While not discussed in many circles online, Shadow Dragon is probably one of the most important Fire Emblem games, being the last true “classic” styled entry. Upon it’s original release, the game wasn’t generally favored, and alongside rather poor sales in the United States it left Fire Emblem in a tricky place. Where the series would go after this will be explained in some other review i do in the future, as for now I want to talk about this game. Like a majority of this franchise, I had much interest in trying this game, as it was a remake of Marth’s very first adventure after all. But just like the many other games in the series I wanted to play, it wasn’t very accessible.
In the current day when FE8 and 7 started my obsession with this series I had hopped onto 6 immediately afterwards. I was not very impressed. Ok-ish map design tied with lackluster player units and absolute beasts of enemy units led me to frustration into dropping the game after only 13 chapters. I was done. So I decided to hop into this game instead, it was also on a handheld and I had heard some good things about it before. So I started playing.
This is a contender for my favorite Fire Emblem game so far from its gameplay alone. While rejecting a few gameplay systems from previous entries and retaining certain cryptic NES jank, the game itself is very speedy and easy to just pick up and play. Maps aren’t very long if you play smart, you can turn off pointless enemy turns to save time, and the game rarely feels like it's wasting your time. That being said… the certain carryovers from the original can be pretty annoying at points. Only Marth can enter villages, and there’s no rescue system which can leave your weaker units in a lot of trouble sometimes. I miss the rescue system because it added an extra layer of possible risk vs reward and gave cavaliers and fliers even more usability. But it's not too major of a blow.
Reinforcements are another element of this game that can be obnoxious. It’s a complete coin flip on whether they will spawn from unattended forts or the sides of the map, and like other FE games with reinforcements you would only know this from previous knowledge or using a guide. With some maps it's a fine enough hindrance for not playing efficiently enough, but in others it’s such a pain in the ass, especially when 90% of the time these reinforcements are horse riders or flyers, meaning they will dash after your ass IMMEDIATELY.
That being said, I feel as a tradeoff this game is honestly kinda broken. Units such as Caeda, a General Setger, and any Ballista user will be your best friend for a majority of the game, especially when properly exploiting the forgery system on the Wing Spear or Ballista weapons. There’s this one map I was really struggling on until I realized that I can just warp Setger to the central part of the map and have him sit there while taking literally no damage and killing every single enemy + reinforcement for almost the entire session. It’s little moments like these that make me kinda love this game, it’s busted and exploitable in areas to a comical degree but almost as a balance to this there are a lot of reinforcements and later maps are fine with having enemy healers out of your range constantly.
Permadeath, permadeath, permadeath. It’s impossible to discuss any Fire Emblem game prior to 12 without mention of this ever so infamous punishment for poor play, the ability to permanently lose any of your units at any time. It’s easy to be intimidated by it. What if I lose an integral character from my team and I can’t beat the game because of it? Shadow Dragon seems to try something a bit different with this concept by also fusing it with another frequent feature of Fire Emblem: the gaiden chapters. In previous games, the gaiden chapters could only be accessed by certain parameters, to my knowledge mainly related to recruiting certain units or finishing a chapter in a turn limit (and they were also required to beat FE6. lol.). This game’s approach to gaiden chapters was rather different- instead, they are used rather as a failsafe for players who are losing too many units. I’ve seen many players complain about this feature and how they don’t like the game is “forcing” them to lose units for it, but that’s entirely missing the point- the game isn’t forcing you. It’s there for players who might be struggling or decide not to constantly reload their game upon failure. If you feel that you are falling behind and might not be able to make it to the end, the game encourages you to keep going and gives you backup to put the player in a much more comfortable position. Now obviously, you still have to try if you want to see things to the end, but it’s there to keep you going regardless.
I think this take on the concept of permadeath is an insanely smart way of still keeping the punishing system it always has been, but creating new ways to make the player not feel discouraged from finishing the game. As early as the prologue, you are forced to sacrifice a single unit- with you even being told to accept your losses and move on. This is war, there is no playing around.
Replayability is another focus of Shadow Dragon. The game itself isn’t very long, consisting of 25 chapters that are all relatively short. However, this is taken advantage of by incorporating several difficulty options. Each difficulty progressively gets harder in a natural scale, starting with normal and slowly increasing the BS factor. It’s a way to keep you coming back, and topping that with Shadow Dragon’s addictive nature it fits like a glove.
The graphics have always been a major turnoff. After the simply beautiful GBA games with plenty of colors and smooth battle animations, going to the ugly pre-rendered look of this game alongside the “meh” looking animations may turn away most players. As much as it is to say “graphics aren’t everything” presentation still means a lot to a game in the long run, especially if it’s in a series with previous entries that looked much better. They’re graphics I can simply tolerate, but it did leave me disappointed especially with the potential of visuals the DS could pull off. The promotional art is a different story, though. Composed by Ghost in the Shell manga artist Masamune Shirow, they’re splendid pieces that fit Fire Emblem while being distinctive and stylish pieces in their own right. Unfortunately, he didn’t make that much art for this game, aside from some promotional pieces and some other artwork that you can’t even see outside of an art book he published, but they’re great nonetheless.
This game, while being fantastic in it’s own right, also marked the end of an era for Fire Emblem. The sequel would be the introduction to modern FEisms such as casual mode and a player avatar, which would soon be followed up be Fire Emblem Awakening, an absolute game changer in both Fire Emblem and Nintendo’s history, but that’s a story for another time. It’s a shame that this game wasn’t ever really given it’s moment to shine, especially when it’s a very solid package with a lot of fun quirks alongside being a great remake. Hopefully it will someday be given the recognition that it deserves, and I hope that this review will encourage readers to try it out themselves. Come join us, together we ride!