Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn ships for the Wii tomorrow, and those who have played through Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance on the GameCube should have no trouble getting into the story - Radiant Dawn is a direct sequel. If you haven’t played PoR, though, don’t worry. The game does a good job of setting you up. The story is your classic brother and sister rising up against the oppression of an evil empire. There are ancient religions with mythical powers. Oh, and there’s a primary enemy in big, black armor that took your father away from you. Sound familiar?

Radiant Dawn draws many parallels to a story that is near and dear to many of our hearts. We’ll take a look at them after the break. I won’t reveal any major plot spoilers or game endings, but some details from very early on in the game might be brought up. Just so you know.

The first part of Radiant Dawn reintroduces Sothe, who spent his time in Path of Radiance searching for someone. Upon returning to Daein, Sothe found his older, Branded, and adopted sister, Micaiah. Together, they lead the Dawn Brigade in a fight against the evil and corrupt Begnion Empire.

Sothe and Micaiah aren’t twins, he didn’t rescue her in a space station, and Micaiah is no princess (though she is of significant importance…). Regardless, they could be seen as a parallel to Luke and Leia in some respects.

Of course, you could also view Ike and Elincia as a Luke/Leia pair in a way. Ike grew up through a humble life of a mercenary and as a citizen of the Kingdom of Crimea, having been brought there after being born in a land initially strage to him. Meanwhile Elincia was raised in nobility as a princess. The two of them found each other by fate in the previous game, and some would argue that there was a little bit of a spark between the two of them at the end of the last game. Both are headstrong, and Ike and Elincia ultimately lead the fight against the Begnion Empire and the forces behind the game’s evil plot.

In addition, Ike has some personal matters to tend to during the game. In Star Wars, Luke was told that the dark-armored Darth Vader betrayed and murdered his father. In Path of Radiance, Ike saw the Black Knight betray and murder Greil. In Radiant Dawn, you’ll finally get the big one-on-one battle to avenge the death of Ike’s father. Now, the Black Knight isn’t going to take off his helmet to reveal the face of Greil or anything like that (or is he?), but there are several similarities between the Black Knight and Star Wars‘ Dark Lord beyond the whole father-murdering business.

The Black Knight is the big, scary, evil guy that everyone fears, and we’re all pretty clear on that. What you’ll eventually learn, if you haven’t figured it out already, is that the Black Knight is somewhat of a puppet for the increasingly evil Begnion Empire. There’s a Palpatine behind him, an evil figure lurking in the shadows commanding the Black Knight with intentions of his own. Of course, this figure doesn’t go out in public wearing a Sith cloak. Instead, he acts as a normal member of the aristocracy - a phantom menace, if you will - waiting for the oppotune moments to act.

Over in Crimea, we’ve got a Queen in crisis. Yes, we’ve compared Elincia to Princess Leia already, but as a Queen, Elincia draws parallels to Leia’s mother, Padmé Amidala. Other nobles don’t want her in power for her policies regarding the Laguz, so they’re conspiring to remove Elincia from power via a rebellion in the country. As far as I know, there aren’t any invasions or assassination attempts from an outside nation into Crimea in Radiant Dawn, but like Amidala against the Trade Federation, Elincia is a headstrong queen and isn’t afraid to join the fight.

As is traditional with Fire Emblem games, we see essentially the entire continent, humans/beorc and laguz alike, band together against the evil Begnion Empire in a large effort towards the end of the game. Battles of Yavin and Endor, anyone? As expected, the game will also deal with elements beyond the physical world, moreso than its predecessor and more to the degree we’ve seen in past FE games. It’s not the all-powerful Force, but it’s pretty significant.

There are other parallels that can be drawn, including the laguz and the Ewoks, Greil and Obi-Wan, and depending on how you look at it, Soren could be 3PO or Yoda. There are more, too, that I probably haven’t even thought about. I’ll leave those to your imagination, but feel free to share your ideas below!

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