Over the Christmas holidays, I picked up Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (GCN) because I had heard some good things about the Fire Emblem series, plus it was only $9.99 brand new. I have played through about seven chapters so far, and I am enjoying it. It’s basically a turn-based roleplaying game, in which you control a group of mercenaries on a battlefield. It is kind of a basic swords and magic type game, with a rich story, lots of text dialogue, and some nice combat strategy. What I like about it is that there are different difficulty modes, and of course I chose Easy. Less frustration = more fun for me.

I really like the turn-based combat system. I heard it is like Final Fantasy Tactics, in that you move your group members around the environment, and then do your attacks/heals/etc. This is different than the other Final Fantasy games I have played, where the encounter is just attacking/healing, but no movement in the environment. Another neat thing about this game is that the story is pretty interesting. It starts out a bit ho-hum: You are part of a mercenary group, hired to do small jobs like protecting a village or routing some pirates. But the story quickly picks up and the group is thrown in the middle of a war between two rival regions. Like I mentioned before, the dialogue is really good, with lots of humor thrown in, plus each character in the group has his or her own distinct personalities, and they often disagree with eachother in what is the best course of action. Anyways, if you need a good RPG on the Nintendo platform and can’t wait for Fire Emblem: Goddess of Dawn for the Wii to make it to the States, then I’d totally recommend Path of Radiance!