DPrime Review: Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon

Fire Emblem is a Turn based strategy RPG where if your allies die then its all over for them, as in they’re not coming back. Keeping that fact in mind you have to be very cautious with every little move you make. This game is a remake of the very first one only released in Japan. You are Marth a prince who’s kingdom has been over run by a once neutral  territory that has decided they want to control all. You are forced to retreat from your castle and home town to regroup with your allies and plan a way to stop the growing force.

The gameplay is the same as any other Fire Emblem game you move in block form (from what I know 1-10) and you attack with bows, spears, swords, and axes. Your range consists of a distance between 1 and 3 normally and much more for ballistician. When you approach someone and push attack and you can see he chances of a critical, hitting the target or getting hit, terrain your on, the amount of HP your opponent has, if your weapon has an advantage over your opponents, and how much damage you will deal. There are check points inside of battles to save you if one of your characters die near the end of a mission.

As the game progresses you get more and more allies with different classes, weapons, and back stories. Unlike other Fire Emblem games you can switch classes to things such as mercenaries, pirates, Pegasus knights, warriors, knights, generals, dragoons, and quite a few more. If you run out of room to carry things with your character the item will teleport to your convoy which is accessible at any time during the menu and in flat plains during battle.

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon has 25 main missions and 5 side missions, but to do the side missions you basically have to be bad at the game and do things such as lose a certain amount of characters by a certain point or don’t get the strongest sword in the game. Your level cap on this game is 20  which isn’t so bad since you can use a masters seal to upgrade something like a thief into an assassin. There is a very large amount of environments in this game and plenty of different weapons and enemies to keep you occupied for the whole game.

What I liked:

• Variety:  There are a very wide variety of weapons, enemies, terrains, and spells to keep you interested and wow you.
• Length:  It takes a lot of time, thought, and patients to go through this game. (especially if your someone who tries to keep your allies alive)
• Replay Value:  You can play through this game quite a few times with its 6 different difficulties and multiple characters to choose from.
• In Game Save Points:  The in game save points will save you on basically eve single last mission on this game without it you would be seeing the same mission so many times you will wish you were stabbing yourself with a scalpel in the eye.

What I didn’t like:

• Difficulty:  The AI on this game are so good that they will swarm over your weakest character and kill him within a turn even on the easiest mode.
• Characters Stay Dead:  I know it wouldn’t be a Fire Emblem game with out it but it does get annoying playing the same few turns repeditly even with the save points.
• No Freedom to Travel:  I prefer the few Fire Emblem games that let you choose where you go to train or do side missions instead of making you do the missions.