Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

aka: Fire Emblem: Shin・Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Ken
Moby ID: 35590
Nintendo DS Specs
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Description official description

A second retelling of the original Fire Emblem on the Famicom, Shadow Dragon utilises the Nintendo DS online options in a first for the long running Fire Emblem series.

The game offers a graphical enhancement from Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Ken and Monshō no Nazo, which was the first remake of the original, as well as utilising the dual screens on the Nintendo DS to display the action and character stats simultaneously.

The main story centres on prince Marth as he embarks on a quest to reconquer his home kingdom and rescue his kidnapped sister. Characters and chapters that were not present in the original have been introduced in this version, as well as some that were omitted for Fire Emblem: Monshō no Nazo. Over twenty character classes are included in the game as well as over fifty individual characters to aid Marth.

Also included is the ability to save mid battle on special save point so a mistake in the last turn will not force a restart. Other features are the class swap for characters to change their abilities. Online battle features up to five characters per side in a two player battle.

Spellings

  • ファイアーエムブレム 新・暗黒竜と光の剣 - Japanese spelling

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Credits (Nintendo DS version)

89 People (78 developers, 11 thanks) · View all

Producer
Director
Adaption
Art Director
Graphic Chief
System Director
Main Programming
Technical Supervisor
Base Programming
Sound Director
Window Design
Tutorial Card Design
Face Image
Face Graphics
Map Editing Support
Graphic Support
Network Programming
Programming Support
Lead Design Support
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 34 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 16 ratings with 1 reviews)

Great but not the best of the series

The Good
Long, ago, I was playing various games on my NES emulator. It was before anyone in the western world known the "Fire Emblem" name. I was looking for lesser known RPGs for the system, and downloaded Fire Emblem. It wasn't working on Nesticle so I had to search for a more powerful emulator that was able to run the game. When I eventually got it working, I was amazed. It was all in Japanese so I couldn't understand anything, but yet I still figured out that every detail in this unique tactical RPG was mighty. It didn't have very good graphics, even for the NES standards, but when you attack another unit it changes to an animated view of both antagonists, which was revolutionary for it's time. I just felt something sensational in this little gem. I was unfortunately never able to get past chapter 3 because I didn't understand anything because it was all in Japanese, and when an unit died, it died for good. All fan translations projects of this game have failed as far I know. It's only later I've heard this was the first tactical RPG ever made, and it made me even more amazed.

When I've heard about a game called Fire Emblem for the GBA was released I rushed on it and played it for countless hours, becoming a definite FE fan. Same when it's sequel "The Sacred Stones" were released. Unfortunately, the following game were released on the Game Cube, a system I didn't have, and the one after that on the Wii which I don't have neither, and don't want to purchase cause I don't have place to buy a new system for ONE game. So when I heard 11th game in the series were released on the NDS, and that it will be a remake of the first NES original, I was delighted. Not only I would be able to play it on a system I have and on a language I understand, but it would come with enhanced graphics, sound, story, new features, etc... I bought the game the day it was released and had high expectations. For the most part, I wasn't disappointed.

Now that's enough let's talk about the game itself. It is the second time the original Fire Emblem is remade, it was already remade for the SNES as a part of Fire Emblem Monsho no Nazo, which was one of the first Enhanced Remakes ever, before it would become the trend for lazy Nintendo developers to re-release old games when they don't know what to do for new games. Honestly, the amount of GBA games that were just ports of SNES games was terrific, and the amount of DS and PSP games which are remakes seems even more terrific. When the games are just copy/pasted I find this to be really lame, just a lame excuse from developers to get money with minimal effort.

Thanks god, they actually did put effort for this remake. The new graphics have absolutely nothing in common with the oldscool very tiled graphics, the battle animations are so ridiculously better than it can't compare. The amount of music tracks have been multiplied by 4, and are either complete remixes which are barely recognisable or brand new themes. The gameplay has been completely modernised to mach recent Fire Emblem titles, and uses both screens. I congratulate Nintendo for actually making an enhanced remake that actually enhanced something.

This game plays exactly like you'd expect any Fire Emblem game to play. You move your units, and you need to exploit enemy's weakness cleverly if you want to stand any chance to keep alive. When an ally is killed it's gone for good so you want to reset the game. You can recruit new allies by visiting houses or by talking with the enemy sometimes. In later missions additional enemy reinforcement can come during battle so beware. When you kill the boss, you have to seize the throne with the hero Marth to go to next chapter. Not too complicated, but it's so much fun that it really makes this game what it is.

There is a few additions in this game as well (or it may have come from the GC/Wii games ? I don't know I haven't played them). You can press the X button to automatically highlight all area where the enemy can potentially attack your units. This is very very useful, as in the GBA games you had to place your cursor on all nerby units and carefully remember their attack range to see who will attack your units and who won't. Here just press X so you can immediately see where it's potentially dangerous. You can also highlight some units, so that their range will always show in red area even when you turn it off, this is very useful for particularly dangerous enemies, like for example archers, you can see their range and always keep your pesagus knights / dragon knights outside of their range without having to see the range of all enemies manually like in GBA games.

The second addition is save runes : There is 2 of them per level, where you can actually save your game in 2 temporary save slots, but once you use the rune it vanishes. This is VERY useful, as if an enemy kills a character and you have to reset, it spares you what you have already done right. The danger is to save while having done an error, then when you'll load on enemy turn you'll get your character killed immediately, so make sure to always switch the save slot you're using.

A few more minor additions : A prologue chapter that explains you the basics of the game, definitely good but it forces you to give up one of your units. I gave up the traditional "EXP hog paladin" that is present in all FE games (here his name is Jagen if I remember well), but it would have been nice if they didn't force me to. There is now 6 difficulty levels instead of just 2. Not that it's bad, but I probably won't beat this game 6 times (especially considering there is only 3 save slots).

The sound track of this game is fantastic. Well in the beginning it's a little average because it's modernized remixes of NES songs (which are very good by the way), but after a few missions, it gets better than ever and it's just amazing. As it's the tradition in FE series, the "Combat Preparation" song is absolutely god amazing, which is good because you'll need to prepare a lot.

Eventually I want to congratulate Intelligent Systems for maintaining the Fire Emblem series as it is. It remains solid as rock after all those years because the people responsible of it knows that they shouldn't fix what isn't broken, and mustn't try to add new elements to the series that are completely off, like what Square did to their Final Fantasy series or what Nintendo did to their Mario series. I hope this tradition will continue to go on forever.

The Bad
Unfortunately, this game isn't flawless. I wish it would, but it's not.

The fact that this is the remake of a 20 year old game could be 100% transparent for the newcomer in the series, if it weren't for it's really plain storyline. It completely lacks any dept or twists and people don't have personalities, not even the heroes Marth and Shiida. But remember that this is from the NES, so it's really forgivable, considering that any story was way above the standards back then. There weren't many NES games with 40+ playable characters with all their own portrait and characteristic if you see what I mean.

Another thing that I was sad is about the battle animations. They are very good, I don't deny it, but it lacks the mighty awesomeness of the GBA games, which had probably the best battle animations of all video game ever made. This time they made it all realistic instead of having character doing crazy jumps that are impossible in real life but damn cool, which I loved more than anything else. Now your heroes just slash their weapon "normally" in the head of the opponent even on critical hits, which is too realistic.

Same applies with character's portraits, they completely lack the emotion they had in the GBA games. They appear like they are flat and emotionless, but again it's more because of the GBA portrait's awesomeness, unreached by any other video game period, than anything else.

Finally, the removal of support dialogue (or to be more exact the fact they didn't add it) is really disappointing. It would have been the occasion to add personalities to all those characters.

The Bottom Line
Fire Emblem : Shadow Dragon is a great remake of an already great game. As opposed to GBA games it can seem a bit weak in the graphics and story departments, but remember than it was originally a NES game. Nintendo very frequently does remakes, but rarely they make a fully enhanced one where they actually remade things instead of just copy/pasting and adding more colours.

So this game is really good for what it's supposed to be, that is a NES game remade with the standards of modern Fire Emblem games. The only disappointment is that it lacks a few things the GBA games had in the graphics and story departments, but the gameplay is still really good, and gameplay is what makes a good game (in addition you get good music while playing which is always nice).

So if you're a FE fan I recommend you play this of course, and if you're not but want to try a good tactical RPG I also recommend it, but be warned this is a remake of a NES game that don't have a very good story, and that it's not the very best entry in the series, yet it's still a great game.

Nintendo DS · by Bregalad (937) · 2009

Trivia

Awards

  • IGN
    • 2009 - Best DS Strategy Game (Readers' Vote)

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Keeper Garrett.

Wii U added by Michael Cassidy.

Additional contributors: Sciere, gamewarrior, Bregalad, Big John WV, Patrick Bregger.

Game added August 27, 2008. Last modified September 18, 2023.