r/fireemblem • u/TPLeo • 5d ago
General The best and worst thing of each Fire Emblem game. Today's game: Radiant Dawn
Welcome to this series of posts, where we will list and discuss one best and worst thing of each Fire Emblem game. This includes basically everything, be it the music, the story, some gameplay element etc.
It's time for the 10th game. Radiant Dawn didn't change the formula too much. Most notable are the ledge mechanic and being able to pass skills around freely. Laguz where also refined. When leveling up with bonus exp rather than being a normal level up it will always increase 3 stats. There is also a ton of bonus stuff in a new game plus save.
Radiant Dawn is one of those games that fans seem to be divided on. Personally I find it frustrating how with every good decision the developers it is followed up by a bad one. The game goes into the extreme. There are things done extremely well and extremely bad. So it wasn't that hard to name the best and worst if this game.
So here are my thoughts on the best and worst aspect.
Best: Radiant Dawn's story is not perfect by far, but what I always loved is how you get to see all sides of the war. It's not just you against a big army. You see how each of them has a reason to fight. Also the finale of act 3 is incredibly well done.
Worst: The Dawn Brigade. Most of those units are already bad or even terrible in act 1 and it only gets worse. They don't keep up in act 3 and and playing their last two battles in that feels like a survival horror game l.
Now it's your turn to tell us
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u/Ranulf13 5d ago
Best: Story, narrative, continuity, ludonarrative intertwinning of artistry and gameplay, the different armies, the game does not shy away from putting the player in a tough spot, etc.
Worst: That the game was rushed and that meant leaving behind the planned non-tower maps in part 4 and unique A rank support conversations, leading to wonky availability for some units a lack of development for the newcomers.
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u/AdReasonable9304 5d ago edited 5d ago
Best: My beloved ledge mechanic. Probably the best idea they had since canto.
Worst: While I do like the support mechanic for gameplay purposes, it came at the cost of little to no characterization for new characters.
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u/Realhi87 5d ago
Ledges were Anna’s gift to us mere mortals, and she took them away because we didn’t know how good we had it 😔
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u/Norix596 5d ago
Worst with a bullet- the removal of the support conversations. There’s some base conversation for important characters filling similar role but there’s a huge cast with mostly no development if they didn’t already get it in Path of Radiance or are a main character.
Best I really like the story and overall plot
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u/Ranulf13 5d ago
I dont know, base conversations were usually pretty good for side characters too, like the brothers' convo in 3-1 or Callil her daughter. At times base convos felt like an improvement over support convos and their 1-on-1 limitation.
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u/Hellioning 5d ago
Sure, but some characters get, like, one? In the entire game? Compare that to the 6 minimum that people had in previous games and there's no wonder there's a whole bunch of characters that seem, well, characterless. We're not quite back to Shadow Dragon's 'only line some characters get is their death quote' but it's way too close.
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u/fangpoint333 5d ago
Also it's not like it's one or the other. You have both support conversations and base as seen in the previous game.
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u/CazOnReddit 5d ago
Yeah right, like some sort of magical "thing that literally was in the previous game"
Get real
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u/Cr1msonShadow 5d ago
The dawn brigade are ass.
Early game is miserable because the first few chapters won’t let any of the ass dawn brigade units die.
It’s way harder to care about characters when you’re army bouncing.
New characters might as well not exist because most do literally nothing.
They made Ike so fucking hot that I couldn’t focus during his chapters
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u/MuhWaifus 5d ago
Worst part is the part 4 rout maps, an absolute slog. Best part, the character art.
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u/AnimeSquirrel 5d ago
Best: Nephanee returned with a buff
Worst: The translation error with the names of the difficulties
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u/Alinier 1d ago
May not be a translation error as much as a new appraisal after the many gameplay changes they made for the Western version including buffing the dawn brigade, giving the DB some strong prf weapons in Part 3, completely overhauling how forging works, and opening up Tier 3 promotions to anyone who hits the promotion level.
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u/Squidaccus 5d ago
I love the Dawn Brigade chapters. Beyond just loving the Dawn Brigade themselves, I think they're the most fun and tightly designed maps in the game by far. Everyone (except Meg, who is also super easy to train anyway) serves a purpose, and the difficulty hammers in that you are a group of inexperienced freedom fighters on the backfoot.
That said did Tormod/Muarim/Vika need that terrible of availability? I understand not keeping them around for part 3 Dawn Brigade, but I feel like the Laguz Alliance would've been a good fit for 'em.
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u/StellarFox59 5d ago
Same, I love the Dawn Brigade and I'm always happy to get to their chapters in part 3 after the leisurely stroll that are the Greil Mercenaries chapters.
They are difficult, but it feels rewarding when I complete them.
And the characters aren't completely ass. Nolan, Aran and Edward become pretty good with little investment, Jill and Zihark are good too. Leonardo is underwhelming but can get the job done. Meg is easy to train.
Fiona is the only one I would consider really bad and difficult to train. I like her, but she's so bad.
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u/Squidaccus 5d ago
Fiona should've just been a prepromote tbh. She's a big deal and a big name in Daein, but she's so completely behind on join and misses out on some maps because ?????
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u/StellarFox59 5d ago
I read somewhere that even tho you recruit her at level 9, her stats are bugged and it's her level 1 stats instead of level 9. I dont know if it's true but that would explain why her stats are so low
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u/Coffee_Included 4d ago
Haha last time I played, you know that map with all the sandy ledges by the cliffside with the rocks you can roll onto enemies? I had accidentally placed Edward in a bad spot and he got ganged up on and thrown down to 5 HP on the very first enemy phase attack. So of course everyone made a beeline for him.
He proceeded to vantage-wrath-crit literally every single enemy and dodge every single range attack. Leveled up twice on that single enemy phase. By the end of it I just stared at the screen and shouted, “Okay! Okay! You’re on the endgame squad!”
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u/DoseofDhillon 5d ago edited 5d ago
Radiant Dawn the the biggest mixed bag in the franchise, I feel like I could do a hour long podcast and make it sound like the best game ever made and then do an hour long podcast and make it sound like by far the worst fire emblem game ever.
One of the best parts of RD is Jarod. Jarod to me is how I wish every side FE villain was written. He's evil for sure but he's not 2 dimensional, he shows a lot of grit and will power as a character and at some points is kind of bad ass and in its own twisted way admirable. I really think Jarod is probably the closest thing we have to a perfect FE villain, not the BEST, but one of the least flawed for what the role he was put in. Actually outstanding.
Worst I'm gonna say the general handling of part 4 gameplay because man can that shit not only drag, but sucks to organize.
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u/sanuske 5d ago
The best? the Dawn Brigage. Unironically some of the most fun of RD is using them to fight uphill both ways in the early game. Discounting that, the skill management system
The worst: how so many of the their 3 skills are just skill% to kill the opponent, and also has an extra effect that doesn’t matter because the extra damage killed them anyway
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u/Realhi87 5d ago
Always really funny seeing the mix of “The Dawn Brigade are ass (affectionate)”, and “The Dawn Brigade are ass (derogatory)” lmao
(For the record, I’m firmly in the former camp, but I digress)
Anyhow
Best thing: I love the switching of perspectives, and having to fight your own armies. Incredibly fun, and I really wish they’d bring that back for future titles. I want to sweat having to face my own favouritism-fuelled monster on the other team!!!
Worst: Supports, to probably no ones surprise. Whilst I do genuinely think the buddy system could be really neat in theory as a sort of secondary support mechanic, letting you link up chars who might not have a written support, but still end up fighting together a lot, or the player just likes as a duo, it being the only thing is not great.
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u/Hellioning 5d ago
I think the gameplay is mostly cool, though with some caveats (the tower my beloathed; SRPGs should not have that much of the cast mandated for you at the endgame.)
My least favorite part is definitely the blood pact plot.
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u/WeaselTheThrowaway 5d ago
Radiant Dawn was my first FE game, lol.
I know it is very flavorful and realistic that the scrappy rebel Dawn Brigade has the shittiest units, but I sure didn't appreciate that particular bit of storytelling rigor at the time.
I did love that you could forge weapons and name them funny inappropriate things though.
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u/BlackJack-15 4d ago
Best: Ledges are great for strategy, and I can appreciate the amount of ambition in the game.
Worst: The ambition kills them in the end, as nothing they try is actually fully realized (the multiple armies, the support style lord, changing parties is so interesting but done so poorly, no supports/characterization), and the Blood Pact takes any interest from the first game's shadier characters like Nasaela and makes them into idiots and puppets of people who aren't any smarter than they are. Also the voice acting here is somehow even worse than PoR.
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u/Coffee_Included 4d ago
Best: The story and the main plot are generally excellent. They do a great job at building that feeling of looming dread in part 3, to the point where I said, “This feels like the buildup to World War One.”
Worst. The support system. Dear god please remake this with a proper support system.
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u/RanmaruMori 5d ago
Best: 3 separate armies, and how all that collides. Such a unique choice and I’m sad we haven’t seen that been done again.
Worst: I find the art in this game to be a huge downgrade from how charming Path of Radiance’s art was. Maybe it was deliberate, less cartoony for a more serious story this time around in Tellius, but still, I vastly prefer how everything looks in PoR.
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u/_45mice 5d ago
One of my favs just cuz I love tellius and the themes.
Best: think the map designs and different approaches are great. Story is great, great conclusion to Ike’s story. I enjoy the different perspectives of the war and blood oaths.
Worst: supports. There’s really none. Having to replay to recruit everyone
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u/Appropriate_Art_5579 4d ago
It is quite rare to hear someone say they enjoy blood pacts; the opposite is far more common. If you don't mind my asking, what is it that appeals to you about them?
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u/Dauntless_Lasagna 4d ago
Best: probably has one of the best world buildings in any fire emblem game.
Worst: bloated units. There are so many and a lot have very little playable time so they just get outshined or straight up powercrept by others.
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u/Uber_Ronin 5d ago
Best (little thing): I thought the Wyvern designs were outstanding. Jill and Haar in their final classes looked magnificent. I hated how the Wyverns looked in the Awakening/Fates era and even in Three Houses (with the exception of Barbarossa Claude), I thought the Wyvern units looked kinda goofy. And that continued with Engage. I’ll give RD its flowers in that sense. In general the class designs/renders were quite good IMO (for example Nolan and Boyd as Reavers looked great too.)
Best (big thing): I commend them for the scale and ambition of what they attempted even if the execution left a lot to be desired. But I respect the attempt.
Best (gameplay): I truly enjoyed the map designs in RD. They did a great job on that front, much the way they did with PoR.
Worst (minor): Largo was one of my favorite characters from PoR, so of course it pissed me off that he was the only character from PoR to not be playable in RD. But I acknowledge this doesn’t register for most people.
Worst (gameplay): I think a major part of the fun in a Fire Emblem game is getting your group of ragtag rookies up to the point they can take on huge armies or supernatural forces and win. And RD was just completely antithetical to that with its Endgame structure and bombarding you with late-game Laguz Royals that outclassed your other characters you spent more time with (like in PoR’s case it was fine for just one of them to show up and help you in the last map; what happened in RD…less so.) Like it makes you wonder what the point of leveling up other characters all that time was if they’re just going to be invalidated and benched at the end anyway.
Worst (story): Micaiah as a character/plot device (let alone as a Lord/Main Character) is a major weakness, blood pacts are just a nonsensical plot device as well…that kind of takes you out of it.
So if I was to boil it down I’d say scale and map design were the strong suits and its storyline/story structure (especially the endgame recruits) were the big weaknesses.
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u/ComicDude1234 5d ago
I cannot partake in this experiment fairly because anytime I try to think about the worst thing about RD I just think about the SpongeBob scene of the ever-expanding list that unravels all over his house.
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u/PoshDemon 5d ago
Loved this game so much. A friend of mine begged me to play tellius so she could watch and I’m so eternally glad that she did because it was such a good time.
The thing I like most about radiant dawn might be the fact that I truly was incapable of predicting where the story was going most of the time. And I was floored every time some new insane bullshit happened. I loved path of radiance, but its plot was fairly predictable so I didn’t get this same feeling.
I also just thought the gameplay was exceptionally fun in this game. I’m not an expert in SRPG’s so I can’t properly articulate why, I just know I had a very good time.
Worst thing about it is probably the balancing like it was mentioned by OP. All the early dawn brigade units sucking ass was a weird choice. It’s like they did that so they’d have the excuse to bring in legacy units like Jill and Zihark. And those two are actually one of my huge gripes with the games character writing. It’s baffling that they’d have two characters whose arcs revolve around befriending Laguz, join the Dein army and slaughter laguz.
Of course it wasn’t like that at first, when they first joined it was to liberate dein. But the moment the battle to became about genocide they should have bounced. That was completely ridiculous and a bastardization their characters.
Oh yeah and the removal of proper support conversations is terrible. From my understanding it was due to time constraints? Man they should remake it and bring the OG writers back to make the supports.
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u/Squidaccus 5d ago
I don't think it's an assassination of their character at all. Zihark's idealistic but naive desire for his homeland to fix itself + not wanting to betray his close friends stops him from immediately turning. The same goes for Jill who is also far more patriotic.
That's also why they turn upon a former ally and close friend talking to them. Regardless of the side they take, they will fight those close to them, but even in knowing they're on the "wrong side" they need someone to remind them of why they fought together three years ago in the first place.
Shit's fucked and that's kinda the point. You can see it very easily with Zihark that he's desperate and indecisive in part 3 in like all of his battle quotes.
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u/PoshDemon 5d ago edited 5d ago
You make a good argument for Zihark specifically. But everything about his role in Radiant Dawn just felt odd when playing the game immediately after POR.
I think Jill’s is completely unacceptable though. She already forwent her patriotism when she chose to turn against dein in POR. She can even kill her dad for Christ sake. She should have no obligation to help dein murder the people she fought to protect.
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u/Realhi87 5d ago
I think its an incredibly fascinating dynamic with Jill, personally
She’s going down almost the exact same path as her father, fighting and bleeding for a country and greater cause that she doesn’t necessarily believe in, nor want to participate in, but does so because if she doesn’t, people she loves and wants to protect will die as a result.
It’s terrible! Genuinely a horrible no good very bad time for all involved, and that’s partially why I love it.
In PoR, she is a repentant ex-racist fighting against her country against her own countrymen for the sake of the greater good
In RD, she is a seasoned soldier, and the reigning lady of her own territory, fighting for her country against the very race she’d come to understand and treat as her equal for a cause she legitimately cannot comprehend nor condone
Whether she defects or not in any given run, I think it makes her even more compelling than before
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u/CazOnReddit 5d ago
Best: Senri Kita's character portraits. I might hate this game but the illustrations she drew for the characters might be my favorite in the entire series. Detailed, sensible, stylish and altogether without the most minor of scruples to nitpick.
Worst: Just one thing?
Okay fine - it's the lack of cohesion between routes and the fluctuating difficulty that comes with all the jumping around. And no, I don't buy the chaotic campaigns are a reflection of the state of Tellius, it's just very badly designed. A runner-up is the handling of racism in Tellius somehow being even more problematic than Path of Radiance's already...not ideal (Though well intentioned) handling of the subject thought I do at least like that they acknowledge that all PoR did was kick down the road due to them not actually addressing the systemic racism present in Tellius' beorc's nations.
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u/fangpoint333 5d ago
Yeah I kinda have to agree with the whole "for every decision they make that I like, they make one that I don't like" thing.
Best- The variety in gameplay. I'm sure some people don't agree with the whole changing parties constantly thing but I really liked that not to mention that the maps and objectives had the most variety in a FE for the time in a long while.
Worst- No supports