Attract cutscene here. (I recommend watching it from this link rather than looking it up yourself).
Welcome to Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. I highly recommend at least knowing the plot of Path of Radiance, if not having read my blog thoughts on that game, first- just as Path of Radiance is very clearly setting up for a sequel, Radiant Dawn is mostly (but not entirely) banking on you being familiar with Path of Radiance, because we're going to spend a minimal amount of time re-establishing the setting. I do know a person who played Radiant Dawn first and got by.
My reasons for doing this playthrough are largely the same as Path of Radiance, and this playthrough will also be using the All Girls condition. In Path of Radiance, I had a secondary playthrough that played conventionally to show off some scenarios that couldn't be done under All Girls. I do not feel adequately prepared to do the same for Radiant Dawn. My apologies to the Soren fans, but I'll still be bringing up the content- I'll just have to do some more text-based forms.
To start off with, since this setup recognises my Gamecube save data and that there are Path of Radiance save files on it, it asks if I would like to conduct Transfer Data. The answer to that question is yes.
You get shown this screen of all your save files and asked to choose which one. This one is the Path of Radiance playthrough I did for the blog. The one underneath it is the Hard Mode file, and since I started and finished it later, it has the later Clear number. Not sure why both of the top files are number 18, though. I will be going over precisely what Transfer Data does when I recruit my first affected character (Ilyana, if you're curious) and have a visual example.
In early copies of the North American version of Radiant Dawn, the existence of PoR save data that has been completed in the localisation-exclusive difficulty "Easy" will crash the game on attempting to load this screen. This glitch was fixed in the European version and later North American versions, of which this is the former.
We will be playing in the game's Easy difficulty setting this time. Unlike in Path of Radiance, these difficulties are the same gameplay as the Japanese Normal/Hard/Maniac, just with the names changed. This one translation choice may have done a lot of damage to the Fire Emblem brand from now until Awakening because of how hard it is to recommend this new game on the Wii by word of mouth.
Because most people may have decided to start on Hard Mode. Nowadays, the Fire Emblem community actively encourages people to start on Hard Modes if the option is available (and if it's FE7, to find a save file with Hard Mode already unlocked and use that).
I have never actually beaten Normal on the European copy? Huh. Not that I ever have the intention of playing Radiant Dawn on this "Hard" difficulty. I can barely handle the "Normal" one!
This is the first Fire Emblem that divides its (main) story into distinct Parts. There are four of them in the game, and they have a Prologue, some number of Chapters (restarting the numbering each time), and an Endgame apiece. A good way to think about them is that each depicts a different war.
Time for our opening chapter.
And an opening cutscene. As alluded to in Path of Radiance's ending, these are less showcases that "hey, Fire Emblem has cutscenes now!" and include actual plot, so I have to talk about them.
These red-clad soldiers are running around searching a ruin for... someone.
Not they seem to feel they're having much luck.
Turns out there's someone here. Why and how this happened is another matter.
Yes, silver-haired maiden, tell your bird not to draw attention to your location.
The bird did, in fact, cry.
The girl releases her bird and it flies off.
Not that it stops these guys from investigating her position.
Upon someone asking them if they had luck, these two decide to believe it was a bird and back off.
What a relief it must be for her.
Denied. I think this guy has the same face as the soldier on the left in front of the wall, so maybe it is the same guy having gone around the wall, rather than just referring to "we" as the battalion he is a member of.
In a world where people can have different ranges of hair colours, it can be difficult to identify what a significant hair colour is. In the world of Tellius, silver hair is apparently something to keep a note of. I think Zihark's hair can be described as silver, though.
So our silver-haired maiden is a fortune teller and a member of the Dawn Brigade. This is the important part of what you need to know about our heroine for the first few chapters.
I do not feel comfortable with where this is going. They also... don't really do anything to assauge these fears later?
The soldier spends a good ten seconds working on tying her up before Yune stages a daring rescue.
That being attracting this guy's attention. As soon as he brings the knife to the soldier's throat, the girl can drop to the ground to pick up her dropped book completely unencumbered. So much for "Bind her".
This fellow starts beating the crap out of the soldiers. This is entirely within his capacities as a gameplay unit, but of course, since he's a man, we'll be trying to keep this to a minimum.
Don't worry, if you're going to use him, his fighting style contains more than its fair share of dramatic flips. Less slowmode, though.
Enemy reinforcements!
Our heroine is a Light Mage, and casts a spell to blind everybody. Aside from allowing her to contribute to this cutscene in an active way, it also means all players will get to be able to use Light magic in this game, after it's poor showing in Path of Radiance.
(The incantation she uses is apparently Ancient Language in the Japanese version, but is of no language in particular, real or fake, in this one.)
Oh good, a name! Micaiah will be our Lord for Part 1, and oh boy what a Lord she makes. Problems with her aside, she is a female Lord, which means that we don't have to worry about having to force deploy a character we can't use. For the most part.
And our heroes escape from this perilous situation they found themselves in.
Welcome to Nevassa, the city part of it. Or at least the slums.
Here we meet Micaiah again, as well as Dawn Brigadier Edward. They're waiting for somebody, but he seems to be running late.
Edward makes this suggestion of Micaiah.
"That's not how the Force Farsight works!" Shame about that second clause.
Edward is genuinely concerned about his friend.
Well, that might've delayed him.
Aren't there supposed to be, like, police for this crap?
Well, if they actually cared about doing their jobs, then maybe. Doesn't look like that's even in their job descriptions.
The Dawn Brigade, of course, is a threat to their power. Bandits make it easier to subjugate.
We can also handle bandits for the people of Daein!
Do we have cards? Action figures? Not in universe (even if they existed at all, Daein doesn't have the resources to make them), but of course we do. And one of us has an action figure.
Hey, Nolan is an adult! ...Not helping my case.
At least we are actually fighters.
We'll learn the reason for this assertion, but I do notice that "women" fits neither category.
"Don't hurt the bird!"
Hahaha no. But that's been a lot of exposition for this opening so far. JP Radiant Dawn, somewhat famously, has two separate scripts, one set to play on Normal Mode, and one set to play on Hard Mode- the latter dramatically smoothing over the exposition of the early game and including more interesting tidbits. The ENG translation only has one script, and while it does have its own inclusions, both original and from the longer script, many of those interesting tidbits got lost in translation. I do have access to the raw Japanese script, with thanks to the good people of Pegasus Knight (how fitting), and I will endeavour to show off as many of the interesting tidbits as my "not actually fluent in Japanese" self can spot. I'll show the exposition of the English script properly, since I do need to introduce the ideas within it, although some of these tactical notes in the prologue only appear in the lowest difficulty and kinda don't apply to me right now.
While Edward's explanation is indeed describing "the safest strategy", it is not describing the one I'll be using.
And the battle begins! One thing you won't notice right away (especially since I was unable to find a way to include the audio), but is undoubtedly a feature of the games nonetheless, is the "Phase jingles". At the beginning of every Phase, when the game is announcing "Player Phase" and "Enemy Phase", there will be a short jingle to accompany it. Path of Radiance had multiple jingles as the game progressed, but Radiant Dawn went one step further and made it so every faction had its own jingle- so the Bandits will have a different jingle to the Occupation Army.
Wow, this screen looks uglier. Also it has that Play Time up in the corner to make me anxious, especially since it counts seconds. Our goal today is to rout.
So let's have a look at how Micaiah's stats work and how they differ from what Path of Radiance has gotten us used to. Our HP is up by the level and slightly hard to see, but the rest of our stats now have helpful guides to tell you how close to your caps you are- caps are more important in Radiant Dawn than in Path of Radiance, and considering the whole Transfer Data thing, that's saying something.
On the right, we can see that inventory has been combined into a single whole again. Characters can hold seven things of any type, rather than Path of Radiance's "four weapons, four items".
Over here we get Con and Move (I think Move should've stayed over with the other important stats in the top right), Affinity, Race (which has like no reason to be listed and often involves lies), the person being Rescued, and any status conditions. On the right are the weapon ranks, also with bars indicating how close you are to the next one. Knife, Strike and Dark are new, and also Light has once again been separated from Staves.
Skills are on a third page over here with Supports. Shove has been turned into a Skill that costs 5 Capacity, for some reason. Sacrifice is a Skill unique to Micaiah, and allows her to sacrifice her own HP in order to heal an ally- and you can only sacrifice "as much as possible", no option for a weaker boost. Casting Sacrifice also cures the target of any status conditions, free of charge.
A fourth screen! Biorhythm has evacuated here, and "Affiliation", "Authority" and "Commander" all relate to a new feature of Radiant Dawn (well, a returning feature from the Jugdral games): Authority Stars. Micaiah has none, and will never get some, which is strange to me, but we'll go into more detail once we find someone who has them. All units in our army have the Affiliation "Dawn Brigade" and the Commander "Micaiah" in this mission.
Bonds are the secret Supports from Path of Radiance, but now listed. There's only the one kind in this game, that being a bonus to Crit and Dodge. Some Bonds give +10% and some give +5%- Micaiah actually has a 10% bond with Sothe, but it doesn't seem to be listed yet.
This is what happens if Micaiah engages this bandit in melee. Unfortunately, she three-hits them and doesn't double. Also takes more than half her HP in return.
Well, they're bandits, they're contractually obligated to see Micaiah as loot.
[O light, gather. Open my path...]
If you have to ask, it's an insult.
Edward stands in the space to Micaiah's right, where the bandit is unable to attack him, and hands over his Vulnerary. Herbs heal 10 HP a use, Vulneraries heal 20. They also have a lot more uses each now.
Path of Radiance was the only game in the series to not include damage calculations in the combat animations. Radiant Dawn put them back in their rightful place.
Scratched by this bandit, Micaiah takes a step forward to finish him off. That 7 HP is actually going to stick around for a while.
Micaiah will say this when she first kills a bandit, regardless of who it is. Similar story with the other dialogue.
Leonardo has arrived! Usually, Micaiah and Edward are so much further into the battlefield that Leonardo is unable to contribute, but the whole "don't use Edward" thing has brought Leonardo in next to Micaiah. Won't be using this guy either.
This is the only time this joke gets made in the game, but you can't tell me that the Dawn Brigade doesn't use that line every chance they get.
...Anyone want to tell him we're doing it without Edward?
Even in normal playthroughs, many experienced players might be inclined to not use Leonardo. He's one of the Dawn Brigade's worse units, and the Dawn Brigade needs all the EXP it can get, especially outside Easy.
I have used Leonardo in the past on two occasions, and somehow both times ended with him falling behind his already poor averages in Speed.
Micaiah presses on, taking advantage of the fact there are no enemies in range of her here to take a potshot instead of healing.
And she gets her first level up. Levelling up is more or less the same (although Fixed Mode is gone), but empty levels are- almost- a thing of the past. Any combat level up must give you one stat at minimum- assuming you haven't capped every single stat already. The formula in the GBA and PoR games, with an admitted "not thoroughly understood" disclaimer, tries to avoid empties, but if you have a capped stat, the game will give you an empty because it tried to give you that capped stat.
Micaiah is very interested in her Speed stat. She also usually gains Magic, Luck and Resistance, just, like, every time. HP and Def might interest us, too, because of the whole "no defensive line" thing.
Leonardo hands over his things too. A Dracoshield, I'm going to leave that until Endgame again, aren't I?
Micaiah's extra point in Speed has allowed her to start doubling things!
I commit to this move, accepting I'll have to play with this other guy. Who, you know, has a ~70% chance of just killing Micaiah on the spot right now.
Micaiah is not hit.
Finishing him off gets us HP/Def instead of Speed. Both would be preferable, but can't have everything.
Only the boss remains.
This is Pugo. If he actually used his Vulnerary, he might actually be concerning.
The Vulnerary outheals us. We only have so many Light casts.
Pugo, believing the Dawn Brigade to be a rival group of thieves, declares himself insulted by their lack of actually being thieves.
Micaiah, undaunted, starts preaching to him.
What makes you believe that'll be an honest penny?
...Come on, dude, at least come over to take a swing at Micaiah.
The map is over.
Speed and Defence, without the HP. Also Strength instead of Magic? Well, I guess she's thinking about future tomes. Her starting Strength is sufficient to wield Light without penalty.
You failed to fight off a little girl.
Any army that can be defeated with solely an untrained Micaiah cannot call itself an army.
Micaiah calls Yune back. This seems like a lot of work for the animators for the sake of a bird.
All in a day's work.
Uh... your jobs?
Show of hands, who reckons they actually saw the banditry going down and actively chose not to intervene?
Micaiah takes a chance, while they are being yelled at by Begnions, to say goodbye to these two.
Oh hey, it's Nico! Unlike Sophie from PoR, Nico is supposed to be a recognisable, if generic, character, and will be referred to as such by the game's interface when we encounter him next.
We run into an alleyway, and the Begnions continue to ask us to stop.
たった今だ。
本日より、首都ネヴァサは
このジェルド隊の管轄となった。
俺は前任の将軍ほど甘くはないぞ。
心して働くのだな。
Apparently, according to the Extended script, Jarod is a new replacement for a previous commander.
Radiant Dawn has a lot more snappy one-line jokes/humourous lines like this one scattered about in the dialogue. Say what you will about the writing and/or translation when it comes to some later plot points, anything that includes quotes like this gets a solid thumbs up from me.
And now the Begnion soldier exposits about the Dawn Brigade to his commanding officer. Jarod must be a recent transfer to the Daein area, because otherwise this is asinine.
So Micaiah is Robin Hood and the Dawn Brigade are her Merry Men? Of course, Nolan is officially the leader.
Fortune teller and the ability to heal with just her hands. Micaiah's really the full package!
Jarod would like to know why the Dawn Brigade has not been properly subjugated.
What that opening cutscene was was neither cunning nor cautious. You just suck.
Jarod is only saying this line to take the rug out from under the grunt. If he was being honest about this thought, he definitely would have chosen a different turn of phrase.
Jarod has barely been here five minutes and is already sick of this guy.
And stabs him. Someone take down the sign that says "3 Years Since Last Mad King".
"And do it competently this time."
Faceless Begnion soldiers can occasionally be differentiated by moustache.
This is Alder, of no relation to the character from Pokemon (Pokemon Black and White would not be released for another three years after this game). He's Jarod's sidekick, and doesn't get much to say. Jarod, on the other hand, will be a villain to keep an eye on.
So you're already bored of this town? Maybe one dusty old hovel is the same as another to him.
This is the full BEXP total. I have no idea how I did it.
Next time: The more Begnion tightens its grip, the more Daein slips through its fingers.
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