Fire Emblem Awakening
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 Anything can change! (Well It did change the overall status of Fire Emblem).
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Fire Emblem Awakening is a tactical role-playing game developed by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo SPD with Nintendo being the publisher. Released for the Nintendo 3DS in April 2012 in Japan and February 2013, this is the 13th game in the Fire Emblem series and the first game of the series to get released on the Nintendo 3DS.
Plot
Taking place 2000 years after the events of the original Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem Gaiden, it focuses on the prince of Ylisse named Chrom as well as his personal army called the "Shepherds". The group rescued Robin (the player character) who suffers from amnesia. Now Robin aids Chrom's army in defending Ylisse from the undead and attacks from the hostile nation of Plegia.
Why It Challenges Its Own Fate
- This game is known to have saved the Fire Emblem franchise from dying. Without this game, Fire Emblem wouldn't stick around for long nor be very mainstream as of today.
- This game was also credited to popularizing the 3DS among other Japanese RPG publishers like Square Enix and Atlus.
- The storyline is interesting. Basically, it's still the "hero protecting the kingdom", but that's where the story starts to expand upon. We get to learn about how the second generation characters managed to go to the present in order to save the future. In fact, the idea of time travel in a Fire Emblem game may sound at first unfitting for a medieval-themed game, but this game makes the concept interesting. Do expect some awesome moments as well as heart.
- It has some new features the game introduced to the franchise.
- The game has an optional first-person point of view during battle. This was meant to increase player freedom and to show off the platform's 3D effects.
- The characters have more unique expressions compared to previous titles from the series showing the emotional range for each character.
- There is a mechanic called Pair Up which can allow the playable units to fight alongside allies. It also comes with the Dual System which allows characters to provide support bonuses, additional attacks, and full damage protection.
- The is the first international Fire Emblem game to feature the Classic Mode/Casual Mode gameplay feature split.
- Downloadable content is present in the game consisting of maps, episodes, and characters from previous games like Marth, Est, Catria, Palla, etcetera.
- Speaking of downloadable characters, you can use SpotPass to get characters as well.
- The game has birthdays featured in the character's bio on the roster. If the 3DS system's clock matches a birthday, the barracks will generate a special event marked in red. Should you visit the barracks, the character gets a burst of experience, find some random item, and gains a boost in two random stats.
- The Barracks is exclusive to this game. It's useful for the 3DS' built-in clock. The barracks are used to reward random bonuses to units. You can also look around the room and who knows, some characters present in the barracks will be present walking around or talking to each other.
- A lot of the features from previous titles return in the game such as Skills, Promotion Branching, and Supports. It's like the game itself was intended to be a celebration of the series.
- A cast of awesome characters. No matter if it were it be a prominent character or a side character, you know that you're in for a treat. Let us show you some of the characters featured in this game.
- Chrom is a man who means well and has a heart in the right place. He has the beliefs of a leader and is an inspiration to others. Including the people playing this game.
- Lucina is a woman who is strong-willed who wants to defy fate just to alter the terrible future she came from. With a sense of justice and her parents (mainly Chrom) being the source of motivation, she will strive.
- Frederick is a veteran who is key to protecting the royal family while also being very patient towards Lissa's antics and Chrom's reckless behavior. Let's not forget to mention that she cares for Chrom, Lissa, and Emmeryn as he knows about needing to protect and serve them at all costs.
- Some characters are pretty entertaining and still charming like Henry (because of his enthusiasm, not to mention his jokester personality in the localized version), Kellam (because of him being seen as a "ghost" of the Shepherds), Owain (for speaking in a theatrical fashion and even making innumerable references to past Fire Emblem titles, Gaius (who loves sweets so much that his seriousness will break despite his morals) and Inigo (who is flirty with every girl he comes across).
- Some of the female cast look beautiful like Cordelia, Cherche, Olivia, Tharja, Sumia, and Lucina.
- It's worth noting that the team behind the game wanted to flesh out their characters with quirkier personalities and used the formation of bonds between units.
- It has some interesting callbacks to previous games at its time. Sure, the game itself is part of the Archanea series, but still. Here are some examples.
- The Deadlords and the Holy Weapons found in Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776.
- The SpotPass character Priam is said to be a descendant of Ike from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.
- Owain as mentioned before has quotes that refer to previous titles like Radiant Dawn, Sacred Stones, and Shadow Dragon. He even says "By the red hair of Eliwood" as a reference to the character from The Blazing Blade.
- Anna and Tiki. Two characters who have appeared in previous Fire Emblem games appear in the base game. Anna is a character who always has been a recruiting character in the series and this game made her playable for the first time. Tiki is already grown up in the game and she returns 2000 years later for the game.
- Most of the second generation characters (except Morgan) birthdays pay homage to the release date of previous Fire Emblem titles. Yarne's birthday is on the same day as the release of Gaiden, Gerome on the same day as Thracia 776, Noire as the Japanese release of The Sacred Stones, just to name a few. Not to worry because other characters also have that reference. Aversa's birthday is on the North American release date of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade while Sully's birthday is on the European release date of Shadow Dragon (2008).
- Masked Marth appearing in the game who happens to be just Lucina is disguise.
- As expected with Fire Emblem, the soundtrack is incredible to listen to that it feels like something that you expect with a film of some sort. Some examples include Prelude, Storm Clouds, Duty, Destiny, the main theme, just to name a few.
- The gameplay still uses the tactical RPG element that Fire Emblem is known for to state the obvious.
- Supports are more advanced compared to previous titles. You see, supports in previous games only allow certain characters to only get 5 support conversations in one playthrough. Awakening however removes the limit.
- Speaking of supports, each support can give you a certain amount of points awarded depending on the action. Battling an enemy with a Support Unit (like a Pair Up) can give you 6 points. The higher the support level, the higher the bonuses. You can give your characters A-Supports to many units, but each character can only get one S-Support by pairing them with the opposite gender. Once the S-Support is reached, the character will marry and be listed as Wife or Husband (or Companion).
- Continuing on with the subject of the S-Support, a new paralogue will be unlocked as long as Chapter 13 is completed. The paralogues are just the recruitment of their child characters. Let the child characters survive and be recruited and they will unlock C-Supports for both parents.
- Speaking of supports, each support can give you a certain amount of points awarded depending on the action. Battling an enemy with a Support Unit (like a Pair Up) can give you 6 points. The higher the support level, the higher the bonuses. You can give your characters A-Supports to many units, but each character can only get one S-Support by pairing them with the opposite gender. Once the S-Support is reached, the character will marry and be listed as Wife or Husband (or Companion).
- You can customize your avatar (Robin). It was noticeable in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (Mark) and Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem (Kris), but the avatar has different customizations that stand out from the avatar characters from the former two games.
- You can skip or speed up battle animations. Even when you get to see the fight for the first time. This is for those who want to skip the battle animations so they can continue on going with the game.
- The cutscenes are incredible and well-animated that it feels like it's trying to replicate an anime of some kind. Even for 3DS standards.
- The graphics are nice-looking and also unlike Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the level design looks well-made, especially for 3DS standards. For example, there is a level called Unwelcome Change which takes place in the West of Ylisstol as a lava map. The North road found in Shepherds looks more like a work of art. The Longfort in Warrior Realm looks pleasing to look at. The list can go on with this level design.
- The story is split into two story arcs. The first would be the beginnings with notable events like the defeat of Gangrel and when Emmeryn throws herself off a cliff. The second arc takes place two years after Gangrels defeat and we get to see "Marth"'s true identity (which is already mentioned) as well as the rest of the 2nd generation characters being present.
- Depending on the player's choice, the game has two different endings. If you let Chrom deal the final blow, Grima will go to sleep for a thousand years only leading to give Robin regrets. Should you let Robin deal the final blow, both Robin and Grima will die permanently!
- The art-style on the character's portraits is nice and fits well with the tone of the game.
- Nice touch of detail: every time a character rolls a Critical Hit or activates a Skill, their character will have a cut-in and it does look pretty awesome.
- If you complete Lunatic Mode at least once, you can unlock Lunatic+ which is the highest difficulty of the game. Though the unlocking mechanism is obtuse whereas you need to complete Lunatic/Casual to get Lunatic+/Casual while completing Lunatic/Classic will unlock Lunatic+ on both Casual and Classic Modes.
- Lots of chapters are in the game. The main story only consists of 28 chapters due to the introduction, prologue, finale, and 25 chapters. You can also get 23 sidequest chapters (with six being SpotPass exclusive) and 25 xenologues as DLC!
- The number of playable characters they are in this game is 49. The character count will increase due to SpotPass and bonus units via DLC.
- With StreetPass, the team data will appear on the map. Players can interact with these Units by buying items in that Avatar's shop, scout Robin, or battle Robin's team. Players can buy the leader for half price and join the player's team with no items (that right there is useful in classic mode to replace any other lost members)
- The frame rate is very consistent in battle. The team behind the game used a hardware-based scaling system rather than just switching between graphic types.
- Overall, the game itself is very accessible to newcomers to the series. If you are new to Fire Emblem, this is one of the games that will be worth checking out.
Bad Qualities
- The enemy AI can occasionally be unbalanced during gameplay.
- The character models are a little weird because their feet look more like pegs than feet.
- In StreetPass, if the leader dies in battle, you will pay double to recruit them from Robin's Logbook or wait for their team to reappear on the World Map.
- There is a glitch with the voice language in the US version of the game. Whenever the voice language is set for Japanese, soft resetting the game would oddly cause the voices to reset back to English except in the theater cutscenes. Ironically enough, you can fix it if the player changes the Language to English then to Japanese again.
- While the story is interesting, it can also be pretty lacking. It's almost as if the story was pretty rushed.
- While the voice providing is good, it also has very repetitive voices that are just gasps, grunts, or irritation. This can be annoying to some players.
- The magic is oversimplified and it somewhat does hamper mechanical balance.
- The map variety is pretty low. They consist of "Rout the enemy" or "Defeat the commander".
- Some plot holes, goofs, and unexplained events occur in the game. In support of Ricken and Panne, the latter talks about being raised by her mother alongside other taguels. However, with Ranne and Yarne, the former claims that her mother died when she was just an infant, and Panne never knew other taguels.
- In Chapter 6, if Gaius reaches Emmeryn as an enemy, his AI will not dither to attack her. However, Gaius did state that he wouldn't lay a finger on Emmeryn due to his morals.
- It never explains how certain things occur in the game like Lucina's Falchion glowing occasionally yet Chrom's Falchion never does, Tiki living in the Mila tree despite her slumber living in the Ice Dragon Temple, how the Fire Emblem (also known as the Binding Shield) can change from banishing Earth Dragons to having the ability to seal Grima with the Falchion.
Reception
The game has received widespread critical acclaim and is a commercial success. Awakening has a 92/100 indicating a Universal Acclaim on Metacritic, Nintendo Life gave the game a 9/10, Famitsu gave the game a 36/40. After release, it was nominated for multiple awards like Best RPG in the Spike Video Game Awards 2013 or the Game Developers Choice Awards 2014 nominating the game for Best Handheld/Mobile Game category. Nowadays, Fire Emblem isn't viewed as a niche franchise for Nintendo but rather one of their biggest and well-known franchises thanks to this game.
Trivia
- The game was intended to take place in a modern-day setting or even on the planet Mars. They were all scrapped as the game was decided to still keep the medieval roots.
- Miriel shares the same birthday as Charles Darwin.
- Morgan's birthday is on the same day as Children's Day in Japan.
- Cordelia's birthday is born on the same day as a Japanese star festival called Tanabata. It's a folklore story where two lovers who can only meet once a year.
- Henry's birthday is born on the 13th of November whereas it pays homage to western culture portraying 13 being an unlucky number due to witchcraft.
- Its English audio is recorded by Cup of Tea Productions and is the first Fire Emblem game to do so.
- One of the DLC maps have censorship upon release in North America and Europe was a shot of Tharja being altered
- Henry's story is different in the Western release; the original Japanese version states that Henry was neglected by his parents and was raised by a wolf. The wolf killed his entire village, and Henry was sent to an orphanage where he was tortured. In the Western release, he goes to a magic school and magic camp.
- In the European version of Harvest Scramble. A conversation with Tharja and Nowi was altered to refer to the former's hair, instead of "boingy bits".
- The game was originally meant to be the final Fire Emblem entry due to the poor sales of the previous games before it. But thanks to it selling remarkably well, earning sales of 2.3 copies sold. The franchise continued on producing more games thanks to it.
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