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Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn

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    Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn

    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.

    #2
    It's one of the few games I've seriously thought about buying a Wii just to be able to play. I've resisted so far but I really loved Path of Radiance. I played it for the first time less than a year ago when I'd bought my first (I'm a very late adopter) GC. It introduced me to a form of RPG that didn't only not make me want to give up the will to live but one I thoroughly enjoyed.

    If the graphics are as good as PoR then they're more than adequate IMO. It's the presentation, particularly things like the superb tutorials with in-game info on every aspect of the game, and, of course, not least, the gameplay that matters. As long as they haven't fiddled too much with that I don't think anybody will mind the last gen look.

    What I'm interested in are the controls - all the previews I've read suggest that it plays best, as you would expect, using the classic/GC controller. The standard Wii controller would seem a bit pointless for this type of game. True or not?
    Last edited by fallenangle; 18-01-2008, 11:23.

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      #3
      I'm on chapter 6 and am really struggling. I've had to retry every battle several times even though I got through all of Path of Radiance without too much of a problem. Is this one harder or am I just not used to fighting with low-level characters?

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        #4
        Originally posted by fallenangle View Post
        The standard Wii controller would seem a bit pointless for this type of game. True or not?
        I use the classic controller, I never liked using the Wiimote sideways in Paper Mario so I never even gave it a try. Unfortunately, with the CC button layout could have been better: zoom in and zoom out are mapped on the same button; it's no big deal as i rarely use zoom, but it's kinda unintuitive.
        I'd have liked if the Wiimote/nunchuk would have been used as a mouse, that would have been great, management in base camps would have been a breeze with this system.

        Originally posted by Kaladron
        Is this one harder or am I just not used to fighting with low-level characters?
        Probably it's harder, in the previous FEs you got bandits as main enemies for the first missions, you had mounted units and Lords with exceptional fighting abilities. I'm sure everyone abused of Titania in Path of Radiance, in Radiant Dawn you have no such unit, this time around you get kids against trained soldiers.
        When a thief is your most powerful unit it's time to ask the others why they become warriors

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          #5
          Can you not use the game cube pad to play this?

          112

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            #6
            Originally posted by 112 View Post
            Can you not use the game cube pad to play this?

            112
            Yep. As this message would be too short, I'll add that controls should be the same as Path with a GC pad, but I prefer the d-pad setup of the CC, so never gave the GC pad a go too.

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              #7
              I was going to ask about the use of the GC controller. I've never really liked the look of the Classic Wii one and the thought of having to hold something of that shape for hours whilst playing a game like FE doesn't appeal. Thanks for the info.

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                #8
                Originally posted by briareos_kerensky View Post
                Probably it's harder, in the previous FEs you got bandits as main enemies for the first missions, you had mounted units and Lords with exceptional fighting abilities. I'm sure everyone abused of Titania in Path of Radiance, in Radiant Dawn you have no such unit, this time around you get kids against trained soldiers.
                When a thief is your most powerful unit it's time to ask the others why they become warriors
                Well observed. None of that ever ocurred to me but now that you mention it I think you're spot on.

                I've put this game on hold for the time being while I finish No More Heroes but I fully intend to return to it next week. Such a good game.

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                  #9
                  Ah, the joys of FireEmbleming...today a thunder mage killed a full health 40+ hit point character with a single critical hit...and that mage had a 3% critical chance. Luckily enough it was at the mission beginning, no major harm done.
                  After the first missions the game become easier because some of your starting characters grow up real quick (I maxed out Micaiah's MAG at level 14), while others are completely useless...the old characters that join afterward have more or less the same usefulness they had in Path of Radiance but unfortunately some of them aren't usable during certain missions (I want Jill in my roster forever and ever).
                  Units strength and weakness have been rebalanced once again: now draconknights are vulnerable to magic rather than arrows, while pegasus knights are good against magic users but weak against arrows; mages can only wield one type of magic (thunder, wind, fire, light or dark) and I was extremely surprised that healers can attack with their staves; soldiers and halberdiers still require a lot of work and extra experience to be fully effective.

                  Surely the game it's fun, but I miss the much more complex unit tree found in The Sacred Stones and its structure has already shown its age - a major overhaul would benefit the next game after the DS release, if something hasn't already been reworked there.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by briareos_kerensky View Post
                    I was extremely surprised that healers can attack with their staves
                    It's about time they did this. Like many of the new features in this game (including height differentation on the maps) this was done in Shining Force over ten years ago. I love Fire Emblem to bits but it really needs to get with the times.

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                      #11
                      Exactly my thought. With so many turn-based strategy games out there - including Intelligent System's own Wars series - it's painful that Fire Emblem only tries to rebalance classes with each new game instead of modify the gameplay. Not to mention that they always go for the same story: empire invades kingdom, heir of the kingdom rallies renegade troops, the true enemy is the emperor' second had trying to revive a huge and evil demon, final battle against the demon, everyone's happy (except the demon).

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                        #12
                        Got to part 2, which is way easier than part one. It's good to have some of my most favourite units of Path of Radiance back (

                        Marcia, Nephenee and Elincia

                        ...ooooh I love when you abuse of flying units ).
                        This chapter also features one of the strangest characters for a Nintendo game,

                        an obviously lesbian rogue called Heather...seeing her trying to get friendly with Nephenee or Elincia herself is fun

                        .

                        Part 2 is easier as most of your units are promoted characters with incredibly good stats, able to withstand some punishment and deal even more and generally speaking most enemies are low level basic units that have a lot of hit points but low attack power.

                        During the final chapters of part 1 you get

                        the Black Knight as a commandable unit...Alondite and Eclipse kill every enemy in one sweep

                        , so it's easy to abuse him, however I was able to bring Micaiah at level 20 before the end and even promote two other units.

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                          #13
                          Goddammit! I'm still on the first part. These battles are so hard I've hard to retry each one multiple times. I'm determined to get through at least part 1 without losing anyone but it's so hard when most of my characters are so underpowered.

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                            #14
                            I just finished Part 1 and have lost 4 people so far. That's very unusual for me and just goes to show how much harder this sequel is. I'm still enjoying the game though; there are some nice ideas tucked away here and there.

                            I like the way you get a little trailer for Part 2 aswell. I've never seen anything like that before in a videogame.

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by Kaladron View Post
                              I like the way you get a little trailer for Part 2 aswell. I've never seen anything like that before in a videogame.
                              Disgaea ?

                              BTW, part 2 is much easier than part 1, except for the final chapter. Went through part 1 without losing anyone, though I had to rely on laguz, something I don't like as they are too erratic in their behaviour.

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