Superb game that leaves you wanting more. Great storyline, battle system and characters make it a must have.
Staring on a seriously RPG deprived Gamecube, Radiance makes its mark and puts Fire Emblem among the heavyweight RPG series in the United States. If you play this game, you will understand why everyone in Japan made such a huge deal about this series.
The story focuses around young hero Ike, a member of a mercenary group owned by his father. Ike starts out weak; in time, however, he places himself so high he rivals for the title of best Fire Emblem character ever.
It may sound like an overused story plot, but the storyline is perhaps the games strongest suit. The story never gets old, surprising till the end, and surpasses most RPGs in this category. I wish I had come up with this idea before the game came out, this story is good enough to be a bestseller Fantasy Book.
The main course of the game is obviously the action. And fans are not disappointed. The battle system is easy to learn but not so easy that you become bored. As with any RPG, you start off with weak characters and weaker enemies, in time though, (granted you use the correct characters,) your army will be so much stronger than the opposing army that you can swallow up an army five times the size of yours. The game takes a ‘level up ‘ system; whenever any character gains 100 experience points, the upgrade to the next level, once a character of a lower class hits level 21, they upgrade to MASTER CLASS!
However, this is no reason to be less cautious. If any character dies, he/she is gone. Dead, man, not coming back. Some characters manage to save themselves, but they don’t battle again; they will only appear in post and pre battle movies. This ‘character permanently gone’ approach is one of the main columns in the castle of Radiance and most Fire Emblem games, and the most likely cause of a playing hitting the reset button.
When you are not in battle, you are preparing for one; the base, a new member of the Fire Emblem games, is where you equip your allies with weapons and have meetings. You can ‘support’ two characters and there in turn increase their stats, give them skills to help them in battle, or you can give characters extra experience points earned in battle. You can purchase weapons if your old ones are worn (in this game your weapons are not great forever. They wear out after a certain number of attacks. This is another staple point in the game and in the Fire Emblem gaming system), and you can even have someone forge you new, more powerful ones. Be forewarned, however, your money supplies are low and if you spend it all, it’s hard to get any more.
The characters in this game range from heroic (Ike) to horribly mistaken (Jill) to horribly funny and crazy (Kieran). Their classes, (battle jobs) range from the norm in Fire Emblem games, like Paladins and Snipers, to new animal forms. These new classes involve a separate race, called the Laguz, who can change into animal forms. They are heavily oppressed; most the human race, the borec, are very precedence against them, and one of the key parts of the story is rebuilding a world where the two races can live in peace.
The games musical arrangement sounds fully arbitrated, and is incredible; whether you are having a romantic nighttime meeting or just found out you are in the middle of a ambush, the sound is amazing and gets stuck in your head.
The graphics in this game are incredible and use most of the Gamecube’s capabilities. The battlefields are very crisp and clean; the pre/post battle meetings are done very well, and the six short animated movies within the game are beautifully done. The only problem here is the battles themselves; they are still nice, but repetitive, and critical attacks (which do three times the normal damage) are dull; perhaps the only mistake in the game.
This game lacks nowhere except for a misstep in the battle animations, but they are easily lived with. Any RPG fan, Nintendo fan or not, is doing themselves a disfavor if they haven’t tried this game. Radiance will be a measuring stick for Fire Emblem games after it and if another comes out as good as Radiance, you can count on the Fire Emblem to become almost as well known as Final Fantasy in RPG games minds.
Lightning always Strikes Twice!