I’m currently slogging through the endgame of the second book in the latest Fire Emblem game, Radiant Dawn for the Wii and while I’d at least hoped to make it back to Ike and his mercenary squad of badasses before I took keyboard in hand to type up my first impressions of the game, this level is kicking my ass so hard I figured I’d better start reviewing because at this rate I’ll complete the game shortly before the sun dims. The latest offering in the Fire Emblem series offers the same ass-blisteringly difficult levels, a few wonderful additions to the battle mechanic, and a handful of disappointments. It’s a good game all-in-all that will give you many, many hours of frustration that you will mistake for enjoyment.

Story

Radiant Dawn was known as Goddess of Dawn in Japan, but marketers worried that American fundamentalists would boycott Nintendo for daring to refer to a Goddess on the packaging, or just that Americans would look at it and think that the game was “for girls.” Either way, the re-titling was lame and unnecessary. It follows on the ending of the GameCube title Path of Radiance, and in fact allows you to import data from your PoR saves if you insert the memory card when you start a new game. The war between Crimea and Daein is over. Elincia holds a tentative rule over Crimea, and has renounced the governance of Daein, allowing Crimea’s ally Begnion to step in and manage Daein. This is not good news for the people of Daein, as the generals in charge of ensuring that Daein does not re-arm are more interested in subjugating the populace than they are in helping the fallen kingdom rebuild and rehabilitate as a peaceful nation. Because of the brutal treatment of the populace, a small group of Daein citizens have formed a resistance movement called “The Dawn Brigade,” which is led by Micaiah, the “Silver-haired maiden” who possesses the strange power that allows her to heal others without a tome or staff at the cost of her own energy. The Dawn Brigade introduces new characters, but also gives Daeins from PoR an opportunity to reprise their rolls, including Sothe the thief, and Jill the Dracoknight.

While Micaiah works to free her people, Elincia struggles to maintain governance in her new role as Queen. Ike resigns his commission as Lord and disappears with the mercenaries, leaving her at the helm of a nation on the edge of revolt. Meanwhile, in the west, there’s trouble brewing in the Laguz (beast tribe) kingdoms. This means lots of battles.

I wouldn’t suggest this game as the first Fire Emblem title a person plays. Rather, pick up a used copy of PoR and get a good idea of who the characters are and what’s going on. The game is definitely a sequel and continues a lot of the stories and themes from the first game without a lot of hand-holding, and you might get a bit lost in the process.

Gameplay

Fire Emblem is not an adventure series, it is a turned-based tactical strategy game; not unlike Advance Wars. While it does have certain RPG elements to it (leveling and inventory), and there is some attempt to tie the battles together with a story–this game exists to present you with a series of battle scenarios and that’s what it does. Its major point of difference with other games is that death is a final matter in Fire Emblem: when someone’s hitpoints are reduced to zero they are out of the game, no resurrection spells or potions. They may be “seriously wounded” if their presence in the cutscenes are critical to the advance of the story, but this is where Radiant Dawn gets its insane difficulty. While the title has added in much-needed mid-battle saves, you still find yourself going back and “starting over” when someone dies.

The actual game mechanic is very simple. Optional in-game tutorials can help bring you up to speed on how to play without dragging down gameplay. Employing the series’s Rock-Paper-Scissors-like weapon hierarchies as well as natural weaknesses (for example: flying units are vulnerable to wind and archers), Radiant Dawn adds a few delicious new features: high ground for archers making them nigh invincible, aerial battles between various flying units (pegasus and dragon nights and winged laguz), and the aforementioned mid-battle save option.

Not everything is better than the old version; fortunately, they are minor compared to the game’s advancements. There is no support for the Wiimote; which might have been a good idea considering how much of the game could have been “point and click.” Some of the battle animations are absolutely attrocious (I’m looking at you, Laguz) — but you can turn those off, even on a character-by-character basis if you like. The laborious story is not helped by the narrator who sounds like George Takei with a dramatic orchestra behind him (I have nothing against Mr. Takei, but it’s a little like having and audiobooks of a Piers Anthony novel as read by Alan Rickman with background John Williams). Fortunately, since there are text subtitles, you can just mute the silly narrative scenes and listen to something else instead. Finally, they’ve messed with the support system: In the previous game, a character could have multiple support relationships with others — in this game, you must remain serially monogamous with your friends and only develop one relationship at a time — breaking previous support friendships in order to forge new ones. This is dumb and makes absolutely no sense unless all of the characters are in fact middle schoolers: “OMG you did NOT just talk to Jill! I thought we were bestest friends! Well forget it, I’m not bolstering your attacks any more! And another thing: your hair looks stupid.”

Women in the Game

The Fire Emblem series has consistently excelled in showing a wide range of roles for women. From badasses like Titania and Eirika to more traditional healer roles like Mist and Micaiah. The great thing about the series is that it offers complete reciprocity: the badasses are badass whether they be men or women, the magic users aren’t some passive girl-class, and neither are the healers (Rhys is a male healer).

There are a couple of interesting notes to consider in this game. First is the paternalistic relationship between Sothe and Micaiah. I find it interesting that Sothe is so protective of Micaiah and spends as much time declaring that he will do anything to keep her safe considering she survived the Crimean/Daein war just fine without him. And while there is more to it than simple “rescue the damsel in distress,” I couldn’t help but feel like Micaiah was a bit of a backslide for the series that has been so wonderful in presending egalitarian relationships up until now.

I really jumped out of my seat when I met one of the new characters in book 1, though. Midway into the desert leg of the story, Micaiah notices someone sneaking around, and the end result is Meg joining the party. What’s so startling about Meg? Apart from being the first woman be a ground knight in the game (so far they’ve all been mounted), she’s a woman of size. Not ugly, not evil, just heavy. Her story is a little uncomfortable — she’s the daughter of Brom (from the first game) and has put on protective armor while she travels to Daein to meet the man she’s been “promised to.” I don’t get the feeling that the rejection she faces at the hand of her ‘betrothed’ is due to her weight; it’s much more that she drops in out of nowhere and declares “we’re getting married!” and according to Wikipedia she does actually marry “normally” at the end of the game (whatever that means?). Outside of the cutscenes, however, you have a woman tromping around in a big plate suit; which is highly gratifying. She’s not the most powerful character, but that’s probably due more to the fact that her intention wasn’t to be a warrior but instead to be a wife, and if you take care of her early on, she can definitely hold her own in the later battles.

Ultimately, Radiant Dawn doesn’t quite make the same level of awesomeness to women that Path of Radiance did–but it’s definitely still miles ahead of a lot of games out there. Intelligent Systems is still to be commended for the way that they approach gender and it gets the “feminist stamp of approval.”

Conclusion

If you own a Wii and like turn-based anything, this title should absolutely be in your library. If you like high-fantasy RPGs, you could do worse than Radiant Dawn but it sure isn’t Zelda or Baldur’s Gate. It will take a long time to get through, just be patient and don’t get frustrated when you’re starting a map over for the seventh time. It happens to all of us.

Mighty Ponygirl posted this entry on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 10:52 am and filed it under Games, Nintendo, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.