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3DS

North America

Fire Emblem: Awakening

by Scott Thompson - January 21, 2013, 7:14 pm EST
Total comments: 19

We've had Fire Emblem Awakening for about a week now. Here are our early thoughts.

I assume I'm not the only one who was surprised to see Nintendo billing the upcoming Fire Emblem Awakening as its premier Q1 title for the 3DS. A series released sparingly outside Japan and known chiefly for its punishing difficulty, Fire Emblem doesn't exactly have the cachet of Nintendo's most beloved franchises. After 10 hours with the game, though, I can see why Nintendo was willing to put its faith in Awakening; it's a game that defies tradition if, and this is the genius of it all, you choose for it do so.

You can look forward to a more thorough evaluation of Awakening when my review goes live next week, but for now I’d like to highlight some of the basic elements that make the game appealing to both newcomers and veterans alike.

Unparalleled Customization

The first thing that struck me as I began to play Awakening is how customizable the experience is. Upon starting the game for the first time, players get to choose the difficulty, as well as whether or not they want to have the infamous “permadeath” feature turned on or off. If turned off, characters that die regenerate after the battle is over. While this eliminates the most recognized feature of the Fire Emblem series, it also makes for a far more welcoming experience for newcomers. Besides, purists can simply leave the feature on.

Once you have your difficulty and play style selected, it’s off to the character creation screen. For the first time in North America, players are allowed to create their own character. Gender, appearance, and voice are the more superfluous customizations, but the real fun comes in choosing a base strength and weakness for the character. Will you prioritize strength and sacrifice speed? Maybe gamble with a luck boost while decreasing the ability to use magic? I’ve only played as one character so far, but I’m interested to see how these choices impact the overall play style of the main character.

After that, there is a whole bevy of in-game options you can tinker around with. You can play with Japanese voices instead of English, turn off battle animations to speed up enemy encounters, enable auto-play to handle less difficult battles, and a whole lot more. For a series known for its difficulty, Awakening really offers a lot of control to the player.

Fire Emblem Welcoming

Apart from its staggering amount of customizable options, Awakening also does an excellent job of inviting new players in with great production value and clear, informative tutorial screens. The game features beautiful cut scenes that highlight the more noteworthy moments in the story, while the majority of the between-battle banter moving things along is delivered by the in-game models (which look great, except for the feet. What is up with the feet?). There is some voiceover work, but for the most part, you’ll be doing a lot reading. Still, everything looks great, and I’ve yet to find myself bored while moving from one battle to the next, which is a common experience I’ve had with past Fire Emblem games.

While there is no denying that Awakening can be a deep and challenging game, it does a great job of preparing you for what lies ahead. During battles, when you come across something new, like a recruitable character or a village you can visit, the bottom screen displays a tutorial slideshow, which explains what is going on and how to interact with it. The brilliant thing is, these slideshows don’t halt the action in anyway; if you want to read the slideshow, simply look at the touch screen and do so. If you already know what you are doing, just keep playing and ignore it. It’s smart decisions like these that serve to encourage new players while staying out of the way of experts.

Building Relationships

My favorite aspect of Awakening is how characters begin to build relationships as you play. If two of your characters stand next to each other on the battlefield, they assist each other in attacking and defending. Initially, this results in a simple accuracy bonus, but as particular units work together more, they improve their relationship. The higher the relationship grade (C, B, A, and S), the more perks bestowed upon them, such as an increase in evasion, damage, etc.

You will begin to find that it is much more fruitful to pair up and build the relationships of particular units who work well together. For instance, one of my favorite duos is that of an archer and cavalier. By positioning the archer directly behind the cavalier, they each receive attack and defense bonuses, while the archer can use his extended range to hit further away enemies. However, he is protected from oncoming melee opponents, as they must first get through the hearty cavalier to approach him. You’ll find no shortage of complimentary relationships such as this one.

The relationship system creates a little bit of a mini-game to coincide with the main quest. It pushes you to use different characters in different situations in order to max out relationships. While optional, given the steep benefits in battle, I think this is something that will draw a lot of players in.

***

So that’s a little bit of what I think makes Fire Emblem Awakening such a unique and inviting entry in the series. The game launches on February 4 in North America, but in the meantime, you can check out the demo for yourself, available now on the eShop. You can also look forward to my full review next week.

Talkback

PogueSquadronJanuary 21, 2013

The demo alone felt engaging right off the bat. I've been playing through Radiant Dawn lately. It's a different kind of game, but yeah...it really, really takes too long to become engaging from a story perspective. The moments of mystery and plot buildup are so important to Fire Emblem for me, and the demo nailed it right from the get go. They definitely hooked me in right from the start. I also like how they're basically pushing a particular aspect from Fire Emblem 5(the first one on GBA?), in that "you" get to play a role in it. I loved that in FE5, when Lyn would turn to you and just say "Hey Jamie! We've been through a lot together, haven't we?" I always thought it worked extremely well in that game and like to see it being pushed a little further.

AzagthothJanuary 21, 2013

So glad to see this. I haven't ever played a Fire Emblem game before this demo, and it hooked me. I'm preordering. Can't wait for the full review.

the asylumJanuary 22, 2013

Never played a Fire Emblem game before? Buddy, you don't know what you've been missing

jglonekJanuary 22, 2013

I love Fire Emblem and the demo was great. I'll be getting the game on the 4th.

One question though - with all the setting changes you can do, can you turn off the grunts and other noises the characters make in the cut scenes? That really bothered me in the demo for some reason

EnnerJanuary 22, 2013

I was always afraid of the Fire Emblem series permanent death and high difficulty. Reading about all the options in Awakening makes me want to jump right in to it.

matx88January 22, 2013

My favorite tactical series! So glad it's spreading wings to 3DS

MrPhishfoodJanuary 22, 2013

AAAAWWW YEEEEAAAAAAAH!

FjurbanskiJanuary 22, 2013

Yeah, definitely getting this game. The demo was great. Insane difficulty is very true to its word. Hard/Classic for me. I really love micromanaging Each unit so they connect with the right characters. Pairing up characters is interesting, although I can't see its uses yet.


Just so much good stuff. Can't wait.

Pixelated PixiesJanuary 22, 2013

Really looking forward to this. I'm glad they were able to incorporate a casual mode for those who would prefer not to have to deal with permadeath. For me though, the persistency of having characters die is part of the appeal.

Bman87301January 22, 2013

Quote from: PogueSquadron

I also like how they're basically pushing a particular aspect from Fire Emblem 5(the first one on GBA?), in that "you" get to play a role in it. I loved that in FE5, when Lyn would turn to you and just say "Hey Jamie! We've been through a lot together, haven't we?" I always thought it worked extremely well in that game and like to see it being pushed a little further.

I think you mean FE7. FE5 was for SNES. The first GBA game was FE6, it was only released in Japan and Lyn wasn't in it.

matx88January 22, 2013

This is going to be an amazing year for 3ds!!

Evan_BJanuary 22, 2013

Most of the Fire Emblem I've seen has been watching friends play the series or having someone backseat drive as I attempt to crawl through it. So playing this demo really got me very excited because it felt extremely engaging. Not only in terms of presentation and story, but cool mechanics to try out and enjoy. I'm very, VERY excited for this, and it might be one of the only games I really go out on a limb and buy DLC for.

CericJanuary 22, 2013

Evolved Battle alone makes it easier.  Pick the enemy then the Weapon... how novel...

leahsdadJanuary 22, 2013

Quote from: Enner

I was always afraid of the Fire Emblem series permanent death and high difficulty. Reading about all the options in Awakening makes me want to jump right in to it.

Eh...I think the "permanent death" and "high difficulty" aspects are a little overblown in Fire Emblem games.  It's not as if losing guys equals an inability to complete the game, or making the game way too hard.  Far from it.  I mean, you can't just sent your troops to certain slaughter---  if you lose like 10 or 15 guys in a single battle, then you probably can't finish the game.  But you can definitely lose something like 1 or 2 guys per battle--- those are "acceptable losses."  Whenever I finish a Fire Emblem game, I always have like 15 guys left over who I can't use in the final battle, just because there's usually a cap on how many guys you can field.

And the games themselves are not that difficult-- definitely easier, strategy-wise, than something like Advance Wars. 

People get on about how hard the game is and how hard perma-death makes the game, because of the emotional component.  It's kind of...well, heartbreaking to lose guys.  It's worse than something like X-Com, because in that game your soldiers have names but are pretty much generic.  In Fire Emblem games, your guys have names, histories, relationships....you sort of start to like them.  So you try really, really hard to not lose any of your soldiers, and trying to do THAT is really difficult.

So don't get intimidated by the series' reputation.  Not nearly as punishing as people make it out to be, as long as you don't mind characters that you like dying and being lost to you forever. 

CericJanuary 22, 2013

I don't agree with you on it being easier then Advance War but that might be a genre thing for me.

Pixelated PixiesJanuary 22, 2013

I've actually never beat the Wii game. I got to that level where you can roll boulders down a mountain and you're just surrounded by enemies. When I got to that level there were so many enemies that it was taking forever for them to take their turns (despite being on the fastest option). I really enjoyed the game but that was definitely the point at which I felt my involvement in the game had been reduced proportionately.

I hope Awakening is able to address that potential for imbalance towards the latter end of the game, either by having fewer enemies or by allowing you to skip enemy movements which don't immediately impact the battle.

CericJanuary 22, 2013

Quote from: Pixelated

I've actually never beat the Wii game. I got to that level where you can roll boulders down a mountain and you're just surrounded by enemies. When I got to that level there were so many enemies that it was taking forever for them to take their turns (despite being on the fastest option). I really enjoyed the game but that was definitely the point at which I felt my involvement in the game had been reduced proportionately.

I hope Awakening is able to address that potential for imbalance towards the latter end of the game, either by having fewer enemies or by allowing you to skip enemy movements which don't immediate impact the battle.

In the Demo pressing Start seems you to skip the whole enemy phase if memory serves.

ymeegodJanuary 22, 2013

Looking forward to seeing what changes they made to the battle system.  Notice in the demo there's no rescue command (which was great in the GC and WII versions of Fire Emblem).  Also notice that once you chose to attack you can no longer "move".  Hopefully they replace more than they've taken away.

It's to bad you'll only get "save" anytime during casual mode.  I wouldn't mind harder modes in FE games but I always end up pulling out my hair when an axe weilding pirate gets an critical hit on an blade warrior.  :(. 

Still can't wait to read your review, also did you play the other games in the series to highlight the differences in the battle system? 

oksodaScott Thompson, Associate EditorJanuary 23, 2013

Quote from: ymeegod

Still can't wait to read your review, also did you play the other games in the series to highlight the differences in the battle system?

I've played Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, but I'm a little hazy on the minutia of each. I'm hoping to finish Awakening this weekend and then play a little bit of the older games so I can make more direct comparisons like this in my review, which will go up on the 31st.

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Fire Emblem: Awakening Box Art

Genre RPG
Developer
Players1

Worldwide Releases

na: Fire Emblem: Awakening
Release Feb 04, 2013
PublisherNintendo
RatingTeen
jpn: Fire Emblem: Kakusei
Release Apr 19, 2012
PublisherNintendo
Rating12+
eu: Fire Emblem: Awakening
Release Apr 2013
PublisherNintendo
aus: Fire Emblem: Awakening
Release Apr 20, 2013
PublisherNintendo
RatingMature
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