Later, I’ll be posting the first half of my top ten DS games of 2008 list. One game which won’t be appearing is Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. And that’s one game I’m almost certain that, had I played it, would almost certainly be on there.

I’m a big fan of the Fire Emblem series - to me, it’s had the same strategic allure of the Advance Wars games, but with characters you genuinely care about. The franchise’s USP - that once your characters are dead, they stay dead - is part of what make it so great. It’s devastating to witness the death of someone you were particularly fond of, and many players have been known to restart battles as soon as they lose a valued fighter. It makes you more careful than you’d otherwise normally be with the often expendable troops found in most strategy titles, and the RPG-style levelling-up adds an extra layer of attachment to the bond you’ll form with your band of rebels.

So, it’s with great disappointment that I find myself unable to include said game in the list - mainly because I’ve not seen it available in a single shop I’ve been in. I’ve scoured the DS sections of Game, Gamestation, Gamestop, Zavvi, Tesco, Asda and other stockists near me, to no avail. In desperation, I asked my wife - who works in the centre of Manchester - if she’d be kind enough to buy me the game as a Christmas present. She hasn’t been able to locate the game either.

While Nintendo might say that this is down to ‘retail orders’ (as it suggested when I asked about the whereabouts of Professor Layton and the Curious Village) I can’t help but feel that the publisher is sending some of its more niche titles to almost certain retail death. Fire Emblem is a game that would benefit from some kind of advertising spend, but because it’s not geared towards a mainstream, mass-market audience, Nintendo just doesn’t bother. And as hardcore gamers become more and more disgruntled with the casual-focused titles on Wii and DS and start to gravitate towards other consoles, games like Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon are likely to sell less and less, the eventual result likely being that Europe won’t see the next game in the franchise.

It’s a great pity - Nintendo has sure-fire hits which will undoubtedly sell regardless of advertising, and it spends a small fortune on putting those games even more in the public eye. Then it has games of undeniable quality, but does so little to promote them that even many core gamers are unaware they are available. It’d be nice to see the company take a risk on one or two of these smaller games - give them some prime-time advertising slots, show a celeb or two (perhaps, you know, someone who actually tends to play games in their spare time) enjoying said titles, and see if they do any better. I’m sure that way we wouldn’t have this ridiculous - actually, let’s be honest, disgraceful - situation where a fan of a particular series can’t actually wander into his local games retailer and buy a copy of the game a week after its release.  

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 12:23 pm by Chris Schilling
DS, Disappointment, Embarrassment, Latest Games, Problems?.