There’s an outrageous amount of character to Fire Emblem Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light. It’s easy to forget what 8-bit consoles were really capable of, I think. The internet so inundates us with images of like the cheapest and most rushed out shovelware of the era and there was SO much of that that, and there are so few games LIKE Dahk Dragon n Da Sword o Light that it can be hard to conceptualize stuff that doesn’t look like a side scroller or a final fantasy-like. I know I talk about this kind of shit every time I write about a game this old please forgive me.
But IMMEDIATELY it’s shocking how fully formed Fire Emblem is. Pretty much everything you expect to be here is here. You got all your little dudes, they all have their cute little idle animations on the map screen, units don’t have unique sprites but classes have bespoke animations for crits and the battle screen is a full on Fire Emblem ass battle screen. There’s so much text in this game! And while a lot of it is using characters to tutorialize stuff for you, or to tip you off about which guys you might be able to recruit, those dialogues and the ensuing recruitment ones are full of personality. They’re thoughtful too – rarely do you just have Marth walk up to a guy to make them join, a lot of the time there’s more specificity to their wants or needs. And sure, more often than not that’s Sheeda instead of Marth lol but because of this you get a very full sketch of Sheeda as this guile princess who knows how to play people but is compassionate enough to use that skill for their good instead of just callously using them for more manpower, SOMETIMES. Other times she is just kind of playing dudes in a very funny way, she’s a great character. Riff is a crusty old man and he sucks ass and guess what his weapon skill sucks shit and he’s the worst healer in the game, they’re interlinking systems and character immediately, it’s a well-designed game!
I found so much here and so much that was familiar that I didn’t even REALLY mind that I had to count out every unit’s individual movements because those aren’t mapped for you here, or that the AI, impressive as it is for the platform, can be gamed somewhat easily, or that without even a weapon triangle the actual strategy is somewhat more shallow, if a little more exactly weighted towards stats.
It’s simply a good time. It’s a little slow, a little meandering, and a little long. IDK that this is a game I would go around RECOMMENDING to people sight unseen, but I wouldn’t recommend fuckin, Path of Radiance or Three Houses to anybody off the street either. It’s a worthwhile bit of history if you’re already inclined.
But IMMEDIATELY it’s shocking how fully formed Fire Emblem is. Pretty much everything you expect to be here is here. You got all your little dudes, they all have their cute little idle animations on the map screen, units don’t have unique sprites but classes have bespoke animations for crits and the battle screen is a full on Fire Emblem ass battle screen. There’s so much text in this game! And while a lot of it is using characters to tutorialize stuff for you, or to tip you off about which guys you might be able to recruit, those dialogues and the ensuing recruitment ones are full of personality. They’re thoughtful too – rarely do you just have Marth walk up to a guy to make them join, a lot of the time there’s more specificity to their wants or needs. And sure, more often than not that’s Sheeda instead of Marth lol but because of this you get a very full sketch of Sheeda as this guile princess who knows how to play people but is compassionate enough to use that skill for their good instead of just callously using them for more manpower, SOMETIMES. Other times she is just kind of playing dudes in a very funny way, she’s a great character. Riff is a crusty old man and he sucks ass and guess what his weapon skill sucks shit and he’s the worst healer in the game, they’re interlinking systems and character immediately, it’s a well-designed game!
I found so much here and so much that was familiar that I didn’t even REALLY mind that I had to count out every unit’s individual movements because those aren’t mapped for you here, or that the AI, impressive as it is for the platform, can be gamed somewhat easily, or that without even a weapon triangle the actual strategy is somewhat more shallow, if a little more exactly weighted towards stats.
It’s simply a good time. It’s a little slow, a little meandering, and a little long. IDK that this is a game I would go around RECOMMENDING to people sight unseen, but I wouldn’t recommend fuckin, Path of Radiance or Three Houses to anybody off the street either. It’s a worthwhile bit of history if you’re already inclined.