Like Running Errands in Animal Crossing

One of the most satisfying aspects about playing a game in the Fire Emblem series is the ability to watch a terribly weak, low-stat character grow into something of an unstoppable tank. Granted, depending on said character, this could be easier said than done -- some units, by design, weren't entirely meant to be an all-around great warrior. Sometimes you just end up with someone like Meg.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, being a remake of the very first game in the series, has that character-building, cocaine-like addiction. Chances are, you'll find a character that looks particularly cool, and you'll say, "All right, Barst, I'm going to give you this hand-axe and this regular iron axe, and we're gonna tear through hundreds of enemy soldiers without a sweat." Once or twice, Barst will get struck down by an unlucky critical hit thanks in part to a agile sword-user. You'll curse, soft-reset the game, and remember to not send Barst anywhere near that enemy again. The blue-haired unit you'll have by the end of the game will statistically look much different than single-digit rookie at the beginning. Whether or not the designers feel the same way, Fire Emblem has always been about growth and mostly forward momentum, both systematically and thematically.

If you happened to play the ninth Fire Emblem game, Path of Radiance, first, you'll more than likely won't be able to enjoy the remake on the DS quite as much as you would, say, Radiant Dawn. Shadow Dragon feels extremely bare-bones. Many of the recruitable characters have maybe a few lines of dialogue, and then disappear into the ranks of your army and are never used or seen again. And those passive abilities -- as seen in the better entries of the series -- that are able to make your characters into hulking behemoths of destruction? They're...not here in Shadow Dragon. Supports, too, are non-existent.

Remember that this is a remake of the very-first Fire Emblem; the series has definitely grown and flourished with improvements over the years, despite still having the same basic formula. Still, Shadow Dragon's overall design just doesn't really hold up -- one, a majority of the maps are giant, sprawling landscapes, with maybe a tree or a bridge here and there. While "giant sprawling landscapes" is easily something a publishing company could use as a positive bullet-point, it doesn't work here, since the open areas really leave no room for any intricate strategy. A line of cavaliers could race their way toward your party, and the only real way to deal with them is to form a wall of characters yourself or send one of your over-leveled units out into the front guard. If you send a two-man party out to confront the enemy, chances are they'll swarm one of your characters and stab him or her to death. Since you're fighting on wide-open landscapes, you really don't have much of a choice in regards to character placement.

Every Fire Emblem's main protagonist (or "Lord"), begins the game, much like every other character, as a vulnerable marshmallow. Marth, in this instance, is no different. The problem here doesn't lay with the fact that he'll get handily crushed early on, but instead lays with how he's the only person with any diplomatic skills. See, as a player, you'll want to use Marth. He's one of the better characters in the game! But most of the time, you'll have him running errands by visiting villages and capturing castles -- not fighting enemies and not gaining experience. No other character can visit a village, talk to the locals, and thus grab a few rare items. Here's a general scenario: you'll have your main fighting force on one side of the map; meanwhile, Marth with be on the polar opposite, collecting maybe a red gem and definitely little experience. Next minute, you'll have taken out the enemy general (usually a bulky bastard with a Killer Axe), and Marth will take another three turns to rush from that village to finally conquer and clear the map. The "constantly-pushing-forward" flow found in other Fire Emblem games is somewhat missing here.

Yes, forward momentum -- usually, as the underdog country, this series has your army pushing through hordes of enemies into order to reach a specific spot on a map (such as a castle). The designers sometimes switch the objectives up a bit by creating a different scenario where you're maybe defending your home base (as seen in Path of Radiance) or simply task you with a "defeat-100-enemies-before-all-hell-breaks-loose" objective (in Radiant Dawn). These missions generally stand out; not only do they mix up the tedium for something different, but they also have some sort of meaty gravitas behind them story-wise. When you're not trying to accomplish a different objective, you're conquering waves of troops -- you're moving forward, getting closer to that long-sought goal. Nearly every mission in Shadow Dragon is similar to this as well -- which is fine for the most part -- but there exists a certain amount of tedium here, probably because Marth is quite often playing errand boy. You're not moving forward. Instead, you're traipsing through another day of Animal Crossing.

Intelligent Systems, the minds behind the Fire Emblem series, is now working on a remake of the sequel to Shadow Dragon, and it largely looks the same. Whether or not the game will follow in the footsteps of the blandness set by its predecessor remains to be seen, but hopefully it won't be afraid to mix things up a bit.