Introduction

Fire Emblem: Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light
_{Where IntSys hates you, but hasn't figured out how to properly express their feelings yet.}

Released only in Japan in 1990, this game is the first Fire Emblem (full title: Fire Emblem: Ankokuryuu to Hikari no Tsurugi, or Fire Emblem: Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light) in a series that has seen 10 full entries and a couple of remakes, with an 11th entry coming soon to the 3DS.

The series stayed in Japan until Fire Emblem 7 (Blazing Sword - see Artix's great LP). That game had a lot of cool features - support bonuses between characters, a rock-paper-scissors weapon triangle system, multiple difficulties, character development - that you won't see here. This game was released on the Famicom (NES) and pioneered most of the basic gameplay structure in the series today, but without any of the modern bells and whistles.

For a basic introduction to the series - Fire Emblem is a turn-based strategy RPG with a distinguishing factor being permanent character death. That's right, get careless and that character is gone forever. Of course, the characters in this game don't really have much personality to get attached to, but we'll be getting attached to their numbers instead. Other than that the gameplay is pretty straightforward - move your units around and attack your enemies while they patiently wait for their own turn to get you back. We'll get into the specifics as we go along.

This game was actually remade and released on the Nintendo DS with a lot of upgrades from the original (though still lacking compared to the GBA/GC releases). You can check out TenaCrane's fine LP of that game too.

Our ground rules/info here (they'll make more sense later):

1. Only one unit of each class can gain experience on a particular map (including promoted versions). This is easier than it might look with all the classes available. Unit choice will be up for a vote before each update.
   
2. No crazy arena abuse, since I don't feel like abusing save states that badly. Will be some non-cheating arena abuse.
   
3. I'll use save states liberally otherwise to maintain the annoying:entertaining ratio below a tolerable level. Mostly to show things off and make sure I get the screenshots I want.
   
4. This isn't really a blind run but I've only actually fully played the remake before.
   
5. I'll be using a fan translation patch since this game was never actually released in English. It's pretty commonly available.
   
6. Don't go too crazy with the spoilers.
   
7. Given the primitive nature of the game, we go all old-school with some likewise primitive ritual sacrifice of some units to the RNG gods.
   

Table of Contents

• Prologue: Introduction
• Chapter 1: Pirates!
• Chapter 2: Retribution
• Chapter 3: A Thief of Our Own
• Chapter 4: Macedonians
• Chapter 5: Surprise
• Chapter 6: Treasure
• Chapter 7: Dragons
• Chapter 8: Grinder
• Chapter 9: Retreat by Invasion
• Chapter 10: Princesses
• Chapter 11: Slavers
• Chapter 12: Treasure II
• Chapter 13: Shooters
• Chapter 14: Revenge
• Chapter 15: Desert
• Chapter 16, Part 1: Home
• Chapter 16, Part 2: Arena
• Chapter 17: Secrets
• Chapter 18: Pegasi
• Chapter 19: Orbs
• Chapter 20: Grunia
• Chapter 21: Fall of Macedonia, Part 1
• Chapter 22: Fall of Macedonia, Part 2
• Chapter 23: Fall of Garnef
• Chapter 24: Fall of Durhua
• Chapter 25: Fall of Mediuth, Part 1
• Chapter 25: Fall of Mediuth, Part 2
• Epilogue

Other Information

• Final Roster and Growth Rates (warning, contains spoilers)
• Interlude 1: Mechanics and Stats
• Interlude 2: Leveling System
• Interlude 3: Jukebox
• Interlude 4: Title Demo / Class Overview

Some other Fire Emblem LPs:
Fire Emblem: Gaiden (2) - Hafl
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (4) - Wind God Sety
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (5) - Cake Attack
Fire Emblem: Sword of Seals (6) - Artix74
Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword (7) - Artix74
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (9) - Fedule
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (10) - Fedule
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (11, remake of 1) - TenaCrane

Fun Fanart (some mild spoilers):

Ephraim225 came up with this fun representation of the thread title. Sadly Riff didn't last long enough to block enough axes with his face to actually gain a level from it.



About halfway through the LP, the ritual sacrifices started getting...weird, with inspiration by these creations of Orange Fluffy Sheep.