**Warning: Long post to follow**
Well, I finally finished the game a couple of days ago. I'll go ahead and write up a review for anyone who is interested.
As most of you are aware, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is a remake of the original Fire Emblem for the NES. The main character is Marth, who was recently made popular from the Smash Brothers series. If you've never played a FE game before, then this is a good starting point. If you've played a FE game before on the GBA, GC, or Wii, then you should be prepared for some big differences. The differences are numerous, some good, some bad, some major, some minor. These differences are only in comparison to the more current FE that have been released.
Good changes
-In game saves locations. There are now spots on the map (usually two), that allow you to save your progress and reload it should a character die. This helps players recover a lot of time for a minor mistake (say not checking that an enemy is carrying a horse slaying and kills your cavalier). Because the player must choose to use them, save circles are a perfect way to make the game easier on a new comer while they can be completely ignored by a FE "purist".
-Direct attacking and weapon cycling. Direct attacking is a feature that was first seen in Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. Basically, when moving a unit, you can plot out your movement and end up on an enemy. The game will then automatically take you to the attack information box instead of making the player choose the attack option. This works the same for healing. Once the attack information box is displayed, pressing the "X" button will cycle through all of the characters weapons to get different results. This saves a lot of time and is one of my favorite editions.
-New animations. Whether or not you like the rendered look of the units is a matter of personal preference, but the animations nicely done. While I do prefer the older sprite based look of the GBA FE, the animations of the characters and the magic are quite easy on the eye.
-Online play. Being an import copy of the game, I didn't have anyone to try this feature out with. You create teams of five units and go at it against another player's five units. I can't imagine that this feature would be as robust or balanced as Advance Wars, but at least the option is there.
-Online store. Feel free to buy weapons, armor, items, and upgrades via a WiFi store. Every day the inventory changes. All purchases are made from gold earned in the single player game. Certain rare items are only available on certain days (ie. days ending with a 5 like the 5th, 15th, 25th.)
-Online unit sharing. Place a unit into an online store that friends can use. It's basically a copy/paste scenario. Say I choose to place my axe user Barst into the store. An exact copy of the character is placed online for anyone else to download. I continue to use my Barst and play like normal. If anyone downloads my copy of Barst, they can use him in place of their version of Barst. If either version of Barst is killed, both characters are removed from the roster.
-Class swapping. You can take any character and change them from one class to another. Need an extra Mage? No problem, take one of those excessive Cavaliers and turn them into a Mage. There are caps on the total number of any one type of unit so that you don't field thirty Mages.
-Merging. During the setup phase before battle, the player can combine like weapons to restore weapon uses. Say you have a pair of Iron Swords, one with twelve uses and the other with twentieth uses. Merging them together will give you one Iron Sword with thirty five uses. This saves the player from equipping a unit with two swords of the same type for when the first one breaks.
-Forging. This is a carried over ability from the GC and Wii versions. During the setup phase, a player my spend money to create a more powerful version of almost any weapon in their inventory. You can even name the weapon. This will help weaker characters hang with stronger enemies.
Bad changes
-No rescuing. Units go no longer pick each other up to get them out of a difficult situation. This was a very big strategic aspect of all prior FE games and doesn't seem to make sense in it's exclusion. It was probably left out because it wasn't a feature in the original game.
-Mounted units get no second action. In the GBA versions of FE, mounted units could move, perform any non-attack option, and finish their move. In the GC and Wii versions, they could attack then move which made them IMHO far too powerful. In the DS version, they have no options at all, simply making them units with a lot of movement range.
-Only Marth can enter villages. You can no longer use any unit to enter a village and get an item. Marth has to be the one that does it, unlike prior FE titles. Any unit can still enter a house to gather information though.
-No more "R" button information. In all prior versions of FE, the player could highlight an ally or enemy and press the "R" button to gain more detailed information. In the DS version, moving the cursor over any unit causes it's stats and equipment to appear on the top screen. This is usually fine, but there is no way to highlight an enemies weapons to check it's stats or abilities. This is especially frustrating if they have a unique weapon that you cannot check special attack bonuses or weight. I also used the "R" button to quickly cycle through enemies at the map set up screen to see what items they might be carrying that can be stolen or acquired through defeating them. It was also extremely useful for seeing if any enemies had a portrait, which usually indicates a boss or a recruitable character.
-All maps are "Seize" only. There are no variety of map objectives. There will be no survival modes, kill all the enemies modes, or rescue modes. This makes the gameplay a bit stale.
-Unlocking extra maps. To unlike the side missions, you must kill off existing characters. For some reason, you have to have less than fifteen characters to unlock the extra maps. This typically means choosing a group of fifteen and killing off the rest. This was never an issue in any other FE, so I don't understand why it was added to this one.
General observations
-Tons of characters quickly. By the time you reach the fourth mission, you will probably have over twenty characters. You also get way too many Cavaliers, like six or seven by mission five.
-Little to no character development. In all prior FE titles, the characters usually had at least one thing that made them unique or interesting to the story. Sometimes it tied into the story other times it was a neat personality quirk. In the DS version, some characters are just added without saying a word. One map had my party receiving help from another nation. A Mercenary character spoke with Marth and then three axe wielders hoped in behind him. No back story, just three extra guys with axes. Weird.
-Recruiting is limited. Almost every character in the game is recruited by either Marth or Shiida (the main love interest). Their are a few other characters that can be recruited by other characters, but it's never apparent who that is supposed to be. It usually boils down to trail and error to figure it out.
-No conversations before maps. After a mission starts, you go right to base camp. There is no conversation with the characters before hand. It seems a bit out of place compared to prior titles.
-No fleshed out base camps. All of the neat options from the GC and Wii versions were removed. No more Bonus Experience, supports, or side conversations. These were very small additions that really helped fleshed out the characters without drastically changing the gameplay.
-No support system. No more building up "A", "B", and "C" supports with other characters. This means no more slightly boosted stats, interesting back stories or conversations, and different endings depending on support levels.
In conclusion
All in all, the game is still good, but a big let down for long time FE fans. The game just seems very basic when compared to the others in the series. I can understand not having certain gameplay features such as rescuing and mounted unit movement, but not having storyline aspects is just bizarre. Adding rescuing and other abilities would require maps to be rebalanced, but adding conversations wouldn't hinder gameplay at all.
I guess my biggest overall complaint is that Intelligent Systems appeared to want to update the gameplay to more current FE fair, but seemed to stop short somewhere in the middle. Why not recreate the original game with graphical overhauls and then include a "remixed" mode with all of the innovations from the rest of the series added? It's really the best of both worlds. Maybe it was too much extra work, for not enough return. Who knows?
In the end, I would say this was my least favorite FE I ever played. Had there been a remixed mode with more character interactions and personality I would probably rank it higher. Of course, everything above is just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions.
Hope you enjoyed the read and feel free to ask any questions about the game.
Topic: Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon (Read 30887 times)
