Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is the first and only Fire Emblem game to be released on the Gamecube. It is a Tactical RPG and was developed by Intelligent Systems, the creators of other Tactical RPG hits such as the Advance Wars series and the preivous Fire Emblem games. It was released in 2005, and a sequel is currently in development for the Wii.

Plot
Notice: Despite it being the ninth game in the series, it has nothing to do with the previous games in the series.

The game starts out with Ike being the newest member of the Greil merceanaries. The game takes place on the (obviously fictional) continent of Tellius. The first part of the game takes place in a nation of Tellius called Crimea, where Ike, his father Greil, and others currently live.

A few hours into the game an enemy nation, Daein attacks Crimea. Ike and his new team goes out to there ally nation Gallia, a nation populized by beast Laguz. While on there way there, they find Princess Elincia passed out in a bush and offer to help her, she agrees and they continue to head to Gallia.

Soon after Daein attacks Crimea, they head for Gallia. Once the Greil Mercenaries reach Gallia, Greil is killed by the Black Knight. Later in the game, you will choose to either revenge your father and kill the Black Knight, or escape and let the building crash on him.(thus killing the black knight.)

At the end of the game, Ike will confront King Ashnard, and along with a selected king from another nation, kill him.

Major Characters

 * Ike - Ike will be the main character throughout the game. He is Griel's son, and will take his spot as commander once Griel passes on. He is the only character who can kill the Black Kight and Ashnard.
 * Princess Elincia - The princess of Crimea, and the sole survivor of the Crimea's royal family after the raid from Daein troops. She will fight with you at the end of the game.
 * King Ashnard - The ruler of Daein, and the final boss to defeat.

Gameplay
Like the previous games in the series, this game is a tactical RPG game. You will start out with a few characters on you team, and fight off the enemy (each mission will have more enemies than are on your team.) team. Each team member can move a few spots away from where he currently is, and then either fight, use an item, talk, push, or wait. To fight, you will move your character up to an enemy, and then choose which weapon you would like to use against him. After you've moved all your characters, then it will be your enemies turn, and they will move there units.

To defeat the army, you will usually have to either kill the boss, or all the enemies. Sometimes you will also be able to run away. Once you do, you will be able to fight the next battle. If your leader, Ike, dies in battle, then you will get a game over (If Princess Elincia dies, you will also get one.), if one other of your units dies, than they will either be dead for ever, or have permanent damages, or in other words, they will never be able to fight again.

Each unit can wield a certain type of item, these types of items include such items as swords, axes, lances, bows, magic and more. Each item has an amount of times that it can attack, so if an item has the number 30 next to it, you can use it 30 times before it will break.

Experience Points
Each time an ally unit attacks the enemy, he will gain experience points. Once he has one hundred experience points, he will level up. Once the unit gets to level twenty, he will change classes. If the unit is at level ten and has a certain item he will be able to change classes then. Certain characters, even if there at level twenty, won't change classes until a certain point in the game. Characters that have already changed classes won't change again.

After you defeat a battle, you will gain bonus experience points. You can use these points on any character you want after the battle. If a character has been leveled up many times, then it will cost more bonus points if you decide to level him up.

Classes
In the game, there are 15 jobs (most of which you can level up). The following is a list of jobs in the game that both the Beroc (humans) and Laguz (beast/bird/dragon) species.

Upgraded Classes
This is a list of upgraded classes. The characters that appear in this list are only characters that are in that class when they join, if they don't appear here, then they will appear above.

Graphics
It's a challenge to turn a two-dimensional series into a three-dimensional one. But Path of Radiance managed to do it. It is the first game in the series to have three-dimensional graphics while fighting, and is also the first one in the series to have cut-scenes, which are featured in cel-shaded graphics. The movies were made by a japanese company called Production I.G.

Unlockable Characters
The following is a list of characters that you can obtain by beating the games a certain amount of time. King Ashnard is the most notable, as he is the main enemy in the game.


 * Oliver - Beat the game three times.
 * Shiharam - Beat the game five times.
 * Petrine - Beat the game seven times.
 * Bryce - Beat the game ten times.
 * King Ashnard - Beat the game fifteen times.

Voice Actors
The following is a list of voice actors that voice the characters in the movies.


 * Jason Adkins - Ike
 * Elsbeth Nathanson - Mist
 * Erica Evans - Elincia
 * Stephen Weyte - Greil, narrator
 * Mark Dias - Black Knight

Sequel
Currently, a direct sequel is being created for the Wii titled Fire Emblem: The Goddess of Dawn. It will take place three years after the events in Path of Radiance, and will be released early 2007. Though it will not star Ike, (it will, however, feature him in the game) it will star a character from Path of Radiance - Sothe, a theif who Ike will find on his boat. Almost every playable character from Path of Radiance reappears here. With that said, if one of your characters died from PoR, then you may have to play through it again to make this game accurate!

Reception

 * Gamespot - 8.6 out of 10
 * IGN - 8.7 out of 10
 * EGM - 8.0, 8.0, 8.5 out of 10
 * Nintendo Power - 9.5 out of 10
 * Game Informer - 9 out of 10