There are certain animations I love seeing so I used the extra features in Radiant Dawn to select whose battles went to the battle scenes and whose didn't.  ^_^

Oh I see, then yes.

There is no world map or exploring (except in FE8 for the GBA).

Usually there's an inbetween or before chapter area where you can do various things such as rearrange items, save, view/set up supports...etc.

Menu.

In Fire Emblem 7 and 8 you would buy and sell items in shops within the battle stages itself (although you could sell and do inventory in between most battles), while in FE9 and 10 the caravan that travels with you (usually) would take care of both sales and purchasing of most of your needs (a few exceptions, like when your group is in a friendly town).

I'd play Path of Radiance before Radiant Dawn, since RD is a direct sequel, it makes it more enjoyable. :)

And I rate Radiant Dawn my 2nd favorite SRPG, only behind Final Fantasy Tactics. :)

You haven't played any of the Super Robot Taisen games have you?

I played the 2 thate came out on GBA in North America (I really enjoyed them but they aren't my fav SRPG's). I'd love to play more of the series, but I did so poorly at Japanese class I had to drop out or fail. :(

Ouch.  Anywho, I don't like Tactics.  It feels like grind-fest at points and the characters aren't memorable to me.

That's because a good portion of the Story war ripped right off of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together along with the battle system, character designs, map designs... etc.

I still like Final Fantasy Tactics for what it is though.  Been meaning to want to pick up from my last game but I can't find my PS1 memory card.

You don't have to know much japanese to get a lot out of the non-enlish Super Robot Taisen games in my opinion either... at least not if you recognize a lot of the Robots. It's fairly easy to memorize which skills are which by looking at the patterns of the letters combined with how much they cost... and the attacks is just all picking the best attacks. Sure you don't get the equips, or just attach them randomly, but you can just keep grinding to where it doesn't matter.

I'd go with the Path of Radiance first Soriku... 3 reasons.

1) It's Gamecube, bet you can find it cheap and convince your parents to get you a second game or get this one sooner. Maybe even be able to get it with Brawl because it's so cheap.

2) It's easier. So you'll get used to it right away. If it's too hard you can even put it on easy which will make things REALLY easy to get then hang of and work your way up as you replay it on normal.

3) Volke rules.

FE is directly an SRPG which has more of a rock paper scissors type game its really enjoyable if you like spending hours on organizing your army. i played most of the japanese FE's and i enjoyed it without the story even

speaking of SRT, i loved the original generation series on the GBA cuz its the only SRT i understood. I did play EX, 4 and a lot more in japanese i never understood the story since it was japanese though.

The characters for SRT OG are very memorable. it brought a tear to my eye when one of the captains died >.