I just wanted to let everyone know that Shinnon is ahead of Rolf!!!!!! Oyvoyvoyv has his work cut out for him convincing people to vote for a pre-pubescent, inexperienced whinny boy.

PS1 had a lot of great Srpg's Final Fantasy Tactics, Vandle hearts 1 & 2 Brigadine, Front mission's. All of them are very good. The very old Romance of the three kingdoms on Nes is probably the most complete one I have ever played.

* I will post my endgame experience soon ^^, Am pretty sure am getting near the end of the game.

Ill look into Vandal Hearts. Thanks for the Suggestions. Brigandine is already pretty high on my list. I've played one of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and didnt care much for it. I think it was RotTK VII. If not it was right around that era. I know it was a PS2 game for sure. Are the older NES ones much different??

looking forward to your Endgame experience.

I'm really slowly playing this game, as I don't have much time, and I can't play this week.
I'm stuck in 1-8 until monday.
Anyway, if what I hear everywhere that the hardest part of the game is the first part, then the rest of the game will be a blast. I'm just having no problem at all with Micaiah's team, I have no problem with reinforcements at all, as even if I'm always surprised, I still can cope with them without any problem so far. I have no problems with criticals either.
Actually, the two harder chapters were 1-1 and the one where you can't kill everyone because the turns are limited, and I couldn't steal an item from the boss, or even kill him (that's when you meet Zihark).
These were harder just because I couldn't get everything I wanted in these. Oh, and the prologue that is very tactical (if you want to maximize XP, which I always do).
But if I wasn't maximizing and evening XP, and if I wasn't wanting to get every chest and objects, there is not a single chapter that would have been hard.
So I guess the following ones will be a piece of cake?
If so, even hard mode will be easier than in PoR.

I feared the game was really hard, but it's not so hard. The difference I see with PoR, is that in this one, I actually had to use Potions and Herbs, while I rarely, if ever did that in PoR. Also, I rarely had to rescue units in PoR (to save it, not the trick to move it farther), perhaps once or twice, while I had to do it already 2-3 times in RD. Now, in 1-8, nearly all my main units (Nolan, Edward mainly) are promoted (except Jill which I can't use in 1-8), and Micaiah is 20th level already.

Jill is a god already, she was my best character in my PoR power save, with 4 stats maxed (so she has a +2 bonus on these 4 stats). Even my Zihark is strong (I thank god for the save though, as the late reinforcements archers in 1-7 were very powerful and all ganged on him, and I needed one of them to miss for Zihark to survive, won't make that mistake again of not checking enemies' stats), and is already S+ (must be SS) in swords, thanks to my power save. The other Greil mercenaries will probably be gods if Zihark, which supposedly suck, is already so good (he just kills nearly everything in one assault).

Going through 1-8 was a slaughter already, I sent my main promoted characters alone on every corner of the map, and they just owned everyone. If I don't even need strategy anymore in 1-8, the rest will be laughable. Well, actually, I still needed stratgey, as I forgot to give velocity to Rafiel before the battle, so I had to carefully plan his steps so that he didn't get killed (too lazy to restart). It worked perfectly in the end.

The game is very good so far anyway, even if I agree the story doesn't sound as good as in PoR so far. It's going too fast.

If your not having any difficulties yet then I highly doubt you will beyond Part I. You will probably however find a few levels that have turn limits frusterating because like you said you cant quite do everything you want to in 15 turns. Not hard just frusterating having one or two enemies still running around. Jill is still pretty useful in this game so its really good that your using her. Later on she has some really impressive stats. The story isnt quite as good as PoR but if you think of the two games as one story it helps, I find it does anyway.

I noticed something interesting some time ago. When you kill Lekain (that's the first boss in the endgame part 4, right? Well, his spellbook says "A very strong light magic. It can only be used by someone with good intentions".

So he has good intentions? Also, Micaiah can't use it.

I wanted to thank all you guys that suggested other strategy/tactics games to me. I was browsing my local pawn shops today and scored a mint condition (doesnt even look like they ever played it or touched the manual) copy of Final Fantasy Tactics for the PS1 for only $5. There were other games higher on my priority list but for $5 I couldnt resist, so i'll be digging into this game shortly after I finished Okami and a few others.

By the way if you guys havnt read oyvoyvoyv's signature yet I urge you to read it, laugh out-loud because Rolf is lame, and then give Shinnon your vote because he owns Rolfs soul.

I finally picked up a copy of FE:RD based on recommendations from WoW and others. Just tried it out a little last night while babysitting my daughter (finished the prologue which I now have to repeat on my own Wii) so just getting into it.
As it's my birthday I'll likely end up with another game or two (plus WiiFit when it comes out) so not sure how much time I'll be able to put into it (almost none this week) but once I do expect me to be using this thread looking for advice.

Happy birthday.

I hope you have as much fun with Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn as well have.  ^_^ 

Good choice..

And happy birthday