Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

released on Apr 20, 1990

Fire Emblem: The Dark Dragon and Sword of Light is the first game in the Fire Emblem series, developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. It was first released on the Famicom (known internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System) on April 20, 1990. It takes place on the continent of Archanea. It stars Marth, a character who later appeared in Super Smash Bros. Melee. The first time the game was released outside of Japan was in the form of a limited edition port for Nintendo Switch, under the same name, that runs a localization script in the background, but the original version of the game was never released outside of Japan.


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Would have been 1 star higher higher if not for the endless reinforcements on the last two maps and the really annoying inventory system. Otherwise, charming sprites and music with decent gameplay for a 1990 NES game.

Very interesting to see where the series began. Coming to this game from later installments make FE1 feel very slow and sluggish. Game does not tell you vital info like crit chance.

Unit perma death and the rpg mechanics work well in not because of, but in spite of the game. Im glad this series continuted and begun to refine itself.

The ost was good but it got grating after a certain amount of time.


The story is not really that memorable at all.

i enjoyed my time with it, pretty cool to see where it all began

By the traditional meaning of the term, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light is a bad game. From a modernized perspective, this game has pitifully slow gameplay, clunky battle mechanics, actually garbage item management, and a plethora of laughably confusing design decisions.
...And all of that would be right.
But it definitely has redeemable factors. First of all the balance is great. The characters you get closer to the start are almost always the best ones of their class. For cavaliers, the best are Cain and Abel, then Hardin, and then Matthis, Roshea, and Vyland. So better players get to use the better units, those being Cain and Abel, if they don't get them killed. Worse players will be forced to use units like Roshea and Vyland the worse they play. It's kinda great, and it's less talked about than other aspects of the game, specifically the bad ones you see at surface level. The same is true with mercenaries. Ogma and Navarre are the best, then Radd, then Caesar. And the gameplay, when you get down to it....it's Fire Emblem. Plain ass, simple ass Fire Emblem, stripped down to it's core, and despite a fair amount of jank, it's fun.
Am I saying that people should play Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light as their first game in the series? Hell no. Quite frankly you are insane for thinking that. But should a fan of the series try it out? Definitely. And if this doesn't convince you, then this should.

Oh, and if the person reading this ever plans to play this game, do me a favor...do an Ironman run. Trust me, it makes the game way better.

the best part about this game is the fact that you can skip the entire thing with the warp staff