Review: Fire Emblem Awakening

When I uploaded my latest monthly favourites video the other week, I mentioned that Fire Emblem Awakening was my favourite game of December. A friend of mine asked me to review the game as she was interested in it, and although I've never reviewed a game before, I thought I'd give it a go!

The Game Series

The Fire Emblem games are a series of tactical role playing games, in which you control an army of soldiers in turn based strategy battles. I haven't played the previous games, but I know that the series is known to be difficult, as if a member of your party dies, they are dead permanently and it can change the whole storyline of the game. However in the latest instalment of the series you have the choice to play classic mode, where the characters can die permanently, or casual mode, where fallen units are respawned after each battle. Because I'd never played a Fire Emblem game before, I chose casual mode, and honestly I'm glad I did because I would have failed so many times! I get attached to the characters too;;

The Story

(I'm just going to copy this from the Nintendo site)

The world is ruled by the Divine Dragon Naga, with a fondness for humans,
and the Fell Dragon, Grima, destroyer of humans.

Prince Chrom of the Halidom of Ylisse and the Shepherds, his personal militia, find you collapsed without memory. They help you to your feet, so you join them on their journey.

The Risen, undead soldiers of unknown origin are plaguing the land. A mysterious warrior wields a second treasured Falchion, which should not even exist.
The neighboring theocracy of Plegia is populated by worshippers of the wicked dragon.
Are these troubling events connected somehow?

As you fight alongside Chrom and his Shepherds, you are pulled into a
major conflict that will change the world forever.

When you start the game you get the opportunity to create your character and name them. I made myself, as I often do in games~

hehe, I wouldn't say this is a spoiler, since you can change the story quite a bit

Gameplay

When battling, you move your units over a grid. Different classes of unit can move different amounts of spaces, and you have to take in account the terrain and other conditions, like weather. Some classes can move more when visibility is poor, for example those who ride flying mounts. It can help to change up which units you use to have an advantage in battle, and if you're going to play classic mode where your characters can die, then it would be a good idea to do so. I usually stick to my favourite characters since I've built up a good team with them, so if you're playing casual you can definitely do that!

Your units can also team up and fight together. There's many advantages to this, for example they will strengthen each other and fight together, and having them fight side by side will also build up their relationship (and even fall in love) which will make their battles even better. Doing this will also raise the amount of steps they can move in their turn.

Different weapons have advantages over others too. Using magic or a bow and arrow allows the unit to attack further away from melee weapon holders, meaning they can be less likely to be hurt if they stay at the back.

 Your units also level up by battling, much like many other games. They can also increase abilities and learn new skills from this, which can be special attacks to use in battle.

Characters who are level 10 or higher can use seals to change to a different class, or an advanced version of their class. They will return to level 1, but will keep all their skills learned. 

Your characters will also chat with each other, and this is mostly based off their relationship from fighting together in battles. The characters can fall in love, marry each other, or just simply chat after battles. It's a nice part of the game that lets you connect with the characters.

Chrom bby <3

The game also has some fantastic cutscenes, which look great with the 3D turned on! These happen at pivotal points in the story, though I wish there were more of them!

My Review

Okay so I've talked enough about how the game plays, now for my opinion. 

For never playing a Fire Emblem game before, I love it! It's not normally the sort of game I would play (tactical strategy stuff isn't really my thing) but after playing the demo on the Nintendo shop, I really wanted to play more. I was quickly engrossed in the story, and although I play on casual, it's not too difficult or too hard for me, which kept me playing. I have this awful habit of stopping games if I get stuck on them, and although there have been times I've gotten a game over, I've always went back to it. I haven't finished the game, although I think I'm near the end, and I really want to find out what happens next! The way the storyline is centered around the character you create really immerses you in the game, especially if you make your character yourself, like me. 

There are parts of the story I wasn't as keen on, maybe this is a slight spoiler, but parts of the story involve characters that have come from the future, and while this is exciting at first, I felt there should have only been one or two characters that come from the future, however as you play the side stories in the game, more and more characters just seem to appear from the future as if they're joining some sort of bandwagon xD Since they're only side stories and you don't need to play them, it doesn't matter so much, but it felt to me like it was becoming overused when the 6th or 7th character was all "I'm from the future!"

Having said that, the main story is fantastic, and I really enjoyed the gameplay as well. I was hooked on this game all throughout Christmas, and although I haven't played in a couple of weeks (though I want to pick it up again after writing this) I would give this game 4 1/2 stars out of 5!

If you're interested in this game I would definitely recommend the demo, you can play 2 full battles for free and experience the start of the story, and I found it to be a pretty long demo too!

I hope you enjoyed this post if you managed to read this far, and I'm sorry I'm probably really inexperienced in game reviews, if you have any suggestions for improvements, or games to play or review, be sure to leave me a comment!