Game 12 – Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (Switch) – 45 Hours
This is the second Fire Emblem game that I've ever played, the first one being Fire Emblem Awakening about 10 years ago. After finishing the very first entry on the Switch, it’s amazing to see how far the series has come, but also how much the first game was able to establish in terms of gameplay, characters, tone, lore, and story. I was shocked at how complex and deep this game is given that it originally came out on the Famicom. You have multiple characters to choose from with a deep array of stats and abilities. There are over 10 classes that have different strengths and weaknesses and can change into stronger versions with enough experience. There are multiple different weapons and support magic and items to experiment with. It’s all very impressive given the period when this game came out. Outside of the gameplay, this game has impressive graphics and animations, and 25 huge sprawling battles to play with, so you have a lot of impressive and engaging battles to keep you occupied.
So with that praise, you may think that I really enjoyed my time playing this game. Unfortunately, after finishing this and reflecting on my time with Awakening, I think that this series just isn’t for me. While this game was the forerunner to other tactical RPGs that I enjoy like Final Fantasy Tactics and Valkyria Chronicles, the one thing that this series does that I’m not a fan of is instant permadeath. It’s a very unforgiving game that I just couldn’t really get into, particularly when the combat involves heavy RNG including critical hits or the chance to miss your attacks. If you like that style of gameplay, that’s definitely fine, I can totally see how it makes you think about enemy placement and unit matchups. I just prefer a little more forgiveness when I make a mistake or try a gamble that doesn’t pay off. I tried to play it without resetting, but almost every time one of my characters died the urge to reset the game was so strong that I eventually gave up. Thankfully this game is very generous with about 4 different ways of reloading an old save state or save game.
Unfortunately, I wish some other aspects of the game were as improved as the save states. The first Fire Emblem is a very clunky and unintuitive experience. First, you have a limited inventory, which makes equipment management a nightmare. You have a convoy that you can use to swap out equipment, but you have to do it one at a time, for one character each, and it takes up that character’s entire turn. You also can’t trade items to characters unless they have a free spot remaining. You can’t do any item management in between battles either, which I think could have really helped. Second, you can’t decide where to place your characters at the beginning of a battle, which isn’t so much of a problem until the final level. I lost about 75% of my units in that fight because your team gets separated into four groups rather than one, and you can’t pick who goes in what group so they all got slaughtered. Lastly, the story just isn’t very good. For the time, it’s impressive certainly, but it’s extremely difficult to follow. It feels like this game cut all intermediary dialogue and just presents what happens during the battles. It felt fragmented and incomplete.
At the end of the day, while this series isn’t for me, I can definitely respect this game and what it did for gaming as a whole. It really is a remarkable beginning to the series and it paved the way for a lot of great tactical RPGs to come. Unfortunately, it has many dated and frustrating elements that really hold the experience back from being a great one.
