Monday 25 January 2010

Fire Emblem: Path Of Radiance Game Cube Review

Introduction
Set on the Continent of Tellius, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance tells the story of a mercenary group known as the Greil Mercenaries.
The game see's you commanding the Greil Mercenaries and other units in a way that is very similar to Advance Wars.
Fire Emblem takes Advance Wars and gives it RPG elements such as leveling up, equipping weapons, and character classes.
The story is this the peaceful nation of Crimea is one day attacked by the neighbouring nation of Daein unable to defend the country Crimea is defeated and the royal family is murdered.
The only member of the royal family left is princess Elincia.
After saving her from Daein troops Elincia Hires the Greil Mercenaries to help her reclaim her country.
Will the Greil Mercenaries succeed? Only time will tell.

Gameplay
Fire Emblem is only what can be described as chess + RPG.
The game has several types of units that upgrade into different classes the games basic units are:
Fighter- A axe wielding unit that has great strength but lacks defence, fighters are at a disadvantage against sword users.

Myrmidon- A sword wielding unit that has great speed and skill but is lacking in the area of strength and defence.

Soldier- Soldiers start out as really weak units but they have great growth and will soon become very powerful. They use lances.

Knight- A heavily armoured unit that is slow but not easy to damage physically, but are screwed when put against magic.

Archer- A unit that uses long range attacks to deal with enemies so they are not meant to fight the foe face to face. Make sure you upgrade them to sniper.

Mage- General Magic users have good magic attack and defence but lack physical strength so make sure that stay clear of any units who can hit them.

Priest- These are healers they can't attack at all unless you upgrade their class. Priests are vital as they can heal units, remember if a unit dies they stay dead and you will never get to use them again.

Lance/Axe/Sword/Bow Knights- These are all horse riding units they can move far and are reliable. If upgraded they can use extra weapons.

Wyvern Riders- These units ride dragons known as Wyverns, they can use Axes and lances and they have great movement, very powerful. This unit is screwed against magic and bows.

Pegasus Knight- The other flying unit, they are the opposite of the wyvern Riders they can defend magic easily but are weak to physical attacks.
They are also weak attackers but they can avoid attacks with ease.

Laguz- A new type of unit to fire emblem they come in 3 different tribes Beast, Bird and Dragon they are half human, half animal units that don't use weapons.

Fire emblem has what is known as the weapon triangle which is a rock, paper, scissors type system that works like this:
Swords beat axes,
Axes beat lances
and lances beat swords.
Sword> Axe> Lance> Sword> Axe> ect
The same goes for magic as well.
Fire> Wind> Thunder> Fire> Wind> ect.
The game at first may seem complicated at first but you will soon get into it easily.
As I mentioned with the priests before unlike Advance Wars you must take care of you units in this game if they die you will never get them back.
In the game you can power up your units using different weapons though unlike most RPG's all weapons (With the exception of Ragnell and Amiti) have a limit to the number of times you can use them, when the number of uses reaches zero the weapon breaks.
Stronger weapons have less number of uses then the weaker weapons.
If you want new weapons and items you can buy them from the market you can also have weapons forged and give them a name. (I made a sword called E_N RULES! it was the strongest sword you could make).
There is also a new feature that lets you give characters special skills and give them bonus exp which is great if you trying to train a unit without making it fight.
As the game goes on you will discover new characters that can join you some require a conversation with a certain person while others are won in more unique ways.
Try and Get as many characters to join as possible either as back ups or units who can really help as you go through the game.
The game has 28 chapters and should take 25 to 30 hours to complete the first time around, maybe more if you are playing at a higher difficulty.
The game has 2 possible endings so it is worth playing through twice.
The game feels very rewarding in that sense.
When you complete the game you unlock extras such as art gallary, sound track and trial maps to test you skill playing the game.
The game can be connected to a GameBoy Advance once completed but you need Fire Emblem the Scarred Stones on GBA to use it.
All you get is some extra art work though.

Graphics & Sound

The game uses graphics that as somewhat cel-shaded as much as I love the style I will admit that it is no where near as good as that of the Wind Waker.
The Cel-shading in the cut-scenes is amazing though.
As for sound the music effects in battles is great.
The Music is what I can only call amazing; the music is made to fit the mood of the game.
Energetic music when you are attacking, bad mooded music when the enemy attacks and others types of music made to fit the mood of the game weather it be a part of the games story that is emotional or a part that is in high sprits the game can fit the mood perfectly.

Summary
A great strategy RPG, another one of the lost gems of the GameCube.

+Great Story
+Rewarding to play
+You will grow to love the characters.
+Battle system works.

-Some characters are a waste of space
-Same can be said for some of the special weapons
-Can be frustrating.

9/10

quick note: This review was different to all the other reviews I had done and I don't every see myself writing like this ever again.

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