A turn-based strategy RPG, the first Fire Emblem game is widely considered to be a codifier of the genre. It features numerous characters that grow stronger as they defeat their enemies and overcome many difficult challenges along the way.

The game stars Prince Marth of Altea as he ventures across the continent, in some cases for liberation and in others for miscellaneous deeds, and as he quests to reclaim the titular Blade of Light (Falchion); the weapon of his ancestor Anri forged from the fang of a divine dragon, and stolen from his country by a traitorous former ally (the country of Gra). Eventually, Marth fulfills his destiny to utilize it to slay the titular Shadow Dragon (Medeus), a powerful Earth Dragon and the emperor of Dolhr.

This is a translation of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragons and the Blade of Light built from scratch by Polinym, not derived from any of the previous translations. This translation was built with the goal of being as faithful to the original Japanese as possible, using the official NoA terminology (used in the Nintendo DS English port and temporary Switch “translation”) where accurate and appropriate.

Notable improvements over previous translations include increased window sizes to minimize abbreviated text, absolutely minimal use of “squished letter tiles”, and an overall more accurate translation.

Regarding the translated text, the script used in the Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 port of the game (see here: https://serenesforest.net/mystery-of-the-emblem/scripts/) was used for reference, compared against all the original Japanese text of Blade of Light, and in some cases taken word-for-word when acceptable. A few edits were made to that script for accuracy’s sake, and a few minor details had to be omitted to save space. The text that did not make an appearance in the SNES remake features a completely original translation by Polinym. The Switch translation and previous fan translations were also used for reference.

All-in-all, this translation should be at least 95% accurate to the original Japanese. The “Engrish” bits of text was mostly left intact, except to adjust character names.

Rev 1.1: Fixed the Suspend feature.

Rev 1.2: Fixed numerous bugs, font improvement

• Database match: Fire Emblem - Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Tsurugi (Japan)
• Database: No-Intro: Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20210216-231042)
• File SHA-1: 0179C550D424E0397496078789E7B116601D120C
• File CRC32: 3452E97C
• ROM SHA-1: DD1D51FF6D57E83F2BE0517F1DE821C85ABE86AE
• ROM CRC32: 97CAD370