Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn without playing Path of Radiance?

[Erik_Twice]

Short story short: I have Radiant Dawn. Path of Radiance is expensive. I need my strategy fix. Thoughts?

PD: I hear RD is very hard so "easy" or "normal"? I like it being tense but not too tense!

[ElkinFencer10]

Short story short: I have Radiant Dawn. Path of Radiance is expensive. I need my strategy fix. Thoughts?

PD: I hear RD is very hard so "easy" or "normal"? I like it being tense but not too tense!

You definitely should get Path of Radiance first if you can afford it. The story is (in my opinion) pretty great, and since one directly follows the other, it's best to start with Path of Radiance. I'd do Easy or Normal, yeah. Normal isn't too bad for the first half of the game, but it gets tense after that. If you just want good strategy and a nice story, stick to Easy; it still gives a nice challenge at the end without busting your balls and stressing you. I'm the EXACT same way with strategy games, so I'd suggest Easy. You can always play through again on Normal; that's what I did.

[MrPopo]

If you play the first it gives you some minor stat boosts for the second, which can really help on higher difficulties. Normal difficulty is pretty dang hard. The game is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is hard but doable; you have to be careful to ensure all your units are getting experience. The second chapter is a small one and isn't too bad. The third chapter switches viewpoints between the characters of the first game (easy maps) and the characters of the first chapter (balls hard). The fourth chapter is when everyone unites and is back to a reasonable level of difficulty.

[ElkinFencer10]

Yeah, something on my Radiant Dawn disc is messed up and won't let me import Path of Radiance data, so I can't attest to how much that boost is, but I know that it helps.

[deathsled]

Radiant Dawn is indeed very hard on easy and normal modes. I have a blast playing the GBA Fire Emblems which I find fun and challenging at times.

Radiant Dawn is ridiculously hard to me it seems. I think it took me 10-15 tries each to beat the first two missions. I think I'm only on the 3rd mission in my game. After you waste an hour on one mission getting defeated after getting pretty far in it really makes you want to turn the Wii off lol

[sabrage]

Which one lets you disable permadeath? Having to restart a whole mission because one of your best characters died is half the fun of Fire Emblem.

[Erik_Twice]

Which one lets you disable permadeath? Having to restart a whole mission because one of your best characters died is half the fun of Fire Emblem.

A difficulty setting disables permadeath? I didn't know that, not that I'm letting anyone die

[MrPopo]

Which one lets you disable permadeath? Having to restart a whole mission because one of your best characters died is half the fun of Fire Emblem.

A difficulty setting disables permadeath? I didn't know that, not that I'm letting anyone die

I believe that is only a feature of easy difficulty on the latest DS Fire Emblems.

[sabrage]

Permadeath is a feature. Respawns are in every game.

[Erik_Twice]

Permadeath is a feature. Respawns are in every game.

It is. Fire Emblem is balanced around it, otherwise the game would crumble because instead of slowly eroding the enemy one by one you would rush without rime or reason because you can outpower the enemy. And that is not fun.