North American cover art Director(s) Masayuki Horikawa Toru Narihiro Hitoshi Yamagami Taeko Kaneda Senri Kita Ken Yokoyama Yoshito Hirano Saki Haruyama Naoko Mitome Atsushi Yoshida Kanako Teramae Series Release •: April 20, 2005 •: October 17, 2005 •: November 4, 2005 •: December 1, 2005 Mode(s) Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is a developed by and, and published by for the in 2005. It is the ninth main installment in the series, and the third to be released in the west. As with previous installments, gameplay revolves around positioning characters on a battlefield with the aim of defeating an opposing force. If characters are defeated in battle, they are removed from the rest of the game. The story takes place in Tellius, a separate world from other Fire Emblem games. Tellius is a continent inhabited by the humanoid Beorc and the shapeshifting Laguz. The game begins when the Beorc nation of Daein invades Crimea, a fellow Beorc nation.

The protagonist, a mercenary named Ike, discovers Princess Elincia, the last heir to the throne of Crimea, and begins a journey to restore her to the throne. Ike and his group travel across Tellius to form alliances with the other countries and free Crimea from Daein's control, confronting racial tensions and long-standing resentment between the Beorc and the Laguz along the way. Path of Radiance began development for the GameCube after the overseas success of the game, becoming the first home console entry in the series since. The game is the first entry in the series to feature 3D graphics, full motion cutscenes, and voice acting. The series' transition to 3D caused multiple difficulties for the developers. The localization team worked closely with Intelligent Systems to ensure the localization was as true to the original Japanese as possible. Upon release, the game received widespread critical acclaim for its gameplay and story, but several journalistic sites and magazines made negative comments about the game's graphics.

The game debuted at the top of Japanese gaming charts, and was considered to have sold well. A direct sequel for the,, was released in 2007 in North America and Japan, and 2008 in Europe and Australia.

A battle in Path of Radiance, with Ike and other characters confronting a group of enemies. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is a tactical role-playing video game in which players control protagonist Ike and a group of characters across multiple battle scenarios. At the game's opening, multiple difficulty settings can be chosen: in the Japanese version the options are Normal, Hard, and Maniac modes, while the western version has Easy, Normal, and Hard modes.

In all modes, characters who fall in battle cannot be revived, being removed from the rest of the game, and no revival items can be used on them during a battle. If Ike falls in battle, the game will end and the stage must be restarted. Before entering battle, players can choose a certain number of characters to use in the battle from a roster of up to 46 characters.

The roster grows as the game progresses and more characters are recruited, and the number of characters able to be used varied between battles. During battle, players have access to two species: the humanoid Beorc and the shape-shifting Laguz. Beorc use weapons and magic, while Laguz use close-quarters melee attacks. Laguz have a gauge which fills up during battle, filling at varying speed depending on their status and whether they are under attack. When the gauge is full, they transform into their animal form for a set number of turns, becoming far more powerful than Beorc characters. However, they are unable to attack while in human form, and are vulnerable until they transform again. The time between transformations can be shortened using special items.

Oct 17, 2005 WheelzFourReelz's Review of Fire Emblem: Souen no Kiseki. Read GameSpot player reviews and contribute your own!

Playable Beorc characters are each assigned a. These classes affect a character's skills and how far they can move on the battlefield.

Some classes are exclusive to certain characters: for example, the Ranger class and its skills are exclusive to Ike. Laguz characters also have different movement speeds and strengths depending on their transformed form.

Character skills are additional abilities each character possesses. These classes can be tailored to a degree, with some skills available to award to any character, but skills inherent to a particular character cannot be removed or changed, and the amount of skills able to be awarded is restricted by the character's skill limit. Characters used in battle gain, with larger amounts of experience being awarded depending on a character's performance in battle. Bonus experience is awarded by fulfilling secondary requirements outlined at the beginning of the level.

Once a character earns 100 experience points, they automatically levels up. At level 21, a character's class is automatically upgraded. This upgrade can also happen at level 10 if the player uses an item called a Master Seal. Once the class changes, the character receives set stat bonuses, and their level is reset to level 1, while carrying over all the random stat increases aggregated up to that point. After promotion, the level-cap is 20, and no character can earn experience points after achieving this level.

Between battles, characters can be managed at a Base. In this location, skills can be assigned, weapons can be traded, purchased, and forged, and bonus earned in battle can be given to characters. There is also a Support system accessible through the Base where player characters can talk with each other and improve their relationships. These conversations improve affinity between characters and grant stat boots in battle. Supports are ranked from C to A, with A being the highest rank and granting the best bonuses. Battles take place on a grid-based map with multiple teams: the player team, the enemy team, allied characters, and neutral characters.

A character's class (animal form for the Laguz) and the map's terrain can affect how far they can move and the range of their attacks. Gameplay is turn-based, with the player moving their characters during the player phase. Once the player's turn ends, the enemy phase begins. If allied or neutral character are present, their phases will follow. During each phase, a character can move once and follow one command. Once this is done, the unit turns gray and cannot be moved or commanded until the next turn.

Each turn can be ended manually by the player, or automatically when all characters are given their orders. The standard commands for characters include attacking characters, using items, rescuing characters (temporarily removing wounded characters from play at the cost of a stat-drain for the rescuing character), trading items with other allied characters, 'shoving' characters to an adjacent space, and waiting until a later turn to receive a command. Special commands include talking to characters in battle, opening chests, visiting buildings on the map, stealing items, and in some cases having characters escape from the map.

If each character is not given a command, Ike has the exclusive ability to command all free characters, giving general orders to characters who have already moved for the next turn, or to unmoved characters for the current turn. If the level involves escaping the battle, Ike's escape will end the level. The Fire Emblem series' Weapon Triangle mechanic is featured again, in which the three main close-combat weapons are strong or weak against each other: axes are strong against lances, lances are strong against swords, and swords are strong against axes. Other similar mechanics exist, such as fire magic being more damaging to some beasts, and arrows being more effective against airborne enemies. Weapon durability decreases over time, with weapons eventually breaking when used a certain number of times. Weapons have different levels of strength, with its assigned letter (E to A and S) denoting the level of skill required to wield it.

Weapons forged at Base can also be customized with a unique name. Magic is governed by a similar system to the Weapons Triangle; fire is weak to wind, wind is weak to thunder, and thunder is weak to fire. Synopsis [ ] Setting and characters [ ] As with previous Fire Emblem games, Path of Radiance takes place in a continuity and setting separate from the rest of the series. The game's setting is the continent of Tellius, inhabited by two species: the humanoid Beorc, and the shape-shifting Laguz. According to legend, the goddess who made the world created Beorc in her image, and created the Laguz to fill the gap between herself and beasts. The two races have struggled to coexist, leading to racial tensions and conflict on both sides. By the events of Path of Radiance, Tellius is divided into seven nations which remain at peace.

A key item in Tellius is Lehran's Medallion, the world's incarnation of the recurring Fire Emblem. It is a bronze medallion said to contain a dark deity who brought chaos to the world 800 years before and caused all the world but Tellius to be engulfed by the sea. To prevent the dark god being freed, war must be prevented in Tellius. There are forty six characters encountered through the story that can be recruited, each offering their own contribution to the story.

The majority of the main cast comes from the Greil Mercenaries group, led by its eponymous founder, Greil (voiced by ). The protagonist is Ike (voiced by Jason Adkins), Greil's son. He is accompanied on his travels by Mist (voiced by Elsbeth Nathanson), his sister, and Elincia (voiced by Erica Evans), the lost heir to the Crimean Throne. Other Beorc characters include Titania, a former knight of Crimea, and Soren, a mage and tactician serving under Greil.

The Laguz characters include Lethe, a cat Laguz with a strong hatred of Beorc; and Caineghis, the lion king of the beast Laguz who wishes for peaceful co-existence with the Beorc. The main antagonists are Daein generals called the Four Riders, which include the enigmatic Black Knight (voiced by Mark Dias), and their master King Ashnard, the ruler of Daein. Plot [ ] The game opens with Greil recruiting Ike into his band of mercenaries. While on a mission near the Crimean border, Ike rescues a woman from a Daein patrol who is revealed to be Elincia Ridell Crimea, a princess who narrowly escaped being killed with her family during the Daein invasion of Crimea. Daein attacks the mercenaries shortly after this, and they are forced to flee over the border into Gallia, a Laguz nation. They are pursued by the Black Knight, who kills Greil in single combat before being driven off by the Gallians. Ike and Elincia decide to work together to drive the forces of Daein from Crimea.

Over the course of the game, Ike and his companions overcome long-held racial tensions between the Beorc and Laguz in order to form an alliance against their true enemy, Ashnard, king of Daein. In particular, Ike manages to re-establish relations between the Beorc empire of Begnion and the few remaining members of the heron Laguz clan, which was annihilated in an act of genocide known as the Serenes Massacre. During the course of their journey, they discover that Ashnard is provoking the war to try and release the dark deity contained inside the Medallion, using Daein's invasion as a template for his plan. In the final assault, Ike and his mercenaries manage to defeat both the Black Knight and Ashnard, thwarting the scheme.

With Ashnard defeated and the Daein occupation ended, Elincia is crowned as Crimea's new queen, who works to make the land a place where Beorc and Laguz can live in peace. Development [ ] Development on Path of Radiance began at after the international success of the first localized game in the series, released overseas under the title. Due to high development costs, the team had been unwilling to develop a title for the GameCube, but after Fire Emblem 's success overseas, they decided to return from portable to home consoles for its next release. Was also involved in development.

Path of Radiance was the first Fire Emblem to have 3D in-game graphics, full-motion video cutscenes and voice acting. It was also the first home console game since for the. Transitioning from 2D graphics to 3D graphics was one of the biggest challenges during development, especially the transition from the tilted overhead view to a character-to-character battle in third-person. One of the features left out due to this process was a dedicated battle arena. At the same time, they introduced the base as members of the development team wanted a place where characters could interact separate from the battlefield. As there was no combat gameplay involved, other types of activity were created, such as special support conversations.

To make moves in battle and cutscenes realistic, the team used motion capture, then made sure it appeared a little over the top so the fantasy feeling of the Fire Emblem series remained intact. By the end of development, Narihiro had some regrets about the quality of the game, saying in an interview that he considered it to be only 70% complete when released. The character designs were done by Senri Kita, an artist new to the series. In contrast to previous Fire Emblem games, where the protagonist was of royal blood, the main character Ike was intended to be of lower social rank, a mercenary who becomes involved in royal politics and conflict rather than being born into it. Ike was born from the many ideas for new directions being suggested for the new 3D game, with many people wanting the protagonist everyone could empathize with. His status as a mercenary was a highly requested character trait by male staff. A character that returned from previous games was Jeigan, who was this time designed as a female character.

Designing all the characters to be unique under the new conditions proved a challenge. This also resulted in higher-quality character artwork being produced during the initial design stages. The full-motion videos were created by Japanese animation studio.

Introducing the cutscenes into the game proved challenging for the team. The game's subtitle does not refer to a specific object or place, but instead acts as a metaphor for the journeys of Ike and other characters.

Release [ ] A new Fire Emblem title was first announced in April 2004, with the full reveal coming in an issue of. The game's title, story details and chosen platform were announced in Weekly Shōnen Jump, with a release date announced as some time during 2004.

The game was first shown publicly by Nintendo at their Nintendo World Touch DS event in early 2005. The version of the game displayed there was an early model, and between its reveal and release, it underwent some changes to improve the usability and quality. As a pre-order bonus, Nintendo created a special CD containing selected tracks form the game, and a special calendar commemorating the series' 15th anniversary. The game released in Japan on April 20, 2005. The first western demonstration of the title was. It was the third Fire Emblem title to be localized, after Fire Emblem and. Players with save data from the Game Boy Advance Fire Emblem games are able to connect with Path of Radiance and access concept art and special maps revolving around characters from those games.

Path of Radiance released in North America on October 17. It was subsequently released in Europe on November 4; and in Australia on December 1.

Localization [ ] The localization of Path of Radiance was handled by Nintendo of America's localization branch Nintendo Treehouse. During the process, the team worked closely with Intelligent Systems staff members. The biggest challenge for the team was translating from Japanese to English, which required staff from Japan to come over and check their work. When translating the dialogue, the localization team wanted to preserve the story's depth and serious tone, despite often having a limited text and character space for interaction and expression. While they had the option to add extra text boxes, this would potentially have made going through conversations tedious for players, so they worked to match the number of text boxes used in the Japanese version. The western version's difficulty was also toned down: the Japanese version's Maniac setting was removed, Hard Mode was toned down, and a new Easy was introduced.

These adjustments were based on both western test player feedback, and feedback from Japanese players complaining about the game's high difficulty. The amount of dialogue and text that needed translating was estimated at less than that in Animal Crossing, but still enough to take several months to complete. Due to its serious nature, the team needed to take a different approach to its localization than other Nintendo titles. As far as possible, the team remained faithful to the original script, aside from pieces like jokes which would not have made sense to people unfamiliar with Japanese humor. While most of the time they refrained from putting out-of-context remarks in character dialogue, an exception was Anna, a recurring Fire Emblem character who featured in optional tutorial missions. As she existed outside the game to a degree, they had more freedom to have her make pop culture references. Reception [ ] Reception Aggregate scores Aggregator Score 85% (47 reviews) 85/100 (42 reviews) Review scores Publication Score B+ 8/10 34/40 8.6/10 8.7/10 Nintendo World Report 9.5/10 RPGamer 4.5/5 RPGFan 85% In Japan during its opening week, Path of Radiance sold over 100,357 copies, selling through 64.16% of its initial shipment.

By the end of 2005, the game had sold 156,413 copies. In its UK debut, it reached the top of the GameCube charts.

Although no exact sales figures have been published, Nintendo cited the game as being among its successful GameCube titles for 2005. According to the developers, the fact that it was released near the end of the GameCube's lifespan affected sales, but it still managed to help sell the hardware and convinced Nintendo that the Fire Emblem had selling power on home consoles. Reception of the game was generally positive: on aggregate sites and, it received scores of 85% and 85/100 based upon 47 and 42 critic reviews respective. In 's GamerMetrics List for 2005 and GameSpot's 2005 Readers' Choice award, Path of Radiance was at #2 in their respective lists behind.

The game was among those nominated at the 2006 in the 'Nintendo Game of the Year' category. The game was named by was one of the best GameCube games of all time in 2014, and listed it among the five best Fire Emblem games in the series in 2013. 's reviewers each praised the gameplay, story, and the introduction of full-motion movies. One reviewer cited it as the series' new exemplar, while another pointed out rough edges in the graphical redesign and that the new 3D perspective made seeing some parts of the map difficult. 's Shane Betternhausen was positive overall, saying '[ Path of Radiance] delivers a superbly paced and rewarding adventure'.

RPGamer's Chris Privitere said 'While Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance doesn't necessarily add anything new to the tactical genre, it does everything very well', recommending it to players while stressing the need for patience. Peer Schneider of IGN called the game 'yet another worthy installment in Intelligent Systems' venerable strategy RPG series'. RPGFan reviewer Mark Tjan said that while not the best Fire Emblem game he had played, 'it's certainly a good game and worth picking up if you're searching for an SRPG worth your time and money'.

Nintendo World Report's Karl Castaneda was also highly positive, though commenting that its graphical quality were more suited to the early days of the GameCube's life and that it might have been a great success if released during that period. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell, despite feeling that the game was flawed by inherent problems in the Fire Emblem formula, enjoyed the game and was willing to replay once he had finished.

Greg Kasavin, writing for, saying that 'by replacing the traditional random battles that typify most Japanese role-playing games with a fun and exciting turn-based combat system, and by going out of its way to deliver a memorable and genuinely emotional story, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance accomplishes what all role-playing games attempt, but very few actually manage to do'. The majority of praise went to the game's story and gameplay, while criticism was focused on the graphical quality. From the original on 2015-07-21. Retrieved 2008-01-29. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon Official Website.

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• 任天堂公式ガイドブック　20th Anniversary 『ファイアーエムブレム大全』が発売中です (in Japanese).. • (2005-10-17). Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance... Level/area: Chapter 25: Strange Lands. Ike: What manner of being is this dark god? What would happen if it were freed from its prison? / Caineghis: I fear the world would once again be beset by natural calamity--much like it was 800 years ago.

At that time, all the world, save Tellius, was drowned beneath the seas. / Elincia: That is a true story? I thought it nothing more than a fable.

/ Caineghis: We have living proof: Goldoa's King Deghinsea. He and two other heroes fought alongside the goddess herself to defeat the dark one. [.] The Black Dragon King is a living fossil, and as stubborn as anything alive.

He's been trying to control the rest of us for years, and he always says the same thing. 'Do not fan the flames of strife. As long as Lehran's medallion exists, you must never begin a war that engulfs the entire continent.' Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved 19 May 2017. • (2005-10-17).

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance... • (2005-10-17). Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance... Level/area: Chapter 9: Gallia. • (2005-10-17).

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance... Level/area: Chapter 16: The Atonement. Nasir: It begins with the assassination of the previous Begnion apostle. It was twenty years ago. One year after the declaration of emancipation was made. The leader at the time was the Apostle Misaha, who was more adored by the public than any apostle before.or since. When she was assassinated, the citizenry was wracked with grief.

All of Begnion despaired. And then, a rumor began to circulate that the assassination was the work of the Serenes herons. In the twinkling of an eye, the rumor spread throughout the Begnion capital. One night shortly thereafter, it happened. The citizens grew violent.

They massed at the edge of Serenes Forest, home of their supposed enemy, and set it to burn. The crowd raged on for three nights, and in the end, the heron clan was lost.

• (2005-10-17). Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance...

Level/area: Chapter 25: Strange Lands. Soren: King Goldoa said that a conflict which engulfs the entire continent would free the dark god from the medallion. Let us assume that the war would have such an effect on the medallion no matter where it was.or who possessed it. And let's also assume that the king of Daein thinks this as well. I can hear him now.' Where is the tinder for the blaze I need?' The answer to this question proved to be an easy one.

Yet he had to find a way to test his theory.So, he attacked neighboring Crimea. It had to be Crimea.

Begnion was too big, too powerful. Daein would have lost.

Crimea, however, is a country known more for its scholarship than its military strength. Daein probably felt that a surprise invasion would let them win while taking minimal casualties themselves.

And they were right. Crimea was easy prey. • (2005-10-17). Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance... Level/area: Epilogue. Text: The war is over.

The Crimean people, who suffered gravely during the harsh Daein occupation, have at last regained their freedom. These same Crimeans have a saying: 'No matter how harsh the winter, spring will ever follow.'

This popular proverb proves true as the warm winds of change begin to blow across the countryside. The war has left the country in ruins, but the people rise from the ashes and take the first steps towards rebuilding their nation.

Though once scorned and despised as sub- humans, the laguz put aside past enmity and come to the aid of their neighbors. And the Crimeans never forget it was Gallia that fought beside them and helped free them from the yoke of Daein oppression. Led by the examples of Elincia and her retainers, Crimea begins transforming into the land its king had dreamed of.

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