Path of Radiance is another one of my favorites. I remember grabbing it just before the popularity spike with Awakening, so that was some good timing, haha. In general I have good memories of the game.
It's a slow paced game due to the speed your units move on the map- and you have to unlock the ability for them to move faster by beating the game, which is a pretty silly choice- I don't have an issue with it, but I can see why that would be a turn off. I think even today I'm impressed by the animations, I still really enjoy watching Aether go off.
The actual mechanics are pretty good at this point. Skills return from FE5- you can easily add them to your character with Skill Scrolls, though you're locked into that choice since if you decide to remove them you won't get the skill scroll back. Bonus experience helps you get new units up to speed, and is earned by doing various objectives like having NPC allies survive, not defeating specific enemies, opening chests, and so on. I'm sad this didn't return past Radiant Dawn, though I do understand this is due to how easily abused it was. New to this game is Laguz units, characters who can shift into a cat, tiger, lion, hawk, heron, crow, or dragon form to attack. They're more fleshed out in Radiant Dawn, but the baseline work that's done in this game is good, though admittedly I didn't use them much myself.
I think this game and Radiant Dawn has some of the more interesting characters in the series. All your units have pretty well-developed backstories to discover with supports, and most of them are strong throughout the game. The story is fairly good on its own, though does have a hook at the end to lead into Radiant Dawn.
In the end, it's a great game that fans of the series should try, though given the price I understand why people are hesitant to get a copy for themselves. I hope that it'll be rereleased at some point.
It's a slow paced game due to the speed your units move on the map- and you have to unlock the ability for them to move faster by beating the game, which is a pretty silly choice- I don't have an issue with it, but I can see why that would be a turn off. I think even today I'm impressed by the animations, I still really enjoy watching Aether go off.
The actual mechanics are pretty good at this point. Skills return from FE5- you can easily add them to your character with Skill Scrolls, though you're locked into that choice since if you decide to remove them you won't get the skill scroll back. Bonus experience helps you get new units up to speed, and is earned by doing various objectives like having NPC allies survive, not defeating specific enemies, opening chests, and so on. I'm sad this didn't return past Radiant Dawn, though I do understand this is due to how easily abused it was. New to this game is Laguz units, characters who can shift into a cat, tiger, lion, hawk, heron, crow, or dragon form to attack. They're more fleshed out in Radiant Dawn, but the baseline work that's done in this game is good, though admittedly I didn't use them much myself.
I think this game and Radiant Dawn has some of the more interesting characters in the series. All your units have pretty well-developed backstories to discover with supports, and most of them are strong throughout the game. The story is fairly good on its own, though does have a hook at the end to lead into Radiant Dawn.
In the end, it's a great game that fans of the series should try, though given the price I understand why people are hesitant to get a copy for themselves. I hope that it'll be rereleased at some point.