This review contains spoilers
Fire Emblem is the absolute peak video game power fantasy because it lets you cut down corrupt politicians who abuse the poor, subjugate neighboring nations, and recklessly get their own citizens killed while enriching themselves.
I marked this review as spoilers, but I need to give a second warning. I am going to slightly spoil this game by discussing how its mechanics differ from the franchise norm, and then I am going to severely spoil the story after that. If you have any intention of playing Radiant Dawn, PLEASE close this review (or at most, read the next two paragraphs) and make sure to play Path of Radiance first. Both games are very good! Don’t let me ruin the experience for you!
// GAMEPLAY SPOILERS // GAMEPLAY SPOILERS // GAMEPLAY SPOILERS //GAMEPLAY SPOILERS // GAMEPLAY SPOILERS //
Okay, first, let’s talk gameplay. Radiant Dawn is hard! It’s my 6th Fire Emblem title, and I’ve never had this much difficulty keeping everyone alive (which is how I have played ever since abandoning my first playthrough of Path of Radiance where I found myself with like 5 characters left), to the point where near the end of Part 3 I had to start allowing losses. But only characters I didn’t like! And I especially don’t like Makalov!!
I couldn’t tell you if the AI is more aggressive or intelligent than other games in the franchise, but they sure did kick my butt pretty regularly. It was very rare for me to complete a stage in a single attempt, and some battles got restarted 10 or 15 times. JUST STOP KILLING MY HERONS, YOU GUYS. The most noticeable difference here, however, is that the game constantly swaps out the groups you’re controlling. This was definitely annoying at first, since standard FE games treat your army like any normal RPG party, where you keep adding characters and leveling them up over the course of the game. In Radiant Dawn, there are several different outfits that you’ll be leading (sometimes even against each other!!), so you can’t be sure that any unit will still be under your control in the next level. It’s definitely a novel approach which lends a sense of massive scale to the story, and it does make an impact when Part 4 finally lets you use everyone, but it does come at the cost of feeling like your investments in your favorite characters will pay off. Once I accepted it for what it was, just working with whichever characters I had instead of planning who I wanted to buff for the long game, I was all in.
Lastly, there are some odd changes when it comes to how useful returning characters are. Suddenly, Astrid is terrible, and I actually used Boyd. He ended up in my top 5 units at the end of the game! I wasn’t a fan of all the ways that characters have been altered (what is the deal with Devdan???), but it did feel like they’ve continued existing and changing in the years since Path of Radiance, which is always crucial for a story-heavy sequel. This leads directly into my next point in the story section, so if you haven’t played it, GET OUT NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN.
// STORY SPOILERS // STORY SPOILERS // STORY SPOILERS // STORY SPOILERS // STORY SPOILERS //
In real life, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn only released two years apart, but while I played POR in 2007, this was my first time touching RD at all. That’s a 17 year gap! That’s longer than the time between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace! For me, this game felt like a legacy sequel, even though I’m fully aware it absolutely is not. That being said, no matter how long the period of time is between these games, Radiant Dawn is a fantastic sequel story, and you would be doing yourself a MASSIVE disservice to play this without playing POR first. Pretty frequently, returning characters will show up, seemingly out of nowhere, with little to introduction. If you came into this story blind, you’d be more than a little lost.
But if you’ve got that previous knowledge? The callbacks and big moments hit so hard. When the Greil Mercenaries first showed up? That was more hype for me than any blockbuster I’ve seen in years. When 1-9 brought the Black Knight back, I was shaken. That must have been what Terminator 2 felt like in theaters, seeing a near-invincible villain from the previous story show up as an ally this time. Floored me. And the notice the game gives you in 3-6, when it says that even though you’re fighting against characters that you’ve been playing as, your job is to keep your current units alive no matter what? It’s incredibly rare to experience something so emotionally conflicting in a game.
Ultimately, the majority of conflicts in Radiant Dawn are the result of politicians and bureaucrats getting people to kill each other when they shouldn’t even be enemies in the first place, and the late-game shift away from being their pawns, and instead eliminating the oppressors, feels… righteous. Really makes you wish that kind of refocusing could happen on a larger scale in real life!
And can we give props to Ike real quick? He’s such a bro. He doesn’t care about political allegiance or diplomacy, he’s just here to do what he thinks is right and to take care of his friends. There’s no such thing as a Sub-Human to my boy Ike. What a guy.
Now, there are a few issues, but they’re minor. The English voice acting budget must have been tight, because uhhhh it’s not good most of the time! Dheginsea’s voice in particular is just… oof. Kind of undercut a big moment, but it didn’t ruin the game for me. The one legitimate issue I have with this game is the reveal of the Black Knight’s identity. The actual information of who is under that helmet is great, I didn’t expect it and it fully makes sense. But the way the reveal is handled is just awful. This is one of the biggest moments in the story, it should have been a fully animated cutscene. But instead, Ranulf just walks up to Ike after a level is finished and goes, “Hey, I found out who the Black Knight is!”, and that’s it. It’s really dumb!
But overall, the game is a fantastic experience, and for the first half of my playthrough, I kept thinking, “Wow, it is such a shame I waited so long to pick this one up.” However, by the end, I’m kind of glad I did. In an age of endless legacy sequels, reboots, and retreads, most stories that we’ve long held dear are being tainted by underwhelming (or absolutely awful) continuations. In a post-TRoS world, it felt incredible to have a meaningful and impactful sequel to something I loved as a teenager, even if the wait was self-inflicted. Can’t recommend this one enough.
I marked this review as spoilers, but I need to give a second warning. I am going to slightly spoil this game by discussing how its mechanics differ from the franchise norm, and then I am going to severely spoil the story after that. If you have any intention of playing Radiant Dawn, PLEASE close this review (or at most, read the next two paragraphs) and make sure to play Path of Radiance first. Both games are very good! Don’t let me ruin the experience for you!
// GAMEPLAY SPOILERS // GAMEPLAY SPOILERS // GAMEPLAY SPOILERS //GAMEPLAY SPOILERS // GAMEPLAY SPOILERS //
Okay, first, let’s talk gameplay. Radiant Dawn is hard! It’s my 6th Fire Emblem title, and I’ve never had this much difficulty keeping everyone alive (which is how I have played ever since abandoning my first playthrough of Path of Radiance where I found myself with like 5 characters left), to the point where near the end of Part 3 I had to start allowing losses. But only characters I didn’t like! And I especially don’t like Makalov!!
I couldn’t tell you if the AI is more aggressive or intelligent than other games in the franchise, but they sure did kick my butt pretty regularly. It was very rare for me to complete a stage in a single attempt, and some battles got restarted 10 or 15 times. JUST STOP KILLING MY HERONS, YOU GUYS. The most noticeable difference here, however, is that the game constantly swaps out the groups you’re controlling. This was definitely annoying at first, since standard FE games treat your army like any normal RPG party, where you keep adding characters and leveling them up over the course of the game. In Radiant Dawn, there are several different outfits that you’ll be leading (sometimes even against each other!!), so you can’t be sure that any unit will still be under your control in the next level. It’s definitely a novel approach which lends a sense of massive scale to the story, and it does make an impact when Part 4 finally lets you use everyone, but it does come at the cost of feeling like your investments in your favorite characters will pay off. Once I accepted it for what it was, just working with whichever characters I had instead of planning who I wanted to buff for the long game, I was all in.
Lastly, there are some odd changes when it comes to how useful returning characters are. Suddenly, Astrid is terrible, and I actually used Boyd. He ended up in my top 5 units at the end of the game! I wasn’t a fan of all the ways that characters have been altered (what is the deal with Devdan???), but it did feel like they’ve continued existing and changing in the years since Path of Radiance, which is always crucial for a story-heavy sequel. This leads directly into my next point in the story section, so if you haven’t played it, GET OUT NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN.
// STORY SPOILERS // STORY SPOILERS // STORY SPOILERS // STORY SPOILERS // STORY SPOILERS //
In real life, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn only released two years apart, but while I played POR in 2007, this was my first time touching RD at all. That’s a 17 year gap! That’s longer than the time between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace! For me, this game felt like a legacy sequel, even though I’m fully aware it absolutely is not. That being said, no matter how long the period of time is between these games, Radiant Dawn is a fantastic sequel story, and you would be doing yourself a MASSIVE disservice to play this without playing POR first. Pretty frequently, returning characters will show up, seemingly out of nowhere, with little to introduction. If you came into this story blind, you’d be more than a little lost.
But if you’ve got that previous knowledge? The callbacks and big moments hit so hard. When the Greil Mercenaries first showed up? That was more hype for me than any blockbuster I’ve seen in years. When 1-9 brought the Black Knight back, I was shaken. That must have been what Terminator 2 felt like in theaters, seeing a near-invincible villain from the previous story show up as an ally this time. Floored me. And the notice the game gives you in 3-6, when it says that even though you’re fighting against characters that you’ve been playing as, your job is to keep your current units alive no matter what? It’s incredibly rare to experience something so emotionally conflicting in a game.
Ultimately, the majority of conflicts in Radiant Dawn are the result of politicians and bureaucrats getting people to kill each other when they shouldn’t even be enemies in the first place, and the late-game shift away from being their pawns, and instead eliminating the oppressors, feels… righteous. Really makes you wish that kind of refocusing could happen on a larger scale in real life!
And can we give props to Ike real quick? He’s such a bro. He doesn’t care about political allegiance or diplomacy, he’s just here to do what he thinks is right and to take care of his friends. There’s no such thing as a Sub-Human to my boy Ike. What a guy.
Now, there are a few issues, but they’re minor. The English voice acting budget must have been tight, because uhhhh it’s not good most of the time! Dheginsea’s voice in particular is just… oof. Kind of undercut a big moment, but it didn’t ruin the game for me. The one legitimate issue I have with this game is the reveal of the Black Knight’s identity. The actual information of who is under that helmet is great, I didn’t expect it and it fully makes sense. But the way the reveal is handled is just awful. This is one of the biggest moments in the story, it should have been a fully animated cutscene. But instead, Ranulf just walks up to Ike after a level is finished and goes, “Hey, I found out who the Black Knight is!”, and that’s it. It’s really dumb!
But overall, the game is a fantastic experience, and for the first half of my playthrough, I kept thinking, “Wow, it is such a shame I waited so long to pick this one up.” However, by the end, I’m kind of glad I did. In an age of endless legacy sequels, reboots, and retreads, most stories that we’ve long held dear are being tainted by underwhelming (or absolutely awful) continuations. In a post-TRoS world, it felt incredible to have a meaningful and impactful sequel to something I loved as a teenager, even if the wait was self-inflicted. Can’t recommend this one enough.