Path of Radiance gives new hope to a great series and with its great strategy battles this game is a great game to play.
Path of Radiance just like the other Fire Emblems is a Strategy RPG in which you have a large grid-based battlefield where you and your enemies all have a variety of units to battle eachother with. There are various classes that all have there own promotion which further increases how useful they are. The level cap is 20 when you hit level 20 you auto-promote to your promotion unless it is either too early in the game, the character requires a storyline promotion, or you can use an item to promote the unit before they hit level 20. This system gives your character time to raise their statistics before promoteing unlike the characters you receive that have already been promoted which usually have fairly low stats.
The combat system is based off of a rock-paper-scissors type of triangle where swords beat axes but are weak to lances and lances beat swords but are weak to axes keeping all 3 types of melle weapons equally effective. Other than the basic three there are bows, daggers, light Magic, dark magic, elemental magic, and healing magic. Bows are the obvious ranged weapons used by archers and some warrior get them as well good for picking down enemies away before they get to you from 2-3 spaces away and are strong against flying enemies. Daggers are weapons used by theives they have no weaknesses but also no strengths, magic is used by various different magic classes some magic allows you to hit from 2 spaces others allow you to hit from long distances healing magic on the other hand gives you a very large variety of staves to use to boost allys, heal allys, help in other various supporting ways.
Now although the combat is fairly simple they Fire Emblem series has done it very well especially with Path of Radiance allowing you to use various strategies in combat allowing you to pick units that help how you play. Also you get a very large variety of just about every class of unit that all differ in one way or another so you can somewhat customize and pick which statistics you want your certain class to have. This system makes the game much more fun and keeps you entertained for the whole game although you can only do missions you cannot go back and replay or do random battles to gain additional levels.
The gameplay is fun and exciting i have already explained that in great detail, now for the graphics and music of the first Fire Emblem to come to a more high tech system. The graphics are very well designed it is fairly cartoony just like the other Fire Emblems and it reminds you of the old games but with a great new feel and look to it. The music is fairly mild what you would expect of most strategy RPGs various battle musics that are recycled between various battles but the sound effects are great along with the animations.
I think Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is an amazing addition to the Fire Emblem series and it will make many more new players play the game and with the upcomming sequel on the Wii I belive the series will flourish even more outside of Japan. I would rate Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for the gamecube a 9.1 out of 10 although it may be a fairly short game and the Fire Emblem series isn't all that complex it is a great series and this game is tons of fun and hours of enjoyment. I would suggest anyone who has played a Fire Emblem to play Path of Radiance and anyone new to the series to start out on this one before moving on to the others it is the most user friendly.