Cheat Index - Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance GameCube Review

Embrace game droughts. If you've been an avid gamer over the last decade or so, you know that Nintendo systems don't always age gracefully, often leaving players starved for new quality titles as the leaves turn orange. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is the perfect example as to why game shortages aren't all bad. While Nintendo and other Japanese publishers never felt the need to translate some of their more text-heavy NES and SNES titles because of a flood of readily available software, a slowdown in releases for Nintendo's handhelds and consoles may have somewhat forced the publisher's hands to finally release franchises like Wars and Fire Emblem to audiences outside Japan. As a matter of fact, the GBA revival of Famicom Wars we all know and love as Advance Wars actually released in the west before it made it out in Japan.

For those that haven't gotten on the Emblem convoy yet, here's the series in a nutshell: Advance Wars in a medieval fantasy setting with a focus on single-character units and RPG elements. The similarities aren't coincidental, of course -- both series come from Nintendo-operated development team Intelligent Systems, the same developer responsible for the well-received Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. While gameplay follows the same simple turn-based route complete with unit-specific strengths and weaknesses, the game's overall feel is distinctly more at home in the roleplaying realm. Each character comes complete with a full array of stats, experience points, abilities, equipment, and affinities, develops depending on use in battle, and dies permanently if your strategies don't work out.

Instead of regurgitating all the gameplay details which you can read about here), let's get right to the point. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance doesn't reinvent the wheel; it simply takes the best elements from all its predecessors and adds some subtle, but generally positive enhancements on top. Like Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, this first console FE title since the Super Famicom days suffers from a feeling of déjà vu for returning players. Luckily, an interesting storyline, new polygonal presentation, and some nice tweaks ensure that the experience doesn't feel stale quite yet.

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