Shadow Dragon: The Dumbest Fire Emblem Game (And Why I Love It)

[@matthis6188]

Banger video

[@matthis6188]

Though bishop matthis is the best play in the game, only way to actually have res

[@SodaCrab]

No way it's the real Matthis

[@frostbitex23]

Truly a Matthis moment.

[@guydude439]

Matthis fans when Matther fans walk in (or Lena dies idk where I'm going with this joke)

[@lsrrr3857]

In chinese FE community some nicknamed fe11 as Pancake Emblem because every single character protrait looks like hair and eyes on pancakes

[@YOOT_JJ]

Chinese internet humor can be funny as fuck, too bad they’re mostly behind the great firewall

[@EmissaryOfSmeagol]

The Marth remakes have my favorite portraits lol

[@nessdbest8708]

Source?

[@krenkrombo9616]

@@nessdbest8708 China

[@lsrrr3857]

@@nessdbest8708 enter the chinese name for fe11 and “大饼脸” and you will get some results

[@felikatze]

Though I am deeply in love with the FE anime bullshit, I gotta appreciate SD for being the first game where I simply could not be assed to reset for anybody. When I tried to recruit Wendell, he murdered Cain first and then talked to Merric that he hates fighting, and it was the funniest thing ever. SD Marth's TBH Autism Creature Swag has captivated my heart.

[@SodaCrab]

I love all of the side effects of this game not having green units. Characters that have absolutely no business attacking you or being attacked by you are just inexplicably enemies, it's great.

[@aetherius6221]

​@SodaCrab truly Shadow Dragon is a anti-war masterpiece exceeding even All Quiet on The Western Front in its depiction of war being hell.

[@lagspike7763]

I love how you know and understand all the problems I have with FE11 and also agree that they suck but then but recontextualizing it as funny instead of shitty it makes it a fun experience. One man’s trash really is another man’s treasure.

[@lagspike7763]

Honestly a significant portion of the reason I’m still not a fan of 11 is that community hack creator TildeHat semi-recently made a Fates hack that’s a full remake of SD within the fates engine and he manages to make every unit uniquely valuable while still sticking to the massive unit count so I always end up feeling scammed going back to actual fe11.

[@SodaCrab]

Wait WHAT????? Oh my god how am I just now finding out about this??? Fates ROM hacks are a thing???? Fates is hands down my favorite Fire Emblem gameplay engine, if people can make ROM hacks now, my life is complete!

[@lagspike7763]

@@SodaCrab There's custom skills and stuff it's hype000

[@boredomkiller99]

Holy I actually need to go get it because it sounds like a dream

[@JB-bc2ry]

1:00 This may be a small note but it was actually Radiant Dawn that nearly killed FE; Shadow Dragon was actually a modest financial success for what it was, but RD's budget (given the complexity, CG cutscenes, etc) and failure to live up to sales (esp for a Wii game) forced the team to scale back a lot (which is partly why we got SD in the first place). The mixed reception didn't help, but SD itself definitely wasn't what drove the series to the brink of potential collapse

[@Ken-ru6or]

That's tragic imo because RD and PoR are banger games

[@artofthepossible7329]

The gaming industry would look a lot different if only bangers had commercial success (then again, 2007 was one heck of a year for gaming and people only have so much money).

[@rdrrr]

@@Ken-ru6or I'm old and crabby but I'm not a huge fan of the narrative or gameplay direction newer FEs are taking. The amount of anime bullshit has exponentially grown and the emphasis on super-optimizing your units ain't my cup of tea either. Feels like strategy has taken a backseat to the RPG mechanics.

[@LiroRaeriyo]

i find it funny that radiant dawn was my first fire emblem game, i just happened to see it on a store shelf for 20 bucks and used my birthday money cause it looked interesting.

[@rdrrr]

@@LiroRaeriyo That has to be one of the worst Fire Emblem games to start with; it's pretty hard and it's the second part of a two-part story. Glad you liked it anyway, though! RD is an amazing game. Needs more love. If I was gonna recommend an older game to a newbie it'd probably be Sacred Stones. That game used to be unfairly criticized but nowadays it's appreciated for the banger it is

[@topazlight1586]

The reclassing system in Shadow Dragon synchronizes extremely well with the sheer number of obvious replacement filler units you recruit to make it (and New Mystery, which has the same characteristics) hands-down one of THE best games in the series for picking random nobody scrubs to invest in and force to be usable if it kills you. Really fun game

[@joeyjose727]

There’s definitely something charming about units with little enough characterization that you’re willing to let them die lol, that definitely feels unique

[@lefthandedscout9923]

10:11 just by looking at Matthis I can tell by his eyes that he's the kind of person who lets people walk all over him, and that's why he ends up taking orders from generals that wish to get him killed instead of following his heart and trying to help his sister in both games, until Lena or Julian directly goes up to him and asks what the hell he's doing. There are definitely examples of characters that have no direction their art is trying to take them, but A: Matthis isn't one of them, and B: I think that's less down to the art being subpar and more down to the characters not having any detail put into them: Darros doesn't have a straight face that doesn't tell you anything due to a failure by the artist, he has that because there isn't anything to say about him!

[@rdrrr]

Darros is unequivocally terrible, as well. If you can handle the moral implications, you're better off ganking him for EXP. Poor Darros. His existence is a cosmic joke.

[@borby4584]

Three things about the replacement units you forgot: Frey is unironically even better than Cain growth wise, but you can’t keep him unless you sacrifice another unit (COUGH COUGH GORDIN, YOU CAN EVEN KILL HIM FOR EXTRA EXP) you actually can keep Nagi and your normal Win Conditions if you do a hilarious thing where you give Tiki the Falchion, kill her off, and then revive her with the Aum staff. Now you have two divine dragons and two falchions! And if you keep killing off named units, the game gives you no name generics with names like “Awffle” and “Lucer” which are so godawful that their best role is to pad out the kill count for other replacement units Also there is a romhack where you can play the Prologue on Hard (and use the Replacements.) I know it’s not the intended route, but it’s certainly worth trying if you want to use any of them (Frey.)

[@SodaCrab]

I actually found out about the full content patch after I finished the playthrough for this video, I definitely want to check it out next time I play! Frey is a very funny character and I want to try him out on hard. Not only are his growths better than Cain, but he also starts with D lances so you don't even have to grind to use javelins, and he's closer to the ridersbane. Frey literally died so Cain could be relevant lmao. I actually got replacement units on Chapter 4 of the playthrough I did in my video (chapter 3 was ugly lmao). I've never done badly enough to get to the ones that start making fun of you, but I do think that's just another hilarious thing Shadow Dragon does to weirdly encourage sacrificing your units. I almost did the Nagi strats on this playthrough too, but I was pushing to finish this playthrough late on a monday night and I really wanted to be done, so I just warp skipped the Aum chapter and then sacrificed Tiki to warp skip endgame too. Shadow Dragon is a very funny game.

[@oof5992]

Generics can actually become really busted if you kill your whole squad, since then they will only scale from Marths level, which means you could just be getting prepromoted generics as early as chapter 4 haha. Excelblem did it in his H5 ironman as a example.

[@borby4584]

@@oof5992 true, and the game’s growths have a pity system, meaning that EVENTUALLY, even Archenea’s finest will get a good level up

[@nicoohayon-wilkinson297]

​@@borby4584"Archanea's finest". I understood that reference.

[@DaCrump]

11 was my first FE game, bought it from a local game shop for like 20-30 bucks. First playthrough was on Normal, sent Jagen to die in the prologue because it felt the most fitting (shout outs to that unusable silver lance sitting in Abel's inventory for multiple chapters) and grinded way too hard to the point of steamrolling everything. Very amusing. After playing a couple other FE games and watching more FE videos including DonDon's 0% growths H5 playthrough I played H3 and enjoyed that nonsense. My favorite shenanigans had to be a couple chapters of Swordmaster Lena cutting through everything with a slightly forged Levin Sword before going back to Sage.

[@SodaCrab]

I make an annual pilgrimage to DonDon's channel to watch his 0% growths runs, they're so good. His Shadow Dragon run is actually what made me want to revisit the game back when I didn't like it after my first playthrough. Peak content.

[@DaCrump]

@@SodaCrab I rewatch it from time to time myself. Absolutely masterful gameplay and demonstration of mechanics, not to mention the commentary throughout is top notch. Gotta love Wolf and Sedgar's emo teen angst plotline.

[@2ndEntity]

I dropped off of Shadow Dragon super quick because of the complete lack of visual flair, the indistinct roster, and flatline characterisation. Seeing that it’s actually a chaotic mess is pretty compelling, but it’s still sitting pretty deep in the backlog. Maybe one day

[@SodaCrab]

It's a super fun game if you like the obnoxious metagaming side of Fire Emblem like I do, but it's pretty meh as an RPG, which is probably why it didn't resonate with casual audiences and sold poorly

[@Era2Sunrise]

Ah man that was such a nice throwback. When I was younger I enjoyed this game for similar reasons, too. The "have 15 or less units" conditions was the reason why I replayed it like 4 years ago. Never knew about it hahah

[@emblemblade9245]

The funniest thing about Shadow Dragon to me is how inauthentic of an FE1 experience it actually is. They basically ported FE1 characters and maps and then added several factors without doing any tweaking to balance the consequences. These include: Adding the weapon triangle in a game where most enemies use lances, dropping Marth’s usefulness off a cliff compared to FE1 where he just didn’t care what he fought. Adding forging in a game where most enemies ride horses or have armor and you can forge weapons effective against those enemies, skewering the relative usefulness of characters who cannot access or quickly access these weapons (poor Cain is an example). In addition, this made warp skipping even more ridiculous due to the number of bosses you were encouraged to just kill in one turn with forged weapons. Adding reclassing, throwing any unit balance that was left out the window. Not to mention the hilarity of Wolf and Sedgar’s situation. Given poor bases but high growths in a promoted class, then given the ability to skyrocket those bases and keep the high growths by reclassing. Ridiculous hard mode enemy stat and weapon inflation that just makes growth units even more useless with the exception of Wolf and Sedgar of course. And the gaiden chapters, which require you to kill a comical number of units to access all for the sake of getting one replacement unit and a bit of easy enemy EXP. This game is absurd and there’s nothing like it in the experience of FE.

[@boredomkiller99]

Or getting a 4th warp staff because 17x has additional staff because 3 7 use warps and a high ese Repair staff is not enough. But to add on not only did they add stuff without regard to unit balance but they basically destroyed characters for no reason Navarre lost his identity of being the merc with lower bases but higher growths and base sliver sword access versus Oguna higher bases but lower growths to being a generic low strength sword master class line in a game where axes mostly disappear, it would be a shame if the weapon triangle existed.... Also they actually nerfed Gordon's strength growth.....because why not

[@SmugLilBugger]

Darros is a realistic portrayal of rural gangs killing snitches.

[@TheRoyalEmpoleon]

I was frothing at the mouth during your FE1 critique at the start, but your commentary and editing is great. Awesome video.

[@ArtUndertheArch]

FE1 is absolute masterpiece with no flaws and the remake completely besmirched the original vision 🙂

[@a_somebody9519]

As the typical player who obsessively keeps my anime blorbos alive in these games, gotta say there was something hilariously liberating about a mechanic that encouraged you to cull your army. Especially since as noted, the replacements you get in the death gaidens kinda suck. I think I killed most of them off the chapter or two after they joined. I remember thinking "aw man, I actually got a few good characters, who do I choose to get below the army cap for gaiden?" a few times before truly embracing Zen Buddhism, letting go of attachments and just yoloing units until the needed (or more) died.

[@moonbeam589]

YES!! Soda Crab FE content was not what I expected but I'm so happy to see it, FE is my favorite franchise. I doubt it would be good for your numbers, but I'd hear your thoughts on other FE games, good or bad.

[@ryouhonoo5]

Soda Crab has other videos on FE as well, the video about the player avatar is good.

[@OmegaTyrant]

Is there a bigger dopamine rush then plopping General Sedgar on a fort, watching him effortlessly slaughter hordes of Hard 5 enemies that two shot the rest of your army, and watching him level up every relevant stat every time? Also with the gaiden chapters, they were meant to be a "failsafe" of sorts to help really bad players that got most of their army killed, supplying them with extra exp, loot, and a unit that isn't terrible. You can see this in how the enemies in them are much weaker than the enemies in the normal chapters at their point in the game; e.g. if you're at a point where enemies use Silver weapons, in the gaiden map the enemies will use Steel weapons. But the vast majority of players will just reset when their units die, so people never saw them naturally and mischaracterized them as "forcing you to kill your units".

[@JackitK]

The models for this game remind me of those PNGs they used in Birdemic. For that alone, I could see someone finding that charming. And it gives me the strong temptation to put these models in a low-budget B movie and see how well my theory holds up.

[@gg_sam7847]

To be honest I do enjoy a lot of the visual aspect of Shadow Dragon despite it being everyone's least favourite thing. It feels bleak, realistic and consistent from the overworld perspective (it is just another fantasy Europe setting after all), as well and the animations/models coming across as something you could expect to see in a real world equivalent. Mix that with the massive amount of units you get and the omnipresent permadeath in it's finest form yet and you can project yourself into a ground, gritty magical war I think it'd be neat to one day get some of those "free DLCs" and play with the Content Patch and with Full Deployment on Hard 4 or 5 and just go balls to the wall free for all and see who happens to take a stray Silver Lance to the dome

[@lambtoken2708]

I like the art style, but everyone having basically the same facial expression (none) sucks.

[@SodaCrab]

I wish this game had auto battle, the roster would be perfect for it. I'd love to just load up everyone with gear and watch them make stupid decisions and die for it

[@rdrrr]

I don't dislike the 2.5D art direction and the combat animations are nice and fluid but god the game needed more _color_ - it's a victim of the "grey and brown equals realism" era of video game art design. Even the wild anime hair colors are muted! FE12 is a slight improvement but it's still too desaturated.

[@gg_sam7847]

@@rdrrr Understandable

[@rdrrr]

@@gg_sam7847 Well Shadow Dragon ain't the only uggo Fire Emblem game. The Tellius games are nothing to look at either and they're fantastic. I actually think Shadow Dragon's low-res 2.5D models both look better and move more fluidly than Tellius's blocky, stiff full 3D models. Combat in Tellius looks like a puppet show, like there's a dude just offscreen pulling Ike's strings or whatever.

[@RobotGuy405]

Cord is my dude

[@SodaCrab]

Typical Bord Brainlet vs. Average Cord Enjoyer

[@ryouhonoo5]

Really great video, pretty much agree about Shadow Dragon. Far from the best game in the series, but the fact that it has so many flaws and yet remains so much fun just shows how solid the fundamental mechanics and design are in the Fire Emblem series. One thing I will say about FE1 NES is that at the time that it released, it was revolutionary and basically established the subgenre on consoles. They were pioneering so much with the initial game, that's part of why the visual or storytelling elements suffer so much. Plus the platform was just incredibly limited in terms of cartridge space and processing power necessary for RPGs.

[@juicyjuustar121]

At the time FE1 was revolutionary and pioneered an entire genre. Nowadays it's borderline unplayable and one of the worst game experiences I've ever had (even if it had some fun moments here and there) And ironically I actually kinda like Gaiden.

[@ryouhonoo5]

@@juicyjuustar121 I still find FE1 to be quite playable personally, I think if you are used to 8 bit RPGs it isn’t so bad. But playing it these days isn’t necessary, the condensed version in FE3 or Shadow Dragon are much more convenient ways to experience Marth’s origins

[@juicyjuustar121]

@@ryouhonoo5 unplayable is a strong word admittedly, but idk after playing it I basically thought "why did I play this". The story was not just simple but practically nonexistent, weapon stats weren't even visible within the game so I had to use a wiki, and I had to play on like 4x speed to not lose my mind. There were a couple interesting ideas that I haven't seen later in the series, but ideas aren't enough to make a game enjoyable and ultimately the NES is just way too jank for SRPGs to be fun in the modern era I feel.

[@ryouhonoo5]

@@juicyjuustar121 that’s fair, it’s definitely not a smooth experience in this day and age. I wouldn’t recommend it to someone new to the series, that’s for sure.

[@juicyjuustar121]

@@ryouhonoo5 yeah, the only reason I played it is because I'm a big fan of the series and decided I might as well go through every game in the series so my opinions on the series overall would be a bit more informed. Recommending anything before the GBA games to someone who has never played Fire Emblem before is practically self-sabotage, even if some of them are awesome games it's not really gonna catch a new player's attention more than likely

[@AshZucchini8168]

I actually really like the backgrounds and maps in FE11, and I think they’re quite faithful to the overall aesthetic of FE3. The portraits and combat animations are rough though

[@projectmessiah]

I love this game, probably the best simple gameplay loop in the series so its my most replayed

[@oof5992]

Ngl I would also Argue that Athena is pretty good, Stat wise she's a palla that joins 8 chapters earlier, her main issue is not being able to promote until chapter 10/12 despite being at a high level. Edit: Athena has +3 HP, +3 Str and +1 luck vs -4 speed Vs palla, though she has 25% more speed growth wise, while palla has 30% more str growth.

[@AstraCrits]

In regards to the FE1 critique: It's definitely crusty and dated as all hell, but I...kinda enjoyed it regardless? It's got a lot of weird, goofy mechanics and balance decisions that never appeared in the series again. Stuff like being able to readily buy rapiers and 1-2 range swords makes it feel like you're playing Fire Emblem whilst having an acid trip.

[@SolarFlareAmerica]

"Want to spend hundreds of turns grinding gordon to level 20 by shooting at the first boss and letting him regenerate?" Oh god. I had forgotten this game even existed and I remember doing exactly that. Thanks for covering the game so well. I remember being frustrated because I couldn't recruit every single named character in rhe entire game, and I would play by only grinding up my tankiest units from the start and teleporting them to choke points to just soak up damage all game. They maxxed out pretty early on but I never lost any units all game, so now I know why I never got the other characters, nevermind 5 I never knew existed and 2 I barely used ever. Got the game when I was in my early teens and already my ADHD was showing because I was a massive completionist, though I'm sure I missed stuff. Also, this game gave me a fascination with the name "Minerva" (hadn't heard it before) to the point that she pops into my head whenever I see the name anywhere else. I think this is yet another early sign of my fatal attraction to mean redheads lmaoooo

[@Tarofel]

17:18 chrom is fuckign gonezo!!!

[@xx_pit_xx8492]

This video was really fun. Some of the jokes were really funny. Also I didn't expect you to do a Fe video so this was a really welcome suprise. In my opinion shadow dragon is a cool game but a bit clunky to play but as you said that only makes the game with stuff like Darros even funnier. I only played trough it the normal way but things like the KZbin run where all the characters were being sacrificed will never stop from being iconic to me

[@joaomarcoscosta4647]

This game was actually my introduction to Fire Emblem. As a remake of the first game in the series, it seemed like a good place to start. It left a... Mixed impression. The artstyle looked weird, (although it kinda grew on me) and I didn't care for the story, but I liked the gameplay. Well, except for the new secret characters joining conditions. Seriously, what kind of ritual sacrificing madman thought of that?... When I play an FE game, I like trying to keep my own units alive, not actively trying to kill them off to meet an arbitrary quota. Btw, I was actually surprised when I went on to play Path of Radiance and found out that, even with the possibility of permadeath, characters other than the main protagonist could stick around and remain relevant to the story. I had kind of assumed that every FE story afterwards would be kinda like FE1 becouse permadeath was a thing. I was also impressed thinking of how many variations they must have written for each scene depending on which chracters where alive at the time or not. Took me a while to find out that plot relevant characters could suffer injuries and retire from the battlefiled without actualy DYING.

[@SodaCrab]

That's one thing I love about Path of Radiance, the alternate dialogue for when some of the Greil Mercenaries die is really interesting and is great gameplay-story integration.

[@baileystoner4244]

Shadow dragon has some of my favorite characters. No not Marth or anything, but rather armor knight cord who carried my whole game. And who can forget xane! Who can turn into armor knight cord and carry my whole game

[@OniramKenobi]

How could you fail to mention Sedgar and Wolf lol

[@SodaCrab]

Unfortunate, I knew I was forgetting something :/

[@Ilvocare]

ah yes the clay homunculus fire emblem, rare to see a positive take on it. It's definitely not for me tbh.

[@jaspercochran1535]

I played the NES original on Switch and was surprised to find it became one of my favorites as it's main elements were boiled down into my favorite aspects of the series and so to hear there's a remake with quality of life improvements and is likely much better makes me excited to try it out! Also, great video! You found a nice balance of analysis and comedy that is so hard to nail on KZbin review videos.

[@natelaitinen]

Matthis is unironically one of my favorite characters in all FE and I drag him along on all my playthroughs

[@SodaCrab]

My favorite part of every Shadow Dragon playthrough is deciding which terrible early game replacement cav I'm going to drag to endgame

[@anselmjacobsmith639]

I’ll be honest- I have never understood why people found this game ugly. I feel like the artstyle perfectly matches the bleak story of the game. SD may be a hero’s journey, but it’s very much a dark medieval tragedy too and I think the portraits and the unit style matches that. It feels authentic both to the bleakness of medieval warfare and the European culture they’re drawing from and I very much respect that.

[@patricspooner3941]

Is there any explanation for how the art style ended up being what it was? It doesn’t really make sense that it veers off into a dumpster fire then goes right back to normal in the following game.

[@Admiral.Snakbar]

my first playthrough of shadow dragon, my first ever fire emblem playthrough, I had barst at the very end, in his final form, soften up the big bad, so marth could warp in and kick it's teeth in.

[@neferatih]

Shadow Dragon was my first FE game and it will always hold a special place in my heart despite the issues, so seeing this video gave me a slap of nostalgia! The reclassing was always some of my favorite things to do in the game, always changing and swapping things up just for the fun of it. Even ended up having some favorite characters because of Shadow Dragon like Abel, Merric and Wolf just because of they were MVPs for me. Fun fact, in the PAL release of Shadow Dragon, Caeda and Navarre were change to Shiida and Nabarl for seemingly no reason.

[@SodaCrab]

That last bit is actually really interesting, I didn't know that! As far as I'm aware, Shiida and Nabarl are just the exact transliterations of their Japanese names, so I guess it makes some sense, but it's weird they chose to do that specifically for those two characters.

[@Majo_Ellen]

@6:26 Corrin Jumpscare. I saw that flash and was like "WHAT WAS THAT?!" LOL. Beautiful editing as always, Soda Crab. I'm so joyous you're back on that Fire Emblem grind. (=w=) On of my favorite reclasses was making WOLF into a AXE FIEND .... try it out. He's the biggest and baddest and brokenest in this class. Trust me!!!

[@muchachoaventurero3590]

I remember playing this game for the first time, hating the artstyle and blaming god for its uglyness. Then, in one of the prologue chapters, the game just force me to sacrifice someone. I had no other choice: someone WILL die for the kingdom. I was not prepared at all. I fucking adore this game.

[@charsage1036]

As someone who has played fe1 well first fe11 is obviously better but second I had fun even with it's age is showing massively it's in my opinion is worth playing at least once even if it just to get better understanding of the series. Also Mathis isn't best example of telling you nothing as it gives off a feeling of cowardice or/and depression also pain which for the hole cowardice thing he is cowardly and with his hate of war when stuck in a war cowardice it not to crazy to think he might be dealing depression and of course being Mathis and using Mathis is pain so that checks up.

[@lolmetaknight]

FEDS is one of my favorite fe games, also i'm glad you mentioned the fact there are no plot armor which means there's no such things as units going "oh no i'm hurt i must go" unlike in many other fe games.

[@NeviTheLettyFan]

Pretty good video, I love SD and its always difficult to put into words why exactly I love it

[@KBash]

this was really good

[@nicholast6893]

I'll be the guy. I actually kinda dig the FE1 palette. It goes well with the goofy ah and often re-used portraits. Starting a playthrough is like watching paint dry and the game is hella clunky, but at some point you _almost_ disregard the flaws and really get into it. At least I did. Also I willingly use Matthis cuz funne and brother joins with hella weapon level in the OG NES game

[@lepepperoni3369]

I actually just started playing this game, I can say it’s very different than the other Fire emblem games I’ve played so far Also R.I.P. Darros lol

[@helmaroc259]

Really good video, I’ve always loved this game. Grew up with it💯

[@xangerfistx7452]

i always loved the lance crit animation of generals in shadow dragon,theyre design is prob my favorite too in the entire series. Minervas design is just top notch too, fav unit in the series by a large stretch

[@fluffystagbeetle4526]

Unironically one of my favorite games ever I genuinely love everything about it

[@Amalvipls]

you know, this video convinced me when i first tried this game after having played many other FE titles I was confused as fuck because I was just used to having most units being usable/trainable and, most importantly, about caring for your units. When FE11 kept throwing absolute shitters at me that kept dying I was very confused and frustrated, not knowing that it was completely fine and expected for me to just let the useless units die instead of restarting the chapter

[@jsilvuh6194]

I only ever played Shadow Dragon on emulator. Despite the... not so appealing artstyle, I remember really liking the game for its maps and the general gameplay. I recently got a legit physical copy and I'm looking to revisit Shadow Dragon on that copy in the future. Here's hoping that the game still holds up in my mind! although... the part about Darros biting the dust because he recruited himself on enemy phase got a good laugh out of me. I think the game _will_ be as fun as I remember it!

[@solomonpnq]

Gotta love the "Throngler"

[@lspuria8440]

YOOO More fire emblem from Soda Crab? Yes please. I feel like I'm the only person that really liked Fe3 book 1. I like that they cut some annoying maps and I like my snes games. I also like book 1 way better than book 2 because the map design was not it in the second part imo.

[@lolailo2199]

I really like the presentation and asthmatic in this game. I like that units are replaceable, and you can roll with the punches

[@dominicjannazo7144]

Also ballisticians are a really cool class. We need more siege weapons!

[@lolmetaknight]

Good video! If only you mentioned the weapon merge system and the fact that you don't lose the items carried by your dead units, also how op ballisticians are especially with FORGED ballistae...

[@meta527II]

I enjoyed this game, but I don't have much of a reason to come back to it now that I've played the others.

[@funisherman3659]

loved this video. but did you know if you killed off enough units, it started giving you faceless units with numbers for names? or was that just a fever dream of mine? or a different fe game maybe?

[@SodaCrab]

Oh yeah, that's this game! At 21:19 you can actually see me reclass some of them. If you get enough of them killed, they actually drop the number naming scheme and switch to insulting you for being bad at the game with characters named "Wymp", "Owend", "Auffle", "Rejek", etc...

[@jimsface]

Shadow Dragon was my first fire emblem game. I thought it was okay at first, and then I played the rest of the series and developed such a strong appreciation for it. There’s so much freedom in this game, it’s insane. It encourages you to make your own stupid af narrative with everyone. Also that dork rn writing a comment about FE1: see me w sorcerer Darros you swine I’ll end you

[@stefanambrister3220]

This video saved me I'll stick to pokemon for now

[@keneor4468]

Great stuff! I'm unfortunately a bit too attached to the less bland side of FE I never quite managed to stay interested enough in SD despite my numerous attempts at playing through it but seeing content of it and apreciation for what it has to offer is neat. One day, one day I'll finish this game.

[@alextorres5467]

Idk man, the maps have an ancient painting look to them, as if they were from a history book which would very much fit the history book style the story is told through. I 100% agree on the ugly models and think that they are the sole reason the maps end up looking bland. If they had done unique sprites for out-of-battle gameplay, I think the maps would look really good

[@TheDuffy5678]

I played it and thought it was ok. Was one of the games I binged during my FE phase. It was good, idk if I would replay it

[@cobaltobject1855]

My first Fire Emblem! And one of my favorites for reasons that I assure you have nothing to do with the fact that I was nine years old when I played it the first time!

[@rdrrr]

Ya mentioned XCOM in your latest video on the Pokémon franchise and tbh I love OG XCOM for the same reason I love Shadow Dragon - it's absolutely cracked in a way that's fun to deal with, and you get slapped around and lose soldiers left and right but who cares, dust yourself off, hire another raw recruit, fill their inventory with grenades and keep on trucking. Although modern XCOM hasn't gone full character-centric like Femblem they have made losing units much more punishing and although the modern games are better overall, I'm not sure if I like _that_ particular change.

[@Lapran3]

17:04 Oh it gets even funnier. Fun fact: FE1, FE3 Act 1, and FE11 all have multiple endings. What’s the sole gameplay/story point that decides whether you get the good or bad ending? *Whether or not Caeda is still alive and in your party at the end of the game*

[@thegreatnothing3201]

Tiki actually surives being killed in FE11. Gotoh reveals shes alive in 24x

[@superkonijn988]

This was my first fire emblem game and i just loved all the random goober nobodies you got who's purpose was essentially cannonfodder. It was always fun starting a run and then trying out random characters seeing who got an axe to the head of was blessed by RNGsus themselves to not instantly explode and survive my 12 year old suicidal tactics. Honestly playing other fire emblem games it really makes me appreciate how many characters SD gives to fuck around with even if 90% of them are total garbage. Its why is also really enjoy fates generic capture mechanics because i had absolute zero to hero stories from random cannonfodder that was meant to bait out enemy formations but somehow lived their ordeal and more.

[@MrMrphelps]

Fire Emblem 1, taken as it is and from the time it came, is actually a bit of a masterpiece. Very outdated but shockingly playable and deep considering it was from 1990. And yeah, 11 is actually a bit less acceptable. If they wanted to change the game by adding things, they should have balanced it a bit and gave the characters more depth

[@SodaCrab]

Fire Emblem 1 was extremely ambitious for the time and I can definitely see your point of view, I just personally have a hard time playing through very old games. It often ends up feeling like homework to me. I'm glad people still enjoy FE1 though, I wish I had been around back in the day to experience it for what it was at the time without having too many expectations from modern FE.

[@christofferovergaard6328]

i recently got this game and i'm playing on normal mode trying to turn Darros into SAIL

[@SodaCrab]

Using Darros is based and correct

[@christofferovergaard6328]

@@SodaCrab I will do everything in my power to make him SAIL

[@Seloliva1015]

I started with fire emblem 11, but it was so ugly that I couldn't. Then I played 7, liked it and started from 1 to play Marth's story😊

[@DanBickeru]

Shadow Dragon is a mess, but the little clop clop sounds your units make when they move are magical. Same for the little clicking when you scroll around the map. There's just not enough satisfying clicky clop clops in modern Fire Emblem.

[@SodaCrab]

I think 3DS Fire Emblem is when the clicky map sounds hit their peak. All three 3DS games have incredible sound design. The DS ones are definitely good too though.

[@Designated_loser]

When I was younger all I knew was the gba fire emblem. Man I took one look at this game and went oh okay nevermind because of how much of a downgrade it was 💀

[@ashleyvanbeek7045]

i've tried out this game, but i could not get into it. A big part of Fire Emblem for me are the characters. Shadow Dragon doesn't have characters, it has chess pieces.

[@cyndit9054]

Shadow Dragon is probably one of my least favorite FE games, but I still really enjoyed it. I played it on Normal so I could see the prologue chapters, but I might replay it someday on a harder difficulty I also did use the pirate since I like that class (mainly since so few games have playable ones)

[@irbricksceo]

It's me, I'm the Shadow Dragon Art defender haha.

[@SodaCrab]

I'd actually be interested to hear why, I've never really heard it explained!

[@irbricksceo]

@@SodaCrab I really like the more.. for lack of a better term, grim look on the portraits. I think they fit the setting well. I really like the painted backdrops for battles, and especially the art pieces used for the inter-chapter story scenes. I find the colors work well with the tone (I actually think the FE12 colors trend a bit TOO bright). As for combat animations, the fluidity of them really REALLY works for me. The GBA animations are great too, but they are highly stylized. That isn't a bad thing, it's just a different thing. I like them both. All I can say is that the presentation works for me. SD is one of my favorite entries, and it was also my FIRST FE game more than 15 years ago, so there is definitely an element of favoritism at play.

[@screamingatstars66]

FE11 is a wonderful game, I've replayed it a bunch of times (on my very real ds). I recommend using the full content patch, it lets you use Frey and Norne :)

[@patentpending7016]

this video was hysterical thank you

[@rdrrr]

Weirdly, FE11 is actually a pretty well-designed game considering it's a mostly-faithful remake of a NES game from 1990. The maps are a little too big but there's side objectives to stop you from stalling, there's some clever enemy placement (the Sniper and General camping the throne area in Ch12 are dicks) and even the cracked stuff (Ballistas, Warp) is at least limited in uses* and fun to screw around with. I'm not saying the gameplay is best-in-series or anything but I'll take it over FE7 (the FE community seems to be coming around to the idea that that game is actually kinda stinky). * (not limited enough, but there was an attempt)

[@acka.]

Love your style, glad I subscribed

[@Princetopher_]

everybody having 0 res is such a funny and (imo) smart gameplay decision because it means you can make literally any character you want a mage and no matter how underlevelled and awful they are they'll still deal decent chip with a nicely-forged tome

[@darkjaden-fe]

10:11 one thing about matthis? umm he's best boy next question

[@SodaCrab]

Weird thing to say when Darros is right there, but I'll allow it

[@ArchonZach]

I really want to like FE11 and 12 but desire to collect all the units like they're pokemon makes playing them agony lol

[@SodaCrab]

ESPECIALLY FE12, full recruitment runs of that game are obnoxious and I love it

[@nessdbest8708]

6:25 Corrin

[@LunalynDragon]

I'd like to point out that the "3D models" used for combat are actually pre-rendered. They're only 3D in the same vein as the characters in Mario Kart 64, for example. They could have just reused the art style of the GBA games and touched it up a little, simply making a few new sprites for the handful of classes that didn't exist in those games for even less effort and a far more appealing look overall. It's such a baffling stylistic choice, and I find it utterly hilarious.

[@Supahdenning]

Something to consider is that Sachiko Wada - the sprite artist of FE5-10 - was, uh, dislocated from Intelligent Systems' employment list in 2008(along with many other critical staff members). So they were not really capable of continuing that artstyle one way or another.

[@fationmuhollari9768]

Wait wait yes animations should have been 2D and the character models should have been more artistic and unique, BUT they're not the worst 3D animations ever. That crown goes to our beloved Path of Radiance. They're frustrating to watch really.

[@SodaCrab]

I almost agree with you. but Path of Radiance has a slight edge in my opinion because the models are more distinct. The Shadow Dragon models are generic, there's not even any color pallet differences aside from hair, and a lot of classes don't even have exposed hair. Every single character in the game looks identical as a knight, or a paladin, or a dracoknight, for example. At least in Path of Radiance I can look at any given character and know what character it is, even if they're in the same class as someone else. But yeah I definitely agree that Path of Radiance animations are a little stilted.

[@fationmuhollari9768]

@@SodaCrab Yes and I agree with you but at least shadow dragon's animations are fluid and fast with some feeling very powerful like mages and heroes for example. Either way aesthetically SD is very low in my list too so can't argue too much.

[@ladygrima]

I really enjoyed watching this video and I thought you were funny have you ever played New Mystery??

[@SodaCrab]

I have! I'm actually doing another playthrough right now for a video about it at some point :)

[@ladygrima]

@@SodaCrab OMG I CANT WAIT New Mystery has so much fun and weird stuff like removing weapon weight, the star zodiac items/spheres, the Again staff and giving Marth a boyfriend for some reason

[@1337treeckolol]

Shadow Dragon is insanely fun, and I disagree about the animations tbh The way they double I think was awesome looking. everything else is true tho. it's just a hilariously customizable game that is GAMEPLAY FOCUSED, unlike the feeling and aesthetic focused monastery phase which was laboriously slow on repeat playthroughs

[@RufioTheThird]

I am loving your content

[@ebox147]

The thing i hated the most about this game is the unrecruitable units without murdering 80% of your squad. My favorite way of playing FE is recruiting everyone and keeping everyone alive. Not on this one i guess! Great game tho

[@houstonfob2FOREVER]

never understood why the ds never received and original fire emblem game, seemed like a missed opportunity

[@gg_sam7847]

WOOOO LET'S FUGGIN GOOOO It was my first FE game

[@Robert-xh5hm]

I made cord a dark mage too in an actual ply through 😂

[@SodaCrab]

Based and Cordpilled

[@Drachenhannes]

Oh hi, Mr. Plinkett

[@thefrubblewarrior4678]

18:35 How do you spell that name cause I haven’t heard of that character.

[@SodaCrab]

Norne :)

[@thefrubblewarrior4678]

@@SodaCrab thank you

[@darkfire714]

You mentioning that this game was made to reintroduce Marth to a new audience, maybe specfically a fledgling fanbase in the west, makes me think that played a part in the graphical design. They may have thought westerners loved realistic, muted environments in their games.This was around the Real is Brown era afaik in gaming, so I can't blame them for thinking that

[@Cornbinks]

The color palette gets a lot more hate than it deserves. The UI is vibrant and clear, and that's the more important part.

[@SodaCrab]

Hard disagree on the UI being vibrant, the red and blue they use to represent player and enemy sides are so drab. I'd argue the UI isn't clear either, because you can't check enemy weapon stats, you can only check weapon stats from your own items menu. I don't think it's the world's worst UI, but I think 3DS Fire Emblem did the whole 2 screens things a lot better by using the bottom screen for stats instead of the top screen. I never use the touch controls to move my units in Shadow Dragon, but I'm constantly tapping the status screen in the 3DS games to get more information.

[@kingarthur3236]

@@SodaCrab You can check enemy weapon stats by pressing Select. On one hand surprised u didnt know this, on the other hand tho its not like this is ever mentioned in game. Also as someone who plays on a phone I almost exclusively use touch controls to move...

[@SodaCrab]

​@@kingarthur3236 Okay, just checked, turns out I'm stupid and I haven't had my select button bound on my (very real DS console on which I play very real DS cartridges) for like the past 5 years. Thank you for informing me lmao this is life changing for DS Fire Emblem

[@thefrubblewarrior4678]

1:47 I was just gonna say it’s not that bad but ok.