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SenseiJinx
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« on: December 11, 2007, 11:27:01 AM » |
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When I began this game, and played through the first Part, I'll admit I was sorely worried and disappointed by the story. While it did have some interesting things, I didn't feel connected to characters nearly as much as I did in Fire Emblem 7 or 9. Everything felt rushed, the character development felt poor, and the fact that Support Conversations were nerfed was a huge blow to me.
But starting in about...Chapter 8, things slowly started to pick up, particularly with the return of the Black Knight, and the whole scene with Muarim and Rafiel. And then Part 2 came along, which I enjoyed immensely, despite its short length. Finally, Elincia was an interesting character! Ludveck wasn't exactly an interesting villain (did he need to be?). But the choice Elincia had to make at the end of that Part really got me to thinking. She probably made the right decision, but man that would have been hard. It was about as far from cliche as you get.
And then Part 3, wow. Sure, Ike wasn't as interesting as he was in PoR. But did he really need to be? He had already experienced the life defining moments in that game, and whatnot. In this game he was merely a rock solid person, who was as brash and funny as ever.
But the story picked up in a way I couldn't believe in Part 3. We had the laguz alliance led by Skrimir, and passionate and hotheaded young laguz who slowly had to learn some restraint over the game. And then there was Zelgius. Easily one of the best and most compelling villains in any Fire Emblem ever, at least in Part 3. I was almost certain that he was the Black Knight, which made it even more interesting. He was charismatic and strong, but also seemed compassionate. Remember that line he said about always trying to find the solution that sacrifices as few lives as possible? The way he stopped the laguz alliance's march was amazing, and it really made you begin to wonder if the laguz alliance was in the wrong. But through all of that I was remembering the brutal way in which he murdered Greil...
I was very impressed by the whole blood pact thing. It showed both Pelleas' weaknesses and mistakes, but also gave him the chance to show that he could be the king that his "father" never was. (And the fact that Pelleas was actually just a commoner who was told that he was king made it even more interesting.)
Which brings me to another thing: Fire Emblem doesn't skirt around tough issues. It shoves issues like death, betrayal, racism, genocide, and more right in your face. But I've always felt that it does it very tactfully and effectively. Radiant Dawn is no different. If you give it the chance, and aren't just expecting crazy plot twists (which are plentiful as well) they contain really meaningful stories and characters.
So we had both sides of the army, and neither were "evil" per se, but neither were particularly in the right either. Micaiah hated Ike, and Ike assumed that Micaiah was some sort of psychopath bent on the destruction of her own people. (Unfortunately, they didn't really expound on this once their teams got together for the final part.) And through all of this I began to wonder who was pulling all of the strings behind the curtains. I assumed Sephiran, and I was right.
Would most people here agree with how incredibly and unbelievably awesome the ending of Part 3 was? It set things in a completely different notion than I was expecting, and totally blew any of my preconceptions about Tellius and its history out of the water.
Part 4 bucked RPG convention in so many ways. Okay, it followed the cliche with the fact that the god that people worshiped was actually "evil" and must be destroyed. Somebody that you initially thought you could trust was pulling all the strings in an attempt to destroy the world. Blah blah blah.
But come one. Was Ashera really the evil goddess and Yune the righteous crusader? The game doesn't frame it that way. Order is not evil, and neither was Chaos. But for whatever reason, alone, neither of them were complete. In a way, Ashera was correct: people kept killing each other, creating wars, whatever. Racism still abounded on both sides. Maybe that could not be corrected. But because of the way she was -- half of a person -- she assumed that the only way to stop it was to destroy the world and start over. Yune, being the other half, saw the fault in that plan. Which was why they were supposed to consult one another before they passed judgment.
So Ashera wasn't really the ultimate evil (especially evidenced by the ending of your second playthrough).
What about Sephiran/Lehran? I still haven't finished my second playthrough, so I don't know his whole story. He was more at fault than Ashera: he manipulated Tellius in order to destroy it, because he found it irredeemable. Even so, he was a caring person who had been through unbelievable pain in his life. He choose a horrible way to deal with it, however, and deserved to die. But I found the scene where he comforts Sanaki -- his descendant -- before he dies to be very poignant.
Some people have been disappointed in Zelgius/The Black Knight's revelations in the final chapter. Somehow they had to conciliate his personality as Zelgius with his cold blooded murder of Greil. They wanted to show a person who was not merely a killing machine bent on destruction, but who was still not without fault. The fact is, he was not an entirely stable person. For some reason he got in his head that he had to defeat his teacher in order to prove his worth. It became one of the driving points of his life, shutting out most everything else out. That happens to people. When he finally did kill Greil, he was disappointed. He knew that if Greil had never mutilated his own body, and fought at his former strength, he never would have won. So he felt like his son would be the only way to find Greil's former strength. When Zelgius lay there dying in the final Chapter, he and Ike shared a certain understanding. Ike did not feel remorse for killing Zelgius, and Zelgius felt no shame in it. In a way he had fought his teacher at last, and had also become Ike's final teacher.
I loved it. The game managed to show more than one side of EVERY MAJOR VILLAIN in the game. Ashera, The Black Knight, and Sephiran. It didn't excuse their actions, but it showed their pain and their mistakes. In other words, they were human (or laguz, or branded, heh).
There was also the part were Nasir tells Almedha, Ena, and Kurthnaga that the three of them are largely responsible for where the world was at that point in time. And he was right. Those three -- especially Almedha, and to a lesser extent Kurthnaga -- had set in motion so many of the horrible things that had happened. Dheginsea might have been right in his order for dragons to keep out of the affairs of Tellius. But they knew what they had to do, even if it meant having son fight against father.
I dunno. The whole game was just a culmination of thought provoking and touching thing after another. If I could fault the story in any way, it would be this: it starts off too slowly. And nobody receives as much characterization this time around, especially without support conversations. But the net result was that, despite those facts, the story impressed me. I'd rank it right up there with FE7 and FE9.
Which brings me to another thing. I'll respect your opinion if you didn't like story after playing the game. But the comments made by some of the major review sites are summed up by these comments from Gamespot:
"Laughable Plot."
"With your army, you will battle a series of villains that are for the most part so laughably one-dimensional that they might as well be cackling while tying young damsels to railroad tracks and twirling their handlebar mustaches. For a series known for its detailed backstories (particularly those of its villains), these knavish ruffians, who act like they're evil because it's the new black, are severely underwhelming and disappointing. To Radiant Dawn's credit, the story and quality of villainy do improve later in the game, but chances are you wouldn't give the story long enough to really develop if that's why you were playing it in the first place."
Are gamers really that superficial? Actually, I'm of the firm belief that they didn't play past the first Part of the game, since that's really the only place where those complaints would have warrant.
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