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Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

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Title Screen

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

Also known as: Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken (JP)
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo DS
Released in JP: August 7, 2008
Released in US: February 16, 2009
Released in EU: December 5, 2008
Released in AU: February 26, 2009


DevTextIcon.png This game has hidden development-related text.
GraphicsIcon.png This game has unused graphics.
ItemsIcon.png This game has unused items.
TextIcon.png This game has unused text.
RegionIcon.png This game has regional differences.
Carts.png This game has revisional differences.


See, this is why server preservation is important.
This game's online features are no longer supported.
While this game's online features were once accessible, they are (as of May 20, 2014) no longer officially supported and online-exclusive features may be documented as now-unseen content.
Hmmm...
To do:

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is a Nintendo DS remake of the original Famicom game. It was released following Marth's debut in Super Smash Bros. Melee, which no longer gave Nintendo an excuse to keep the series Japan-only, so they finally localized one of his games for the rest of the world. Things didn't turn out so well for the sequel though.

Sub-Page

NotesIcon.png
Version Differences
The US and European translators can't seem to agree with each other.

Unused Portraits

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Midia Less Formal Portrait.pngFire Emblem Shadow Dragon Minverva Less Formal Portrait.pngFire Emblem Shadow Dragon Caeda Less Formal Portrait.pngFire Emblem Shadow Dragon Unused Boss Portrait.png Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Early Tomas Portrait.png Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Early Kannival Portrait.png Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Early Merach Portrait.png Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Dummy Portrait.png Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Blue Mage Portrait.png

There are several unused portraits:

  • Midia, Caeda, and Minerva, all dressed in a less formal attire.
  • A duplicate of the boss Zharov's portrait, intended to be used by Nehring, a boss from Mystery of the Emblem. This is rather bizarre, as not only does Nehring not appear in any version of Shadow Dragon, but he uses a completely different portrait in New Mystery of the Emblem.
  • Early portraits for Tomas, and the bosses Kannival and Merach.
  • A dummy portrait obviously used in the early stages of the game before the portraits were drawn out. The Japanese text on the portrait is 制作中, which means "in production." The miniboss, Heimler, still uses this portrait for his full portrait which can be seen if he's hacked into the player army.
  • A blue hooded figure, simply labeled MAGE_BLUE. Only a mini portrait exists, as the full version is only the dummy portrait. Given mini portraits are only used by units that appear within battle, its possible this was intended to be used by a miniboss of sorts.
(Source: Previous (The Spriters Resource), Fire Emblem wiki)

Unused Classes

Fire Dragon, Mage Dragon, and Divine Dragon are separate classes in the game's files, but lack working map animations. Their data is used when fighting with their respective Dragonstones, though.

There is also data for on-foot Cavaliers, which hints at dismounting, like in Mystery of the Emblem, but this was ultimately dropped from the final game.

Unused Item

The Torch item, which is used to increase a unit's vision in fog of war maps, is present in the game's data. It was likely cut due to the fog of war mechanic being exclusive to multiplayer versus matches in Shadow Dragon.

Unused Hair Color Settings

Blonde and purple hair colors for women are both fully implemented and functional in Shadow Dragon, even though these colors wouldn't be used until New Mystery of the Emblem.

Scrapped Features

Unused My Unit/Avatar Feature

FireEmblemDS-MyUnit.png

A feature that appears in later games, starting with this game's sequel remake, New Mystery of the Emblem, and continuing through Fates. There's strings for both My Unit and My Unit Registration, suggesting it was meant to be used here, but ultimately left on the cutting room floor.

Order Function

FE1-DS-UnusedTutorial.png

It seems Intelligent Systems were planning to implement the ability to issue orders to units, like in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, but this was dropped at the last moment for this game and New Mystery. This function would have been used to tell all units, besides Marth, how to behave when you end the turn without manually giving them instructions.

The unused tutorial for US releases translated the text strings, but not the text in the screenshots, as the feature was cut before release.

Strings for this feature are still in the ROM, located in the m/en_system file for English releases:

Avoid Order units to stay out of enemy range unless otherwise instructed.
Attack Order units to attack nearby enemies unless otherwise instructed.
Follow Order units to stay with Marth unless otherwise instructed.
Protect Order units to protect Marth unless otherwise instructed.
Wait Order units to stay put unless otherwise instructed.
(Source: https://serenesforest.net/general/unused-content/)

Development Text

Within arm9.bin, 0xD05F8 (EU):

Offline Shop
かいわそのた
Talk 016-204
Talk 005-015
10KMI_MyUnit
Preview Face
オープニング
Wireless対戦
Anytime Load
10DebugMenu2
Sound Player
イベント回想
金子 第2章
10EMI_Record
Ohashi(Link)
Battle Aging
大橋(通信)
11KMI_IDAging
Wi-Fi Utility
11DialogYesNo
11DbMI_Kaneko
11DbMI_Ohashi
11DbMI_Ending
My Unit Entry
ロードメニュー
12KMI_MagAging
LR : Round %2d
フレンドリスト
メインメニュー
Practice Match
Wireless Match
Preview Battle
Preview Effect
どこでもロード
12DbMI_Kaneko2
12LMI_Practice
12LMI_Wireless
12DbMI_Opening
Title Sequence
スタッフロール
13OMI_OnMapUnit 
13KMI_AgingSkip
(Source: Original TCRF research)
Japanese English Japanese English Japanese English
オフラインショップ Offline Shop Wireless対戦 Wireless Match 大橋(通信) Ohashi(Link)
かいわそのた Talk etc. どこでもロード Anytime Load バトルエイジング Battle Aging
かいわ 016-024 Talk 016-024 10デバッグメニュー2 10DebugMenu2 大橋(通信) Ohashi(Link)
かいわ 005-015 Talk 005-015 サウンドプレイヤー Sound Player 11KMI IDエイジング 11KMI_IDAging
10KMI マイユニット 10KMI_MyUnit イベント回想 Event Recollection Wi-Fiユーテリティ Wi-Fi Utility
プレビューフェイス Preview Face 金子 第2章 Kaneko the Chapter 2 11ダイアログはいいいえ 11DialogYesNo
オープニング Opening 10EMI リコード 10EMI_Record 11DbMI 金子 11DbMI_Kaneko
Japanese English Japanese English Japanese English
11DbMI 大橋 11DbMI_Ohashi メインメニュー Main Menu 12LMI プラクティス 12LMI_Practice
11DbMI エンディング 11DbMI_Ending プラクティス対戦 Practice Match 12LMI ワイヤレス 12LMI_Wireless
マイユニットエントリー My Unit Entry ワイヤレス対戦 Wireless Match 12DdMI オープニング 12DbMI_Opening
ロードメニュー Load Menu プレビューバトル Preview Battle タイトルシーケンス Title Sequence
12KMI マグエイジング 12KMI_MagAging プレビューエフェクト Preview Effect スタッフロール Staff Roll
LR:ラウンド%2d LR : Round %2d どこでもロード Anytime Load 13OMI オンマップユニット 13OMI_OnMapUnit
フレンドリスト Friend List 12DdMI 金子2 12DbMI_Kaneko2 13KMI エイジングスキップ 13KMI_AgingSkip

Oddities

A specific tile in Chapter 12 is defined as a Forest tile, even though there is no Forest tile visible on the map. Since a Forest tile is present at that location in the original Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, the developers likely just forgot to place a Forest tile there.

(Source: https://www.fireemblemwod.com/fe11/errores.htm)

Fire Emblem 11 JP tut014.PNGFire Emblem 11 JP tut015.PNG

In the Japanese version, two tutorial images show a Vulnerary with five uses. However, in any release of the final game, a Vulnerary can only be used three times. This matches how Vulneraries worked in the original Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light game, where Vulneraries had five uses.