So, while I wait, anyone thinks the Fire Emblem for the Wii is worth it? I mean for the story, characters, etc as for gameplay even with the improvements of Awakening it shouldn't be that much different.
The Wii FE has many glaring problems. I've heard some say that they liked the story, and a lot more say they didn't. I personally didn't care for the story. The narrative is separated into four parts and it really breaks up the flow of the story. Characters are pretty weak due to the lack of support conversations. Gameplay is good, but due to the different narratives some of your characters will be horribly behind in experience when the different armies join forces. Also, while you could definitely play it on its own, it is the sequel to Path of Radiance for the GameCube so you may want to start there. Path of Radiance is the better game in almost every way too. I will give Radiant Dawn credit though for having some cool classes that we may never see again.
Glad to hear Awakening has been such a hit!
Radiant Dawn isn't a bad game per say (Shadow Dragon is far more justifiably considered to be inferior, although I like SD more due to being less constrained in my choices than RD) but it does have some glaring issues of its own. Namely due to the fact that the game splits itself into four different acts, each of which contains its own mostly unique party, and the fact that the game included a whole new batch of characters on top of almost everybody from the previous game, lead to some serious cast bloat. Kinda like how Mystery of the Emblem and its remake introduce the vast majority of best team members within the first four chapters of the game, RD also ended up giving making many of the returning team members from Path of Radiance just so much better than everybody else due to availability, levels, and quality. Worse still, is that the fourth act is when everybody gets into the truck all at once so not only do you have people who've been around for nearly 2 full acts (Nephenee, Ilyana, Captain Haar Solo, Heather) but also people who show up for maybe a single map or two before the endgame (Tormod, Tauroneo, Lucia, among others) as well as people who only pop up just as you're choosing your final 17 to take to the endgame (out of 60 possible choices, 6 of which are taken by required units, one of which goes to one of the three herons, and if you want extra story you're going to lose out on another 3 or so slots, plus at least one or two more if you want a Laguz royal along as a crutch). Long story short, you don't really have much of any choice of party members throughout the entire game since the game's so restrictive on who and what you can bring with you at any given time.
That's not to say that the game's all bad though. It has some of the best map designs since FE5, and almost every one of them is sporting some kind of gimmick or feature (including having the only fully aerial map in the series, one where the game just hands you your lord and the motherfucking Black Knight to stomp everybody's shit with, a map you have to approach from both sides as different armies, and many more). It also has the first instance of skill swapping where you can equip and unequip skills to pass along to the more needy. It also brought back a bunch of other features from older games (namely PoR) including: 3rd tier promotions, weapon forging, rescuing, shoving, & canto, Laguz transformations (except far more manageable due to a greater abundance in transformation restoring items), Bonus EXP (except far more abusable due to the fact that every BEXP level is guaranteed to increase three stats), knives (as a proper weapon type this time instead of garbage), specific map bonuses (including hidden treasure on every map), weapon weight affecting attack speed based upon a user's strength instead of constitution or build, and stealable weapons and staffs (provided your thief has more speed than the target and enough strength to carry whatever has been targeted for purloining).
As for the story, it starts off fairly interesting in the sense that you're playing as the guys who lost the last game's war, then as the guys who won the last game's war, then as Greil's Mercenaries (team Ike) fighting for their furry friends in a brand new war, then as everybody as the shit hits the fan, which is the least interesting part due to how everything else is dropped in favor of saving the day.
And for the latest postgame Paralogue, you're going to want to bring a Rescue Staff or two for a chain transfarriing or somebody sturdy with 12 move to get to the new recruit before she gets horribly murdered again because she'll be hamburger by the second enemy phase. The village gives you one but getting it costs a turn and you're still going to need to bring the designated staff user in range and hopefully out of the way of the Dark Fliers (or take care of them first). So unless you have somebody with ridiculous Mag (hope to god Miriel, Maribelle, or Brady can use staves) you're going to have to rush your Rescue staff user to the front lines.
Oh that would have been a strategy. >.> I ended up using one rescue staff to pull her out and then just placed my entire army around her in a defensive formation using a healer to keep her alive from the long range attacker. Meanwhile Donnel took out the entire western forces by himself (armshift+legendary axe=awesome) as the eastern forces got shattered on the rest of my army. Took a couple of tries before I got it down.
So anyone done Em's supports yet? I feel like those have to be extremely akward (especially S rank) considering she seems to have gotten some brain damage from her fall (which is honestly getting off light considering what she apparently survived). Kind of sucks that there are no supports between her and Chrom. Kind of applies to all the spotpass characters actually.
I have a female Avatar so no Dice here. Of course seeing things like Tiki's supports has me convinced that all she would say to my Avatar would be "Gee. It sucks having amnesia. Don't you agree."
Although having a male Avatar S-rank her then have Morgan and Chrom sired Inigo and Lucina and Owain both achieve S ranked supports between each other has some hilarious potential.
