No innovation, very bad story. Difficulty level was very good, I found it a tad easy until the very end, and that was only because I leveld about 20 guys instaed of the 11 you have to take into the end... and 5-6 of those guys are basically pre-selected! LAME! Make sure to only level a few powerhouses. Also the story is "meh" than "nostalgic meh" then it gets lame, and falls apart at the end. In fact, I quit about 3 missions from the end after a character I really like died for pretty much no reason and with no revelations of any kind coming with their death. Also, the graphics and characters wern't that great.

I honestly thought it was easy. Then again, I didn't play on hard mode becuase you have to beat the game first. Also, the risk of having ro restart just seems stupid... why purposely make the game less fun?

Never played RD but still sucks that the story is lame.  Especially since it is a direct sequel to PoR, whose story is considered to be one of the best in the series

Well, the problem with that comparison is that Radiant Dawn didn't have good graphics for a Wii game. (although, most SRPG do look terrible)

From what I gather, it didn't seem like a big advancement from PoR. And since when is a 79 bad?!

That's a good score.

Gamerankings averages aren't very good indications of the actual quality of a game.  Especially if the scores are of wide range. i.e. Lost Odyssey: Lowest:2.5/5, High Score: 96/100

Why do some people hate the story so much? I actually like it a lot.

It's very generic from what I can tell

Let's take this apart.  It'll be fun.

"No innovation"

-> Fixed level-ups for BEXP.  The fact that you always get +1 to 3 stats pretty much redefined how BEXP was used.

-> Authority bonuses for hanging around the leaders of their units.  I found this very helpful as I preferred the Ike/Mist support so Mist got yet another boost for hanging around Ike.

-> Skills became transferable.  Need some experience on unit XYZ?  Now I can move the Paragon skill onto it.  Need some weapon experience?  How about I move Discipline over to the unit?  Oh this unit is too slow, but hey I have a Celerity skill I can give it, problem solved!

-> 3rd Tier.  Let's take the original villager promotion type from Gaiden and the recruit promotion type we tried out in the gba games and standardize it for everyone.

-> You get to fight your own team.  Probably one of the coolest things IMO was getting to fight one of the other groups I controlled with another.  I don't know if that's innovative in the series, but I certainly hadn't seen it done in a previous Fire Emblem.

I'm sorry they chose not to rewrite the entire system for your benefit, but they made some pretty awesome additions to it.

"very bad story"

I'm sorry they peed in your Cheerios, but I quite liked the story.  I was very pleased to see how they tied the 3 separate plots together.   My only complaint was that it felt rushed at the end.  I really would have liked more explanation of the motives of the final enemies.  A lot of that is explained on the side, but I'd have preferred it to be shown up front.

"5-6 of those guys are basically pre-selected"

I'm not sure how to approach this one.  On the one hand, I could make fun of you for being unable to level most all your units.  Having had finishing runs where most everyone on my team was 20/20/20 or around there just going into the Finals, I can't see leveling being an issue unless you only use certain units all the time.  Of course, if you do that you deserve to be slapped in the face by the game as hard as possible.  I learned that in the very first Fire Emblem I played.  Spread the experience or you get into trouble later.  ^_^

On the other hand, I could also point out that those units were pretty obviously going to be there.  What were you thinking anyway?  "Derrr the story revolves around these units but I'm gonna ignore 'em."  Well gee wiz, did you think ignoring the plot centric characters would end happily?  It's kind of like sticking your hand into a hot toaster.  At some point you should going to realize it's going to hurt... preferably before you do it.

"graphics and characters wern't that great."

You're playing an SRPG on the Wii.   Do you understand exactly what that means?  If you had said "I didn't like the character models" or "I liked XYZ's look in PoR more than RD," those I could sympathize with.  However a blanket complaint about "graphics and characters" in an SRPG on the Wii is idiotic.

- I saw a couple reviews that said the game had a terrible story. For them to go out of their way to say the game had a terrible story is beyond me. Either they never played PoR, or they didn't get very far in RD to really see things fleshed out. I don't feel that they genuinely thought the story sucked.

- They bitched about it looking like a Cube game.  I was actually quite pleased with the games presentation; particularly the improved battle animations.

- They bitched even louder about it being too hard.  Pussies.

This is what happens when you get Fire Emblem noobs reviewing a Fire Emblem game. The 1up review was penned by a Fire Emblem fan, and look how great it scored. Bozon on IGN rated lower than it deserved simply because it didn't have waggle, which is a contradiction to their stance on games that use waggle in place of a button press. In any event, FE was such an awesome game.

What website was it that has a FE:RD review where the author prefaced her review with a paragraph talking about how much she hated SRPGs?

Oh, here it is. Destructoid:

I hate tactical games. I hate strategy games, real-time strategy games, and tactical RPGs. I would rather drive screws into my nostrils with the business end of a power drill and, of course, apply a nail gun to my eyes than play a tactics title.

...

All in all, it’s kind of a crummy package, I think – but I’ve the sneaking suspicion fans of the Fire Emblem series, or those who love a real tactical challenge, might adore it. The plot’s weak, the characters blab on too much, and the whole deal’s very last-gen, but for the truly dedicated, it’s playable, I guess. Rent it if you're a tactical geek -- everyone else should forget it.

Hilarious from the first sentence where she makes it clear that she hates this game before opening it to the last where she suggests that "tactical geeks" should rent this game which will take them 40+ hours to complete.