Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light
Developer(s)	Nintendo R&D1, Intelligent Systems
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Shouzou Kaga
Released	Famicom: April 20, 1990 Virtual Console: October 20, 2009 Nintendo Switch (first official localization): December 4, 2020
Genre(s)	Tactical role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player
Platform(s)	Family Computer Nintendo Switch
Article on Fire Emblem Wiki	Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (ファイアーエムブレム　暗黒竜と光の剣, Fire Emblem: Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light) is the first installment of the Fire Emblem game series, developed by Nintendo R&D1 and Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. It is widely accepted to be a progenitor of the tactical role-playing game genre as it exists in Japan, with many other Japanese games of the genre following in its stead.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light as seen in-game.

The game is set on the continent Archanea, just one of several lands in a world explored by later installments. The game follows the story of Marth the exiled prince of the fallen kingdom of Altea, as he travels Archanea to raise a resistance army to combat the Dolhr empire, which currently dominates much of the land, and to find the lost sacred sword Falchion to allow him to follow in the footsteps of his ancestor Anri and slay Medeus, the tyrannical Shadow Dragon.

An official localized release was not made available until the Nintendo Switch in late 2020, albeit as a limited time offer to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Fire Emblem franchise.

In the Super Smash Bros. series

Fighter

Marth, a character introduced in the game, makes his Smash Bros. series debut (and by extension, his international debut, excluding the Mystery of the Emblem anime adaption, which was released in North America) as an unlockable character in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Marth returns as an unlockable playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a starter character in Super Smash Bros. 4, and an unlockable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Stage

While a stage based off of the nation of Archanea was planned for Melee, it was ultimately scrapped due to unstated circumstances.

While Castle Siege isn't based off of any specific game, many of the elements of this stage were first introduced in this game. This includes the objective of seizing ownership of castles, Armor Knights and Generals, and Ballista.

Assist Trophy

Tiki is a manakete - a race of dragonkin able to shapeshift between a humanoid and a dragon form - that debuted in this game. However, while she's seen as a child in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, she uses her adult design in Smash. Despite this, the fire attack she uses as an assist trophy more closely resembles how it appears in this game.

Music

Brawl was the first game in the Smash series to introduce music from this game with "Fire Emblem Theme" and "Shadow Dragon Medley" being playable on Castle Siege. Both of these tracks are remixes. The latter incorporates multiple pieces of music from the game: Enemy Battle Phase, Trouble and Player Battle Phase Theme.

Smash 4 brings back both tracks introduced in Brawl while also introducing another new remix, "Fire Emblem", based off the original Fire Emblem recruit theme. Additionally, "Meeting Theme Series Medley" incorporates the recruitment theme that was first introduced in this game, going under several names in different entries such as "Story 5 - Meeting", "Come, Join Us" and, most famously, "Together, We Ride!"

Ultimate brings back all of the music from Brawl.

Masterpiece

This game appears as a masterpiece exclusively in the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. It can be played for up to 240 seconds. Once the timer elapses, the player was given the opportunity to purchase the game as a Virtual Console title from the Nintendo eShop prior to the eShop closing on March 27, 2023.