Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Path Of Radiance is the gold standard when it comes to tactical RPGs. Challenging, well-designed maps, engaging conversations and character arcs, as well as interesting lore are in abundance here.

I was lucky enough to have a cool older sister who bought us this game when I was 6, and I truly enjoyed it even back when I too young and dumb to be good at it. I’m very lucky to own and to have played both this and Radiant Dawn.

PoR follows a medieval-ish era band of mercenaries that get roped into a war that quickly reveals itself to be far more dangerous than anyone realized. The characters we recruit along this journey are all interesting, if not likable, and it makes losing any of them a gut-wrenching, reset-inducing heartache.

That last part, however, gets at why PoR is not a perfect game for me - the reliance on RNG coupled with an unforgiving death mechanic.

Don’t get me wrong, I like that your characters can die in Fire Emblem games. It makes me think about every move, protect my squishier units, and truly makes you feel accomplished after routing the enemy. The problem is, coupling this with a game reliant so heavily on RNG can lead to some seriously frustrating gameplay experiences that can never be described as enjoyable. This is especially true if you are doing a no-death run and each death means restarting a level you’ve been playing for 30 mins to an hour.

There is no pain that can match watching your Swordmaster getting crit by a paladin with a 5% chance to do so and having to reset the ENTIRE level. There is no “battle save” mechanic here like in Radiant Dawn (that has saved me sooo much heartbreak). If someone dies you lose them or you restart, plain and simple. This was not fun when I was 8 and had no responsibilities except to enjoy my summer vacation, and it is SUPER not fun when I am 23 and have to work at 9 AM the next morning.

Despite this flaw, the game manages to be a blast 99% of the time. If you can look past a relatively basic (at least, in the first game) main villain and storyline, the enjoyment will come from building up your favorite characters and barreling through the 2nd half of the game with them.

I almost forgot, THE MUSIC! It’s superb. Nearly every track is enjoyable. The few coming to my mind are With Us, Lion King Chainegis, Power-Hungry Fool, (that one theme that always plays when Petrine is on the screen, I can’t remember the name) and the battle theme that I think only starts playing around the 2nd half of the game. It’s all fantastic and I’m pretty sure that none of the music is made with live instruments, which is all the more impressive.

If you can get your hands on this game, play it. Start on easy, familiarize yourself with the mechanics, learn how to keep your units safe, don’t get too frustrated, play defensively and plan a few steps ahead. You will get through the most difficult levels this way. I think no-death runs are awesome, but don’t feel ashamed if you lose a super weak unit and are like…meh, I don’t wanna waste 20 minutes of my life restarting right now. The fire emblem gods will forgive you.

Easily one of the best Fire Emblem titles out there. A compelling story with many likable characters, and challenging but fair mechanics. Any Fire Emblem fan should play this, or any fan of strategy RPGs I general.

This old ass game held up more than Fates in my opinion….the story is pretty decent- I spent my playthrough focused more so on the worldbuilding of Tellius which is some of the best in the series.

The discrimination between beorc and laguz was handled super well, and a lot of current franchises could take notes from it since racism is almost always used poorly in stories!

Ike as a protagonist is great. I like how he’s a lil slow, but very straightforward and well meaning. He just feels very real and he’s a protagonist you’d wanna follow. The soundtrack is great too- I actually enjoyed every single map theme 😭

Gameplay wise, this game didn’t disappoint either. I loved seeing my units grow over time. Boyd went from missing most of his hits with a flimsy axe to dishing out tons of damage with an Axe or Bow- I could send him to any part of the map by himself and he’d DO HIS THING! The only things I didn’t like about the gameplay were:

1. OVER-RELIANCE ON MOUNTED UNITS. I mean, if you aren’t mounted why are you even trying to fight in this game? The maps are big and movement is SO important. Foot soldiers often miss out on action because they just can’t get to it in time- meanwhile some of the naturally strongest units in the game are mounted (ie. Titania) so they get way more use.

2. Magic really sucks! The only reason I used Ilyana and Calill were because I liked them as characters- and the mounted units would always get to enemies before them so I didn’t exactly have to worry about them being a liability. Magic is just not as strong as an axe or bow and it doesn’t help that all the mages have horrible movement. I got some use out of Calill because she’s a strong mage with far away spells but Ilyana never progressed her skills past B. Magic being bad isn’t a bad thing for many- but for me, it is because I love a good mage! Shoutout Lysithea.

3. Growing skills is just really difficult. I started using Mist around Chapter 20 and I couldn’t even get her high level enough to use Ashera’s Staff by the end of the game. It’s just really grindy so your mages probably won’t ever see S or even A when playing this game- they just don’t get enough action with mounted units in the party. This is something Radiant Dawn fixes.

4. Unique weapons are hard to come by. I really missed Levin Sword!!! There is one magic sword in the game besides Amiti and it’s this weak Wind sword. The light spells in the game all suck and aren’t worth using.

Besides these gripes, I still really enjoyed combat in this game. The enemy phases are decently fast but still threatening and the map design was fun with the exception of that desert map.

5. Laguz units kinda suck. They can’t use weapons and barely gain EXP. I’m just not a fan.

6. No unique customization when it comes to unit. This is just because i’m a spoiled new Fire Emblem fan- so I was shocked everybody had one path progression when leveling up.

Despite this seemingly negative review, I enjoyed this game SO MUCH.

Final army was:
Ike
Jill
Mist
Kieran
Oscar
Boyd
Titania
Zihark
Ilyana
Calill

The only moment the fire emblem franchise tried to do something different and went very well

Was pretty good story and characters

Gameplay was fun but very slow especially enemy phases and made me burned out of the game by the end

Difficulty was challenging enough for me on hard and struggled in many late game chapters

Overall I liked it but FE7 was much better.

Freaking awesome