So I finally started Fire Emblem on GCN

and I am really liking it so far. I was wondering though if the Wii one was any good?

Yes, but you should wait until you're done with Path of Radiance. Radiant Dawn's difficult can be pretty cruel in some areas, and the story spoils the shit out of Path of Radiance (since it's a direct sequel and everything).

Be careful with Radiant Dawn. It can become literally impossible to finish the game near the end because it does some special shit it doesn't tell you about.

Radiant Dawn is a great game. However, it is for Fire Emblem veterans only and absolutely assumes that you played Path of Radiance first, both from a story and difficulty perspective. The game is also not without its technical issues. You can upload save data from Path of Radiance into Radiant Dawn, but in the first print of the North American version, they boned the feature, as the game will lock up if there is any Easy Difficulty save data on the memory card you're transferring from.

Ike is in that game. Dude, got a mean swing.

I am bummed that I am playing Path of Radiance on Easy. I was worried that the game would get too hard.

It doesn't. The difficulty's uniform and fair, except for one portion of the game. It's bad enough that the Black Knight is 100% luck, but I don't even get a damn checkpoint in it all? The hell, Nintendo? You still have them for the awesome Serenes chapter.

Path of Radiance is absolutely the best game in the series, from both a story and gameplay point of view. For me, the difficulty was spot on, it had the most unique/compelling tweaks (Laguz, magic trinity, level 21 promotion, push[!!!]), and had the best plot/characters by far.

Damn, I want to replay Path of Radiance again.

Unlike everyone else, apparently, I thought Radiant Dawn was an absolute mess. The difficulty flow and progression was just inane, humping around from fucked to a complete pushover. The way it jumped between characters broke the sense of advancement. The story was same. The jump around broke any semblance to the thing, and it was full of really dumb twists and had just a really lazy, bad plot. The lack of meaningful support conversations, coupled with the unnecessarily large cast, was also the biggest mistake possible. Characters are usually the best part of Fire Emblem games, and there was absolutely none of it with Radiant Dawn.

@supersmashsnake: The Wii Fire Emblem is still a good tactics game, but I feel like it is one of the weaker Fire Emblems, for reasons I outline below. However, by the time you finish Path of Radiance, you will probably notice "Hey, several characters sure were very mysterious, and the game kinda just ends with you saving the day but never explaining what the deal was with that one character." Congratulations! You have discovered some of the half a dozen loose plot threads that they leave hanging in the wind that are addressed in Radiant Dawn. So Radiant Dawn gives closure to the story (and also introduces a bunch of stuff that really wasn't foreshadowed) and has a more complex plot compared to Path of Radiance, where the plot is basically "Ashnard is medieval Hitler, so let's flee Crimea to find allies". But I feel like Radiant Dawn just gets bogged down with too much plot, and way too many characters that aren't given enough meaningful development.

@xtrememuffinman said:

I'm with you on nearly all of those complaints. You have fundamentally fucked up the making of a Fire Emblem game when:

• you don't let me have a consistent team throughout the whole game that I can personally curate. Radiant Dawn steals character away from you for plot reasons, or gives you absurdly overleveled characters you shouldn't use for plot reasons, CONSTANTLY.
• support conversations are made up of stock phrases that slot together, but ultimately mean there are almost no unique or interesting support conversation. Hell, Fire Emblem: Awakening does that, but it relegates it to the little barracks conversations, in addition to full blown unique support conversations. THAT IS HOW YOU DO IT.
• the structure of the game really does rob you of any sense of gradually building up this team, since you basically start anew several times throughout the game. I was hoping breaking the game into somewhat separate acts would be an interesting twist, but it suffers from sort of the same problem that Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon's mansions/acts fall into: it just makes each section feel sort of small and underdeveloped, because instead of one reasonably interesting journey, it's a bunch of mini-journeys that feel like they resolve themselves too quickly. There is never time for The Empire Strikes Back; each section feels like it jumps from Tatooine almost immediately to killing the Emperor and redeeming Darth Vader. You sure do solve a whole nation's problems in a surprisingly small number of skirmishes.

I've been pushing this point of view for a while now. For all of the smart ideas that Radiant Dawn has, like the way it handles skills, there are like 3 serious problems I have with it. The Dawn Brigade being full of a bunch of wet tissues who can be 1-rounded makes the first act of the game frustratingly difficult at times, especially when compared to the much easier Greil Mercenaries chapters. The final chapter heavily encourages you to ditch all of the units you spent time leveling up (not that you level up an especially broad variety of units, considering team Ike is probably going to be the most powerful by far) in exchange for crazy powerful laguz royals that are, in a sense, almost required to beat that map. And then we get to some parts of the story and.. bleh.

Radiant Dawn is still a totally ok Fire Emblem game. It's certainly better than the ultra-bland Shadow Dragon, but as a weird, obsessive fan of the series I can't say it's one of my favorites. Path of Radiance is the superior game by far.

I am also planning on playing the 3DS one soon too.

I should also mention that Path of Radiance is my first Fire Emblem.

@hailinel said:

That explains a lot =P

I haven't played Path of Radiance (those damn prices) so I went straight to Radiant Dawn. I'm sure the only reason I've been able to get through chapters is because it lets you create a permanent save in the middle of battle. It's my second Fire Emblem game and I gave up on it for a while, I'm just finishing up Awakening on Hard mode so I'll probably try giving Radiant Dawn another shot.

I know a lot of folks who don't really bother with handhelds, so Path of Radiance was their first too, and they went immediately to Radiant Dawn without issue. I will say they played on Normal though. Easy doesn't exist in Radiant Dawn, so it may be more of a spike for you.

Or maybe not. I don't know how much "Easy" changes, except maybe doubling EXP.

I loved Radiant Dawn but I agree with some of the problems people have mentioned. I liked the higher difficulty though. But those last maps did make a lot of your characters useless and the work you put into leveling them up pointless.

@superkenon:

There are fewer enemies too, I think.

I had it in my mind that only Normal to Hard have different enemy placements, for some reason. But I dunno. Shrug!

As long as this thread is still going, please tell me I'm not the only person who wishes Nintendo would gather the two Tellius games into an HD collection for the Wii U. Path of Radiance could use it, and the Wii U could definitely use it.

I was breezing through easy at the beginning but I am on Chapter 9 and the difficulty is starting to grow. I also don't understand recruiting people. I think I killed a recruitable person in Chapter 8.

@supersmashsnake: Recruiting is different in a lot of instances, but oftentimes it's done by moving a character (usually Ike) next to the unit in question, and choosing Talk if it's an option. Then they have a conversation and are convinced to join you. That's how it would've worked for Ilyana, at any rate (whom I assume you were talking about). Other recruits will require a different specific unit to talk to them, but it's almost always hinted at.

Pretty much. The general rule is this: characters with portraits are either bosses or recruitable units. If they're just some random fuck, you can definitely recruit them. Applies to some NPCs, too.

@video_game_king said:

Thanks for the tip. The game tells you some things over and over again but does not show you how to do other things.

Yep, characters with portraits are either bosses or recruitable units. If they look like a creepy raper dude, they are probably a boss. If they look even remotely handsome or not maniacally evil, they are probably recruitable.

I am still enjoying the game and it is starting to get pretty tough even on easy. Also Titania is a badass.

Don't rely on her too much. Units like Titania and Shinon are gonna suck away all the experience units like Ike or Rolf desperately need.

@video_game_king: That is a good point.

Damn I am playing on Easy and the game is already getting harder.

Then I'm guessing you're around chapter 11 when the Black Knight decides to take a stroll through the streets of Crimea and you have to haul all the ass away as soon as possible? If that's not the point when the game ramps things up, it's certainly around it.

On easy, he could probably use Titania for the entire game and be fine. Her growth rates are stellar enough that she'll keep up with most of your units perfectly fine as they start promoting, though not quite as well as someone like Seth from Sacred Stones. But yes, in theory, you're supposed to make sure that the lower level units get their share.

Until you get Astrid, that is. Then you just pump her full of experience and let her destroy an entire map. (At least that's what I did.)

I did that in one of my runs too. She's an absolute monster. Most of the Paladins are, really, but it seems like Astrid's especially so.

Yeah, Paragon + that Knight Proof means that she'll catch up to the rest of your army just fine despite starting at level 1. It's a pity that she's so terrible in Radiant Dawn, only good for giving that paragon skill to Nephenee or Haar so that Ike's team can make use of it.

I'm currently on Chapter 10. I have restart because one of my guys died. :(

Then you're playing it right. When one of your guys dies in a Fire Emblem game, you reset that shit and make sure you do a better job. That's how Fire Emblem works.

I'm glad I am playing it right then.

I'd just like to mention that this thread has made me start playing this game again, continuing my hard playthrough. Such a weird transition from my super death team in Awakening to most of my units being decidedly unable to one-round anything so far in this one.

I'm so hooked into this game that I am thinking about when I go to bed at night.

Just wait until you surpass that barrier and the dreams come.

I have been skipping a lot of dialog. It just seems to go on and repeat itself.

I don't blame you. That's probably my biggest complaint with the game. At the beginning of the game it seems like it takes an hour just to skip past all the damn dialogue and get to the next mission, which takes all of 15 minutes to finish (the second time through those early ones, at least).

Why? The story's just such a large part of the game. Trust me: it's really good (although not entirely complete).

The story is not bad but I feel like it could have been told with less dialog. It also sometimes seems to repeat itself.

@supersmashsnake: When you get to the desert map it's super useful to use this http://serenesforest.net/fe9/desert.htm, and make sure you have either Lethe or Mordecai step on the Vague Katti space for a bonus.

I just got to the multiple stage chapters and it is starting to get pretty tough.