kirby007

User Score
8.2

Presentation - 7.0
Gameplay - 8.5
Value - 7.5

I quit World of Warcraft this past year.

Why is this relevant you ask? Let me explain : as a semi serious player of any Good and/or Great MMORPG,
you invest time a LOT of time in such a game. You think a normal gamer worries about his backlog?
A MMO player doesn't even know the word, untill you quit....
At that point in time you suddenly have a boatload of sparetime.
Right around the same time you realise how many games you have missed over the past decade.

Thus this will be a trip through memory lane for many of you, but bare with me and enjoy the ramblings of a gamer reborn.
I will review games I have missed or might have started but not finished due to Warcraft.

What was my first game you ask? call of duty!! Yes brilliantly fun mindless shooting
just like I used to do with DOOM or Call of duty 2 before I decended into the abyss

But I'm not going to start with a boring CoD review, thus let me introduce todays review Fire Emblem : Radiant Dawn



War is Chaos.

But the chaos of war in Fire Emblems is offered well structured and manageable.
Which is one of the points I enjoyed this game so much.

The fun starts before the battle. Scrolling through all screen with characters,
objects and information to prepare for the coming battle.
I choose the men and women who will fight for me based on the environment and enemy units,
I can see it all and consider everything. Experiencepoints earned in previous fights I use to toughen up some units.
I buy new weapons and can make my own weapons.
The girl on the flying horse gets that shiny lance, lets see how much that increases her power,
hmm... maybe I shouldn't give her it after all.
once the fight starts its quite likely i have been enjoying myself for maybe 15 minutes or an hour.
That joy of having your numbers add up as an accountant,
fix that final bug as a dev * ye right?;)* or a footballcard collector getting his final card of his collection.

The main issue is looks they feel quite dated but i suspect they weren't topnotch back in the day anyway.
but that doesn't really matter as it's presented well.

The story in Fire Emblem is mainly told in dialog between dozens of characters before, after or even during each battle.
I tend to do the same thing as in WoW and press on and not read it,
but for those that like that kind of thing its probably
orgasm worthy to note you can ship certain chars by building relationships.
And those relationship in battle can be found back by placing
them close enough together that they reinforce eachothers attacking or defensive attributes.
Story serves gameplay, most excellent