Somehow Edward ended up coming 1st in my rankings, which completely shocked me because it's always Ike, Haar or Jill lol

Greatest Fire Emblem game of all time, there is actually no contest

I also gave the boots to base level Meg and never fed her a single point of experience because funny

This was the first Fire Emblem game I ever played. I bought it after reading a review of it five hundred times in Official Nintendo Magazine (it might also have been the same exact volume of ONM that directed me towards Hotel Dusk, another one of my all-time favourite games - talk about getting your money's worth!), which described it as being like chess, only the pieces are all characters you care about. I'm paraphrasing, or maybe I’m misremembering - I haven't read that beautiful magazine in almost fifteen years. But this isn't a review of whatever # of ONM that was. This is a review of the hugely ambitious Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, a tough as nails grid-strategy turn-based fantasy RPG, bursting at the seams with delightful dialogue, intelligent plotlines, unforgettable music, interesting and sympathetic characters, and NUMBERS (my favourite thing). Thematically, it is one of the most thoughtful sequels in video games, concerned not so much with bigger, bolder, more bombastic action and set pieces, but with the political opportunism and humanitarian disasters that logically follow the events of the previous game. It is a burning star lighting up the black sky, the heat of its light still tickling the back of my neck fifteen years (approximately) later. It is also hugely misunderstood and, in some circles, maligned, like a weird younger brother with echolalia and a vindictive streak who wears your clothes all the time and has somehow kissed both more girls AND more boys than you have. Here are some of the criticisms I’ve seen directed at this game in the past: it is too unforgiving; there are too many characters; there is not enough VA; there is too much reading; the presentation is overly simple; it didn’t sell enough copies, nearly ending the franchise; etc; etc; etc. In light of these criticisms, (most of which I don't agree with, upon reflection,) I got used to thinking of Radiant Dawn as being one of those 7/10, middling games that I just so happened to like a lot, greasy junk food, an acquired taste. It took a decade and a half, it took playing Awakening, Three Houses, and Engage, to gain the perspective necessary to see this game as it is. And what is it? What is Radiant Dawn? Well, I’ll tell you. Radiant Dawn is the last good Fire Emblem game.

For a work that was, upon release, considered conservative and old fashioned, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is a hugely ambitious title, juggling a massive cast of characters, careful worldbuilding, thrilling adventure, and enormous stakes, all while tying itself to Path of Radiance in looks and design so that they complement each other, so that they can be played and read as two parts of a whole, as the plot so requires; without Radiant Dawn, Path of Radiance feels incomplete, and vice versa. And what is the plot? Radiant Dawn takes place three years after the end of Path of Radiance and follows what happens to the land and citizens of Daein after their tyrant king is defeated and they are taken over by the holy state of Begnion. The Begnion military rules by the sword and is not afraid to turn its weapons against civilians. Corruption requires not a mad king, nor do war crimes require a Daein army. The game's themes begin to reveal themselves early; power corrupts, military rule is abuse, and prejudice, like heroism, can come from anywhere and anyone. In an incredible and challenging twist, (a twist that IGN called “odd” at the time, revealing more about the writer of that review than the game) you are no longer battling against the armies of Daein, but are tasked with freeing its people—innocent civilians caught in the to-and-fro of war, who have rapidly had to come to terms not only with the crimes of their own countrymen, which they almost certainly supported to some extent, but with the loss of their freedom. They impotently stare down the barrel of a gun at bullets of poverty, violence, shame. They are trapped under the boot. They are trapped forever. Children, adults, elderly, all trapped, all hungry, all afraid. It's completely brilliant, and harrowing.

You set off, a girl who can give your life force to heal others, a mirror of what your ragtag band of rebels are willing to give up in order to save their people, on a desperate mission to make Daein free once more. Your enemy is a rogue Begnion general placed in charge of keeping the peace, his loyal (read: fearful of sudden murder by General) soldiers, and the wealthy politicians pulling the strings from the shadows. Characters new and old, human and not, join you in this struggle. You and your little squad use careful tactics to bring down larger numbers, getting stronger and more confident all the while, raising the morale of everybody across the land. And what happens when you succeed? When Daein is free? The game continues, of course. In fact, at that point, the game has hardly begun. I recall thinking I was at the end of the game when I won back the Daein capital, all those years ago, and I couldn't believe that the game would just keep on going, and going, and going, tackling international and inter-racial tensions as it did so, its generosity as endless as its perma-death is awful.

One thing that gives me pause, I suppose, is the incredibly positive representation of monarchies, birthrights, etc throughout both this and Path of Radiance. I am sceptical of monarchies in much the same way that this game seems sceptical of politicians and governments - but to be fair, the politicians in this game are generally corrupt and working to amass wealth and power for themselves and their friends no matter who has to die for it, much like the Tories in the UK, so I sort of get where they're coming from. Anyway, this is the great thing about fiction. It let's you pretend. Doesn't it feel better to fantasise about a nice queen who will unite the land through peace and everybody will love her and each other, rather than cheering on governments who don't even pretend NOT to steal our money and bomb our neighbours and slowly degrade the human rights we've fought and marched and died for over the years? Anyway, my favourite thing about these games is all the gay subtext between--

Stop! Get offa me! The people must know!

The people!

Must!

Knnoooooooooowww~~!!!

(is never seen or heard from again)

This game is a direct sequel to the events of the previous Fire Emblem, taking place a few years later. Now the story has two protagonists, Micaiah and Ike. While Ike remains incredible as in the first game, Micaiah is a very poor protagonist. All the chapters you have to play with Micaiah and her dialogues are incredibly clichéd and dull. However, Sothe is a chill guy; his only personality trait is being down hard for Micaiah , but he's still a cool guy. The gameplay hasn't changed much from the first one, and aside from the chapters involving Micaiah, it's a good game, though not as good as the first. Still, it's a decent sequel.

In terms of story, Radiant Dawn is conceptually ambitious and consistently entertaining, albeit falling apart like a house of cards under the slightest scrutiny. I enjoyed my time with the story and for the most part liked the directions it tried to take, but I'd be hard pressed to say it's "good", because it's absolutely packed to the brim with holes and sloppy writing choices. Even still, it has its moments; part 2 is alright and ends on a peak note, and the game's ending is pretty solid too. Despite its massive flaws I still find myself liking the story more than most FE stories simply because of how different it is and how consistently eventful it is. Well, except part 4 - part 4 isn't eventful at all. haha...
In terms of gameplay, similarly, it's a massive mixed bag. Unit balancing is at an all time low with multiple armies ending up far apart from each other in terms of level and the gap between classes being extremely polarizing. Map design also varies wildly, with some of the best maps in the entire franchise such as 2-E being mixed in with Gaiden tier dogshit like 4-5. Hell there are more wet maps and fog maps in this game than in any other single FE I think. The fog maps are rout maps too. It can be pretty bad sometimes. Enemy phase can also be a massive slog with massive maps absolutely PACKED with enemies that end up taking control away from you for what feels like an eternity.
But when it's good it's some of the best FE gameplay out there. The skill system is amazing, offering a perfect balance between unit identity and player customizability. The bonus exp system is extremely fun, allowing clever allocation to create absolutely busted units like my very own stat capped Mia. The soundtrack and presentation have received a massive upgrade since FE9. And like I mentioned before, there are just as many amazing maps as there are terrible ones. In conclusion, it's a good game with a lot of really massive flaws lol

As the sequel to an incredibly well-rounded game with a rich narrative and simple but fun gameplay system, Radiant Dawn almost lives up to its predecessor. The gameplay formula that they went with by splitting the story and gameplay segments into parts was a decision that I feel is slightly for the worse. As a result, I find the game to be a little less replayable than other FEs because the joy of seeing your army progress as a single unit is taken away. Nonetheless, I feel like despite these flaws, RD's incredibly ambitious story as a direct sequel to PoR makes up for it. Seeing the aftermath of Tellius nations after the Mad King's war was really interesting and enhanced the already established narrative of PoR. What RD did amazingly though was the fully explained lore and backstory of Tellius. PoR drip-fed and namedropped important lore figures and events but didn't fully explore them. As a result I ended up appreciating the story of the Tellius games much more than I was already liking them during PoR. Unfortunately the final act of the game does come off as a bit underwhelming in terms of story and gameplay. While many ongoing plot threads are solved in the final act, much of the prominent characters throughout the game are put aside in favour of the core story at hand which the narrative automatically prioritizes when the time comes. Gameplay wise, there are too many chapters which are blatantly filler with literally no story progression and drawn out maps with tons of reinforcements just for fun. Either way, RD's general gameplay drastically improves on PoR's as it boasts some of the best map design in the series, and a refined and more fun skill system.

Haven't beaten but I'm pretty conflicted on this game on every aspect.
The story is pretty mixed around part 2 and 3 mainly part 2 and I think I really love all the moments with Micaiah and I thought part 1 as a whole is probably a Peak of Fire Emblem for the gameplay alone, Part 1 is really hard and I remember it making me give it my all just to clear a chapter, It really feels like you take what you can get and getting even a decent to good unit means the world lmao. but in contrast Part 2 and Part 3 are way too unbalanced and OP. FE9 has a level of brokeness for sure but it feels like you work up to it. in FE10 you just get really OP units like haar for example and it takes away the creative fun gameplay the first part had. also all around I felt like Part 2 was just really Mid I do like part 3 more but im yearning for more of that Part 1 type of gameplay which isn't going to be coming back for the rest of the game but I do like the Story at the point im at and where its going overall probably gonna redo this review once i finish.

As a follow up to Path of Radiance, this is honest to god the best way that Intelligent Systems could've done it.

I'll get my one gripe out of the way. This game not having traditional supports really hurts a lot of the new cast for me but I personally already have such a deep attachment to the Greil Mercenaries and Ike that it doesn't bother me too much. Still if this game had supports like other games this would've been a perfect game. But alas we don't live in such a world.

Now onto everything else, and hooboy do I love everything about this game the moment I started it.

The way the game goes around with its units and strategy aspects is honestly kind of genius. You barely get any money in the game, abilities are expensive, you switch around units a lot, bonus exp level ups now only increase 3 stats instead of how level ups normally go. All of your choices in how you want to build your party really matter, and this game doesn't push around in terms of difficulty even on easy. You have to really decide if you want to invest in certain units and how much money you're willing to spend on weapons and other items so that you can actually proceed with the game. Even when playing as the Greil mercenaries the game doesn't pull any punches despite you basically having all pre promoted units from the start. It feels like a natural next part to what players experienced from Path of Radiance as it ups the difficulty from that game. You feel so powerless when you're playing as the Dawn Brigade because of what happened to Daein in the last game, which really goes on to my next point.

The story is so tightly written in a way that feels like a natural next part to Path of Radiance. All the events that happen in this game makes a lot of sense in creating such a complicated world that Telius presents. No country is truly in the right even if the choices that the new rulers like Elincia make are going to make a perfect world that they envision. It plays onto the themes and messages of humans being imperfect so well that I seriously got to applaud the writers for really committing to said themes. I don't want to go more into the story since I feel many need to experience how this game plays out, especially the buildup to the game's incredible endgame where all the loose ends that this duology set up have such a satisfying end to it.

One other aspect I want to talk about before I end is the music, and man do I think the music is a massive step up from Path of Radiance. Don't get me wrong, the music in Path of Radiance is really fucking good despite it being Midi, but Intelligent Systems really went all out by having the game being fully orchestrated for its soundtrack. It really helps give such a grand scope of the conflict that the world of Telius has fallen to, especially after what Ike's crew did to Daein in Path of Radiance. There's a bigger sense in the war because of the booming orchestral soundtrack. The battle themes themselves don't start from the beginning once you engage another fight, it continues off from where the last battle ended off so that you can truly embrace how amazing this score is.

I cannot give anymore praises to how much this game truly delivered in what Path of Radiance set up. I don't think one game is better than the other, since I truly believe these games tell a grand epic that cannot truly exist without the other. The Telius games aren't perfect, but just like humans no one is perfect. I can embrace the strengths that these games have and they delivered everything that I was hoping for. It's hard for me to not give these games a perfect score for me.

What if we took Path of Radiance and cranked everything up to 11. Being a direct sequel, it is extremely cool being able to play as the old Greil Mercenaries again, with them even having endgame (for PoR) classes and stats, and even cooler to go even further beyond with this games 3 tiered class progression. On top of the Mercenaries, you have many other factions you play as, some friendly, some antagonistic such as Queen Elincia and her royal knights, Laguz factions, and the infamously terrible Dawn Brigade. While the story does fall apart a little towards the end with some silly plot contrivances it is still very rewarding seeing factions fight and eventually join up, and answer many unanswered questions from the first game such as the identity of that no good Black Knight.

(if youre not a fan of the words peak fiction, goat, raw, fire--click off this video)

radiant dawn holds up nearly as well as path of radiance imo because of its story telling and how it ties its gameplay to it. i have small minor issues that i hold against it from being better than path of radiance but i'll elaborate later

similar to thracia the game places you in a situation where you feel like you're never at a huge advantageous position right away (unless your name is jill or haar) and sometimes, they outright are not afraid to take these tools away from you as they'll lock units from being deployed due to story reasons. battles just feel that much more intense, and it's better helped from recurring characters returning and sometimes even having to fight again who you played as in the prior installation. it's so fucking cool

again my issues stem from some characters. i found it hard to get attached to the dawn brigade aside from micaiah, sothe and ilyana, some supports being underdeveloped due to awkward join/leave times, etc. but aside from that. amazing game i love it