Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Radiance's ending is pretty horrible. The promisingly deep plot is never given full closure; I get the impression that it's a reference to other events in the series, but standing alone this title is never truly wrapped up. Add to that a half-hour or so of agonizingly slow scrolling text and a surprisingly awful lyrical song, and you've got the 30-hour game's final moments.

But despite the sour taste the ending leaves in my mouth, I can still recall enjoying the rest of the game. There are some aspects that are mechanically frustrating - specifically, some events relying on randomness (e.g. the stat points you get when leveling up; sometimes, a unit will roll +0 on everything), and the permanent repercussions (dead characters) of mistakes. But nevertheless moving my units and murdering the enemy army was a real blast.

One of my favorite things about Path of Radiance, and this is why I'm not too motivated to look into the GBA titles, is the stellar presentation. The graphical style and detail of the battlefields and combat scenes are great, and the music, albeit repeated frequently, never seemed to get old. Plus! there were six extremely well-animated and -voiced cutscenes, which while infrequent, were very impressively done. I don't usually get hung up on aesthetics but I really have to tip my hat to Intelligent Systems on this one.

I would really like to replay this game at some point, and see the things I missed; it's just a matter of having the time for it. (Plus, I'm still not very good at it.)

Progress: Finished main game (in Easy mode)