Fire Emblem Awakening

Genre: Strategy-RPG

Players: 1, Online Content Sharing, StreetPass Support

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Review:

Fire Emblem Awakening is the first game in this Strategy-RPG series to hit the Nintendo 3DS, releasing in 2013 on that platform. This was purportedly intended to be the swansong for the Fire Emblem series due to waning sales, but when it came out it was a massive hit both in terms of sales and critical response, breathing new life into the series, and it’s easy to see why. Awakening manages both to expand the series’ scope while also making it more accessible, all while greatly improving the presentation. It’s not exaggerating to say that Fire Emblem Awakening is one of the biggest and most important games in the franchise, arguably rivaled only by Fire Emblem: Three Houses on Nintendo Switch.

In terms of presentation, Awakening mixes various elements that are all impressive in their own right. Important events during the game are depicted with fully-animated and voiced anime-style cutscenes using cel-shaded characters that have a distinct style that looks really fantastic. Other in-game story is told via character portraits superimposed over 3D character models. These character models look decent but not especially-detailed, though they really shine in their animation, as these same models are used during gameplay when two or more characters clash in combat. Finally, movement on the game’s maps is depicted with a combination of 2D pixel art characters on 3D backgrounds with some really nice 3D effects like smoke, snow, fire embers, and so on. These 3D effects make really good use of the Nintendo 3DS’s stereoscopic 3D effects, and combine with the 3D landscapes to make the game look almost like a living scale model.

For the most part, this is an excellent presentation that ties the series’ pixel art roots to more modern presentation elements, although I do have a few minor nitpicks. Firstly, it frustrates me that the pixel art for characters doesn’t change to reflect the weapon they currently have equipped – you have to hover your cursor over them to check that. Also, the included first-perspective option during a combat encounter is a cute addition, but doesn’t bring much to the gameplay, and if they wanted to really heighten this game’s 3D elements to make use of the stereoscopic 3D, I would have much preferred that they add free 3D camera control to the map screens.

This game also features an excellent orchestrated soundtrack that really drives home the epic nature of the events in the game, and as previously mentioned, the animated cutscenes being fully-voiced is wonderful. Less wonderful is how the game makes use of scattered voice clips throughout the rest of the game, often speaking only brief parts of sentences the characters are saying. If they couldn’t keep the characters fully-voiced throughout the game, I kinda’ feel like I would have preferred them to stay mute during these exchanges – hearing only a few words of a sentence sounds odd.

While the visuals got a big upgrade from prior installments in the series, arguably the biggest change here is the gameplay. My biggest two complaints about prior games in the series were that this game’s linear structure was too rigid, and that the series’ signature “permadeath” was a love it or hate it sorta’ thing. Fire Emblem: Awakening not only addresses both of these issues, it does a great deal more.

Firstly, when it comes to the structure, Fire Emblem: Awakening gives players numerous opportunities to branch out, do a little grinding, and explore other opportunities, including side-quests, downloadable challenge quests, random encounters that pop up regularly, even streetPass encounters. In addition, as players go through the game’s story campaign, they open up more and more of the map, with each map location offering its own unique shop. In addition, there are specialty shops that pop up randomly much as the random encounters do. What’s more, this game not only includes class upgrades for your characters, but characters can even swap classes while retaining prior stats and skills. Players who don’t want to explore these options can complete the game in 30-40 hours, but including all the content (as well as $50 or so of DLC content), this game may well take over 100 hours to complete.

This may seem like a lot to take in, but Fire Emblem Awakening is also a more accessible game thanks to making the series’ trademark “permadeath” optional – if you don’t want the added challenge of your characters’ deaths lasting past the current battle, you can choose to turn that option off. What’s more, there is a separate difficulty option for players who want added difficulty. I should note that while players will breeze through early missions in the normal difficulty, later missions even on that difficulty can be quite a challenge, and cranking the difficulty up further will really challenge you to make the right strategic choices.

There’s plenty more I haven’t gotten into as well. There’s a character team-up option that can allow you to temporarily combine two units to compensate for each others’ weaknesses, along with bonuses for fighting near allied units. This is tied into the game’s relationship system, which lets characters grow closer to their allies, bestowing additional bonuses on them when fighting alongside one another. This relationship isn’t nearly as elaborate and involved as the one we would see implemented later in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but in some ways this is better, because rather than dividing the game between Strategy-RPG and Dating Simulation elements, it places the focus more squarely on the core strategic elements. Some will prefer one, some will prefer the other, but I don’t think either is necessarily worse than the other.

In short, Fire Emblem: Awakening is a masterpiece within its genre, one that expands on its predecessors tremendously while addressing the prior game’s flaws, and one that even its excellent successor, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, will still find to be stiff competition thanks to its greater focus on its strategic elements, less rigid linearity, and more satisfying presentation. If you’re a fan of Strategy-RPGs, Fire Emblem: Awakening is not just a must-have game on Nintendo 3DS, it is a reason to own a Nintendo 3DS.

tl;dr – Fire Emblem Awakening expands on the already-excellent Strategy-RPG gameplay of prior games in the series with a wealth of new options and gameplay elements that not only give players a plethora of strategic options, but address the biggest issues of prior games in the series. In addition, the presentation here is phenomenal. In some ways this game even rivals its Nintendo Switch Successor, Fire Emblem: Three Houses. In short, if you’re a fan of Strategy-RPGs, this is an absolute must-buy, and a reason to own the Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: A+

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