radiantConsidering all the waggle minigame compilations, shovelware, ‘casual’ games and just general sh** on the Wii at the moment, Fire Emblem stands out like a sore thumb. It’s hard. It’s uncompromising. It’s old school. It’s around 50 hours of game time on one playthrough. And, for fans of the series, it’s great.

The direct sequel to the GCN game Path of Radiance, the Wii version is pretty much exactly the same, but with new missions and some new characters. For those ignorant of this series, the Fire Emblem games are turn-based strategy games similar to Advance Wars (same developer, actually) or Disgaea. Characters battle on a grid, taking turns to attack each other, gaining experience and levelling up for doing so. Characters have different classes and can equip different weapons (swords, axes, spells, healing staves etc.), with each weapon and class being effective or ineffective against other weapons and classes. So a very shit summary would be something like chess meets rock-paper-scissors. A key feature of the Fire Emblem games is the idea of permanent death – if you lose a character in battle, they are gone for the rest of the game. The real strategy here comes from keeping everyone alive, while still properly distributing experience points to your party. The story is typical Fire Emblem fare, with an evil empire needing to be taught a lesson by a band of rebels. This time, however, the action jumps between three different groups of rebels, which can be a tad confusing and disorienting. The game can be controlled using either the Wiimote on its side, a GCN controller or a classic controller. The Wiimote is not really used in any way; however incorporating it would have been fiddly, imprecise and unnecessary.

If all this sounds like your cup of tea and you haven’t played a Fire Emblem game before, then I would suggest you look into either Path of Radiance on GCN (also playable on Wii) or Fire Emblem on GBA – both games should be cheaper than Radiant Dawn, and also superior offerings.

My money's on Fang

 

For those of you who are familiar with the series, let’s discuss the ins and outs of this particular game in a bit more detail.

Firstly, this game plays pretty much exactly like Path of Radiance, and doesn’t add anything particularly new to the franchise. Laguz are still useless (except the royals), and Ike’s mercenaries are back. However, your time will be divided up across a few different groups and while it works in a narrative sense, it does leave some characters at a disadvantage since you have less time to level them up. Unlimited Battle Save is a new feature incorporated on Normal difficulty (or easier), and is a great feature, especially considering the Normal difficulty is harder than most FE games. Battle Save allows for a save at any time in battle and prevents a stupid mistake costing you hours of playtime. However, some tweaking of this system (limited saves, perhaps?) to stop abuse would be nice. Another nit-pick is the number of battles you get involved in that have a large amount of allies fighting with you. Spending 10 minutes watching the AI attacking the enemy gets old, fast. An option to speed the battle up would have come in handy. Also, fog of war maps are still an exercise in trial and error (and frustration!).

In turn-based games, this is an 'action packed screenshot'.

Overall, this is pretty much exactly what you would expect from a Fire Emblem game. If you like the series, pick it up. If you haven’t played it before, the punishing difficulty from the get-go and the confusing narrative aren’t the best place to start – check out the GCN or GBA games instead.

By watchers_eye

Graphics: C+

Nice artwork, as usual, but nothing that the DS couldn’t handle, really…

Sound: B-

Epic music, but no voice acting hurts it.

Gameplay: A

Difficult strategy fun.

Overall: B+

Good fun for FE fans and strategy nuts, but not the best in the series.