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Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light

From Fire Emblem Wiki, your source on Fire Emblem information. By fans, for fans.
Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light

FEARHT logo.png
Ba japan fe01.png
Japanese logo and box art.

Developer(s)

Nintendo R&D1
Intelligent Systems

Publisher(s)

Nintendo

Director(s)

Keisuke Terasaki

Designer(s)

Shouzou Kaga

Release date(s)

Famicom
JPApril 20, 1990
Wii Virtual Console
JPOctober 20, 2009
Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
JPAugust 1, 2012
Wii U Virtual Console
JPJune 4, 2014
Family Computer - Nintendo Switch Online
JPMarch 13, 2019
Nintendo Switch (standalone)
USDecember 4, 2020
EUDecember 4, 2020
AUSDecember 4, 2020
KORDecember 4, 2020

Rating(s)

ACB: G
CERO: A (Virtual Console rerelease)
ESRB: E
PEGI: 7
USK: 6
GRAC: All

Platform(s)
Successor

Fire Emblem Gaiden

On partnered sites
StrategyWiki Walkthrough
Nintendo Wiki Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light
SmashWiki Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light (Japanese: ファイアーエムブレム 暗黒竜と光の剣 Fire Emblem: Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light) is a turn-based strategy role-playing game originally released only in Japan for Nintendo's Family Computer console in 1990, and is the first game in the Fire Emblem video game series. It is generally accepted to be something of an archetype and progenitor for the strategy role-playing game genre as it exists in Japan, with many other Japanese games of the genre following in its stead.[1]

The game is set on the continent Archanea and follows the story of Marth, the exiled prince of the fallen kingdom of Altea. It depicts his quest across Archanea to raise a resistance army to combat the Dolhr Empire, which dominated much of the land, and to find the lost sacred sword Falchion to allow him to follow in the footsteps of his ancestor Anri and slay Medeus, the tyrannical Shadow Dragon.

Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light has spawned a large number of sequels and other related works, with its story canon comprised of nine of the sixteen mainline Fire Emblem games. It has been remade twice, first as the first half of Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem in 1993, then again as Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon in 2008, and the events of the game were adapted into a short-lived anime adaptation. Unlike later Fire Emblem games, it has multiple sequels set in the same world, including Fire Emblem Gaiden, Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (and by extension New Mystery of the Emblem, its remake), and Fire Emblem Awakening. In a loose sense it also has prequels, in the form of Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776, set on another land in the same world, but thousands of years in the past and referencing some of the events which were happening and characters which existed on Archanea itself at the time.

Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light was, like the following five games, never released outside of Japan in its original run. Along with Mystery of the Emblem and The Binding Blade, it was in a way responsible for sparking international interest in the series, when Marth appeared with Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee in 2001. Their appearance ultimately resulted in the international release of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade and all subsequent games with the exception of New Mystery of the Emblem. While the game initially remained untranslated, and never released via Virtual Console service for Wii, Wii U or Nintendo 3DS in most regions worldwide, its 2008 remake Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon did receive an international release, bringing Marth's original story to the rest of the world for the very first time.

The original Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light eventually received an official English localization as well, and it was released for the Nintendo Switch as a standalone title in December 2020 to commemorate the Fire Emblem franchise's 30th anniversary. This version of the game was available digitally on the Nintendo Switch eShop for a limited time, up until the end of March 2021, as well as through a physical collector's edition with a download code for the game. Although this version of the game includes a Japanese language option, it was not released in Japan, potentially due to the game already being available for Japanese Nintendo Switch Online subscribers since March 2019.

Plot

Rise of the Archanean League

After the fall of his homeland, Altea, Prince Marth spent the next three years in exile in Talys, a young island kingdom. After helping repel a pirate invasion of the country at the request of its Princess Caeda, Marth and his remaining forces departed Talys to travel to Aurelis, to meet with the refugee Princess Nyna of Archanea and begin a revolution against Dolhr's grip on the world. At Aurelis, Marth's forces united with those of the country's Prince Hardin, leader of the country's resistance, and from there they reclaimed Aurelis from the Macedon occupation allied with Dolhr.

With Aurelis secured, the newly-dubbed "Archanean League" travelled south to the Holy Kingdom of Archanea itself. After being forced to make a brief detour to Pyrathi and to defeat its Manakete King Mannu, Marth was approached by Catria of Macedon's Whitewings squadron, who informed him of the plight of its princesses Minerva and Maria, the latter held hostage to force the former to serve Dolhr. On this news, Marth led the League to Castle Deil to free Maria, and the grateful Minerva joined with his forces, as did the three Whitewings later. From this victory, they marched on the Archanean capital Pales and liberated it from the Dolhr occupation under Volzhin.

The League's next task was to free Altea. The army marched to Gra, Altea's traitorous neighbor and an ally of Dolhr, and brought down the country and its King Jiol; after the fight, Marth was disappointed to find that Altea's royal sword Falchion, said to have been stolen from his dead father by Gra at the war's beginning, was not there. His advisor Malledus theorised that Gharnef, the Dark Pontifex and resurrector of Medeus, was the one truly responsible for the blade's theft, and so the League made a fruitless detour to Khadein, the country under Gharnef's control, to recover it; there, Marth was informed by the White Sage Gotoh that they could not defeat Gharnef and recover Falchion without the Starlight spell, the only weakness of Gharnef's Imhullu spell, and tasked them with finding the Starsphere and Lightsphere, artefacts required to recreate it. The League then returned to Altea and reclaimed it from its master, Morzas of Dolhr.

The final push

With Altea reclaimed, the League's new task was to defeat the remaining allies of Dolhr: Grust and Macedon. The army first travelled to the southwest, to the Fane of Raman, to find the Spheres and free Tiki, the Divine Dragon princess, from Gharnef's control. From there, they conquered nearby Grust, defeating its general Camus despite wanting to spare him. The army travelled next to Macedon, now ruled by Minerva's ambitious elder brother Michalis, liberating it and bringing the Spheres to Gotoh, currently living near its castle, who from them forged Starlight.

Gotoh transported the army to Thabes, a distant ancient city and the current home of Gharnef, where they engaged Gharnef in battle and slew him with Starlight, recovering Falchion. With the tower reclaimed, they found Marth's lost sister Elice, held captive by Gharnef for the past three years. With no other opposition remaining, the League turned on Dolhr itself, charging into the Dolhr Keep where Medeus himself was confined until his strength fully recovered. Marth engaged Medeus in battle, wielding Falchion, and the Shadow Dragon once again fell. With the war over, at the advice of Nyna, Marth proposed to Caeda.

Gameplay


This section has been marked as a stub. Please help improve the page by adding information.


The player selecting Marth. The upper-right frame shows: Marth; Lord; Level: 1; HP: 18/18. The middle-right frame shows: Rapier/22.

As the series' first installment, Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light established many of the gameplay points and conventions which remain in the series to this day, but it lacks several major mechanics from future games, such as skills or functions of the preparations menu other than unit selection.

Trading

When standing adjacent to another unit, the Trade option allows selecting an item to pass to an ally. If the ally's inventory is already full, the item will not be given over. Multiple trades may be done per turn, including with multiple allies. However, giving items away is the only function of the trade action - it is not possible for the Trade initiator to take items from their allies with this action. When trading is cancelled or the unit's inventory is empty, their turn will automatically end.

Weapon Level

Unlike most games to come out afterwards, weapon level in Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light is a stat similar to other normal stats. Every unit starts with a numerical value as their weapon level, and a growth rate that determines the odds of it increasing by 1 with a level-up. Each weapon has a number as a level as well, if the weapon level of a unit is equal to or higher than that number than they can use that weapon, otherwise they cannot.

Villages

Similar to other games in the series, there are various villages that can be visited during a chapter to receive various rewards and a dialogue exchange. These villages can be destroyed by enemy thieves if they are not reached in time. Unlike future games, however, the only person who can visit villages is Marth. Also, there are houses which can be visited by anyone, however, these only have dialogue exchanges with villagers and not rewards.

Chapters

Main article: List of chapters in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light

Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light is comparatively simple and linear in structure compared to its successors. The game features 25 chapters, with no side quests or alternate routes possible.

Characters

Main article: List of characters in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light

Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light features 52 playable characters. In a single playthrough, however, it is only possible to recruit 51, as the player must choose between recruiting Arran and Samson.

Development

An early promotional leaflet for Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light.

Development on Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light began after the completion of fellow turn-based strategy game Famicom Wars, with the theme of allowing players to "see and enjoy a world from an RPG perspective".[2] Shouzou Kaga, who served as the scenarist on the game, described the idea behind the game as being a hybrid of traditional strategy/simulation games with RPG elements, with the idea being to create a more dramatic, story-rich strategy game where the player would become emotionally invested in the characters and their struggle. The mechanic of permanent death was introduced as part of this, to give the fates of the playable cast more weight and to reward love and care for one's units. The idea was to break from standard RPGs of the time—which railroad players into a single course by necessity, otherwise the game would break—by ensuring that there was not only one way of clearing each map, and that players could approach maps as they choose and devise their own successful strategies. Another consideration was to simplify the game compared to other strategy games of the era, to fit in with Nintendo's philosophy of producing games which anybody can pick up and play.[3]

Unlike most later Fire Emblem games, Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light was developed in a collaboration between Intelligent Systems and Nintendo Research & Development 1. Kaga once remarked that the development of Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light was a small-scale affair which the team produced largely for fun, and this resulted in having few resources to devote to its graphics, something which the team would later come to regret.[4] Similarly, owing to the team's small size, Tohru Narihiro asserts that both he and most other members of the team performed numerous other duties beyond their main focus in its development.[2]

According to Narihiro, the limitations of the Famicom hindered its ability to support strategy simulation games. With respect to how the team overcame this obstacle, he recalled:

The program in a typical simulation game uses a lot of memory. Our game exceeded the capacity of the main memory available in the NES unit. So we figured out a way of increasing capacity by accessing a portion of the memory dedicated for saving the game. Using this memory together with the main memory we were able to get the game running. [...] To display characters, we loaded a chip into the machine that was able to process and display Kanji characters… So, at Nintendo we were always working as partners with the people who were making the hardware, and I acted as a kind of observer during our development of the NES version of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.
— Tohru Narihiro, in an interview with Masahiro Sakurai[2]

Kaga was interested in implementing a multiplayer mode of some kind, but this never came to be; the first multiplayer mode in the series was introduced twelve years later, as the Link Arena in The Binding Blade.[3]

Game credits

  • Director: Keisuke Terasaki
  • Scenario: Shouzou Kaga
  • Programmers: Masaharu Tani, Masayuki Imanishi, Kouji Yoshida, Kei Fukura
  • Graphic Designers: Tohru Ohsawa, Naotaka Ohnishi, Saotshi Machida, Toshitaka Muramatsu
  • Music: Hirokazu Tanaka, Yuka Banba
  • Special Thanks: Ryoichi Kitanishi, Masafumi Sakashita, Papa Narihiro, Wink Nakamura, Haruhiko Shimizu
  • Producer: Gunpei Yokoi

Note: Tohru Narihiro is credited only under "Special thanks" in the game itself,[5] but he would later attest that he was involved in the project as a programmer.[6]

Nintendo Switch version

  • Producers: Masahiro Higuchi, Tokokazu Nonaka, Akira Kinashi
  • Co-Producer: Genki Yokota
  • Directors: Osamu Yamauchi, Kazuyoshi Toriyama, Kenta Kananishi
  • Programmers: Osamu Yamauchi, Takafumi Kaneko
  • Coordinator: Kenji Yamada
  • Technical Support: Shotaro Iwanaga
  • Quality Assurance: Masaharu Shima, Takuya Inoue
  • Debug: DIGITAL HEARTS Co., Ltd.
  • North American Localization (Nintendo of America)
  • Localization Management: Nate Bihldorff, Reiko Ninomiya, Rich Amtower, Dan Owsen
  • NOA Localization: Michael Benedetto, Billy Carrol, Marjolaine Drouin, Raymond Elliget, Matthew Niemi, Christian Nutt, Karen Ressler, Ludovic Tientcheu, Thaddée Wiseur
  • Special Items Art Lead: Dave Pauls
  • NOA Product Testing Technicians: Kentaro Nishimura, Kirk Buchanan, Tomo Ishiyama, Q Dequina, Tomoko Mikami, Zac Evans, Robert Jahn, Makiko Szolas, Tom Hertzog, Michael Sahlin, James Dillon, Josh Yagi-Stanton, Andrew Gawlowski, Rose Tupczia
  • Special Thanks: Jeff Miller, Kiyo Yoshiwatari
  • General Producers: Tohru Narihiro, Shinya Takahashi, Katsuya Eguchi, Keisuke Terasaki
  • Executive Producers: Toshiyuki Nakamura, Shuntaro Furukawa
  • Based on the Work of the Original Development Staff

Reception

In 2008, Narihiro said in an interview that for the first two months it was on the market, Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light experienced very slow sales, but that its sales slowly began to pick up afterward as positive word of mouth spread about the game among consumers.[2] According to Kaga, the game was met with poor reviews when it first launched and was criticized for being difficult to understand and for its unimpressive visuals. It was not until six months after its release, when a columnist at the magazine Famitsu praised the game, that its sales improved.[3]

As of 2002, Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light had sold an estimated 329,087 copies in its original Famicom print run.[7]

Fan translation

Main article: Fan translation § Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light

Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light did not receive an international release for 30 years, but unlike other games which met this fate, it went largely ignored in light of Mystery of the Emblem and later Shadow Dragon remaking it, giving it the perception of being unnecessary in light of existing in superior forms. As such, it was not until 2010 that a fan translation patch was completed, released by Quirino of the Serenes Forest forums.[8]

A second fan translation project was released by Polinym in May 2021.[9]

Trivia

  • Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light is the only game in the Fire Emblem series in which every class in the game is playable.

Etymology and other languages

Names, etymology, and in other regions
Language Name Definition, etymology, and notes
English

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragons and the Blade of Light
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

• As of the official English release and Fire Emblem Heroes version 4.7.0.[10] The title refers to Medeus, the "Shadow Dragon", and to the sword Falchion.
• "Shadow Dragon" was mistakenly pluralized on The Blazing Blade's official website and in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
• Used in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, the Fire Emblem Fates website, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and older versions of Fire Emblem Heroes. "and" was originally used in place of "&". This name is also used in the application title for the English release, and in part of Legacy of Archanea.

English
(unofficial)

Fire Emblem: Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light

--

Japanese

ファイアーエムブレム 暗黒竜と光の剣

Fire Emblem: Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light. The title screen and some marketing for the game omits the subtitle.

Note: Falchion's epithet is pronounced as hikari no tsurugi, but as part of the game's subtitle, it is pronounced as hikari no ken.

Spanish

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light

As above.

French

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light

As above.

German

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light

As above.

Italian

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light

As above.

Gallery

References

  1. Harris, J., Game Design Essentials: 20 RPGs, Gamasutra, Published: 26 April 2010, Retrieved: 30 March 2015
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Sakurai, M. et al., Iwata Asks - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Nintendo; (archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine), Published: March 2012, Retrieved: 26 July 2014
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Kaga, S., Sakaguchi, H., et al. (trans. shmupulations), Fire Emblem – Developer Interviews with Shouzou Kaga and Hironobu Sakaguchi, shmupulations.com, Published: 3 May 2016, Retrieved: 3 May 2016
  4. Kaga, S.; trans. North2, Fire Emblem: Treasure - Interview with Shouzou Kaga, Serenes Forest, Published: January 1999, Retrieved: 24 February 2015
  5. ファイアーエムブレム 暗黒竜と光の剣 総集編 15/15, YouTube, Retrieved: 1 August 2016
  6. Sakurai, M. et al., Iwata Asks - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Nintendo; (archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine), Published: March 2012, Retrieved: 26 July 2014
  7. University of Japan Copyright Center, 日本ユニ著作権センター/判例全文・2002/11/14d 3, Translan, Published: 14 November 2002, Retrieved: 30 March 2015
  8. Quirino, Fire Emblem NES Translation, Serenes Forest Forums, Published: 26 April 2010, Retrieved: 30 March 2015
  9. Polinym, Fire Emblem 1 - Retranslation 2021 (Updated 5/23/2022), Serenes Forest Forums, Published: 23 May 2021, Retrieved: 14 July 2022
  10. HertzDevil, Fire Emblem Heroes text assets, July 30, 2020 update, GitHub, Published: 30 July 2020, Retrieved: 30 October 2020

External links

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light
Playable characters AbelArranAstramBantuBarstBeckBoahBordCaedaCaesarCainCastorCatriaCordDarrosDolphDraugEliceEstGordinGotohHardinJagenJakeJeorgeJulianLenaLindeLorenzMacellanMariaMarthMatthisMerricMidiaMinervaNavarreOgmaPallaRaddRickardRogerRosheaSamsonSedgarTikiTomasVylandWendellWolfWrysXane
Non-playable characters Aurelis KingMalledusNynaTalys King
Bosses BentheonCamusEmereusGazzakGharnefGomerGrigasHarmeinHeimlerHollstadtHymanJiolKannivalKhozenMannuMedeusMerachMichalisMorzasOrridyonSternlinTikiVolzhinXemcelZharov
Background characters AnriArtemisCorneliusLizaLudwik
Regalia and personal weapons AumAuraExcaliburFalchionGradivusImhulluMercuriusParthiaRapierStarlight
Chapters 1: Marth Embarks • 2: The Pirates of Galder • 3: The Ghoul's Teeth • 4: Battle in the Lea • 5: Champions of Aurelis • 6: Fire Emblem • 7: Lefcandith Gauntlet • 8: Port Warren • 9: The Pyrathi Dragon • 10: Princess Minerva • 11: Knorda Market • 12: The Ageless Palace • 13: The Wooden Cavalry • 14: Land of Sorrow • 15: An Oasis of Magic • 16: The Battle for Altea • 17: Star and Savior • 18: The Sable Order • 19: Manakete Princess • 20: Camus the Sable • 21: Clash in Macedon • 22: A Knight-Filled Sky • 23: Dark Pontifex • 24: The Dragonkin Realm • 25: Chosen by Fate
Locations ArchaneaAlteaAurelisDolhrGraGrustKhadeinKingdom of ArchaneaMacedonPyrathiTalysThabes
Groups, objects and concepts Archanean LeagueDragons (Divine DragonsEarth Dragons) • DragoonsFire EmblemSable OrderWar of LiberationWar of ShadowsWhitewinged Order
Lists ArmoriesCharactersClasses (Class change) • ItemsScriptsSecret ShopsTerrainVendorsWeapons
Related topics Hakoda manga adaptationName chart • Other games (GaidenMystery of the EmblemShadow DragonAwakening) • Sound Test ModeTimeline
Fire Emblem series
Main series Shadow Dragon & the Blade of LightGaidenMystery of the EmblemGenealogy of the Holy WarThracia 776The Binding BladeThe Blazing BladeThe Sacred StonesPath of RadianceRadiant DawnShadow DragonNew Mystery of the EmblemAwakeningFatesEchoes: Shadows of ValentiaThree HousesEngage
Spin-offs Archanea SagaTokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FEHeroesWarriorsWarriors: Three Hopes
Crossover games Super Smash Bros. (MeleeBrawlfor Nintendo 3DS and Wii UUltimate) • Club Nintendo Picross+Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.Project X Zone 2WarioWareDragalia Lost
Unreleased games and prototypes Fire Emblem 64The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0206The Blazing Blade pre-release build 0219The Sacred Stones prototypeFire Emblem Wii
TearRing Saga series Yutona Heroes War ChroniclesBerwick Saga
Vestaria Saga series War of the ScionsThe Sacred Sword of SilvanisterLucca GaidenChronicles of the Norden Civil War
Related titles Mario Kart: Double Dash!! bonus discLINENintendo Badge Arcade
Versions and releases List of version differencesLocalization of the Fire Emblem seriesVirtual Console
Other References in other mediaReferences to other media