Fire emblem General Rant part 4

We go straight to n°9, Fire emblem Path of Radiance.
For those who don't know about who the guy in my avatar is I'll enlighten you and say its' the main character of this game for the gamecube, Ike.
Before I start ranting anything about plot, story, characters, upgrades, settings, and so on, I want to say, as much as many out there didn't like the idea of a wide screen fire emblem where the characters looked always too solemn and seriuos for their liking this fire emblem has marked my liking to the series.
With no longer adue I'll say why it's like this.
The first title of the series on the gamecube, not to mention it's origin was pretty late compared to other games. Path of Radiance has in my opinion a great plot, sure, the beginning will look shabby and incredibly dull and you'll be questioning if the buy was worth it. As mentioned in the first part of this ranting fire emblem was for me known as a book where you are able to see your units do their stuff, whoever doesn't like the idea of a something like this dedicated to be in a small screen rather than a LG it's perfectly fine with me, though, I have to say, the variety in gaming is always fun at some point.
In general, the story is well sorted and at times awkward but not annoying positions, as an example the sometimes placement of Ike in cleary too high positions interaction (his company involvement with royalty etc), I have nothing agaisnt it actually.
One of the best points of the game, in my personal opinion, is the characters. Sure, many already got used to the bland things of a common GBA pixeled dialogue, with no intention of offense, I found much more appealing and entertaining the interactions in the gamecube game, I guess I couldn't be satisfied with the GBA versions.

Ike not being a nobleman didn't much appeal to me in the beginning, as the story goes on I kept my eyes keen in his role as a commoner charging through different places and stages, it was what I considered interesting.
Of course, this kind of maneuver couldn't be done with lame dialogues, the interaction between characters are fair enough decent and the storyline itself rows smoothly and in ease.
I will try and not spoil anything so let's see, why do I like Ike so much? I find him the best fire emblem character ever made, it's not neccesarily because of his common blue hair with generic features of a rough boy (which isn't appealing to me at all) and this defying and taking different paths from the usual prince, but his development and personality, hell, his resolution and general interaction are for me well achieved.
You might notice I'm not asking much from a character, a solid and shapeable personality was enough for me to feel satisfied.
You'll get as the usual series more and more to your mary band of mercenaries and I have to say, still belonging the character area, Ike is not the only one with some personality.
I use as example the sniper Shinon whom in my opinion deal pretty well with his sarcastic, aloof and general attitude, at least I could re call these traits juts by looking at his character art.
It's not a surprise to question how the heck did Titania or Oscar got their armors so polished and so on, I couldn't answer this apart from saying 'it's fire emblem characters', 'the good guys will always be pretty to look at.'
We have as another added point the two distinct live forms; the humans who look human (beorcs: your usual units in the pre games) and the humanoids that posses a common characteristic from a animal (laguz), indeed, I have no doubt that at some point the producers were nervous of how this would turn on, adding humanoid animals into the realm of fire emblem, these characters are nothing lower of interesting than the general entirely human looking, in fact, most of them have much more personality than most of the usual looking units. This part is pretty tight with the upgrade section so it'll have to wait till then.
So as a sum up of this section, I say the variety of characters is relatively satisfactory, you'll see a nice and sweet princess from a rotting old man.
I repeat myself, the beginning is not near of how interesting it gets further on.

Not only is the character part well done but the setting is nicely output.
A band of goodie toes mercenaries that get involved in the whole continent bussiness Telius. With a decent and not entirely useless narration you get a well set up of where you are and why, it was pretty clear if you ask me.
Something I've waited since the beginning since character mentioning is the satisfactory spread of 'races' across the land, the laguz being south east from the other countries and kinda stick to each other seperated by frontiers.
It's in general a really fun world to look at, the setting seems simple and it's definately a world where I'd expect much. This last said points alot to what the producers did, even though Path of Radiance was a fun game where when finishing it you'd say 'it was fun,' you were undoubtly awaiting for more laguz beorc action, I mean, the whole main plot revolves around talking about a huge war and how much it must be stopped, sure, it is stopped (at this point I guess spoiler advertisement is futile) but you still want the huge calamity to strike as a gamer, as much as you pity all the people in there.
You'll get this last satiated in the sequel and that's what I'm mostly gonna talk about in the last part of my ranting.
Something to say before ending this part is that I found really fun the way each beorc and laguz generally see each other, sure, their general behaviors to each other are extremely expected but further than that I liked the idea of the insults 'human' and 'sub human', this last one in specific because it simply remarks the fact that their world has granted the laguz (sub human) less 'intelligence' than the beorcs (human) but have all general animal advantages as to instincts. Yes, in general I liked the whole concept.

Unit mannagement on the big screen was sure, big and 3d, kinda different from the usual pixels, many simply didn't buy the game because of the idea and other probably cut gaming because of the concept, I'm in the people who kept of playing because of the story and general curiosity.
Something that's out of the question though is that, of course, we were expecting much more than what was presented to us, a whole change scene for a strike o counter strike, no doubt the big screen makes it look like a mini movie in the beginning but later on it's a plain drag, of course you can just switch it off but improvement in that area would be highly apreciated, the game is after all a whole spin off from the usual series, why not make it? Of course, changing this one and one fight scene would mean great general changes in the usual combat area on whom I haven't actually sorted it out yet.
Something that wasn't so alarming neither TOO attention seeking was the dissapearence of some of the classes, why not so alarming? You have a whole bunch of laguz to cover up such, besides, not thinking so much in deph about the matter I'd conclude the creators were thinking something for making it like that, well, whatsoever I'm just one of the many gamers that play it.
The incorporation of other beings instead of the classic humans agaisnt humans was highly appealing to me, sure, the idea at first sounds vague and you'd many times question (if you were interested to begin with) if that's the best they could do about new ideas, I myself found it great, why so fun you ask? Because it makes each other remark themselves as the story unfolds to new series of events where each of them have a role somehow, besides, the laguz personalities are simply more true to what a animal would be if it took a humanoid form. From this last, people who aren't much of a fan or simply are but bugs them at some point, there could be questions of why they should take a human form and why should they be so 'human ish' if their 'true' forms are animals, to tell you truth, it's something on which I haven't thought much, till now I have simply enjoyed the fact there are other races apart from humans and that have things on which I can generally distinguish one and another, the game doesn't make it annoying.
Something from the technical part that is effective and at the same time not is the skill part, that's that.
You'll get a pumping intro and a decent character art if only some of them weren't so yelling in color.
Apart from the connection with characters and setting, the upgrade stands too on what is cinematography, sure, it isn't purely dissapointing and terribly bad, but damn Mists' voice annoys me and damn I prefer imagining Ike talking than actually hearing his english voice, it's simply retarded for me, the only save-able person is Ike's father and the singing part in the Serenes forest.


You'll get the usual fire emblem dialogue interaction, be it semi body showing or sprite field which is clearly something a fire emblem gamer would have expected more development or simply is satisfied and not molested with the 'improvements', personally, it wasn't such a bother and yet I always found myself expecting more in this upgrading media area.



In conclusion about this game I say it's the fire emblem whom, if you are open and a reader will enjoy much, sounds extremly vague and generic but I have no other way to say how you would like this. I personally did and till now would remmember things from the game, un questionably Ike and how he develops. The game itself isn't the best thing since best but then again no fire emblem game was pretty much in that area, it was for me always a chilling way to pass a quiet evening, just reading and going through the story with characters I like to get attached with.

Final scores

Story: 8.5/10


Characters: 9/10


Setting: 8/10


Upgrade: 7.5/10


Total: 33/40



"A fair playing fire emblem that, even if you haven't played the previuos ones, you'll fairly enjoy the story. The wide screen is something that has pros and cons, yet again, it's something to simply deal with."