by John Toth

Created on: May 16, 2009   Last Updated: May 23, 2009

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is the first Fire Emblem game to be rendered in three-dimensional graphics. Indeed, Intelligent Systems has done a great job of rendering the game properly and to bring the magic of the Fire Emblem franchise alive with lush graphics, amazing cinematic cut scenes, and a fresh new storyline to work with. Unlike most video games that deal with war and battles, Fire Emblem gives the players a take on the overall battlefield and the military unit as a whole rather than the individuals within the unit.

What sets this game apart is its how vibrant and colorful each individual is in the game. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance boasts a large cast of individual characters, each with their individual personalities and their relationships to other characters. Every character has their own growth rate in their stats, which will be explained in the game mechanics part of this review.

The game mechanics in Path of Radiance roughly stay the same as they were in the other games of the series. You have growth rates, which are basically the chance a unit's stat will go up when they level up. If a person has a sixty percent in strength then they have a three in five chance of having that stat go up by one in a level up. The game still gives sword masters the tried and loved critical hit bonus.

However, so far, this article has been about Fire Emblem in general and what makes the series in itself one of the best. Path of Radiance is the ninth game of the Fire Emblem games and, in my honest and humble opinion, one of the best of the series. There are many factors which make it stand out.

The graphics of the game are vibrant and realistic, the characters are animated very well, and the battle scenes are superb. Path of Radiance was Fire Emblem's debut onto the three-dimensional world and Intelligent Systems spared no expense and pulled no punches in making it as appealing as possible.

The characters in this game, in my opinion, were more memorable and easier to connect with than in the other games. Each character had their own unique personality to offer to the table whether you saw Mist and Rolf doing their best to help their siblings, the motherly and caring personality that Titania offered, or the ever hungry spell caster that Ilyana provided. In fact, the characters in the game are dynamic and ever-changing. The game shows the player how the main character, Ike, matures and grows from a young greenhorn into a mature and competent leader.

Also, the game introduces the concept of laguz. These are units which basically transform between animal and human forms. In human form, these laguz are defenseless and unable to fight. However, when transformed into their respective creatures, these laguz end up being one of your strongest units on the battlefield. This brings another dynamic into the player's strategies that they must consider when encountering the battlefield.

Fire Emblem is a great game series, challenging and entertaining in its own right. However, I would not suggest this game to a younger child purely for the difficulty that the game will provide to the player. Path of Radiance for the Game Cube stands out, in my opinion, as one of the best in the series. It has had its main character, Ike, represented in the game Super Smash Brothers Brawl. In addition, it has had a sequel, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (which, in my opinion, was not as great of a game as Path of Radiance was).

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