When I wrote a review of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for the Nintendo DS, I said I didn’t think I would ever play or review of the original version of the game. Well, it turns out I was wrong. I don’t want to repeat myself by reviewing an original after a remake, so you might want to go ahead and read my earlier review of the later game before you continue with this review. If that’s not needlessly complicated.

Anyway, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light was the game which started off the Fire Emblem series. It stars Prince Marth, fighting against the odds to restore his fallen kingdom of Altea after it is invaded and overthrown by another nation. You do this through a hybrid of RPG and tactical gameplay. You control several different units on grid based levels and use them to fight off the enemy soldiers.  But the thing is, all these units are individuals (no nameless pawns in your army) and they all have personalities and stories. Each level up and grow independently and if they die, that’s them out of the game. Something you’re sure to feel determined not to let happen, because you will feel very guilty every time it happens. It’s a fantastic formula.

I came to this game as somebody who was familiar with later Fire Emblem games and I was actually surprised by how primitive it was in certain regards. While the stats of all your units and all enemy units are available at all times, you can’t easily see how much damage you’ll do to an enemy or how much damage they’ll do to you. You’ll need to do the maths yourself. This also applies to knowing how far units can move. In later games, all these things are automatically calculated for you, which is a huge convenience which I quite missed in this game. Characters can also only hold four items at once and can only swap items between one another mid-battle, which makes resource management extremely difficult (especially because, as with most Fire Emblem games, weapons break after a certain number of uses.)

On the subject of the game’s difficulty, I actually didn’t find the first 50% to be all that hard. It may even have been easier than the remake. Enemies seemed to be defeated quite easily and didn’t do too much damage to me. But this turned around significantly towards the end. I have a little rule that I don’t review games unless I complete them and I’m actually kind of breaking that rule here: I got to the final boss and was fighting it, but the problem was that I couldn’t harm it because I hadn’t picked up some items several chapters before. I’d come so far and the game was unwinnable. I literally would have had to start my file again to see the end, even though I had invested so many hours. I ended up watching the ending on YouTube, but that was certainly a very disheartening feeling which no game has ever made me feel before! I am sure many people would find this very frustrating.

But, ultimately, I don’t want to leave a bad impression of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. I found it really satisfying when I was playing a level and the pieces finally fell together and I won. Though there wasn’t as much text and dialogue as you’d usually expect from Fire Emblem, I was impressed by how fleshed out and comprehensive this was for a Famicom game and, of course, I appreciate anything which portrays war as a horrible experience which results in the deaths of good honest people. It’s a very mature, anti-war stance.

It may be primitive, but the qualities of the Fire Emblem franchise are all already there. Non-fans might not enjoy it that much, but if you love Fire Emblem I’d recommend giving this  a quick look so that you can find out about the series origins. You might not want to play all the way through though (it is quite long) and, also, the DS remake is definitely a lot better.

Rating: 7.4/10

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The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is one of my favourite games in The Legend of Zelda series. It has a lovely cel shaded graphic style and gives you a boat to sail freely across the ocean. I loved the freedom and really enjoyed exploring all of the islands that make up the Great Sea.

When The Wind Waker HD was released for the Wii U, it kind of seemed a bit pointless to me. The graphics in the original still look good, so bringing them up to HD seemed a bit of a waste of time. When I watched the trailers and saw the screenshots online, it didn’t even seem like it was necessarily better in HD, just different. After The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D had done such a good job of improving the original, this was a bit of a disappointment.

Since I’m quite a completionist, I did get this eventually. Even if it didn’t turn out to be much different, I thought to myself, it was still a good opportunity to play a good game once again in a slightly different way. As you can see, I didn’t go in expecting much, but I was very delighted by what I did get.

The game actually looks really beautiful – it isn’t really captured by screenshots and trailers, so you have to play it to truly understand. At times, I felt like the characters looked like plasticine models – I thought that was pretty great. It definitely looked better than the original.

It wasn’t just superficial changes to the game either. There were actually quite a few little things here and there which helped to improve the game. Something I really appreciated was that large enemies and explosions don’t knock Link out of the boat anymore, which really makes things flow more smoothly. You also gain access to a new sail for your boat which helps you to go much faster than you ever could before. I never felt like the boat went to slowly in the original, but after using the new, faster sail I could never go back.

The only real negative change is the loss of the Tingle Turner. In the original you could connect your Game Boy Advance to the GameCube and then have somebody use it to assist the character indirectly with Tingle (it’s a bit hard to explain.) This has been completely removed and replaced with a feature which connects to Miiverse and allows you to share messages in bottles with others, along with photos. There’s even a fun feature which allows you to take “selfies” as Link, it’s fun and it’s silly, but I like it.

Overall, I couldn’t call this better or worse than the original. In some respects it has been improved, but it has lost one nice little feature. Be sure to read my review of the original (linked above) before making a decision.

Rating: 9.4/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Blue Version were the first games in the Pokémon franchise to come out in the West. They were very popular and so was the Pokémon anime series. Both had played a crucial role in the success of the franchise, but there were noticeable differences between the two mediums. Pokémon Yellow Version sought to reconcile the difference and to bridge the gap between the anime and the games.

Pokémon Yellow Version is an enhanced re-release of Red and Blue which adds a few new features. Pikachu was always so important in the anime, yet it was only ever a random Pokémon in the woods in the games. In Yellow, you get a Pikachu right at the start of the game and it follows you everywhere you go. You can interact with it at any time on the world map to see how it’s feeling and it even has the same voice as Pikachu in the anime, rather than the electronic sounds from Red and Blue. It’s a small thing, but it’s quite a nice little feature.

Another change which is especially significant is the fact that the designs for all the Pokémon have been changed. While there are one or two which are a bit oddly coloured, they have all pretty much been adjusted to match their appearances in the anime (which have since become the standard designs for them in all appearances since.) I can understand why they did it, but I honestly preferred the older, stranger uglier designs. It was a unique charm of the earlier games. Though it is nice that they are now in proper colour and not black and white.

Another feature which is quite nice, is that players are able to obtain Squirtle, Charmander and Bulbasaur  throughout the duration of the game. In Red and Blue, you can choose only one of the three. There are now small little events which have been added which allow you to get all three. Jessie and James (characters from the anime) also make a few appearance in Yellow as well. I enjoyed these cameos quite a lot.

Ultimately, the game hasn’t been changed all that much. To get a proper idea of what it’s like, you should also read my review of Red and Blue (linked above.) Overall, I don’t feel that it is inherently better or worse than originals, so I can only rate it the equally high score of 9.6/10.

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)