Topic: Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

I'm really becoming interested in the Fire Emblem series. What kind of game is it? Is Radiant Dawn worth getting? I saw a tutorial for Path of Radiance. It looks like a turn-based-strategy.

its a turn based strategy game. you have a party of characters that you can give weapons, armor, and abilities. when you go into battle you choose who you want to put in and try to complete the objective, but when a guy dies , you cant play as him for the rest of the entire game. thats it in a nutshell.

Hm...sounds interesting.

Fire Emblem games are very interesting. If you have played Advance Wars, the combat is quite similar... but Fire Emblem also includes some basic RPG elements that really make it more engrossing.

The biggest difference is having unique characters doing the attacking (instead of generic army units). These characters will typically remain in your party for long periods of time -- unless you get them killed in battle -- and will gain experience to level up, become more proficient with certain weapon types after using them enough, and develop bonds and relationships if you make them interact with each other. Consequences for mistake are a little bit more severe, because if a character falls in battle that usually means they are gone for good... so be careful with your resources, because you can't just sacrifice units to reach your goal without facing the consequences afterwards.

One thing I would caution you about is time commitment. These games are very fun, but suck up a LOT of time. Battles can go on for an hour or longer in some cases, and if you are the type of person who wants to see everything in the game then it is easily possible to rack up over 100 hours of game time. So if you dislike spending 40-60 (or maybe more) hours with a single game than this might not be the choice for you. (On the other hand, you should have no problem getting your money's worth from the game!) Also, presentation is quite basic... these games are about story first, intense strategy gameplay second, and impressive graphics/audio a distant third. So the Wii game really doesn't look or play that differently from the GameCube one.

Oh, and for a final note: the story between Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn is supposed to be continued. I don't think you'd miss out by skipping the first one... but either would be a good pickup and I'd recommend just grabbing whichever is cheaper between the Wii/GameCube titles.

I recommend Shadow Dragon on the DS since that's the first Fire Emblem game i bought and 3rd Fire Emblem game i play, plus it has a local and online multiplayer (2 Players do not 4) and as well as other extras such recap which allows the player aka you to rewatch the main story plot and a sound room to listen to all the music in the game.

(So far i played Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance and Shadow Dragon).

FE is a very nice looking, interesting and enjoyable basic strategy game. But be ready for a ton of quite long and nonsense dialogs/story-line texts.

Do yourself a favour and play Fire Emblem. I'd highly recommend Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem (GBA) above all others. I'd also like to advise you to avoid Shadow Dragon, as it's not all that good.

I'd like to echo ejamer and say that the game is quite long, but I'm someone who doesn't normally have huge blocks of time to play and I found it quite manageable in 30-60 minute chunks. The battles can take a long time depending on how good your strategy is and whether or not you're prepared to accept the loss of a character here and there as part of the story (I had at least half the characters die in my game); realising that replays can be quite different depending on who lives and dies.

It's a nicely told tale and whilst I did alternate play with other games I didn't feel like the game was taking over my life because I enjoyed the story and gameplay so much. It's definitely something I plan to play again in the future.

I have put 56 hours into the game. That includes my first playthrough, and I have started a second.

Path of Radiance is fantastic. The GBA games were amazing. Shadow Dragon was alright. I never had a desire to finish Radiant Dawn.

I agree that the GBA games are a great place to start with this series - being able to save mid-battle and throw the system in your pocket for later is really convenient, and both Fire Emblem (GBA) and Sacred Stones are really good.

Out of the five FEs released worldwide, four of them are excellent.

Just watch out for Shadow Dragon though, it sucks.

I for one thought Shadow Dragon was very enjoyable.Hated Path of Radiance 3= (Never liked 3-D RPGs...)
Start with Shadow Dragon, since its "lower class", then go to the GBAs

My favorite FE game would have to be Sacred Stones for GBA. It has the perfect amount of characters and each character is so memorable (not to mention Digiki's avatar is one of them). And its the easiest to complete of the FE games imo. But thats not to say theres no challenge; no. Its still pretty hard to keep every character alive, but luckily its one of the few FE gmes that lets you train your characters in-between chapters.

If you don't get Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem (GBA) are pretty god choices. Just don't get Shadow Dragon. Its horrible. And I've heard lots of negative things about Radiant Dawn.

Shadow Dragon sucks , both GBA ones are very good and is a good start from.

My favs are PATH OF RADIANCE (GC) and RADIANT DAWN (Wii).
They have the best story, graphics, music, characters, challenge and level design.
THE SACRED STONES (GBA) comes in 3rd but was good too. And SHADOW DRAGON (DS) isn't bad either.

Radiant Dawn is great, although it's the second worst of the worldwide ones, because it has some bothersome quirks.

The story it tells is a fairly grand one. It's also the hardest one though (easy mode is harder than hard mode in Sacred Stones), so as a first FE it's not highly recommended, if you have a choice that is.

I really don't get why everyone says Radiant Dawn is so difficult. I never played one of these tactics games and I didn't find it a problem at all. Yes a lot of characters died, but I was still able to get through to the end without a lot of replays on the way and a decent selection of heroes at the end for my final team make-up.

Ah, that's the thing. I think a lot of Fire Emblem players (including me) try to play through the game without losing a single character. That makes things quite a bit harder, although I didn't think Radiant Dawn was too hard on Normal mode. Hard mode is a whole different beast though.

One of the great things about Fire Emblem games is that there's so much replay value there. You can always go for a completely different team, and Radiant Dawn has some extra characters and a possible extended ending on the second playthrough. I've spent over 350 hours on it so far, so I'd definitely recommend buying it.

The game is brutal. Even on Easy. I try to save as many characters as I can, of course, but it's not always possible, and come the final chapter there is just no hope. I've never heard of anyone who's play a single other Fire Emblem game saying this one was easy. Sean, your modesty is making us feel bad. Just come out with it already: You are a strategy mastermind.