Defense Against The Dark Criticisms Part 6: Sammy

* Before I begin I should point out that Sammy's wall of text was originally longer. Many of her points have been answered in the previous posts. To save on time (and hopefully in the name of redundancy prevention) I'm only going to focus on the points she made that Braden and I responded to.

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Sammy: "And I ended up being right on every account. Now I get it, the Greil Mercs are a hard shaft for a lot of people, but when you're more like me and you tend towards "eh" about the Greil Mercs, it really starts to show how underutilized the Dawn Brigade are. Underused, and underpowered. I never really felt any tension while going against the Dawn Brigade because they're, in narrative and stats, absolute mooks when compared to the Greil Mercenaries. So from the gameplay perspective, this makes extremely eclectic difficulty scaling where playing as these guys against the GMs is like setting my 25 pound puggle up against fucking Satan or something, and playing the GMs against the DB is like going to war with ants."

Braden: Narratively, this is intentional. Gameplay-wise, this works in favor of the DB in terms of making the game challenging and fun, but playing the GMs against the DB directly usually isn't as interesting, admittedly.

Grant: During my last playthroughs of the Tellius games I noticed that they do a pretty good job at fusing their gameplay with their narrative, even when it comes at the detriment of the game. This is one of those times. It makes perfect sense from a narrative standpoint that the GM's would be far superior to the Dawn Brigade in terms of battlefield prowess. Only a handful of Dawn Brigade members fought alongside the GM's during the Mad King's War so the GM's would be the more experienced army. Not only that, but Daein recently got its butt kicked during the events of PoR so their military might isn't going to be as good. Last, but not least, yeah RD has some of the worst unit balancing in the series. I'm not going to bother defending that one. That being said there's at least some good that can come from this.

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Sammy: "Narratively is probably worse though. I feel personally like Radiant Dawn actively degrades itself by simply going back to the fanservice of the GM as early as Part 3 rather than give the DB the time that they truly do deserve. All of them are interesting to likable characters, and the amount of time you have with them is too minimal to expand that. The only one that doesn't feel like a throwaway is Micaiah, but even then, the pervasiveness of the Greil Mercenaries in Part 3 forces her to act more stupid than we, the audience, know she actually is. You can do controlling two opposite sides without making one side the obvious weak and more stupid side just by nature.

Braden: The idea that the DB should've had more chapters is completely correct and something I agree with, but the idea that the GMs returning when they did degrades them is just wrong. The GMs are still an important part of the narrative. The idea that the DB should've had more chapters is completely correct and something I agree with, but the idea that the GMs returning when they did degrades them is just wrong. The GMs are still an important part of the narrative. The DB doesn't act in a stupid way, just in a way out of obligation. They actually have the harder and often more interesting choice to make. Their weakness is part of what makes them one of the best parts of Part 3, in that they are forced into a grueling struggle despite being outmatched. Micaiah and the others are very admirable, and I found that I really got sucked into their personal struggle and how trapped they were. Their despair was written really well.

Grant: Having the GM's in the story is not fanservice. Radiant Dawn was never meant to be solely Micaiah or the Dawn Brigade's story. Ike and the GM's have every right to be there. It also makes more sense to have the hero of the last game show up in the sequel too. This isn't the first time I've seen someone say that the Dawn Brigade members would've been more interesting had they been given screen time. I'm highly skeptical of this reasoning. The Dawn Brigade did not consist of interesting characters based on what we already have. If they had been given more screen time we could've gotten a much more boring game. Neither Micaiah nor the DB "act stupid" either. They're in the positions that they're in because of the Blood Pact.

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Sammy: "Radiant Dawn jerks itself off to ignoring the potential for subtlety and prides itself on Ike's side always being right, and anyone-but-Ike either being villainous, misled, or straight up incompetent. Which is fine, not every narrative needs to have 50 shades of moral grey, but the result is that the entire Dawn Brigade is effectively thrown away. If you have the Dawn Brigade be NPCs and the game starts at Part 3, it would feel like a very similar game to how it does already.

Braden: This couldn't be further from the truth. The Dawn Brigade is a necessary parallel to Ike and the GMs in terms of the position they are put into. Ike and the GMs are able to make the choice they believe in and fight to defend it, whereas the GMs are forced into fighting for something they have no convictions for, only for the sake of fighting. The goal of this is to try and explain that conflict has purpose as long as it is done for the right reasons. Ironic that Sammy would call this ignoring the idea of subtletly when RD is swamped in it. especially with all its symbolism.

Grant: This criticism feels like a rehash of the "RD demonizes Micaiah" critique that we already addressed before. Still, I think our answer bears repeating because this accusation is continuously repeated: Radiant Dawn does not demonize Micaiah! Even when both she and the Dawn Brigade are fighting against Ike the game goes out of its way to keep the DB sympathetic. The only reason why they're in the fight to begin with is because they're forced to be there against their will.

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Sammy: "-The villains. Lmao, the villains. Honestly, the quality of villain writing in Radiant Dawn and Fates is way more comparable than it should be. Sephiran probably stands out above the pile of Fates shitters, but aside from him... what meaningfully makes Lekain any less comically EEEEVIILLLLL than Garon? Honestly, I can't think of anything at all. Their cause? Evil for the sake of being evil. Their means? Ridiculous plot devices that are at best, lackluster, and at worst degrade terribly from the quality of characters that once upon a time had potential, like Naesala. "

Braden: This is something the game doesn't do a great job of explaining, one of its subtleties (that Sammy seems to think doesn't exist). Lekain and the other senators are representatives of the past, the humanity of before. They are the stepping stone that humanity as a whole must overcome to grow past the rift that exists between beorc and laguz. What the game explains is that oftentimes, conflict is the method that this rift is overcome (whether that be through something as minor as arguments or something as major as war). That's why the parallel I mentioned in the previous comment, the one between the DB and the GMs, is so important, as it establishes the idea that conflict is sometimes necessary. The end of RD is a culmination of this, first overcoming those symbols of the old humanity (the senators representing the hate and racism of the past), and then the symbols of the gods themselves (order and chaos). RD's finale says, "We've surpassed our own weaknesses in the past and will continue to do so, not by some strict adherence to order or chaos, but by a balance of the two of them". The game frames that splitting of the original goddess Ashunera as a huge mistake. In the words of Sephiran: "But...to nullify half of your being... We were terribly, monstrously wrong to suggest it." Humans of Tellius are an image of their gods, and it was their wholeness in this sense when compared to the divided Ashera and Yune that led them to overcome them. I'll concede that the characters themselves didn't need to suffer for the sake of their symbolic importance. They could definitely have worked towards both. But to put them on the same tier as Fates villains completely discredits what they mean to RD beyond just their personalities.

I talked about this [plot devices] in a previous post, but in short, they are important thematic tools and aren't bad at all.

Grant: "A small wealthy, corrupt, privileged, incompetent elite belonging to a military powerhouse nation that screw things up for everybody. Where have I heard this before? Seriously though, people like the Begnion Senate exist in real life and have existed in real life. Garon doesn't have that going for him. When Corrin proves their loyalty to him he goes out of his way to call Corrin a traitor. Why? Because reasons. The reason behind the invasion of Hoshido is neither non-existent or really weak. By contrast, we know why Lekain and the Senate do what they do."

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Sammy: "My main complaint about the gameplay, as someone who frankly doesn't give a fuck about Biorhythm one way or another (it works in my favor just as often as it works against me, statistically, so I don't care enough to berate it), is just that it's too easily curb stomped. Notoriously Haar is the worst offender of this, but this game is lowmanning purism. "

Grant: "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? This is the game that's "too easily curb stomped"? Here's a list of games that are considerably easier to curb stomp than Radiant Dawn: - Holy War - Sacred Stones - Blazing Sword - FE 3 Book 2: Mystery of the Emblem - Gaiden / Echoes - Path of Radiance - Birthright - Revelations - Awakening - FE 1 ^ Radiant Dawn is significantly more challenging than all those games. If this game is "too easily curb stomped" then Fire Emblem as a whole is pretty easily curb stomped. If anything, Radiant Dawn actually poses a challenge. The Dawn Brigade chapters can be legitimately tough since a significant portion of the cast has the defense of toilet paper. Enemies are also tougher than average too. Granted, it's not the DS games, Thracia or Conquest but RD is one of the handful of games in the series that actually isn't a total pushover 100 % of the way through.

"Lowmaning purism" is an odd criticism to make given that the game forces the player to switch around so many different parties that the player has to build up multiple units at least to some degree. 

While I agree that the unit balance in this game sucks I can think of plenty of other games that fit the definition of "low-manning purism" better than this game: 

- Holy War 

- Sacred Stones 

- Awakening 

- Birthright 

- FE 1 / Shadow Dragon

Also, as I mentioned before, juggernauting is an issue with the series, not just Radiant Dawn. Even games with better unit balance like Thracia or Mystery can be beaten with only a handful of super powerful units or warp-skipped. 

My overall point here is that if you're going to criticize Radiant Dawn for doing the same thing as the series, then shouldn't you be criticizing the series for having this issue?"