Since its inception in the early 90s, the Fire Emblem series has been near the top of the heap of turn-based strategy RPGs. Grand, that's a pretty specific heap to be on, but what can I say, that series continues to grab my attention with each installment.
The latest is Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, which is really just a remake of the original Fire Emblem game. Thankfully unless you live in Japan or are a fierce bilingual importer, you probably never played it, as it never came out in the States. And so, like NBC's line-up in the late 1990s, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you.
Truthfully, though, none of the Fire Emblem games (at least none of the ones that have come out in the US), have really been all that different. A new class here, a new weapon there, but overall they have pretty much the same basics.
There is one feature that I wanted to call attention to, though. As with all previous Fire Emblem games, if one of your units dies in battle, he or she is gone forever. Yep, even that one you had the whole game and spent hours leveling in the arena. One slip-up, one misplaced unit and they're gone.
Previously this made the games almost painful. You'd spend an hour slowly and carefully working your way through a map, only to lose one unit right near the end, and thus (assuming you're a perfectionist or you have a heart), you'd have to star that level over.
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon introduces mid-mission save points which change everything. Unlike the temporary "Suspend" option, which appears here as well, the mid-mission saves allow you to permanently reload from that point whenever you want.
To make things more interesting, though, you can only use each save point once, so it adds an extra level of strategy to the mix. Do you save 2/3rds of the way through a mission, or wait until you're right up to the final boss before saving? The choice is yours, but whatever you end up doing, you'll probably find that it's a lot less frustrating than having to redo an entire mission from scratch.
I'm sure there will be people that despise this feature, claiming that it makes the game too easy. For those people, the devs have added an extra hard mode with 5 levels of difficulty to keep you and your sadistic self happy.
So yeah, great addition to an already great series. The game drops in the US a little less than a month, so you'll be able to see for yourself.
