FE3 (SNES) Book 1 Low Turns - Chapter 1: Marth's Journey

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MoogleBoss

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Published on August 29, 2015 4:41:26 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guJcjp9oMNM

Game:

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (1990)

Duration: 10:38

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38

"Prince Marth, Sheeda has come from Talis castle"

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I've always tried to look into low-turning something different in Fire Emblem, and completely randomly and on a whim decided to delve into FE3 for the SNES for a somewhat refreshing change for a diet of usually playing the GBA games in all sorts of LTC ways.

FE3 features two separate games, Book 1, which is a remake of 'Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light', the first FE game for the NES, and its continuation in Book 2. These games are best known to contemporary players from their DS remakes, FE11 and FE12 (Shadow Dragon and New Mystery respectively).

It should not surprise visitors to this YouTube channel that I aim to complete the game in the usual low-turn manner to derive more pleasure from the experience than otherwise. I still haven't decided whether I will go for full recruitment or not, but I will have to make the decisive choice quite soon. Needless to say, the strategies employed will differ quite significantly depending on what I choose.

This chapter should be fairly familiar to anyone who's played Shadow Dragon for the DS. The characters seen here are the same, except for Wrys who's been replaced by a Vulnerary, of all things, depriving the party of its first earlygame healer until Rena joining two chapters later. I have to say the loss isn't a disastrous one, in all honesty. He's one of the few characters who appeared in the original FE who were omitted here, some of the others being Roger and Darros.

Marth is your Lord, and he's nowhere near as bad as he is in Shadow Dragon when played on H5 difficulty - the enemies are weaker and so he can more easily reach a level where he can one round them when attacked at 1-range. He has no issue doubling, his Rapier will shortly provide effective damage against cavs and armours, and he's fairly unique for his reciprocal +10 hit/avo/crit support with Sheeda, which functions right off the bat for both of them.

Sheeda is another major character and, guess what, she doesn't have her broken Wing Spear in this one. Her Slim Lance is misplaced in her inventory since her speed is high enough for her to double enemies with stronger weapons, but on turn 1, it lets her double and ORKO the nearby thief. She actually has the Wlv needed to wield Jeigan's Silver Lance right away, and with 19 atk/5 AS double and 2HKO the entire map, boss included. However, there's absolutely no point in wasting away its uses so early, and we can achieve roughly the same result using the lesser weapons we've got.

Jeigan is exactly what you remember him from SD. 10 move is unprecedented until chapter 10 or so, so Jeigan will always have something useful to do, but his growths are even worse than they are in SD - with 3% res (that everyone has in this game) and 10% in each of hp/str/skl/spd, you shouldn't be surprised when he gets an empty level-up. In SD, he would get HP, skl and lck (Shin levelups) more often. Jeigan packs a wallop with his Silver Lance but doubles nobody with it @ 1 AS. He can double foes with Sheeda's Slim Lance or by dismounting and attacking with his Iron Sword.

Oh yeah, dismounting. This is an ancient mechanic known to many from Thracia and TearRing Saga. Units always dismount in indoor maps (comprising at least 6 maps out of 20 in Book 1), getting reduced to 6 move and abandoning lances for sword access. You can also choose to dismount in outdoor maps, for any reason included but not limited to: a) preventing effective damage, such as arrows striking Sheeda, b) conserving your other weapons and having more AS to double with swords, c) using useful swords like Kill Sword, Dragon Killer or Armour Killer.

All mounted units can dismount, and this usually lowers their stats in a fixed way. Abel and Kain do not lose much upon dismounting, but Sheeda and Jagen do, especially the latter (suffering substantial losses in most major stats). Before dismounting, they're stuck with lances, and I should point out that wielding two weapon types was not possible in this game. Bishops can wield both tomes and staves, but staves actually count as items rather than weapons in this game, stored in the same inventory as Vulneraries and the like.

Kain and Abel? They're still worth training of course. I mostly favour Abel on this run. Gordin and Doga get ignored however. Doga finally gets a General promo in this game, but is still stuck with 5 move even afterwards. While a proficient Sniper is likely not a bad thing to have, I abstain from investing into Gordin. Should I ever change my mind, I'm sure there'll be time and space to train an Archer/Hunter (or any of the promoted bow users).

(out of space; see the comments section for the continuation)

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