Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance-the most fun I’ve had with a s

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Background:
I guess my tastes in strategy RPGs are (supposedly) unusual, because I hate most of them, even though I used to love the genre. I’ve never been able to stomach Final Fantasy Tactics, nor the majority of other s/rpgs. I only mildly enjoyed Tactics Ogre and Ogre Battle, and haven’t even played those Disgea-type games, since I assumed I’d hate them. I didn’t like the first GBA Fire Emblem game either (though in retrospect I wonder if I was just worrying too much about losing characters).

That games I absolutely loved? Dark Wizard, Shining Force 2, Heroes of Might and Magic (various), Dragon Force, and Vandal Hearts 1. Those last two particularly (I never got to play Shining Force 3…wish the complete thing would get released somewhere, along with a remake of Dragon Force!)

I only picked up Fire Emblem: PoR because it was clearanced at Circuit City, and I was buying some other clearanced games too (like Chibi Robo)-and plus I wanted to give it one last chance. In general I like Intelligent System’s games.

So-what do I love about Fire Emblem: PoR? In random order:
-The gameplay is simple and fun. There’s an easy mode, which makes it playable for me. There’s complexity and strategy, but it’s not overwhelming like so many games. I don’t need to care about height, or birthdays, or what a character’s favorite color is, or what continent they were born on, or their blood type, or what they ate for breakfast, or any other stupid thing.
The Laguz characters are interesting to play with (generally powerful, but can basically only fight half the time). Losing characters permanently is actually kind of neat. (And believe it or not, I’ve been without a healer for ages now-I lost both of mine, and thought for sure the game was basically over…but I’ve been doing fine just letting the weaker characters go if they go, and powering through with the strong characters.)

-The character design is really neat. The 3D engine is nothing special, but characters are frequently represented by high quality 2D art during cut scenes, and they all look fantastic.

-The writing. This story is shockingly good. It deals with some heavy issues like racism quite well, and is one of the best written RPGs I’ve played in ages. Honestly most Japanese RPGs have really terrible plots, and uninteresting characters. Nintendo’s translation/writing department needs a serious raise, ‘cause this is just fantastic. Starting out I had no interest whatsoever in the plot-I mean It I figure it’s generic fantasy-type characters going on their generic quest-whatever. But I can’t believe how quickly I was sucked in to the story and the characters. Even minor characters seem more interesting than the MAIN characters in most of these games.

I’m over 24 hours in in 9 days, and still loving it!

I'm a huge fan of the Fire Emblem franchise - the character Dart from Fire Emblem for the Game Boy Advance is where I got my username, in fact. I'm glad to see that you enjoy Path of Radiance - it's an excellent game.

I just found out that the sequel will probably be coming soonish (maybe next year?) on the Wii...and the good thing is thankfully it uses the Classic Controller. Only bad thing is it may not support widescreen.

Fire Emblem is the best SRPG series around--it's even better than FFT and Tactics Ogre in my opinion.

Path of Radiance is awesome, as are the two GBA games. Can't wait for the one on Wii.

Well, I think Final Fantasy Tactics and it's ilk are pretty bad, so saying it's better than those doesn't mean much to me

I like the Fire Emblem games... I've played all of the ones released over here. But I have never beaten one... I just don't get addicted and eventually play something else.

I think it has something to do with how long winded the conversations are... the plots are interesting... but I find myself getting bored and just wishing they would get to the point already.

I like the difficulty though... the fact that you can lose characters makes you really evaluate your strategy and make hard decisions... like a real tactician would... I'd imagine.

*heads to eBay to look up this "Fire Emblem"*

So it's a GBA game? I love SRPGs, they're what I call 'thinking games'.

The one being talked about is a gamecube game.... but there are two gameboy advance games out there.

If you like strategy games... a good series to look into is Advance Wars.

It's not an rpg... but kind of similar to Fire Emblem.

Advance Wars and Fire Emblem are by the same developer, Intelligent Systems (who also makes the real Metroid games and the Paper Mario games-talk about a track record!)

I've since found out they're localizing a direct sequel for the Wii...and thankfully it uses the classic controller exclusively, not the motion functions (IMO that would be dreadfully slow and clunky for a turn based game like this). Bad thing is apparently it won't support widescreen, though that's not really the draw (not that I wouldn't mind 720p with more detailed art instead...)

Regarding Advance Wars, I love the DS one of that (and the first GBA game), but they're extremely different from Fire Emblem. Which is a good thing actually (although come to think of it, I wouldn't mind a game like Advance Wars with fantasy trappings, and vice versa...)

Fire Emblem is my favourite SRPG, hands down. Forget the Disgaea avatar, Disgaea was fun but Fire Emblem had a p-e-r-f-e-c-t difficulty curve, great translation, and story presentation. And I haven't even played the Gamecube version yet! Only the two GBA ones. I thought the first one with Lyn/Hector/Eliwood was better though. The second one did have a problem with uninteresting characters that the first one could never be accused of.

The only other 'SRPG' I can think of that comes close is the Jagged Alliance series of games. That was similar in some ways with its large cast, each with their own personalities and a difficulty level that... well it wasn't as balanced, it was hell at the end.

I played Jagged Alliance 2, and loved it at first, but quickly got completely destroyed by it. It's WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too hard for me!

And remember, I'm playing the GameCube Fire Emblem on Easy. I'm REALLY glad there's an easy mode (I don't remember the first GBA one having "Easy". I play everything on Easy anymore.