This is a pretty cool and unique game, puzzles were interesting to solve especially in the last third, presentation is great for the DS, it checks all the boxes. The most notable thing here is the story, starts off pretty simple but quickly reveals itself to be much more complicated than it lets on. Despite a few brief moments where character actions/motivations didn’t completely make sense, this was actually pretty great and extremely interesting from start to finish. It ended up going in directions that I never expected but it all ties together quite nicely, very fun time and a pretty great mystery that never becomes stale or predictable. Tons of charm in every department, definitely a cult classic for a reason, glad I checked this one out.

Unironically pretty great, I was pretty surprised by how quickly things go completely off the rails but it was so much fun to watch everything unfold so rapidly in such an absurd way. The soundtrack here is so charming and there’s clearly a lot of genuine effort placed into this area of the game, the gameplay itself is seemingly super simple but the freestyle mechanics are pretty unique and give the game a really interesting twist. Super short but a great concentrated shot of fun with near unmatched personality and energy

Honestly way better than I remembered from when I first tried this out a few years back, it’s still a Famicom game at heart so it’s nothing too crazy but this is a massive improvement from the first two. Everything is filled with so much more personality than we ever got before, so even though the story is basic it’s so much more entertaining than previous installments. The job system is pretty cool, takes what worked with the party formation system in the first game and expands on it a ton. Makes for some fun customization opportunities as well as cool puzzle solving that feels good most of the time. Final dungeon is unfortunately a pretty huge difficulty spike and it’s ridiculously long for no good reason, but thanks to the QoL improvements from the pixel remaster it’s nowhere near as egregious as it could’ve been. This was a big leap forward for the series in every way and I regret putting it off for so long

Still one of my favorite games… formulaic for sure but that doesn’t matter to me because of how much everything is elevated by being able to embody the best playable version of Spider-Man yet. Movement, combat, swinging, everything feels perfect in this game. It would’ve been a cool game regardless just because of that but attached to it is one of the best Spider-Man stories we’ve ever gotten. Perfect renditions of so many iconic characters, my favorite incarnation of Peter Parker, and a fantastic plot line that humanizes its villains super well and ultimately ends up pretty heartbreaking. Absolutely nailed this take on the character and the world, can’t wait for the sequel.

i think a lesson that anyone involved with media should learn whether they consume or create is that not all questions need to be answered, and that it's sometimes more satisfying when they aren't.

i went into radiant dawn not expecting much as someone who thought path of radiance worked just fine as a standalone title, and i cant say i was disappointed but i cant say i was that pleasantly surprised either.
micaiah is an incredibly boring lord, bordering on insufferable during some chapters and i think that hampered my enjoyment a lot. the dawn brigade themselves arent that great either, and sothe isnt a character i liked even in path of radiance so i dont really care about him. meg is probably the standout character from the dawn brigade but i just like what meg/brom/nephenee have going on. the game didn't really "start" for me until the end of act 2 when the greil mercenaries show up, and when the greil mercenaries are on screen the game is a solid 7/10 but otherwise it's just ehhh. maps are just as forgettable as path of radiance but even worse when you aren't playing as the greil mercenaries (and even then it's a step down from path of radiance).
story wise the game overall is also a downgrade. blood pacts are a meaningless and annoying plot contrivance, most of the major players are insufferable or boring, and the villains are so bad. they all look and act like they twirl their mustaches and hide behind their capes and go "mwahahaha! try and stop me now, heroes!" it's like they just forgot how to write any villains with any semblance of nuance or depth. unironically when talking about the villains the games writing is fates tier until maybe act 4, it's so bad

on the topic of act 4, pretty much every issue with the game is amplified. boring character interactions outside of the greil mercenaries and some of the laguz, boring maps, and the narrative still isn't that great. the villains are a lot less cartoonish, but still far from the most compelling. act 4 also likes to go out of its way to make multiple characters less interesting or important which is annoying when the game tries to shill the still uninteresting sothe and micaiah even harder. the elaboration on a few specific characters from path of radiance at the 11th hour is definitely an interesting choice, but immediately after this new lore about them you fight them on a very boring and tedious map and then they just kinda die and you're off to the final boss. i don't have much to say about the final boss since it's just another boring and tedious map, but i'd be lying if i said it was even close to being my least favorite.

i think the single most annoying part of radiant dawn though is how much story content you miss out on if you're on your first playthrough. i wouldn't say most of it is too major, but if you want to use your own radiant dawn save you're going to spend the next half hour after you finish the game watching this video just to get the full experience. doesn't help that the localization only did the easy mode version of the japanese script but that's neither here nor there.

after finally playing radiant dawn, i really think they should've just made a game starring the greil mercenaries and the laguz because the game kinda sucks when it isnt about them. radiant dawn is certainly an interesting fire emblem title, but its ambition is its downfall and i don't think it succeeds in being a compelling sequel to path of radiance. if you just want more ike or plan on playing the entire series i'd say play this game, but otherwise it's hardly essential unless you're the type who absolutely needs answers to the questions that media leaves unanswered.

This is a weird one… I find this game to be an impressively ambitious sequel especially for the time, with significantly more complicated (although flawed) mechanics, an actual attempt at a story, and a larger scope in general. The leveling system is controversial but I honestly like it, gave me lots of freedom to build my team however I wanted and I was always thinking ahead. However, I also feel like it shoots itself in the foot in some aspects and that stops me from enjoying it too much. I really don’t like the rotating fourth party member, it’s counterintuitive to the games whole design and limits your team. I like the leveling overall but it also means lots of weapon types are totally useless, and I also caught myself using magic way more than it was actually necessary just so I could use it when it was actually useful. Worst part of the game is the last few hours, horrible dungeon design and I was just wanting the game to be over already. I feel like this game is a step up from the original, but it falls short in the end and I still wouldn’t genuinely recommend this one to anyone who isn’t actively tracking the progression of the FF series.

This is simultaneously one of the most magical gaming experiences I've ever had and one of the most frustrating. The game has multiple fantastic moments especially towards the end, and the bosses especially are much better than BotW. Unfortunately tho that's my only problem with that game that I feel was completely fixed. I really liked half of the dungeons here, the other half were mediocre. The story is better but they went out of their way to reuse the memory shit which is just about the worst way to tell a story imo, I checked out fast. I know some people love the ability to do things in whatever order you want, but it made certain parts of the game so much less impactful than they could've been for me personally. Every single issue I have with this game is a carry-over from BotW which is disappointing to me as I really hoped this game would fix my issues with it.

But god they really took this opportunity to take BotW's strengths and further improve on them. The open world is immaculate and even denser than before, I was shocked how much the sky and depths added to this world. The scope is larger than ever physically, and even that expansion is miniscule compared to the mechanical scope of TotK the new abilities take an already wide open game and make it significantly more freeform in every way possible, I'm convinced you could find multiple solutions for every single puzzle in this game which is really cool. I've heard this described as the closest thing you can get to a sandbox game with an actual structure, and I think that's accurate. It's not the kind of game design that blows me away personally but I have to respect how ambitious it is, and how remarkably solid the final build of the game is despite the incredibly complex systems at work here. This is what will make the game for most people.

What I wanted out of this game was an experience that built off of BotW's mechanics while telling a more engaging story with unique and satisfying dungeons. I got about halfway there on each. The story is better for sure and the ending is truly incredible, but the majority of it still feels under-developed and it being told through memories took me out of it almost immediately. I was convinced I was getting what I had hoped for during the first five hours or so, but the moment I saw that first dragon tear the disappointment came crashing down hard. The dungeons were hit or miss, and there was only one I felt could stand up to the average Zelda dungeon.

It's not the sequel I wanted but this is still a really great game in its own right, even tho I was let down in multiple areas I can't bring myself to say the whole package was a dissapointment. I'd be lying if I said I didn't absolutely love playing this game, because I really did. I do think the praise for this game is a bit blown out of proportion, at least for now people are extremely quick to dismiss the flaws on this one which isn't really fair. But I'd rather not focus on all that. It wasn't what I wanted but it surprised me in totally different ways.