Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is that classic tactical RPG where every move matters—mess up, and your favorite knight or archer is gone for good. You start off leading Marth (yeah, the guy from Smash Bros.) through grid-based battles where positioning is everything. At first, it feels like chess with swords, but then you realize how much personality your units have, even if they’re just pixels with stats.

The DS version keeps the old-school charm of the original NES game but smooths out some rough edges. The story’s straightforward—rebuild an army, take back a kingdom—but the tension comes from permadeath. Lose a unit in battle? That’s it, no respawns. Makes you actually care when your healer gets cornered by a cavalier.

It’s not flashy by modern standards, but the strategy holds up. You’ll spend way too long agonizing over whether to promote a unit now or wait for better stats. And yeah, the dialogue’s cheesy at times, but you’ll still get weirdly attached to your ragtag army. Just don’t let Jagen die early—trust me on that.