Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

"Good game, but needs perfecting"

I love the Fire Emblem series, and so when I played this, I was pretty happy to know that one of my favorite franchises had made it into 3D format. However, the first thing I notice is tat they just took too much away. First of all, the magic system is completely different. Dark magic is a thing of the past, and that is a HUGE downer, because I was personally a big fan of Elder magic adepts. The Hero isn't per se gone, but unplayable, and that's another very bad thing, in my eyes.

But, on the bright side, the things that they did keep they absolutely perfected. The Paladin is in top form, and I can safely say that of the three North American releases, Titania is the best of starting Paladins, and an easy oust to Marcus and Seth.

Graphics: 8/10
The graphics are pretty damn good, and though not perfect, they raise no complaints from me. It's a truly awesome game to look at, and battle scenes and even the map itself is retinally stimulating.

Storyline: 7/10
Pretty cliche, but that's OK. What pisses me off is the ending, but I don't want to spoil that for those of you that haven't played or beaten it yet (Even though you aren't missing much).

The good guys aren't too badly written out. You see conflict amongst themselves, and they usually have a pretty well-planned personality, so that obviously means that this game wasn't just a rushed piece of crap.

The Black Knight is a pretty awesome villain, and you'll find yourself getting into his hedonistic character. The King of Daein's the main villain, however, but he's just too......basic. There's not too much to understand in him. Petrine is, once again, pretty basic.

Gameplay: 6/10
As I said before, a lot was lost. However, a lot was also gained and/or perfected. Many of the classes we know and love remain, and a lot are gone. The Paladin has hit home, and I just can't get over how good they are in this game. The Laguz play an interesting role, as well. However, that seemed to be the primary focus of this game. Since so many enemies you face carry slow-but-powerful Laguz-killing weapons, you'll be plowing through enemies in no time at all. Another thing is that enemies, while stronger than they were in Sacred Stones, were too few in number to be a real threat, and if you had even remote skill at this series you would be able to beat it without losing more than two units throughout the entire game!

Ike is one of the strongest Lords of the series, or at least that's how he starts out, but due to his build, he won't get many points put into magic, and in the end, that's what he will need, as strength for Ike becomes relatively useless when he gets Ragnell, a blade that focuses mainly on magic ability.

Magic classes are screwed over.....royally. Mages, Sages, a priest and a cleric.....that's it. Sacred Stones offered so many magic combinations for your team, and even Blazing Sword and Sealed Sword were more diverse with stave/magic use. Another thing that was messed up was the Assassin. Being unable to use the Killing Edge made him a lot less potent. Knives held no special abilities, and I always saw that as an interesting-but-pointless addition to the series.

With the Wyvern Lord, Sniper, Falcoknight and Paladin I think they've hit the nail right on the head, and the Soldier and Halberdier are awesome additions! Possibly the best addition to this game was the automatic promotion once a character reached level 21. It made it a lot easier to get a character powerful. However, the Base was just.....lacking. I really loved having customizable skills for my guys, but when awarding experience, you're penalized too many points. I understand what they were trying to accomplish, but even unpromoted classes are penalized an additional 100 points per full level-up.

The addition of elemental weapons was interesting, and I like how Anima was split up, but the magic triangle is actually a bit confusing at times. Fire>Wind Wind>Thunder Thunder>Fire just isn't as notable as Dark>Anima Anima>Light Light>Dark.

Overall: 6/10
This game is good, but of the three North American releases thusfar it holds too little to be worthy of Blazing Sword or Sacred Stones. The Wii release is supposed to remedy this game's story flaws, and that's a good thing, because there are too many questions that go unanswered, and that just doesn't seem fair, if you ask me. I personally think that if you play a game you should be rewarded by finding out what's going on. But not very much is revealed to you. Motive itself is just guesses! In Blazing Sword, you were told what Nergal intended to do. In Sacred Stones, though it could be confusing in the long run, you understood what Formortiis was up to and it all made sense by the time the credits were rolling. But in Path of Radiance you just have too many things that didn't go right. Too many questions that went unanswered.

A lot of things you loved from the previous installments in the series are gone, but many have been upped to their maximum. Hold items were a fun addition, and being able to customize your characters in more form was a good thing indeed. However, because there are no shops in this game, if an item breaks, you gotta get to Ike to replace it, and sad to say that trip will usually result in someone getting killed, or in the failure of a mission.

Good game, but they should've taken a bit more time on it, and they shouldn't have changed so much.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/07