Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon Part 4

Welcome to the main game of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon! Let's begin...

Chapter 1: Marth Embarks

~The Isle of Talys~

Marth has survived the invasion of Altea, and though his enemies have stripped him of his kingdom and everything but a few of his knights, he has made it to Talys, a small border kingdom with no knightly order, but where the king has given him use of the isle's eastern fortress. The king also gave Marth good advice: “You have time. Stay here and become strong, and a time will come when you can help your sister”.

Years pass.

Ok, the map shows a bunch of sword people coming out of the sea, and someone destroys a town on the island. Then a pegasus knight flies out of a castle, crosses the map and goes into a fort. Cut to Jagen: Marth has a visitor, Princess Caeda. 

Princess Caeda art from her introduction in-game

Caeda says Galder's pirates attacked out of nowhere. She fears for her father's life. Marth promises to help.

Caeda explains the situation to Marth

Yay! Caeda is part of my army now!

Caeda's stats and in game sprite

I visit a village and the villagers give Marth 10,000 gold to buy supplies with. There's an armoury just north of the village. I'm sending Abel shopping, because he needs an Iron Lance so he has more than an Iron Sword and Javelin. I buy two. Hmm, Caeda needs an Iron Lance too, she has a Wing Spear but that sounds too special to use on rank and file enemies... Cain is going to go fight the pirate theif who destroyed the village to the south. 

Draug visits a house, where they advise I keep my flyers away from enemy archers (considering how fast Gordin killed the pegasus knights in the prologue...) and that I need to improve weapon skill to use better weapons. Gordin visits a house where I am advised that villages will keep their gates open for Marth but if an enemy thief gets there before us, there may not be a village to visit. Demonstrated quite well before this fight even started. Caeda visits one last house where they advise I keep my Knights up front with their thick armor. That would be Draug's unit type.

Draug's stats

Jagen moves up and a pirate moves up and swings at him with an axe, but Jagen just laughs it off and then almost kills the pirate in one shot. Additional pirates approach me (they can walk on water apparently). Oh, I see, I thought they had swords but those are axes, just looked weird on the screen.

Pirates with axes. Not swords... can you see my confusion?

Abel finish off that thief, and level up to 4! HP and skill up. Hmm...

Caeda buys two Iron Lances and a Javelin. Draug is going to finish this pirate that attacked Jagen. Another pirate attacks Jagen and ends up with just 2 HP. Gordin finishes him off after Caeda misses with her javelin (even though she got a double attack on him). I send Marth shopping, he'll pick up some extra Iron Swords. Oh, and if his inventory is full the shop sends extra stuff to my convoy, that's handy. I'll stock up on some stuff. I end up with about 3000 gold left over.

Draug! You're my front line! Good luck against these axe pirates, since your spear is beaten by axes on the weapon triangle, but at least you have a huge defense of 11, which should help a lot. Abel will back him up, since cavaliers can use swords or lances, and swords have advantage against axes. Still, the two of them leave this pirate on 1 HP. Cain takes the flank, and I make sure he has his sword equipped for the enemy turn.

Draug faces down a pirate.

Oh shoot, one of them ran around and attacked poor Gordin.

Caeda takes out a pirate with two Javelin throws. Abel is down to 7 HP, but he takes out the pirate that attacked Gordin. I put Gordin in a fort to regain some HP, and he levels up to 2 attacking a pirate. HP, Skill and Speed up. Draug will protect Gordin's flank this time. Two pirates gang up on Cain this time, leaving him on 6 HP, even though he finished one off. I may be being too aggressive? But there's a village to the west I want to get to pretty soon. 

Enemy archer is coming in. I'm going to let him approach while I use the fort to recover my cavaliers a bit, and keep Caeda away from him. I leave Draug and Abel with javelins to equip so they can fire back at the archer.

Incoming archer!

Abel goes to level 5, and finally gets a strength increase! Also speed and luck.

Abel's level increases to 5!

There's a fort on my way that only one pirate can reach this turn. If I leave Marth there it should lure the one guy out.

A villager tells me about a man named Wrys who lives in the village I'm approaching that wants to meet Marth. Another villager explains that Galder is a seaside town across the sea west of Talys, and that a pirate named Gomer has taken over that town recently with his pirate crew.

Abel's faster than Cain and can get some double attacks in where Cain can't right now.

I send Marth to the village to meet Wrys, a humble curate. He cannot fight, but he can heal our soldiers with his staff. He joins us! He doesn't say why he wants to but we're glad to have him.

Wrys talks to Marth

The enemy boss Gazzak is going to be tough, he deals out a lot of damage and I have low chances to hit him. I'll wait a turn so everybody is ready to act at once, and then try to figure out a strategy.

Ok, Gordin can plink away for 2 damage pretty reliably, he'll attack first from beyond the boss's range (at least it doesn't look like Gazzak will move). Caeda might do the same, although her javelins only have a 50% hit chance... but if she attacks him with a lance there's a good chance she'll take 10 damage, and as she only has 16 HP the boss's counter attack would kill her. Let's try the javelins. The boss has a whole 24 HP though, so this could take awhile...

Caeda levels up to 2! And gets skill and luck up. The skill might help her javelins hit more reliably, but her strength is only 4 so she's not doing much damage with them yet. Draug tries a javelin and hits! Despite the 43% hit chance. Good job Draug!

Well I swarmed everybody, because Cain hit the boss, and got hit back for 10 damage, leaving him with 1, and when Wrys healed Cain it only brought him back to 10. So I needed this guy dead before he could finish off Cain. Marth and Abel were able to finish him off though.

Marth seizes the castle space, and we win! Talys's king (named just Talys King in the dialogue box...) thanks Marth for saving them. He believes Marth is ready to move on, and recommends seeking allies in Aurelis, and promises to send what soldiers he can with us. Captain Ogma, a swordsman and his fighters. The king further recommends we look for others who hate Dolhr in villages, or those who were captured or forced to fight against their will (or better judgment) and win them to our cause.

Onwards to Chapter 2!