Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon doesn’t look or sound like a remake. But it is based on the original Fire Emblem designed for the NES, which never came to North America. Despite the throwback, Shadow Dragon is no less advanced than its GameBoy Advance brethren. In many ways, it is the superior product, blending hardcore battles with numerous skip features that make this an insanely fast strategy game experience.

Speed is at the player’s discretion – you are still free to spend several minutes setting up each turn. However, it is now possible to entirely bypass the enemy’s turn. No, this doesn’t mean you’ll walk away unscathed. Any successful attacks will still inflict damage, and fallen allies will still be lost for good. But by being able to skip the AI’s map movements and attack animations, you’ll never have to wait to get back to the game. This is a problem that has plagued every other turn-based strategy game out there. You can also skip your own attack animations, making the game play even faster.

Contrary to what speed can do to a game, Shadow Dragon does not feel any shorter or any less vigorous than its predecessors (or sequels, if you’re going in the order of the story). The battles are immensely engrossing and frequently overwhelming. Most stages limit the number of units that can be selected, preventing a full army from charging into combat. When new allies arrive mid-battle, the unit limit will expand to make room for those additions.

That’s as easy as things get. If you’ve played any of the other Fire Emblem titles (even the sluggish Wii release), then you know what to expect from the grid-based map and turn-based assaults. If not, the fierce unit types, strict battle rules and many, often deadly surprises could make you wonder what you’ve just walked into. Knights, archers, cavaliers, paladins, mercenaries, swordmasters, hunters, horsemen, pirates, sorcerers, clerics, mages, sages and several other unit types help push the game with excellent depth.

In general, Shadow Dragon uses the sword-axe-lance system (where swords are stronger than axes, axes are stronger than lances, and lances are stronger than swords) to guide the player – and the enemy – through their battle choices. But these rules are broken, or at the very least bent, when a heavily armored boss turns out to be impervious to multiple weapons and/or multiple weapon types. This is one of several unforeseen moments that will make you shout, “Oh crap!” First because you know that one of your soldiers will likely fall when it’s the enemy’s turn to attack. Second because you now have to reset the game…or say goodbye to the boss’s next victim.

Shadow Dragon makes that latter element a tad less painful with mid-level save circles that can be used to retain your current progress. Each circle can only be used once, so if you’re like me, you probably try hard not to use them at all. Inevitably, that leads to the very thing most Fire Emblem players try to avoid: certain death and a game reset.

Once again, weapons are limited by the number of times they can be used before breaking. This limitation goes beyond swords, lances and axes, affecting bows and magic as well. Thus, you’ll want to stock up on fresh weapons whenever visiting the armory. Armories are located within most battlefields and may also be accessed from the pre-battle menu. Several of them are different, so it’s important to visit as many as possible.

Armories also give you the opportunity to forge items into more powerful weapons. The process is extremely simplistic: if you’ve got the cash, you can apply it to a series of stats (hit ratio, attack damage, the likelihood that you’ll perform a critical attack, etc.) and boost your weapon’s performance. Forging isn’t cheap, however, so it is not recommended that you blow every penny on a single upgrade.

The music isn’t the best in the series but is still very good, and though the story cannot compare to Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics, the plot is fairly engaging. If you don’t like it or don’t care to read a block of text to find out, press the start button to skip it and move right into battle.

As anticipated, the graphics aren’t a spellbinding step up from the Game Boy Advance editions. Battle animations are more fluid but the character models lack any significant detail. Unlike the latest Advance Wars sequel, you can’t zoom in close for a more intricate view of each unit. That doesn’t negatively affect the gameplay, but it may stand out to those who were hoping for a higher-quality presentation.

Since this is my fifth Fire Emblem experience, it’s impossible to say for certain that, if this were my first, Shadow Dragon could have turned me into a fan. But given how similar all of the Fire Emblem games are, and considering that this is the fastest and most user-friendly title in the series, it’s hard to argue with the likelihood that this remake has the power to entrance any strategy game lover, regardless of their history with the series.

Gameplay: 8.2
Real-time strategy at its best. Yes, you've likely had this experience before. And if there was any drop, any sacrifice, any mistake along the way, Shadow Dragon would have likely been a colossal disappointment. But it's faster, just as challenging and is still one of Nintendo's the most addictive properties.

Graphics: 6.5
Shadow Dragon's visuals work. They don't need to be any better, and that's likely why they aren't. But the game could have done so much better, not just with polygons (which weren't needed and may have bogged the game down as it did on Wii), but with a higher class of 2D artwork.

Sound: 8.0
Another great score for the Fire Emblem series. The sound effects, however, are a little cheap considering what the DS is capable of producing.

Difficulty: Medium/Hard
Not as tough as Final Fantasy Tactics but still very, very challenging.

Concept: 7.0
Shadow Dragon may be the fastest, most reliable and thereby most polished game in the series, but the blueprint hasn't changed.

Multiplayer: 7.0
Local and Wi-Fi battles were expected (both multi-card, obviously), but the ability to loan units to a friend is the most interesting element.

Overall: 8.0
An excellent real-time strategy game that will devour your hours just as quickly as its predecessors did on the Game Boy Advance.