Starting today, I’m gonna start writing mini-reviews on certain games I’ve played and books I’ve read that I really liked, and don’t really have much to say on the matter. These are gonna be quick, easy reads for people who are interested in the media I bring up, and don’t want to waste hours reading an in-depth expository on that game/book.
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Alright, let’s get into it!
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (POR for short) is genuinely one of my favorite games. It may seem relatively simple, the core essence of what makes a good Fire Emblem game, but it does everything so right in such an enjoyable manner that I can’t help but be enthralled.
Now, I’m gonna be so honest: this game took me two years to complete. I know, I know, hard to rate something when you completed the earliest chapters two years ago, but there’s enough here to ramble about despite this. Plus, like, it could be worse. It’s taking me five years to get through Awakening, and upwards of nine years to get through Sacred Stones, so much so that I have to restart their respective games. I think the issue with Fire Emblem in this regard is that each chapter takes an easy hour to complete, so like if I can’t dedicate an hour to playing, I won’t be able to play.
Despite this, there’s a lot I still remember about the core gameplay and certain chapters of the story that are remarkable enough to bring up.
Fundamentally, what makes POR good for me is the map design. Holy shit, the map design in this game is peak. There are a lot of chapters that stand out to me for their map design, specifically Chapter 10, which is just straight up evil.
It doesn’t look that challenging, with only four enemies on display, but because you’re essentially breaking into a prison, if you get caught by any of the guards, a whole flock of guards will come rushing in and attack you. Which, if you’re low level, could be an immediate death. To round up all of the prisoners and escape, this level took me 33 turns. THIRTY-THREE. That’s not even counting the amount of times I had to reset my GameCube because one of my units died.
This follows straight into Chapter 11, which looks mostly normal, until the Black Knight (one of the main villains in the game) just appears in the corner of the map and will attack if a character is in the area. I ended up losing one of the prisoners I had just spent 33 turns trying to save because of this. Miserable!
There was also Chapter 23, where you have to cross a huge bridge, but it only implies that the bridge is dilapidated, and thus your characters will just fall in a hole and be incapacitated for the next round.
And the final chapter’s mapping, which is also quite unique and memorable, but I don’t want to spoil too much, so trust me on this. But no matter what, I will never forget these maps and how much they made me suffer. That’s the thing, right? There’s so much to these maps that are incredibly unique that newer Fire Emblem games just lack. None of the maps are even closely similar to other maps, and there’s always some kind of unique quirk to the map that makes it impossible to forget.
Not only that, but the plot of POR is just as fantastic. I will try not to spoil anything too specific, but I think Ike’s character development is one of the best character’s development sequences I’ve seen in a video game, and I think that despite it feeling very obvious, like the changes weren’t subtle at all, it still felt like Ike grew into his role and became the entrusted commander that was expected of him, even if he didn’t think he could do it well. Even Elincia’s character development was quite strong, and you see these almost parallel stories coalesce by the end of the plot. It was very heartwarming to see.
I will be honest though, if you’ve ever consumed any fantasy story, it’s quite a simple story. Competent, but simple. The plot line with the Serenes Forest was probably the most interesting plot line in the game, and the plot line with Mist’s medallion was also very intriguing, but familiar if you’ve played any other Fire Emblem game. It’s not a bad plot line, not even close, but basic for sure. I’ve definitely seen worse plot lines.
I think the only qualm that I had with the game is how you level up characters in-between chapters. Essentially, because there is no physical map to move around and explore, there isn’t a means to challenge enemies to battle for quick and easy levels. Instead, in-between chapters, you are sent to the base camp, where you can give all earned Experience (EXP) to any character you want.
You earn a certain amount of bonus EXP throughout the chapter, not specific to your characters, and then you can just award it to whatever character you want with this specific screen. It’s just menu management to level up a character to their max capacity, and like you’re given a lot of bonus EXP, so it’s not impossible to level up one character to the max level after each chapter. Probably why a lot of people say POR is “too easy.” All of the stats are randomized regardless of how a characters levels up.
Also, a bit nit-picky, but there really isn’t a rank tree like in later Fire Emblems, so there’s not a lot of characterization for each character. Not particularly a bad thing, but also when a character hits level 10, they just automatically can rank up, without needing the specific Seal to do so, which is kinda lame, in my opinion.
But, frankly, I don’t think its simplicity makes this game bad. It makes it a very easy to recommend to others, especially newer fans to the series who’ve never played a Fire Emblem before. And with POR available on NSO, it’s much more accessible to play than other Fire Emblem games (though, granted, emulation is still easier and more accessible). If you have the time, and want to understand what makes this game such a beloved game in the series, I highly recommend giving Path of Radiance a chance.
And that’s about it! I don’t know if I’ll be doing Sunday Mini Stacks every Sunday like my posts, just because that might be completely unfeasible for me. Like I will definitely run out of things to talk about if I do this weekly as well, so it’ll probably be a biweekly thing compared to my main blogs. I’ll try this format out for a little bit, and let y’all know if I change it up.
Next week’s main post will also be a bit of rant, specifically on graphics in gaming because people love to complain about it, and I’m sick of hearing the same arguments all the time. And I’m sure you are, too! So, stick around for that!
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