Backlog Game Reviews: 14 Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (Famicom)

                                                                 

 
   Hey there, and welcome to Backlog Game Reviews. The next game to get reviewed is Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light for the Famicom. It's the first Fire Emblem game and it was released only in Japan on April 20th, 1990. It was popular in Japan, but it was never released in the west because at the time Nintendo thought that westerners wouldn't be interested in a strategy RPG like this. Let's take a look and see what the western world missed out on and how Fire Emblem got its start.

Cutscene before a battle.

  

   100 years ago the continent of Archanea was invaded by the Dolhr Empire and the Shadow Dragon Medeus. Archanea was easily overpowered by the Empire, and when all hope seemed lost a young man named Anri appeared. Wielding the blade of light known as the Falchion he defeated Medeus. With the Shadow Dragon's defeat, the world entered an era of peace.

An opening cutscene that's surprising in English.

     But those peaceful times came to an end when the dark wizard Gharnef resurrected Medeus. He then conquered the country of mages Khadein. Gharnef and Medeus went on to form an alliance with the kingdoms of Macedon and Grust, and started to rebuild the Dolhr Empire. With the revival of the Empire they set their eyes on world domination and started a new war.

Cutscene at the end of the first battle.

    The descendant of Anri and the king of Altea decided to join the war against the Dolhr Empire and took the Falchion with him. Before leaving the king left his son Marth and his daughter Elice in the kingdom of Gra. Because Altea and Gra are allies he believed his children would be safe there. But Gra betrayed Altea and kidnapped Elice. Marth was able to escape to an island nation called Talys. He stayed there for several years, training and hoping to join his father and search for his sister. But one faithful day Talys was attacked by pirates. Marth helped repel the pirates and save Talys. He then decided that the time had come for him to and join the war against the Empire.

Stage 2 opening cutscene

   The story I would say is pretty good. It's not super simple like other Famicom games of the time, but it's not overly complicated either. There aren't any major plot twists, but it's a fun story. It's told through narrations and conversations before and after every battle. You can also learn extra lore from NPCS. It's not necessary to understand the main story but it's a nice addition.

Talking to an NPC.

   I only have two complaints regarding the story. The first one is that there is no opening cutscene explaining the events leading up to the first battle. It's all in the instruction book, so if you don't have the book then you won't have a full understanding of the story. Missing out on that information is a little off-putting for such a story-heavy game.

A description of the social knight class shown at the beginning of the game.

Armor knight class description.

Pegasus knight class description.

    The other problem is a pretty small one. It's that there is close to no character development in the game. Every time a new character joins your ranks you learn about their background and their reason for fighting, but that's it. You don't speak to them ever again. It's a small nitpick but it makes it hard to feel any kind of attachment to your party members.

Battle screen. Thief vs my social knight.

   As said before Fire Emblem is a strategy RPG. You and the computer take turns moving your soldiers across the map trying to kill each other. To win the battle you have to beat the boss character and then get Marth to the castle occupied by the enemy and have him liberate it. Some battles take place inside a castle but the win conditions are the same. The only difference is that instead of taking a castle back you have to get Marth to take the throne from the enemy. You lose a fight if Marth dies. That's the only lose condition.

Marth standing in front of a castle. (The northern building)

    In this war you'll have a wide variety of soldiers to command. You have Social Knights, they ride on horse back allowing them to travel large distances and can use spears and swords. Mercenaries are all around great fighters, they have high attack, defense, and HP, making them good units to put on the front lines. Archers can attack from a distance with bows, but can't fight at close range. Pegasus Knights can fly across terrain that's unpassable on foot or horseback. They have decent stats but are weak to bows and will die pretty fast if attacked by an archer.

The thief has high agility but due to it's low attack power it's unable to damage the social knight.

    Each class has its strengths and weaknesses that you should keep in mind when planning a strategy. Some classes can even promote to a stronger class when they reach level ten. A mercenary, for example, can become a hero if he has the required item and is at level ten. Promoted units are significantly stronger than non-promoted ones and are pretty much necessary for the late game missions.

Marth vs a pirate.

 The level-up system in this game is a little random. Every character has their own rate of growth, and some characters will heavily outclass others. The stats that do increase when you level up is decided at random. There are good level ups and bad level-ups. When you get a good level up three or four of your stats will increase, but when you get a bad level up only one or two of your stats will increase.

A social knight leveling up.

Four of his stats increased for this level up.

      Whether you get a good or bad level up is again decided at random. I don't like or dislike this system but it does add replay value to the game. Your character's stats will be different every playthrough which can make the game easier or harder.

Selecting what characters will go into battle.

 As for recruitable characters, there are a lot of them, 52 to be exact. That may seem a little excessive but there's a good reason for it. It's because Fire Emblem has permadeath. If any of your units other then Marth dies they are dead for good, you can't revive them. You have to either accept your loss and continue the game without that character or reset the game and start the battle over. This really makes Fire Emblem stand out from other RPGs of the time and adds an extra layer of difficulty. You can't blindly send troops into battle. You have to make sure that your soldiers will be safe after carrying out a command or you risk losing a character.

Recruiting a new character.

   While on the subject of difficulty Fire Emblem is not all that difficult. You will have to use a bit of strategy to get through battles with your units in one piece. But the challenges that this game throws at you are never brain-racking levels of hard. I would say it's pretty well balanced.

Some NPCs will give you gold if you talk to them. This one will give 10,000 gold.

   Fire Emblem is a fun and somewhat challenging strategy RPG, but it does have a few problems that make the game feel old. One gripe I have is about how many menus you have to sift through to do anything. For example to look at one of your character's items you have to click on them once.

Clicking on a character once will show you their name, class, level, HP, and items they have.

  If you want to look at their stats you'll have to click on them again.

Clicking on them a second time will show you their portrait and stats.

   If you want to use an item then you'll have to click on them a third time. All of these menus slow the game down, and it can just get annoying.

Clicking on them again will give you the option of using an item or equipping a weapon or have them do nothing.

If you choose the top option then you'll finally be able to use that characters items.

Another area where this game shows it's age is its item management system. Each character can only hold four items. The number of items you're allowed to hold is limited but you do have a warehouse where you can keep items you're not using. It sounds good but the warehouse is annoying to use as it can only be accessed during battle. It's represented by a building that looks like a tent, and to use it you have to move one of you're characters over to it. And only one character can use it per turn. It's so slow and time-consuming that item management can add a good three or four hours to your total playtime.

Using the storehouse.

     So the gameplay while fun hasn't aged very well, but what about the presentation. Did it age as bad as the gameplay? I would say yes and no. The graphics are overall pretty good. The overworld map sprites look nice and the battle animations are fun to watch. The character portraits are a different story. Most of them just look bad, and due to the limitations of the Famicom, a lot of characters share the same or similar portraits.

These two characters share very similar portraits.

     The music is either really good or really bad. I love the main title theme and the song that plays when you recruit a character. The stage clear theme is good as well. But then you have songs like the theme that plays at the weapon shop, and when you talk to villagers. That theme has to be one of the worst songs I've ever heard in a video game.

     All in all the presentation isn't awful, but it's not great either. The same can be said for the gameplay. Fire Emblem is a fun strategy RPG, but it's a very outdated game. If you're a Fire Emblem fan and want to experience the first game then I would say give it a try. If that doesn't sound like you then I wouldn't bother playing it.

  And that's all I have to say about this game. Thank you for reading. Next time I'll review another game for the Famicom. I hope to see you again at Backlog Game Reviews.