Why PoR is better than RD

[Uscari]

So I've beaten Path of Radiance on every difficulty including Maniac Mode, and I've now beaten Radiant Dawn now on all 3 difficulties. After extensive play of both games, I have come to the conclusion that Path of Radiance is superior.

I want to clarify that I really like Radiant Dawn and think it's a solid game. It has a lot of features that I appreciate and it did made several notable improvements over Path of Radiance.

I also want to point out that as of today, PoR and RD are the only FE games I have played up to this point. So for me this topic is essentially a list of reasons why Path of Radiance in my opinion is better. I will likely make another topic highlighting the things I thought RD did better than PoR, but this is purely for what PoR does better than RD, and I think the downsides outweigh the improvements.

 

1. No Fixed Mode

Why get rid of this feature? It was one of my favorite things about PoR and it's so great having access to a playthrough where units perform consistent with their averages. It helps contextualize the game design and critically it eliminated the risk of getting stat screwed with bad random levels. Admittedly RD patches the 2nd part up with BEXP mechanics and 3rd tier promotions but those come with their own problems I'll point out later.

 

2. Supports

Once again PoR had an amazing way to do supports and RD just ruined it for no apparent reason. PoR built supports based on how many maps two units would be deployed on, rather than an arbitrary point system that incentivizes tedious grinding which disrupts the gameplay, which RD for some reason adopted. In addition, PoR had personalized, well written, and entertaining support conversations specific to the characters we got acquainted with. RD pretty much tore apart that system in favor of boring generic support conversations, and for some reason thought it made sense to add an obnoxious converse button to your action menu in battle, which more often than not only ends up screwing over the player who only wanted to check a battle forecast but instead was forced to commit to a move they weren't sure about. I don't even like how the support affinities round up instead of down, because once again it just dilutes the nuance of pairing various affinities together. Also did Earth really need to give 7.5 avoid? Who looked at PoR and thought 5 needed a buff to 7.5? It was already very strong.

 

3. Story

I understand that RD was trying to be ambitious, but the conflict throughout the game felt contrived and random. The motivations of the characters weren't fleshed out sufficiently, and silly resolutions were made to various plot elements. The Blood Pact is rightfully criticized in my opinion for sacrificing any notion of logic or continuity in the name of tying up loose ends. The Black Knight's character was also ruined when it was revealed that he killed a man in cold blood just because he wanted to beat his master. There are various other issues but the point is that Path of Radiance executed its' story so much better. While it was more generic/conventional, the villain was a lot more compelling, the main character was much better developed, and there was just less nonsense. 

 

4. Availability 

A lot of people criticize RD for the availability of units, and I agree with this. Although I actually like how RD structured the game in a unique way with multiple groups and parts, I think they went too far with it and should have given more time for the player to be able to choose among all their units. Parts 1-3 should have had more similar lengths rather than Part 3 dragging on forever and Part 2 being so short. Even if the parts stayed the same, we shouldn't have units that are only available for like 4 chapters out of 43. I like to see what all units are capable of by the endgame and RD makes it so that some units are virtually impossible to train for the end without insane levels of favoritism/babying. PoR has its fair share of units that require this too but the structure of the game lends itself much better to having all units being trainable, and many of them being available for the bulk of the game.

 

5. Balance

RD is cracked when it comes to balance. In Part 1 you have a bunch of really weak units that are up against lots of enemies that are over leveled. In Part 2 it's almost a playable cutscene with the amount of strong promoted units you get, particularly Harr who practically solo's this game up until the Tower. In Part 3 it's mostly like Part 2 except there are 3 chapters where your weak units from Part 1 are at an even greater disadvantage. In Part 4 everything that happened before can pretty much get thrown out the window because you get Laguz Royals that hard carry the rest of the game. In the endgame you can bring no less than 4 of these god-tier units to trivialize the end. Not only do they overshadow your beorc units, but they pretty much invalidate any reason to train laguz that aren't them since they are stronger and never have to worry about transformation gauge.

PoR meanwhile is a far more consistent experience, even in Maniac Mode where it gets pretty nuts. Your enemies scale with the level of your units much more consistently and generally your recruits aren't too underleveled or overleveled. You don't generally have to worry about recruiting units that deal litterally deal 0 damage at base, get doubled, and can't hit anything the way you do in RD. You only pick 1 laguz royal at the very end, almost purely to help you finish off the boss, rather than carry the entire endgame.

 

6. Game Over Conditions

RD loves to throw stupid gameover conditions at the player, particularly it loves to give you a gameover if a special green unit dies, even in some cases under circumstances you have virtually no control over. I can understand how in some cases this can encourage a player to be more aggressive/creative, but in this game it generally just results in losing the map due to random nonsense like a green unit committing suicide by running into danger unequipped.

PoR meanwhile keeps the control in the hands of the player, and doesn't have any gameover conditions based on the death of a green unit.

 

7. Hardest Difficulty

RD Hard Mode for some bizarre reason thinks that difficulty comes from removing the weapon triangle and getting rid of the enemy movement overlay on the map. Why on earth would they do this? That doesn't even make it harder, it just makes it more tedious/annoying. The weapon triangle is a core feature of the game and removing that just once again like a lot of other things dilutes the complexity of the strategy. It continues to make the units less and less distinguishable from one another, which ties into a later complaint.

PoR admittedly has its' hardest difficulty locked behind the japanese version, which sucks, and I'll admit Maniac Mode is not perfect, but it's better than RD Hard Mode. PoR Maniac Mode is more difficult than RD Hard Mode because the endgame is honestly a lot tougher and you don't have so many busted prepromotes that start with stellar bases and clear maps by themselves with no investment. Maniac Mode requires training lots of growth units and investing resources efficiently so that you have a team strong enough to clear the final chapters. It also thankfully keeps the enemy range overlay and weapon triangle.

 

8. Skills

PoR had skills which were unique to the units they came with, and removing those skills caused them to be removed forever. I prefer this over RD's system of being able to swap in and out skills for everyone, because it again encourages you to find unique use cases for unconventional units or units that require a lot of investment. RD has a pattern of punishing the player for trying to invest in any unit that isn't good from the very start.

Also they butchered the mastery skills by making them all basically the same 3-5x damage with 1/2 skill proc rate. It's so boring. PoR didn't have perfect skills but there was at least a little variety compared to RD skills which are basically random 1-hit KO events.

 

9.  Biorhythm

This was my least favorite part of PoR and RD doubles down on it. Now biorhythm has an even bigger impact on hit/avoid rates and is much more frequently changing. I don't like this element of randomness to my gameplay and I think the mechanic has no place in the game. I shouldn't be expected to withdraw certain units because conditions totally outside of my control arbitrarily took them out of commission. Thankfully in this game the 3rd tier promotions made the hit/avoid rates so high than +10/-10 still isn't that big of a deal.

 

10. Bonus Experience/3rd Tier Promotions/Caps

3rd tier promotions in and of themselves are not a bad thing, promotions are fun and more of them isn't such a bad thing. However, in this game, combined with BEXP and the weird caps that units get, these promotions pretty much guarantee that all of your units that you trained will hit their caps or get very close. Growth rates in this game are more of a suggestion than a rule because promotional gains + caps + BEXP means that you can cheese the game to engineer whatever unit you want regardless of their growths. This makes the differences between the several dozen units you get in this game seem too insignificant. Supports are a free for all, skills are free for all, and basically stats are a free for all, so the units you should bother deploying are generally the ones that require the least time/investment to get moving.

PoR once again had growth rates which really mattered and would often shape/mold units around a specific archetype that wasn't defined purely by their caps. Admittedly you did have the Knight Ward which could be abused to give speed to everyone, but that's only 1 stat for a few classes. You do get growth rate bands in NG+, but those only impact growths by 5% most of the time. Generally, I had variety within each class type based on growth rates and I found that much more appealing than every unit ending up basically the same by the end.

 

~Conclusion~

This is obviously a biased thread specifically designed to highlight the negative aspects of RD compared to PoR. This is not a comprehensive comparison, and I don't claim that it's a fair assessment of either game in its totality. It's just a list of the major reasons why I find PoR to be a more solid and overall enjoyable experience compared to RD.

[Jotari]

57 minutes ago, Uscari said:

1. No Fixed Mode

I get liking Fixed Mode, and yeah, it could stand to be in other games in the series. But Radiant Dawn not having it feels like unfair criticism. Like, it doesn't have Casual mode either, should it be criticized for that? Criticizing for something it never attempted to do feels like you're just complaining that it's a different game from what it is. Like, 0% growths is a great idea for games too that no official game has ever done. Should it be criticized for not having that as an option either? Path of Radiance Fixed Mode also wasn't actually fixed mode. It was a weird Final Fantasy II styled level up mode and I don't really know why. Finally, for the potential that a fixed mode has as an idea, I feel it's pretty irrelevant in Radiant Dawn's case, as the low stat caps + high number of levels pretty much guarantees you won't ever be majorly stat screwed or blessed anyway.

57 minutes ago, Uscari said:

2. Supports

 

Screw convos. Radiant Dawn has the best support system in the series. Everyone can support with everyone! Who cares how cracked the pairing is, I can A Rank Oliver and Volug! Giving unique conversations to all of these characters was never going to be realistic. It has a 70+ number of characters and most of them already supported each other in Path of Radiance or otherwise have no reason to actually talk to each other. I'm sure I could come up with a support chain for Naesala and Laura if I really tried. I could come up with Laura and Skirmr if I really tried. But how hard would I have to try to have Laura x Haar, Laura x Oscar, Laura x Vika, Luara x Callil. And then every other character with every other character. At best we'd split the supports up entirely to the character's own faction, at worst we'd be rethreading old ground ad nauseam, even for the new characters without PoR supports already done.

57 minutes ago, Uscari said:

3. Story

I played Radiant Dawn before Path of Radiance, and Path of Radiance after most of the pre-Awakening Fire Emblem games, so I can only say it's story was very simplex by the time I got to it. But you do you if you like that better. It's not a bad story by any means. But for me, while it is messier, I do like what they were going for in Radiant Dawn a lot more.

57 minutes ago, Uscari said:

4. Availability

I think the only ones who suffer from this are the Tormod gang, and maybe Pelleas. But it's not like other Fire Emblem games don't have characters only avilable for six chapters. In terms of absolute number I'd say Radiant Dawn spreads out its number of chapters characters are available for in a pretty even way compared to other Fire Emblem games, just manifested differently. Radiant Dawn also has a fair number more chapters than most games.

57 minutes ago, Uscari said:

5. Balance

^^^Dawn Brigade chapters are great^^^

And if you really dislike the Laguz Royals for what they do to balance, it's not like you have to use them. Any character in the game is Tower Viable if you really care to put in the effort (or the BEXP favouritism).

57 minutes ago, Uscari said:

6. Game Over Conditions

Which units are giving you gameover conditions in Radiant Dawn? Only one that springs to mind is Elincia in the late mid game Part 3 chapter, but even then she's pretty well covered with her own Crimean knights acting as body shields.

57 minutes ago, Uscari said:

7. Hardest Difficulty

I admittedly haven't played Maniac Mode, something I really should do one of these days, but I have a hard time believing it's hard than Radiant Dawn's hard mode. Especially with all the money it throws at you for liberal forging. From what I have heard among other people who have played it is that the main thing it does for difficulty is crank up the enemy HP to really high levels so they're just absolute damage sponges.

57 minutes ago, Uscari said:

 

 

 

8. Skills

I legitimately don't understand what your assessment here is. What is Path of Radiance doing that Radiant Dawn is not doing? Radiant Dawn has default capacity on skills, taking them off is a weighted choice. It encourages unique cases for unconventional uses. That's why I liked Radiant Dawn Astra, as her innate Paragon lets her unique combine Paragon and Blossom. I'd also object to the statement that Radiant Dawn punishes players for not investing in units who are good from the start. Radiant Dawn's philosophy is very much  "Utilize who and what you have now". You are absolutely free to make pet projects in Radiant Dawn. The game doesn't punish you at all for that. In fact, it can be very rewarding to train up someone like Leo or Edward, and people do all the time (again, ParaBlossom Astrid is my jam). Hell the entire point of the Hawk Army route is to provide massive quantities of exp to power level any unit you want to be tower viable (except Tormod, sorry bro). But making pet projects is not at all at odds with also having powerful units at your disposal. Radiant Dawn gives you the freedom to do both. You won't be punished for investing, and you won't be punished for not investing.

You're completely right about the Mastery Skills though.

57 minutes ago, Uscari said:

9.  Biorhythm

 

You're essentially saying "they made it higher, but also it's not high enough to be of consequence". The Biorhythm is like the weapon triangle and avoid terrain, it's not a negative, it's a positive you can make use of that your enemy can't. Use it to your advantage. The only randomness to it is where the enemies start their biorhythm at the start of each chapter. I do think it's an undercooked feature, there should definitely me a more freely available way to control it, and low capacity skills to gain more control of it and increase or decrease its effect, but as it, the worst it will do is make you one damage point shy of killing a key enemy in your first turn.

57 minutes ago, Uscari said:

 

10. Bonus Experience/3rd Tier Promotions/Caps

 

This assertion seems very at odds to what you were saying before about how the game punishes you for trying to invest in low quality units. How can a game simultaneously punish you for investing in low quality units, while simultaneously having a system where everyone can turn out great? Path of Radiance meanwhile makes growths irrelevant by making most enemies suck (unless it's in Maddening mode...probably). If it's the slant of "Well it's easier to use good units and I want to LTC/Efficiency Run play it so anyone else is not worth consideration" then I think Path of Radiance falls short there a lot more than Radiant Dawn. Radiant Dawn's deployment system at least puts you in a position where you're going to deploy your scrubs alongside your powerful prepromotes, so everyone will get a time to shine at some point in the game by contributing what they can. Meanwhile in Path of Radiance mounted units are pretty widely considered to be just plain better than anyone without canto. They're just as strong with more movement and you will be freely able to build an entire army of pure cavalry with the only drawback possibly being the singular desert chapter (and even there, you have flier dominance). Both games are fine for building up units, I'd even go as far as to say they're two of the best games for making personal projects, but Path of Radiance more traditional structure definitely lends itself more to just being able to stack your army with units who are better than others if you choose to do so.

2 hours ago, Uscari said:

~Conclusion~

But most importantly, what in the world possessed you to start this series with Tellius in 2024 and then to play both of them half a dozen times over XD You absolute mad lad. What a radical and and just plain bizarre thing to do. Definitely getting some odd flex respect points for that choice. Go play Jugdral next.

 

[Florete]

Well, Radiant Dawn is my favorite game, so I guess I should say something.

To start, though, I want to say thanks for not just dunking on RD like some people do. While I don't always feel the same way, your points are all fair and maturely expressed. That's refreshing to see these days.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

1. No Fixed Mode

As you pointed out, they didn't really remove it so much as replaced it with BEXP, as well as guaranteeing at least 1 stat up every normal level. I personally really enjoy the way BEXP lets units reach their full potential pretty consistently.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

2. Supports

Conversation-wise, I agree PoR is better here. Everything else, though, I prefer in RD. The bigger bonuses (and rounding up) makes them feel impactful in a way they don't always in PoR. And while PoR building supports by number of maps is nice in the sense of letting conversations happen at the right times, it also means it's easy to miss some supports if two units miss out on one too many maps together. Titania has to be deployed on almost every map to reach A with Ike, for example. If you decide to leave her out for just a couple maps you miss that one entirely.

For the record, PoR is the only FE game with a strictly chapter-based support system. RD's support mechanics are an improvement from the GBA era.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

3. Story

There's not much to say here other than that RD has my favorite story in the series. Many of people's issues with it have never been issues to me. I think the Blood Pact is done well.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

4. Availability 

I pretty much echo what Jotari said here.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

5. Balance

I will agree on one thing: the balance in RD feels pretty wacky at times. But I actually love it for this. Not just for being imbalanced, but because it harmonizes so well with the story. The Dawn Brigade is a ragtag group of rebels fighting an oppressive governing force, and the difficulty reflects that...until they get super strong allies (Tauroneo, Nailah, Black Knight) who rightfully make things much easier. I disagree on part 2 being a playable cutscene, there's some tough stuff there, and Haar isn't god yet, especially if you don't quick clear 2-E, which is probably the best defense map in the series.

Part 3 has you taking control of an experienced group of mercenaries with a skilled tactician at their side, and the easier difficulty reflects that. The part 3 DB maps see that ragtag group of rebel fighters being forced to join the war in the middle of trying to rebuild their country, mostly without their previous powerful allies, and it feels as hard as it sounds.

Lore-wise, Laguz pick their leaders based on who is the strongest, so it makes perfect sense that the laguz royals come and are super strong, but they are still held back by their lack of ranged combat, which ensures that they can't just go and solo everything without consequence.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

6. Game Over Conditions

While there are definitely some annoying early game over conditions, I recall very few that are based on green unit deaths. The main complaint I see on this is Jill in 1-5, but multiple enemies are programmed not to attack her, so I feel like it's a case of people thinking she dies more often than she actually does. There's Fiona in 1-6, but I've never personally seen the enemies catch and kill her before she gets to where the player's team starts, and I don't see people mentioning this one often, either. Elincia in 3-10 is the only other one to my memory, and that one also seems pretty unlikely. I guess there's also Skrimir/Tibarn in a couple chapters but how the fuck are they dying.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

7. Hardest Difficulty

While I still enjoy playing it, RD hard mode is one of few things even I can't really find myself able to defend about it. Though from what I've seen and played of PoR maniac mode, it's arguably even worse, even if it doesn't have the same issues. The stat and reinforcement bloat is just ridiculous.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

8. Skills

I really disagree with this one. RD allowing experimentation is a major positive imo. RD having default skills on units be free until they're taken off keeps that aspect of unit identity alive, because it means certain units are the only ones who can do some specific skill combos.

While RD's masteries being mostly glorified criticals does deserve some criticism, I vastly prefer it over most of PoR's masteries just feeling worthless.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

9.  Biorhythm

This isn't an advantage for either game imo. Biorythm sucks in both games. RD tries to play with it a bit more with the Heron's Bliss and Sorrow skills, but in practice those aren't very valuable.

7 hours ago, Uscari said:

10. Bonus Experience/3rd Tier Promotions/Caps

Everything you describe here is a positive to me. 🤷‍♀️ One thing you didn't note, though, is that units still have differences based on their caps and available weapons, which continues having impact all the way to the end. Like, Fiona has an absolutely terrible start, but if you put in the effort to train her she actually has some of the best Endgame potential because of all her unique attributes.

 

For me, PoR is a game that hasn't aged as well as the games both before and after it. The game is a slog to replay because you can't turn off map animations, hard mode is too easy for me because mounted units are so strong, and the story, while good (and certainly better than any FE in the last 10 years), didn't hold up as well when I went through it again years after, feeling more to me like a setup for the sequel than its own properly satisfying story.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Florete said:

For the record, PoR is the only FE game with a strictly chapter-based support system. RD's support mechanics are an improvement from the GBA era.

That's not true. The DS games have chapter based supports (though there are only conversations to go along with them in New Mystery in which you'll actually notice the system

1 hour ago, Florete said:

While RD's masteries being mostly glorified criticals does deserve some criticism, I vastly prefer it over most of PoR's masteries just feeling worthless.

I think I'd like Path of Radiance masteries more if they costed 0 capacity, with the cost investment to use them being the Occult Scroll itself. But as is, they basically lock you out of using any other skills, which kind of sucks. And then you can't unassign them and reassign them later if you do want to do a different skill combo for a map. Radiant Dawn mostly gets around this by auto giving them to you on third tier and increasing your capacity to match. Which I also kind of don't like, as it essentially means you don't have a capacity increase upon promotion (yes, I say on promotion, because Radiant Dawn is a two tier system in the trench coat of a three tier system...don't think of that metaphor too much), but at least it takes the choice out of my hand and I don't have to consider whether I want to permanently give up the three skills I've given a unit throughout the game to assign a Mastery Skill that is only moderately good.

Edited April 11 by Jotari

[vanguard333]

I have played both games and Path of Radiance is my favourite video game of all time. I will just point out one thing:

10 hours ago, Uscari said:

3. Story

The Black Knight's character was also ruined when it was revealed that he killed a man in cold blood just because he wanted to beat his master. 

The Black Knight wanting to beat his master was established all the way back in Path of Radiance during the cutscene fight between him and Greil:

Black Knight: Here. Use this blade.

[Black Knight throws Ragnell near Greil]

Greil: What are you doing?

[Black Knight draws Alondite]

Black Knight: I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I would prefer it if you used your proper weapon, so that I might see you at your full strength…

[Black Knight points Alondite at Greil]

Black Knight: General Gawain, Rider of Daein.

[Uscari]

I don't want to respond to everything at once because I don't want to make the topic inaccessible for future commenters, I'll respond to things that stick out to me every once in awhile.

 

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

Screw convos. Radiant Dawn has the best support system in the series. Everyone can support with everyone! Who cares how cracked the pairing is, I can A Rank Oliver and Volug! Giving unique conversations to all of these characters was never going to be realistic. It has a 70+ number of characters and most of them already supported each other in Path of Radiance or otherwise have no reason to actually talk to each other. I'm sure I could come up with a support chain for Naesala and Laura if I really tried. I could come up with Laura and Skirmr if I really tried. But how hard would I have to try to have Laura x Haar, Laura x Oscar, Laura x Vika, Luara x Callil. And then every other character with every other character. At best we'd split the supports up entirely to the character's own faction, at worst we'd be rethreading old ground ad nauseam, even for the new characters without PoR supports already done.

 

I think it's an odd take to think that 3 support conversations in PoR is as far as character relationships can go, that there's nothing else to explore, and if that's really a concern you can just give them different pairings in RD. I'm not saying every character gets unique support conversations with every other character, I'm saying give them like 3-5 supports like in PoR. Most of them can be for folks they join with in their respective part, but throw one in there for the late game. Along with some structural changes to make room for this it would have added so much to the story, worldbuilding, replayability, and general entertainment of the game to have personalized supports with the units you deploy. Having everyone support with everyone hurts the personality of the game and makes individual units much less distinct from one another.

 

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

I admittedly haven't played Maniac Mode, something I really should do one of these days, but I have a hard time believing it's hard than Radiant Dawn's hard mode. Especially with all the money it throws at you for liberal forging. From what I have heard among other people who have played it is that the main thing it does for difficulty is crank up the enemy HP to really high levels so they're just absolute damage sponges.

 

I highly recommend trying out Maniac Mode because it honestly fixes the biggest problem with PoR, which is the difficulty. NA PoR is too easy to fully make use of its stellar mechanics, but Maniac Mode really shines a big spotlight on these so you really get a full appreciation of how well designed PoR is.

It is true that they crank up the enemy HP, but it also adds more enemies, they are faster and stronger, promoted earlier, and in even some cases have skills despite being generic enemies. I personally think the critique that Maniac Mode is damage sponge hell is overblown. Also forging costs twice as much in japanese PoR and you chew through a lot more weapon uses in Maniac Mode so money/resources are actually kind of tight, so much that it actually creates a whole new resource management metagame which is very satisfying.

 

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

But most importantly, what in the world possessed you to start this series with Tellius in 2024 and then to play both of them half a dozen times over XD You absolute mad lad. What a radical and and just plain bizarre thing to do. Definitely getting some odd flex respect points for that choice. Go play Jugdral next.

I started gamecube collecting after I got nostalgic of my childhood, and found out that PoR was a rare as well as highly valuable commodity. I never played an FE game before and wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and when I got it I loved it so much it became my favorite gamecube game. After PoR I obviously had to try RD and honestly I really do like both games despite the focus of this thread. Great introduction to the series.

 

10 hours ago, Florete said:

To start, though, I want to say thanks for not just dunking on RD like some people do. While I don't always feel the same way, your points are all fair and maturely expressed. That's refreshing to see these days.

Thank you, I appreciate that. I'm not here to hate on RD. I respect the ambition and as I noted it really did do some unique/brave changes from PoR. I plan to make another thread highlighting these. I just feel like PoR doesn't get enough credit compared to RD and wanted to explain why I think PoR is better.

 

10 hours ago, Florete said:

I will agree on one thing: the balance in RD feels pretty wacky at times. But I actually love it for this. Not just for being imbalanced, but because it harmonizes so well with the story. The Dawn Brigade is a ragtag group of rebels fighting an oppressive governing force, and the difficulty reflects that...until they get super strong allies (Tauroneo, Nailah, Black Knight) who rightfully make things much easier. I disagree on part 2 being a playable cutscene, there's some tough stuff there, and Haar isn't god yet, especially if you don't quick clear 2-E, which is probably the best defense map in the series.

Part 3 has you taking control of an experienced group of mercenaries with a skilled tactician at their side, and the easier difficulty reflects that. The part 3 DB maps see that ragtag group of rebel fighters being forced to join the war in the middle of trying to rebuild their country, mostly without their previous powerful allies, and it feels as hard as it sounds.

Lore-wise, Laguz pick their leaders based on who is the strongest, so it makes perfect sense that the laguz royals come and are super strong, but they are still held back by their lack of ranged combat, which ensures that they can't just go and solo everything without consequence.

This is a fair point, and I agree to an extent. It does from a narrative standpoint reinforce the context of the game to have extreme conditions. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy overcoming impossible odds as the Dawn Brigade, or that I didn't get have fun going on a powertrip using the Laguz Royals. I think my overall critique here is that they just go too far with it and what starts out as a cool novelty quickly becomes an annoyance, particularly on subsequent playthroughs where I feel like I'm experiencing the same arc again and again no matter who I train.

 

7 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I have played both games and Path of Radiance is my favourite video game of all time. I will just point out one thing:

The Black Knight wanting to beat his master was established all the way back in Path of Radiance during the cutscene fight between him and Greil:

I understand he wanted to beat his master, but why kill him? I feel like the game really did not give any particular justification for why this couldn't have been a friendly duel instead of a fight to the death. It would have been so much better if the BK had any actual motivation for killing Greil.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Uscari said:

I don't want to respond to everything at once because I don't want to make the topic inaccessible for future commenters, I'll respond to things that stick out to me every once in awhile.

 

I think it's an odd take to think that 3 support conversations in PoR is as far as character relationships can go, that there's nothing else to explore, and if that's really a concern you can just give them different pairings in RD. I'm not saying every character gets unique support conversations with every other character, I'm saying give them like 3-5 supports like in PoR. Most of them can be for folks they join with in their respective part, but throw one in there for the late game. Along with some structural changes to make room for this it would have added so much to the story, worldbuilding, replayability, and general entertainment of the game to have personalized supports with the units you deploy. Having everyone support with everyone hurts the personality of the game and makes individual units much less distinct from one another.

Everyone being able to support with everyone is better for gameplay though. Especially where Radiant is structured in having different armies that come together in the end. It gives you more freedom of choice as to who to bring to the tower, as you're not going to be strong armed by who has supports available for your mixed faction choices and who doesn't. And as far as world building goes, I think Radiant Dawn is already high up there. It's base conversations are already great and while the Dawn Brigade specifically could do with more characterization, I think the solution there would be more or better early chapters than supports. Returning characters who weren't playable in Path of Radiance and this don't have supports like Sanaki and Sigrun are characterized just fine. Overall I think the value of supports series wide is overstated in how much they provide for characterization. Characters can be established and often should be in other ways. If you have me the choice of limiting everyone's support pool to just five people and having great conversations or letting them support everyone I'd say give me support everyone and put those great conversations somewhere else in the game (and ditch the conversations that are going to be mid or boring, because there are always lesser support chains, I'd even go as far as to say good support chains are diamonds in the rough).

[Florete]

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

That's not true. The DS games have chapter based supports (though there are only conversations to go along with them in New Mystery in which you'll actually notice the system

I didn't even know Shadow Dragon had supports. I forgot about New Mystery's supports, but wasn't paying enough attention when I played it to know how they worked anyway. Thanks for the correction, though.

[samthedigital]

PoR used to be my favourite Fire Emblem game. These days I find it hard to go back to just because of how slow enemy phase is compared to just about any other Fire Emblem game I'd want to play.

On 4/10/2024 at 11:19 PM, Uscari said:

Maniac Mode requires training lots of growth units and investing resources efficiently so that you have a team strong enough to clear the final chapters.

It doesn't require this. It has been beaten with 0% growths by multiple people.

Otherwise I don't really have any strong opinions on your takes. I would disagree with the skill system differences in particular because I don't find that there are many meaningful decisions to be made in PoR, but it's all personal opinion anyway.

[ping]

2. Supports

One of my (maybe) unpopular opinions is that supports don't add much to the story of any FE game. I'll say that PoR is the best game at averting this, because its chapter-based support growth allows the conversations to be more topical to the main plot - but I think it's still a net negative that important or interesting facets of the story are hidden in support conversations. For example, Soren's identity as a Branded is a very important piece of context for the racism against Laguz that he displays in main story - so should that information be hidden from a player who prefers to ship Ike with the sexy catboy and who didn't find Stefan in the desert?

Because of that, I think that the base convos that both Tellius games have are the best spot to develop their characters. Granted, PoR has generally a much higher level of characterisation for its minor characters than RD does, but that seems more like a concious decision to invest less writing time into that area. Which I think is a fine decision, even though I would've hoped for a bit more fluff for some specific characters (Fiona comes to mind). The FE fandom's insistance that every single character must have 100 pages worth of trite anime clichés in dialogue entirely unrelated to the actual story is silly, and I uphold that Shadow Dragon did nothing wrong.

3. Story

Deciding between a simple story done well on the one side, or an ambitious story that doesn't stick the landing on the other is always a matter of personal preference. I personally like PoR's story a lot (it's the main reason why I never swapped it out as my favourite FE) - but I think that it is only really completed through the first two parts of Radiant Dawn. The main storyline of PoR - the liberation of Crimea - is very much a Disney fairytale in which good triumphs over evil and everyone is happy in the end and there's ice cream for everybody... Early RD then does two things with this: First, Pelleas and Micaiah are a mirror image of Elincia and Ike, just gender-flipped... and a deliberate set-up by a sinister shadowy figure who recognises the power of that story and tries to create himself a puppet king to excert power through. And second, we see the parts of the fairytale that Disney had left out. We see that, in the wake of the war of liberation, the population of Daein has now become the oppressed and abused, breeding even more resentment. And we see that the story of the princess doesn't just end when she becomes queen.

I do agree that the story goes downhill in part 3, though. I don't like the Blood Pact very much, and I think that the big epic god-slaying finale is far less interesting than the smaller-scale politicking that takes place in the firest two parts.

4. Availability / 5. Balance

So here's another unpopular opinion (and I think this really is one): Path of Radiance's unit balance sucks. It's boring. Because every single character is, at worst, a competent combattant, you don't have any "funny-bad" characters that are liablilities, and through whom you can disrespect the enemy by killing the final boss with Wendy. Even bottom-tier characters like Lucia and (with a quick BEXP infusion) Rolf aren't bad in the same way that Sheema or Bantu are in New Mystery - they're perfectly competent... but other characters are more competent and have horses and/or axes at their disposal.

 

Edited April 12 by ping

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, ping said:

and I uphold that Shadow Dragon did nothing wrong.

 

In not having supports, sure. But it absolutely should have had Tellius style base conversations! I'd love if, for example, Jeorge had a base convo at the Wooden Cavalry where we can actually learn he's OG Lewyn and that said area is his homeland. Said area is also where Marth's father died and that's not brought up at all. Give Cain a base convo where he talks about having to flee that battle. Base convos are awesome. But the most New Mystery could do with them was have Jeigan present somewhat contrived in universe instructions for what your gameplay goals for each chapter are.

[Baron the Shining Blade]

21 hours ago, Uscari said:

I understand he wanted to beat his master, but why kill him? I feel like the game really did not give any particular justification for why this couldn't have been a friendly duel instead of a fight to the death. It would have been so much better if the BK had any actual motivation for killing Greil.

He never intended to kill Greil. He only wanted to defeat him, to prove that he had surpassed him. And he had wanted a fair fight by giving him Ragnell, not a clear weapon traingle disadvantage with Urvan; he also did not know until much later that Greil had crippled himself. I personally think he wholeheartedly expected Greil to dodge or parry that thrust. He's clearly disappointed when it runs through his chest instead.

"Is that...all there is? No challenge? No...........resistance?"

 

Edited April 12 by Baron the Shining Blade

[Seafarer]

4 hours ago, ping said:

The main storyline of PoR - the liberation of Crimea - is very much a Disney fairytale in which good triumphs over evil and everyone is happy in the end and there's ice cream for everybody... (...) And second, we see the parts of the fairytale that Disney had left out. We see that, in the wake of the war of liberation, the population of Daein has now become the oppressed and abused, breeding even more resentment. And we see that the story of the princess doesn't just end when she becomes queen.

I just want to point out that there are already hints towards this in PoR base conversations during the Daein arc. The main characters are all somewhat upset about doing to Daein what Ashnard did to Crimea (their goal ends up being to kill Ashnard ASAP explicitly to stop everyone's suffering), and there are uncomfortable conversations involving Jill and Sothe's responses to it (the latter of which foreshadows his role in Part 1 of RD).

Also, while I'm being pedantic: @Jotari New Mystery doesn't have support conversations. The ranked base conversations are entirely divorced from the support mechanic; they unlock at different times, and you can get support bonuses without ever reading the base conversations.

On to the topic: to me, the OP just reads like a list of personal opinions on the relative value of a range of design choices, so I don't see much value in arguing over it. There are some things in there I don't agree with (Maniac mode harder in PoR than RD? get outta here), but I do like Path of Radiance better overall, so yay?

[Uscari]

6 hours ago, samthedigital said:

It doesn't require this. It has been beaten with 0% growths by multiple people.

Have they done it without abusing the crit forge underflow glitch? Because to me, that's basically cheating.

 

20 hours ago, Jotari said:

Everyone being able to support with everyone is better for gameplay though. Especially where Radiant is structured in having different armies that come together in the end. It gives you more freedom of choice as to who to bring to the tower, as you're not going to be strong armed by who has supports available for your mixed faction choices and who doesn't.

From my point of view, sometimes more freedom is actually less freedom in terms of gameplay decision making. Not forcing the player to make hard choices can sometimes lead to them never exploring other aspects of the game that are available to them because they have no incentive to. One of the main sources of replay ability for me in PoR was building my team around support relationships, and it kept each playthrough fresh because you can test how units work together as well as individually. To a degree you can do this in Radiant Dawn because of the unique structure of the game, but it's much less effective in this respect.

 

5 hours ago, ping said:

4. Availability / 5. Balance

So here's another unpopular opinion (and I think this really is one): Path of Radiance's unit balance sucks. It's boring. Because every single character is, at worst, a competent combattant, you don't have any "funny-bad" characters that are liablilities, and through whom you can disrespect the enemy by killing the final boss with Wendy. Even bottom-tier characters like Lucia and (with a quick BEXP infusion) Rolf aren't bad in the same way that Sheema or Bantu are in New Mystery - they're perfectly competent... but other characters are more competent and have horses and/or axes at their disposal.

 

Maybe it's because I'm new to Fire Emblem as a franchise, but I don't really see the charm or appeal in having "funny-bad" units. I don't see the point in adding a playable unit to the game if they aren't designed to compete with other units. I feel like even if some characters are worse than others, which is inevitable, there should at least be a solid niche for every unit so that the player has an incentive to try actually using them, instead of just for the memes. I like that PoR has a more competitive roster than RD, with a larger variety of team compositions that are comparable in viability. To me it's a failure of balance for a game to have units that you have no strategic incentive to invest in.

 

55 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

On to the topic: to me, the OP just reads like a list of personal opinions on the relative value of a range of design choices, so I don't see much value in arguing over it. There are some things in there I don't agree with (Maniac mode harder in PoR than RD? get outta here), but I do like Path of Radiance better overall, so yay?

In fairness, what else would this topic be? It's not exactly something you can be objective about.

I honestly found that RD Hard Mode wasn't that much harder than RD Normal Mode. The enemies are almost totally the same and despite cutting the experience available I still had more than enough to cap out the units I needed to cap out. The only part that was noticeably more difficult were the DB chapters, but it didn't take long for me to figure out what strategies I needed to clear them. Even the Part 3 DB chapters mostly devolved into turtling a choke or two with any unit that doesn't get 1-rounded until it was over.

That doesn't mean RD Hard Mode isn't hard, it is a difficult game, but I find PoR Maniac Mode has a much more challenging endgame simply due to the fact the game gives you much weaker units relative to what you're up against.

[samthedigital]

23 minutes ago, Uscari said:

Have they done it without abusing the crit forge underflow glitch? Because to me, that's basically cheating.

It looks like it, yeah. Growths are a lot stronger than the crit forge glitch though; it's not a catch all way of dealing with enemies.

[Uscari]

2 hours ago, samthedigital said:

It looks like it, yeah. Growths are a lot stronger than the crit forge glitch though; it's not a catch all way of dealing with enemies.

I must admit I did watch this guy's video on clash and was thoroughly impressed that he found a theoretical way to clear it.

But this is hardly an organic run. He had to use hundreds, if not thousands of save states to get the perfect RNG needed to clear some of these maps. Keep in mind he couldn't have used save states without the use of an emulator, which is not an original feature. I wouldn't necessarily call it cheating the way I would with forge glitch, because this could in some universe happen without loading save states, but it's not really organic or instructive in a comparison of the difficulty of these games.

Meanwhile there's no doubt in my mind that you could clear RD Hard Mode in a 0% growths Ironman, which is statistically impossible in PoR Maniac.

[Seafarer]

3 hours ago, Uscari said:

In fairness, what else would this topic be? It's not exactly something you can be objective about.

I honestly found that RD Hard Mode wasn't that much harder than RD Normal Mode. The enemies are almost totally the same and despite cutting the experience available I still had more than enough to cap out the units I needed to cap out. The only part that was noticeably more difficult were the DB chapters, but it didn't take long for me to figure out what strategies I needed to clear them. Even the Part 3 DB chapters mostly devolved into turtling a choke or two with any unit that doesn't get 1-rounded until it was over.

That doesn't mean RD Hard Mode isn't hard, it is a difficult game, but I find PoR Maniac Mode has a much more challenging endgame simply due to the fact the game gives you much weaker units relative to what you're up against.

Bold: fair, but you did title the thread "is better than" rather than something like "why I prefer". Softeners matter when trying to invite discussion rather than an argument!

For the rest, I think RD's earlygame difficulty is more important than lategame, when you have a bunch of resources available and a concomitant plethora of options to deal with stuff. I don't think PoR Maniac really does much to stop the typical "bulky 1-2 go brrr" strats that work in Hard, and the only real difficulty earlygame is learning to use Titania for like 50% of everything. So I think (and this is something that I have seen many people expressing similar sentiment to, so it's not just me) that RD's steep difficulty in Part 1 alone makes it harder than Maniac PoR.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Seafarer said:

 

Also, while I'm being pedantic: @Jotari New Mystery doesn't have support conversations. The ranked base conversations are entirely divorced from the support mechanic; they unlock at different times, and you can get support bonuses without ever reading the base conversations.

 

Gah. My pedantry! It's been out pedantified! I actually did know that though as I googled the DS support system before posting to make sure I was right that it was chapter based. So I'd say that I am still correct that the DS games have chapter based supports, and that's why I said DS and not just New Mystery. As for New Mystery's base convos, I don't really see a meaningful difference there. Of course you're absolutely right that the game calls them base conversations and not supports, but they are supports for the given definition of what fans think of supports as. That it happens to be divorced from the stat boosting side of the support is like Bond Supports and regular supports existing in the same setting...yeah, that sounds like good copium.

4 hours ago, Uscari said:

Have they done it without abusing the crit forge underflow glitch? Because to me, that's basically cheating.

 

From my point of view, sometimes more freedom is actually less freedom in terms of gameplay decision making. Not forcing the player to make hard choices can sometimes lead to them never exploring other aspects of the game that are available to them because they have no incentive to. One of the main sources of replay ability for me in PoR was building my team around support relationships, and it kept each playthrough fresh because you can test how units work together as well as individually. To a degree you can do this in Radiant Dawn because of the unique structure of the game, but it's much less effective in this respect.

Sure more freedom can sometimes result in less freedom, but I think it's reaching a bit here to say that. Because you can absolutely structure your Radiant Dawn supports based what characters are close in the narrative.

1 hour ago, Uscari said:

Meanwhile there's no doubt in my mind that you could clear RD Hard Mode in a 0% growths Ironman, which is statistically impossible in PoR Maniac.

I wouldn't say how hard  a game can beaten 0% is any real indicator of difficult it is. That's more just a testament to the importance of growths and distribution of resources in the game. Like, (and I realize I'm going to be reference stiff in the series outside of your experience here, you'll just have to trust that this is common consensus) I'd say Sacred Stones is a much an easier game than Thracia 776, but due to the nature of the games, Sacred Stones seems like it'd be much more difficult to 0% clear, especially on iron man, as it gives you fewer late game prepromotes. While Thracia's difficulty comes not from pure enemy stats, since universal 20 caps keeps everything tame and you get frequent units with powerful prf weapons. You can also bait powerful enemies into capturing your units to reduce their stats. Thracia's difficulty comes from it's map design and status staffs and leadership star spam and things like that, which would only be marginally more difficult to work around on 0% growths.

All theoretical, I haven't played either game on 0% growths.

[samthedigital]

2 hours ago, Uscari said:

Meanwhile there's no doubt in my mind that you could clear RD Hard Mode in a 0% growths Ironman, which is statistically impossible in PoR Maniac.

I'm not really talking about ironman runs or 0% growths here really. The point was to show that the game is beatable without using a lot of growth units. Having a few definitely helps, but having Titania soak up a bunch of early exp or using resources like stat boosters inefficiently isn't going to kill any kind of playthrough. There's a lot more out there than what I linked too that demonstrates that.

56 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Sacred Stones seems like it'd be much more difficult to 0% clear, especially on iron man, as it gives you fewer late game prepromotes.

It's probably somewhat outside the scope of this discussion, but this one depends on some outside factors because GBA FE RNG manipulation is pretty silly.

[Florete]

5 hours ago, Uscari said:

Maybe it's because I'm new to Fire Emblem as a franchise, but I don't really see the charm or appeal in having "funny-bad" units. I don't see the point in adding a playable unit to the game if they aren't designed to compete with other units. I feel like even if some characters are worse than others, which is inevitable, there should at least be a solid niche for every unit so that the player has an incentive to try actually using them, instead of just for the memes. I like that PoR has a more competitive roster than RD, with a larger variety of team compositions that are comparable in viability. To me it's a failure of balance for a game to have units that you have no strategic incentive to invest in.

Both games have at least a handful of units you have no strategic incentive to invest in. Non-royal laguz in particular, who are basically dead on arrival in PoR and viable but outclassed entirely by royals in RD (some are viable, anyway).

I would also argue against PoR having a more competitive roster than RD. While most units in PoR are viable if you want them to be, value goes out the window for almost anyone who isn't on a mount. In RD, the variety of availability coupled with limiting factors such as ledges and stat caps mean units are more likely to be able to bring something of unique value over units who may otherwise be considered better.

Well, for PoR hard mode, anyway. In Maniac a bunch of units just become completely unusable.

[Uscari]

12 hours ago, Seafarer said:

Bold: fair, but you did title the thread "is better than" rather than something like "why I prefer". Softeners matter when trying to invite discussion rather than an argument!

For the rest, I think RD's earlygame difficulty is more important than lategame, when you have a bunch of resources available and a concomitant plethora of options to deal with stuff. I don't think PoR Maniac really does much to stop the typical "bulky 1-2 go brrr" strats that work in Hard, and the only real difficulty earlygame is learning to use Titania for like 50% of everything. So I think (and this is something that I have seen many people expressing similar sentiment to, so it's not just me) that RD's steep difficulty in Part 1 alone makes it harder than Maniac PoR.

The thing is though that I genuinely do think PoR is better than RD, at least based on the metrics that I think should matter. It's different from me saying that two games are equal, but I just personally prefer one over the other. I think PoR beats RD in a variety of metrics that in my judgement are the most important. I also don't find the words "discussion" and "argument" to be mutually exclusive. I don't find malice in having an argument, which I consider synonymous with debate, a contest of ideas. It might be regarded as a competitive discussion, but I want to make clear I'm not judging anyone on this thread for disagreeing with me or implying that their taste is bad because they think RD is better. But maybe that's just a cultural thing I'm not accustomed to yet.

RD Hard Mode's early game is definitely harder than PoR Maniac's early game, but in my experience it still to a lesser degree revolved around relying on Sothe/Volug for 50% of everything, although they are not as well equipped as Titania to deal with them. I also found that strats that worked in Hard Mode in PoR don't work as well on Maniac, I found that relying on cavs with forged handaxes alone just wouldn't cut it against the bulk of enemies, and you needed to actually train believe it or not armor knights and sages to get through some parts of the game. 

 

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

I wouldn't say how hard  a game can beaten 0% is any real indicator of difficult it is. That's more just a testament to the importance of growths and distribution of resources in the game. Like, (and I realize I'm going to be reference stiff in the series outside of your experience here, you'll just have to trust that this is common consensus) I'd say Sacred Stones is a much an easier game than Thracia 776, but due to the nature of the games, Sacred Stones seems like it'd be much more difficult to 0% clear, especially on iron man, as it gives you fewer late game prepromotes. While Thracia's difficulty comes not from pure enemy stats, since universal 20 caps keeps everything tame and you get frequent units with powerful prf weapons. You can also bait powerful enemies into capturing your units to reduce their stats. Thracia's difficulty comes from it's map design and status staffs and leadership star spam and things like that, which would only be marginally more difficult to work around on 0% growths.

I agree with that, and that a game can still be difficult even if you aren't incentivized to train a lot of growth units. RD is one of those games that is difficult even if you use the best units, but I just don't think it's good design to rely too heavily on the units that aren't investment units.

10 hours ago, samthedigital said:

I'm not really talking about ironman runs or 0% growths here really. The point was to show that the game is beatable without using a lot of growth units. Having a few definitely helps, but having Titania soak up a bunch of early exp or using resources like stat boosters inefficiently isn't going to kill any kind of playthrough. There's a lot more out there than what I linked too that demonstrates that.

It's probably somewhat outside the scope of this discussion, but this one depends on some outside factors because GBA FE RNG manipulation is pretty silly.

Maybe it was a bit strong language for me to say Maniac Mode "required" training a bunch of growth units. I still think you are strongly rewarded for building the best team possible, but I'll take your point that you aren't "required" to do that.

10 hours ago, Florete said:

Both games have at least a handful of units you have no strategic incentive to invest in. Non-royal laguz in particular, who are basically dead on arrival in PoR and viable but outclassed entirely by royals in RD (some are viable, anyway).

I would also argue against PoR having a more competitive roster than RD. While most units in PoR are viable if you want them to be, value goes out the window for almost anyone who isn't on a mount. In RD, the variety of availability coupled with limiting factors such as ledges and stat caps mean units are more likely to be able to bring something of unique value over units who may otherwise be considered better.

Well, for PoR hard mode, anyway. In Maniac a bunch of units just become completely unusable.

Maniac Mode is kind of more competitive for some units and less for others. Swordmasters and Archers are kind of worthless in Maniac (they aren't very good in Hard Mode either), but Armor Knights, Fighters, and Mages are actually quite good in Maniac because of their high caps. It is true that PoR does have stronger mounts than RD, but the problem is that even if the classes in principle are more balanced in RD, the individual units are not. There is a select number of units in RD that you are gimping yourself not to use to a degree that isn't true in PoR. The weaknesses of mounted unit caps in RD are compensated for by these really good units with high caps (Harr, Jill, Laguz Royals), so you still end up favoring the mounted units for the utility they bring even if their caps are bit more restrained than PoR.

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, Uscari said:

I agree with that, and that a game can still be difficult even if you aren't incentivized to train a lot of growth units. RD is one of those games that is difficult even if you use the best units, but I just don't think it's good design to rely too heavily on the units that aren't investment units.

I don't think Radiant Dawn does have design where you rely too heavily on the units that aren't investment units. As I said earlier, Radiant Dawn's design is to use what you have now. At any given point in Radiant Dawn you will be using a mix of investment units and non investment units. The investment units come and go with the tendencies of the plot, it's not like you're pressured to abandon your early army for a later one. Even by the tower at the end, the number of deployment slots available to you is generous enough that even if you're bringing all of the Laguz Royals, and even the recently recruited Renning, you will still have room for your favourite units you've been building up along the way, and some of them might even be better than the 1 range Laguz royals.

[samthedigital]

6 hours ago, Uscari said:

Maybe it was a bit strong language for me to say Maniac Mode "required" training a bunch of growth units. I still think you are strongly rewarded for building the best team possible, but I'll take your point that you aren't "required" to do that.

Whether I agree or not depends on what you mean by building the best possible team. I never found Maniac Mode to be that strict besides trying to make use of bad classes which isn't something that I'd dock it for necessarily as every Fire Emblem game has this problem. I would likely think less of it if it did feel anywhere close to that though. Fire Emblem is a lot more fun when there are a lot of different options in my opinion.

[ping]

On 4/12/2024 at 10:16 PM, Seafarer said:

I just want to point out that there are already hints towards this in PoR base conversations during the Daein arc. The main characters are all somewhat upset about doing to Daein what Ashnard did to Crimea (their goal ends up being to kill Ashnard ASAP explicitly to stop everyone's suffering), and there are uncomfortable conversations involving Jill and Sothe's responses to it (the latter of which foreshadows his role in Part 1 of RD).

Yes, but I find that PoR still lays all blame squarely at Daein/Ashnard's feet. Not only with Ashy abandoning the country immediately, but it's also the Daeins who deploy Scorched Swamped Earth tactics just to slow the Crimeans down. Only in RD, Daein resentment against Crimea is presented as (somewhat) justified, because they just let Begnion take over and squeeze Daein dry. In PoR, the Daein citizens refusing food from the Crimeans are portrayed as sympathetic, but also clearly misled.

On 4/12/2024 at 11:15 PM, Uscari said:

Maybe it's because I'm new to Fire Emblem as a franchise, but I don't really see the charm or appeal in having "funny-bad" units. I don't see the point in adding a playable unit to the game if they aren't designed to compete with other units. I feel like even if some characters are worse than others, which is inevitable, there should at least be a solid niche for every unit so that the player has an incentive to try actually using them, instead of just for the memes. I like that PoR has a more competitive roster than RD, with a larger variety of team compositions that are comparable in viability. To me it's a failure of balance for a game to have units that you have no strategic incentive to invest in.

The nice part about funny-bad units is that if you don't want to use them, you don't have to. I generally agree that a bad unit with some unique quality is more rewarding to train up than a unit that is just "{other unit}, but bad" - but while I never used, say, Lyre, because I prefer Fiona or Meg as far as underdog units go, her presence in the game doesn't impair my enjoyment whatsoever. So there's another cat laguz warming the bench, what do I care? But for somebody who likes catgirls the challenge, it's great that she is there.

@Florete already covered why I wouldn't agree that PoR's roster is more competitive. There is just as little reason to use Rolf or Ulki or (the returning) Shinon as there is to use Fiona or Lyre. But it's far less interesting to bring PoR's scrubs up to speed (just pump BEXP and you're done), and the result is still going to be a combat unit that's just worse than, say, Astrid compared to Rolf/Shinon or any flyer compared to Ulki. No cool unique features whatsoever.

Edited April 14 by ping

[Uscari]

On 4/13/2024 at 9:45 AM, Jotari said:

I don't think Radiant Dawn does have design where you rely too heavily on the units that aren't investment units. As I said earlier, Radiant Dawn's design is to use what you have now. At any given point in Radiant Dawn you will be using a mix of investment units and non investment units. The investment units come and go with the tendencies of the plot, it's not like you're pressured to abandon your early army for a later one. Even by the tower at the end, the number of deployment slots available to you is generous enough that even if you're bringing all of the Laguz Royals, and even the recently recruited Renning, you will still have room for your favourite units you've been building up along the way, and some of them might even be better than the 1 range Laguz royals.

It's clever that RD's story structure lends itself to using everyone in some capacity, and I like that about the game. But there's virtually no incentive to actually train most units that don't start out excellent. Why bother training any of the armor knights when you can just use Harr? Why bother training Rolf if you can just use Shinon? Why bother training Edward if you can just use Zihark? Again and again this dynamic plays out throughout the game. Yes you technically use what is in front of you, but any unit that isn't good at the start is relegated to being largely for utility, and training them confers no noticeable long-term benefit for a much longer time/resource investment.

On 4/13/2024 at 4:16 PM, samthedigital said:

Whether I agree or not depends on what you mean by building the best possible team. I never found Maniac Mode to be that strict besides trying to make use of bad classes which isn't something that I'd dock it for necessarily as every Fire Emblem game has this problem. I would likely think less of it if it did feel anywhere close to that though. Fire Emblem is a lot more fun when there are a lot of different options in my opinion.

I mean building the team with the strongest stats/skills/supports by the endgame. PoR rewards you much more for training growth units because there are very noticeable differences in their endgame potential compared to most prepromoted units. In PoR, Harr is way worse than Jill. Titania is way worse than Oscar. Bastian is way worse than Soren. The prepromoted units you get in this game are largely there to save you resources that you otherwise needed to invest in growth units. You make a conscious sacrifice to trade the strength of that particular unit to give to another one. RD doesn't really do this, because all of your units pretty much hit their relevant caps regardless of how good they were when they started.

Different options is fun but you only take advantage of different options when there is a real trade-off to choosing them. It's not as fun if you aren't making a strategic decision by choosing a different option.

10 hours ago, ping said:

The nice part about funny-bad units is that if you don't want to use them, you don't have to. I generally agree that a bad unit with some unique quality is more rewarding to train up than a unit that is just "{other unit}, but bad" - but while I never used, say, Lyre, because I prefer Fiona or Meg as far as underdog units go, her presence in the game doesn't impair my enjoyment whatsoever. So there's another cat laguz warming the bench, what do I care? But for somebody who likes catgirls the challenge, it's great that she is there.

@Florete already covered why I wouldn't agree that PoR's roster is more competitive. There is just as little reason to use Rolf or Ulki or (the returning) Shinon as there is to use Fiona or Lyre. But it's far less interesting to bring PoR's scrubs up to speed (just pump BEXP and you're done), and the result is still going to be a combat unit that's just worse than, say, Astrid compared to Rolf/Shinon or any flyer compared to Ulki. No cool unique features whatsoever.

Well for one thing, it's a pitfall for new players to have deliberately bad units that aren't remotely worth training to get trapped in.

But more fundamentally, sure in a large roster it doesn't hurt your experience that you have no incentive to train them, but if the developers bothered to add a unit into the game, wouldn't it have helped your experience if they made them worth using? From what I can tell from my limited experience in Fire Emblem, this franchise is character-oriented, so if you're going to add a character with their own story, motivations, and abilities, why tease the player with the option to train them but make them totally inaccessible in terms of training? Sure I guess it's a feature for challenge runs, but surely the player can come up with any variety of ways to do a challenge run without ruining the basic viability of the units. I'll never get the charm of funny-bad units.

There's way more reason to bring PoR units up to speed because they're actually available to do so, plus they have supports that are distinct to them, and even their own skills. Taking the example of Rolf vs Lyre, at least Rolf has the niche of being statistically the best foot archer in the game when trained, has access to the triangle attack, can use Deadeye/Longbow. It doesn't redeem him at all but at least he has some kind of niche. Lyre meanwhile has literally nothing going for her, and is inferior to Ranulf in every way except for her resistance stat, which is pretty much irrelevant because she is locked to 1-range. It's much more interesting to train Rolf than to train Lyre. This is an extreme example, but you can find other examples throughout the cast of both games, where there actually is a reason to train even the worst units in PoR, while there is pretty much no reason to train the worse units in RD.