Tips on starting FE1

[BlackWhiteMage]

I'm going to start my first run of Shadow Dragon in a few weeks and wanted to know...What should I expect? How much harder is it compared to later games? Is the story good? I also don't care much for spoilers, give as much information as possible please. Thank You!

[Julius Nepos]

First off, FE1 is a very old and clunky game. Modern conveniences such as a supply that moves around with the lord, combat forecast or even being able to check out your weapons' stats are a luxury you can't afford in this game. Depending on how far back you've already gone in playing FE will matter a lot - the dated UI isn't that much different from FE2's - but if you're not used to the ancient FE games, it will take you a while to get accustomed.

I could recommend experimenting with the game for a few chapters (and making a lot of use of the FE1 page on SF to get a good sense of what each weapon does, what the combat calculations are etc. - calculations are actually really straightforward in this game, moreso than in other titles, so it shouldn't be hard to get a grasp of how they work). When you're done experimenting, you could start over, but in my experience the game is easy enough that that shouldn't be necessary.

The game is actually not that hard. In my experience, the difficulty lies mostly in the dated UI. For example, due to the absence of combat forecast, overestimating your hit rate or underestimating your enemy's hit rate will always remain a possiblity. Besides the lack of combat forecast, there is also the lack of critical evade. Expect to get critted more as the game progresses.

In terms of strategy though, the game isn't all that hard. It's actually quite easy to break if you use the right characters and visit the secret shops with enough gold on your hands (and you won't find yourself with a shortage of gold quickly in this game).

As for story, again, this is an old Famicom game; don't expect too much. In my opinion, the story is pretty good, but due to the Famicom's limitations, it will feel clunky or forced at certain points. For example,

the whole plot point of Gra betraying Marth's father and taking the Falchion from him, as well as the nation of Gra itself, isn't introduced until the very chapter where you invade and conquer Gra. And when Nyna suddenly brings up Miloah and Linde at the end of chapter 10, it's obvious whom you're going to meet in the next chapter.

There's also no supports in this game, and most characters have little to no dialogue.

[Reality]

You can't see how much damage your people are going to deal and take in FE1 without doing math, but it isn't exactly a problem as others have said. Your units have generally strong stats compared to the enemy generics, ala FE 7 or 9 and can even snowball out of control (not as extreme as 8 and 13 though). Personally I think this makes it the 4th or 5th easiest game in the series.

[Katie]

At least not without Starlight. Be sure not to miss it.

[Mega Koopa]

Resistance doesn't exist.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

An important thing to know about promotion is promoting in this game works by making your stats into the promotion benchmark instead of being a stats adjustment. As a result, some character such as Caeda benefits a ridiculous amount with her promotion, while the Paladin promotion is kinda meh

Some class lacks promotion so do look up on that

Magic works by doing FIXED damage. So Fire only deals 6 damage, Ice deals 8 damage(or something) and so on

FE1 is like very easy. They give you tons of broken character like Wendell and Boah, Marth, the three cavalier, promoted Caeda, and Speedwings Minerva, and the enemies are pathetic. Camus is pretty much the only thing that forms any sort of a threat in this game

Edited April 21, 2016 by JSND

[Moblin Major General]

Healers do not gain EXP from healing. Also, Pirates, Fighters, Hunters, and Knights do not promote, just to give you a heads up on that.

[Katie]

^As an addendum to what the above poster said, in order to level up your healers, you have to make them either dodge tank or fort tank, as surviving a round of combat gives them EXP equal to what they'd get for killing the enemy.

[sirmola]

Resistance doesn't exist.

Techncaly it does, but the only way for anyone to ever get any is by using the tailsman

And to give you an example of how simple many calcs are, enemies all have a number displayed for exp. That's how much exp you get for killing the enemy. Period. Exp does not scale with level in this game (recrutable units with exp numbers also start with that much exp)

Edited April 22, 2016 by sirmola

[Barrylocke]

A side effect of the lack of resistance is that Magic Water and the Magic Shield Staff are both useful to have around. 7 Resistance (degrading by 1 per turn) is very useful to have around in a game where Mages also don't gain Strength/Magic outside of promotion (except Wendel apparently, which I guess is another reason that he's a badass.)

[Katie]

Except that strength is still useless on mages, as magic does fixed damage and staves heal a fixed amount of HP.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Matthewtheman

[Topazd]

Enemy mages/bishops are seemingly hesitant to attack someone boosted with a Talisman, but the same does not apply for someone with a Pure Water / MBarrier in effect. Might be useful to keep in mind.

[Vorena]

Enemy mages/bishops are seemingly hesitant to attack someone boosted with a Talisman, but the same does not apply for someone with a Pure Water / MBarrier in effect. Might be useful to keep in mind.

lol They have a shred of resistance, I am not sure i can hurt this guy T_T

[Jedi]

Pretty much everything I wanted to say was said, Marth is generally really good in this game and most of your units are pretty decently equipped to deal with the challenges, the main challenge is the clunky interface.

[Katie]

Pretty much everything I wanted to say was said, Marth is generally really good in this game and most of your units are pretty decently equipped to deal with the challenges, the main challenge is the clunky interface.

Agreed. That and the stupid inventory system.

[Illiterate Scholar]

I tried to play this game again recently. Damn it was slow and clunky.

[Lady Sansa]

My tip is don't.

[Yvette]

-Be prepared to whip ye olde battle formulas so that you have a better idea what the fuck is going on. I did a blind playthrough with no looking up anything which made my life way more difficult than it should have been. It wasn't even intentional, it just... didn't cross my mind.

-Only +1 speed is needed to double.

-Be prepared to count out enemy attack ranges, as there is no grid to show you. You can't even select enemies to show their range.

Besides things like the mechanics dating back to prehistoric times, the game isn't all that difficult. Marth is a good unit if nothing else.