The story takes place on the fictional continent of Tellius, inhabited by the human Beorc and the shapeshifting Laguz.

The group travels across Tellius, allying with other countries to free Crimea from Daein's control and confronting racial tensions and long-standing resentment between the Beorc and the Laguz along the way.

A direct sequel for the Wii, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, was released in 2007 in North America and Japan, and 2008 in Europe and Australia.

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is a tactical role-playing video game in which players control protagonist Ike and a group of characters across multiple battle scenarios.

In this location, skills can be assigned, weapons can be traded, purchased, and forged, and bonus experience points earned in battle can be given to characters.

Other similar mechanics exist, such as fire magic being more damaging to some beasts, and arrows being more effective against airborne enemies.

[15] As with previous Fire Emblem games, Path of Radiance takes place in a continuity and setting separate from the rest of the series.

Other Beorc characters include Titania, a former knight of Crimea, Shinon, a master sniper, and Soren, a mage and tactician serving under Greil.

Over the course of the game, Ike and his companions overcome long-held racial tensions between the Beorc and Laguz in order to form an alliance against their true enemy, Ashnard, king of Daein.

In particular, Ike manages to re-establish relations between the Beorc empire of Begnion and the few remaining members of the heron Laguz clan, which was annihilated in an act of genocide known as the Serenes Massacre.

[22] During the course of their journey, they discover that Ashnard is provoking the war to try and release the dark deity contained inside the Medallion, using Daein's invasion as a template for his plan.

[23] In the final assault, Ike and his mercenaries manage to defeat both the Black Knight and Ashnard, thwarting the scheme.

With Ashnard defeated and the Daein occupation ended, Elincia is crowned as Crimea's new queen, who works to make the land a place where Beorc and Laguz can live in peace.

[24] Development on Path of Radiance began at Intelligent Systems after the international success of the first localized game in the series, released overseas under the title Fire Emblem.

[25] Path of Radiance was the first Fire Emblem to have 3D in-game graphics, full-motion video cutscenes and voice acting.

At the same time, they introduced the base as members of the development team wanted a place where characters could interact separate from the battlefield.

To make moves in battle and cutscenes realistic, the team used motion capture, then made sure it appeared a little over the top so the fantasy feeling of the Fire Emblem series remained intact.

[5] The game's subtitle does not refer to a specific object or place, but instead acts as a metaphor for the journeys of Ike and other characters.

[16] A new Fire Emblem title was first announced in April 2004, with the full reveal coming in an issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump.

The version of the game displayed there was an early model, and between its reveal and release, it underwent some changes to improve the usability and quality.

The biggest challenge for the team was translating from Japanese to English, which required staff from Japan to come over and check their work.

When translating the dialogue, the localization team wanted to preserve the story's depth and serious tone, despite often having a limited text and character space for interaction and expression.

[6] The amount of dialogue and text that needed translating was estimated at less than that in Animal Crossing, but still enough to take several months to complete.

As far as possible, the team remained faithful to the original script, aside from pieces like jokes which would not have made sense to people unfamiliar with Japanese humor.

[25] Reception of the game was generally positive: on aggregate site Metacritic, it received a score of 85/100 based upon 42 critic reviews.

One reviewer cited it as the series' new exemplar, while another pointed out rough edges in the graphical redesign and that the new 3D perspective made seeing some parts of the map difficult.

[4] RPGamer's Chris Privitere said "While Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance doesn't necessarily add anything new to the tactical genre, it does everything very well", recommending it to players while stressing the need for patience.

[8] Peer Schneider of IGN called the game "yet another worthy installment in Intelligent Systems' venerable strategy RPG series".

[12] Nintendo World Report's Karl Castaneda was also highly positive, though commenting that its graphical quality were more suited to the early days of the GameCube's life and that it might have been a great success if released during that period.

[37] Greg Kasavin, writing for GameSpot, saying that "by replacing the traditional random battles that typify most Japanese role-playing games with a fun and exciting turn-based combat system, and by going out of its way to deliver a memorable and genuinely emotional story, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance accomplishes what all role-playing games attempt, but very few actually manage to do".