The only taste of Nintendo's long running Fire Emblem franchise American gamers have gotten so far came in the way of a port of the second GBA Fire Emblem game released in Japan. This Fall Nintendo will give gamers in the states another taste of Fire Emblem with Path of Radiance.

Path of Radiance has no connection to characters or storylines currently existing in the Fire Emblem series. Instead, the story will revolve around a racial conflict between humans and a new class of demi-humans that have the ability to take animal form. This element will have a significant effect on gameplay as well. The demi-humans cannot carry weapons but instead use natural powers to fight. When a meter expires they will revert to human form and have to wait until it is refilled before they can take animal form again.

Additionally, there will be new units, classes and skills all around. Each character can only remember a certain amount of skills and as new ones are learned old ones will be forgotten. New shove commands allow you to push a unit (friend or foe) one or two spaces away from you. At level up, some choices will now be available concerning which weapon classes a character will use. Mages will be able to use all three magic types, but the magic triangle remains in place (although somewhat streamlined). Spell casting units can now equip weapons if they choose, but will perform poorly with them. Some guest units will take general commands (such as target the boss) instead of doing their own thing.

A significant change to the gameplay is the ability to level up characters indefinitely using optional fights between the required battles. This will allow players to concentrate on the battle at hand and focus on leveling up later, if they wish. More details on this mechanism are not yet known. As before, if a character dies in battle he or she will be lost permanently unless the game is reset and the battle replayed.

Players will also have to work with their units "bio rhythms," which can make some units stronger at the beginning or end of a battle (items and skills can reduce this effect).

A major change in the game is obviously the presentation. Attacks are shown using impressive 3D animation. However, many gamers turned off the animations in the GBA version to speed up the game. These gamers will still notice the increased graphics quality of the main map and units will still show basic attack animations on this map if 3D animations are disabled. The C-stick will provide camera control for the battle map, with the L button providing zoom. You will be able to lock the visible representation of enemy movement ranges on screen as you move your own characters to ensure that you see clearly where you want to go.

Another major difference from previous iterations is the addition of pre-rendered animation and voice work for major cut-scenes. The animation is unbelievable. The look of the characters is perfectly hand drawn in stills, yet moves fluidly in 3D. It is definitely 3D rendering, and appears to be a very high quality cel-shading. The result is quite simply breath taking.