Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

A must-play for every Fire Emblem fan.

It took me a while to play this game all the way through. Ever since I bought it for the wii when it released I've probably started it about three times but have only just played it through to the end. Its a bit of a unique entry in the FE series. Instead of seeing through a single army from beginning to end, the game is separated into 4 parts controlling several armies and around 70 playable characters (with one or two being exclusive to NG+).

The game is considerably long, not helped by the lengthy battle animations which even turned off are quite long on the map view. If you have a clear file there is an option to turn them completely off. I would even reccommend importing a cleared save file for a first time playthrough just to do this. Enemy phases can take an absurdly long time. It would also be worth playing this on an emulator with speedup mapped to a button on your controller.

The maps are overall quite enjoyable, although are standard fire emblem fare, with a couple of gimmick maps thrown in every now and then. As this is a sequel and it would be incongruent to have characters start again at lower tiers, human units now have a new third tier to promote to. Some characters are available on so few chapters that they just feel like fanservice rather than units that are actually supposed to be used. Although with the bonus exp system you can generally get any unit you want to be able to catch up to the part of the game they return in.

I tried doing an iron-man playthrough initially, but gave up about half way through after a few chapters with unexpected longbows and seige tomes killing off too many characters. There's also a gimmick map with unmarked pitfalls scattered around which can unexpectedly kill off some of your characters if you don't know where they are in advance. "Normal" mode in this game is actually the same as the Japanese version's hard mode due to weird localisation. So the difficulty can seem unexpectedly high at times. There is also apparently some cut story content in the English version due to using a shortened script, which makes at least one plot point I remember feel a little unexpected. You probably wouldn't notice this shortened script unless you read about this online beforehand however.

Plot points from Path of radiance are all cleared up here from what I could remember of that game. Making this feel like a necessary sequel. It is however a little fanservicey at times with pretty much all the characters from PoR returning at the cost of little characterisation for any of them. The plot has some pretty cool moments I won't spoil, but overall the writing isnt the best the series has seen. The ending after the final boss also feels a little cut short. Ike just kind of walks off into the sunset and that's that except for individual character epilogues for everyone who didn't die. The support convos in this game are negligible in size and don't add to anyone's character significantly. Which is a shame, but understandable given the number of characters they would have had to write proper ones for. As a trade off, most characters can form supports with a large number of other characters, so you can switch them around based on who you frequently deploy together. Although making them talk on the map to improve the support rank is a little tedious due to the vacuousness of the conversations.

Overall its worth a playthrough if you enjoyed the previous game. Although I wouldn't reccommend it as a standalone experience as its very much a sequel game that builds upon everything in PoR.

Parts 2 and 3 are peak Fire Emblem

Instant clasic tactical RPG,is very intense and long"over 35 hours"have a deep compelling storie,is not an easy game,you will be tried and tested at every turn,is a step forward into this great series.

Christ I love all these characters too much

A fantastic game, no questions asked. A direct sequel to Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn tells the story from multiple perspectives and adds a lot more characters and a longer story. A must play for any strategy RPG fan, but I just recommend you play Path of Radiance first.