Fire Emblem Path of Radiance - The Finale

               

                   Gameplay: An interesting element of Path of Radiance’s gameplay is that it brought back a lot of things that originated in Holy War.

• Skills like Astra, Sol and Luna, yep it was Holy War that started that.

• Mounted units only using one weapon before promotion. Yep that too began in Holy War.

• Canto is also something this game brought back. True you could move again in the GBA games if your mounted unit used an item or rescued someone but being able to move again after attacking is something that began in Holy War and got brought back in Path of Radiance.
  
  
• Refresher units being able to refresh 4 units.

                         What’s cool here is that Path of Radiance added its own spin to things which made the game very enjoyable. Whenever a mounted unit promotes the player then gets to choose what weapon they use after promotion. That’s a pretty cool idea that I wish would return in future installments. In addition to having skills you now also have a capacity system that limits the number of skills each character can have. You also have Occult Scrolls which means that each class has a skill unique to them which just makes the different classes even more different from each other. Refresher units can refresh up to 4 times, but only after transforming into herons first.

                         This game also invented forges, bonus experience and shoving. In my opinion Tellius forges are best forges. You can make a powerful weapon, but it isn’t as OP as the forge system in Fire Emblems 11 - 14 since you can’t forge Brave or effective weapons (and you certainly can’t forge a Nosferatu). Bonus experience is cool because it gives the player an incentive to beat levels faster and it works as a way to boost the weaker units of your army. Shoving is interesting too and a lot of people really like it.  

                        I do wish the localized game were a little more challenging though. Yes I know that Maniac mode exists but I haven’t played it yet plus I just don’t see myself getting a Dolphin emulator. That could change in the future and this really is a tiny nitpick.

                         The map design is hit or miss. A lot of maps are very simple while others are like Chapter 11 which are actually pretty good. I don’t think they’re quite up to par with say the GBA games, but at the same time the map design in Path of Radiance is certainly superior to the maps in some of the newer games. Also, I like the extra maps.

                        

                           Final Thoughts: Path of Radiance isn’t just one of my favorite Fire Emblem games, it’s one of my favorite video games period. It has an awesome story, awesome characters, an awesome soundtrack and gameplay that’s still fundamentally Fire Emblem. This is a game that I can play over and over again and never get bored playing. It just does everything well and it seems like a game that’s genuinely hate immune. This game deserves all the love and praise that it gets and I’m happy to see that people love it.