Fire Emblem is in the middle of a renaissance right now, and as a fan it's heartening to see. The latest game, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, launched to strong sales and critical reception. The mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes is still going strong, resisting the worst of Nintendo's increasingly-worrisome monetization practices. There's even several amiibo of Fire Emblem characters, something fans couldn't have even dreamed of years ago. Nintendo's niche strategy RPG is not so niche anymore. Which means it's time to start investing in some high-quality remakes.

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The Case For Path Of Radiance

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Yes that is a picture of Ike, that Marth clone from Super Smash Bros. Joking aside, you'd be forgiven for only recognizing him from Smash because his actual game is stupidly rare. It's called Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and it released towards the end of the Gamecube's run.

Pretty much anyone who has played Path of Radiance will emphatically recommend it. It holds a respectable 85 on Metacritic, with an 89 user score. It's story is the main selling point, going against the usual Fire Emblem tropes of pretty heroes and the cartoonishly evil villains who oppose them by summoning dragons. Ike is not a pretty prince, but a down-to-earth mercenary out to avenge his father's death. The war being fought is by no means cartoony, dealing with heavy themes like racial inequity. Its sequel, Radiant Dawn, adds further depth by showing the effects of Ike's war and calling into question the way the "bad guys" were treated.

Gameplay-wise, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn added a lot to the series. Laguz units (beastman, essentially) featured new types of movement and resources to manage. Units could build supports outside of combat, a godsend after the Game Boy games. The turn-based process of moving units on a grid remained the same, but battles were more varied thanks to objectives. Victory wasn't always earned by killing everything, sometimes you had to just hold out against a superior force. Or get everyone to a safe point. These games didn't introduce these concepts, but did use them to great effect. Fans look back with particular fondness on these varied win conditions after the 3DS games went back to very kill-heavy battles.

Really, fans look back on everything about Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn with a wistful gaze. The games had some of the series' most likable characters, best battles, and emotional stories. So how is it that Ike is known more for being another anime sword guy in Smash than for his actual game? Why haven't more people played it?

Rare Artifacts

Let's get one thing out of the way: you cannot buy a digital version of Path of Radiance or Radiant Dawn. Like all the other Gamecube games, they've never returned for the Wii U virtual console or whatever the heck Nintendo is doing with classic games on the Switch. They didn't get the remaster treatment like Wind Waker HD. That means they only exist in their original forms, as a Gamecube and Wii disc, respectively.

Path of Radiance was released towards the end of the Gamecube's life, right as fans were getting some indication that another console was on the way. When the Wii was the latest thing, it was more about bringing people together for fun motion games than it was about strategy RPGs. As such, neither game got the marketing push it deserved. The idea that Fire Emblem was a niche series led to Nintendo producing a relatively small amount of copies. And we all know what happens to an old game with limited copies– They end up being sold on the internet for ridiculous prices.

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Hope In Echoes And Switch

Even for the most hardcore Fire Emblem fans, $200 to play two games is a big ask. Fortunately, Nintendo seems to be on a bit of a remake kick lately. It's already well-known that the Wii U's most worthy games have been ported to the Switch or given quick sequels. The original Pokémon games even got a full-on remake with Let's GO Pikachu and Eevee. There's plenty of reason to hope that Nintendo will remake an older Fire Emblem game.

In fact, it already happened in 2017 with Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. The 3DS title was a complete rework of the second Fire Emblem game, a Japan-only Famicom game. It took the old pixelated characters and gave them gorgeous new art, as well as full voice acting. It kept a lot of the old mechanics but also added new ones, such as a time-turner device that let you redo a bad move. Likewise, the story kept the same general structure but also added new bits to flesh it out. Overall, Shadows of Valentia was a proper mix of honoring the source material while updating it with modern tools. It also shows us a clear path to re-experiencing old Fire Emblem games.

While They're At It, Some Ideas...

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The "Echoes" part of Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia implies a spin-off brand. It gives us hope that there will be more echoes of old adventures. Like... maybe Ike's? We've already made our case why his games deserve a second chance. So let's leave with a look at what an Echoes upgrade could give Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.

The biggest thing is that both Radiant games were quite challenging because they offered limited battles. In Fire Emblem, experience is a valuable resource. Modern titles add auxiliary battles, things like random bandit skirmishes. These allow you to grind XP to a certain extent. The Radiant games didn't have these, instead challenging players to dish out the experience they did get strategically. We could see an Echoes remake adding side battles. We could also see them adding the time mechanic to redo bad moves, as it also appears in Three Houses.

On the graphics side, we don't see much more than pretty gloss to take advantage of current hardware. Ike and friends are beloved by fans just as they are, and any major design changes would just serve as a point of outrage.

Lastly, and this is more of a pretty please to Nintendo, maybe "Echoes of Radiance" could feature both games on one Switch cartridge. It would be nice to play them back-to-back. Until then, all we can do is play Smash and then play Three Houses right after and pretend like that's enough.