In our series of Defence Squad posts, we'll be taking a look at games that have been pretty universally trashed by gaming reviewers, and come to their defence.
From the very beginning, it seemed like the knives were out for Radiant Dawn. A direct sequel to the Gamecube's Fire Emblem game, Path of Radiance, reviewers saw that Radiant Dawn was barely any different from its Gamecube predecessor. Same graphics. Same gameplay. Same characters. Same presentation.
Well, some of that is definitely true; Radiant Dawn is the very definition of an "evolutionary" sequel. Yet, taken on its own merits, it is a subtly astonishing game.
If you're not aware of the Fire Emblem series, it's a series of strategy role playing games developed by Nintendo's first party developer, Intelligent Systems (who have made other great SRPGs like the Advance Wars games, as well as the Paper Mario series). Battles take place on grid fields somewhat akin to Final Fantasy Tactics games, although these games offer up a slightly more complex "rock paper scissors"-type battle system. Battles are tense and fun, mostly because of the Fire Emblem staple: characters who die, die forever.
Reviewers didn't take offense to the battle system. It's as sturdy as its ever been. No, what reviewers took the most offense to were the story and the presentation.
First, the story. The story is actually one of the best stories Nintendo has ever been involved with. While it's true that the game does demand intimate knowledge of the events of Path of Radiance, the fact that the Wii can play Gamecube games (and that Path of Radiance is still fairly available) doesn't make that too daunting of a thing to request. While PoR's storyline was more or less a straightforward tale, Radiant Dawn's is astounding. It's epic in every sense of the word, and because of its structure, you both play as the "heroes" from PoR as well as freedom fighters on the other, formerly enemy side. There are some battles where you're forced to fight against people that you might have just played as in a previous chapter, making for some interesting player decisions: do I try to "win?" Minimize casualties? Lose so that characters I like better can survive? It's a tough thing.
Not to mention that the actual scripted sequences are well-written and bring up some serious moral dilemmas. Torture, genocide, and the nature of religion are all fair game, and are handled extremely well. I think that reviewers were put off by the fact that the game forces so much reading from the player. Which brings up my next point on the supposed lack of presentational features.
While it's true that Fire Emblem might feel a little spartan compared to more recent blockbusters, one thing has to be kept in mind: the developers began developing this on the Gamecube hardware, and only ported it to the Wii right before its launch. That's why there's no motion control and no voice acting (things that will almost assuredly be included in the next iteration). The graphics may not be pushing the technical limits of the system, but they're serviceable and look quite nice up close. And the CG animated bits, while brief, are incredible. In, say, FFXIII, you sort of get beat over the head with the amount of CG, and Radiant Dawn is literally the only recent game I can think of where I got excited for CG, simply because they're brief and infrequent while also being completely gorgeous. The graphical style, too, makes Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn two parts of a whole, which actually contributes to the continuity. There's no distracting jump into the future of technology here.
Will I admit that Radiant Dawn was a little stagnant? Sure. They could move the series into different time frames, update the control (seriously, IR pointing is a must in the next title), have voice acting and better graphics. But the fact remains that the core gameplay is still incredible, the story is unparalleled, and the music is some of the best on the system (even if it's not orchestrated). It feels like how a console game should feel, and I mean that in a way where there was always a divide between what was done on PCs, for instance, and how consoles like the SNES did things.
If I was going to radically change one thing, it would be the disconnect between the story bits and the action bits. Only rarely do they overlap – I'd like to see some more seamless transitions between the two. Regardless, pick up Radiant Dawn. Seriously. It's only like $20 used, and it offers a great game. Just don't expect Crysis graphics or anything.