“What if Marth was a Girl?” – Fire Emblem Awakening Review

First Appeared on The Legend of Lorie

Fire Emblem Awakening is a game that you do not want to miss out on. If you own a Nintendo 3DS, then you need to give this game a chance and if you don’t own a Nintendo 3DS… well, this game is reason enough alone to go out and purchase one. If you are new to the Fire Emblem series, don’t worry, you do not need to play the past Fire Emblem games to be able to jump right into this one. The Fire Emblem series has always centered on being strategy based. Think of this game as chess but the “chess pieces” have fancy abilities and in Fire Emblem: Awakening, can develop relationships with each other. In the beginning of the game, you are able to almost completely customize your character. You are able to change your characters voice, hair, and other features. This is just the first step where Nintendo traps you into feeling almost attached to the characters. As you play the game (with the character you made) you are able to make choices that affect your entire gameplay. Do you want to add your level 3 Mage to the front lines in the off chance that you might be able to level her? There are plenty of things to think about before making a move in this game.

In Fire Emblem Awakening, if one of your party members dies (unless you are not playing classic mode) they are gone for good. You can’t use magical revive spells or “Phoenix Down” like items… they are ultimately gone for the entire game which also means that party member that the character you made who fought next to you in numerous battles who you also became close to and got know is gone for the entire game. For example, I was really fond of the Pegasus Knight, Sumia., however, she was incredibly weak in the beginning of the game. I took my chances though in hopes that I could sneak in a few levels to get her beefy but unfortunately an archer came along and well…. Goodbye Sumia! Losing a party member would not be so bad but developing relationships and friendships in Fire Emblem: Awakening is what makes the game so great. Before my Sumia died, my main character had just gained relationship B with her. I witnessed a heartwarming cut scene involving her and my character. Besides growing slightly attached to Sumia, I had also developed better attack strategies involving her and my character. In Fire Emblem Awakening, when a character gains a relationship rank (C, B, A, or S) it also benefits the characters in battle. When they are next to each other on the battlefield, the chance increases that the character will defend their friend or attack right after.  This battle system in the game is fairly easy to get used to and it also gives the player more incentive to spend time pairing characters in battle to witness fun cut scenes or just get their characters in a quirky romance.

Besides the fun battle system, Fire Emblem Awakening features a neat class system. Almost all of your characters will start out as either a first class or even a secondary class if you obtain a new party member towards the end of the game. Obtaining a certain level like level ten for instance grants you the ability to change your class (if you are still using a primary class) to a secondary or master class. For example, everyone starts out with Chrom who is initially a “Lord” class. When he obtains level ten with the use of a “master seal”, you will be able to change Chrom’s class to a “Great Lord” which not only boosts party member’s stats but in Fire Emblem Awakening, it also adds the ability to use an extra weapon that could not be used as a “Lord” class. Besides being able to change party member’s to their “ultimate class”, with an item called a “secondary seal” players can also change their character’s class to another primary class completely. For instance, Panne is a Taguel that uses a Beaststone. Taguels cannot be promoted to a master class, however, if the player wants to change Panne to a different class then it can be done with a “secondary seal”. Panne can then change from a Taguel to a Mage or an Archer. Weapons in the Fire Emblem Awakening are just as customizable as your party mechanics. With the ability to customize stats on most weapons, your options are endless in this game to play as you want with the party and weapons that you want.

The gameplay in Fire Emblem Awakening was very satisfying. Nintendo continues to pump out very cheap downloadable content maps for the game so even if you finish the main story, you can still play additional maps ranging from $2.50 to $5.00. If you do not want to dish out any extra money then you can challenge yourself after finishing the game by restarting the game on a harder difficulty. The story is touching and focuses a lot of friendship and teamwork as you learn from using the battle system.

Visually this game is absolutely gorgeous and it was completely meant to be played in 3D. I switched back and forth between 3D and no 3D and found myself wanting to experience the game more in 3D. The music was also very catchy. This game is very aesthetically pleasing and it really proves that the 3D on the 3DS is not a gimmick but incorporates the player into the world of Fire Emblem Awakening.

Fire Emblem Awakening is truly a game that you donot want to miss out on. If you are fond of role-playing games, games that involve strategy, or want to play a game that looks perfect in 3D then this is the game for you. With beautiful graphics, music, and fantastic characters that you will fall in love with, this game was a wonderful experience and I can honestly say it is the best Nintendo 3DS game I have played thus far.