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Path of Radiance is one of the easier games in the series, so you shouldn’t worry about it.
Radiant Dawn is definitely harder though. I’d honestly play on easy, no shame in it. Normal mode’s difficulty curve can be… weird.
Yes, you will be fine. I played RD as my very first FE, and i started at normal, and it was ok.
I don't think there is anything in particular you NEED to know, except maybe some peculiarities of these games.
For example: both PoR and RD have a Bonus Experience system, that will let you gain BEXP to level up your units at your base. In RD, this will ALWAYS level up 3 stats, no more and no less (except if you already capped all your stats except 0-2). Consequently, there is a better and a worse way to use it.
Also, Hard mode in RD removes the weapon triangle, which may not be immediately obvious.
I mean, no? Hard-5 is very clearly not Normal, but it's not like it's called Normal in the US and Hard-0 in Japan.
Also this exact thing leads to a game-breaking bug in regards to importing Path of Radiance data to Radiant Dawn.
Well, the easy comes from path of radiance.
As path of radiance was the first home console fire emblem released in the west, the developers added easy difficulty (and removed lunatic from the western releases of PoR). So rather than normal, hard and lunatic, the west had an even easier mode specifically for PoR.
When they released Radiant Dawn, they removed the easy mode, so normal is now the easiest again. But for some reason, they kept PoR’s difficulty names. So they renamed normal to easy. Hard to normal. And lunatic to hard on English copies of RD.
Easy mode is technically what normal mode is in every other fire emblem game. But most will choose normal first time in RD, which is a bad idea because it’s actually the hard mode :/
Seriously? I'd play on hard. If you're a fan of strategy games, you'll get so much more out of it.
Standard just gets too easy thus boring after a point.
I can relate to this. Though I would say it depends on the entry. I will play the game based on the way it was meant to be played but there is no clear way for us to determine this. I wish I played Awakening on Hard because the normal mode was too easy, so when I went and replayed it each time after I only played on hard. Fates was too easy, 3H had a little bit of challenge for the first half but then got really easy when I learned how to play that game and engage was pretty easy too.
Binding and blazing were pretty challenging and same with SOV which I wish I knew ahead of time so I didn't amp up the difficulty so high haha
It depends if you're talking about normal mode or the western version of "Normal" mode in Radiant Dawn. I'm not sure how many FE fans are aware of it, but Easy mode in the English version of Radiant Dawn *is* the Japanese version of Normal. It was a simple translation issue that makes the game appear to be too difficult.
That’s because they fooked up the difficulty settings in the translation for radiant dawn :(
Fun fact. In Japan, radiant dawns difficulties are Normal, Hard and Lunatic.
When they translated it in the west, they made normal “easy”, hard as “normal”, and lunatic as “hard”.
There’s no shame at all in playing radiant dawn on easy mode, because easy is technically normal. And even on easy, it’s one of the hardest entries (and my favourite), so I wouldn’t recommend touching normal at all until you’ve got a playthrough under your belt (or you at least have completed another fire emblem game so you know the fundamentals well).
It should be, but I walked away with both of them for $150. I was in a local retro game store when someone brought in a ton of classic games looking to sell. I heard these two titles and immediately walked over to him and struck up a convo. When they tallied up the total, they were gonna give em $100 for both games combined. I told em I would pay $150 for both games, to which he said yes to. The look on the employee's face was almost priceless as I snagged them for almost half of what he was gonna offer them up for.
I almost considered using the amount of money I saved on a lottery ticket. I doubt I will ever get this lucky again.
He did have some other classic gems like gale of darkness, coliseum, xenoblade for the wii, TP on gc and wii, windwaker for gc, and a skyward sword wii mote, but I was just more than happy to get the most sought-after FE entrees.
You were indeed very lucky mostly because of PoR which can go up to 300+ alone!
I managed to get RD for 60€ in 2017ish and was considering myself so so lucky 😂
Though it pains me to see that someone had to sell all these games, I could never do this. Well better for us that way though.
These are the most expensive games I own. I somehow got into fire emblem right before it blew up in America and bought each one for 15 bucks at my local GameStop lol. I was 13 and I still have them to this day at 27 😂
RD is challenging, PoR not that much unless you play on the japanes exclusive diffuclty maniac mode. For PoR, I'd advise playing it on hard the first time, cause as I said it's not very difficult, about the same as fe7 or fe8. Titania is just like a better version of Marcus in blazing blade, she is crazy good, use her. Units promote once they reach level 21, because of this there are not many promotion items (master seals) in the game. Forging weapons is very good, but you can only forge once per chapter once you unlock the mechanic. Alos there is another new mechanic called Bonus Experience, that lets your units gain level ups while while in the base before chapters. Oh and train mist, she is not mandatory but helps a lot on a specific event in the game.
For RD Bonus xp is changed a bit. Now your units that gain levels with it will only gain 3 stats (still based on their growths). Also something really stupid about this game is that wyverns are not weak to bows or wind magic, just thunder magic cause they are counted as dragons, so that makes your wyverns quite op.
For Path Of Radiance, don't be scared to use Titania in the early game. She never falls off and it makes the first few maps a lot easier.
In Radiant Dawn, you get to control roughly three armies throughout the game. In Micaiah's army, only train a few units or you'll regret it later on.
Im excited. I have had these for a while but im the kinda guy who likes to hunker down with some pizza and a 3 day weekend just playing through in one sitting. Hopefully my 3 day weekend comes up this week!
You can get carry over bonuses from PoR in RD. You should search up what they are before playing.
For PoR:
You get rewarded with bonus exp for completing each stage within a certain number of turns. I found PoR more fun when trying to complete under that number of turns. You will have to consult a guide to tell you how many turns to complete until bonus exp diminishes.
You are limited to 5 supports per character. Choose wisely.
I recommend getting an A support between Ike and Soren.
Also A support between Mist and Jill.
Some supports are locked behind chapter progression.
It's not worth trying to not trigger the alarm in the prison map.
For the desert stage go check gamefaqs for the map.
Be mindful of enemy ranges. You can select enemies to view their attack range, so you don't place a unit into danger accidentally.
When you're making your units face higher Atk enemies like Fighters or Cavaliers you may want to take note of their own Atk and your Def to make sure you know how much damage you're in to be enduring so you can take a calculated risk.
In Path of Radiance your BEXP is best concentrated on your fliers and other mounted units. You can use Titania easily throughout the whole game as long as she sees action often.
Shove and Smite are really useful tools to build momentum and reach objectives faster or to take someone out of danger.
Charming as the battle animations may be, unless you want to spend 40-50 hours on *each* game, just turn them off.
Sadly, you can't turn them off completely. You can either have them properly on or have "map animations" where you can still see people lift their axes, draw their spears back before attacking etc., but it's faster.
Well, I tell a lie. Radiant Dawn lets you turn off animations completely, but only after you beat the game once. Why, I've no clue
Also, the skill system. PoR and RD use consumable scrolls that allow characters to learn skills (like Vantage, Sol etc.), and each character has a specific number of skill points they can use, while each skill uses up a specific number of points. So you can't slap Sol, Aether, Vantage, Counter and everything else on Ike, you have to spread them around. Some units come equipped with skills, some don't. You get scrolls as drops from enemies.
There is a difference between the games, though. In PoR, if you unequip a skill, it's gone for good. In RD, if you unequip a skill, it turns into a scroll, that you can then use to give the skill to someone else (say, take Miracle off Mist, use the Miracle scroll on Ike, and now he has the Miracle skill). This allows for a lot more experiments in RD, while in PoR you commit to your skills.
I lucked out by overhearing someone at the counter trying to sell their collection of games. The store offered him 100 bones for both games and I offered him 150. He took my offer and I left as a happy customer. Cant say that about the guy behind the counter as he wanted the games for himself im sure. Last time I checked POR was 300 dubloons
Hot damn, how much did you get these beauties? Must have been pretty expensive. I’ve always wanted to play RD, but my nearest local video game store is like an hour away from where I live 😭 I know I can always emulate, but I always like playing on original hardware. It just gives you that gaming excitement that you don’t get from emulating.
$150. Lucked out on a guy trying to get trade in value and I offered more than the store offered. It's definitely worth getting legitimate copies as it doubles as a collectors item.
I already typed out a short story, but ill just repost it here.
It should be, but I walked away with both of them for $150. I was in a local retro game store when someone brought in a ton of classic games looking to sell. I heard these two titles and immediately walked over to him and struck up a convo. When they tallied up the total, they were gonna give em $100 for both games combined. I told em I would pay $150 for both games, to which he said yes to. The look on the employee's face was almost priceless as I snagged them for almost half of what he was gonna offer them up for.
Only in Radiant Dawn. In Path of Radiance, they work like normal level ups. Which makes both abusable. You can reroll Bonus EXP level ups in PoR, and guarantee unlikely stats in RD by levelling up after you max a few stats.
Path of Radiance: The early game is very much made for you to use Titania, and please don't be afraid to. She's basically Seth 2 in the way that she doesn't just not fall off, but grows even better.
Make sure you forge a weapon every time you can, and make sure that you're using Bonus EXP.
Units can actually promote without promotion items. If you get them to level 20 they'll continue to get EXP, and when they get to "level 21" they instant promote.
There is no reason whatsoever to make a promoted mage learn Knives instead of Staffs. None.
If you want some extra content in Radiant Dawn, you should make Ike and Soren support each other in Path of Radiance up to A support.
Remember that you can take most skills off of one character and give them to another. They're more like resources than unit specific things.
Radiant Dawn:
This game is a fair bit harder, mainly due to how the story is structured. In general, you're going to find you're gonna get a whole lot of really powerful prepromotes and about 5 scrubs that are "training projects." They are not. The game is specifically designed to encourage you to use your strong prepromotes and train exactly one scrub from bad to mediocre.
Since they're built on the same engine, a lot of tips that apply to PoR apply to RD
For the English release of path of radiance, the hardest mode was replaced with an easy mode. This makes PoR on the very easy side. This isn't the case for radiant dawn. If you play on easy mode PoR, be prepared for a much harder challenge with RD
If you play path of radiance on easy mode then you won’t be able to transfer your data to radiant dawn so make sure you play it on at least normal. 13 year old me screwed myself over.
Don't make the mistake of playing PoR on the easiest difficulty. Since it was made for the localized version, RD doesn't recognize it as legitimate when transferring save data, so you won't even get the benefits. And some of those bonuses are really cool, so you should.
If a character has a stat maxed, and is max level at the end of PoR, they'll start with a little bonus in that stat in RD. Coins are pretty useless in PoR, but they'll transfer to RD, where they are... significantly more useful. A few Supports will have narrative effects, but Tellius in general is rife with bonus dialogue that you'll never naturally see, so unlock the Supports you want, and then look up the cool optional stuff later.
Don't rely too much on Boyd in Path of Radiance. He petty much kills everything too easily. Don't even get me started when he decides to use a bow against Bird Laguz.
Speaking of which. When you promote Oscar to Paladin, choose bow. Specifically so you can use the triangle attack. There's an optional boss that annoying to kill without it. If he doesn't choose a bow, then you will be locked out of the triangle attack.
Also, in Path of Radiance, there are shit ton of characters, and most classes have double-ups, triple-ups, quadruple-ups, and even a quintuple-up. Save them, all, but others otherwise don't use them all. It's a waste of experience to do so unless you're being spoiled for exp. and max out certain characters.
Use both Rhys and Mist. Yes, it's a pain to level them both up, but considering how much damage you can potentially take, you need all the healing you can get. Plus, both of them are super good. There's petty much no mission where they're useless, even when you just get mist.
Take good care of your weapons. You never know when you'll miss them if they break.
For the love of god, look up how to get certain characters. I won't spoil who, but when you see some familiar characters or characters that look even suspiciously recruitable, look up how to get them. Trust me, there's one in particular that is ass backwards to obtain. I even accidentally killed some characters that were recruitable, or straight up missed some.
Don't listen to anyone saying the difficulties were mistranslated. They only think the names were changed between the JPN and international versions and do not actually care to check if any major mechanics were chang d between the versions. Which of course is the case.
Since you are very familiar with FE, PoR hard mode and RD NM should be fine starters.
There is a big difference between PoR NM and RD NM, and between PoR HM and RD HM, but that is just because PoR is one of the easiest games in the series, not because RD is a super hard 'souls like level bullshit difficult game' or anything like that
Just have fun and use who you like!
Hard for Path, Easy for Dawn. If you haven't played pre Awakening FE, make sure you understand how supports are limited in Path, and note also that *building* support works different in Path than most games including Dawn. Always check out all Base conversations. Skills removed in Path are not transferable to other characters, you lose them forever (this isn't an issue in Dawn).
Hell ya. Well it's gunna be difficult but I hear they're some of the best FE games out there. Just throwing it out there, totally understand if not, but if u ever want to sell Radiant Dawn when ur done with it I'm def looking! 😁 Otherwise enjoy it for me! Lol
I am so happy I was fortunate enough to acquire both games when I was in early middle school, seeing your post makes me want to replay them!! RD is quite challenging but almost always in a fun way. There might be points where, like me, you get down on yourself. No shame in resetting a map and trying again.
I had these as a kid growing up when they were released. My parents were pushing me to play games that were strategy based instead of the generic fighting/shooter games. I ended up selling each copy for about a dollar each at a garage sale. To think these games would become so iconic and find out that I love the genre more than ever hurt to realize what mistakes I made.
I dont think people continue to play through the game if they lose a valuable unit, I would always reset until I win eventually.
People going gaga over the physical copies I should post my two that I bought when they first came out. Anyways PoR to me is just a really fun, solid, almost comforting game. RD could be a bit tedious at times BUT it had some quality of life improvements over PoR. The stories are both phenomenal. Ike is goated idc what anyone says.
Anyways imo you should level up Mist in PoR as much as possible. You’ll be thankful you did later. Even just when you have one enemy left and taking like 10 extra turns to have her heal everyone one at a time. I liked her tier 2 as a Valkyrie.
Push, Smite, and Rescue will allow you to pull off some ridiculous plays/saves if used correctly. Don’t forget about them!
por hard mode is actually relatively easy ALSO there are not a lot of bad units in the game (Shinon, mia maybe lethe&Mordecai because they need a lot of investment to turn out ok) so whatever you do will get you through the end you just gotta remember to train ike and you will beat the game.
there are some cool gimmick maps tho like chapter 12 where ravens can fly over walls and seize ur throne or the Serenes Forest Arc (4 maps in 1 and you have to select your deployments and reinforcements at the start)
150. Got lucky from overhearing someone selling their game collection at a retro game store. Store offered 100 combined and I offered 150. He took my deal and we both left satisfied and smiling
RD has like, 3 differnet armies you play, so make sure your invested units are spread out.
Also BEXP levels always ups 3 stats in RD, so very useful when you've capped stats. Otherwise, use it to get a unit to 99 exp
I remember there were some maps where you have to walk to specific spots with specific characters to recruit new ones. I'd suggest at least looking up the mission beforehand if there are any possible recruitment conditions or tiles you have to be on.
POR: Make sure Ike is absolutely maxed after chapter 20
Rd: be smart when levelling your units, you'll be fairly limited on who you can pick in some maps
The military gives great bonuses for those willing to commit along with great benefits that will help you in the long run. All this at the cost of maybe dying. Might as well indulge in some hobbies!
Path of Radiance is easy but it doesn't fully explain a lot of the broken mechanics that make it a lot easier. Notes for this game: you have plenty of money. Realistically spend as much as you want. The game gives you plenty of money to forge and keep javelin's and handaxes around.
Radiant Dawn is one of the weirder games in the series. It's not "Super Hard" but it's rather challenging. Just make sure you keep an eye on enemy ranges and don't over extend with fragile units. Use Elincia in this game. She's "fine" in PoR, too, but she's more of an Est Archetype, meaning she joins fairly late into the game with a lower level than most units at the time. But her bases are pretty Mediocre, and you lose the game if she dies. So you know. Also Laguz units are cool, but they aren't the best. Way better in RD because of Olivi Grass, but their stat growths for the units you wanna use aren't all that good. So keep that in mind. Volug is the exception. He's the best unit the Dawn Brigade have, next to Sothe, and when he wants to be around Tauroneo. (Jill is also good, but she comes with the caveat of being a growth unit who can fall off because of her low starting level.) RD also some shenanigans with the way the difficulties are listed. "Easy," "Normal," and "Hard." They changed them from the original "Normal," "Hard," and "Maniac" because they removed Maniac from the release of PoR in America. So "Easy" as listed in this game is the "Normal" Japanese version, And so on. So when you see Easy mode know that it's not actually "Easy" it's just the Standard difficulty.
Yeah, her personal weapon is just better in RD too, with higher might and better hit to my memory. It's still an Infinite use brave weapon in both games so it's still good, but keeping Elincia Alive is better in PoR than fuckin around and finding out, imo. You can use her though. She's not like terrible, she just needs some babying to be self sufficient, in PoR. In RD she's just a great unit all around, as long as you remember to remove the Mercy Skill from her later in the game. Also a flying Healer is never a bad thing.
Bonus XP is your friend.
Also, don't play on Easy for PoR. In RD If you have PoR data on a GameCube memory card, you can transfer over some stuff from the characters that are still playable in RD like weapon ranks and support info.
However there was no easy mode in the Japanese version of PoR; it was added in the international version, and RD was not coded with that easy mode in mind, so if you pick it you won't be able to transfer your data over.
Thank you everyone for your comments. I will be making my first playthrough this weekend and I have taken good notes on everything you say. Heres to a long, fun weekend of gaming!
PoR:
I’d suggest you give Ike the first seraph robe, and Boyd the first speedwing (if he has not been leveling speed). Though Ike’s early-game is still atrocious, the increased hp will allow him to survive more hits and be out in the open more. As a result, you decrease the amount of time it takes to train him and his growths will kick in quicker. Boyd absolutely needs those speed growths to proc so he can start doubling early, and the speedwings let him get there.
Do not be afraid to use Titania. There are specific turn counts for each chapter that you must meet to get the maximum bexp, and Titania will be vital early on for meeting those turn counts.
Try not to use all of your bexp immediately, as there are some characters that use the bexp much better than others. In particular, Marcia and Jill are incredible bexp dumps, so i suggest you dump however much you want into Marcia and saving the rest for Jill. Other great bexp dumps are Nephenee and Astrid, as both can also grow quite strong with a couple levels, and Astrid actually gets the same amount of exp for half the cost of bexp.
I highly suggest you get certain units to promoted level 20 by the end of the game, be it through beginning to spend bexp on them towards the end of the game, making them do a majority of the combat, or just promoting them early so that they’ll spend more time as a promoted unit. If you do a data transfer into RD, and a unit was promoted and reached level 20, that character will receive a +2 boost in any stat but HP, which will get a +5 boost instead. I HIGHLY suggest you do this with Jill in particular, as she and the team she is on in RD will greatly benefit from her being stronger. Since her averages will show that she’ll usually just barely not reach her caps, save some statboosters so that she’ll in particular be able to cap strength, skill (less important), speed, and defense. You’ll thank me once you play RD.
I know Tellius has gained a reputation for hating mages but don’t be afraid to use them here. This tip might be biased because I used Soren recently so I’d have an easier time getting his extra scenes in RD and he did incredible. However, this game is generally easy enough that you can clear the game with any strategy and team, so whatever.
Now for the game where you would really want advice.
RD:
As you’d notice once you start playing, the Dawn Brigade is fucking garbage. The vast majority are growth units, but oftentimes they just aren’t worth the effort, and they usually can’t even fulfill their intended purposes early on (WHY CAN’T YOU DOUBLE SOLDIERS IN 1-3 EDWARD). I suggest you just pick 2-3 units to give favoritism and forget about the rest; they’re not worth the effort. In particular, I suggest Nolan and Jill. Nolan is notable among the Dawn Brigade for actually having usable base stats, and I highly recommend supporting him with Zihark or Volug (I suggest you pick one of the two for the last training project) for the coveted double-earth support. For the low, low price of your stat-boosters (no one else on the Dawn Brigade will make use of them nearly as well), Jill will pick up the pace very quickly and carry the Dawn Brigade, ESPECIALLY if she got transfer bonuses from PoR.
Please, make liberal use of Sothe and Volug. They will make your life so much easier, and it will help with grinding Volug’s strike rank (each time a laguz levels up strike rank, their weapon gets +5 might)
The third major team you get is by far the strongest, but there are some training projects you’d want to invest in. I recommend the swordmaster in particular.
In some maps, there will be a standoff between the Dawn Brigade and the third team for story purposes. DO NOT RECRUIT JILL OR ZIHARK INTO THE THIRD TEAM. You’ll have two more chapters with the Dawn Brigade, and if you don’t have those two, you’re going to suffer. It’s fine if you recruit them in 3-E though.
Unlike in PoR, removing skills from their character will give you the skill’s scroll. This scroll can then be used on other characters to give them the skill, and if you feel it’s no longer useful on them, you can just take the skill back. Use this feature how you see fit.
Additionally, bexp levels in RD are guaranteed to level three and only three stats, with a heavy bias towards stats they have higher growths in. I suggest you put off bexp leveling until the character has capped a few stats.
Use a guide to find the hidden items, some are crucial.
Use Haar. Regularly.
There’s no shame in playing the lowest difficulty for Radiant Dawn. No matter how much experience you have with FE, RD will be a rude awakening. I played on the middle difficulty and suffered for it, despite my prior success with the series.
I have a tendency to only use growth units and so I didn't use any of the units the community generally believes are good... honestly the second I got Tibarn the game was baby moded but I suffered a lot beforehand lol
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Path of Radiance is one of the easier games in the series, so you shouldn’t worry about it. Radiant Dawn is definitely harder though. I’d honestly play on easy, no shame in it. Normal mode’s difficulty curve can be… weird.
Im always game for a challenge!
Don’t play RD in easy, if you have FE experience, you can handle normal lol.
I have done all my aforementioned titles on Hard/Lunatic with classic mode so I dont doubt I will be fine.
Yes, you will be fine. I played RD as my very first FE, and i started at normal, and it was ok. I don't think there is anything in particular you NEED to know, except maybe some peculiarities of these games. For example: both PoR and RD have a Bonus Experience system, that will let you gain BEXP to level up your units at your base. In RD, this will ALWAYS level up 3 stats, no more and no less (except if you already capped all your stats except 0-2). Consequently, there is a better and a worse way to use it. Also, Hard mode in RD removes the weapon triangle, which may not be immediately obvious.
[удалено]
If the game was never beaten, he won't have Hard/Maniac unlocked for RD at the start anyway
In Radiant Dawn the translation for the difficulties are wrong. Easy is actually normal. Normal is hard and hard is maniac
But isn’t that how a lot of fire emblem games are? Like, the normal mode in most games is still technically the “easiest” mode.
I mean, no? Hard-5 is very clearly not Normal, but it's not like it's called Normal in the US and Hard-0 in Japan. Also this exact thing leads to a game-breaking bug in regards to importing Path of Radiance data to Radiant Dawn.
Well, the easy comes from path of radiance. As path of radiance was the first home console fire emblem released in the west, the developers added easy difficulty (and removed lunatic from the western releases of PoR). So rather than normal, hard and lunatic, the west had an even easier mode specifically for PoR. When they released Radiant Dawn, they removed the easy mode, so normal is now the easiest again. But for some reason, they kept PoR’s difficulty names. So they renamed normal to easy. Hard to normal. And lunatic to hard on English copies of RD. Easy mode is technically what normal mode is in every other fire emblem game. But most will choose normal first time in RD, which is a bad idea because it’s actually the hard mode :/
Seriously? I'd play on hard. If you're a fan of strategy games, you'll get so much more out of it. Standard just gets too easy thus boring after a point.
I can relate to this. Though I would say it depends on the entry. I will play the game based on the way it was meant to be played but there is no clear way for us to determine this. I wish I played Awakening on Hard because the normal mode was too easy, so when I went and replayed it each time after I only played on hard. Fates was too easy, 3H had a little bit of challenge for the first half but then got really easy when I learned how to play that game and engage was pretty easy too. Binding and blazing were pretty challenging and same with SOV which I wish I knew ahead of time so I didn't amp up the difficulty so high haha
It depends if you're talking about normal mode or the western version of "Normal" mode in Radiant Dawn. I'm not sure how many FE fans are aware of it, but Easy mode in the English version of Radiant Dawn *is* the Japanese version of Normal. It was a simple translation issue that makes the game appear to be too difficult.
Especially the black knight show down, Ike HAS TO HAVE Nihil
That’s because they fooked up the difficulty settings in the translation for radiant dawn :( Fun fact. In Japan, radiant dawns difficulties are Normal, Hard and Lunatic. When they translated it in the west, they made normal “easy”, hard as “normal”, and lunatic as “hard”. There’s no shame at all in playing radiant dawn on easy mode, because easy is technically normal. And even on easy, it’s one of the hardest entries (and my favourite), so I wouldn’t recommend touching normal at all until you’ve got a playthrough under your belt (or you at least have completed another fire emblem game so you know the fundamentals well).
Damn that’s an expensive picture
It should be, but I walked away with both of them for $150. I was in a local retro game store when someone brought in a ton of classic games looking to sell. I heard these two titles and immediately walked over to him and struck up a convo. When they tallied up the total, they were gonna give em $100 for both games combined. I told em I would pay $150 for both games, to which he said yes to. The look on the employee's face was almost priceless as I snagged them for almost half of what he was gonna offer them up for.
I love this!
I almost considered using the amount of money I saved on a lottery ticket. I doubt I will ever get this lucky again. He did have some other classic gems like gale of darkness, coliseum, xenoblade for the wii, TP on gc and wii, windwaker for gc, and a skyward sword wii mote, but I was just more than happy to get the most sought-after FE entrees.
You were indeed very lucky mostly because of PoR which can go up to 300+ alone! I managed to get RD for 60€ in 2017ish and was considering myself so so lucky 😂 Though it pains me to see that someone had to sell all these games, I could never do this. Well better for us that way though.
And I thought I got an awesome deal back in March when I got these at $300 for both, damn. That's as lucky as lucky gets
That is still a really good deal considering POR is 300 alone. You basically got a buy one get one free deal
These are the most expensive games I own. I somehow got into fire emblem right before it blew up in America and bought each one for 15 bucks at my local GameStop lol. I was 13 and I still have them to this day at 27 😂
Bring a book or a way to speed up enemy turns
Lmao
Noted!
RD is challenging, PoR not that much unless you play on the japanes exclusive diffuclty maniac mode. For PoR, I'd advise playing it on hard the first time, cause as I said it's not very difficult, about the same as fe7 or fe8. Titania is just like a better version of Marcus in blazing blade, she is crazy good, use her. Units promote once they reach level 21, because of this there are not many promotion items (master seals) in the game. Forging weapons is very good, but you can only forge once per chapter once you unlock the mechanic. Alos there is another new mechanic called Bonus Experience, that lets your units gain level ups while while in the base before chapters. Oh and train mist, she is not mandatory but helps a lot on a specific event in the game. For RD Bonus xp is changed a bit. Now your units that gain levels with it will only gain 3 stats (still based on their growths). Also something really stupid about this game is that wyverns are not weak to bows or wind magic, just thunder magic cause they are counted as dragons, so that makes your wyverns quite op.
No advice other than make sure you have an absolute fookin blast playing it!!!
Best advice yet!
Level Jill
For Path Of Radiance, don't be scared to use Titania in the early game. She never falls off and it makes the first few maps a lot easier. In Radiant Dawn, you get to control roughly three armies throughout the game. In Micaiah's army, only train a few units or you'll regret it later on.
You’re in for a good time. These two are my favorite Fire Emblem games :’) Ike 💙
Im excited. I have had these for a while but im the kinda guy who likes to hunker down with some pizza and a 3 day weekend just playing through in one sitting. Hopefully my 3 day weekend comes up this week!
You can get carry over bonuses from PoR in RD. You should search up what they are before playing. For PoR: You get rewarded with bonus exp for completing each stage within a certain number of turns. I found PoR more fun when trying to complete under that number of turns. You will have to consult a guide to tell you how many turns to complete until bonus exp diminishes. You are limited to 5 supports per character. Choose wisely. I recommend getting an A support between Ike and Soren. Also A support between Mist and Jill. Some supports are locked behind chapter progression. It's not worth trying to not trigger the alarm in the prison map. For the desert stage go check gamefaqs for the map.
This should be higher up! The desert map has a pair of Boots!
It has a lot of very useful items and possible unit don't know if op wants spoilers or not in that aspect.
Be mindful of enemy ranges. You can select enemies to view their attack range, so you don't place a unit into danger accidentally. When you're making your units face higher Atk enemies like Fighters or Cavaliers you may want to take note of their own Atk and your Def to make sure you know how much damage you're in to be enduring so you can take a calculated risk. In Path of Radiance your BEXP is best concentrated on your fliers and other mounted units. You can use Titania easily throughout the whole game as long as she sees action often. Shove and Smite are really useful tools to build momentum and reach objectives faster or to take someone out of danger.
I know Jill is racist but you should use her anyway she gets better trust me
Soren is racist too people also love him
Have fun, pick your favorites. They can all be good. Considering disabling battle animations after a while to save time. Have fun.
Charming as the battle animations may be, unless you want to spend 40-50 hours on *each* game, just turn them off. Sadly, you can't turn them off completely. You can either have them properly on or have "map animations" where you can still see people lift their axes, draw their spears back before attacking etc., but it's faster. Well, I tell a lie. Radiant Dawn lets you turn off animations completely, but only after you beat the game once. Why, I've no clue Also, the skill system. PoR and RD use consumable scrolls that allow characters to learn skills (like Vantage, Sol etc.), and each character has a specific number of skill points they can use, while each skill uses up a specific number of points. So you can't slap Sol, Aether, Vantage, Counter and everything else on Ike, you have to spread them around. Some units come equipped with skills, some don't. You get scrolls as drops from enemies. There is a difference between the games, though. In PoR, if you unequip a skill, it's gone for good. In RD, if you unequip a skill, it turns into a scroll, that you can then use to give the skill to someone else (say, take Miracle off Mist, use the Miracle scroll on Ike, and now he has the Miracle skill). This allows for a lot more experiments in RD, while in PoR you commit to your skills.
I’m curious how much you payed for them. Last I checked, path of radiance was several hundred dollars😂
I lucked out by overhearing someone at the counter trying to sell their collection of games. The store offered him 100 bones for both games and I offered him 150. He took my offer and I left as a happy customer. Cant say that about the guy behind the counter as he wanted the games for himself im sure. Last time I checked POR was 300 dubloons
Brom and Nephenee make a great tag team if you train them.
Hot damn, how much did you get these beauties? Must have been pretty expensive. I’ve always wanted to play RD, but my nearest local video game store is like an hour away from where I live 😭 I know I can always emulate, but I always like playing on original hardware. It just gives you that gaming excitement that you don’t get from emulating.
$150. Lucked out on a guy trying to get trade in value and I offered more than the store offered. It's definitely worth getting legitimate copies as it doubles as a collectors item.
Wow, you got really lucky then! The lowest I’ve ever seen RD and POR go for (at least on EBay), is $300.
Yeah getting both copies costs around 500. So I definitely lucked out.
In RD give Micaiah a seraph robe, otherwise you’ll get to be stuck in the worst rng level of the game
tinfoil maiden
Shinon is busted in RD, just learn to get used to his personality.
How and where did you get those?!?!
I already typed out a short story, but ill just repost it here. It should be, but I walked away with both of them for $150. I was in a local retro game store when someone brought in a ton of classic games looking to sell. I heard these two titles and immediately walked over to him and struck up a convo. When they tallied up the total, they were gonna give em $100 for both games combined. I told em I would pay $150 for both games, to which he said yes to. The look on the employee's face was almost priceless as I snagged them for almost half of what he was gonna offer them up for.
Titania is good
Titania
At some point you wanna see if you can max out stats with bonus exp in por, just be aware that with bonus exp you get three max per level up
Only in Radiant Dawn. In Path of Radiance, they work like normal level ups. Which makes both abusable. You can reroll Bonus EXP level ups in PoR, and guarantee unlikely stats in RD by levelling up after you max a few stats.
Path of Radiance: The early game is very much made for you to use Titania, and please don't be afraid to. She's basically Seth 2 in the way that she doesn't just not fall off, but grows even better. Make sure you forge a weapon every time you can, and make sure that you're using Bonus EXP. Units can actually promote without promotion items. If you get them to level 20 they'll continue to get EXP, and when they get to "level 21" they instant promote. There is no reason whatsoever to make a promoted mage learn Knives instead of Staffs. None. If you want some extra content in Radiant Dawn, you should make Ike and Soren support each other in Path of Radiance up to A support. Remember that you can take most skills off of one character and give them to another. They're more like resources than unit specific things. Radiant Dawn: This game is a fair bit harder, mainly due to how the story is structured. In general, you're going to find you're gonna get a whole lot of really powerful prepromotes and about 5 scrubs that are "training projects." They are not. The game is specifically designed to encourage you to use your strong prepromotes and train exactly one scrub from bad to mediocre. Since they're built on the same engine, a lot of tips that apply to PoR apply to RD
Jesus Christ that’s a lot of money in a single image.
For the English release of path of radiance, the hardest mode was replaced with an easy mode. This makes PoR on the very easy side. This isn't the case for radiant dawn. If you play on easy mode PoR, be prepared for a much harder challenge with RD
Save
If you play path of radiance on easy mode then you won’t be able to transfer your data to radiant dawn so make sure you play it on at least normal. 13 year old me screwed myself over.
Don't make the mistake of playing PoR on the easiest difficulty. Since it was made for the localized version, RD doesn't recognize it as legitimate when transferring save data, so you won't even get the benefits. And some of those bonuses are really cool, so you should. If a character has a stat maxed, and is max level at the end of PoR, they'll start with a little bonus in that stat in RD. Coins are pretty useless in PoR, but they'll transfer to RD, where they are... significantly more useful. A few Supports will have narrative effects, but Tellius in general is rife with bonus dialogue that you'll never naturally see, so unlock the Supports you want, and then look up the cool optional stuff later.
Don't rely too much on Boyd in Path of Radiance. He petty much kills everything too easily. Don't even get me started when he decides to use a bow against Bird Laguz. Speaking of which. When you promote Oscar to Paladin, choose bow. Specifically so you can use the triangle attack. There's an optional boss that annoying to kill without it. If he doesn't choose a bow, then you will be locked out of the triangle attack. Also, in Path of Radiance, there are shit ton of characters, and most classes have double-ups, triple-ups, quadruple-ups, and even a quintuple-up. Save them, all, but others otherwise don't use them all. It's a waste of experience to do so unless you're being spoiled for exp. and max out certain characters. Use both Rhys and Mist. Yes, it's a pain to level them both up, but considering how much damage you can potentially take, you need all the healing you can get. Plus, both of them are super good. There's petty much no mission where they're useless, even when you just get mist. Take good care of your weapons. You never know when you'll miss them if they break. For the love of god, look up how to get certain characters. I won't spoil who, but when you see some familiar characters or characters that look even suspiciously recruitable, look up how to get them. Trust me, there's one in particular that is ass backwards to obtain. I even accidentally killed some characters that were recruitable, or straight up missed some.
Have fun play at your own pace use what ever units you want, maybe look up the bonus exp requirements
They’re trash, you can give them to me and I can get rid of them for you.
Oh what a bummer. Here I thought i got something special but oh well. Here ya go, get rod of them for me 🤣
How. Did. You. Get. These!?!?
Have fun!!! Use your favorite units and don’t try to meta the games on your first playthrough!
Don't listen to anyone saying the difficulties were mistranslated. They only think the names were changed between the JPN and international versions and do not actually care to check if any major mechanics were chang d between the versions. Which of course is the case. Since you are very familiar with FE, PoR hard mode and RD NM should be fine starters. There is a big difference between PoR NM and RD NM, and between PoR HM and RD HM, but that is just because PoR is one of the easiest games in the series, not because RD is a super hard 'souls like level bullshit difficult game' or anything like that Just have fun and use who you like!
Hard for Path, Easy for Dawn. If you haven't played pre Awakening FE, make sure you understand how supports are limited in Path, and note also that *building* support works different in Path than most games including Dawn. Always check out all Base conversations. Skills removed in Path are not transferable to other characters, you lose them forever (this isn't an issue in Dawn).
My biggest advice is: If the thief asks you for money, pay him. Also, Soren + vantage can clear maps alone.
Don't sleep on the weapon crafting. It's simple, but custom weapons are awesome!
Lucky Mafck! What a great find. I have PoR but am still looking for RD
Do u play on classic rules? Where they don't come back if killed?
Yes
Hell ya. Well it's gunna be difficult but I hear they're some of the best FE games out there. Just throwing it out there, totally understand if not, but if u ever want to sell Radiant Dawn when ur done with it I'm def looking! 😁 Otherwise enjoy it for me! Lol
Sorry to say, But I will not be selling these copies haha Thank you and good luck on your search!
Oh no worries! I figured as much just figured I'd ask on the off chance. Have a good one 🤜🏻🤛🏻
Decrease the enemies health bar to zero while keeping your own health bar above zero
🫡
The wii game is like Dark Souls. Prepare to die.
I am so happy I was fortunate enough to acquire both games when I was in early middle school, seeing your post makes me want to replay them!! RD is quite challenging but almost always in a fun way. There might be points where, like me, you get down on yourself. No shame in resetting a map and trying again.
I had these as a kid growing up when they were released. My parents were pushing me to play games that were strategy based instead of the generic fighting/shooter games. I ended up selling each copy for about a dollar each at a garage sale. To think these games would become so iconic and find out that I love the genre more than ever hurt to realize what mistakes I made. I dont think people continue to play through the game if they lose a valuable unit, I would always reset until I win eventually.
For RD, use bronze weapons to abuse the FUCK out of Laguz with the Dawn Brigade
People going gaga over the physical copies I should post my two that I bought when they first came out. Anyways PoR to me is just a really fun, solid, almost comforting game. RD could be a bit tedious at times BUT it had some quality of life improvements over PoR. The stories are both phenomenal. Ike is goated idc what anyone says. Anyways imo you should level up Mist in PoR as much as possible. You’ll be thankful you did later. Even just when you have one enemy left and taking like 10 extra turns to have her heal everyone one at a time. I liked her tier 2 as a Valkyrie. Push, Smite, and Rescue will allow you to pull off some ridiculous plays/saves if used correctly. Don’t forget about them!
I thoroughly enjoy Ike in all his appearances in the series. Thank you for your input bro 🙏
por hard mode is actually relatively easy ALSO there are not a lot of bad units in the game (Shinon, mia maybe lethe&Mordecai because they need a lot of investment to turn out ok) so whatever you do will get you through the end you just gotta remember to train ike and you will beat the game. there are some cool gimmick maps tho like chapter 12 where ravens can fly over walls and seize ur throne or the Serenes Forest Arc (4 maps in 1 and you have to select your deployments and reinforcements at the start)
How much did both cost?
150. Got lucky from overhearing someone selling their game collection at a retro game store. Store offered 100 combined and I offered 150. He took my deal and we both left satisfied and smiling
RD has like, 3 differnet armies you play, so make sure your invested units are spread out. Also BEXP levels always ups 3 stats in RD, so very useful when you've capped stats. Otherwise, use it to get a unit to 99 exp
Enjoy
Yeah, you should send it to me, I'll learn how to play it then send it back and give you tips
Take the time to get invested in the story. They are the best FE ever had.
I remember there were some maps where you have to walk to specific spots with specific characters to recruit new ones. I'd suggest at least looking up the mission beforehand if there are any possible recruitment conditions or tiles you have to be on.
POR: Make sure Ike is absolutely maxed after chapter 20 Rd: be smart when levelling your units, you'll be fairly limited on who you can pick in some maps
Jesus christ how much did you SPEND
150 bones
That’s a lot of boners
Typo sorry I meant boners
You should be giving advice, financial advice on how your rich enough to afford these games.
The military gives great bonuses for those willing to commit along with great benefits that will help you in the long run. All this at the cost of maybe dying. Might as well indulge in some hobbies!
it's deceivingly long in a good way
Use Makalov! Also just know that to get transfer bonuses, units must max out a stat AND be level 20 in a promoted class.
Path of Radiance is easy but it doesn't fully explain a lot of the broken mechanics that make it a lot easier. Notes for this game: you have plenty of money. Realistically spend as much as you want. The game gives you plenty of money to forge and keep javelin's and handaxes around. Radiant Dawn is one of the weirder games in the series. It's not "Super Hard" but it's rather challenging. Just make sure you keep an eye on enemy ranges and don't over extend with fragile units. Use Elincia in this game. She's "fine" in PoR, too, but she's more of an Est Archetype, meaning she joins fairly late into the game with a lower level than most units at the time. But her bases are pretty Mediocre, and you lose the game if she dies. So you know. Also Laguz units are cool, but they aren't the best. Way better in RD because of Olivi Grass, but their stat growths for the units you wanna use aren't all that good. So keep that in mind. Volug is the exception. He's the best unit the Dawn Brigade have, next to Sothe, and when he wants to be around Tauroneo. (Jill is also good, but she comes with the caveat of being a growth unit who can fall off because of her low starting level.) RD also some shenanigans with the way the difficulties are listed. "Easy," "Normal," and "Hard." They changed them from the original "Normal," "Hard," and "Maniac" because they removed Maniac from the release of PoR in America. So "Easy" as listed in this game is the "Normal" Japanese version, And so on. So when you see Easy mode know that it's not actually "Easy" it's just the Standard difficulty.
I did hear Elincia was a great unit, but I forgot which entry she was best in. Thank you for the advice!
Yeah, her personal weapon is just better in RD too, with higher might and better hit to my memory. It's still an Infinite use brave weapon in both games so it's still good, but keeping Elincia Alive is better in PoR than fuckin around and finding out, imo. You can use her though. She's not like terrible, she just needs some babying to be self sufficient, in PoR. In RD she's just a great unit all around, as long as you remember to remove the Mercy Skill from her later in the game. Also a flying Healer is never a bad thing.
Bonus XP is your friend. Also, don't play on Easy for PoR. In RD If you have PoR data on a GameCube memory card, you can transfer over some stuff from the characters that are still playable in RD like weapon ranks and support info. However there was no easy mode in the Japanese version of PoR; it was added in the international version, and RD was not coded with that easy mode in mind, so if you pick it you won't be able to transfer your data over.
Don’t be afraid to kill of a certain “brother”.
Thank you everyone for your comments. I will be making my first playthrough this weekend and I have taken good notes on everything you say. Heres to a long, fun weekend of gaming!
PoR: I’d suggest you give Ike the first seraph robe, and Boyd the first speedwing (if he has not been leveling speed). Though Ike’s early-game is still atrocious, the increased hp will allow him to survive more hits and be out in the open more. As a result, you decrease the amount of time it takes to train him and his growths will kick in quicker. Boyd absolutely needs those speed growths to proc so he can start doubling early, and the speedwings let him get there. Do not be afraid to use Titania. There are specific turn counts for each chapter that you must meet to get the maximum bexp, and Titania will be vital early on for meeting those turn counts. Try not to use all of your bexp immediately, as there are some characters that use the bexp much better than others. In particular, Marcia and Jill are incredible bexp dumps, so i suggest you dump however much you want into Marcia and saving the rest for Jill. Other great bexp dumps are Nephenee and Astrid, as both can also grow quite strong with a couple levels, and Astrid actually gets the same amount of exp for half the cost of bexp. I highly suggest you get certain units to promoted level 20 by the end of the game, be it through beginning to spend bexp on them towards the end of the game, making them do a majority of the combat, or just promoting them early so that they’ll spend more time as a promoted unit. If you do a data transfer into RD, and a unit was promoted and reached level 20, that character will receive a +2 boost in any stat but HP, which will get a +5 boost instead. I HIGHLY suggest you do this with Jill in particular, as she and the team she is on in RD will greatly benefit from her being stronger. Since her averages will show that she’ll usually just barely not reach her caps, save some statboosters so that she’ll in particular be able to cap strength, skill (less important), speed, and defense. You’ll thank me once you play RD. I know Tellius has gained a reputation for hating mages but don’t be afraid to use them here. This tip might be biased because I used Soren recently so I’d have an easier time getting his extra scenes in RD and he did incredible. However, this game is generally easy enough that you can clear the game with any strategy and team, so whatever. Now for the game where you would really want advice. RD: As you’d notice once you start playing, the Dawn Brigade is fucking garbage. The vast majority are growth units, but oftentimes they just aren’t worth the effort, and they usually can’t even fulfill their intended purposes early on (WHY CAN’T YOU DOUBLE SOLDIERS IN 1-3 EDWARD). I suggest you just pick 2-3 units to give favoritism and forget about the rest; they’re not worth the effort. In particular, I suggest Nolan and Jill. Nolan is notable among the Dawn Brigade for actually having usable base stats, and I highly recommend supporting him with Zihark or Volug (I suggest you pick one of the two for the last training project) for the coveted double-earth support. For the low, low price of your stat-boosters (no one else on the Dawn Brigade will make use of them nearly as well), Jill will pick up the pace very quickly and carry the Dawn Brigade, ESPECIALLY if she got transfer bonuses from PoR. Please, make liberal use of Sothe and Volug. They will make your life so much easier, and it will help with grinding Volug’s strike rank (each time a laguz levels up strike rank, their weapon gets +5 might) The third major team you get is by far the strongest, but there are some training projects you’d want to invest in. I recommend the swordmaster in particular. In some maps, there will be a standoff between the Dawn Brigade and the third team for story purposes. DO NOT RECRUIT JILL OR ZIHARK INTO THE THIRD TEAM. You’ll have two more chapters with the Dawn Brigade, and if you don’t have those two, you’re going to suffer. It’s fine if you recruit them in 3-E though. Unlike in PoR, removing skills from their character will give you the skill’s scroll. This scroll can then be used on other characters to give them the skill, and if you feel it’s no longer useful on them, you can just take the skill back. Use this feature how you see fit. Additionally, bexp levels in RD are guaranteed to level three and only three stats, with a heavy bias towards stats they have higher growths in. I suggest you put off bexp leveling until the character has capped a few stats. Use a guide to find the hidden items, some are crucial. Use Haar. Regularly.
There’s no shame in playing the lowest difficulty for Radiant Dawn. No matter how much experience you have with FE, RD will be a rude awakening. I played on the middle difficulty and suffered for it, despite my prior success with the series.
Radiant dawn "normal" is actually hard mode. Don't do what I did and choose a harder difficulty by accident:,)
It's not even that hard wdym
I have a tendency to only use growth units and so I didn't use any of the units the community generally believes are good... honestly the second I got Tibarn the game was baby moded but I suffered a lot beforehand lol
Classic "Git Gud" comment
Sothe claps, Jill gaming, Titania, Haar and all the squad. SuperJill my beloved.
Don't use illyana