Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, known in Japan as Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi, is a tactical role-playing game developed by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo R&D1 and published by Nintendo for the Famicom. It is the first installment in the Fire Emblem series and was originally published in Japan in 1990. Set on the fictional continent of Archanea, the story follows the tale of Marth, prince of the kingdom of Altea, who is sent on a quest to reclaim his throne after being forced into exile by the evil sorcerer Gharnef and his dark master Medeus, the titular Shadow Dragon. Forming new alliances with neighboring kingdoms, Marth must gather a new army to help him retrieve the sacred sword Falchion and the Fire Emblem shield in order to defeat Gharnef and Medeus and save his kingdom. The gameplay revolves around turn-based battles on grid-based maps, with defeated units being subject to permanent death.

Beginning development in 1987, it was conceived by designer and writer Shouzou Kaga: he wanted to combine the strategic elements of Intelligent Systems's previous simulation project, Famicom Wars, with the story, characters, and world of a traditional role-playing video game influenced by Kure Software's First Queen (1988). Keisuke Terasaki acted as director and Gunpei Yokoi produced, while the music was composed by Yuka Tsujiyoko. The scale of the game meant that the team needed to find ways around memory storage problems, and make compromises with the graphics and storyline. While initial sales and critical reception were lackluster, it later became popular, launching the Fire Emblem series. The game would later be credited with popularizing the tactical role-playing genre in general.

The game was officially localized and released outside of Japan for the first time on the Nintendo Switch on December 4, 2020 in commemoration of the franchise's 30th anniversary. This updated version features new quality-of-life improvements such as fast-forwarding and rewinding through player and enemy turns, and the ability to create suspend points in the middle of gameplay.

Gameplay

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light is a tactical role-playing game where players take on the role of Marth and his growing army during their campaign across the continent of Archanea. The game progresses in a linear fashion, with maps being unlocked and played as dictated by the storyline. Each playable character is assigned to unique character classes that have various functions in battle, such as being mounted or having access to magic. A unit's class affects their range of movement and strength on the battlefield; mounted or flying units have greater mobility, archers have a greater attack range, while heavily armored characters have more defense. Each character has a set character class, and each time a unit raises its experience level its various stats increase randomly. There are a total of 25 characters that can be recruited over the course of the game and 21 available classes for the majority of characters, with the exception of main protagonist Marth.

Battles use a turn-based battle system, with a limited number of player units and enemy units each taking turns and moving across a grid-based battlefield: battles are won by the player defeating key enemy units such as commanders and other boss characters. In battle, the game transitions to a dedicated battle arena, where the battle plays out in real-time. Each action yields experience points (EXP), and when the character earns 100 EXP, they level up, their health increases, and their class-specified statistics are randomly raised. During missions, towns and secret vendors can be visited, where new items such as healing potions, weapons and armor can be purchased. Weapons and armor are specific to different characters, and each weapon has a limited lifespan before breaking when it reaches its limit. Currency is limited to certain scripted or player-driven events, or wagering on arena battles. If a character falls in battle, they are subjected to permanent death, removing them from subsequent missions and the rest of the storyline. The game ends if Marth falls in battle.