yarrick's Full Review: Fire Emblem: Path Of Radiance for GameCube
Gamecube owning RPG fans take a deep breath, get a glass of cool water, and take a seat finally after years of waiting with little or no quality content there is a game you can be proud of to call your own. Enter Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. One of the major grumblings heard from Gamecube owners, especially for single next gen console owners like myself was the lack of content in this genre. Looking back on it perhaps I would have been better served purchasing a different console but ah nothing I can do about that now must make do with what I have. Well as the Gamecube's life span wines we are finally starting to see some games top notch RPGS emerge: Tales of Symphonia, Fire Emblem, and the much anticipated Legend of Zelda.
Story: 8.6/10
There is a definite trend among RPG's in the terms of storylines so much so that at least for me many have become dull and boring leaving me wondering if its worth to continue playing even if the gameplay is decent. However Fire Emblems story captivated me, while it does start much the same as many other RPGs. Training with your father as a young mercenary to rescuing a damsel in distress the smaller intricacies in which it differentiates itself from the common storyline that make it great.
Your name is Ike and you are suddenly thrust into becoming the young leader of the Greil Mercenaries. Together with your sister and several others you must help the Princess of Crimea escape from the evil clutches of the Daein invasion force. To do this means venturing into Gallia, land of the Beasts to request aide and relief. This is a world with some severe racism among the two separate races known as beorc (humans) and laguz (lycanthropic humanoids) or subhumans as some regular humans call them. So you know this will be no easy task. A warning to those of you who don't like to read...this game may not be for you as the vast majority of the story is severely text laden. There are some amazing cel shaded CG sequences for major events in the story unfortunately as is often the case there are not nearly as many as I'd like to see.
Gameplay: 9.4/10
For those of you unfamiliar with the Fire Emblem series this is a strategy RPG subdivided into separate "chapters". These chapters are where the actual fighting takes place prior to which you'll get an update on the story of what is going on and why you are taking the actions you are. You do have the capabilities to skip over these, however some are vital parts to the storyline and information you learn through these may help you discover how to add more members to your Mercenary Unit. Prior to each fight you will have a chance to look at an overview of the map to see what is going on around you and after examining this selecting your units of which numbers vary per chapter. Thankfully not only can you see what is going on but you can individually look at each enemy's stats and weapons before rushing in. While not necessary it becomes an important aspect of the game later on especially in the more difficult settings. Selecting your highest level units may not always be the best option if the vast majority of enemies you are facing will get attack bonuses against them.
The first few chapters are largely just to introduce you to the game which they do very well I must say. My game didn't come with an instruction manual and I had no problem figuring out what was going on thanks to the great weaning along process in Path of Radiance. Fighting is done on a grid based system where units are able to move a certain number of squares and attack certain distances. Weapons include the standard Swords/Axes/Lances where each has an advantage over one or the other enabling you to do more damage based upon what the two fighting units have equipped. Magical Elements are done in much the same fashion each one having an advantage and disadvantage against a type. Bows can be used for advantages against flying units; however they cannot be fired at someone if they are in direct contact with you leaving you wide open for a direct assault. Each character is able to carry 4 weapons and 4 items on them. Any additional in either of these areas and they will either have to drop something or send it to the convoy later in the game. Your ability to wield certain weapons/magic spells/healing is given through a grading system of S and then A-E, S being the highest then A-E in that order. The higher it is the stronger weapons or magic's will come available to you. As you use the weapons etc. your ability will become better and you will receive a better letter. For the most part all of these are limited to a certain number of uses and then are destroyed so it is important to make sure you have enough prior to heading into battle.
Movement and attacking is done by both sides in one giant turn per side where you each get to either move and attack/use item/heal/shove/Trade/Talk or Rescue. While most of them are pretty straight forward you'd be amazed how important pushing a unit one block can have on the outcome of a battle. Such subtle little things are what make me enjoy the game as much as I do. Horseback and Flying units get an extra movement phase after their action in which they can move a certain distance as long as they didn't use up all the blocks to get to the place the action was performed. This allows for hit and run tactics as well as rescue operations where you can get a unit that could potentially die out of harms way. Or it could be as simple as forming a wall around your weaker characters making sure no enemies can reach them.Strategy is a huge part of this game which along with a heavy text storyline is why I don't recommend it for younger gamers. When a unit other than Ike dies in this game they are gone for good you can no longer use them in battle...unless you reload the last save point of course which I'm sure most of you who purchase this game will end up doing at one point or another. Nothing is more frustrating then losing your favorite player to a freak critical hit or on the final boss of a stage. Certain characters will remain alive for storyline sake however they will just be permanently gimped I guess and no longer are able to take the battlefield.
Earning XP and leveling is done in much the same fashion as other RPG's. Each time you level you will get a random amount of points added to your stats anywhere from 0 to 8. Personally I dislike the fact that you can get 0 stats for leveling as you are only allowed to do it so many times. You get 20 levels on the first setup then once you level to the 21st you will get a class change where your stats will boost more dramatically as well as occasionally learning to wield an additional weapon type. Thanks to the base option a little further along in the game you are able to exploit the random points given out. I haven't but a friend of mine brought it to my attention. Anyway you'll have access to the base after the first few chapters, this is where you reload between chapters. You will be able to freely swap items between characters, store items in the convoy (up to 200), buy/sell/create weapons and spells, equip skills (the only time you can do this), have support conversations among members of your team of which you get 5 per player but they will boost your stats. You are also given the options to save, award bonus experience earned through missions, and chat to people in the area which can either reveal important information on the upcoming battle, allow you to acquire new weapons, or provide hints into getting new units to join the quest. There are various skills you can get throughout the game some being as valuable as having any hit that would be fatal to the player be half dmg (especially nice 'on Ike since if he dies its game over), another that makes enemy characters extremely aggressive towards a certain character almost always going after them as long as they are within range. Perfect for equipping those characters with high defense, there are also some less valuable skills like % chance corrosion of the enemy's weapons reducing the number of times they can use it. Each character has 15-25 skill points available with skills costing anywhere from 5-20 be smart with who you equip with what and what skills you use.
Earning the extra xp to be freely given out in the base is done by following the instructions that are given out to you in the permission briefings. Some of the different styles you will run into are protecting a certain character, fleeing from a more powerful enemy, to steadying your hand and actually showing discretion in killing. New to the series are the Laguz. These man/beast hybrids can rip through the opposing force when in beast mode unfortunately they are utterly worthless other than as a shield in humanoid form. Laguz come in 4 different main races beasts which are variations on the larger cat family, crows, hawks, and dragons. Transforming between the humanoid form is done through a special gauge. Most have varying amounts filled up at the beginning of the battle so based upon the map it is important in deciding who you will place onto the battlefield. If you won't meet any opposition for awhile then one will the gauge low would work best as it would transform when you got closer and of course the opposite when you are likely to meet opposition in the beginning. There are also special items that speed up, prolong, and even keep you permanently transformed. While important for storyline sake I don't like using these characters all that much, sure they are extremely strong when in their beast mode but then when it's over they can't really do much. I prefer using units that can have the option of attacking every round.
Graphics: 6/10
The graphics are by far the weakest aspect of this game. While the game is by no means bad to look at they are nothing that will wow you during normal gameplay. The fight animations for the most part are repetitive and poorly done. Your character and the enemy go to a generic looking battle stage and attack. For each type of attack for a character there is only two styles regular and critical hit so after you see it a few times it becomes very old. A few of the critical hits are decent but for the most part in an attempt in making them look cool by doing them super fast they just end up being hard to follow and hurting my eyes. Others just don't make any sense. You have two flying units attacking each other, how cool would it be to witness an air battle. Instead they both start standing on the ground and may or may not take to the air when each takes their turn to attack. The individual units look a lot better here than in the map overview atleast. However you would be well served to turn these off in the options because they just end up prolonging the already fairly long chapters.
Previous games in the series had 2D maps well for better or worse we are now in 3D. While I haven't played any prior installments in this series unfortunately the 3D in my mind would spice the battle up some. For the most part the maps are well designed although generally they are pretty plain. You'll have a few trees, some shrubbery, and maybe some houses or a castle thrown in. Occasionally you may also have yourself in an awkward camera angle and have trouble adjusting it since you can only rotate the camera in 3 different directions. I also found it hard to tell which houses you could "visit" by going to the door and using your action. Visiting will allow you to get an item however the doorways of the houses are so dark in many cases it's hard to tell whether they are open for visiting or not I often find myself just checking each one along the way to make sure I don't miss anything. While the characters don't look spectacular on the maps it is easy enough to tell the different style of characters apart and some of the units such as the wyrvn riders and the dragons are pretty badass. The in game menus are all pretty straight forward and easy to follow, pressing Y on any of these screens allow you to get fast and easy information on what everything represents. This area would get a much worse score if there wasn't the one saving grace in the simply stunning CGI movies. Everything from the characters to the voice acting is done great, but as is the case with many games you just don't seem to get enough of them.
Sounds: 8/10
With a lot of games I generally won't even notice the music unless I listen for it however as I'm too absorbed in the actual gameplay. Well that is not the case for this game. The music for Path to Radiance is mostly made up of various orchestral pieces which set up the stage for battle nicely. The hits and battle sounds are all pretty generic with various twaps. The voice acting accompanying the beautifully done CGI is what ties the whole thing together. Nothing is worse than some amazing video with horrible voice acting to go along with it and these guys' didn't disappoint as they did a great job fitting their roles.
Overall: 9/10
While the game is not without some flaws there isn't anything major enough to bring down the score enough when it is coupled with such excellent gameplay. The various strategic elements of this game, paired with a intriguing storyline, timely musical selections, atleast 40 hours of gameplay (if you decide only to play it once) and some welcome fresh tweaks on a already solid and proven gameplay system result in another success for Intelligent Systems (Paper Mario) and Nintendo. The strategic requirements make me somewhat hesitant in recommending this game for younger gamers, I'm not saying there aren't some younger players that could love playing this game and do fine. However the strategic elements could prove to be somewhat difficult for most. Fire Emblem Path to Radiance is a great game for the cube owners and I'd probably put it in there as one of the must owns for RPG fans.
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