Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (2005)

Story

The story had a strong start, in introduces themes such as racism (in form of beast vs humans, but still, metaphorically is there), some kind of coming-of-age story, and the usual fantasy-medieval drama I craved for (revenge as fuel for plot is always welcome). I could relate a lot to Ike’s reason to continue his journey and the decision behind protecting the princess – so even though it was (yet another) “protect the princess” plot it did feel the political drama on the background was a good context for it to happen. There were several moments after chapter 23 that I thought the game was really taking too long and too many distractions from his original objective. The racism thing gets resolved in a very vanilla way, and some of the other elements get diluted in the overly extensive chapters.

Characters

The cast is sooooo diverse that you barely get to see what everyone has to offer – yet the story tries to put some characters more than others for the sake of building lore. I quite enjoyed the screen time of the different factions, I think it added a lot of depth to the story. There are some characters that are introduced long before they get to meet the main cast, and I thought that was a clever move. It is quite impossible to get to know everything from all characters in a single walkthrough, and I am fine with that. However, even playing it more than once some characters just have some few lines, and you could really made as if they’ve never existed in the first place.Extra points for the character designs, loved them!

Favorite character? Marcia of course!!

Visuals

At first I fell in love for the visuals since I was coming from the GBA games. Nevertheless, after a while I realized that for a Nintendo Gamecube game the graphics were quite plain… And I’m not even referring to the colors. The castles, the forests… everything felt very… SNES-era but in 3D. Very few “fully 3D” scenes in my opinion – the beginning made me think that there would be many of those and I think we had like… six. Not cool.

Gameplay

So… this is where the game shines, to be honest. Taking the best out of its previous entries, I think the game had a fair amount of challenge in specific moments. Not too hard, not too easy. You can see there was a lot of thought put into the different stages, and going through them feel like putting a puzzle together. Very entertaining! I think this game did what its predecessors failed to do: to have a balance between fun and challenge. I did have the advantage of coming from playing several Fire Emblem games so I didn’t need a refresh in how the gameplay works, but I do think some of the logics are obscure and could be confusing for new players. For example, there is no explanation whatsoever of how the bonus experience works – and you can tell that it is just not a matter of finishing the episodes fast, it would seem some chapters follow a different logic yet there’s nothing indicating how it really works in the background. Same for the Support system.

Music

I liked medieval-themed music so I have no complaints. Some of the themes get repeated a lot but personally I didn’t mind. Coming from the GBA chiptune in previous entries, the NGC music was a blessing to my ears.

Final Thoughts

Anyway, definitely a great entry for newcomers and people who like strategy/RPG games. It does show its age but if you’re willing to let that pass, you’re in for a ride.

Game #31/200

Path of Radiance is my 7th Fire Emblem game, so I know the deal by now. I find Fire Emblem to be such a consistent series; out of the 7 games I played, only 1 (Shadow Dragon DS) is what I would consider a complete dud. The formula is so remarkably simple (and similar) from game to game that there is not too much variety, but the gameplay loop is extremely addicting and satisfying. I will say that most of my Fire Emblem experiences end between 15-25 hours and this game was barely longer than that, but I also turn off combat animations (time consuming and repetitive). I would consider this a lengthy title by FE standards. It certainly has the most ambitious story, tackling racism in a world that is not unlike any of the other low fantasy FE universes. But it also has the same "save the continent/world from a mythical dark force" theme that every other game has. I think this story is well-liked by the fanbase, but honestly I found it pretty stale and boring. Ike, the main character, has an outstanding design but also falls flat as a boring, vanilla character. It's odd, because I find a lot of the Fire Emblem characters across the series to be charmless and derivative (this has changed with Three Houses/Engage, but the characters instead fall into common anime tropes), but for whatever reason it doesn't really bother me. And while I sit through the story unimpressed, I do, for whatever reason, look forward to the base's support conversations. I really enjoy the unremarkable conversations that occur between your party members, as it is cool seeing the different dynamics of these people you picked up on your journey. Even though I'm not exactly laughing or sobbing at any point during the game's dialogue, it does make me just a wee bit more sentimental for them. And ironically, it does suck ("Noooo! Not Marcia!") when a character permadeaths, so I guess I am attached to some of them to some extent, but I also found strong units in this game to be plentiful. I've figured out that Fire Emblem games feel difficult not because there's ever actually any threat of losing a map, but there's a constant threat that your favored team composition will be forced to change by a character death. It's interesting that this mind game with the player is what suggests that the game is difficult, when really, you could probably fly through this game quickly using your starting units and a few other powerful recruitments if your goal was "beat it" without any self-imposed restrictions ("Gotta keep Marcia alive" for example).

The graphics are in 3D and there are a few cool 2005-esque cut scenes with horrendous English voice acting. Nothing crazy but I thought the game looked nice. The only critique I had was the style of character art, not the designs themselves, but the style which is like a weirdly western deformation of the traditional anime design. It reminded me of that browser-based game "Adventure Quest." Not horrible, but a little bit off-putting. Nothing else remarkable about sound design or music, just typical (good) Fire Emblem stuff.

The maps themselves were a lot of fun and the difficulty was nicely balanced. I felt strategically challenged and enjoyed battling and trying to keep my units alive in nearly all of the chapters. The Fire Emblem formula is honestly just so strong. But besides that, I loved how support conversations were unlocked by units simply participating in a battle together and not being right next to each other. I never enjoyed that little extra management piece in previous titles. It kinda sucked that you got like, one box of dialogue at most from characters who survived the whole game instead of a peek into their future or something, but whatever. The other change I loved in this game was bonus exp. At first I thought it would be way too cheap, but it's actually fairly earned (you need to beat maps quickly) and can be used to buff some weaker characters and get them into the action sooner. You can also "top off" characters who are close to leveling so they start the next map with a stat boost. This was the perfect amount of fun/simple balance, which will deteriorate throughout the series and culminate in Engage's horribly bloated management options. The last thing I enjoyed was that units auto-promoted at level 21. There are still Master Seals that can be used to quickly promote a favored character, but I found it much more satisfying to boost my characters up to 21 from 18-19 with bonus exp and guarantee a promotion. I hope these features return in some of the FE games that I've yet to play. For now, I would say that all of the Fire Emblem games are mostly equal, a solid 8/10 for me (besides Shadow Dragon, that's like a 5). And for fun I'll list my rankings: Awakening -> Blazing Blade -> Sacred Stones -> POR -> Three Houses -> Engage? (still playing this) -> Binding Blade -> Shadow Dragon.

I have to be honest - I did not like this game so much. This is only the second game in the franchise the I've ever played, but Path of Radiance kinda got me a little disappointed.

First, the good things. The glue that holds it all together IS the combat system. The true meat of the game! Strategizing your units, taking advantage of the amazing and well-designed maps, leveling up, changing classes, getting to know characters, recruiting, losing members and etc. When it comes to what was supposed to be the basic in a tactical game, Path of Radiance is great! I had a lot of fun with it! When things work out or when you know exactly what went wrong with your strategy, that's when the game shines.

The story is alright. I liked it, but it took me several chapters to actually get a grasp of it as a whole. Things are just thrown at you. Not not just 'things', 'THINGS' are thrown at you! The pinnacle of TMI! I'm glad there were some actually interesting characters and story development, but it was all VERY slow. I blame the story flaws in the tedious writing. But, still, not a bad story. Especially when you're getting close to the end - That's when it gets GOOD!

But that's about all I actually liked about in Path of Radiance. Sure, it's basically the core of the experience, but the game lacks in so many other aspects!

The presentation, for example, it's so bad, it's offensive! This game could've been a SNES game! To me, that hurt a HUGE part of the experience. The soundtrack sounded bad, the storytelling felt stiff, the artstyle was weird and everything else seemed too archaic. And although I liked the fact that the game focuses mainly on the main story, without any sidequests or unnecessary detours, THIS TIME I missed it. See, depending on the way (and difficulty) you play, Path of Radiance can be extremely punishing and there's no extra way to grind or get a bit stronger. Some bonus exp or character recruitment requirements are never actually explained to you, so you're left in the dark, with whatever you make out of its gameplay. It also doesn't help that most units are USELESS! Their resistances/defenses are made of PAPER and their attack power can be quite low. Good luck on the field, with your 11 characters vs 22 enemies and a one-shot freak of a boss!

Add that to the preposterous permadeath system and you have a mediocre way to challenge the player, instead of actually teaching them how to get better and giving them means to it. You're basically on your own and you don't have much else to do.

Maybe my hype for this game was too big. But I'm not to blame here, since EVERYBODY LOVES Path of Radiance. I had my share of fun during battles, yes, but found no love overall, only frustration.

I don't recommend this game, unless you're an ultimate sucker for the genre and the franchise.

This is my first Fire Emblem game and what an introduction it was. From the very beginning this game grabbed on and didn't let go of my until I finished it. There are only 29 battles in this game. There's no redos, besides game overs, no grinding, nothing except you and 29 long and potentially bloody battles. This is incredibly refreshing after playing a couple traditional JRPGs filled with grinding and endless pointless battles. Not that there's anything wrong with those games, but a tightly focused tactical game that requires my brain to be on the whole time is just what I needed.

Fire Emblem is a tactical grid-based RPG. While it does have quite a few things going on under the hood, it's actually quite simple to play. The game displays all relevant information cleanly and basically tells you your likelihood of success when you go to attack an enemy unit. Player-controlled units and enemies occupy the same map and can engage in battles by moving to a square within your weapons range. For melee weapons, you can attack any of the 4 squares adjacent to you; ranged weapons typically can target two squares out in all directions, though every weapon is different. What you're capable of, such as damage output, attack speed, and defense in an altercation, are determined by your characters stats. Doing an action, such as attacking, being attacked, dodging, or healing a teammate all give a certain amount of experience. By gaining 100 experience, a character advances to the next level and will typically gain attributes in skills that will help them (Ex. magic skill for mages, strength for warriors) though the distribution is somewhat random.

Players and enemies will take turns moving all of their available units and performing various actions with them on the grid map. The goal for each map changes with each mission. Some missions require you to seize a certain square that is heavily guarded, others require you to kill a boss unit, and others simply have you killing everyone. Speaking of killing, that is one thing that Fire Emblem does particularly well. There are 46 characters that the player can recruit for their army. All of them, save Ike, the main character, can be killed (or merely incapacitated and permanently removed from the playable roster if they're plot important) and will not be playable anymore. The permadeath feature forces players to keep their eyes open and to play cautiously, for every death is a permanent hit to their army's efficacy. Of course one could circumvent the permadeath by just restarting the game, but that's boring and doesn't hold the same emotional weight as playing with permadeath in my opinion.

In fact, the story the game tells in battles while adhering to permadeath rules is far better and punches harder than the actual main story told in cutscenes and visual novel-esque dialogues. The main story is serviceable, but nothing to write home about. But the deaths of units that trusted you, that you had grown to rely on... That hits harder than any narrative beats the game takes. While the plot itself is nothing spectacular, support conversations between the characters really flesh them out and makes it even worse when units die.

Graphically the game is pretty decent for a 2005 game. The 2d artwork for all the characters pops and all the characters manage to look unique. Their 3d models on the map are recognizable, if not particularly good looking. The prerendered cutscenes are very pretty, but have a major major flaw. The voice acting is pretty mediocre. Ike sounds like Hayden Christiansen, Mist sounds like Tails from Sonic Adventure 1, the Black Knight is completely incomprehensible because of all the filters and effects placed over his voice. It really brings the cutscenes down, because they are quite pretty for 2005 video game CGI. Fortunately, the rest of the games sound design steps up comparatively. The soundtrack is pretty good, and definitely has some earworms and recognizable tracks.

Overall, I highly recommend the game. It's a fun tactical RPG, the characters are all somewhat fleshed out compared to completely blank slates, and the permadeath feature raises the stakes immensely. Great game.

Edit: forgot to mention. The settings menu is spectacular. Tons of options, like grid thickness, game speed, message speed, animation toggles for every playable character, it's all very impressive for a 2005 console game.

Here is a solid title for any fan of tactical RPGs. All the usual gameplay elements are here. You will be worrying over stats, collecting the best equipment for your favorite characters, and strategizing on the best ways to battle across each map. No twists. No turns. Just straightforward turn-based tactics. Here is the breakdown of my experiences:

--The Good--

What really sets this title apart from most other tactical RPG games is how it limits the player. With games like Disgaea or Ogre Tactics the player is basically allowed to run around all over the place, replaying battles or playing endless numbers of random maps, grinding for experience and gear. In this game though there are only 29 chapters. That's 29 battles, and that's it. No extra experience and no second chances. Combining this with character perma-death and the fact that every time you hit with your weapon it degrades (and eventually breaks), each decision you make in each battle feels much weightier. I enjoyed this because I felt like I could use my brain to win the game instead of just over-leveling and then steamrolling my way through the main story. I felt a sense of real accomplishment after each battle, especially for the first half of the game.

I also appreciated the understated character design of this game. Each character is very different without being ridiculous and over-the-top. They are as different as normal people (but without being as boring as normal people). Personally I am weary of characters in games that try too hard to be "unique." And as a result of these characters feeling both normal and interesting I felt a stronger emotional bond to them. They felt more like friends and comrades rather than "heroes" I'm watching on a screen.

--The Bad--

The biggest weakness of this game though has to be the writing. That's unfortunate since I really enjoyed the writing of the GBA Fire Emblem games. This game's translation doesn't have any errors, but the way the characters speak is wooden and bland. Conversations can go on far too long, with characters endlessly apologizing and thanking each other, and the game has a bad habit of repeating itself (the characters have a conversation and then the game narrator repeats the main points of the conversation again two minutes later). That problem becomes even worse with how simple the plot of this game is. I usually don't mind simple plots in games because overwrought stories can get in the way. But this game is obviously trying to make me care about what is going on, so a strong story is important. It is too bad the story does not live up to that desire.

Along the same lines as the writing problem I also felt like there were just too many characters to recruit to fit in comfortably with the scope of this game. This game is all about weighty choices so I think they gave you so many characters so you had to really consider who you would be using to fight on each map. When it came to the narrative though this many characters really watered things down. Many of the characters had stories (or hints of stories) I found much more interesting than what was going on with Ike, but it is impossible to really explore those stories unless you are willing to spend the hundreds of hours it would take to do multiple playthroughs.

A tighter focus in some places and a few twists and turns and flights of fancy in other places would have really improved the game's writing.

--The Verdict--

If you are craving a dopamine fix this game might not have enough excitement to give you that. If you are looking for a game with emotional resonance and characters you will fall in love with, this game might not have enough to give you that either. This game might not have anything surprising or revolutionary, but it is also reliable in its gameplay. That understated style can also be relaxing when so many other games are exploding with colors, over-the-top characters, and actual explosions.

One last quick note: The ending of this game, without giving any spoilers, is meant to lead directly into the next game in the series. So if you are person who needs closure and the answers to every question in a game to feel satisfied you may want to buy them both at once, or at least wait to play them until you have both. And considering the rarity of these titles it may end up costing you. Just a friendly warning.