History VideoGame / FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight

Four years after its release, the game received an abridged [[VideoGameRemake remake]] on the UsefulNotes/SuperFamicom as "Book 1" of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'', the third entry in the series, along with a direct sequel in the form of "Book 2" of the very same game. Tropes specific to that version of the game can be found on the ''Mystery of the Emblem'' page.

''Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light'' is the first entry in the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series, released exclusively in Japan on the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem Famicom]] in 1990.

In 2008, a remake for the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS was released called ''Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon''. It is the eleventh game in the series, and unlike ''Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light'' was given an international launch. The remake makes a number of changes and additions to the gameplay of the original to make it more in line with its immediate predecessors, expands the story with new chapters and characters, and introduces the ability to reclass units.

An UpdatedRerelease of the original game was released for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch for a limited-time on December 4th, 2020, as part of the 30th anniversary of the ''Fire Emblem'' franchise. In addition to several new quality-of-life features, the port features a complete localization, making it the first time the game has ever officially been released in English.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: The American and European versions of the English localization have different spellings for many characters and locations. For example, the continent that the game takes place on is called Akaneia in the European version while the American version refers to it as Archanea.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Shadow Dragon added a few mechanics to help the player:

** Since the Nintendo DS' online servers went permanently offline, the Brave weapons became this as the developers made them exclusively available to the online shop, with no way to obtain them ingame. This especially sucks as on Hard 5 difficulty enemies will start using Brave weapons as their ''standard'' weapon in the late game, putting you at a major disadvantage. Fortunately there are romhacks that make the Brave weapons purchasable at the ingame shops.

* RocketTagGameplay: How Hard 5 difficulty plays for the most part; enemies do get more durable as all their stats are buffed, but its their offense that really spikes up, with every single enemy having A Weapon Ranks and being equipped with much better weapons, including every enemy using Silver or forged weapons once you reach just Chapter 10 and then eventually using ''Brave'' weapons once you reach Chapter 20. As a result it'll be rare for any of your units but a trained Sedgar and Wolf to be able to survive more than two rounds of combat with these terrifying enemies. However most enemies in the game are vulnerable to some form of effective weaponry, which when combined with their durability not improving that much, means you often can 2HKO them too, or even flatout OHKO them if you forged those weapons they're weak to.

* SkippableBoss:
** Gharnef in Chapter 23 is not on the Seize tile, with a generic Bishop being there instead, so the player does not need to fight Gharnef at all to clear the chapter and progress, and he is just flatout impossible to harm anyway if you didn't get the Starlight tome. However if you don't defeat him you won't get the Falchion, but as covered in PowerupLetdown this really isn't a big deal.
** Unlike in the original Camus in Chapter 20 is not on the Seize tile, with Lorenz being there instead, so Camus can be completely ignored. But if the player wants the Gradivus, by far the best Lance and physical 1-2 range weapon in the game, they will have to defeat him.

* RecurringElement: This is the game that started it all, therefore, most of the archetypes started here, including the Peaceful Lord (Marth), Heroine (Caeda), the dead parental figure (Cornelius), the CrutchCharacter (Jagen), [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience Red-Green Cavalier Duo]] (Cain & Abel), the junior Archer (Gordin), the Armor Knight (Draug), the scarred Mercenary (Ogma), the Axe Fighters (Bord & Cord), the Thief (Julian), the demure Cleric (Lena), the rogue swordsman (Navarre), the Pegasus Trio (Palla, Catria & Est), the Wyvern Duo (Minerva & Michalis, the latter's not playable, but [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness that's how it is in the earlier days]]), the Secret Noble (Jeorge, his status about the super Archer is established [[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem next game]]), studious male Mage (Merric), talented female Mage with dead parents (Linde), the magic mentor (Wendell), the MagikarpPower unit (Est), MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers (Arran & Samson), late-game General (Lorenz, [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness though he wasn't as hard to recruit compared to his successors]]), the EleventhHourRanger (Gotoh), the loyal enemy general (Camus), the ambitious opportunist (Michalis), the backstabbing politician (Jiol), the EvilSorcerer (Gharnef) and the non-human GreaterScopeVillain behind it all (Medeus).

* TheSwarm: The appropriately-named Swarm tome, which summons numerous flying insects to attack its target.

** Xane tells Tiki [[spoiler:that he is a dragon like her, but is unable to transform into one.]]

* SomeoneHasToDie: The final prequel chapter requires that the player select a unit to act as a decoy for a pursuing army. Interestingly, the game actually accounts for a few variations: it won't let the player send Marth (he needs to be alive for ''Mystery of the Emblem''), and the locked door preventing escape will open if you kill Gordin as an enemy or if [[KillEmAll Marth is the only unit to survive that long]]. In ''New Mystery'', you find out [[spoiler:Frey was the canon decoy, but he survived with amnesia]].

Four years after its release, the game received an abridged [[VideoGameRemake remake]] one the UsefulNotes/SuperFamicom as "Book 1" of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'', the third entry in the series, along with a direct sequel in the form of "Book 2" of the very same game. Tropes specific to that version of the game can be found on the ''Mystery of the Emblem'' page.

* HeroicLineage: Marth and the other Altean royal family members claim lineage from Anri, the hero that defeated Medeus.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: As the first game in the series, it's missing a lot of mainstay elements and has its own oddities.
** There's no [[TacticalRockPaperScissors Weapon Triangle]] (swords beat axes, axes beat lances, lances beat swords).
** Healing classes don't get EXP for healing, instead gaining EXP from dodging or taking hits.
** There are only 4 items slots per unit instead of 5, and units cannot give items to ally units with full inventories. On top of this, units' turns end immediately after they finish trading or equip a weapon.
** Promotion/class changing works very differently in this incarnation.
*** In general, class changing is treated as a rather more secretive and uncommon affair than in future games. The needed items are much rarer, and show up much later: you get your first Hero Crest in Chapter 10, your first Knight Crest and Orion's Bolt in Chapter 12, and your first Bishop Ring and Skydrake Whip in Chapter ''19''. In addition, the list of classes who can promote is much shorter; Pegasus Knights, Cavaliers, Archers, Mages, Priests, and Mercenaries are the only ones capable of doing so. Curiously, there do exist classes that seem like the promotions of Hunter and Knight (Horseman and General), but they would not be made possible promotions until ''Mystery of the Emblem''.
*** By extension, this makes Marth one of the only Lords in the series who cannot promote ''at all'', along with the ''Gaiden'' version of Celica (well, barring [[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Sigurd]], who is prepromoted). Later Lords would either promote normally or through a story event.
*** Instead of causing a character to gain stat bonuses, promotion raises their stats to be equal to the class bases of their new class. This means that attempting to delay a character's promotion to gain more levels can cause them to gain no stats at all after promoting, making early promotion highly preferable.
*** Likely as a result of the above, promoted classes have significantly higher base stats relative to their unpromoted counterparts, compared to other games in the series. For instance, Paladin goes from 8 base Strength and 11 base Speed here to 7 base Strength and Speed in ''Mystery of the Emblem'', and Bishop goes from ''14'' base Speed to 4.
*** Pegasus Knights become Dracoknights when they promote. This also means that Macedon is one of the only nations in the series that has their military made up of both flying mounts, making it split in two between Minerva's Whitewings (who sided with Marth) and Michalis' Dragoons (the side that stays with Dolhr after his sisters' defection). Later games made the two of them distinct {{Character Class}}es with their own strengths, weaknesses, class family, and factions.
** The Mercenary and Myrmidon class lines were originally a single class line, using the names of the Mercenary-family classes but functioning like a blend of the two. (The two weren't properly split until the sixth game.)
** Knights and Pegasus Knights were able to wield both Swords and Lances, as opposed to being restricted to one weapon type. Generals are a pure sword class, when every game from ''Gaiden'' onward made them either a multiweapon class or a primarily lance-using class.
** Archers were a bit off: most artwork and sprites depicting them with fairly heavy armor, along with the Archer's lower Movement and oddly high Defense, suggest that it was meant to be the MightyGlacier of the various bow classes. Most Archers since then fit the FragileSpeedster mold, with little if any body armor, equal Movement to other foot classes, and low Defense--a general design originally associated with the Hunter class, which hasn't been playable since in any game not taking place in Archanea.
** Some stats have noticeably different functions. HP, Strength, Defense, and Movement work just as how they always do, but most others are off in some way. In rough order of how much they've changed:
*** Skill adds just itself to your hit rate with physical attacks, when every game since ''Mystery of the Emblem'' has instead multiplied it in some way (usually x2, sometimes x1.5). Also, it doesn't boost your hit rate with magic at all. This means that a weapon's base accuracy tends to be more important than the user's skill, though many enemies have bad Avoid. It does increase crit rate at the usual value, though.
*** Like Skill, Speed only increases your dodge rate by 1 per point, when it's been x2 or x1.5 in pretty much every game post-''Genealogy of the Holy War''. Much more notable, however, is that doubling thresholds are much lower; in most games, you need to outspeed the enemy by a certain number (usually 4, but 3 and 5 aren't unheard of), but here, you only need to outspeed the enemy ''at all''. There is also no way to reduce a weapon's weight, as Strength does not serve that purpose and Constitution does not exist, making it effectively a variable Speed penalty. Because of this, an individual unit's Speed tends to matter far less for doubling than the weapon they're carrying, and many enemies can have 0 Speed.
*** Resistance does its usual thing of blocking magic damage, but nearly every single character has a flat 0 in it, making every magic attack effectively a FixedDamageAttack. The main way to increase it is to use Barrier or Pure Water (which raises it to 7 but decreases it over time). Notably, what the Talisman statbooster actually does behind the scenes is give your unit the same effect as those two but with the decreasing removed. Not only does this make Resistance the only stat to cap at 7, but it also means a character can only have 0 Resistance or 7 Resistance.
*** Luck does not increase hit rate (introduced in ''Thracia 776'') or physical avoid rate (introduced in ''Mystery of the Emblem'') or reduce an enemy's crit rate (''Mystery'' again). Instead, it increases crit rate to the same degree as Skill, and improves a character's Avoid when dealing with magic attacks. Incidentally, this means that there is no way to reduce critical rates; thankfully, most enemies have 0 Luck and abysmal Skill, but keeping your units safe from crits is still a concern.
*** Lastly, there's a stat called Weapon Level, which serves as the game's equivalent to Weapon Rank (a system introduced in ''Genealogy'' and largely standardized in ''Thracia''). Instead of increasing with use, it levels up by chance like any other stat. For instance, any character who can use swords and has a Weapon Level of 9 or better can use a Silver Sword. This applies to all weapons a character can use, as well; characters are always equally skilled with every type of weapon they can wield, making multiweapon classes like Paladins, Dracoknights, and Bishops incredibly strong. Capping it off, it's generally much easier to wield high-rank weapons, with many unpromoted characters being able to use them at base or after one or two lucky levels on a 60-70% growth.
** While most games following the introduction of weapon triangle made the physical weapon types roughly balanced to each other on paper (i.e. every type comes in iron, steel, silver, and legendary varieties, plus a few gimmicks each like effective weapons or magic weapons, and have advantages and disadvantages, usually with swords being the most accurate and axes being the strongest), this game makes no attempt at all to balance them. There are eight available swords plus three locked to Marth, compared to five types each of lances and axes, and swords weigh far less than the other weapon types in a game where weight can't be counterbalanced. Also, the standard axe and hand axe weigh more ''and'' deal less damage than the standard lance and javelin, silver axes do not exist (and neither do steel lances), the only equivalent to a legendary axe is the Devil Axe, and there's only four axe-users in the game, none of whom can promote--you can't even buy new axes after Chapter 9. Similarly, the silver lance is straight-up inferior to the silver sword.
** The game's equivalent to the iron axe and iron lance are simply named "Axe" and "Lance." Swords are the only weapon to get their materials named.
** The various magic types are not segregated at all. While it's not uncommon for the Anima tomes to be lumped into one category, Aura, Starlight, Imhullu, and Swarm are in the same category, when in later games, they'd be classified as Light or Dark. Additionally, Cleric/Priest and Mage both promote into Bishop; the idea of them having separate promotion paths was introduced in ''Genealogy''.
** Item durabilities are much less symmetrical than the now standard "multiples of five" setup, and weapons weren't divided as cleanly into sets of equivalent power tiers as in later games.
** Enemy units have a stat that displays how much EXP they are worth. In addition, any recruited enemy starts with the experience they had. EXP earned from battles that don't result in enemy kills is determined by how much damage dealt by player units, {{cap}}ping at 20. By extension, this means that EXP gain does not scale to level in any way; a level 10 Paladin gains the same amount of XP from killing an enemy that a level 1 Cavalier does, meaning that prepromotes can actually gain levels fairly quickly.
** There are no class- or character-specific stat {{cap}}s, so all characters can max out at 52 HP and 20 for every other stat, even for promoted classes.
** [[RareCandy Stat-boosting items]] give a boost of 4-7 points to their respective stat. Later games {{nerf}}ed them considerably between higher stat {{cap}}s and lowering the potency of the boosters.
** If you decide to send a unit into an arena, they will enter with whatever weapon they have equipped at the time, and will degrade its uses with each round of combat, which can potentially leave your unit defenseless if you're not careful. Add the fact that there's no way to yield a fight in the arena[[labelnote:Note]]This feature wouldn't be added until ''Mystery of the Emblem''[[/labelnote]], and this makes using the arena a very risky venture. Conversely, the arena also gives a ''ridiculously'' high payout, up to ten times what you bet, when in later games, that number is only double.
** In most games, enemy stats are calculated by taking the class's bases and leveling them through a set of "class growths." This is not the case here; instead, every odd-numbered level after the first, the enemy gains +3 to HP and +1 to Strength, Skill, Speed, Defense, and Weapon Level. Also, enemy levels on the whole are much lower, with few-if-any generic enemies being above level 10. Bosses can be higher-level, but use the same stat calculations.
** By extension, characters recruited from the enemy do not have personalized statlines; they use the same calculations for their stats as regular enemy units. This means that the lower-leveled characters have ''base'' stats for their classes, including Minerva, Matthis, Astram, and Wendell. Also, instead of having a preset LuckStat, their Luck is randomized. This resulted in many characters getting their stats tweaked for ''Mystery of the Emblem''; most notably, Minerva's Speed was doubled, turning her into a LightningBruiser, while Wendell's Speed and Defense took some hits.

* VendorTrash: There are items called 'Bullion' which exist only to be sold for gold.