How good are the tellius games?

[Harvey]

So sadly, I'm one of those gamers who hasn't ventured into the tellius era which is PoR and RD and unless Nintendo/Intelligent Systems decides to port them to Switch, I can't get them both.

So with that in mind, to those of you who have played them, how are these games overall to you? 

EDIT: Ok so some found it kind of vague so what I was trying to say was...is it worth getting them even if its tough?

 

Edited May 18, 2018 by Harvey

[Anacybele]

I think they're the best FE games by far! They have the best story writing (generally. I admit it isn't perfect. It's just really good), the best characters, and RD has the best gameplay imo. There are several things RD did that I wish would come back. Ledge mechanics, two magic triangles, and third tier classes. I really want them all back.

Also, Ike. <3

Edited May 18, 2018 by Anacybele

[Magical Glace]

Radiant Dawn - good, but I have first game bias, also Micaiah is best girl.

Path of Radiance - really boring.  

[Modamy]

That's a pretty vague question in all honesty, but I do think they're good games. They have issues in their design like other Fire Emblems, but I personally enjoy them more than the gba games. They can be kind of slow to play because of the animations (enough so that I would advise you to download a completed save file of Radiant Dawn just to turn off the animations at some point). The difficulty of the games hit a sweet spot for me on their highest difficulties where they aren't ball busters like Conquest, but their not brain dead either. I can't say they are worth the price, but if you can emulate them go for it, especially if they do get a rerelease. Also in regards to the story I find Tellius has one of the best fleshed out worlds and casts in the whole series.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

FE9 has a better story whilst FE10 has better gameplay, actually the best gameplay till the release of Conquest.
Both games are fun and replayable.

FE9's only issue is the low difficulty if you don't play the JP version. 

FE10 has some balance problems in terms of difficulty and unit's usage. Some units are very hard or almost impossible to use on highest difficulty. Therefore it features lots of (including unique) mechanics and the largest amount of main story maps and different mission objectives.


You could play 10 first (as I did), but I recommend to play both parts at the end to understand ist entire story.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Hecatia Lapislazuli

[Anacybele]

I think even with PoR's somewhat lesser gameplay and lower difficulty, it isn't boring at all and has a great story to keep you wanting to come back for more. Ike is also possibly the most popular character in this series (he really only competes with Lyn there, I think) and generally agreed to be one of the better written lords (though he's not as well done in RD. I love his RD design and some of his lines which makes me love him enough anyway, but his development is blah and his personality might not be as present as it is in PoR).

RD does have balance issues though, yeah, as there are a few characters whose availability is downright ass and makes them hardly usable. Certain characters like Meg and Fiona are borderline unusable too. But hey, nothing's perfect.

Also, Elincia is best girl in this series to me. Forgot to mention that.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Anacybele

[Strullemia]

They're great games. Tellius is great.

PoR is probably the best "good" FE game in the sense that it's the only FE game that at no point really fails at a gameplay or story point (every other FE game makes some mistakes here and there) but it doesn't really excel in anything either. It's my fourth favorite FE game. I do have to mention while I play most of my FE games on normal I still think the game was too easy even on a normal difficulty. 

RD is my second favorite FE game after FE4 and while it does have issues at times in both story and gameplay sections (I hate part 4's gameplay and there's a certain plot element I'm not a big fan of and no support conversations) I think the game mostly makes up for that for doing a lot of unique and cool stuff. Controlling different armies, having different parts where you control different characters, a lord who is put in a very unique position, having a lot of different objectives.

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2018 by Hekselka

[NinjaMonkey]

5 minutes ago, Hekselka said:

and no supports

There are supports, just no support conversations.

[Strullemia]

Just now, NinjaMonkey said:

There are supports, just no support conversations.

That's what I meant. I'll edit my post.

[smgrinus]

@Harvey They are very enjoyable if you can actually find them. Radiant Dawn is especially difficult to get since for some odd reason Nintendo did not release the game beyond its first printing on the Wii. You would think they would make copies available for Switch by now but they haven't. The only other way to play them is through Dolphin emulator which in itself is legal but obtaining the images are not unless you actually rip the original discs you own. 

[Etrurian emperor]

Path of Radiance is a really great conventional Fire Emblem, very strongly balanced in terms of story, cast, gameplay and music. It has a conventional style like Blazing sword and Shadow dragon which is both a good and a 'bad'' thing. POR excels so strongly because it perfects the traditional Fire Emblem formula but that also means its not an entirely unique experience. Rather than trying anything new its just what Blazing Sword and Sacred stones did but with higher production values. 

Radiant Dawn is the opposite of a perfect conventional Fire Emblem. RD is a very ambitious game that tries a lot of unique things. This makes it a very special experience that stands out  among the Fire Emblem games but because its so special it also has its fair share of beauty marks. Not every great idea was executed as well as it could have been.

[Cysx]

Both are pretty great as far as I'm concerned. They do suffer from being extremely slow-paced due to needlessly long animations in general, though.

But mechanically as well as story-wise, they're quite ambitious at the very least.

[Florete]

Yeah, that's a really vague question. As a whole, the Tellius saga is probably the most well-received among the fandom. It is largely considered to have the best or 2nd best story (some people have problems with aspects of RD's plot). PoR's gameplay is good if not great while RD's was arguably the best in the series at the time.

Personally, Radiant Dawn has been my favorite game of all time for a while and only recently might have been beaten (by something not FE).

Are they worthy titles? That's...Is that really a question you're asking? They're certainly not to Fire Emblem what Other M was to Metroid, if that's the kind of thing you mean.

[omegaxis1]

The Tellius series is one of the best series in the Fire Emblem franchise. Path of Radiance has by far some of the best worldbuilding, some well-placed character development, and a rather strong plot going for it. It's definitely up there. 

Radiant Dawn though is still good and has a good story still, but it's super rushed. It's split into four parts and tries to be really ambitious, but rushes things too much and didn't handle the new characters well enough, and the worst part is that it has some of the worst case of plot convenience, particularly in the last two parts, and the final part just having the overall worst offender. The lack of support conversations in Radiant Dawn makes it even worse. It's still good and has some awesome gameplay effects. But overall, I would argue that Path of Radiance is much better. 

[Etria]

Both PoR and RD are my least replayed FE games. Part of it are the characters; I like 3 or 4 and I really dislike Ike. And the plot really suffers if you don't care about the protagonist. World building-wise it's good. The plot has as many bullshit moments as any other FE game. The gameplay/maps is boring or so-so for me. RD especially is both rushed and dragged out (Part 1 and 2 the former, part 3 and 4 the latter). Personally, I wouldn't put too much effort into finding these games, but they are worth playing at least once.

[Slumber]

It's #2 behind Jugdral(Well, that's not true since FE4 would probably barely make it in the top 5 FE games for me). And it has far less of those weird quirks that might put people off.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Slumber

[Rose482]

PoR : Good, the world building is very good ( RD has also a good world building, but chances are you will play PoR first ) And has a amazing cast, while the main character might be nothing new, but the chances are you will be into the story and not care : P And yeah it has really good story and amazing supports.

 

RD: My favorite FE game, while it has flaws and it's not perfect, I still find it amazing, it's a lot more fun to play than PoR, and this game just feels very different from the normal FE games, it has so many things that i doubt we would ever see again, and seeing tellius and the cast from PoR again makes it even better.

 

Edited May 21, 2018 by Rose482

[EricaofRenais]

If you liked Conquest's gameplay RD is a game you will like because the map design and gameplay is great.  PoR is pretty good, but not as good at least IMO as RD.  RD is still my favorite FE game because of the gameplay and characters, plus Tellius has my favorite thief class in the series I miss the steal skill so much in the new FEs.  There is nothing like going up to an enemy and robbing them blind before you take them out.

[Icelerate]

Since you dislike FE6 story wise, you might not like PoR that much since the stories are quite similar.

I've only played FE6-FE10 and overall I'd rank the games like this:

1. Radiant Dawn

2. Blazing Sword

3. Binding Blade

4. Sacred Stones

5. Path of Radiance

The reason PoR is so low is due to lacking replay value and relatively boring game play/map design in comparison to the rest of the games. 

[Shoblongoo]

Best writing and worldbuilding in the series.

Great gameplay to boot in Radiant Dawn.

PoR pisses me off because they took Lunatic difficulty (i.e. "maniac mode") out of the western release for no god-damn reason, and the [normal] + [hard] modes are kind of a joke for experienced players.

Like that was just 'ol pile of "fuck you" to the American fanbase (this was back when IS was still treating Fire Emblem as a primarily Japanese game and a curiosity in other markets, rather than as major IP to be marketed and released for global  sales)

I'm just waiting for them to do a proper PoR remake with maniac mode playable outside the Japan, so I can finally play the game the way it was meant to be played.

I'm gonna be soooooo salty if they at some point do a straight FE9 remake with only the original content released to the west, and DON'T make maniac mode playable in the American version. 

Edited May 18, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Silver-Haired Maiden]

The Tellius games are the best in the series that I've played. Radiant Dawn was my first ever FE game and it still holds top spot to me and is in my top 3 favorite games I've played overall. If you can get your hands on them I definitely recommend it. Sure they have their issues like any game but they really shine in other areas.

[Modamy]

2 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Best writing and worldbuilding in the series.

Great gameplay to boot in Radiant Dawn.

PoR pisses me off because they took Lunatic difficulty (i.e. "maniac mode") out of the western release for no god-damn reason, and the [normal] + [hard] modes are kind of a joke for experienced players.

I’ve heard some people say they may have taken it out because they were dissatisfied with it and it’s easy to see why people would think that. From what I’ve seen of PoR’s maniac mode it’s basically super blazing sword. Huge mobs of weak enemies with 1-2 range weapons just to annoy you. The enemies aren’t even stronger just bulkier so most units can’t one round them. Also since this is super blazing sword obviously sword locked units are trash, even Ike. The most difficult thing about the game is managing your weapon durability in the early game.

[Harvey]

10 hours ago, EricaofRenais said:

There is nothing like going up to an enemy and robbing them blind before you take them out.

Wait...you can steal in RD?

 

Since you dislike FE6 story wise, you might not like PoR that much since the stories are quite similar.

 

I dislike the story mainly because Roy is almost acts like a flawless character and the plot hardly has any sad moments and the supports for the most part are just..bleh. But PoR from the sounds of it is different so I don't know where you came up with the similarity.

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Harvey

[thecrimsonflash]

in my opinion they are great, path or radiance was a pretty solid entry with an excellent story, only problem was that it was too easy, even playing on hard was not near as bad as they could have made it.

radiant dawn is in my opinion the fire emblem formula perfected, the skill system was by far the fairest version the series has had, every weapon was given parity on ranged and heavy variants, shifting units were at their best aesthetically and thematically (remaining transformed out of battle, felt absolutely monstrous when transformed), a good amount of class variety, and some of the best mechanics and map the series has seen.

I am not biased. 

[Icelerate]

55 minutes ago, Harvey said:

Wait...you can steal in RD?

 

 

I dislike the story mainly because Roy is almost acts like a flawless character and the plot hardly has any sad moments and the supports for the most part are just..bleh. But PoR from the sounds of it is different so I don't know where you came up with the similarity.

 

You can steal weapons if they aren't equipped or if you manage to disarm it through a skill. It's usually not very useful but it is pretty funny. 

That's my main criticism of Binding Blade's plot. If I ignore Roy's perfection, the game has a pretty good plot although the least interesting of the five FE games I played. Ike isn't as perfect as Roy but some of the fanbase give Ike flack for being too perfect in Radiant Dawn. PoR Ike is usually free from such criticism. I would talk more about the familiarity but I don't want to add spoilers for the plot. Even Roy and Ike are quite similar as characters which people often ignore because their personalities are very different.