Fire Emblem:Shadow Dragon is basically Fire Emblem both stripped and improved.
Gameplay: To tell you the truth I was expecting MUCH MUCH more from a Nintendo DS entrance of Fire Emblem....shiny new graphics....another Fire Emblem game....etc..But was a bit disappointed. Fire Emblem:Shadow Dragon is a remake of the original famicom game Fire Emblem, and it is a solid remake at that. The main character is Marth, the betrayed prince of Altea, in which is home is under siege. In case you haven't noticed, Marth is also in the Super Smash Bros series. When I first saw Marth...I had no idea who he is...And of course I knew who Roy was. Anyways back to the game. Fire Emblem:Shadow Dragon is at heart, a Fire Emblem game (Of course...its a remake of the OG.). If you played Fire Emblem before, then the whole game should be very familiar to you. The weapon triangle which is a rock paper scissors system is still here, except for one thing. Its useless. Near useless anyways. Normally, A sword beats axe, axe beats lance, and lance beats sword right? Well in Fire Emblem:Shadow Dragon I have beaten many enemies with a weapon that has a "Disadvantage" against the other weapon such as using a sword against a lance, and they do just fine. This is because the stats in this game are stripped. Speed is now next to useless, good for only being able to do two attacks in a row. Whats this? A sniper...with 10+ skill and 10+ speed...attacks my swordmaster thar has maxed speed AND is in a forest. The sniper STILL has a 73% chance of hitting, when in other Fire Emblem games the chance of hitting would be quite slim, around 10-20% hit percentage. Not only this, but the game is severely unbalanced. Speed may be next to useless, but resistance is now also nonexistent. For any unit that does not use magic, their resistance almost NEVER increases. Thus making even low level magic uses killing machines. This goes the other way around too. Magic users have nonexistent defense, and that is a problem for almost every mission in the game, majority of the enemy uses an axe,lance, or sword, while magic is rendered ineffective against your magic users. Remember how I mentioned a forest earlier? Well, strategy in this game has been stripped also, for things like Forests no longer provide the superior protection they once did....20 avoid, 1 def. It is now cut in half and provides no defense....10 avoid. With this, most of the time I would simply charge in, though strategy is still sometimes required or you may lose units...Speaking of which, the deaths are still in the game of course. A team member dies, he/she is gone forever. Your lord dies, you lose.
If you recall, in the previous fire emblem games (That date back to 6.), you could simply switch off the system mid game and resume the game later. That is now turned into the Suspend feature, which saves mid game and is deleted when you resume. I think this system is good....but now they put Save points on the map. While they're convenient, they are a bit insulting to veteran fire emblem games. While I admit Shadow Dragon takes it a little easier on newcomers to the series, Save points make the game too easy. You save mid game, and whoops, a unit dies. All you have to go back and resume the mapsave. and there its like you revived him/her. This also takes Arena Abusing to a whole new level. Arena abusing all the way back to I think Fire Emblem 6, was a form of training. You get plenty of experience, and you get money at the same time, for the game cannot ALWAYS provide you with experience, so then you use Arenas (though this was not the case in Fire Emblem 8/Fire Emblem:The Sacred Stones). There are times where you are too slow in yielding in Arenas, and your unit dies, thus making you start the mission all over again and also start training all your already grinded units all over again. In Shadow Dragon, it is less punishing, simply use a map save.
In the description, I said a few things were added, and that was the Reclassing system. Reclassing is incredibly cool and useful. Your Fighters can now be Myrmidons, and your cavaliers can be knights. In my opinion though, I would rather have some units stay their respective classes, because some class changes make absolutely no sense, and would totally insult the character of who he/she is. I mean Nabarl...who is a Myrmidon(Who looks extremely similar to Karel from FE7)..can be turned into a friggin healer....wow...Though some class changes do match some characters than their preselected classes, such as Barst, a fighter...He looked more like a mercenary to me, so I turned him into a mercenary. Though there may be more additions to the game, I either forgot or listed all there was.
And lastly...the story and characters.....The plot may be absolutely horrid to some people, and to me its not bad but not good either. Although...you have to admit this story is quite good for a game that was made in the early 90's/late 80s. Considering its a remake, it probably uses the original's story. Support conversations...have been sadly removed from the game thus making it more "Stripped". I really enjoyed those conversations....They contained humor,great relationships between characters, love, and PERSONALITY. The characters in Shadow Dragon have almost NONE. Each character will speak at most only once or twice, thus weakening the story...But hey its not all bad. Overall the gameplay (review was longer than expected) is quite solid. Its at heart a fire emblem game and if you're a fire emblem fan, I don't see why you do not have this game yet. For newcomers, this game takes it easy on you so its good. However, I recommend Fire Emblem 7...AKA in the U.S just Fire Emblem.
8/10
Graphics:The game HAS been given a pretty good face lift.....unit sprites are good, and animations have been improved. Ok I said the sprites were good right? They are. Except there is almost no difference in the sprites besides color and hair. I find two paladins fighting each other, and their colors are just different because they're on different teams. Jagen has purple armor...But why does he appear red? Back in FE7, each character had the same concept as their class but different sprites...such as differences in hair, clothing, even animations. Though it does not change the game much, it does change what Fire Emblem was known for. Then... There is less satisfaction in Shadow Dragon....Remember the Swordmaster's critical from FE6-FE8? That was awesome. This....well not so good. Also *spoilers?*
I was EXTREMELY disappointed with the Falchion, the legendary sword that Marth uses....Its just a souped up Silver Sword that is able to defeat Manaketes in probably one blow, but thats it. They didn't even BOTHER giving the weapon its own animation, except for that flash before the attack. Come now. This is the FIRST fire emblem....they made the Falchion so....umimpressive...In past fire emblem games, for certain characters and their legendary weapons, they had their own animation to make it look better. Although this does not matter, it is unsatisfying in using such a powerful weapon that does not look powerful....Moving on......
Spell detail has been improved dramatically, but only the detail of the spell itself. There aren't many spells that look like they just totally OBLITERATED the enemy. Overall, the graphics are nice, but I expected more...
7/10
Sound: Hey its a fire emblem game, you can't really get a lot out of a game like this. Soundtrack is awesome though, you may hear a lot of familiar music....
Overall: Its a solid fire emblem game. I expected it to be more groundbreaking like the "First" (FE7) one was, but it wasn't. A lot of things here are unimpressive, but at its heart its fire emblem. Like I said, If you love fire emblem, get this game. If you're a newcomer, I suggest you buy Fire Emblem/Fire Emblem 7 for the GBA. Should be cheap used, and its a terrific fire emblem game.