First Impressions: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

Original Release Date: April 20, 1990

Systems: Famicom, Nintendo Switch

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Intelligent Systems

At this point, I have played a couple of Fire Emblem games, but only a handful, and not including the mobile Fire Emblem Heroes.  I know my way around a tactics game too, from varying mechanics like those in Final Fantasy Tactics where elevation and character direction are just as important part of each battle.  Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (hereto referred to simply as Fire Emblem unless otherwise noted) is the first tactics game that I can think of that I have played on the NES/Famicom.  I mention this for a number of reasons.  First, most of the other tactics games I have played have had some dimension to the battlefield be it elevations, screen rotation, but here, the battles are all fought on a 2D stationary map.  Second, this is the first tactics game I have played that forces you to interact with town services while in the middle of combat, but more on that later.  While this presentation does feel somewhat simpler compared to other Fire Emblem games, I also find it terrifying that I am going to mess something up a la Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light style.

The presentation for Fire Emblem, the version that Nintendo sold for an apparently limited time, is sparse in its presentation, at least for the digital version.  You can, if you want, watch a rundown of each type of unit that you are likely to come across and command during the game noting their strengths and weaknesses in regards to specific units and their usefulness during battle.  There is no digital instruction book, just a title screen, a snippet of lore, and then you are thrust into battle with only a brief dialogue between Prince Marth and Princess Caeda.  There is no explanation as to anything.  Everything in the game you need to find out by doing, and sometimes that means finding out by doing by accident.  During the first map, I took the numbers next to the weapon you use during battle as a strength or power indicator, but now I am thinking (after map 2) that this is actually a durability counter, then when it reaches 0, that the weapon will break.  So I need to find a blacksmith now?  Do the percentages that flash by when it tells you which type of terrain each character is in mean a defense bonus or an attack bonus?

On the map during battle, there are buildings, some look like huts, others look like a tent.  Visiting a wooden hut on the map constitutes visiting a village and engaging with the locals.  Waiting while occupying the same space as a fort (what looks like a walled-off hospital) allows your characters to heal.  You can buy items at an armorer (square building with a pickaxe) but you then have to trade with another character as those items do not go into a larger inventory.  You can only trade items between characters if they are standing next to each other.

Death is permanent.  I presume that if Marth dies that the game is over, but there has been no indication, in-game, that this would be the case, which brings up the issue I had with Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia.  If death is permanent, and if the game is over when the main character dies, in this case presumably Marth, why would I want to actively put Marth into battle?  Yes, to level him up, but if I use all of my other characters, level them up, and just hold Marth back, not putting him in harm, then I might run a higher chance of not getting a game over.  Maybe.  And I also run the risk of having him be significantly underpowered in the event that there are any one-on-one battles between opposing military commanders.  Although Marth is probably a lot stronger than other characters because he seems to be the hero, so that would make sense mechanically.

But in the process of researching (cursory research mind you), I found out that you can recruit enemy characters by having specific characters talk to them; often hinted at by talking to people in villages.  But then comes in the FOMO (as the kids today like to say) of losing characters (Bord was killed in Map 2) both in battle, or losing the chance to recruit them to your side.  And is there a limit to the number of characters you can have in your army?  Is there a limit that you can have on the battlefield at one time?  So many questions that I feel I can either look up information on or just jump back in and play the game some more and learn by doing.

Or just restart the game with some of this knowledge in mind and actually recruit both Castor and Darros without Bord dying.  And actually, visit all of the villages on each map.  Yeah, I am thinking I will probably start over now.  

Thank you for talking this through with me.  Your participation has been invaluable.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Let Me Get A Single Minute of Your Precious Time