Featured Game - Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

Jun 29, 20166 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Jun 29, 2016

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Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is my favorite Fire Emblem game, and is on my top ten favorite games list. I think it might even be my most replayed game in my library. This is one of those games that has a really special place in my heart. I played this when it first came out, and I just fell in love with it. I always get engrossed in Fire Emblem games, but this one in particular I really got absorbed in.

The game is a sequel to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and stars a girl named Micaiah who is determined to take back her country from a foreign country. She forms a ragtag band of rebels and outdoes the invading begnion army at every turn, rising to power and respect with her ragtag group of friends.

I think one of things I loved so much about this game was the scope and scale of it, and how it was structured. It's sort of the opposite reason of why I loved Sonic Colors. Radiant Dawn is 45 chapters long, and it's another game where there isn't really a level I don't like doing. You take control of three different armies in this game, and it's so fun to play as each army as you get involved with all the predicaments in the story and the objectives of each army.

Something I really enjoyed about this game were the unique seize conditions, where I feel like they've sort of been falling down on the job for the newest two FE games. Radiant Dawn had some really unique seize conditions. There's the survive for however many turns condition, the rout condition, the seize condition, defeat the boss condition, get a certain amount of kills condition, and the burn the supplies condition. These conditions are aided by the glorious level designs which are, in my eyes, the most fun level designs in a Fire Emblem game--and are extremely memorable. Once again, even though I really like the two new Fire Emblem games, I can't remember very many levels from them. In this game, there's so many elements in the gameplay and the level design that encourages you to get good at strategy or else you'll lose. I really like how on certain levels you can use the terrain to your advantage and position characters in such a way that you'll have the high ground and your enemies will miss you. Positioning your characters correctly and seeing ahead in this game is so important. One wrong move and you'll start losing characters.

As per usual, all the characters in this game are very charming and likeable, and many of them have a ton of depth. The story in this game is a little polarizing, but I have always really loved it. It has a lot of depth and backstory, and I like how none of the armies are evil, and how the game is almost about saving the (ultimate) badguys. I love the secrets you can find in the game to learn more about the details of the story, and earning those secrets is very difficult and very satisfying. The relationships between the characters and the scope of the story has always astounded me. Tormod's always been my personal favorite. I always level that twerp.

This game probably has some of my favorite end levels in the history of gaming. It's great how the rest of the game is so difficult, and then when you get to the end of the game, you get these awesome final five levels to plow your way through with your awesome classchanged characters. You earned this, man.

Speaking of the ending, the ending has always really touched me, and I love the message about accepting each other's differences and all the anti-war stuff. It's a little bit of a messy game, and they did go overboard in places, but overall, it's just such an ambitious game made with love, I can forgive it for that. Radiant Dawn also features some really cool, awesome cutscenes with some beautiful motion capture stuff.

I really hope someday they have another Fire Emblem game for a home console, and I wouldn't even mind yet another sequel to a Tellius game. I hope also they use Kita Senri as a character designer again sometimes, this lady's designs and style are stunning. Geoffrey's always been another favorite.

If you guys are curious, there's some really interesting data about another Fire Emblem game for the Wii that never came to fruition serenesforest.net/2015/12/27/m…. You can read about it at the Serenes Forest. There's also some interesting developer data for Path of Radiance there, too. serenesforest.net/2016/04/20/m…

It's even just fun preparing for levels in this game. I once spent like an hour in the shop preparing. XD The older Fire Emblem games aren't for everyone, but if you love hardcore strategy and an insane difficulty level with characters who have a lot of depth and more than one dimension and no pandering, you'll love Radiant Dawn. I will always find it sad that this game never got the recognition it deserved.

I'll leave you with the secret ending song from this game called Dawn Awakens, sung by some very talented operatic singers. 0o0

P.S. It's fine if you don't like Fire Emblem, but please do not bash it here. The reason why I feature games instead of review them is because I like to focus on the positive, not the negative.