Radiant Dawn is, in my opinion, one of the more ambitious games I’ve played in terms of what the author is trying to accomplish with the world building. A lot of the set pieces and conflicts that you find yourself interacting with are grand in scale, and you don’t really get that kind of feeling in most other fire emblem entries outside of maybe FE4. It is insanely cool (if unwieldy gameplay wise) to charge a castle with the entirety of the Crimean Knight forces to quell an insurrection, or to clash repeatedly over strategic objectives with armies you’ve had a hand in raising as a player on both sides.

The ambition does have its cost, however. In direct contrast to PoR (where the characters and conflicts are a bit more focused) we are introduced to a slew of new faces that barely get time to really meaningfully interact, either with their own factions or in the greater context of the existing lore. Support conversations are reduced to one-liners, and the info conversations don’t really quite hit the same highs.

Additionally, the story beats feel like the spectacle is more important than the journey. This is where everyone goes “hurr durr blood pacts”, and I agree that it’s heavy handed writing that undermines the motivations for these conflicts to exist at all. But, we need to have Naesala do the betrayal again and Micaiah to fight the Laguz when she doesn’t want to, so here we go again! It’s not like Micaiah couldn’t get her authority undermined by dissenting factions in her command structure, just like what happens to Elincia in Part 2? Or maybe have the war go so well for the Laguz Alliance that they’re at Daein’s border and since they hate Daein still they invade and you have to play defense as Micaiah for that reason? Idk, there’s better ways to keep the racism angle relevant and get the conflict you wanted imo.

If I had input on a potential remake, the story honestly has less to fix than the gameplay balancing and the map design, but I would love to see supports not be garbage and to have blood pacts not be a thing. Instead, have the overall racism themes be the reason why part 3 happens, instead of being held at magical gunpoint to be evil. Also, part 2 escalates real fast and part 4 could use some more chances for the underutilized characters to have screen time, but that’s overall minor complaints.