Awakening has been the most hyped up Fire Emblem release in the United States to date. It's sold well and received warm reviews, most of its praise being deserved. This is the game that has the potential of making Fire Emblem mainstream outside of Japan, and whether or not it accomplished that remains to be seen. I always hate to be "that nerd," but I'll admit part of me is bothered when a long-standing series I enjoy starts catering to a new audience. It can feel like a betrayal, even if that's totally unwarranted. While Awakening isn't a big departure from previous Fire Emblem games, I can understand someone feeling it's been dumbed down some. That said, these are steps in the right direction as I see it: a series has to sell to continue existing, and Fire Emblem always had the potential to spark the curiosity of more gamers.
The most controversial change here is the new casual mode, which removes permanent unit loss and allows mid-battle saving on lower difficulty levels. Yes, it's a change and not an option, contrary to what it seems like. While you can play the easiest difficulty level and have your usual Fire Emblem experience on classic mode, unless you're a Fire Emblem god there is no way you're beating the harder difficulties without the ability to send units on suicide missions. The stages are designed with super-strong enemies capable of instantly killing some of your stronger characters, and it's clear that the classic mode was left in as an afterthought. While this change might seem sacrilegious to fans, it's almost a necessary one in my eyes. Fire Emblem games are huge time-sinks without the resets when your characters die, and casual mode helps shave off some of the wasted hours. As an aging gamer who could die himself at any moment, I appreciate game developers giving me the option of an easy way out from time to time. I'll always respect the great challenge the old games offer, but it's all been done before anyway. They literally cannot twist the FE formula much more without drastically changing mechanics.
Speaking of other drastic changes, Awakening has a new "Pair Up" mechanic (which may or may not have been lifted out of Shining Force) that allows characters to merge in to one unit with a few stat boosts and perform team attacks and boosts. On Normal mode (the only one I have finished so far) this feature is so incredibly broken I don't know where to begin. Once your characters change classes, you can kiss all difficulty good-bye after having units pair up because they'll generally be untouchable and will kill most opponents without effort. I assume this feature is more balanced against the aforementioned stronger units seen on Hard and Lunatic, but I can't comment on this. Pair Up has its flaws, but I have to say the concept balances out to being a good one. First, it allows characters to gain experience together, which helps level up the standard weak units Fire Emblem throws at you that need to be trained in a hurry. More importantly, Pairing Up helps your characters get more friendly with each other, leading in to my absolute favorite aspect of this game.
I've always loved the Support conversations in Fire Emblem, and they have frankly never been done better or more thoroughly. It seems like nearly every character can support with anyone because there are so many options, and the game does not limit you to five per character like in The Blazing Sword. Furthermore, this game brought back marriage from Fire Emblem 4, and with so many possible combinations of characters to try, the replay value goes up a lot. Marriage leads to children that you recruit through spoilery methods, and these children are easily the best characters in the game. While I felt like the ones I found were a little overpowering, it's also nice to get a good reward from careful planning and dedication, and from what I understand about Lunatic mode, you may desperately need more powerful units anyway.
As per usual in Fire Emblem, the plot's just there. This one brings up a time travel twist that feels silly and poorly thought-out, but more effort's been put in the writing and characterization that usual, so I'll give them a pass. The bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. I wish I could expect more from these games story-wise, but I honestly wouldn't care too much if I skipped all story scenes in the first place. In short: don't believe anyone who tells you this game is a quantum leap in writing over the usual Fire Emblem. It's still cliche Japanese fantasy stuff.
If you like Fire Emblem, you'll like this one too. If you have not played Fire Emblem, this one's a pretty good gateway! Play it; you won't regret it.
7.5
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