A solid Fire Emblem, but very basic. It's simultaneously both obvious and impressive that this is just the first game in the series with a facelift. None of the characters feel very fleshed out, many of the mechanics that improved later games are absent, and pretty much every level has a "Seize" objective. However, that core FE gameplay never fails, and I couldn't stop playing until I rolled credits.
I managed to make it to the final chapter without any of my favorites dying, but that's totally because I would reload an earlier save every time Minerva or Haldin got their heads bashed in. It's a bit of a shame that "favorites" in this game just meant "the ones that hit the hardest". None of these blank slates left an impression like Lethe, Volke, Seth, or Tharja.
If you're wanting a Fire Emblem game to be bare-bones and simple, this is your game. But pretty much every other title will have more going on than Shadow Dragon does.
I managed to make it to the final chapter without any of my favorites dying, but that's totally because I would reload an earlier save every time Minerva or Haldin got their heads bashed in. It's a bit of a shame that "favorites" in this game just meant "the ones that hit the hardest". None of these blank slates left an impression like Lethe, Volke, Seth, or Tharja.
If you're wanting a Fire Emblem game to be bare-bones and simple, this is your game. But pretty much every other title will have more going on than Shadow Dragon does.