martes, 21 de febrero de 2017

(Special) Radiant Dawn 10th Anniversary Article

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening people.


Original Picture here

Today, February 22nd, we're celebrating a special day: the Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn's 10th anniversary (from its original release in Japan), and I thought it would be a interesting idea talk about this game; how is this game, its legacy and other influences in the Fire Emblem Series (for good or bad reasons), etc.

The Story


Let's begin with what happened before the release; Radiant Dawn is (as we know) the tenth entry of the main series, developed since May 2005, (the same year it were announced the “Nintendo Revolution” and the development of Super Smash Bros Brawl) this game begin its developed soon after the Path of Radiance release, sequel for their previous release; they wanted to take advantage of the Revolution's release, this made Radiant Dawn the first attempt to release a Fire Emblem game in the Earliest Days of a console lifetime.

Radiant Dawn got its official announcement the next year during the Pre-E3 Nintendo Conference (May 9th, 2006), the Revolution had already changed its codename to the official “Wii” some days ago; Radiant Dawn was briefly showed that day, with most of the content in the teaser being the first two CG cut scenes; a extremely weak presentation if you ask me; but it doesn't surprise me, Fire Emblem don't have anything those days to try to give it a proper presentation; the game was then showed again in some Japanese events and Videogame-dedicated magazines before the eventual release.

When the game was finally released, even with good scores from Famitsu, it got .. underwhelming results, it got 160k sales, only a small improve compared with the PoR's Sales. (Radiant Dawn has the “honor” to be the Fire Emblem Game with the forth weakest first-week sales and the third lowest total sales in Japan), personally I find the fault in the extremely weak advertising (including a weak presentation, boring ads and be overshadowed for other games).


Only Path of Radiance and TMS #FE have overall worse sales in Japan.


As some interesting fun facts about the game pre-release and release; the game confirmed the presence of two main groups and details about the first two parts, with the only element from other Parts confirmed being “The Crossing” fragment of the Part 3 that appears in the intro; the game completely lacked any kind of representation for Ike, something that in the hindsight I find hilarious, specially when you see how the plot is handle after his appearance.

The advertising before the western release (during November 11st, 2007) in the other hand, was a lot more Ike-centric, even if this was still small and weak; probably the changes in the focus was with the intention to show perfectly this game is a sequel, thing that I'm not completely sure if was or wasn't a good idea.

The Story wasn't that much better in America (and specially in Europe) sales-wise, with a weak performance, only getting roughly 300k~ in the West.


Without a doubt, Ike has a interesting story in the franchise

Before we pass to the next part, there is something important to point that happened during 2005 related with the Radiant Dawn: It's unknown how it affected the game's development, but during a moment after July 7h (when the roster was “essencially” done), Masahiro Sakurai was in the search of a “burly swordsman” and a “new Fire Emblem Character” for the already mentioned Super Smash Bros Brawl; apparently a suggestion from one of the member from the Fire Emblem's Staff ended mixing both ideas in the form of Ike, eventually his suggestion become a reality, as one of the members of Brawl's Starter Roster, officially revealed in August 1st, 2007. Ike is probably the luckiest example of a Fire Emblem character in Smash Bros, we was essentially selected to fit a criteria and gimmick instead of his character of what he would represent from Fire Emblem... and this decision changed his life forever even if didn't affected Radiant Dawn's development (something I'm going to explain later)

What happened next


After the last two games flopping; as a intent to test the waters and know what direction would the franchise go in future, Intelligent System decided (a little after Radiant Dawn's development was complete) to create a special project that would make the franchise less niche, the known details about the game suggest that this game had more RPG elements than the usual Fire Emblem Game; but this idea had a problem; the project was unable to find a proper objective and focus in its development; and as we know, it was cancelled.

It's unknown if there were other reasons to cancel this game, I ask myself this because just a bit after this game was cancelled, Fire Emblem enter in a Era where not only abandoned completely the Home Console Market, the franchise tried to milk the Marth's Popularity a lot, remaking his two games (Fire Emblem Dark Dragon and Fire Emblem Mystery of Emblem, the last one, the Fire Emblem's best seller) and making him a key aspect of Fire Emblem Awakening merchandise in the form of “Masked Marth” (aka Completely-no-Lucina), one of the most heavily advertised characters in the game (and actually lived his.. I mean, her hype, but that is topic for another day.)


Sometimes I think the Lucina's existence is a product of Smash.

Why I mention Marth's Popularity right now? Because this character has a very special reason to be popular: Smash Bros., even if Anna is officially the Fire Emblem's Mascot, for most of the people, Marth it's considered as such; and he wasn't the only character benefited for the Smash Bros presence... that is right, Ike, even if he was incorporated in the Smash Bros for COMPLETELY arbitrary reasons, he was able to gain tons of love, and even some times been considered the most beloved lord in the franchise; the Ike's love would have existed before, during the post-PoR days, but the Smash Bros establish him as a Fire Emblem Icon; in the Ike's case, Awakening decided to dedicate him a “cameo” with a character based in his design and personality; Paris/Priam, and, according with him, the Ike's descendant, apparently connecting his world somehow with the Akanea/Judgrall/Valentia Universe; also, while not as evident as Priam, Chrom looks in my eyes designed as mix between Marth and Ike, and it's extremely likely this isn't a coincidence.

Ike and the release of Fire Emblem Awakening, awakened (hehe) the interest for these games again, but it was already too late, the games are in most of the places sold out, and their prices increased... a lot, I remember how I found a Radiant Dawn copy in 50 Dollars during 2008, and now is practically impossible to find it cheaper than 90 dollars... How the times change eh?


The future


The recent success of Fire Emblem and Ike becoming even bigger and bigger as a Fire Emblem Icon, makes me wonder... What would happen if IS decided to release again Path of Radiance and/or Radiant Dawn? What would they change? The game's design was already to focused on benefit Ike when we didn't know if his confirmation in Smash Bros affected or not the development... but now, the Ike bias is complete real, and would have actual known consequences.

I mean, it would sounds weird nowadays because Ike is established as the main icon of both Fire Emblem Tellius Games; but he went so far in expense of complete destroy the possibilities of the original main character from Radiant Dawn, that isn't other that the maiden we have dedicated this small blog: Micaiah, to get her proper exposure in the story and complete successfully her character arc, a phenomenon it hadn't happened before; a game with a different lord but with the plot complete in the side of the older one unless is completely necessary.

I would now been a little bit pessimist right now, specially for a great day like this, but I'm some times afraid and what would happen if my fears are correct and the remakes of the Tellius became even bigger Ike's fests? Isn't unjust for the new characters that tried to gain a place in the fanbase, only to be completely defeat for Ike and his elite?


The structure of the game's story gave it a unique feeling compared with other FEs ... but at what cost?

Sometimes I think about what would had happened if IS decided to give completely the protagonism to Micaiah like they did with other games where the main character was changed and the story's focus (being the most similar case Thracia 776)... What would happen if we would have the opportunity to control most of the game the new lord? A story more focused in the Micaiah's side of the story, with more room to development and such... This kind of story doesn't need to invalidate Ike, but his presence and personality fit more for a legendary hero than a main character (some kind of Late-Game Character); he has already been developed and ended his character arc. He should already give an opportunity to another character to shine".

That is of course my opinion, but I invite you to think about it and then post your own thoughts.
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And that's it, it has been ten years of really interesting stuff, some good things happened, some bad things happened; I would have liked to see some changes in the aspects of these stories, but I'm glad I was able to share some of my thoughts and knowledge of the topic; and I hope that your enjoy this day as much as I.

Happy Anniversary everyone!!


We're still waiting for Micaiah in FEH.


- Troykv (The Dawn's Historian and Micaiah4Smash Main Admin)


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