Kinda surprised noone started this thread in the three months I have waited for the game to be delivered, but here I am to fill the void.
Radiant Dawn is the direct sequel to GC's Path of Radiance and continues the story three years after the Crimea/Daien war. Daien is now ruled by Benignon with a fist of steel and a small group of rebels is opposing their rule, among them Sothe and his sister Micaiah. The story so far is standard Fire Emblem thing (nation enslaved by an empire -empire are always evil-, small band of fighters with some ties to the former ruling family fighting it; really evil demon thing still to be confirmed) and the whole game isn't much different from Path of Radiance.
There isn't much to say about the game structure, it's the same as Path of Radiance with few changes, most noticeably support conversations; weapons and magic triangles are still the same, just like classes and the way you promote units (done automatically by reaching level 20).
There's a completely new option to save the mission and load it as many times you want instead of relying on a load-once quicksave; this, with the addition of bronze weapons (weaker than iron blades) and improved vulneraries can give the impression that this game is easier than the previous games, but it's completely the opposite. At least, during the first part of the story your party is composed by a small number of low-level units, most of them are kids and they die with one or two hits while being unable to retaliate as much as the trained soldiers of the Benignon empire do. This mean that careless unit placing or overextension can lead to a premature game over...I've seen that damn screen four times during the second mission only, before I realized that you have to gang up on a single unit and repeat until the map is clear.
Not that this is bad, the game gives the right impression of being fugitives rather than an army, and progressing through the game will grant new units, most of them from Path of Radiance; for example, Eat-'em-all Lighting Magical Girl Ilyana joins during the fourth mission, along with the same merchant convoy that followed you during PoR. These units are usually stronger that your starting units and they should benefit from a complete savegame from PoR, but I still need to understand how...all old characters that joined the party (except one) weren't exactly active unit in the GC campaign, and even the unit I used didn't show any real improvement...no better equipment, stat or skill...nor loading a clear savegame unlocks any particular extra.
Technically the game is a series of hit and misses: I never really liked Path of Radiance graphics, favoring the beautiful GBA sprites and animations over the low detail models used in the GC game.
Unfortunately Radiant Dawn does little to improve the situation; character models and textures are a bit improved, but they still lack style. Animations are extremely stiff and lack of any kind of interpolation: for example, after being mortally wound, any unit will first return to the idling position before actually dying. To be fair, there have been a couple of additions to make battle scenes a bit more engaging, but they aren't still on par with the simpler, yet better, GBA animations. Armored Knights don't give the impression of being walking piles of heavy metal, pegasus knights lack finesse and grace and myrmidons swing their swords like novices in a incredibly boring way rather than performing exotic maneuvers.
Generally speaking, 3D graphics are on the low end for a GC title, after seeing that the Wii can pull out some serious effects, Radiant Dawn feels outdated.
Cinematics are still good and rendered with the same cel-like effect of Path of Radiance and this time around they have subtitles: a godsend, if you ask, as dubbing is still terrible sometimes not really understandable.
The 16:9 support feels tackled on: it's good to have more battlefield visible during missions, but intermissions are thought for a 4:3 screen, with textboxes designed for these proportions, just like character positioning: side are filled with a standard background. Same fate for the exquisite illustrations that from time to time introduce locations or meaningful events: sandwiched between two halves of Generic Background No. 1.
And about character portraits: some are very dull, being no different from Peasant No. 57893 or Leader You Have to Kill No. 401 in terms of style. Not to mention that the merchants going around with you still use the same graphics from Path of Radiance...not good Intelligence System. Just make sure you replace those pre-rendered sprites in Fire Emblem DS with some proper pixel art sprites and we're all OK, got that?
While technically poor, Radiant Dawn is still a good strategy game: you have to like the standard FE formula, however. It's a must for those who have played Path of Radiance as it will probably answer all questions.
Radiant Dawn is the direct sequel to GC's Path of Radiance and continues the story three years after the Crimea/Daien war. Daien is now ruled by Benignon with a fist of steel and a small group of rebels is opposing their rule, among them Sothe and his sister Micaiah. The story so far is standard Fire Emblem thing (nation enslaved by an empire -empire are always evil-, small band of fighters with some ties to the former ruling family fighting it; really evil demon thing still to be confirmed) and the whole game isn't much different from Path of Radiance.
There isn't much to say about the game structure, it's the same as Path of Radiance with few changes, most noticeably support conversations; weapons and magic triangles are still the same, just like classes and the way you promote units (done automatically by reaching level 20).
There's a completely new option to save the mission and load it as many times you want instead of relying on a load-once quicksave; this, with the addition of bronze weapons (weaker than iron blades) and improved vulneraries can give the impression that this game is easier than the previous games, but it's completely the opposite. At least, during the first part of the story your party is composed by a small number of low-level units, most of them are kids and they die with one or two hits while being unable to retaliate as much as the trained soldiers of the Benignon empire do. This mean that careless unit placing or overextension can lead to a premature game over...I've seen that damn screen four times during the second mission only, before I realized that you have to gang up on a single unit and repeat until the map is clear.
Not that this is bad, the game gives the right impression of being fugitives rather than an army, and progressing through the game will grant new units, most of them from Path of Radiance; for example, Eat-'em-all Lighting Magical Girl Ilyana joins during the fourth mission, along with the same merchant convoy that followed you during PoR. These units are usually stronger that your starting units and they should benefit from a complete savegame from PoR, but I still need to understand how...all old characters that joined the party (except one) weren't exactly active unit in the GC campaign, and even the unit I used didn't show any real improvement...no better equipment, stat or skill...nor loading a clear savegame unlocks any particular extra.
Technically the game is a series of hit and misses: I never really liked Path of Radiance graphics, favoring the beautiful GBA sprites and animations over the low detail models used in the GC game.
Unfortunately Radiant Dawn does little to improve the situation; character models and textures are a bit improved, but they still lack style. Animations are extremely stiff and lack of any kind of interpolation: for example, after being mortally wound, any unit will first return to the idling position before actually dying. To be fair, there have been a couple of additions to make battle scenes a bit more engaging, but they aren't still on par with the simpler, yet better, GBA animations. Armored Knights don't give the impression of being walking piles of heavy metal, pegasus knights lack finesse and grace and myrmidons swing their swords like novices in a incredibly boring way rather than performing exotic maneuvers.
Generally speaking, 3D graphics are on the low end for a GC title, after seeing that the Wii can pull out some serious effects, Radiant Dawn feels outdated.
Cinematics are still good and rendered with the same cel-like effect of Path of Radiance and this time around they have subtitles: a godsend, if you ask, as dubbing is still terrible sometimes not really understandable.
The 16:9 support feels tackled on: it's good to have more battlefield visible during missions, but intermissions are thought for a 4:3 screen, with textboxes designed for these proportions, just like character positioning: side are filled with a standard background. Same fate for the exquisite illustrations that from time to time introduce locations or meaningful events: sandwiched between two halves of Generic Background No. 1.
And about character portraits: some are very dull, being no different from Peasant No. 57893 or Leader You Have to Kill No. 401 in terms of style. Not to mention that the merchants going around with you still use the same graphics from Path of Radiance...not good Intelligence System. Just make sure you replace those pre-rendered sprites in Fire Emblem DS with some proper pixel art sprites and we're all OK, got that?
While technically poor, Radiant Dawn is still a good strategy game: you have to like the standard FE formula, however. It's a must for those who have played Path of Radiance as it will probably answer all questions.
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