FIRE EMBLEM 10: Radiant Dawn Retrospective - ShaneBrained

[Music] on November 19th 2006 Nintendo released what would become one of its most successful home consoles ever from the moment it hit shelves the Nintendo Wii took the public by storm and over time it accumulated one of the most diverse game libraries on the market flush with both casual and more dedicated experiences during the Wiis early explosion onto the market came the tenth entry in the Fire Emblem series Fire Emblem radiant dawn this was a game with many priorities on top of being the second 3d entry in the franchise it was also the first truly direct sequel in the series over the years radiant dawn has gained the reputation of being one of the most difficult Fire Emblem games while few would call it as brutal to new players as a game like Thracia 776 it can be similarly unpredictable and unforgiving just as infamous as its challenge is its length with a weighty yet surprisingly fast paced story split into four parts it is jam-packed with dialogue events exposition and plenty of new characters and story revelations after finishing what became one of the most enjoyable games in the series for me yet I have been eagerly looking forward to getting to this entry and at last that day has arrived as I always do I went through this game twice however this time I actually bumped up the difficulty for the first time ever meaning I went through once on normal and once on hard for a very specific reason with my experience from both of these playthroughs on this episode of the Fire Emblem retrospective I'm going to be breaking down everything that I found this is going to be an interesting one and I definitely have a lot to say about this experience so I hope you're ready for a long one today let's go ahead and get started on it the creation of what would be the first planned sequel to a Fire Emblem game naturally started during the development of the previous game I'll have to go back a bit in order to best set the stage after intelligent systems felt they had thoroughly established the Fire Emblem brand through a series of three highly regarded Game Boy Advance entries the debut of path of Radiance on the Gamecube was meant to be the first step towards becoming an even bigger Nintendo RPG staple on the home console the gameplay graphics music and story were all meant to be more epic than ever before with the expected result being a tremendous return on their investment and the gate being opened for many more console fire emblems to come sadly this is not what happened first of all path of Radiance released on the Gamecube which sold poorly especially compared to its direct competitors Microsoft's Xbox and the highest selling console of all time at the Sony Playstation 2 on top of being released late into the GameCubes lifespan the amateurish seeming graphics and animations would have also made it less appealing to general audiences it really is a shame because path of Radiance has definitely gone on to be very beloved by those who picked up and played it but in so many ways this was one of the worst times ever to release a major game on a Nintendo home console it's no surprise than to learn that Fire Emblem 9 became the lowest selling game in the franchise even selling slightly worse than 3 Xie 776 although the sales numbers were not a total disaster this was definitely not the big return to console gaming that intelligent systems had been hoping for what's worse is this was the game which they had hung everything on including implementing multiple sequel hooks into the story which essentially guaranteed that they could not change course now and that their next game would have to follow up on it at the very least that sequel would have the benefit of not being developed for the GameCube as it was instead a plan to release a nintendos next console which was then known as the Nintendo Revolution the game's release date was planned to be as close as possible to the konk debut although unlike a lot of other early Wii games such as The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess Fire Emblem radiant dawn would not be receiving both a Wii and GameCube version this was due to a step-up in the graphics which they stated the Gamecube was unable to handle other features of the Wii like motion controls and Wi-Fi were considered but ultimately not implemented with the benefit of hindsight it's really easy to see how this whole plan was destined to fail both by bad decisions at intelligent systems at the time as well as completely unforeseeable market trends development for the 10th game went pretty much as expected directing this time was Tycho Canada while sin Rokita who had given path of Radiance has cast such a signature flare return to help redesign not only its huge returning cast but the many new characters who also made their debut digital frontier once again worked on the cgi cutscenes which this time focused on having a much more epic scope instead of depicting smaller scale scenes with only two or three characters proper translation was a huge focus in path of radiance with translators working in tandem with the developers in Japan to make sure that everything came across with the same intent while still being accurate there's no doubt that a lot of effort was also put into translating radiant dawn but unfortunately this time a lot of errors slipped through these would include things like skill descriptions listing wrong numbers such as the text for the skill resolve stating that its benefit would only happen if a unit were at 20% or less HP despite the actual number being 50% this isn't all however radiant dawn in Japanese actually had two different scripts thinking that younger players would tend to choose the Normal difficulty the script for that mode was simplified reducing the dialogue and overall complexity of the speech hard mode and above used an extended script one that would appeal to older Japanese gamers able to understand it and enjoy more elaborately written scenes having different reading difficulty level options actually does make a lot of sense in a Japanese game given how all students there spend years from elementary school and Beyond learning hundreds and hundreds of kanji in order to get a standard reading level understandably the English translation team didn't want to create two different scripts or maybe they didn't want to split the scripts like the Japanese version did unfortunately though the script that they chose to translate for all difficulty levels was the simplified version something that remains a sore spot for many to this day just a quick note here I'm not going to be going deeper into this script issue than this despite there being a lot more to break down here the reason is quite simple I only played the English versions and my later analysis can only be built from what I myself experienced so as bad as these issues are both of them seem trivial compared to one of the most horrendous oversights I have ever seen in translation one that has continued to affect perceptions of this game for its lifespan and of course I'm talking about the complete mistranslation arguably on purpose of this game's difficulty options this does require some explaining path of Radiance originally had three difficulty options normal hard and maniac when bringing that game to the west maniac mode was removed and a new easy mode was invented and put in place radiant dawn had no such changes to its difficulty modes instead the names of the original difficulty modes were merely translated to be something different seemingly just to keep its difficulty mode names congruous with what came before so this meant to that normal was translated into easy hard was translated into normal and maniac was translated into hard the result of this change isn't hard to predict the majority of players chose normal for their first runs and were immediately thrust into an experience that was built around its players already being familiar with the game to the point of almost expecting you to know what was going to be coming just around the corner the text describing this difficulty mode does state as much but this was likely not enough to persuade players to start with the option listed as easy following to release in general review audiences were quite mixed on this entry with almost every reviewer bringing up its intense difficulty while it would eventually surpass its predecessors sales it would not do so by much only selling about 15,000 more copies placing it squarely as the third worst selling game in the franchise yet again intelligent systems had tried to immortalize their series on the console and yet again they had failed this is what a disaster looks like the ramifications of radiant dawns failure are a story for next time but one thing that I feel needs saying is that sales have never been a marker for a games true quality there were a lot of improvements to be had here and despite the lost franchise opportunities that mistakes in its planning and marketing strategy led to the fact remains that nowadays for many radiant dawn is one of the most beloved firered looms out there at the same time for many others it's one of their least favorites I guess I'll have to see where I land on this debate as we go on anyways I think it's about time that we start breaking down the story of the game and as always I'll offer a spoiler warning here the following synopsis of radiant dawn is going to be broken into four parts however these are not necessarily cut in the same way as the games parts if you already know the story of this game or you don't need a refresher then you can skip to the timecode at the top of the screen to get right to my story analysis section on the other hand if you want to avoid all story spoilers you can use the timecode at the bottom to jump right to the start of my gameplay analysis which from that point on will be totally spoiler free alright everybody let's get started in three two one in the wake of general Ike's victory in the last war the country of Dan had fallen apart Ashe nard the mad king who had instigated the previous war had finally fallen and after his country was ceded to the pinyon empires rule it had unfortunately gone through three years of turmoil with many of the people struggling against their new Authority and Bennion abuses of power becoming more and more frequent even as the situation in the north worsened hope still remained for the battered populace in the form of the silver haired maiden nakiya and the dawn Brigade she led with the goal of freeing their homeland and restoring Dan's independence they struggled against the holy empires control utilizing guerrilla tactics to deal critical blows before disappearing with nary a trace protected by her close ally the thief south this band of Heroes would often rely on Micaiah strange power of foresight in order to help guide them this along with a strange voice that she could sometimes hear after avoiding yet another attempt at capture Micaiah was led by this voice away from the civilization of daen into the nearby desert at the end of her road she eventually met up with another small group led here by a similar voice here she met Raphael the older brother to Prince reyson and princess Leon and yet another survivor of the Serena's Massacre along with him they met his two protectors members of the wolf tribe of lagoons who originated far to the east of tellus in the lost kingdom of Hatari after promising to guide their group towards Galia macaé made her way back into dan along the way spotting a conflict between more Binion soldiers and a small group of Dan fighters after coming to their aid the maiden found many of South's former comrades all of whom were guarding a blue haired young man this man was peles the supposed son of King Ashe nard and heir to the throne of Dan also backing this Prince was the cunning depraved azúcar and the princes mother the lady Almeida who was the secret lover of the mad king who had bore him a son many years before the war due to this remarkable meeting nakiya was naturally asked join their effort to crown prince elias to which she ultimately agreed with makea at the head of the princes forces the resistance began to gain ground against the Empire's occupation soon the group found tore Maud another friend from the mad Kings war who was serving as a messenger from Ben Yuans ruler impressed sonakaille from him they learned that much of the troubles and Dan were against her wishes and in fact she was ordering her forces to now stand down Jerrod the leader of the Binion occupational forces who had been working with the Senators opinion until this declaration refused to follow sonakshi's orders to try to gain control of the day in situation again he went so far as to try to assassinate nakiya personally in the dead of night a vile plan that was only thwarted by the shocking reappearance of the Black Knight the unstoppable armored warrior who had served the Mad King in the last war who here apparently had survived his duel with General I after mchao was rescued by him the Black Knight joined their cause helping to pursue Jerrod right up to the capital of Nevada where he was finally taken down in the wake of this victory with pinion pulling out Dan was finally free in a short time Elias was crowned king and after he signed an official document from Bennion recognizing their independence his rule was legitimized across the continent one of his first acts as king was to name me kaya the general of Danes and military forces a role which she accepted under the care of the silver haired maiden and its new king the nation of daen seemed safe at last eagerly looking forward to the road to recovery ahead they did not know that this victory was merely a stepping stone in someone else's plan altogether though the return of the king of Diana was a cause for celebration in the north throughout the rest of tellus and especially within Crimea the return of the day in monarchy was a cause for concern after surviving an unprovoked invasion three years prior the long shadow of the mad Kings actions still hung over the people the rebirth of Diana raised the question were they planning to invade again and if so would their queen who many viewed as weak be up to the task of defending them as these questions ran rampant through the country a revolutionary army arose with the intent to force elincia to step down and allow their leader counter Ludovic to take the throne instead without the assistance of the Grail mercenaries whose whereabouts were currently unknown elincia was forced to deal with the revolutionary plot herself and sent two of her most trusted Knights Lucia and Joffrey to stop loot Vic's plot while the two knights managed to best some of the revolutionary armies allies ultimately Lucia was captured by the enemy while Joffrey was lured into a diversion this left elincia all alone to defend against a direct siege from which she did come out victorious although the traitorous ludwik was jailed he had arranged to have Lucia executed unless elincia immediately stepped down despite the knight and the Queen being as close as sisters Queen elincia proved her strength as a leader and made the hard call she refused to cede power to a man such as Luke Vic even if it cost her friend's life as the noose was strong around Lucia's neck from a tree nearby an arrow was suddenly loosed cleanly cutting the rope although the brave knight Lucia fell from the execution stand she landed in the arms of Ike who had been waiting for just this moment for his mercenaries to burst out of hiding and finish off the rebels in one swoop with an incredible swiftness the revolution was quelled and Ike and elincia were reunited at last it was here that the Queen informed her dear friend of the recent goings-on within Dan and quite critically of the reappearance of the Black Knight with the Crimean conflict settled Ike and his mercenaries returned to their compound but it was not long before they were soon approached by Reynolds a galleon warrior who had become close friends with Ike during the previous war Reynold brought news of Gallia's alliance with the other lagoons nations of FINA 'kiss and kill vus and of the conflict that would soon be underway against the forces of Binion the heron Prince Raphael had returned and revealed how his tribe had been framed for the former Bennion impresses assassination which had been used to justify the slaughter of his people decades prior after an envoy from the lagoons nations had been shockingly murdered by Binion war was inevitable and it was for this cause that ran off was here requesting Ike's help after agreeing to assist them I could join with king tibarn of the Hawke's King masala of the Ravens and the king of Gallia's nephew and next in line for the throne skrýmir in the series of skirmishes that followed the lagoon Alliance inflicted heavy damage on Binion while avoiding their main force managing to cleverly outwit their commander the tremendously powerful generals elgus though the war seemed to be going their way the tide of battle shifted suddenly when the Ravens of kill vus betrayed the alliance and enacted a massacre on the people of Phoenix after losing the support of both allies the remaining galleons also suffered a heavy blow when the extremely hot-headed skrýmir accepted a private duel with zelgius a duel which he promptly lost this resulted in a huge loss of morale for the galleons sending them into a mass retreat during this series of conflicts they also had to fend off the military movements of day in and its general micaiah who had inexplicably joined the fray on the side of Ben Yan it was now up to Ike to lead the survivors of the Alliance away choosing to take them through a dangerous cave system which they knew the majority of Binion's forces would not be foolish enough to pursue them through after breaking away from their pursuers the group ended up in the lagoons nation of Col Toa land of the Dragons and here they met to the king Dagon Xia who ordered them to return the way they came despite this meaning they're certain death it was here that enna and a seer allies of I kin last war came to their sudden aid convincing the King to let them pass through their country as a personal favor to Prince racin and Princess Leon after using their powers to restore the king's son Rajyam to sanity just before his death in Anna's arms at the end of the previous war with their safe passage assured the battered forces returned to kaalia but it was not long before the Binion army would catch up to them and finish them off in their own homeland without any other option the remnants of the Lagoo Szalai instead it out to meet them confronting the Bennion army within the land of Crimea where Queen elincia could only watch and despair at the violence that was about to happen before any new blood could be shed the Queen made her move placing herself between the two armies and refusing to let them fight with neither side agreeing to back down at this elincia then went so far as to lower her own sword and place her life in both of their hands if they still wanted to fight they would have to cut through her first elincia 'he's extreme commitment to peace impressed to both sides and soon both the galleons and the forces of general zelgius were willing to walk away from this conflict unfortunately this was not true of the senator of alto Maine who charged his forces forward anyway even if it meant spilling the Queen's blood after his vile assault was stopped by Ike and the others felt omae's forces retreated and the enraged senator had general zelgius seized ready to have him executed for his refusal to assist them in the previous battle before this could happen Empress sonakaille herself suddenly appeared intent on halting the war at last she revealed to all around that the Senators had set this conflict into action on their own and in fact had started claiming that she was a false apostle which had forced her to flee her own homeland Ben Yuans military had effectively been split into two with one side loyal to the Senators and the other loyal to the Empress as Val Tomei fled Sanaa kee joined her forces up with Allah whose alliance in the crimeans who all realized they now had a common enemy in the Binion Senate the perpetrators who had been responsible for all of the irrational violence that had thus far taken place as the only man on tellus who commanded respect from all of these different factions Ike was elevated to the rank of general yet again much blood had been spilled in order to get to this point too much blood as the new combined army began their march east the medallion of LaRon began to glow more and more if the violence were to continue for much longer the Dark Gods release would certainly come soon stepping back for a moment following the successful revolution in day in the ascension of peles seemed to signal a new era for the struggling country but in truth was another trap by the Senators of Binion the safety and freedom of Dan's people was in fact even further out of reach in ages past a magical document known as the Blood Pact was sometimes used by the wise to control foolish leaders this document when signed aloud the pact holder to see their will be done by the signer with the consequences of refusal being the death of every citizen in the rulers domain through a magical curse which was in fact presented before peles and after it was too late the Senate Ehrlich eyna Binion revealed to the foolish young king his terrible mistake it was due to this document that Dan had joined the recent battles on the side of pinyon who otherwise would have been their bitter enemy following multiple unnecessary battles with Ike and his allies south and macaé were able to pride the truth from their King after learning the details of the Blood Pact and their true threat they knew they now had little choice but to continue fighting against Binion's enemies with the only thing they could do at the very least was to try to drag out the fighting so they could have more time to research the Blood Pact and a possible way to get out of it after King peláez searched the archives finally a secret way to cancel out the pact was learned but it was a method that came at a tremendous cost it stated that in order to nullify the contract the document needed to be destroyed or the pact maker themself needed to die upon learning this terrible truth King Pelias accepted his fate and directly asked me Kyah to kill him although this method could have been tried at the last second the maiden refused stating that this method was too hasty and they couldn't be sure if it would work or not ultimately they resolved to continue resisting Ickes group and obeying their callous masters until a sure solution could be found ironically such a breakthrough would soon no longer be necessary in one massive battle the armies of all of the nations of telia Smet pushing the chaotic energy of war to its breaking point princess leone who had been guarding LeBron SMO DeLeon suddenly became overwhelmed by the chaotic energy and collapsed as others similarly sensitive to this power also began to fall Makia strangely wandered away from the battlefield following the mysterious voice of once again to the location of the medallion as the leaders on all sides had gathered at the site they realized that at this point they had gone too far and they had only moments until the dark God would emerge and destroy the world to avoid this fate the current descendant of Altena the Empress iñaki stood before the medallion and sang the gal deer of release which at the very least would release the God peacefully rather than at the fault of the bloody war for some reason though her song did nothing after this acting almost on instinct Makia herself next stood before the medallion and sang the same song [Music] there was no great eruption however something great and something terrible had it just happened to the world while the others struggled to comprehend what had happened it was so who noticed that something was very different about Micaiah soon he realized what was going on the dark God had escaped and had been welcomed into the body of the silver haired Maiden elsewhere on tellus a separate goddess Asherah had also just awoken she was immediately greeted by a devoted follower who had been waiting for her return who then informed her of the current state of the world the people of tellus both lagoons and bayo work had not kept their promise to her only a short time after she had begun her slumber conflict between the races had returned and so her judgment would be Swift while the possessed micaiah could only exclaim afresh Shara to stop all throughout the land the light of a Shara rained down turning the masses both innocent and guilty of the violence that had led to this moment into stone within mere moments the entire population of tellus had become cold and still only the most powerful individuals throughout the continent had avoided this fate as the survivors stepped out into the midst of a frozen battlefield the being residing within Micaiah spoke she explained that in truth she was not a dark god but neither was she strictly good she was you nay the goddess of chaos the counterpart to a Shara the goddess of order as she had slept so had a Shara and the same applied to their awakening during a you neighs sleep in the medallion she had been around people very much and had often been comforted by the Heron songs and over the years she had gained a much clearer appreciation of life a Shara on the other hand had remained alone resting within been yawns tower of guidance growing more and more unfeeling and detached over the years they were meant to meet before passing judgment on the land meaning a Shara had firmly set herself against her counterpart and would violently oppose those who survived her judgment with all other concerns put aside the two armies who minutes ago were trying to spill each other's blood now stood side-by-side ready to do whatever they could to bring back the world they had once known [Music] the march to the tower of guidance was not going to be an easy one split into three groups each army was forced to cut through waves and waves of a share as defenders who had been made even more threatening through their goddess's blessing after defeating anybody who stood in their way the heroes of tele us arrived at the tower but found it fiercely guarded from within and without with a massive army of Heroes holding off a share his troops Ike nakiya sonakaille and a small force stormed into the tower within they found senators McCain and Hetzel who had both played a major part in the wars that had been engulfing the continent before the goddess's judgment with the defeat of Lehane and the destruction of his blood pact the power that he held over King Pelias and Dan was ended also on his person was a second Blood Pact the one that had been used to force King masala and the nation of kelvis to betray its allies during the previous war after moving up the next level in the tower the group found themselves confronted by the one man that IQ he would eventually meet again the Black Knight by now the group knew who he truly was none other than general zelgius Avignon having played both sides in the mad Kings war at the behest of his true master here zelgius wished for nothing more than a final battle with Ike one which the hero eagerly obliged this time' cut off from all support Ike and zeliha skills could truly go toe-to-toe and as Ike's are Agnel clashed with the generals Allen died at last the son of Grail struck true delivering a fatal blow despite their rivalry the two departed on somewhat good terms with zelgius admitting that he had only been seeking a chance to face the swordsmanship of Grail at its top form something that he had longed for ever since his days of studying under the man after both acknowledged the strange respect that they had gained for each other through striving to best the other the Black Knight zelgius finally took his last breath picking up the night's holy sword the group continued on stopping before the chamber that held their next opponents loyal to the goddess since times of old the Dragons of gold OA and their King dig in SIA had chosen to fight for a shara creating an obstacle that no mortal power could overcome to prepare them for this the goddess you Navy stowed her blessing to all those present and soon the dragons of gold OA made their last stand but ultimately all of them face their defeat at the hands of you neighs champions before his death Dagon SIA left his kingdom to his son and also apologized to you nay revealing that it was him through his long life who had purposely rewritten history and tricked the current population into believing that Laurens medallion had housed a dark god of destruction instead of the truth of you nee and her connection to a shara now it seemed that there was no one else to stop their confrontation with the goddess however when arriving at the top of the tower they found the door locked and only one man Guardian sefie ran a figure who had cared for empress enoki since her birth had also been the man behind all of the black knights actions through his abnormally long and mysterious life he had orchestrated everything including pushing King Ashna towards his goal and the Binion senators after the Kings failure a loyal follower of a shara Sethi ran or as he was known in ages prior LaRon was ancestor to the current Heron tribe and the lover of the original Altena the founder of pinyon he had been alive at since that time faithfully serving his goddess but over the years without her had become disillusioned after witnessing the lagoons and Bay orc continued their history of violence to stop the group now he had linked his own life to the door which kept a share his chamber sealed and with no other choice Ike and his company were forced to cut him down as his life left him the door to the goddess began to open just before Saphir Anne's last breath you nae and Micaiah acted quickly to bring him back to life spending much of their energy to keep him alive you nae had known sepharon for very long and deeply cared for him even as mistaken as he currently was all she could do was ask him to reconsider and to do what she had done give the world a second chance with Sofia ran left stunned the remaining defenders of humanity stepped into a Sharra's chamber ready to confront her at last true to her nature as the goddess of order a shara was unwilling to be swayed from her judgment and quickly threw up her own defenses against the gathered fighters shortly into this battle Safiye ram chose to join them putting his life on the line to give humanity another chance just as you nee had wished working together against the goddesses intense power the group successfully managed to break through her barrier and were able to strike at her body using every last bit of power she had left you nay empowered ice blade and now the hero charged forth successfully destroying the goddess with one final strike with this blow the fate of Telia swooz changed those frozen slowly began to move and even the lagoons and bay ork who were still in battle lowered their weapons and now understood having gone all-out to accomplish her goal Yoon a realized that she too would soon be gone wishing farewell to those who had saved the world the goddess of chaos disappeared leaving Ike mkhaya sanuki and the many others to return back to their nations to try to pick up the piece which they had just secured for everybody with time now to finally think and discuss sanaa key at last realized me kaya's true identity she was in fact her lost older sister and therefore the true impress opinion despite her right to rule above her nakiya instead returned to dan the land which she viewed as her true home upon returning King Pelias stepped down having realized his connection to the Mad King was little more than a zookas deception as the rulers of the various nations returned back to their lands ready to guide those who followed them to a new era of peace the hero Ike set off instead to seek out places unknown eventually many many years into the future once again a goddess who walked the earth United and reformed at the one known as a Shannara the true combined form of both azshara and Yoon a found the one known as Saphira not waiting for her no longer afraid of her power or of those who inhabited her world she was ready to guide her beloved creations towards a new radiant dawn the same one which the maiden the mercenary the Queen the Empress and the many Bey arc and lagoons heroes of that time had shown her how to reach [Music] never before in this retrospective series have I been so torn on an entry story to me the plot of radiant dawn is a fascinating mixture of successes and failures it is both overly verbose in its task of giving resolution to every last hanging thread that was put in place by the previous game yet simultaneously slapdash and how these events were built up or take place in the game like path of Radiance there is a lot of story to go through here but this isn't from its overly long info scenes and support dialogue on top of the mandatory story like that game here the conversations are pretty straight and to the point at least up until the final quarter of the game for the rest of it it's not hard to see how the simplified script really did direct the dialogue towards just justifying the immediate conflict rather than fleshing out the characters or the world at large in the previous video I wondered if the info conversations which were available between chapters could make for a decent replacement for support conversations altogether radiant dawn has shown me that the answer to that is a big No one of the biggest changes to get to here is the significant shift seen in the support system which serves now as a gameplay system rather than anything for story or character development characters now can only have one support partner but can be paired with anyone in the entire cast replacing the personalized dialogue scenes between supports with what are basically filler comments character development for the non-essential cast especially for the brand-new characters is nothing more than a shadow of its former self in the last game even outside of support conversations we had plenty of great scenes and writing to flesh out the greater cast with a pertinent example being left I did bring her up last time to talk about her great relationship with Jill and how it develops throughout the game but even without this she still made a big mark from her first appearance with Mordecai you instantly understood what her personality was here we just have so many characters to shove in that no time was spared for that comparing fe9 less to fe 10 left paints a terrible picture but putting her next to a radiant dawn original character like her sister liar or the new raven Lagoo speaka definitely puts decoration in character writing sharply into perspective it really is a big shame too I know I haven't gotten to my thoughts on the main plot yet but the massively lowered effort in character writing really is a big deal to me there actually aren't that many games that attempt to flesh out an entire ensemble of characters it's far more typical to just give them paper-thin personalities and little to no development Chrono Cross is one of my favorite JRPGs ever and there are a few other games that better typify that trend still after experiencing the great cast of games like a genealogy of the holy war the blazing blade and path of Radiance i guess you could say that I've developed higher expectations for this series now since I've seen it do so well before so without really satisfying characterization it is up to the plot to carry the weight of making this game a satisfying narrative which is definitely something that radiant dawn has a greater focus on I guess I'll just state my overall stance on the plot right now I really do like the thrust of the story and I found the surprise escalation into the apocalyptic scenario at the end extremely welcome I really had a lot of fun experiencing this story but this is not where my take ends the more I think about it the more I realized that a large amount of my enjoyment stems from the sense of attachment I gained to many of these characters in the last game Ike may very well be the best protagonist thus far in the firearm series I had a natural curiosity to see what became of him after finishing that tale and that's part of why seeing him here as a fully grown ridiculously muscular absolutely beloved leader is really endearing a big problem that I have with how this game was written is that this is where the development of Ike and others stops if we take away the context of a player having experienced the previous game story then in radiant dawn Ike is just another generically heroic absolutely milquetoast Fire Emblem Lord in fact he may be even worse than this after defending his homeland of Crimea Ike has very little reason to be a part of the conflicts which we experience from his perspective despite how much time we spend with him here he isn't the protagonist of this game nakiya is Makia unlike Ike does have a direct connection to all of the major events that this game builds up part is a great introduction to her life the current situation with Dane and the struggle of the dawn brigade to overcome their oppressors it's basically an entire fire among game in miniature all of it makes for a fantastic act one an introduction back into this world after all in the last game we had almost no perspectives from day in starting things out here feels totally natural act 2 then takes this great opening and immediately muddies the water with an unnecessary yet shockingly brief section covering Alain Shias handling of a Crimean revolutionary plot I've heard this section of the story simply being called a set up for the introduction of the Grail mercenaries or that it was just a way to show that elincia has become a strong ruler I appreciate the fact that people love Valencia she definitely was one of my favorite characters from the last game and from this series so far still I recommend putting aside nostalgia for her arc and path of Radiance and thinking about just her in this game why is elincia being focused on here just like they'll do with Ike over Micaiah jumping to elincia here is the game focusing on completely the wrong character elincia isn't very important to this plot Sonakshi is she is the character who should be having her perspective displayed here in person aki is critical to this plot she plays an important role in every part of it and she's naturally one of the few characters who has to go into the tower at the end of the game elincia is not instead she's developed here which is at least fun to see but she will then go on to have one major action later on and then slink into the obscurity of being an optional army unit for chapter 4 to me it seems like she only gets the spotlight here due to her being so important in the last game that or because she's cute not either of those can justify this bizarre focus on her here as I said no other story in the series thus far has left me more conflicted than this one and I believe the root of my problem lies with the two different priorities that the story writers seem to have radiant dawn is both a devoted to depicting the events in the game which lead to the release of the goddesses and the battles they're after and be giving everybody something no matter how trivial the effects of this dichotomy are obvious everything related to the first goal is pretty uniformly fantastic the struggle of the day ends the war between Galia and the Empire the Exile of the Apostle from her own country the release of unay and the judgment of a Shara broken down to its skeleton this is a really great plot and a fitting sequel to the last game - the blood pact the blood pack thing is really stupid as for the latter of these goals all it pretty much does is bloat what would have otherwise been a very well paced journey radiant dawn is one of the longest games in the franchise and yet when sitting down to write my synopsis I actually found it easier to summarize everything that happens just because so much of it is filler and I could just go ahead and cut that right out seriously I was amazed that I could cut out the many many hours you spend in part four before the tower in just about a paragraph let's put this in a nutshell after finishing path of Radiance I was worried that the next game wouldn't be able to properly pay off the events depicted in that story and I'm happy to say that I was wrong other than the Blood Pact and finding out that rajion had actually died at the end despite it really really not seeming so in the previous game I was totally happy with where radiant dawn took things however I appreciated path of Radiance so much for how fantastically structured it was and how wonderfully written the character dialogue and scenes were it seemed to have a clearer perspective and a single goal to tell a good story this is part of why that game's plot was elevated despite its overall simplicity seeing its followup both adhere to this practice while also throwing it away was beyond disappointing to me so I guess that's where I'm at I enjoyed the story but I also find its structure very very frustrating so while we have a step back here there was a place where the previous game had a lot of room to grow in and of course that was its gameplay which is precisely what we'll be looking at next in order to best quantify everything that this game brought to the table I'll be splitting this gameplay analysis section into two parts and I'll be leaving the very unique facets of this game to the next section for right now I'll be covering the ways in which radiant dawn improved on the gameplay of path of radiance and in my opinion nearly perfected it let's just get two of the biggest improvements out of the way right now the gameplay speed and the animations despite containing some fantastic maps path of Radiance could really become a slog to play through and with stats hidden during the actual battle animations the enjoyment of watching your character's fight would quickly become dull and pointless somehow even the feature meant to alleviate this the map only animations still could drag on and on with infamously long turns that encourage many players to just go do other things until it was their turn again right away I am very happy to say that radiant dawn has fixed all of this not only our battles much better animated if you choose to watch them with buttery smooth animations that are a pleasure to witness they also just move at a much faster clip map only animations are likewise improved but the ability to turn off all animations after finishing the game once is a really big incentive to go back for a second run and try out different strategies without wasting any time going back for that second run also allows you to have a slightly altered story experience with certain characters only being recruitable in the second run who just happened to be the only dark magic casters this time while the prior improvements are definitely the most significant since they make the game in general just a lot more fun to play there are a lot more other improvements to the many systems that path of Radiance brought for example though by rhythm in my opinion still remains a superfluous addition that's more there for thematic reasons than a really noticeable spin on the gameplay at least in this game it feels more purposeful in battles since you now have the ability to adjust your current biorhythm status Heron lagoons characters can learn a galled ero that can set all affected units biorhythm at max this is almost never as useful as a rejuvenation and moving your unit again but it does come in handy when you're trying to get your unit ready for the next big attack especially against some of the late-game bosses who quire a very thoughtful and thoroughly prepared approach speaking of the changes to the herons of which there are now three who all contain their own strengths and weaknesses it's worth noting here that lagoons in general have seen some updates starting with the addition of Kanto to all the bird tribe units we also have two new controllable Lu goose races the wolf blue goose Hatari who were previously unseen until this game and basically functioned the same as cats and one single controllable black dragon who also functions like the regular dragons but has the ability to fly no Kanto though on top of this the variable charge level starts of the path of Radiance Magoo's have been spread evenly here now all aguz start at zero charge without any special ability attached to them but they do now have the capability to learn skills like half-shift which can allow the user to always remain transformed but at half the stat benefit as usual due to the lagoons transformations now doubling their stats giving improvements to them in their base forms is now more important than ever which plays into the bonus xp system which returns from fe9 with one huge alteration that has some unforeseen consequences rather than simply giving a standard level as it used to levels gained from bonus experience will always result in exactly three stat increases at first glance this seems like a worse deal and early on in my initial playthrough I was really hesitant to use it especially when levels in the field could give me 5 or more stat increases with plus 2's or plus ones happening really infrequently I really wondered why so many people tended to refer to this bonus xp system as broken I only wondered this until I came to realize what the always +3 rule really meant as it says levels gained with this experience are guaranteed to always give you 3 stat increases but what they don't say is that these increases never land on a stat that is already capped this means that once a unit has maxed out one of their stats usually the ones their class is most geared towards these bonus XP levels can force the other lower growth rate stats to go up as an example if we take an armored Knight and raise them normally level one to 15 there's a high chance that they will have max defense and strength as most armored Knights have high growth rates in these their other stats like skill and speed will be much rarer to receive increases leveling them and battle from 15 to 20 will not give them any higher chance to raise those other stats meaning that it is usually more worthwhile to just use an item to promote them and get your promotion bonuses earlier rather than using up so much potential experience to give them 5 disappointing levels that is not the case with this bonus XP system here if you can afford it using bonus XP to level them will definitely give them 3 stat increases without even worrying about their growth rates which would be a huge increase on top of this system just like the last game Auto promotion has returned but now all Bay orc units will have a third to your class when promoting these units automatically learn an advanced skill which are a lot more useful this time around these attack skills on top of their normal effects like canceling defense stats or healing the user also do triple damage giving access to what is effectively a second critical hit chance due to the kind of attack ratings that most tier 3 units have the activation of these will almost always mean a one-hit kill which is kind of needed given how massively populated some of the later maps can be the incredible strength of these tier 3 skills lowers the necessity of things like the forging system which returns essentially unchanged only with the small alteration of your gold coins now being able to be used to take a chance on some random bonuses these coins also happen to be one of the few things that carry over from path of Radiance but there are also some small stat bonuses for any units that you've got to max level as well as potential access to one of the most obscure base conversations in this series history on top of all this we also have the rather large overhaul of the skills system to get to while path of Radiance toyed with the idea of letting you teach skills to your units it was rather stingy requiring you to fully commit since removing any skill would make it and the item you use to teach it disappear forever this has been revamped in a rather ambitious way and radiant dawn quite simply all restrictions have just been eliminated now removing skills simply turns them into items again ready to be reused for any other qualifying units at no extra cost while having free reign to move skills around like this could have made the cast a bit too homogenous giving certain units starting skills which don't play into their capacity cost is both a great way of differentiating them and also giving the player an irreversible choice that isn't too punishing removing these starting skills can allow them to be taught to a different unit but if you ever want to put it on that original unit again it will no longer be gifted at zero capacity the punishment of just losing a little bit of potential capacity isn't nearly as strict as permanently deleting it but I don't think this is done just to be generous this is a necessary change required by the sheer size of the cast and how this game constantly encourages swapping out your team members as more and more powerful units join you I have spoken at length in this video series about the imbalance between mounted and unmounted units and while radiant dawn keeps the infamous tanto ability not only is it much less egregious in this game at due to its map design it also isn't even close to where comparative unit scaling starts to get troubling let's just address my stance on Kanto for any newbies in the audience it is an incredibly fun mechanic that invariably gives certain units undue amounts of value chosen at the discretion of the developers not the player various methods have been used to keep it in check in the past usually by removing features from it bit by bit we've seen it in its most neutered Game Boy Advance appearance - it's barely restrained version in path of Radiance rather than changing it up in any significant way radiant dawn uses a clever workaround to deal with this issue while actually changing very little the solution it turns out was quite simple rather than changing the skill just design the maps around it whereas before there was nothing an infantry unit could do that a mounted unit couldn't the long overdue introduction of scalable cliffs into the gameplay here really does go a long way towards keeping foot locked units in the fight it turns out that this was really all it took although it doesn't necessarily fix everything which I'll get into a little bit later on top of adding vertical design that mounted units can't take advantage of Kanto is now stood as a locked skill which has a permanent cost of 10 capacity if you think about it that's actually rather cheap for the value of its effect but it's still nice to see it's absurd value B in some way numerically recognized to me it seems like at long last intelligent systems maybe had a realization for how broken mounted units can get maybe since both seth and titania from the previous two games are very clear examples of this it's because of this that it is then so confusing that horror and jill exist as they do here wyvern riders have access to Kanto and the ability to fly up cliffs from any point unlike Pegasus riders they have no weakness two arrows with only the terrible thunder magic of this game serving as their weakness this basically makes for two units who can quickly dominate huge portions of this game easily by part four and especially the end game this is less of a problem but it really wasn't surprising when Hart ended up having the most kills on both of my playthroughs when listing all of the improvements out that radiant dawn brought it does become more and more apparent that as always the Fire Emblem team really is capable of learning from their mistakes and trying to refine things further they don't always do a perfect job at this hence the wyvern issue but I really do respect all of the other things that they improved in this entry if we were going from the binding blade to the blazing blade here this is probably where the gameplay discussion would end however radiant dawn isn't just path of radiance but with improvements no no no radiant dawn is weird let's get into exactly what I mean next [Music] as I covered in the development section radiant dawn had the unenviable task of being the sequel to an underperforming GameCube game while also being the first entry on a new console that was particularly famous for bringing in a whole new audience unfamiliar with the GameCube era the decision to split the game into multiple distinct parts was chosen in order to make the story easier to follow for anyone jumping in at this point but this change also had an enormous effect on the gameplay in particular concerning the value of units I first covered the concept of a jaqen quite a while ago now in the mystery of the emblem video scene in how book 2 of that game highlighted the distinct differences between pre promoted units who start out already strong with the so called growth units who need a good amount of training before they start to match and surpass the former throughout the course of a normal fire emblem game where you take the same army from mission one to the end growth units follow a trajectory starting out as a bit of a burden then transforming into unstoppable behemoths of your army due to how easy it is to lose a growth unit early on most games pepper in lots of pre promotes who are ready to go from the moment you get them allowing even the most tactically challenged players to still scrape their way to the end although there are fans for just about every Fire Emblem character growth units seem to be much more popular amongst most players with the endless grinding system of the Sacred Stones and the training units from that game built to specifically cater to that audience raising your characters from zero to hero is a big part of the appeal of RPGs in general which is why it's so surprising to see how the structure of radiant dawn flies completely against this idea I always want to make these gameplay sections spoiler free but I don't think that anything I'm going to say is too shocking it's important to understand the general layout of this game and how it works for the points that I'm about to bring up I will be avoiding specifics to keep this as Oyler free as I can so if we break down radiant dawn we have part one Makia and the dawn Brigade part two elincia and her Guard part three Ike the ground mercenaries with a few Micaiah chapters at our first and part for an even number of chapters split between me kaya's army Ike's army and a Third Army followed by a marathon finale that includes whoever you choose as you go through this game your point of view character is constantly being shifted around and after control of one group is taken away it might be quite a long time before you get back to any particular character as the chapters continue unused characters from earlier parts of the game will stagnate but regardless of this the power of enemies still steadily creeps upwards this can make returning back to a long unused army rather jarring and this is nowhere better Illustrated than with The Strange Case of the dawn Brigade controlled right from the outset the general makeup of these fighters are instantly familiar we have the thief south as our pre promote basically the jaqen with some other growth units who have varied starting power for example we have the weaker Leonardo and Edward and the decently strong Nolan part one essentially plays out like a miniature Fire Emblem game and it puts its players in very familiar territory by the finale of this section if you didn't depend too much on your pre promotes you're likely to have at least one of your growth units to their first promotion and I imagine that things are feeling pretty good and that's when well plot happens Makia suddenly promotes and the unique structure of the game kicks in hard part two transfers you over to a new group of units who would be pretty close in power to where you left the dawn Brigade and while this section of the game is too short to get in too much development elincia z' group does still climb in power and will end that around where the dawn Brigade would have been if you were controlling them for that time of course part 3 brings in Ike and the ground mercenaries who start out rather powerful even compared to the unit's we were using in part 2 meaning at this point the dawn Brigade though they have been unseen have fallen really really behind chapter 6 of the section where you suddenly return to controlling them is widely seen as one of the most challenging levels in this game not only from the power imbalance between them and the Goo's you'll be facing but also from the fact that this level is a swampy fog of war defense map with very little defensive terrain this map is also where I suffered my one ally death in both of my runs and for both of them it was Eren in order to make this and the later dawn Brigade chapters more doable radiant dawn brings in the somewhat janky form of scaling which comes often in the form of sudden artificial boosts shortly before this chapter begins macaé and her soldiers are rather unceremoniously gifted the national treasures of day in three powerful weapons which become the personal weapons for the three starting growth units these new weapons are specifically here to try and make up for the power gap that has already developed and it happens to be a gap that these weapons are woefully inadequate for nor do they help the further widening of this gap as time goes on this isn't an accident it's a byproduct of radiant Dawn's core design as the difficulty level continues to climb the only way around this for units that you don't use for long stretches of time is to keep gifting them new items and pre promoted units whereas before prief emotes were intended to keep struggling players going here they are a necessity to keep even skilled players on par with their enemies since a lot of the time you'll be facing units that you yourself raised this can lead to justifying some very bizarre player behavior for example in higher difficulties you'd be wise to purposely nerf the Grail mercenaries by intentionally giving them all the wrong types of weapons before starting a mission where you go back to playing as the dawn Brigade part 4 of this game is almost entirely dedicated to giving you the chance to try to even out the disparity and power yourself before reaching the very very end of the game which is done by subjecting you to a series of shockingly drawn-out route to the enemy missions which are flush with powerful foes and way too many reinforcements these encounters contain a very little story progression and are just big elongated fights similar to the clash mission from path of radiance but stretched out even longer and put on repeat I really hate how much these missions hurt the pacing of the story even though in gameplay terms they are absolutely necessary these missions finally give players the chance to raise the units that they want to raise or at least that's what they want you to think raising your units during this time is absolutely not worth the investment literally right at the gates of the finale the game asks you to select 11 characters total to bring with you for the remainder of the endgame something which they do just after giving you full access to every royal agoos in the game these are abnormally powerful units who right out of the gate can single-handedly take you to the end so since including them is a pretty natural and recommended choice out of the 11 units you can select of which one has to be a harem it only really matters if you raised six units out of this entire cast for me it sort of feels like all that time in part one two and three where I was trying to raise some specific units that I like feel a little bit wasted it's hard to say whether this journey of constantly having your best sources of power be gifted and not earned is a positive or a negative as I stated before the structure of the game is part of what makes a radiant dawn so unique calling this a good or bad thing depends on perspective I came to this game after playing through all nine prior entries which even with a few black sheep Thor oddities mixed in they're all stuck to the same general structure as the first game that definitely isn't the case here and there are benefits to the system for example I really do like how constantly having your resources shipped around does make this feel more like a standard strategy game where you're on-the-fly flexibility and using what you suddenly have even if you weren't raising it until that point is just as important as any future planning that you hope to be doing on the other hand if you really like investing in some units and watching them form into a cohesive team in the late game which I'd say is a reasonable expectation given the direction of every other game then the ultimate path of playing radiant dawn and having all your best work replaced all the time is likely going to feel a bit frustrating or underwhelming for some people this could be the best Fire Emblem while to others it could be one of the worst much like my time with Gaiden and genealogy I found this change to the formula to be refreshing but if I work to pick a side then I'd have to say that this whole structure really isn't for me I really do like how up until at least the final part of the game segmenting the units and constantly handing out new characters help to keep the gameplay moving at a really fast pace doing so almost completely removes the need for the planning and maintenance phase of each chapter and due to there being little reason to stop and do too much planning and army management this massive game actually moves along pretty quickly at the same time as slow as the planning phase can be there's still something irreplaceable and all that in my eyes it's part of the joy of playing Fire Emblem and not just any other strategy game well I think I've said just about everything that I want to say about this game it's finally time that we wrap up both this entry and our adventures in Telus [Music] it's strange to think that little over a year ago the Fire Emblem series as a whole was not much more than an enigma to me I couldn't have said anything about the series before undertaking this project nor could I have described the lands of our kunia yodhraj liebe mag Ville ortelius out of all these places I have been most anticipating getting to the telia schemes because they were around on the shelves when I was just starting to get some disposable income and begin buying games on my own I can still remember seeing path of Radiance with a used sticker on it and I recall seeing radiant dawn on the shelf due to my propensity for always playing games in release order I never picked them up at the time and given how rare and expensive both of these games have become it's something that I guess all always have to regret even as hungry for RPGs as I was back then I like many people never bought them to be honest it makes me sad when I think about that now it's funny to see where I am now at the end of the Talia saga and think about just how much I robbed myself of something that I would have especially loved at the time these are two games that I can only regard with an incredible amount of respect path of Radiance was a flawed beginning to 3d Fire Emblem and radiant dawn was a flaw to follow up yet both of these games have resulted in some very special memories that I'd never give up speaking specifically of radiant dawn it's rare to see a sequel try to do so much all at once simply updating systems and improving gameplay is respectable and can make for good even great games but striking out so much on your own even if some mistakes are made is so much bolder a path one thing that I can only say for radiant dawn is if I felt a sudden longing to play a traditional fire home game I would have to lightly debate within myself if I wanted to play Fire Emblem one or three or five or whatever on the other hand if I want to revisit any of the feelings that I got from playing radiant dawn well then I only have one place to go I can't say that I love this over-ambitious mess of a game but I can say that I recommend it in places it did come extremely close to what I'd call almost the perfect sequel paying off much of the story setups and coming up with some fantastic ideas for rebalancing and improving on the last game strengths even if that isn't where the game ultimately stayed I know for certain that I will never forget my time with it and I also know that my time is spent in Telus has been without a doubt extremely satisfying our next stop on the Fire Emblem retrospective it takes us back into handheld gaming once again we will join Martha as he takes on the forces of menus in Fire Emblem 11 shadow dragon if you don't feel like waiting you can watch the shadow dragon retrospective right now all you need to do is click the link on screen now or in the description to become a patreon supporter for as little as $1 you can gain one week early access to my videos including the shadow dragon retrospective which just became available right now if you want to support me for more you can gain further benefits such as being able to watch all four videos in this current season of retrospectives right now for $3 or gain immediate access to everything I do without having to wait for a seasons completion for five please consider helping my channel grow and this series continue through your support thank you so much for watching I'd like to give a special thank you to Connie Reed dw7 still rules henry gutierrez Ignace isil hey-zeus ruiz radiant archiver ryan poe and true tactician as well as to all of my other supporters who make these videos possible by donating on patreon thank you all very much

Channel: ShaneBrained

Views: 76,118

Keywords: Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem Awakening, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Games, Series: Fire Emblem, Retrospective, Marth, Fire Emblem Warriors, Thracia 776, Magvel, FE9, Path of Radiance, Ike, Elincia, Gamecube, Tellius

Id: Bpwvy2RooAo

Length: 67min 0sec (4020 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/pipler]

That was really fun. Radiant Dawn is my favorite FE due to the sheer amount of Yune chaotic energy, but I agree that sidelining growth units is somewhat of a disappointment. Personally, knowing what I was getting into, having every character having something to do at that point of the game is my most beloved part of the game (except Lyre. Never use Lyre), and despite the frustration that arose, I like the gameplay-story integration of Dawn Brigade being weaker than the veterans.

[u/[deleted]]

I just posted this wanted to get more well known here. Just had to delete, you beat me to the punch. Real great video and series.

[u/Notsuperinteresting4]

Always appreciate this type of content.

I will say I agree that part 4's battles do drag on and that support convos are sorely missed.

I don't think the gameplay imbalances are bad, I like the extra effort of raising "bad" units; everyone is usable even in hard mode. I do wish you were only allowed one royal in the tower, bringing all of them does cheapen the experience.