After getting out of work, I took the bus out to the mall to pick up my Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn preorder and have spent the evening playing through the first few chapters. I've played up to the point where the shop and management screens become available, so I think I'm ready to give some impressions of the game.

First off, Radiant Dawn is, from the start, a much more difficult game than Path of Radiance. Through the first several missions at least, the battle is lost if any of your characters die, rather than just the main character. I had to restart Chapter 3 several times because one of my weaker units would get picked off. It's still a fair challenge, however, and the whiners...er, newcomers will be glad to know that there's a Battle Save option, which creates a permanent save during battle so you don't have to restart if you don't want. (Though you're still screwed if you Battle Save right before an enemy unit kills one of your guys.)

Radiant Dawn also allows uploading clear save data from Path of Radiance. By loading a clear file, you'll get some boosts to returning characters and unlock all of the support conversations from Path of Radiance that were unlocked on the save file. I'm not sure what else if anything it does, but given what a help a particular returnee was for me in Chapter 3 (once I started putting her to use, that is), it's definitely a nice boost.

Speaking of supports, the support system has also been tweaked. Each character is now limited to one support relationship, so if you want to create a support relationship between Micaiah and Laura, for example, you'll need to break the support between Micaiah and Sothe that exists from the game's start. I have yet to see any support conversations, however, so I'm not sure how else the supports come into play. I may find out the further I play into the game. However, there is a character tree in the library that displays the relationships of all of the characters as each new character is revealed, which is a nice touch, along with a list of terms that should be of help to anyone that didn't play Path of Radiance.

Otherwise, the game is Fire Emblem through and through, with some tweaks here and there that enhance the gameplay and presentation. For instance, any time support effects go off during battle, a brief animation will play before the start of a skirmish to highlight the affected characters. Also, the names of skills and skill effects appear as they go off, so you don't have to feel mystified when a character suddenly does something completely awesome seemingly at random. Elevation also plays a role on the battlefield, and characters can climb up or drop down certain ledges to access shortcuts or to give a height advantage to archers. The overall quality of the graphics and animation has also been increased over Path of Radiance, with more detailed character models, a sharper cel-shaded look, and more impressive combat. The same goes for the one FMV cutscene I've seen so far.

I've been playing the game with a Classic Controller, and it works great. I asusme that when a GameCube controller is plugged in, it uses the Path of Radiance controls, which were also nice, but I doubt I'll bother with the Wii Remote-only option. There isn't any use of motion control in the game whatsoever, but that makes perfect sense because strategy RPGs don't need waggle. :P

Overall, Radiant Dawn is a larger, much more impressive game than Path of Radiance. If you have a Wii, it is totally worth picking up. I imagine that this is a game that will be keeping me occupied for quite a while.