Version Differences

This is a sub-page of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this. Specifically: Boxart indicates a possible save banner and title screen difference. Other sections needing images.

This list has the additions to the US/European versions.

Stats#

• Edward and Leonardo's starting levels were raised from 1 to 4, and their stats were raised accordingly.

Two skills had their activation rates altered to make them much easier and safer to trigger:

• Wrath's activation changed from requiring 20% HP or less to 30% HP or less, and the activation rate was changed from Skill% to 100%.
• Resolve's activation changed from requiring 20% HP or less to 50% HP or less, and the activation rate was changed from Strength% to 100%. Resolve also no longer increases Strength when activated.

However, the in-game skill assignment menu and help text still state that they activate at 20%. Additionally, it states that they only have a certain chance of activating, even though the activation rate for the skills are 100% in the North American and European versions of the game. These were corrected in the European version.

Gameplay#

• Edward, Leonardo and Nolan received a unique weapon each (Caladbolg, Lughnasadh and Tarvos).
• Master Crowns are no longer needed for characters to go from 2nd Tier to 3rd Tier (they can promote by gaining 100 EXP at Level 21). As part of this change, the number of obtainable Master Crowns was reduced because there was less need for them, from 13 in the Japanese version to just 5 in localized versions (3 of them were replaced with Arms Scrolls while 5 of them were removed with no substitutions).
  • Similarly, Mist can now promote to Valkyrie by maximizing her level and does not need to use a Holy Crown.
• Forging points are no longer required to forge weapons. Points were originally obtained from selling unwanted weapons. However, some of the game's text, such as the dialog for when the merchants first join, still refers to forging points. The European version removes a direct reference to forging points, but it is still alluded to.
• The treasure bug was removed. Originally you could repeatedly try and obtain hidden treasures by cycling through the Direct and Cancel commands.
• In the Japanese version, any playable unit was guaranteed to pick up hidden treasure items on their first try in Part 4 Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2 (there were glowing spots indicating where the hidden treasure items are in these chapters). This was changed in the international versions so that there was no guaranteed chance that a playable unit could obtain any of the hidden treasure items on their first try.

Plot#

• Four new base conversations were added: three conversations in Part 3 Chapter 6 to obtain the three new weapons above, and a fourth in Part 3 Chapter 12 where Nico re-appears.
• Preview movies were added in between Parts.

Graphics#

The European version had some graphical changes made:

• The banners announcing phase changes had their animations changed. While the Japanese and US announcements had the words quickly rush in, the European release has a simple, static fade-in and fade-out. Also, the "Ally Phase" was re-labeled "Partner Phase", presumably to match Path of Radiance.

Japan/US	Europe

Japan/US	Europe

• The capitalization of the "Miss" and "No Damage" pop-ups was changed, going from all-caps in the Japanese and US versions to only capitalizing the first letter of each word in the European version. The European version even removed the exclamation marks for "Miss" and "No Damage".
• The Level Up screen was changed in the European version to capitalize the "P" in "HP".

Text Changes#

Character Names#

Like Path of Radiance, the English version changed many character names from the Japanese version. Nearly all of the returning characters from Path of Radiance had their names retained in the Japanese and international versions, but for some reason in the North American version of Radiant Dawn only, Deghinsea's name was changed to be spelt Dheginsea. The European/Australian version retains the former spelling from Path of Radiance.

The only character to have his name changed across all versions is Devdan, whose name was changed to Danved in international versions of Radiant Dawn because he is actually a completely separate character that people often mistake as Devdan to mimic the Japanese version, where the katakana of ダラハウ (Dalahowe) was reversed to become ウハラダ (Wuhalada).

The US English and European English revisions have several name differences.

Kyza's name change stems from a translation error in the original US version of the game. In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, during Ranulf and Lethe's support conversations a brief mention is made of Ranulf's subordinates, Kysha and Lyre. These two characters are fully introduced as playable characters in this game, but Kysha has been renamed Kyza. The European version restores their original name. In Fire Emblem Heroes, the character is named Kyza in all English versions of the game.

Script Changes#

All English Localizations#

• In the first cutscene, Micaiah speaks something that resembles Latin when casting her spell, as opposed to speaking in the game's "ancient language" in the Japanese version.
• Ike's conversation with the Black Knight in Part 3 Chapter 7 was edited to change the reason for the Black Knight's survival. In the Japanese version, he claims he survived due to problems with his warp powder which prevented him from properly manifesting in Castle Nados. In the localization, he instead claims that he deliberately let Ike win so that Ike could mature and become an opponent worthy of Greil's legacy.
• The base conversation "Calill's Shop" occurring during Part 3 Chapter 9 creates a continuity error when Astrid proclaims "I wish I had a sibling!", in reference to Marcia's and Makalov's relationship, directly contradicting the heavily established information of her having several siblings. This issue does not exist in the Japanese version where she instead playfully states that she is jealous of their sibling relationship.
• In the closing of the fourth part of the Part 4 Endgame, Sephiran's flashback to the night of the Serenes Massacre is significantly longer in the Japanese version. The localization cuts a segment where he remembers the words of Dheginsea, Ashera, Misaha, and Altina, and a second segment where three Begnion citizens revel in the suffering of the herons.

Other#

• Similar to Path of Radiance, "Normal", "Hard" and "Maniac" modes were renamed to "Easy", "Normal" and "Hard" mode. However, unlike Path of Radiance, the contents of the difficulty modes were not edited at all beyond their names.
• In-game permanent saves were added for Easy and Normal modes.
• On the screen that instructs the player to hold the Wii remote sideways when booting up the game, the background color was changed from black in the Japanese version to white in the international versions.
• The allowed length of forged weapon names was expanded from seven characters to twelve.
• Support for 16:9 widescreen was added.
• A character illustration gallery was added, featuring many new character illustrations.
• The banners announcing phase changes have their letters in all caps in the Japanese version, just like in every version of Path of Radiance. The international versions changed this to just capitalizing the first letter of the words.
• In the Japanese version, an extended script is played instead of the game's regular script when the game is played on Hard and Maniac Modes. The extended script goes into greater depth on the game's story and lore than the regular script did. The localizations only use the regular script regardless of what difficulty you play on, with the extended script being cut entirely, amounting to a loss of roughly 5% of the game's story content.
• In the Japanese and US versions, when a Heron character attacks Dheginsea (by using a spell card) a conversation will occur, but the message boxes will be devoid of text. The actual conversations are supposed to be the same as the ones when they Talk to him. The European version fixed this error.
• A scene featuring an artwork of Micaiah destroying the Blood Pact was added and a song that went unused in the Japanese version is used for this scene.
• In the US version, the scroll item for Blessing and Boon are erroneously named "Sky Boon" and "Earth Bounty" respectively, which are more direct translation of the Japanese name. This was fixed in the European version.

• In the glossary of the US version, viewing Muarim's description lists Mist's description instead. This isn't a case of somebody messing up pointers, but of Mist's description literally appearing twice in the script.

Muarim	Mist

Early US copies#

• When using the data transfer function, the game freezes if there are any Easy mode saves from Path of Radiance. This is due to Easy mode being an addition made for Path of Radiance's localization, and not present in the Japanese release.