While a rather simple game, its addictive and challenging gameplay will win you over.
GRAPHICS:
The game has a style similar to the GBA games, with detailed 2D sprites, which fits the game very well. Unfortunately, it really doesn't try to do anything special with the DS hardware except for the battle animations, witch are 2.5D, and look rather cool, but it could have recived a bit more oomph. 3.5/5
SOUND:
The sound quality of the DS is thin, but this game made a nice work with what it had. The tune fit the game very well and are nice on the ears. The only problem is that they get somewhat repetitive, since all the battles have the same music, but on cutscenes and towards the end of the game there is some variety, and it still is very high quality. 4.5/5
STORY:
In this game, you take the role of the prince of Altea, Marth, on his quest to get his kingdom back from the Shadow Dragon, Medeus. Like previous Fire Emblem games, you have to basicaly find support in other kingdons, like Talys and Dollhr.
Now, to be perfectly honest, I think the story is good, but doesn't do a good job to hook you up. What I mean by that is that the characters have nice personalities, it is a simple but solid epic plot and reaches a predictable but nice conclusion. But I just don't find it to be a conecting story. I found myself skipping all the cutscenes, which drag quite a lot, and it becomes quite boring.
One really could do the efford to really enjoy the story, but there are better Fire Emblem games to hook you up in the story.
3/5
GAMEPLAY:
The game is a strategy role playing game. You have to control your batalion of characters, leadered by Marth, and defeat the enemies in the battlefield. To do so, you have to click on a character and move him up to an enemy character and attack him. If you deal enougth damage, you will kill him and get experience points. Get 100 of them and you level up.
The game has 25 levels, plus 3 prologues and some extra chapters, and it will take you at least 10 hours to beat the whole thing, and much more if you pay a lot of attention to the story. Besides that, the replay value is extented by the simple but enjoying gameplay and a nice multiplayer with Nintendo Wi-Fi capacity.
There are 4 classes of weapons: Bows, Swords, Lances and Axes. They have a triangle style of super effectiveness: Swords are strong against axes, axes on lances and lances on swords, and bows get left out of this. Besides that, some characters can also wield magic, which there is offensive magic and healing magic. This means that there are a lot of ways to build a team, since there are a lot of different stuff to use, and enables a lot of customization. Also, unique to this game, you can reclass a character, like turning a mage into a cavalier. This feature is really usefull, and enables even more customization.
Characters can go up to level 20, and use items known as Master Seals to evolve to a stronger class, which can also reach up to level 20. There are a variety of classes, such as myrmidons who can use swords, and cavaliers, who have a bigger movement and very on what they can use. Again, this means that you can make a very varied team.
The battles can be quite the challenge, since the enemies always have the best weaopons and one the latter levels are very overleveled. I honestly think this is the hardest game in the franchise, and permanent death definitely doesn't help, but it isn't that big a trouble since not all the levels are that big.
5/5
OVERALL:
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon has the same great gameplay of the newer games in the franchise, but unfortunately does not have that many features and a deep, involving storyline. It is definitely worth taking a look if you are an old fan of the franchise, but there are better games to start the series out if you are a newcomer.
The good:
-Gameplay is really fun and strategic
-Lenghty and replayable
-Great soundtrack
-Very hard but not unforgiving
The bad:
-Too simple graphics
-Story is underwhelming
-Since it is a remake of the first game, isn't as deep as latter games and has some restrictions.