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Best Turn-Based Strategy RPG on Gamecube

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: September 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The only other game on gamecube with this type of gameplay is Gladius which is also a really great game (****) but this is Fire Emblem (*****) and the best in class.

Fire Emblem is the best in its class because it has both the best gameplay (which is important for turn-based strategy) and the best story and characters (which is important for RPG). Fire Emblem also provides a good challenge at any difficulty level and is worth playing again at higher difficulty setting. Even though the game is challenging it is not unfair... you only take loses if you make tactical errors.

The goal of this game is ultimately to discover the story of the game as well as optionally develop and discover the inter-personal story between each of the characters. Since you wont use all the possible characters in a single play through of the game this is another reason why replaying on higher difficulty doesn't become boring because you can now use different characters that you did your first play through. Also some chapter/mission settings adjust on the higher difficulties like there might be fog of war, or a strong boss character that will move to strike rather than hold his/her position.

Fire Emblem games date back to the NES and I believe there are over ten of them so far. Only three have been released in the US. Two on the Gameboy Advance and this one on the Gamecube. This one on the gamecube is the newest and has the best graphics, soundtrack, gameplay, story and characters of any Fire Emblem I have played. Each Fire Emblem game is a stand alone product like most of the Final Fantasy games... as in it has its own world, story, and characters that are unrelated to past games.

I highly recommend this game for anybody with a Gamecube or Wii interested a turn-based strategy RPG. This is the best game of this type that I have played or know about to date so you can't go wrong.

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: July 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This One of the Best Games ever. It has a great story line, good action, great adventure and just a flat out great game. From the very beginning it catches your intrest. You need strategy and smarts to excell at this. It has innteresting charecters, and good graphics.

another Fire Emblem that rox my sox!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In the first two Fire Emblem games that came out for GBA I was amazed! I hated GBA games and never used mine. I would be playing for hours and hours.Then they have came out with it on the big screen!!! For once your lord is amazing and dont have to worry about him dieing. The graphics are the best I have ever seen. Not just the combat graphics, but your palidians and knights look soooo cool.Also you can make up your own move! You can design the handle and the more money you put in to it,the better it is.I put in 200000$ and gave it to my worst person.After two lvls I let her kill everybody on.She was on lvl 20.Another thing is you get to relize how much animals you get. you can get a cat and ivlove to a tiger and so on and so forth. The traing is quite easy and makes it funnier becasue you get A LOT of Master Seals and so on.The game goes up and down in how hard it is.But most of the game is easy.I'm on chapter 22.Got to go.

Great Game.... :)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: April 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a game everyone should play, great storyline, great graphics, and REALLY fun! I am proud to own the game and I reccommend it to about everyone!

Wonderful Game, yet it could use some tweaks

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: July 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Fire Emblem is a great game on it's own. It has a good story with interesting characters. It has a fun battle system thats replayable. It even has some nice graphics once they grow on you.

I think most of the reviews have done a good job with their descriptions. The only thing I think that takes away from the game is the ability to completely unbalance everything.

One of my characters, Boyd, leveled up so fast that he could singe-handedly take any map on his own. All of the enemy units did barely any damage to him, and he would kill everyone in 1 attack. Titania, throughout the entire game, is extremely powerful. She can take any enemy on in 1 attack.

Though these characters are very strong, my mages and healers turned out to be useless. They need to be rather close to the enemy to do damage, and, once they do get close, the enemy can kill them in 3 hits or less. My main healer, Rhys, died in one move because, in the first enemy turn, a bird came from across the map and killed him.

The only other weak point about the game is the fact that the level caps aren't high enough. Ike, the main character, took maybe 6 battles to get to level 20. Then I had to wait forever until I could change him into a lord. At that point I leveled him up to 20 again in a matter of 2 or 3 battles. I think that the game does have a good string of ending battles, but they could have been better had my characters were not at their max levels so easily.

Solid at its core, but otherwise, very disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: February 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Fire Emblem's old releases were excellent, so I was eager to see how the series adapted to a 3-d gaming console. Unfortunately, this game is little more than a 2-d game with slightly better graphics. It fails to take full advantage of the Gamecube's power, and comes out with bland, often dull graphics. What they do use the 3-d graphics for are advanced battle scenes, but these mostly only serve to slow things down and aren't that much more exciting than the game boy releases' battle scenes. They also use the Gamecube's power to add in several new features. Some of these, especially the Laguz characters and the weapon forge, are great additions, but others, like skills and biorhythm, just give the player too many things to keep track of. The music and sound effects are dull and disappointing. The game's story is very hard to get into, the characters are hard to relate to, and in the end, there are too many loose ends. The lack of a support gallery, like the ones in the GBA games, hurts replay value. I hate to sound so negative, but the fact remains that Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is unable to live up to the precedent set by the GBA games. If you can ignore everything I mentioned above, you'll see that at its core, this is still a solid strategy RPS and can be fun, but otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it.

Amazing and Best Strategy Game Ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Intelligent Systems (makers of Fire Emblem and Advance Wars) is known for making awesome strategy battle games. FEPOR is no different. It is a real brain teaser, and some levels are tough to play and beat. Also, you will permanently lose a character if he or she is killed in the level. Oh, and if you don't like strategy games or RPGs, then read what the game is about before buying it, and since all Intelligent Systems games are the same idea, would you really expect them to try something different? All FE games before this were the same way, so for the game to be different would be weird. But anyway, this is perhaps one of the best strategy games ever made, and for anyone who has played previous FE games will be very happy with it. This is my first encounter with Fire Emblem, and I could not have been more satisfied. I would recommend this to anyone who has played FE before, or anyone who likes strategy games, like chess. If you like fighting people your own way, without strategy involved, then go get yourself Call of Duty or Baldur's Gate. But again, if you're a fan of strategy, then this is the game for you.

Almost amazing, but not quite.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

It's a good thing that the actual game is fun, because I would be writing a much less positive review otherwise.
Here's why: While Path of Radiance stays true to most of the things that make Fire Emblem fun to play, it has terrible voice acting (and not enough to make it valuable, either) and some slightly cheesy text. And don't buy it for its graphics-they really aren't all that great
Other than that, however, the game is definitly fun. Everything that made me enjoy the Fire Emblem games is here: the support conversations and the strategy. This may not sound like much, but don't be fooled.
Oddly enough, the developers took out some units (e.g. Cavaliers) and put in replacement units (e.g. Sword Knights). This can take a little getting used to. They also took out the exceptionally weak units (e.g. Recruits) and the ability to choose what class a unit will turn into that they had in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. Being able to give Bonus Experience is nice too.
A more positive developement is the introduction of "skills". These make Path of Radiance a little more of an RPG in that you can assign them to characters and customize them into more unique units.
Oh yes, and the "Soldier" unit, which always used to act as the worst unit ever in previous games, has been equalized to other units. You even acquire one, and she can turn into a unit called the Halberdier, a kind of fast and less heavier armored knight. I had been kind of annoyed at how much they used Soldiers as fodder in other Fire Emblem games, so this came as a pleasant surprise.
Basically, if you were a fan of other Fire Emblem games (I would say this one is much more like the first Fire Emblem for the GBA than Sacred Stones), don't hesitate to get this game. If you like Advance Wars, for instance, this game is also probably for you. If you enjoy RPGs, look over what I've written and decide for yourself. Otherwise, get it if terrible voice acting doesn't turn your stomach like a cement mixer.

Misunderstood, Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: February 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Some people were expecting this game to be a fantastic adventure with amazing battles and great action. As great as that sounds, that is not what makes this game fantastic.

Story: The story takes place as Ike, son of the leader of the Greil Mercenaries is training with his father when he is finally offered to join the group. You go on a few missions, getting rid of pirates and bandits and such, when the mage Soren comes in from his travels and reports that the neighboring country of Daein as invaded your home country of Crimea. Rushing to Crimea's aid, you rescue a young girl from the wreckage who is discovered to be the unrevealed princess of Crimea, who nobody had ever heard about because of a royal bloodline dispute. Commander Greil decides to have the mercenaries escort the princess to the bordering country of Gallia (for a fee of course). Gallia is home to some Beast~Human creatures called Laguz. Commander Greil discovers one of his old proteges, the black knight, and gets slain by his sword, making Ike the new commander. Because of diplomatic problems, the king of Gallia could not offer sanctuary for the princess in Gallia, and pays for them to take a boat to the theocracy of Beignon to the east. After being attacked by Laguz of the crow and hawk tribe, the mercenaries arrive in Beignon to be greeted by their Empress, the Apostle. They aid the Apostle in covering up her guilt from a burning of a forest that was once home to peaceful Laguz of the Heron tribe. Ike and his forces then , with the help of Beignon troops, march north to Daien in order to Liberate Crimea from its hold.

This game doesn't have terrific battle situations, mostly because most of the battle is in the strategy. I would give this game 5 stars because it is loads of fun, stretches the mind, and has an ingenious story line. I would strongly reccomend this game.

The Next Evolution of the Series...could be a little better

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: February 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Okay...to start with, I really don't feel that it's necessary to explain the mechanics of Fire Emblem because you won't be looking for this game unless you already like games sort of like it (that would be strategy RPGs, in case you really don't know).

That being said, a lot of the complaints people have with the game are just complaints about strategy RPGs in general: slow, lots of dialogue, unforgiving, etc. Yes, Fire Emblem is a little slow, but it has an involving storyline that takes time, character development, and dialogue to keep the player in the storyline. The unforgiving battle system (if your character loses all of his HP, he's gone...forever!) is just a result of the series attention to a sense of realism--it may be fantasy, but it's still grounded.

Being grounded in realism is probably what makes the story so excellent: the themes of rebirth, racism, and prejudice are still prevalent today, and so the story strikes a chord. If I had to rate just the story, this game would receive a perfect five.

Unfortunately...you have to look at the game, and this where it falls short of expectations. While I realize that the transition to 3D is not always a comfortable one, in this case, it borders on the excruciating. Though the graphics are not nearly as ugly as they were first purported to be, they stil aren't pretty, either. I suppose this is a symptom of having to create a large, mapped world...but it sure is a bland one. While this game has some of the visual flair of the last two games--namely in the character art, which is varied and excellent--it doesn't have enough.

There are some minor gameplay quirks that are new to the series, too. Minor gripes include not being able to attack with magic or arrows over walls--probably caused by a need for realizm in 3D--and a lack of close up healing animation, which feels like a cheap attempt by the programmers to save space.

In terms of unit types, there are a few new ones, including the three tribes of laguz "beast warriors", the hawk, beast, and raven--I didn't mention the heron tribe because the only member, Reyson, is even more of a sissy than Dancers in the previous games, though more powerful. Human, or beorc (don't ask) units include the new (playable!) Soldier-Halberdier class, which is one of the more awesome ones in the game. Absent, however, is the Hero class--which sucks. Also, they made Assassins total wusses who can't hit anything to save their lives and can't dodge worth a crap either.

...But maybe I'm being too critical. In the end, this game is long, deep, and fun--with a lot of cool bonus content, too (link up your FE GBA games after you've beat this one for some cool character art!) Though the presentation lacks a bit, the core game is still more than satisfying.

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