Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light: Difference between revisions

|rating={{Rating|CERO=A <small>(Virtual Console rerelease)</small>|ESRB=E|ACB=G|PEGI=7|USK=6}}

'''''Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light''''' (Japanese: {{hl|ファイアーエムブレム　暗黒竜と光の剣|Faiā emuburemu ankoku ryū to hikari no ken}} ''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 (series)|''Fire Emblem'']] video game series. It is generally accepted to be something of an archetype and progenitor for the [[wikipedia:Tactical role-playing game|strategy role-playing game genre]] as it exists in Japan, with many other Japanese games of the genre following in its stead.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4066/game_design_essentials_20_rpgs.php?page=14|title=Game Design Essentials: 20 RPGs|author=Harris, J.|site=Gamasutra|published=2010-04-26|retrieved=2015-03-30}}</ref>

''Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light'' was, like the following five games, never released outside of Japan in its original run. Along with {{title|Mystery of the Emblem}} and {{title|The Binding Blade}}, it was in a way responsible for sparking international interest in the series, when Marth appeared with [[Roy]] in {{SSBM}} in 2001. Their appearance ultimately resulted in the international release of {{FE7}} and all subsequent games with the exception of {{title|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 {{FE11}} did receive an international release, consequently bringing the story of Marth to the rest of the world.

The original ''Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light'' eventually received a proper English localization, and it was released in December 2020 for the [[Nintendo Switch]], as part of ''Fire Emblem''{{'}}s 30th anniversary. This version of the game was available via Nintendo eShop up until March 31, 2021. 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.

The League's next task was to free Altea. The army marched to [[Gra]], Altea's traitorous neighbour 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 (Archanea)|Falchion]], said to have been stolen from [[Cornelius|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.

[[File:Ss fe01 chapter2.png|thumb|left|The player selecting [[Marth]].]]

Unlike most games to come out afterwards, weapon level in ''Shadow Dragon and 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.

''Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light'' is comparatively simple and linear in structure compared to its successors. The game features 25 chapters, with no [[sidequest]]s or [[alternate route]]s possible.

Development on ''Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light'' began after the completion of fellow turn-based strategy game ''[[wikipedia:Famicom Wars|Famicom Wars]]'', with the theme of allowing players to "see and enjoy a world from an RPG perspective".<ref name="iwataasks">{{Cite web|published=2012-03|retrieved=2014-07-26|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101005120340/http://fire-emblem.com/shadowdragon/interview/interview1.html|title=Iwata Asks - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon|site=Nintendo; (archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine)|author=[[smashwiki:Masahiro Sakurai|Sakurai, M.]] ''et al.''}}</ref> [[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.<ref name="shmupulations" />

Unlike most later ''Fire Emblem'' games, ''Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light'' was developed in a collaboration between [[Intelligent Systems]] and [[mariowiki:Nintendo Research & Development 1|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.<ref>{{Cite web|published=1999-01|retrieved=2015-02-24|title=Fire Emblem: Treasure - Interview with Shouzou Kaga|url=http://serenesforest.net/general/interviews/holy-war/fire-emblem-treasure/|site=Serenes Forest|author=[[Shouzou Kaga|Kaga, S.]]; trans. North2}}</ref> 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.<ref name="iwataasks" />

Note: [[Tohru Narihiro]] is credited only under "Special thanks" in the game itself,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsHzXjJ23PU&t=46m|title={{lang|ja|ファイアーエムブレム　暗黒竜と光の剣　総集編　１５/１５}}|site=YouTube|retrieved=2016-08-01}}</ref> but he would later attest that he was involved in the project as a programmer.<ref>{{Cite web|published=2012-03|retrieved=2014-07-26|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101005120340/http://fire-emblem.com/shadowdragon/interview/interview1.html|title=Iwata Asks - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon|site=Nintendo; (archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine)|author=[[smashwiki:Masahiro Sakurai|Sakurai, M.]] ''et al.''}}</ref>

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 [[wikipedia:Word of mouth|word of mouth]] spread about the game among consumers.<ref name="iwataasks" /> 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 ''[[wikipedia:Famitsu|Famitsu]]'' praised the game, that its sales improved.<ref name="shmupulations">{{cite web|url=http://shmuplations.com/fireemblem/|title=Fire Emblem – Developer Interviews with Shouzou Kaga and Hironobu Sakaguchi|author=[[Shouzou Kaga|Kaga, S.]], [[wikipedia:Hironobu Sakaguchi|Sakaguchi, H.]], et al. (trans. shmupulations)|site=shmupulations.com|published=2016-05-03|retrieved=2016-05-03}}</ref>

As of 2002, ''Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light'' had sold an estimated 329,087 copies in its original Famicom print run.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.translan.com/jucc/precedent-2002-11-14d.html|title=日本ユニ著作権センター／判例全文・2002/11/14d 3|author=University of Japan Copyright Center|site=Translan|published=2002-11-14|retrieved=2015-03-30}}</ref>

''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 {{title|Mystery of the Emblem}} and later {{title|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=20071|title=Fire Emblem NES Translation|author=Quirino|site=Serenes Forest Forums|published=2010-04-26|retrieved=2015-03-30}}</ref>

|eng-mean=• As of the official English release and {{FEH}} version 4.7.0.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://github.com/HertzDevil/feh-assets-json/commit/de8855bc5471ddfaa705991ac7cc9aa73d100447#diff-ff5e9f806e9a59f67612a9f5a2b0d8c880aa1fb353972f3174c82e88bb9fe1a9|title=''Fire Emblem Heroes'' text assets, July 30, 2020 update|site=GitHub|author=HertzDevil|published=July 30, 2020|retrieved=October 30, 2020}}</ref> The title refers to [[Medeus]], the "Shadow Dragon", and to the sword [[Falchion (Archanea)|Falchion]].<br>• "Shadow Dragon" was mistakenly pluralized on {{title|The Blazing Blade}}{{'}}s official website and in {{SSBB}}.<br> • Used in {{SSB4}}, the {{FE14}} website, {{SSBU}}, and older versions of {{FEH}}. "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]]''.

|jap-name={{h|ファイアーエムブレム　暗黒竜と光の剣|Faiā emuburemu ankoku ryū to hikari no ken}}

|jap-mean=''Fire Emblem: Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light''. The title screen and some marketing for the game omits the subtitle.