Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance shows just how much the series has changed in 20 years

The GameCube cult classic is a must-play ahead of Fortune's Weave

The stage is set for Fire Emblem to land a critical hit in 2026. Capitalizing on the Nintendo Switch 2’s initial success in 2025, Nintendo is poised to push its momentum with Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave. The tactics game will serve as a proper follow-up to the critically acclaimed Fire Emblem: Three Houses, giving Nintendo’s new console its meatiest first-party RPG to date.

It’s a big moment for a series that wasn’t always a flagship one for Nintendo. If you need a reminder of that, you can now take a trip to a very different time, thanks to Nintendo Switch Online. Last week, Nintendo added 2005’s Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance to the service’s collection of playable retro games. The GameCube RPG is very well-known, but not because it’s a widely played masterpiece. Instead, it’s famous because of how hard it has been to play until now. Due to a mix of lackluster sales and an exceedingly positive reputation among fans, Path of Radiance has long been a rare collector’s item in short supply. For a long time, it was a pricey symbol of just how undervalued one of Nintendo’s best series used to be.

You no longer have to spend hundreds of dollars to play it legally. (Okay, you kind of do, considering that you need a Switch 2 to access it.) Path of Radiance is available now via Switch Online + Expansion Pack, and it’s an especially well-timed release with Fortune’s Weave on the horizon. It’s a reminder of how much Fire Emblem has changed during its long transformation from a hardcore rarity to a mainstream hit.

Path of Radiance is set on Tellius, a continent embroiled in racial tensions that are on the verge of boiling over when the story begins. The continent’s humans, known as Beorc, aren’t so eager to get along with the Laguz, a race of shapeshifters who have been derogatorily labeled as “sub-humans.” The story follows a group of mercenaries, including Super Smash Bros. staple Ike, as they try to unite the two races and fend off a potential war within the continent’s seven nations.

It’s a very “of its time” story: a heavy-handed allegory for racism clumsily delivered through fantasy wolf people. But even if it’s unmistakably a product of 2005, Path of Radiance still has teeth today. It’s the story of mercenaries — people who are used to keeping their head down and taking on any job for a payday — coming to terms with their social responsibilities in times of political turmoil. When do you draw the line and start standing up for what you know to be morally correct, even if it doesn’t pay? It makes Ike one of the series’ most compelling heroes. He’s a hired gun who is radicalized into becoming a resistance leader. That arc fuels a grand cautionary tale that urges us to put our differences aside and turn our swords against the powerful people who actually terrorize us by preying on division. Timely, isn’t it?

Despite being two decades old, Path of Radiance’s core design still matches the series’ modern installments. It’s a grid-based tactics game where players train an army of heroes and pit them against enemy forces in turn-based battles. The rock-paper-scissors combat, an RPG class system, social bond conversations — most of the series’ staples are present. The main difference is that Path of Radiance is refreshingly streamlined compared to the series’ recent installments on Switch. Each chapter starts with a few minutes of story development before letting players do all their squad management from a handy menu. From there, it’s on to a lengthy battle where patience and careful planning are paramount.

After spending so much time running around hubs and juggling additional systems in both Three Houses and Engage, the return to a combat-first RPG is a welcome change of pace. Sure, I loved teaching classes, fishing, and going on tea time dates during my time at Garreg Mach Monastery. And they were narratively motivated systems that put me in the mindset of a teacher rather than a general. But Path of Radiance’s focus on meticulous battles gives me more room to appreciate how tense a Fire Emblem fight can get — especially when the stakes are incredibly high.

That’s because Path of Radiance is from the era where Fire Emblem games were still unrelenting in their difficulty. Permadeath was unavoidable; when a troop died, they were dead for good. That feature has been made optional in recent Fire Emblem games, something that’s helped the series become more approachable over the last decade. That decision has long been a point of debate for Fire Emblem fans, with some feeling that the move sands down the series’ meaningful friction.

I can understand the perspective when returning to Path of Radiance. Each move really matters. You have to know the battlefield inside and out, knowing exactly how far an enemy will be able to move on a given turn. Sending someone too far ahead of the party can result in a quick and unceremonious death. It’s excruciating, but it forces you to become a wiser player. You’re a leader that’s truly responsible for your people’s lives, something that especially fits Ike’s story.

Loosening up on permadeath may very well be the reason the series has become a reliable crowd pleaser for Nintendo. After all, part of Three Houses’ success is that it just felt like hanging out with your pals. Watching a bunch of young kids die could very well have darkened the vibe, depressing the wave of fan artists who helped turn the game’s misfit heroes into icons. But Path of Radiance reminds us that bad feelings can be a powerful storytelling tool too. I’m more determined than ever to protect my most powerful friends. (I may or may not have abused the Switch Online’s save states to turn back the hands of fate once or twice already, but even that functionality is nowhere near as generous as Three Houses and Engage’s rewind features.)

Even if Path of Radiance’s difficulty feels too punishing for your preferences, it’s worth popping into it to feel how much the series has changed over the last 20 years. It’s the same tactics RPG on its surface, but one that’s emotionally distant from the comparatively feel-good Three Houses. Who knows how dark the saga will get in Fortune’s Weave — it certainly sounds like it might get a little cutthroat based on what we know so far. But Path of Radiance may just convince you to take off the training wheels and leave permadeath on this time.