The rajaion thing was a mistranslation on FE9's part, by the way. In the japanese of FE9 it's pretty clear he died. So it's more a case of a translation error in a previous game making things odd in FE10 than an actual writing failure.
Tbh I prefer to have them busted, as long as the game itself is still challenging, like FE10, it's so fun to have so many options to work with, image now if Armors were better, it be so tedious to play. I know people strive for variaty, and it is important, but we don't have to nerf to fun to make Archer (for example) usable
I'd say one of the most memorable parts for me was in FE10 during a base convo between Rolf and Shinnon. By that point both armies are extremely worn down. Shinnon, who is usually cold and edgy pretty much breaks down in front of Rolf, saying he's not sure how much longer he'll be around to protect Rolf, and that while he might not be a good father figure, he can at the very least make sure that Rolf has the most powerful bow. Even tough its true that the end of part 3 doesn't advance too much in regard to story, it excels in regards to character development and the theme of how terrible war can be.
I actually think that they added part 2 into the game because Radiant Dawn is trying to tell the story of the entire continent falling into war and breaking their covenant with Ashera, which is what leads to part 4 which is obviously beorc and laguz finally learning to unite and defeat an unjust God. Michiah may be the main character of the game and I agree with that, but Radiant Dawn is the story of Tellius, and part 2 helps to show you that the entire continent has fallen into conflict and war, not just the battles between the Laguz alliance and Begnion. I think it adds more weight to what Ashera does, because she isn't just intervening in one war, she is attempting (from her own viewpoint) to put an end to all conflict, and even Crimea is a part of that.
I always saw the disparity of strength of the DB vs the GM similar to their strength lore wise. The GM are war veterans while the DB is literally young people off the street so it makes sense that the DB would be much weaker than the GM. I know from a gameplay perspective im sure it wasnt the most fun but i kinda saw it as making the player feel as the characters did.
This is even more understandable given that its eventually learned that the Senate pretty much manipulated the DB, whereas the GM had to claw their way up to power. It's another one of the nested dichotomies between order and chaos.
59:00 I feel like a long streak of interesting decisions led to Meg being in that situation, in that armor. You must have had a lot of fun on your second playthrough.
I am so excited for this, I didn't realize these critiques were uploaded as a season and this is in my top 3 FEs. Along with Conquest and Thracia, I loved how it always felt like a harsh but fair uphill battle, overcoming huge odds
Tellius may be next to get remakes. Either this or Jugdral. The cast is EXTREMELY popular. People love Ike. Releasing a Remake of Path of Radiance would sell well with the right advertisment and would build suspense for a Radiant Dawn remake a few years later. I do agree tho that Genealogy deserves it the most. And seeing how much influence it had when making 3H, they’re probably looking at it for the next remake.
Goofy Gaff The only problem I have with Ashera is that she wasn’t really part of the cast of villains, as in the first time Ike met Ashera was before endgame.
Honestly radiant dawn as you pretty much stated is just kinda flawed and filled with a lot of pointless scenes honestly one of the biggest reasons why i would love to see the story trimmed of that fat and then give attention where its needed and overall reimagined in a sense as a much stronger narrative with better character development (ive seen a few of these, the small informal rewrite Mangs does at the end of his first RD lp comes to mind) Nonetheless i love this game as much as anyone else but man but i do recognize a lot of its flaws it was a very ambitious game and while they did fall a bit short i do appreciate the game for trying. Great retrospective i love watching and hearing your thoughts one each of the games in the series
This game is one of my two favorites in the series, but it’s absolutely relies on the player having already played path of radiance. I honestly can’t imagine how terrible the story and characters would be for someone who hasn’t played the previous game. It must appear a convoluted mess. Also the blood pact really isn’t *that* bad of an idea, I just wish they explained it more and gave it some history so it didn’t just seem like a plot device.
Surprisingly, for me, I never played or experienced the story of Path of Radiance, yet I absolutely loved Radiant Dawn when I first experienced it like 10 years ago. It was so cool to see a bunch of people following up on a war (that I didn't know much about) and seeing the repercussions of it. In fact, for a while, I didn't even care to learn about the events in Path of Radiance because I didn't believe that they would live up to the hints of the events in Radiant Dawn. Still can't excuse the blood pact, but I also am not offended by it as it provides some interesting situations (despite getting there due to a lazy plot device).
@@blastmako05 They actually did mention the Blood Pact in Path of Radiance but it was just in the Japanese version. They took it out in the English version and change some of Black Knight's dialogue to make him more like an evil villain. Hence the difference between Radiant Dawn Black Knight and Path of Radiance Black Knight
RD actualy made me a fan of FE and of PoR. I've played very little of PoR in 2005 when it came out and i didn't really like it cause I found it to be sploopy. 2007 I got a copy of RD to try it and fell for it. Even though I couldn't understand some of the plot revolving around PoR the game between misson does provide a decent resume to explain what is going on and what caused it in the past. I have loved this game so much that 2-3 years later I got a copy of PoR and decided to try it again and this time I loved it thx to RD!! I wish IS would make a remake of these 2.
I dont think someones gonna read this but whatever, i still want to write it bc i really like this game, it had so much potential. I remember that my expectations for the story prior to playing the game were kinda high. The idea of understanding a conflict from the perspective of both armies is one that has amazing potential. Also, before playing the entire game months ago, i had played like 4 chapters some years ago, and the idea of the oppression that Daein suffers after being conquered that they show in the early chapters of part 1 was also interesting. (Theres even good takes on these themes today, as you can see in the ultra popular anime Shingeki no kyojin). The thing is that Radiant Dawn (and may as well say Fire emblem in general) seems to suffer from 2 problems that are kind of related. One is that the game seems to like to talk about politics and stuff, but it's so afraid of showing these kinds of countries interactions in a deep way. Most of the time all that Radiant dawn does is saying "oh these guys are good oh these guys are bad". As i said before, the idea of how Daein is getting oppressed by the army of Begnion is really interesting, because this can show postwar grudge, violence towards the country that once menaced yours, etc. Its a complex phenomenon that has potential to talk about so many things related to war, but here all that really happens is "oh its not that Begnion is being 'bad', it's just that the senators the senators the senators". Instead of telling the story of how a country can have his reasons to be afraid, hold grudge and hatred towards another country for the atrocities that they made, all we have is a "Oh no no, what do u mean Daein is being oppressed, thats unacceptable, I, empress of Begnion, cant believe that, is not something we decided, is just evil people, the senators are bad oh no". It really saddens me how wasted of an idea this is. You can compare this to how Shingeki shows an oppressed nation in Eldia. Eldians are hated because of the crimes they committed in the war of the past, and the people is afraid of their powers, so most of them live oppressed and controlled by Marley, another country, while the rest of the Eldians still fight against Marley. Here you understand the reasons why Eldians are oppressed. You see the efforts of the Marleyans, how they just want to protect their country, how they have been educated in a one sided version of history to hate the Eldians even more. You even end up liking the Marleyan characters, you see how they are just trying to protect their families. You see that they are just humans trapped in a complex conflict. The point is not to justify such an atrocious act, but to understand it, to see how war can cause this, and how sometimes the innocent people end up paying the price. We could finally have a FE game that shows how this "bad guys" that are abusing us actually came to feel and act like that. The other problem comes from how a Fire Emblem game works. I remembered this problem when Shane talked about the typical fire emblem idea of growing your units and building a cohesive team. Sadly for the Radiant Dawn plot, RD is a Fire emblem game, so it seems like the story cant do whatever it wants with its characters. You can see this in little things, like how Lucia just cant die in that scene at the end of part 2, even if her death was the most realistic thing to happen, and even if her death could be a really good way of showing consequences, and it could make Elincia start a new arc where she has to work on accepting her death, where she questions her actions. But this a Fire emblem game, and maybe theres people that like Lucia, maybe theres people that have trained Lucia a lot in the chapters she appears, u just cant kill her :( And you can also see this problem in big points of the plot, like when Galia/Ike fights the Dawn Brigade. In a normal story, this idea is interesting because you get to know both sides of the conflict, you get to like or understand both armies, but you know that war is inevitable (at the very least up to a certain point, i dont mean that a fkin ton of characters need to die or something, the final message doesnt need to be a pessimist one). But in RD, you know that this a FE game, u have ur grown units in both armies, so when they fight theres 0 stakes in play, no one is gonna die in the story, because oh no, you just cant kill the units the player is growing so hard. (Also, i know you can argue that FE already integrates this kind of character deaths when u lose a unit in a chapter bc of your mistakes or whatever, but everyone just resets so its a strange topic. The fact is that you can -and most people do- experience the story as if no one dies). Not to mention that RD is again afraid of defining good and real motivations for a conflict, because you cant have a real war between Daein and Galia/Ike, you cant define realistic political reasons for a country like Daein, that wants to be free, but once menaced the whole continent to go to war. Nope, u just cant have that, instead we get the fkin blood pact to create a weak, forced conflict. So sad. I think this last issue also happens bc of the way RD (or FE) writes the characters that you use, everyone has to be "good" or likeable. They want you to like Sanaki, so ofc she is against the abuse of Daein ppl. They want you to like Naesala, so ofc theres his stupid blood pact. Theres probably more to say about this things but honestly i cba right now. If someone reads this, sorry for my shit way of writing, english is not my first language.
They had to find a way to get two “good guys” to fight each other, otherwise the marketed protagonists (dawn brigade) become the bad guys. The blood contract was definitely lazy though
@@SpiredRapidity Yeah i understand why they write all the characters that you use as "good guys", but honestly thats such a boring and simple way to define a story... And its not like i hate almost all FE games bc of that or smth, that rant was just bc i like this game and its potential.
This was my first FE game. I never owned a wii but I had a friend that did and we played through this over a weekend. I wouldn't actually play another FE game until like 5 years later when I bought FE7 and a GBA SP in college and I've been hooked ever since!
Genealogy and Radiant Dawn are the absolute peaks of fire emblem. They have huge downs, but I care little for the incredible heights those games reach.
I really like the idea of controlling two armies clashing, and seeing both grow and expand, even if it didn't quite work in Radiant Dawn. I really hope this concept is explored once again in a future Fire Emblem.
This is my second favorite fire emblem game behind thracia. I think this game has some of the best maps in the series and I love the fire emblems with huge casts like this one. I also think the support system gets a bad reputation. It is awful for character development but it is in my opinion the best support system purely from a gameplay perspective. Also when talking about how the games in the series gives you prepromotes that are extremely powerful you have to remember that the games up until more recent entries are designed around permadeath and they need to give you good units so you can win if you have a lot of casualties. This justifies the laguz royals specifically in this game because if a lot of the units you trained up died near the end you wouldn’t be able to beat bosses like Deghinsia without that extra muscle.
The support system is pretty awesome actually. Yeah, the personalized conversations may have been tossed out somewhat but the benefits you get are significant for strategy. Having a good support with Nolan and Aran really helps a lot especially on Chapter 3-6.
The support system is actualy incredible aka Ike/Soren A support for a juicy +30 Avoid to both (or isit 20 can't remember??). When I cleared my second game by attempting to unlock the hidden secret's (Lehran's past, Soren's background, Pellas etc.) I had to used Ulki and Janaff to sneaky drop Ike and Soren at the bottom of Part 3 episode 7 where you need to survive for 10 round in a swamp map OR kill the ennemy general which is Micaiah....who's having the BK as her main bodyguard lol. To unlock the secret's Ike need to confront the BK and not die before the end of the map and Ike doesn't have Ragnell nor is promotted at this point meaning he's underwhelm compared to the BK who could 2 shot him. I only succeeded because i've placed Ike on a strategic position in a busket providing 10% avoid with Soren not far for the support and Ike was blocking any ennemy from getting out of their little isle. I ONLY SURVIVED THE SECOND HIT OF THE BK BECAUSE OF SOREN'S SUPPORT LOL AND EVEN WITH SOREN'S SUPPORT AND THE BUSKET HE HAD 40% TO HIT ME...TWICE LOL.
There are a lot of absolute god tier characters in this game. my absolute favorite is Shinnon. I remember one play through having him 1v1 the final battle against the goddess. Nothing else is more terrifying though then the first time you go against the Greil Mercenaries and the game becomes a game of "run away from death incarnate"
Just a quick correction/elaboration on a bit of the story. Jarrod was the scape goat for Numida of the Senate who was absolved of all responsibility for the mistreatment of Daein and the last few chapters of Part 1 are basically his last stand, trying to take down Micaiah with him.
Yeah I had to simplify some parts like that down for time, I also cut a part explaining Pelleas backstory, as well as a bit about Soren's identity. Appreciate the elaboration here
yeah RD is tough to summarise because nearly every chapter is important to the plot in some way and both the surface level basic story and the more hidden stuff is incredibly complex. While the majority of the cast is under developed (and being carried by their development in PoR), there’s so many main characters that there’s still somehow so much going on. You did my Favourite FE justice though! As much as I love it I agree with every single one of your criticisms. I had never even thought about having a section from Sanaki’s perspective but that would’ve been so much better than Elincia. This is without a doubt, my favourite series on TH-cam right now and I’ll be looking forward to whatever you decide to cover after you’re done with FE. before this series I didn’t think you could have such an unbiased take on the games but you’ve done just that and it’s refreshing to see someone go in without much knowledge of future entires as it means you’re really able to identify the merit of each game (like which game was actually the first to implement a certain system, for instance).
I think it's a testament to how good the premise was that the game was still enjoyable in spite of nearly every aspect of development going wrong and being botched. EDIT: 58:46 That's F'in amazing.
The thing is Radiant Dawn is a sequel through and through. Due to this, I don't hold Ike's character arc against him because that story was already told, if anything his inclusion lowers the quality of the story. On the blood pact, the English is actually much better than the Japanese. In the original Japanese the blood pact, essentially, just stops working for no reason.
Radiant Dawn was my first Fire Emblem, I got it when I was around 12. Me, being a mexican child still learning english, had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. I don't know if it was the challenging difficulty, the character designs or the story that I coul barely understand, but I got hooked. A decade later I'm a Fire Emblem fan, and RD will always hold a special place in my heart
I really was hoping that hatari would be a full nation that also fight in this game more than just naila and his servent. Even npc or something it's not even on the tellius map.
Haar is more broken than Seth, but he's in a harder game so he can't just run through everything senselessly. Anyways, both Radiant Dawn and Sacred Stones are my favorite Fire Emblems, and by far the most replayable ones.
Watching these retrospectives, the most distilled thing I've taken away is that Intelligent Systems has good Game Designers and TERRIBLE Project Managers.
I meannnnn its not impossible. It is Path pf Radiance’s 15th anniversary this year and an HD Collection with Redone Cutscenes/Voice Acting/Character Art wouldn’t be the most difficult task. However I feel if they are to touch Tellius, full blown remakes are more likely. Considering Ike’s Popularity releasing a PoR remake would sell well with right advertisement and would build great suspense for a RD Remake a few years later. As much as I’d rather have Tellius, Genealogy deserves it more.
Your suggestion on how part 2 being based around Sanaki makes a lot more sense and would've been a lot more interesting as then you'd be controlling members of the country that was the antagonist in part 1. Having Sanaki & co. then leave Begnion into Crimea and have the normal part 2 story and have the story have a more cohesive leadup to part 3 would've been a lot more effective so part 2 is actually important in the wider narrative
Begnion weren't the antagonists in part 1. That was all Daein. But controlling Sanaki, Tanith, Sigrun and possibly Sephiran would've been cool. Even still, a part dedicated to Crimea's liberation aftermath with Elincia as queen was important for character development and Ike's reintroduction. Crimea joins the war later so it would've been jarring if their first appearance was when Begnion tries to pass through in Radiant Dawn.
First off I think it’s hilarious that you even used Meg or Aran. After my first play through I never touched them again and barely even touched them the first time. Also while you certainly can take in Laguz royals your first time so you guarantee getting to the end, I don’t think you should ever really use them again on subsequent runs. If you plan through the whole game it can be really fun to train up your favorite units but I can definitely see how impossible that is for a new player to this game
Agreed on Meg, but Aran is an unkillable wall when trained up. He can singlehandedly hold down chokepoints. He won't dodge or double anything but he will hit like a truck and take very minimal amounts of damage
49:18 I actually yelled at my screen there. Why would you in God's name remove Adept from Zihark? If it's "I'm not going to use him (anymore)," then my question becomes, why not?
It's certainly valid in 3-6 and 3-13 to prevent him from suiciding by getting a kill you didn't want him to on Enemy Phase and then getting attacked by more enemies than he can handle, and after that he won't be of much more use than filler in Part 4 if you didn't heavily invest into him. However from the footage with the characters available you can see ShaneBrained was at the Tower and Zihark wasn't even third tier, so why would he keep using Zihark at that point?
I played this game when it just came out (luckily I still have it) when I was about 14 years old. I really disliked the constant changing of scenery and useable units at the time. Because of this, I never finished the game until many years later. It's a good game, but I still dislike the lack of structuring and in-depth storytelling and non-existent character development. Path of Radiance is far, far superior to this game in regards to being a work of art. Gameplay wise, this game is miles better (minus the structuring). If only we could have best of both worlds in one game... maybe someday they can do it
I have been waiting to watch this since I started Radiant Dawn a little over 2 months ago. Your video did not disappoint! I wish I could say the same for the game. Sorry FE10 fans!
I honestly had a much harder time with path of radiance then radiant dawn although i did find some of radiant dawns levels to be more annoying then they were difficult
Calling this game weird is pretty apt, yeah. I like it, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn collectively are my favourite games in the series, but I am definitely not oblivious to their faults and particularly the latters... quirks. The day these games get any kind of updated rerelease or remake is one I quite look forward to. I feel like they'd be perfect for this treatment. But chances are that's a ways off. Still, it's a thought I enjoy entertaining. And then came Shadow Dragon, which is both odd in its own right, and also very basic compared to the games that came directly before it. On the surface, it almost feels like a regression of the series, and I suppose that is a big part of why it has proven hard to appreciate for a lot of people, myself included. But I've had my mind opened up to some of its elements more over time, it's good for a focused, core experience, I think. Curious what you make of it.
Radiant Dawn really pushes the war aspect of the fire emblem franchise and it's the first game that actually made me FEEL like I was fighting a war. Elincia's Gambit still gets my heart racing and 3-13 is just amazing. Gameplay wise it is my absolute favorite game to play and the story while not being perfect by any means is still engaging and interesting to me and it builds on many many aspects of the PoR story. The escalation to killing a god was pretty epic and I love playing the tower cause it's such a massive undertaking. It definitely isn't friendly to new players but it's great for a veteran and so I give it a 9/10 overall but I will agree that PoR is a better game to play and it's a must play for people first getting into the Tellius series.
Sadly, they removed the defense maps in the future installment, Elincia’s gambit is also my favorite map of all the series. Radiant Dawn really feel you are in a war.
Well said. However, I'd say PoR is a better game to play "first" since Radiant Dawn is the sequel and new players first experiencing it's 4 part, split protagonists story might find it a little jarring at first. I love Radiant Dawn much more than PoR and even the new 3 Houses - Turbo857
The Tellius series does that perfectly. Radiant Dawn, however, had a story akin to Gyakuten Kenji 2, where it took more risks than its predecessor to try to make an epic story, both games fell flat on their faces in that regard. Radiant Dawn isn't quite as bad as GK2, though.
Funnily enough, Ike himself has zero connection to the plot but Ike's tactican Soren is actually far more relevant than Ike since he's the real prince of Daein and son that Almeidha was looking for.
If certain requirements are fulfilled (Soren fights Micaiah in 3-7 [Rivals Collide], choosing to not *redacted* Pelleas on your second playthrough, Soren fights Pelleas in 3-Endgame [From Pain, Awakening], Soren and Pelleas survive until the end of the game), then you will see the ending where Soren is, in fact, revealed to be the true Prince of Daein.
This game can be considered to have both the worst and best localization in the series. The worst for reason you described like using the shortened script and mislabeled difficulty options. The best because of gameplay differences. Those Daein National Treasures wasn't in the original game. Ed and Leo started out weaker. No auto promote to get into third tier. Several skills were chance based in addition to threshold based. In Japan, this is the only game that the fanbase considers bad not merely controversial like in the Western fanbase.
@@Kuma5655 iirc, wasn't the Japanese explanation that Ike fought like a force-ghost of the BK in PoR? Also, really surprising to hear RD is flat-out disliked in Japan. Never would have known that.
Theirs also some dumb story differences, most notably with the blood pact. I the English version they go fight lekain to get rid of the blood pact, but in the Japanese version, it just goes on its own.
Yo Mangs, you, me, Mekkah 776, and Wolt should hit up the* hot springs and talk about how good this guys retrospectives are. After that and some booze, we can move onto another subject I had in mind... A blonde Sniper from FE7, who says she's married, but hey like Hector always says, every good goal has to get through a goalie.
Personally , Radiant Dawn is my favorite of the series, the defenses maps were so much fun and u feel really that u fight a stronger opponent than you.
Definitely. I remember when playing it for the first time and was looking through the opposing units. It was at that point that I realized that I was royally screwed, and that surviving would be a miracle. It also does a great job at making you feel the costs of war. It conveys how senseless war can be and the connection between populist impulses fueling a war, though set up in the first place by political elites who benefit from such a bigoted populace.
RD is probably one of the most lopsided games in the series regarding game design and especially unit balancing but its still my favorite in the series thanks to the sheer amount of ambition behind it. You could call it a "mess", but its a mess I could never bring myself to dislike ❤
The Tellius games really deserve quality remakes. There's so much unrealized potential there. If we loved these flawed first attempts this much, imagine what could be done if they were given the treatment they deserve. I hope it's an idea they're strongly considering.
It could very well occur! I think HD Remaster/Ports with redone cutscenes/art/voice acting is more likely but they could do a full blown remake. I hope they do Genealogy first however just because it hasn’t been localized and has never had the chance of being in 3D Graphics.
Tellius is incredible and it’s cast is INSANELY popular. Everyone loves ike. If they remade Path of Radiance and released Radiant Dawn a few years later it would create alot of suspense leading to strong sales. Very smart business move.
6:05 and there's the fact that Resolve doesn't boost strength anymore! The difficulty option snafu reminds me of a total reverse of Path of Radiance's go - path of radiance you think the game is harder than it really is (english hard = japanese normal). Here in Radiant Dawn hard suddenly becomes *maniac*. It stems from this larger problem (that YTer Chaz Aria LLC brought up) that difficulty modes in FE are never consistent in both name and content.
I think the reason why some skills have erroneous descriptions may be due to some skills being altered in localization. Resolve, for instance, DID require the unit be at 20% or less HP in the Japanese version, but was changed to 50% or less in western versions. Similarly, Wrath says it can only activate at 20% or less HP, which is true in the Japanese version. Western versions bumped it up to 30% or less (not too much difference, admittedly).
It’s a mess of a game, but I love it for it. I had watched let’s plays of it and I knew I was going to love it once I tried it out and so it happened. Had to wait for years till I got a good enough laptop but it was worth it.
This game has some of the biggest hype scenes in the entire franchise. Ike rescuing Lucia, Sanaki rescuing Zelgius, the part 3 endgame… so, so, so good.
I remeber when i played 3-6 with literally only micaiah sothe laura nolan and jill everyone else in the dawn brigade died ori didnt train and were flat out useless and my goodness when the BK showed up i was so grateful
Agreed. My largest gripe is that characters, especially new ones, don't get much further characterization, unless they are the focus of the story. It primarily builds upon Path's excellent character writing.
I mean at the very least base conversations fill that void a bit. At the same time, it’s the best game to have non existent convos seeing as it’s a direct sequel to the game with amazing character development.
Actually, unused files suggest that traditional support conversations were originally supposed to be implemented into the game. Whether they were scrapped in favor of the gameplay aspect of them (with free switching and a single partner etc.) or due to time constraints due to the size of the cast, I do not know.
I really like base conversations for fleshing out characters in a way that corresponds with the plot, but they really needed to use them more heavily if they were going to replace supports. I don't know anything about Fiona, and I've beat this game many times.
Something else you forgot to mention on why mounted units are no longer inherently OP is that they have substantially worse stat caps than infantry units and stat caps actually matter in Radiant Dawn, especially on Hard/Maniac difficulty (e.g. Oscar has a good Speed base and growth, but his second tier Speed cap will prevent him from doubling much in later Part 3 without an early promotion, making his offense underwhelming, and this third tier speed cap gives him more doubling issues in the endgame). This is also another reason why Haar and Jill are so broken, as unlike other mounted units they don't have lower stat caps to compensate for their massive mobility advantage and in fact have some of the best stat caps of all classes (e.g. Haar in his third tier has the highest Defense cap and second highest Strength cap of any beorc class, even exceeding the Marshalls while having none of their disadvantages, and Jill's Speed cap is only one point lower than a Seraph Knight while having much better Strength and durability).
oooohh, explains why my tower of guidance team consisted of haar, jill, and other infantry units + kieran(because his strength stat is actually useable against the final bosses compared to other cavalry units)
Radiant dawn is easily my favorite Fire emblem game. I really respect the ambition in the game, even if it fell short in some aspects it really keeps the gameplay unique and allows for a lot of replayability.
It feels like whenever I bump into someone who's played Radiant Dawn, it's usually their favorite FE game or at least in their top 3. Whenever I bump into someone who's favorite is Awakening or 3 Houses, they usually never played FE 9 or 10.
I consider FE9/FE10 one game. Ever since FE10's release, I've always played both together. It took me years to realize how to get the true ending. My only complaint was the elimination of deep supports from second half.
Radiant Dawn is my favorite from a pure gameplay perspective, but it's also it's own thing to me. I don't get a hankering to play some Fire Emblem, then play RD.
Regarding Part 2, I can't help but wonder if the structure wouldn't have worked better if they'd done something more akin to FE7 or FE8 with Hector's Story or the Eirika/Ephraim split, giving players a choice whether they wanted to stay with the Dawn Brigade and Daein's post-war development, go over to Gallia for the buildup to the war (maybe fleshing out Lyre and Kyza at all and having the party looking for the Greil Mercenaries), or check in on Crimea to make fan favourites like Elincia and Nephenee available in a 2nd playthrough. Obviously this would have resulted in them having to design up to 10 more chapters' worth of maps and story, but it might have helped the pacing and power creep issues.
I feel I gotta mention this but on the Playlist theres a huge number of the same Radiant Dawn retrospectives & 2 PoR retrospectives , you've might of clicked the button a few too many times.
Thanks, I don't know how that happened. I am guessing it was a TH-cam Studio bug, because I can't imagine how the RD video got on there so many times. In any case, it's fixed now. Thanks so much for pointing that out!
radiant dawn is the easiest game in the franchise once you realize that double earth A supports are functionally invincible and you can use BEXP to cap anyone's skills
Balancing is always a difficult conversation to have with fire emblem. Sure, on one hand the Laguz Royals are insanely powerful units that are just handed to you, but on the other hard, there's nothing stopping you from just not using them. It'll certainly be hard, but difficulty here is a choice the player makes about their own experience.
I think the best solution would have been that rather than nerfing the Royals, in the Tower you get a pick of one of the Royals to bring with you, just like how you only get to bring one Heron and how they handled the Royal pick at the end of POR, with the excuse that the power of the Royals are needed to fend off Ashera's army on the outside.
It's kinda stupid that they didn't implement scale levelling for the Dawn Brigade, considering that puts players at a disadvantage when going back to them but maybe they chose not to do that to give players more of a challenge.
No matter how much time passes, I still can't help but feel warm and fuzzy whenever I come to revisit Tellius. Be it playing the games myself or watching videos about it. I greatly enjoyed your retrospective videos on PoR and RD, thank you for making them^^ Was very fun to revisit those dear memories :3
THANK YOU for pointing out that your attachment to the stories and characters mainly stems from your memories of Path of Radiance. When people say they prefer the Radiant Dawn, our debates center around the fact that they like the characters better in Dawn, and I tell them that is ONLY because of their attachment built from Path. Path built a better character driven story. Radiant Dawn's story is great, but it has to be acknowledged that most of people's attachment to it stems from Path of Radiance. NOT ALL, but a lot of it. Radiant Dawn may have a better plot story (not my take, but I will concede to opinion), but Path of Radiance has a better handling of making you care about the story through its characters.
I always tell people that my favorite FE games are "The Tellius games", rather than pin down one of them. Gameplay wise, I certainly prefer RD, but you're absolutely correct that the character building is mainly centered in PoR.
Yeah, him pointing that out made me wonder how much I'd like the cast if I played RD first or if RD was self contained entirely. Plenty of characters still have fantastic dialogue or interactions like Oscar and his brothers in part 3 or Haar against literally any boss but its much more scattered than in PoR. I guess its bound to happen to a degree with a cast size that huge but the game could've used more time in the oven for at least some support conversations.
Looking at RD characters that appeared in PoR in a vacuum is not really fair. RD is a direct sequel that deliberately uses PoR as a basis to build a narrative with a larger scale. Introducing all the characters again would waste a lot of screen time, and just continuing where they left off in the last game is justified. It is a valid criticism that many of the characters see little to no further development in RD (which might be exactly what you meant, in which case my bad.)
If we get the rumored Tellius remake I REALLY hope they can rebalance the laguz to be viable without being a royal. Edit: Without being the 3DS stones.
The way you talked about the whole story is basically the same problems i've been struggling with, the Elincia part felt like filler and the new characters have no character. The first part felt great, but the Dawn Brigade needed a whole game honestly. Also yeah, the Blood Pact is so dumb
They're really fun, especially first play through. My opinion, path of radiance isgreat, the plot is nice and it has cool characters, but I think it'seven easier than fe8. Fe10 has refreshing difficulty, but only unlocks after first playthrough. The second half of radiant dawn is pretty boring since the maps have tons of units and your own units like Haar, Jill, and Ike are completely broken.
Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are the best in the series imo. The 2nd half of Radiant Dawn is where the story pick ups and battles get better. Don't entertain opinions that say otherwise - Turbo857
Put my thoughts right back into my own mouth. I enjoy the game a lot but it's undeniable there are some weird choices (unit avaliability and supports are the big ones) that makes it harder for me to truly love the game. Still, Radiant Dawn still earns a lot of respect from me for willing to try radically different ideas. And the fact that Shadow Dragon is the next entry is going to make the transition from RD extremely unusual.
I LOVE this game, horrible balancing and all. If we ever get a remake though, I think an awesome extra feature would be the ultimate defend map. When your endgame teams ascends the tower, everyone else stays outside to fend off Ashera’s soldiers. It would be so awesome to me if there was like an unlock able extra where it takes all the characters from that save and lets you use all those units in one giant defend clusterfuck. Goddamn I’ve been having dreams about how awesome that would be!
Path of Radiance is my favorite game in the series, I wish I could say the same for Radiant Dawn. Path of Radiance had an incredible mix of everything I love in Fire Emblem, while I thought that Radiant Dawn soiled it.
The thing about Rajaion is that in the Japanese version of Path of Radicance, it's clear that he dies in the end... while in the english's version it doesn't confirm it. So it's normal for people to get surprised to know that he is dead in Radiant Dawn.
I will never forget getting blown out of the water by "normal" difficulty on the day this game was released. Got my ass kicked over and over with the Dawn Brigade and had the time of my life.
Funny thing is that you can deffect your units from your current armie to other. Namely Zihark who is on of the good units of dawn brigade. And he has 3 difrent opporunities to do so. In fact it is necessary for him to do so early to have positive epilog/ending. So its either help dawn brigade and morally and spiritually kill Zihark or make it harder for dawn brigade and save Ziharks soul and give him happy epiloge.
Randomly came across this video while I was supposed to be doing university work and thought it was at least a year old, but it's only a DAY old?? What a nice treat during quarantine. PoR and RD are my favorite FE games, so I'll definitely have to come back and watch this when I get the time!
I loved this game but I hated this game because I had to boss abuse all the weak units to level them up and increase their weapon levels. It paid off in the end but is an unnecessary gameplay hack with some parts of the game featuring only very few chapters.
Hearing that this is considered one of the hardest FE games makes me feel good considering I beat it when I was like 10 and don't recall having many issues with it. Granted I had already beaten Shadow Dragon and Sacred Stones.
I never liked it when games does the whole "we take away your unit, but their level remains what it was since last you saw them when you get them back" thing that many games do. The best thing you can do in a system like this is to make the XP be modified by the level difference between the player characters and the enemies. Which is what I think they do in later entries in the series. That way you make grinding have diminishing return, because at a certain point there's very little ot be gained from grinding. And you have a catch-up mechanic for units who start off weak due to reasons. One of my main draws to Fire Emblem is the whole "you can use whatever characters you like, and have fun." IT seems Radiant Dawn sort of don't do that...
The rajaion thing was a mistranslation on FE9's part, by the way. In the japanese of FE9 it's pretty clear he died. So it's more a case of a translation error in a previous game making things odd in FE10 than an actual writing failure.
I had a chuckle when you talked about Canto and IS learning how to balance it. No spoilers, but they need a reminder every decade or so.
Its funny, because whenever a game has Canto+ (except for FE9 i guess) they either balance the Cavs or the Fliers, but not both.
@@Apparoid1 3 houses be like:
3 houses didn't get the memo that fliers are the most busted units in the franchise.
Tbh I prefer to have them busted, as long as the game itself is still challenging, like FE10, it's so fun to have so many options to work with, image now if Armors were better, it be so tedious to play. I know people strive for variaty, and it is important, but we don't have to nerf to fun to make Archer (for example) usable
Nerf the fun*
Fucking yt doesn't let me edit
I'd say one of the most memorable parts for me was in FE10 during a base convo between Rolf and Shinnon. By that point both armies are extremely worn down. Shinnon, who is usually cold and edgy pretty much breaks down in front of Rolf, saying he's not sure how much longer he'll be around to protect Rolf, and that while he might not be a good father figure, he can at the very least make sure that Rolf has the most powerful bow. Even tough its true that the end of part 3 doesn't advance too much in regard to story, it excels in regards to character development and the theme of how terrible war can be.
I actually think that they added part 2 into the game because Radiant Dawn is trying to tell the story of the entire continent falling into war and breaking their covenant with Ashera, which is what leads to part 4 which is obviously beorc and laguz finally learning to unite and defeat an unjust God. Michiah may be the main character of the game and I agree with that, but Radiant Dawn is the story of Tellius, and part 2 helps to show you that the entire continent has fallen into conflict and war, not just the battles between the Laguz alliance and Begnion. I think it adds more weight to what Ashera does, because she isn't just intervening in one war, she is attempting (from her own viewpoint) to put an end to all conflict, and even Crimea is a part of that.
I always saw the disparity of strength of the DB vs the GM similar to their strength lore wise. The GM are war veterans while the DB is literally young people off the street so it makes sense that the DB would be much weaker than the GM. I know from a gameplay perspective im sure it wasnt the most fun but i kinda saw it as making the player feel as the characters did.
This is even more understandable given that its eventually learned that the Senate pretty much manipulated the DB, whereas the GM had to claw their way up to power. It's another one of the nested dichotomies between order and chaos.
Thought the same honestly. Never had a problem with it either, given how the only unviable units were Fiona and Meg (Leonardo on hardest difficulty)
59:00 I feel like a long streak of interesting decisions led to Meg being in that situation, in that armor. You must have had a lot of fun on your second playthrough.
I am so excited for this, I didn't realize these critiques were uploaded as a season and this is in my top 3 FEs. Along with Conquest and Thracia, I loved how it always felt like a harsh but fair uphill battle, overcoming huge odds
Tellius may be next to get remakes. Either this or Jugdral. The cast is EXTREMELY popular. People love Ike. Releasing a Remake of Path of Radiance would sell well with the right advertisment and would build suspense for a Radiant Dawn remake a few years later. I do agree tho that Genealogy deserves it the most. And seeing how much influence it had when making 3H, they’re probably looking at it for the next remake.
Perhaps my favourite FE, but it's very divisive. Interested to see what you think of its unique structure.
Fingoloid I liked how PoR played out but this ones story got a little over the top near the end. Killing a god? Really?
Goofy Gaff The only problem I have with Ashera is that she wasn’t really part of the cast of villains, as in the first time Ike met Ashera was before endgame.
Partyharry yeah thats hat u was pointing at it’s just there was no connection or character build up to the final boss like there was for Ashnard
Honestly radiant dawn as you pretty much stated is just kinda flawed and filled with a lot of pointless scenes honestly one of the biggest reasons why i would love to see the story trimmed of that fat and then give attention where its needed and overall reimagined in a sense as a much stronger narrative with better character development (ive seen a few of these, the small informal rewrite Mangs does at the end of his first RD lp comes to mind) Nonetheless i love this game as much as anyone else but man but i do recognize a lot of its flaws it was a very ambitious game and while they did fall a bit short i do appreciate the game for trying. Great retrospective i love watching and hearing your thoughts one each of the games in the series
The game could have benefited from having 3 paths TBH
This game is one of my two favorites in the series, but it’s absolutely relies on the player having already played path of radiance. I honestly can’t imagine how terrible the story and characters would be for someone who hasn’t played the previous game. It must appear a convoluted mess.
Also the blood pact really isn’t *that* bad of an idea, I just wish they explained it more and gave it some history so it didn’t just seem like a plot device.
Maybe they could have had the Blood pact appear in PoR? The ravens were bound to one so maybe they could of had it foreshadowed then.
Surprisingly, for me, I never played or experienced the story of Path of Radiance, yet I absolutely loved Radiant Dawn when I first experienced it like 10 years ago. It was so cool to see a bunch of people following up on a war (that I didn't know much about) and seeing the repercussions of it. In fact, for a while, I didn't even care to learn about the events in Path of Radiance because I didn't believe that they would live up to the hints of the events in Radiant Dawn. Still can't excuse the blood pact, but I also am not offended by it as it provides some interesting situations (despite getting there due to a lazy plot device).
@@blastmako05 They actually did mention the Blood Pact in Path of Radiance but it was just in the Japanese version. They took it out in the English version and change some of Black Knight's dialogue to make him more like an evil villain. Hence the difference between Radiant Dawn Black Knight and Path of Radiance Black Knight
@@jamesphillabaum1970 I'm curious where it was mentioned in Japanese version of PoR.
RD actualy made me a fan of FE and of PoR. I've played very little of PoR in 2005 when it came out and i didn't really like it cause I found it to be sploopy. 2007 I got a copy of RD to try it and fell for it. Even though I couldn't understand some of the plot revolving around PoR the game between misson does provide a decent resume to explain what is going on and what caused it in the past. I have loved this game so much that 2-3 years later I got a copy of PoR and decided to try it again and this time I loved it thx to RD!!
I wish IS would make a remake of these 2.
I dont think someones gonna read this but whatever, i still want to write it bc i really like this game, it had so much potential.
I remember that my expectations for the story prior to playing the game were kinda high. The idea of understanding a conflict from the perspective of both armies is one that has amazing potential. Also, before playing the entire game months ago, i had played like 4 chapters some years ago, and the idea of the oppression that Daein suffers after being conquered that they show in the early chapters of part 1 was also interesting. (Theres even good takes on these themes today, as you can see in the ultra popular anime Shingeki no kyojin).
The thing is that Radiant Dawn (and may as well say Fire emblem in general) seems to suffer from 2 problems that are kind of related.
One is that the game seems to like to talk about politics and stuff, but it's so afraid of showing these kinds of countries interactions in a deep way. Most of the time all that Radiant dawn does is saying "oh these guys are good oh these guys are bad". As i said before, the idea of how Daein is getting oppressed by the army of Begnion is really interesting, because this can show postwar grudge, violence towards the country that once menaced yours, etc. Its a complex phenomenon that has potential to talk about so many things related to war, but here all that really happens is "oh its not that Begnion is being 'bad', it's just that the senators the senators the senators". Instead of telling the story of how a country can have his reasons to be afraid, hold grudge and hatred towards another country for the atrocities that they made, all we have is a "Oh no no, what do u mean Daein is being oppressed, thats unacceptable, I, empress of Begnion, cant believe that, is not something we decided, is just evil people, the senators are bad oh no".
It really saddens me how wasted of an idea this is. You can compare this to how Shingeki shows an oppressed nation in Eldia. Eldians are hated because of the crimes they committed in the war of the past, and the people is afraid of their powers, so most of them live oppressed and controlled by Marley, another country, while the rest of the Eldians still fight against Marley. Here you understand the reasons why Eldians are oppressed. You see the efforts of the Marleyans, how they just want to protect their country, how they have been educated in a one sided version of history to hate the Eldians even more. You even end up liking the Marleyan characters, you see how they are just trying to protect their families. You see that they are just humans trapped in a complex conflict. The point is not to justify such an atrocious act, but to understand it, to see how war can cause this, and how sometimes the innocent people end up paying the price. We could finally have a FE game that shows how this "bad guys" that are abusing us actually came to feel and act like that.
The other problem comes from how a Fire Emblem game works. I remembered this problem when Shane talked about the typical fire emblem idea of growing your units and building a cohesive team. Sadly for the Radiant Dawn plot, RD is a Fire emblem game, so it seems like the story cant do whatever it wants with its characters.
You can see this in little things, like how Lucia just cant die in that scene at the end of part 2, even if her death was the most realistic thing to happen, and even if her death could be a really good way of showing consequences, and it could make Elincia start a new arc where she has to work on accepting her death, where she questions her actions. But this a Fire emblem game, and maybe theres people that like Lucia, maybe theres people that have trained Lucia a lot in the chapters she appears, u just cant kill her :(
And you can also see this problem in big points of the plot, like when Galia/Ike fights the Dawn Brigade. In a normal story, this idea is interesting because you get to know both sides of the conflict, you get to like or understand both armies, but you know that war is inevitable (at the very least up to a certain point, i dont mean that a fkin ton of characters need to die or something, the final message doesnt need to be a pessimist one). But in RD, you know that this a FE game, u have ur grown units in both armies, so when they fight theres 0 stakes in play, no one is gonna die in the story, because oh no, you just cant kill the units the player is growing so hard.
(Also, i know you can argue that FE already integrates this kind of character deaths when u lose a unit in a chapter bc of your mistakes or whatever, but everyone just resets so its a strange topic. The fact is that you can -and most people do- experience the story as if no one dies).
Not to mention that RD is again afraid of defining good and real motivations for a conflict, because you cant have a real war between Daein and Galia/Ike, you cant define realistic political reasons for a country like Daein, that wants to be free, but once menaced the whole continent to go to war. Nope, u just cant have that, instead we get the fkin blood pact to create a weak, forced conflict. So sad.
I think this last issue also happens bc of the way RD (or FE) writes the characters that you use, everyone has to be "good" or likeable. They want you to like Sanaki, so ofc she is against the abuse of Daein ppl. They want you to like Naesala, so ofc theres his stupid blood pact.
Theres probably more to say about this things but honestly i cba right now. If someone reads this, sorry for my shit way of writing, english is not my first language.
They had to find a way to get two “good guys” to fight each other, otherwise the marketed protagonists (dawn brigade) become the bad guys. The blood contract was definitely lazy though
@@SpiredRapidity Yeah i understand why they write all the characters that you use as "good guys", but honestly thats such a boring and simple way to define a story... And its not like i hate almost all FE games bc of that or smth, that rant was just bc i like this game and its potential.
My forever favorite. Micaiah is the SOLE reason I got into this series with this game.
This was my first FE game. I never owned a wii but I had a friend that did and we played through this over a weekend. I wouldn't actually play another FE game until like 5 years later when I bought FE7 and a GBA SP in college and I've been hooked ever since!
PoR is one of my all-time favorite games. I have a Gamecube emulator on my phone JUST to play this game where ever I go.
Of course. Interesting maneuver.
Genealogy and Radiant Dawn are the absolute peaks of fire emblem. They have huge downs, but I care little for the incredible heights those games reach.
I pray every day these games are remade
God is busy doing things that actually matter
@@rosema7909 oh yea like letting cancer run free and causing floods, this is a fire emblem video don't fucking preach here
You brought up praying. Calm down Karen .lol look how mad you are! Lol
@@rosema7909 yea over a year ago if you don't like fire emblem why you on one of they videos
I’ve yet to play tellius but I love your retrospectives can’t wait for Friday!
This was just beautiful.
Thank you.
I really like the idea of controlling two armies clashing, and seeing both grow and expand, even if it didn't quite work in Radiant Dawn. I really hope this concept is explored once again in a future Fire Emblem.
This is my second favorite fire emblem game behind thracia. I think this game has some of the best maps in the series and I love the fire emblems with huge casts like this one. I also think the support system gets a bad reputation. It is awful for character development but it is in my opinion the best support system purely from a gameplay perspective. Also when talking about how the games in the series gives you prepromotes that are extremely powerful you have to remember that the games up until more recent entries are designed around permadeath and they need to give you good units so you can win if you have a lot of casualties. This justifies the laguz royals specifically in this game because if a lot of the units you trained up died near the end you wouldn’t be able to beat bosses like Deghinsia without that extra muscle.
The support system is pretty awesome actually. Yeah, the personalized conversations may have been tossed out somewhat but the benefits you get are significant for strategy. Having a good support with Nolan and Aran really helps a lot especially on Chapter 3-6.
The support system is actualy incredible aka Ike/Soren A support for a juicy +30 Avoid to both (or isit 20 can't remember??). When I cleared my second game by attempting to unlock the hidden secret's (Lehran's past, Soren's background, Pellas etc.) I had to used Ulki and Janaff to sneaky drop Ike and Soren at the bottom of Part 3 episode 7 where you need to survive for 10 round in a swamp map OR kill the ennemy general which is Micaiah....who's having the BK as her main bodyguard lol. To unlock the secret's Ike need to confront the BK and not die before the end of the map and Ike doesn't have Ragnell nor is promotted at this point meaning he's underwhelm compared to the BK who could 2 shot him. I only succeeded because i've placed Ike on a strategic position in a busket providing 10% avoid with Soren not far for the support and Ike was blocking any ennemy from getting out of their little isle. I ONLY SURVIVED THE SECOND HIT OF THE BK BECAUSE OF SOREN'S SUPPORT LOL AND EVEN WITH SOREN'S SUPPORT AND THE BUSKET HE HAD 40% TO HIT ME...TWICE LOL.
There are a lot of absolute god tier characters in this game. my absolute favorite is Shinnon. I remember one play through having him 1v1 the final battle against the goddess.
Nothing else is more terrifying though then the first time you go against the Greil Mercenaries and the game becomes a game of "run away from death incarnate"
RIP ledge mechanic. We miss you so.
Just a quick correction/elaboration on a bit of the story. Jarrod was the scape goat for Numida of the Senate who was absolved of all responsibility for the mistreatment of Daein and the last few chapters of Part 1 are basically his last stand, trying to take down Micaiah with him.
Yeah I had to simplify some parts like that down for time, I also cut a part explaining Pelleas backstory, as well as a bit about Soren's identity. Appreciate the elaboration here
yeah RD is tough to summarise because nearly every chapter is important to the plot in some way and both the surface level basic story and the more hidden stuff is incredibly complex. While the majority of the cast is under developed (and being carried by their development in PoR), there’s so many main characters that there’s still somehow so much going on.
You did my Favourite FE justice though! As much as I love it I agree with every single one of your criticisms. I had never even thought about having a section from Sanaki’s perspective but that would’ve been so much better than Elincia.
This is without a doubt, my favourite series on TH-cam right now and I’ll be looking forward to whatever you decide to cover after you’re done with FE. before this series I didn’t think you could have such an unbiased take on the games but you’ve done just that and it’s refreshing to see someone go in without much knowledge of future entires as it means you’re really able to identify the merit of each game (like which game was actually the first to implement a certain system, for instance).
I think it's a testament to how good the premise was that the game was still enjoyable in spite of nearly every aspect of development going wrong and being botched.
EDIT: 58:46 That's F'in amazing.
The thing is Radiant Dawn is a sequel through and through. Due to this, I don't hold Ike's character arc against him because that story was already told, if anything his inclusion lowers the quality of the story.
On the blood pact, the English is actually much better than the Japanese. In the original Japanese the blood pact, essentially, just stops working for no reason.
Radiant Dawn was my first Fire Emblem, I got it when I was around 12. Me, being a mexican child still learning english, had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. I don't know if it was the challenging difficulty, the character designs or the story that I coul barely understand, but I got hooked. A decade later I'm a Fire Emblem fan, and RD will always hold a special place in my heart
Bruhhh same I played when I was about 7 cause my dad loved the series and it is my fav game it just has a very very special place in my heart
32:01 And then the goddess played her uno reverse card
It’s really refreshing to hear all of my gripes validated by someone else. Lack of character growth and personality kills this game for me.
Lack of character growth? I swear, I'll never understand this argument - Turbo857
I really was hoping that hatari would be a full nation that also fight in this game more than just naila and his servent. Even npc or something it's not even on the tellius map.
52:30 All hail, God Emperor Haar!
Is it the dawn brigade
No, it was just a retrospective.
Haar is more broken than Seth, but he's in a harder game so he can't just run through everything senselessly. Anyways, both Radiant Dawn and Sacred Stones are my favorite Fire Emblems, and by far the most replayable ones.
It funny, in engage you can teach canto to all your units 😆
One thing that I like about this game is that this is the only Fire Emblem with German voice acting.
very good video. I skipped the story portion because I havent finished RD but played through PoR
Watching these retrospectives, the most distilled thing I've taken away is that Intelligent Systems has good Game Designers and TERRIBLE Project Managers.
I've been skipping story spoilers. But tell me one thing. Is the eponymous Fire Emblem actually featured in any games plot?
In RD its this circular rock that glows and a couple bitches sing to it.
Radiant dawn with all of its flaws is my favorite game in the series.
My favorite Fire Emblem
FE: Tellius Saga Definitive Edition, please Nintendo make it happen. How HUGEEE would it be? i can only dream about it!!...
70+ chapters? A man can dream.
I meannnnn its not impossible. It is Path pf Radiance’s 15th anniversary this year and an HD Collection with Redone Cutscenes/Voice Acting/Character Art wouldn’t be the most difficult task. However I feel if they are to touch Tellius, full blown remakes are more likely. Considering Ike’s Popularity releasing a PoR remake would sell well with right advertisement and would build great suspense for a RD Remake a few years later. As much as I’d rather have Tellius, Genealogy deserves it more.
Nice video.
Your suggestion on how part 2 being based around Sanaki makes a lot more sense and would've been a lot more interesting as then you'd be controlling members of the country that was the antagonist in part 1. Having Sanaki & co. then leave Begnion into Crimea and have the normal part 2 story and have the story have a more cohesive leadup to part 3 would've been a lot more effective so part 2 is actually important in the wider narrative
Begnion weren't the antagonists in part 1. That was all Daein. But controlling Sanaki, Tanith, Sigrun and possibly Sephiran would've been cool. Even still, a part dedicated to Crimea's liberation aftermath with Elincia as queen was important for character development and Ike's reintroduction. Crimea joins the war later so it would've been jarring if their first appearance was when Begnion tries to pass through in Radiant Dawn.
First off I think it’s hilarious that you even used Meg or Aran. After my first play through I never touched them again and barely even touched them the first time. Also while you certainly can take in Laguz royals your first time so you guarantee getting to the end, I don’t think you should ever really use them again on subsequent runs. If you plan through the whole game it can be really fun to train up your favorite units but I can definitely see how impossible that is for a new player to this game
Agreed on Meg, but Aran is an unkillable wall when trained up. He can singlehandedly hold down chokepoints. He won't dodge or double anything but he will hit like a truck and take very minimal amounts of damage
13:26 Dawn Brigade
u did not mention that you can now forge unlimited number of weapons per chapter in RD
49:18
I actually yelled at my screen there. Why would you in God's name remove Adept from Zihark? If it's "I'm not going to use him (anymore)," then my question becomes, why not?
It's certainly valid in 3-6 and 3-13 to prevent him from suiciding by getting a kill you didn't want him to on Enemy Phase and then getting attacked by more enemies than he can handle, and after that he won't be of much more use than filler in Part 4 if you didn't heavily invest into him. However from the footage with the characters available you can see ShaneBrained was at the Tower and Zihark wasn't even third tier, so why would he keep using Zihark at that point?
I played this game when it just came out (luckily I still have it) when I was about 14 years old. I really disliked the constant changing of scenery and useable units at the time. Because of this, I never finished the game until many years later. It's a good game, but I still dislike the lack of structuring and in-depth storytelling and non-existent character development. Path of Radiance is far, far superior to this game in regards to being a work of art. Gameplay wise, this game is miles better (minus the structuring). If only we could have best of both worlds in one game... maybe someday they can do it
I have been waiting to watch this since I started Radiant Dawn a little over 2 months ago. Your video did not disappoint! I wish I could say the same for the game. Sorry FE10 fans!
I honestly had a much harder time with path of radiance then radiant dawn although i did find some of radiant dawns levels to be more annoying then they were difficult
Calling this game weird is pretty apt, yeah. I like it, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn collectively are my favourite games in the series, but I am definitely not oblivious to their faults and particularly the latters... quirks. The day these games get any kind of updated rerelease or remake is one I quite look forward to. I feel like they'd be perfect for this treatment. But chances are that's a ways off. Still, it's a thought I enjoy entertaining.
And then came Shadow Dragon, which is both odd in its own right, and also very basic compared to the games that came directly before it. On the surface, it almost feels like a regression of the series, and I suppose that is a big part of why it has proven hard to appreciate for a lot of people, myself included. But I've had my mind opened up to some of its elements more over time, it's good for a focused, core experience, I think. Curious what you make of it.
Radiant Dawn really pushes the war aspect of the fire emblem franchise and it's the first game that actually made me FEEL like I was fighting a war. Elincia's Gambit still gets my heart racing and 3-13 is just amazing. Gameplay wise it is my absolute favorite game to play and the story while not being perfect by any means is still engaging and interesting to me and it builds on many many aspects of the PoR story. The escalation to killing a god was pretty epic and I love playing the tower cause it's such a massive undertaking. It definitely isn't friendly to new players but it's great for a veteran and so I give it a 9/10 overall but I will agree that PoR is a better game to play and it's a must play for people first getting into the Tellius series.
It really makes me FEEL like a child soldier. It is one of my favorite fire emblem games as flawed as it is.
Sadly, they removed the defense maps in the future installment, Elincia’s gambit is also my favorite map of all the series. Radiant Dawn really feel you are in a war.
@@Jfray252 defense maps still exist in Fates and 3H but yeah i wish they were more prevelant bc theyre my favorite map objective behind Escape
Well said. However, I'd say PoR is a better game to play "first" since Radiant Dawn is the sequel and new players first experiencing it's 4 part, split protagonists story might find it a little jarring at first. I love Radiant Dawn much more than PoR and even the new 3 Houses - Turbo857
The Tellius series does that perfectly. Radiant Dawn, however, had a story akin to Gyakuten Kenji 2, where it took more risks than its predecessor to try to make an epic story, both games fell flat on their faces in that regard. Radiant Dawn isn't quite as bad as GK2, though.
Funnily enough, Ike himself has zero connection to the plot but Ike's tactican Soren is actually far more relevant than Ike since he's the real prince of Daein and son that Almeidha was looking for.
whaaaat? Really? When do they mention that?
@@icarue993 I believe during the epilogue.
@@icarue993 It's mentioned on the epilogue, but you'll have to fulfill certain requirements. I think FE wiki will tell you how to do it.
You also have to have beaten the game at least oncd before
If certain requirements are fulfilled (Soren fights Micaiah in 3-7 [Rivals Collide], choosing to not *redacted* Pelleas on your second playthrough, Soren fights Pelleas in 3-Endgame [From Pain, Awakening], Soren and Pelleas survive until the end of the game), then you will see the ending where Soren is, in fact, revealed to be the true Prince of Daein.
This game can be considered to have both the worst and best localization in the series.
The worst for reason you described like using the shortened script and mislabeled difficulty options.
The best because of gameplay differences. Those Daein National Treasures wasn't in the original game. Ed and Leo started out weaker. No auto promote to get into third tier. Several skills were chance based in addition to threshold based. In Japan, this is the only game that the fanbase considers bad not merely controversial like in the Western fanbase.
Let's not forget the story change with how BK "survived". That stuff was blood contract level BS in Japan.
@@Kuma5655 iirc, wasn't the Japanese explanation that Ike fought like a force-ghost of the BK in PoR?
Also, really surprising to hear RD is flat-out disliked in Japan. Never would have known that.
@@neog8029 RD is disliked in Japan? They have no taste
@@Level857 Japanese version was actually a lot worse then the Western version so not their fault.
Theirs also some dumb story differences, most notably with the blood pact. I the English version they go fight lekain to get rid of the blood pact, but in the Japanese version, it just goes on its own.
Of course, interesting retrospective…
Eggman!
Yo Mangs, you, me, Mekkah 776, and Wolt should hit up the* hot springs and talk about how good this guys retrospectives are. After that and some booze, we can move onto another subject I had in mind... A blonde Sniper from FE7, who says she's married, but hey like Hector always says, every good goal has to get through a goalie.
You are only... wasting my time.
@@ozai7725 That's Dr. Eggman to you.
A pun that would make the Burger King proud
Personally , Radiant Dawn is my favorite of the series, the defenses maps were so much fun and u feel really that u fight a stronger opponent than you.
Definitely. I remember when playing it for the first time and was looking through the opposing units. It was at that point that I realized that I was royally screwed, and that surviving would be a miracle. It also does a great job at making you feel the costs of war. It conveys how senseless war can be and the connection between populist impulses fueling a war, though set up in the first place by political elites who benefit from such a bigoted populace.
Elincia's Gambit alone makes this game #1
RD is probably one of the most lopsided games in the series regarding game design and especially unit balancing but its still my favorite in the series thanks to the sheer amount of ambition behind it.
You could call it a "mess", but its a mess I could never bring myself to dislike ❤
I agree ive always loved both tellius games flaws and all also love your avatar
If it's a mess it's a beautiful mess. My second favorite all time SRPG after Shining Force 3 - Turbo857
Great job being vague
I enjoyed it knowing the fact that unit balancing is never an issue unless it's an onlin pvp game
The Tellius games really deserve quality remakes. There's so much unrealized potential there. If we loved these flawed first attempts this much, imagine what could be done if they were given the treatment they deserve. I hope it's an idea they're strongly considering.
It could very well occur! I think HD Remaster/Ports with redone cutscenes/art/voice acting is more likely but they could do a full blown remake. I hope they do Genealogy first however just because it hasn’t been localized and has never had the chance of being in 3D Graphics.
What’s interesting tho is even tho Genealogy isn’t localized, I feel tellius is more likely
Tellius is incredible and it’s cast is INSANELY popular. Everyone loves ike. If they remade Path of Radiance and released Radiant Dawn a few years later it would create alot of suspense leading to strong sales. Very smart business move.
Just a remastered localize by 8bit fix the modes too
@@davidtargaryen3229 nah just Ike everybody is okay 👌 nothing special. Hero probably help bring them more pop though
6:05 and there's the fact that Resolve doesn't boost strength anymore!
The difficulty option snafu reminds me of a total reverse of Path of Radiance's go - path of radiance you think the game is harder than it really is (english hard = japanese normal). Here in Radiant Dawn hard suddenly becomes *maniac*. It stems from this larger problem (that YTer Chaz Aria LLC brought up) that difficulty modes in FE are never consistent in both name and content.
I think the reason why some skills have erroneous descriptions may be due to some skills being altered in localization. Resolve, for instance, DID require the unit be at 20% or less HP in the Japanese version, but was changed to 50% or less in western versions. Similarly, Wrath says it can only activate at 20% or less HP, which is true in the Japanese version. Western versions bumped it up to 30% or less (not too much difference, admittedly).
It’s a mess of a game, but I love it for it. I had watched let’s plays of it and I knew I was going to love it once I tried it out and so it happened. Had to wait for years till I got a good enough laptop but it was worth it.
The healers using their staves to atack was awful and good at the same time like laguz giving punches and kicks.
It was incredibly necessary, so Mist could put her bizarrely good Strength to use.
Smol staff girl is swole af
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 She's also Greil's child, heck imagine Mist as a War Cleric.
Also fun fact, she can wield Alondite.
This game has some of the biggest hype scenes in the entire franchise. Ike rescuing Lucia, Sanaki rescuing Zelgius, the part 3 endgame… so, so, so good.
I remeber when i played 3-6 with literally only micaiah sothe laura nolan and jill everyone else in the dawn brigade died ori didnt train and were flat out useless and my goodness when the BK showed up i was so grateful
Radiant Dawn would have been so tight if support conversations mattered.
Agreed. My largest gripe is that characters, especially new ones, don't get much further characterization, unless they are the focus of the story. It primarily builds upon Path's excellent character writing.
Supports are the only major flaw i have with this game. Its still my favorit tho
I mean at the very least base conversations fill that void a bit.
At the same time, it’s the best game to have non existent convos seeing as it’s a direct sequel to the game with amazing character development.
Actually, unused files suggest that traditional support conversations were originally supposed to be implemented into the game. Whether they were scrapped in favor of the gameplay aspect of them (with free switching and a single partner etc.) or due to time constraints due to the size of the cast, I do not know.
I really like base conversations for fleshing out characters in a way that corresponds with the plot, but they really needed to use them more heavily if they were going to replace supports. I don't know anything about Fiona, and I've beat this game many times.
Back when I played this game in 2009, I didn't build my strategy around Haar, Haar WAS my strategy
Haaaar, this game is being a meanie, they took my good units, heeeeeeelp
There's even a legit explanation why Haar is such a monster in RD, he hates the senators from Begnion, in short he's motivated.
Something else you forgot to mention on why mounted units are no longer inherently OP is that they have substantially worse stat caps than infantry units and stat caps actually matter in Radiant Dawn, especially on Hard/Maniac difficulty (e.g. Oscar has a good Speed base and growth, but his second tier Speed cap will prevent him from doubling much in later Part 3 without an early promotion, making his offense underwhelming, and this third tier speed cap gives him more doubling issues in the endgame). This is also another reason why Haar and Jill are so broken, as unlike other mounted units they don't have lower stat caps to compensate for their massive mobility advantage and in fact have some of the best stat caps of all classes (e.g. Haar in his third tier has the highest Defense cap and second highest Strength cap of any beorc class, even exceeding the Marshalls while having none of their disadvantages, and Jill's Speed cap is only one point lower than a Seraph Knight while having much better Strength and durability).
oooohh, explains why my tower of guidance team consisted of haar, jill, and other infantry units + kieran(because his strength stat is actually useable against the final bosses compared to other cavalry units)
Radiant dawn is easily my favorite Fire emblem game. I really respect the ambition in the game, even if it fell short in some aspects it really keeps the gameplay unique and allows for a lot of replayability.
It feels like whenever I bump into someone who's played Radiant Dawn, it's usually their favorite FE game or at least in their top 3. Whenever I bump into someone who's favorite is Awakening or 3 Houses, they usually never played FE 9 or 10.
I consider FE9/FE10 one game. Ever since FE10's release, I've always played both together. It took me years to realize how to get the true ending. My only complaint was the elimination of deep supports from second half.
This is the most replayable Fire Emblem by far
Radiant Dawn is my favorite from a pure gameplay perspective, but it's also it's own thing to me.
I don't get a hankering to play some Fire Emblem, then play RD.
Regarding Part 2, I can't help but wonder if the structure wouldn't have worked better if they'd done something more akin to FE7 or FE8 with Hector's Story or the Eirika/Ephraim split, giving players a choice whether they wanted to stay with the Dawn Brigade and Daein's post-war development, go over to Gallia for the buildup to the war (maybe fleshing out Lyre and Kyza at all and having the party looking for the Greil Mercenaries), or check in on Crimea to make fan favourites like Elincia and Nephenee available in a 2nd playthrough. Obviously this would have resulted in them having to design up to 10 more chapters' worth of maps and story, but it might have helped the pacing and power creep issues.
28:50 you mean the legendary hammer that clashed with the alondite, right?
I adore this game despite its flaws
I feel I gotta mention this but on the Playlist theres a huge number of the same Radiant Dawn retrospectives & 2 PoR retrospectives , you've might of clicked the button a few too many times.
Thanks, I don't know how that happened. I am guessing it was a TH-cam Studio bug, because I can't imagine how the RD video got on there so many times. In any case, it's fixed now. Thanks so much for pointing that out!
With how you explained it, Michaih's story could have been its own game.
I have another idea. Mini campaigns like Part 1 as DLC for other games.
Micaiah deserve better
@@d_d1721 the dawn brigade deserved better
@@thebravegallade731 Aside from Micaiah, Sothe and maybe Nolan, they are very forgettable.
Especially compared to the Greill Mercenaries.
Imagine if the blood pact didn't exist, then micaiah would've gotten less hate than she had.
radiant dawn is the easiest game in the franchise once you realize that double earth A supports are functionally invincible and you can use BEXP to cap anyone's skills
Also Glare allows you to make the Dawn Brigade absolutely deadly in Part 1
Balancing is always a difficult conversation to have with fire emblem. Sure, on one hand the Laguz Royals are insanely powerful units that are just handed to you, but on the other hard, there's nothing stopping you from just not using them. It'll certainly be hard, but difficulty here is a choice the player makes about their own experience.
I think the best solution would have been that rather than nerfing the Royals, in the Tower you get a pick of one of the Royals to bring with you, just like how you only get to bring one Heron and how they handled the Royal pick at the end of POR, with the excuse that the power of the Royals are needed to fend off Ashera's army on the outside.
It's kinda stupid that they didn't implement scale levelling for the Dawn Brigade, considering that puts players at a disadvantage when going back to them but maybe they chose not to do that to give players more of a challenge.
No matter how much time passes, I still can't help but feel warm and fuzzy whenever I come to revisit Tellius. Be it playing the games myself or watching videos about it. I greatly enjoyed your retrospective videos on PoR and RD, thank you for making them^^ Was very fun to revisit those dear memories :3
I still have both of my copies of the tellius games. I'm so happy I kept them.
Shane understanding the memage of Oliver's beauty makes me so happy. You're one of us my guy
THANK YOU for pointing out that your attachment to the stories and characters mainly stems from your memories of Path of Radiance.
When people say they prefer the Radiant Dawn, our debates center around the fact that they like the characters better in Dawn, and I tell them that is ONLY because of their attachment built from Path. Path built a better character driven story. Radiant Dawn's story is great, but it has to be acknowledged that most of people's attachment to it stems from Path of Radiance. NOT ALL, but a lot of it.
Radiant Dawn may have a better plot story (not my take, but I will concede to opinion), but Path of Radiance has a better handling of making you care about the story through its characters.
I always tell people that my favorite FE games are "The Tellius games", rather than pin down one of them. Gameplay wise, I certainly prefer RD, but you're absolutely correct that the character building is mainly centered in PoR.
Agreed since, I find it impossible to recommend playing RD first because its an imcomplete story that way.
Yeah, him pointing that out made me wonder how much I'd like the cast if I played RD first or if RD was self contained entirely.
Plenty of characters still have fantastic dialogue or interactions like Oscar and his brothers in part 3 or Haar against literally any boss but its much more scattered than in PoR. I guess its bound to happen to a degree with a cast size that huge but the game could've used more time in the oven for at least some support conversations.
Looking at RD characters that appeared in PoR in a vacuum is not really fair. RD is a direct sequel that deliberately uses PoR as a basis to build a narrative with a larger scale. Introducing all the characters again would waste a lot of screen time, and just continuing where they left off in the last game is justified.
It is a valid criticism that many of the characters see little to no further development in RD (which might be exactly what you meant, in which case my bad.)
If we get the rumored Tellius remake I REALLY hope they can rebalance the laguz to be viable without being a royal.
Edit: Without being the 3DS stones.
Path of Radiance was my first FE game and Radiant Dawn is currently my most recently played entry
Tellius is my favourite
(Nephenee is my MVP)
The way you talked about the whole story is basically the same problems i've been struggling with, the Elincia part felt like filler and the new characters have no character. The first part felt great, but the Dawn Brigade needed a whole game honestly.
Also yeah, the Blood Pact is so dumb
Hey man thank you for convincing me to try FE 9-10 :)
I don't know why but I never felt particularly interested in those titles
They're really fun, especially first play through. My opinion, path of radiance isgreat, the plot is nice and it has cool characters, but I think it'seven easier than fe8. Fe10 has refreshing difficulty, but only unlocks after first playthrough. The second half of radiant dawn is pretty boring since the maps have tons of units and your own units like Haar, Jill, and Ike are completely broken.
Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are the best in the series imo. The 2nd half of Radiant Dawn is where the story pick ups and battles get better. Don't entertain opinions that say otherwise - Turbo857
Put my thoughts right back into my own mouth. I enjoy the game a lot but it's undeniable there are some weird choices (unit avaliability and supports are the big ones) that makes it harder for me to truly love the game. Still, Radiant Dawn still earns a lot of respect from me for willing to try radically different ideas.
And the fact that Shadow Dragon is the next entry is going to make the transition from RD extremely unusual.
I LOVE this game, horrible balancing and all. If we ever get a remake though, I think an awesome extra feature would be the ultimate defend map. When your endgame teams ascends the tower, everyone else stays outside to fend off Ashera’s soldiers. It would be so awesome to me if there was like an unlock able extra where it takes all the characters from that save and lets you use all those units in one giant defend clusterfuck. Goddamn I’ve been having dreams about how awesome that would be!
The problem os you would have to top Elincia's Gambit
Path of Radiance is my favorite game in the series, I wish I could say the same for Radiant Dawn. Path of Radiance had an incredible mix of everything I love in Fire Emblem, while I thought that Radiant Dawn soiled it.
Soren being the rightful heir to the throne of Goldoa and Daein is my favorite thing about this.
not gonna lie Path > Dawn everyday of the week, no contest. Dawn is a mess
The 3-13 archer art is amazing
The thing about Rajaion is that in the Japanese version of Path of Radicance, it's clear that he dies in the end... while in the english's version it doesn't confirm it. So it's normal for people to get surprised to know that he is dead in Radiant Dawn.
I will never forget getting blown out of the water by "normal" difficulty on the day this game was released. Got my ass kicked over and over with the Dawn Brigade and had the time of my life.
Same, this was my second FE game after sacred stones. To this day I remember struggling with Elencia’s gambit over and over. Still one of my favs.
Funny thing is that you can deffect your units from your current armie to other. Namely Zihark who is on of the good units of dawn brigade. And he has 3 difrent opporunities to do so. In fact it is necessary for him to do so early to have positive epilog/ending. So its either help dawn brigade and morally and spiritually kill Zihark or make it harder for dawn brigade and save Ziharks soul and give him happy epiloge.
Randomly came across this video while I was supposed to be doing university work and thought it was at least a year old, but it's only a DAY old?? What a nice treat during quarantine. PoR and RD are my favorite FE games, so I'll definitely have to come back and watch this when I get the time!
I loved this game but I hated this game because I had to boss abuse all the weak units to level them up and increase their weapon levels. It paid off in the end but is an unnecessary gameplay hack with some parts of the game featuring only very few chapters.
I'll die on that hill that I didnt get a single royal laguz with me to the tower. Normal difficulty (i.e. hard), yes I am that good XD
The Tellius games still have the best atmosphere and artstyle out of all Fire Emblem games.
Hearing that this is considered one of the hardest FE games makes me feel good considering I beat it when I was like 10 and don't recall having many issues with it. Granted I had already beaten Shadow Dragon and Sacred Stones.
Sure you did jr
I never liked it when games does the whole "we take away your unit, but their level remains what it was since last you saw them when you get them back" thing that many games do. The best thing you can do in a system like this is to make the XP be modified by the level difference between the player characters and the enemies. Which is what I think they do in later entries in the series.
That way you make grinding have diminishing return, because at a certain point there's very little ot be gained from grinding. And you have a catch-up mechanic for units who start off weak due to reasons. One of my main draws to Fire Emblem is the whole "you can use whatever characters you like, and have fun." IT seems Radiant Dawn sort of don't do that...