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Any love for the original FE1?


OliKad
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I mean, yes, I do find it very clunky and it did not aged exactly well, but here's the thing: just like with the original Legend of Zelda, it has its special feeling of being into a unique adventure. In this game, despite the very basic graphics and - while still good - music and an absolutely terrible interface, it feels especially good to conquer any chapter. You get the same boost of energy as when you conquer a dungeon in Zelda NES.

And for this reason, I still like this game, even if I first played it this year, because it gives you a satisfying feeling of being on a special, epic quest, which only FE4 succeeded to entirely replicate so far in my opinion. Am I the only one who still enjoys Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light?

Sorry for this wall of text filled with bad English...

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I've been playing through FE1 recently, and honestly I've found it pretty palatable. Yeah, it's archaic and has a lot of NESisms to it, but it's never too hard, and the interface, while a tad clunky, is still perfectly manageable.

I've been having a good time with it, although I suppose I can see where it wouldn't have a lot to offer to most fans of the series who started with subsequent games. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for old NES games, though, so I enjoy it quite a bit.

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I enjoyed it. It's different enough from the remakes that it has its own charm. But, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they'd played Gaiden and weren't put off by that game's NESisms.

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It has its merits, I mean it started this franchise we all know and love today, and Marth was gloriously powerful in it.

Only major issue of mine with it is the inventory system.

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The interface and inventory system is clunky but it's still functional.

My biggest beef is that you can't check hit rates or weapon stats ingame, which is really obnoxious. It's one of the reasons I refuse to play Gaiden because that game has these problems and adds in hit rates lower than FE6 (which everyone shits on) and lots of avoid boosting terrain.

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It's one of my favorites, and I bought a Famicom partially with this title in mind. Admittedly I was more interested in getting Dracula's Curse and Holy Diver, but still!

CASTLEVANIA III! F*** YEEEEESSSS!

Hum. Anyway, I'm glad to see that FE1 isn't quite hated, like I thought earlier. Actually, I would class the differents FE1 versions as following:

FE3 Book 1 › FE1 › Shadow Dragon

Yes, I do think the DS remake is the worst of the bunch, because those graphics are just downright HORRIBLY UGLY!

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It's not a game I recommend playing as a first, I'll say that. You're better off with Shadow Dragon first and then come back to this one.

At this point, it's more of a curiosity, albeit still fun. Just slow and clunky is all.

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It's not a game I recommend playing as a first, I'll say that. You're better off with Shadow Dragon first and then come back to this one.

At this point, it's more of a curiosity, albeit still fun. Just slow and clunky is all.

I've never played Shadow Dragon, so I kinda went against your recommendation. :P

By the by, is the DS remake as bad as people say it is?

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I've never played Shadow Dragon, so I kinda went against your recommendation. :P

By the by, is the DS remake as bad as people say it is?

The reason I say Shadow Dragon's preferred to FE1 is because it's FE1 without the clunkiness. I would have said play book 1 of FE3 instead, but that game actually cuts some chapters and characters out.

And no, it's really not nearly as bad as people say. It's actually quite good.

But it does have its flaws.

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The NES version has the distinction of being the first non-localized FE I played, mere months after FE7 came out. The learning curve isn't as hard as you might think, though of course in those days I didn't really have a functional patch, so it was all trial and error with a little help from the RPG Classics page (no Serenes Forest - it didn't exist yet!) The comparison to the original Zelda is really good - it's so retro that at first glance it seems like a fossil, but when you actually play it and think of the context at the time you really go "wow, this was groundbreaking!" Plus it can be fun to enjoy the retrospective oddities like 2-range Ballisticians and Generals who don't promote from Knights!

I've never played Shadow Dragon, so I kinda went against your recommendation. :P

By the by, is the DS remake as bad as people say it is?

As a remake it's not bad, I think the problem might be that it couldn't make up its mind about how upgraded it was going to be. We got the weapon triangle and other mainstays of modern Fire Emblem, but at the same time the graphics were almost a step backward from previous games because characters only had hair palettes; this made them seem less individual. The reason for this is pretty clear (reclass), though why the sprites didn't have faces instead of fleshy blocks is beyond me - on the SNES it made sense enough, but if the GBA games could give characters eyes I don't see why the DS team couldn't. Plus, I think fans used to the decent-to-great characterization of more recent games were put off by the fact that the big cast got almost no extra characterization. Some people would use a mediocre character if they liked their personality, but so many of the troops just don't have one to begin with (FE12 improved this a bit with base conversations). Plus, I don't think I've ever seen anybody defend how the gaiden chapters and extra characters were handled. I know I'm not going to.

With that being said, it's still a pretty solid game play experience: I just finished my second playthrough. I don't know whether I'd recommend a newcomer the NES or DS version, honestly - the latter is much more in tune with the series as it is now, but losing the retro charm makes its differences more noticeable. As for FE3 Book 1, in all honesty the DS version improved everything it did without cutting the content to make room for a second game, so in a way it's kind of the black sheep of the Shadow Dragon family now.

Edited by Fëanen
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It's not so much that the characters were very good or the lost chapters were pivotal (though it sucks that FE3 cut the first ever dragon boss), but it feels to me like the experience isn't complete without them. Plus, if a person's only exposure to the story was Book 1 the references to Jake and Anna in FE4 and FE7 still don't come across the way they should.

Also, I hate dismounting indoors with a passion. Might seem like a petty complaint, but it's easily one of my least favorite mechanics in the series. Though the weapon level system means it's not as annoying in 3 as in 5.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've only played the DS remake of this game, but would you guys recommend buying this too?

On my Japanese my Nintendo account, this is on sale for ¥257 on the 3DS eShop so I'm thinking of getting it. I have purchased Gaiden before already and I've warmed up to the game and enjoy playing through it now.

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It's not so much that the characters were very good or the lost chapters were pivotal (though it sucks that FE3 cut the first ever dragon boss), but it feels to me like the experience isn't complete without them. Plus, if a person's only exposure to the story was Book 1 the references to Jake and Anna in FE4 and FE7 still don't come across the way they should.

Also, I hate dismounting indoors with a passion. Might seem like a petty complaint, but it's easily one of my least favorite mechanics in the series. Though the weapon level system means it's not as annoying in 3 as in 5.

I agree completely. The main reason I prefer Shadow Dragon over Mystery Book 1 is that the latter removes 20% of the original game's content. I understand it was almost certainly due to space constraints, but still.

Also, the dismounting mechanic can go to hell.

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Dismounting on outdoor chapters is actually nice against horseslayers and arrows. On indoor maps however... :>_<:

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I kinda like FE1 myself, but objectively speaking i don't think its possible to deny FE1 as anything but complete garbage

The fucking inventory system. The fucking control. The hilariously easy map, although this actually applies for other NES FE to some extent. The completely overpowered main lord, many of which is caused by Vacuum bug. The hilarious amount of dialogue in the game. The INVINCIBLE BANTU.

Fuck theres just so many that i don't even question why Intelligent system themselves admitted that FE1 was a trainwreck

Edited by JSND
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