Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.
Finished. The game was fun, which is what I was expecting. It seemed oddly easier than FE8, in a way. I suppos ethats because I was a little more familiar with the system.
To start with, the plot of the game was actually fairly decent. At its heart its the story of a young man and woman coming into their own, set in a politically interesting world (something FE8 sorely, sorely lacked). The beginning was interesting because of the moderately interesting characters and the somewhat removed view of everything that was happening between Daien and Crimea. That removal helped to set up the intro in a way that felt like Ike was being pulled into gradually. Its a pretty common theme, but it was well executed (good execution being a recurring theme in FE9). The sudden shift of responsibility to Ike resulted in absolutely excellent things being done with his character. Ike isn't a goody goody hero. He may be idealistic, but he is a mercenary at heart. Not the pansy emo JRPG style mercenary, but somewhat grim. He accepts that his job isn't pretty, but remains true to his moral compass. That balance makes for an interesting main, leagues ahead of Eirika (main I chose for FE8). The journey across the continent is pretty cool. Gradually gaining allies, learning more about the world and the key characters who reside in it, and all of this being done at a constant and good pace. No complaints to be had.
High points of the story include: Ike's interaction with most anybody, the Greil mercenary intra-company chemistry, the interaction between Laguz and Beorc, and the growth of the cast over the course of the game.
Visually, the game isn't impressive. The 3D battles are kind of bland, and the overhead map is pretty undetailed. I found the character designs themselves to be enjoyable, so that was good enough for me.
Gameplay... FE9 isn't a very hard game, but sinces its FE one PC dying is essentially game over if you want 100% survival (which I did). It started about as I'd expect, with some maneuvering and whatnot with pretty scrubby enemies. A pretty standard SRPG with a panic button in the form of Titania. Mounted unit's advantages were a cool addition from FE8, but nothing I was excited over. Once you took over the company though, things got fun.
Seeing the skill system in action is a blast. Actual customization in an FE game being something I wasn't expecting. Bonus Experience was something I found tremendously helpful, and it made even project units more usable, always a plus. The game was still pretty easy, very few things actually being able to put up a fight against the party.
Individual character thoughts, I guess.
Ike: Sick and wrong. At the start, he's simply a good unit who is still vulnerable. As he levels, he just got better and better to the point where he had excellent offense, durability, damage... Just a great unit. I hit 20 for him and couldn't promote, so I used him as a safety button ala earlygame Titania while my other units were training. After promotion? He started to smash things apart. Aether was a great form of crit boost, and his damage/durability/speed/evade were all-around crazy. I think he could have soloed a good portion of the game without much trouble. Endgame... he got Ragnell, which just... unlimited uses, ranged, awesome power, puts his defense to the point where he has no problems laughing at enemies... Ike became something flat out broken. Throw in a crazy evade boost from an Oscar support and he was a god. DL Heavy. He may not double average (or he may, I don't know), but ranged counters+2HKO damage+psycho physical durability+good evade+Aether is hard to pass up.
Paladins: Titania was a good panic button early on, but she really flattened out later to be pretty unimpressive on the durability/damage front. She was still decent, as paladins in FE9 are just awesome. Being mounted is an excellent boon in this game. Oscar was good enough in the beginning, but by the endgame he was an excellent unit. Astrid started at level 1, but once I saw Paragon and started using her, she just obliterated everything stupid enough to come across her while laughing at any form of offense the enemy tried to mount against her. Geoffery looked about as good, even though I didn't use him. DLwise, I guess they are Middles with good durability, since I don't think any double average. Astrid might be a Heavy if she doubles average. I'd take her at 20/20 instead of 20/15 due to Paragon. Geoffery still doesn't even then. Middle works for the lot of them.
Mages: Its always good to be able to hit Res instead of defense, especially from afar. The constant need for protection was a nuisance, and probably outweighed the usefulness. Not being able to Double much later on definitely hurt their value. I ended up not using many endgame, but I suppose I could have. FE mages, so the physical durability sucks. On the bright side, they tend to be decentish at dealing damage and counters. Light should work. Their physical durability is just... yeah
Swordmasters: Swordmasters have fun offense, but they tend to not take hits that well (at least, not as well as paladins), so they aren't supremely awesome. Enemy accuracy not sucking made their good evade less useful than it ws in FE8. Fun units to use, but not gamebreaking. DLwise?Double most everything. Thats always a nice start. Combine that with decent damage and an appreciable critical rate. The lack of storebought Killer weapons sucks, but they kind of make up for that in their skills. Mia has Vantage, which gives her a nice hit advantage in physical fights. Zihark has Adept, which is always awesome. Stefan's Astra is cool, but the activation rate is really low. Lucia is surpisingly unimpressive. I think they make Heavy off the usual FE swordmaster logic, minus the frequent criticals but with a few interesting tricks.
Mist: Fun unit to use. Mounted+Healer is a great combo, as she can get to pretty much anything and still leave herself safe from harm. My Mist... capped strength and had shockingly decent offense, being able to double everything too. She made an awesome mage-murderer due to having great Res+Physical damage. I found she made good use of the Sonic Sword as well, being able to hit the worse enemy defense stat and remain out of threat range for physical counters. Its such a shame about that pdef. Its epic. DLwise she's a Light, but at least a fun one. I'd probably give her an A in swords, so she can use a Silver Blade, which makes her damage not totally suck. She still has that whole epic failure pdef weighing her down.
Elincia: She's like Mist, but flying and trades in some Res for some defense, provided she's using Amity. She couldn't really damage things like Mist could due to lacking the head start Mist did in Swords and so being unable to wield good weapons. Amity's Mt simply wasn't enough at endgame, she had troubles hurting enemies who weren't mages. Still, not totally frail staff user+mounted unit is great.
Laguz: I didn't use them much at all. The times I used them early on made them look pretty awesome, but I figured (rightly, I think) that it would be better to concentrate on human units. Nasir was decent enough in the last battle, so I've got no complaints. DLwise they all kind of suck. Being unimpressive statwise and having to either do nothing for several turns or having a time limit on what they can do. Lights, likely. The exception being Laguz royals, who are special and don't count. They are High Heavies, probably.
