Is the hate on Shadow Dragon justified?

[Parrhesia]

Shadow Dragon is the (original) X-COM of Fire Emblem.

To clarify; units are blank slates. The plot is a loose outline. The story is, more or less, what you make it.

And if you don't give a shit about any of that, it's all gameplay.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Parrhesia

[Refa]

1. In Final Fantasy Tactics, it's possible to pass on skills to your allies by letting someone die permanently (IIRC).

2. In Blazing Souls: Accelate (and probably the rest of the Spectral Souls series), killing your allies is the most efficient way of getting underleveled characters up to par. Oh, and it speeds up title completion, too.

Adding onto this...

3. In Tactics Ogre, there's this awesome spell called Snapdragon which lets you turn your units into weapons.

[Loki Laufeyson]

I dont like Shadow Dragon simply because i had no fun at all with it. It feels lifeless and dull and i kept trudging for...what exactly?

Yeah, i just didnt have fun with it. Plus those battle animations make me chunder.

[Volug Vanguard]

Oh man Im really going to edit the post when I said that line. I was referring to what other FIRE EMBLEM game xDDD I know there are a lot of other games in which by killing your own units you get different things/rewards, the example I usually put is Disgaea, where you get different endings (Im saying this because some people have replied to that message of me and I want to correct it).

And Im glad more people think like me in that statement, rewarding the player for a bad gameplay is indeed a terrible idea, and killing your units in an strategy game basically follows that line

[dondon151]

I dunno, I think Binding Blade gives that statement a run for its money.

lol, FE6 is a good game, and it's certainly much more fun than FE7 or FE8.

[Garnef]

I didn't think anyone would bring up Fe12 as a positive example of balanced units. This is the only game that has/had a "free silvers" tier (which held like a third of all the units), for the record.

And if you're only talking about the lower difficulties, FE11's units are still more usable in normal-hard2 than FE12's in normal-hard1.

I was mostly referring to FE12, relative to Shadow Dragon. I felt the units were a lot more balanced in FE12, rather than Shadow Dragon.

[Florete]

lol, FE6 is a good game, and it's certainly much more fun than FE7 or FE8.

Too bad you aren't the whole of the FE community.

(That poll shows that the gap is larger than I expected, though)

[solrocknroll]

FE6's new translation is a lot better though. Maybe that will help it's reputation.

[dondon151]

Too bad you aren't the whole of the FE community.

i know, i know, it's a shame that the FE community doesn't have the enlightened opinion of the GBA FE games that i do.

Edited June 28, 2014 by dondon151

[Tryhard]

I was mostly referring to FE12, relative to Shadow Dragon. I felt the units were a lot more balanced in FE12, rather than Shadow Dragon.

Yeah, and he's saying he (and others) think that FE11's units are a lot more balanced than in FE12.

I prefer FE12 by quite a bit over FE11, but it is hard when there is 77 characters in the game.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Tryhard

[WIRE Shut]

I started Fire Emblem with Shadow Dragon and I had fun, no idea of what I was doing but I had fun, I still love it to pieces but it feels a bit more like a puzzle game than a strategy RPG, you want to know what units are good and what are bad, what reclasses you should do especially in Hard Mode, even some of the recruitments seems kind something you need to find out in advance, yes giving you extra chapter by kiling people is bad(more like exp because gaiden characters are generally worse than normal characters), another bad thing is the overwhelming amount of bad units, but if every unit is bad none is bad, overall it's a solid game, could be better but it seems they wanted to make it feel more like the real deal than an improvement and lets not forget that they made other changes other than graphics and sound, they fixed the broken statboosters, gave promotions to most classes that lacked one and made all characters more or less different or at least decent.

[NinjaMonkey]

FE6's new translation is a lot better though. Maybe that will help it's reputation.

I'm pretty sure that Binding Blade's poor reputation has nothing to do with the translation and everything to do with it's gameplay.

As for whether the hate for Shadow Dragon is justified or not, I say that it is fully justified. In fact, I can't think of anything that I like about it.

Edited July 5, 2014 by NinjaMonkey

[Hawk King]

I like playing FE11 more than FE10 and FE13.

It actually has real strategy and good gameplay.

And when it comes to the story, sometimes less is more.

[General Horace]

Fe11 was my first fe game and I care very little about the story (although when I played it, I saw no problem with it) and reclassing was a fun new feature to play around with.

As far as character balance goes, it's honestly not too bad if you're not warpskipping, (better than 4, 7, 8, 9, 12 and 13 anyway) but fe games aren't really designed to be balanced in the first place so I don't really have an issue with that.

As silly as this sounds, I get more nostalgia playing this than any other entry in the series and I still find it fun to play. I do wish there were alternative Gaiden requirements (get all the chests on chapter 6, save the prisoners in chapter 12, etc)

Edited June 28, 2014 by General Horace

[Knight]

I find it fun, though that doesn't excuse that the game was lazily designed, but I still enjoy the game, even it's story. The chapters are surprisingly entertaining despite being limited to seize chapters and I don't mind replaying this game over. There are some awful design decisions, such as the side quest requirements or mass of spears, but I think most people hate this game for story and graphics reasons anyways. Could be better, but meh, it's okay.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Knight

[Alertcircuit]

I think it didn't mean to reward you for killing your units but to provide alternatives. Let me put it into perspective.

With Shadow Dragon, IS knew that Tellius's crap sales weren't going to cut it very much longer so they tried to take advantage of their situation in the form of nostalgia. Shadow Dragon likely was meant to get older fans back into the series while also bringing new ones in as Marth is kind of the icon of the series at this point having appeared in Smash once already, and again in '08 and kids are familiar with him that way already not to mention if they had older siblings or parents that grew up on Marth's games. This game was likely pointed towards kids and new players.

So the game helps you out by giving you new units if you mess up too much, that's a good thing. But the game devs were likely thinking, along with extra units, maybe we can give them the chance to get some kick-ass units too? And thus the Gaiden chapters were introduced in order to give players who killed too many, an alternative to generics.

Just my theory.

[Constable Reggie]

I'm pretty sure that Binding Blade's poor reputation has nothing to do with the translation and everything to do with it's gameplay.

I feel the poorly structured levels are what hurt it most (fe4's maps are far better in this regard no matter what anyone says). The translation is a close second, though, since that means there's no redemption for it story wise either though. My opinion may change when I play the retranslated patch, however.

[dondon151]

you will please have to tell me what about FE6's level design is "poorly structured." it's not as well-designed as FE12, but it has some of the better level designs in the series.

there is absolutely no metric by which FE4 maps can be judged better than FE6 maps. (well, actually, there is, if you like to run around and do nothing.)

Edited June 29, 2014 by dondon151

[Constable Reggie]

From a strict gameplay-only point of view, you would be right.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Constable Reggie

[Emperor Hardin]

I like Shadow Dragon, but I can see where people are coming from.

More extra features would be nice such as buffing characters like Darros, giving pirates unique growths, adding more diversity to the enemy forces, and giving more classes to the players.

As for the gaidens, I think the point was the point was to make things easier for people who are new to the game. The thing they didn't count on is alot of players make it their goal to recruit everyone.

Do you include 5 in that statement? Because I found Thracia to have the most balanced cast in the series (of course using staves is better than everything else in that game).

Marty, Ronan, Selfina's subordinates, dismounting, and an incredible prevalence of hammers.

I'm not sure I agree on Thracia being the most balanced.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Starman

[Constable Reggie]

Marty and the Lenster squad are totally usable and sufficient. Ronan maybe not so much due to lack of Noba. Dismounting prevents mounted units from overshadowing everything else, a common imbalance found in many of the other Fe titles.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Constable Reggie

[Emperor Hardin]

Marty and the Lenster squad are totally usable and sufficient. Ronan maybe not so much due to lack of Noba. Dismounting prevents mounted units from overshadowing everything else, a common imbalance found in many of the other Fe titles.

Marty has limited utility in carrying people with his high build, but he's hardly great.

The problem with dismounting was that it unnecessarily punished guys like the Lenster squad, while making Fergus more of a god.

l mean why even have lance knights when Cavaliers can use both lances and swords?

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

I was mostly referring to FE12, relative to Shadow Dragon. I felt the units were a lot more balanced in FE12, rather than Shadow Dragon.

SD was much more balanced when compared to FE12 considering that theres not as many unit that is completely useless.

Which is not saying a lot since more than half the cast is useless in FE12

Anyway, I like SD, the gameplay is fun, and the writing is nothing but brilliant. The only complaints I have about SD.... have been covered by this

"You guys do know that there is a brightness setting for the game right? You can turn it up a bit and it matches FE12's default lowest brightness and go up even more if that still isn't enough."

YEAH SUCKER. SETTING THE BRIGHTNESS IS 2HARD4JSND

Edited June 29, 2014 by Anti-Fun

[Constable Reggie]

Marty has limited utility in carrying people with his high build, but he's hardly great.

The problem with dismounting was that it unnecessarily punished guys like the Lenster squad, while making Fergus more of a god.

l mean why even have lance knights when Cavaliers can use both lances and swords?

Marty easily has the capability of becoming good due to scrolls and his promotion gains. Hell he does completely fine with the brave axe alone. Great was not the criteria btw, it was imbalance. Relative to the typical Fe5 unit, he holds his own.

So what? Are you saying Fe5 would have been MORE balanced without dismount? Where units like Brighton, Carrion, Fergus and Fin would have been invincible even better? Dismount knocks them down a notch to the point where you can't solo the entire game with mounted units. The same can't be said for games like Fe9.

The fact that one class is inferior to another does not negate the relatively (in relation to other fe games) balanced cast of Fe5.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Constable Reggie

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

I kinda dislike how Draco Knights Mount bonus is so huge that dismounting destroyed their stats though

Thankfully the only Draco Knight that matters in FE5 have A Sword Rank and nice base