem somewhat complicated at first, but you can figure out eventually). Another problem with the class-swap feature is that some characters may become utterly broken in some classes. However, this is easily remedied by not using them. Side-chapters, or gaidens, are accessed in an entirely different way now. Instead of completing a chapter under a time limit, or something that would take a level of skill, we are required to kill off characters. This is actually not such a bad idea. It takes care of those characters that are utterly broken in some classes, and very bad characters. You end up having a small, but elite team due to more experience provided by the gaidens, and you don't need to look at all your unused, useless characters.

Graphics (5.5/10) - Not too bad. This remake improved the finer details, so if you look closely, you won't just see pixels. Everything is suddenly quite dark though, an unwelcome change from other Fire Emblem versions. It may have worked for Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin, Intelligent Systems, but that was a post-apocalyptic world. This is just a medieval-esque world. No need for such dark graphics. The battle animations are more realistic, which is a change. They also implement follow-up animations for some classes, which is nice, rather than the same attack animation again and again. The models in battle have been downgraded though, they seem to have tried to make a faux-3D sprite, however this doesn't quite work. Portraits are a little more 'airy', they seem slightly faded.

Sound (6/10) - There's a nice variation of music, within the tracks and the selection. What I would hope to see in the future is the ability to change tracks during chapters, or for the song to change after it's done. There weren't any tunes that I really liked though.

Re-playability (6.5/10) - This game can be played again a number of times, to experiment with different classes, to go for missed gaidens or to recruit certain characters that you might have missed. Because the game is a strategy, you can play it a few times through before getting too bored. The different difficulties help this. Try it on normal, if only to see the prologue, then H2, then H4 or H5 for a challenge (if you fancy yourself a decent strategist, just play normal to see the prologue, then skip to H2 or H3 and continue from there).

Average (5.9/10) - I'll round it up to 6, because we can't go into fractions here. But for the record its a 5.9.

I'm just going to summarize the new stuff now, in what I believe are pros and cons:

Pros:
- Realistic attack animations
- Improved graphics (chapter map details & attack animations)
- Prologue (The tutorials are straight-forward and the story is quite good)
- Class Swap (also in Cons)
- Variety of items
- Some new classes (Ballisticians, Hunters & Horsemen, Dark Mages & Sorcerers, different dragon forms), which add to the strategy element (do I want a well rounded Archer and an Armor Knight, or do I want a Peg knight/Cavalier and a higher attack, lower defense Hunter?)

Cons:
- Some mediocre battle models (personally, I like the Berzeker and Hero models more than say the GBA ones)
- Dark chapter map
- Shallow story main game
- seemingly biased (stats-wise) Class Swap
- Lack of Dark & Light Magic Weapon categories and therefore a trinity of Magic
- Staves have more static heal rates, they aren't based off of Magic/Power stat anymore (i.e Heal gives around 10-15 hp, rather than being able to go to 30-40 hp)

Please note that what you can, but are not forced to do are not cons or pros. Warps staves can be sold, sit in inventories/convoy, or dropped. Arenas can be ignored. Broken characters can be killed off, not recruited, or neglected. Etc. Etc.


This game isn't a complete cesspit. It is quite a dip from the Fire Emblems of the GBA, however it isn't utter @#$% either. I'd recommend it for strategy enthusiasts, not for people who want a game with a good story in it. Either way, it's a good way to kill time on long trips if you can't sleep or have nothing else to do. Don't buy it above , say $30-35. If you are in Europe, don't get it above 27-33 Euros. Of course, if you just HAVE to have a new DS/Fire Emblem/S-RPG game, be all means.


~ misted_face

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/17/08

Game Release: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (EU, 12/05/08)