#it's pretty good and a relief after the depressing final arc of robin

[mytrumarareviews]

Fire Emblem Awakening vs. Fates

Fire Emblem Awakening came out at a time when the future of the Fire Emblem franchise was on the line. The game was a make or break for the franchise and honestly, it was a really risky move to not only spend money on making a new game in the franchise, but they also had it translated and localized, effectively doubling the company’s work load and cost. But the game succeeded due to the character creation and much better support system when compared to other games. There was also the addition of the casual mode, which allowed players to play a little less safely and opened the franchise up to a broader demographic of gamers, it also brought in a fairly large female demographic when compared to other games (about a 11:8 ratio of players, or 55% male and 45% female).

And you know what, the games are fun. Though I’ve recently been seeing people going back and saying that Awakening was better than Fates on all levels, and honestly. I don’t really understand that all that much. I really loved Fates, it was probably my favorite game of the last year, which is a close battle with Pokemon Moon (it was a shit year in gaming). So to explain this let me do a small analysis of each of aspect of the games.

Fire Emblem 13: Awakening

Story:

The first act is at best decent, the second act is pretty good, and the third act is terrible.

What? You wanted more? Okay, here we go.

I’ll be referring to acts by the villains we see throughout them. So I’ll be starting with Gangrel’s act.

Gangrel’s act is fine if you look at it as a standard good vs. evil act rather than looking for anything thought provoking. The biggest thing that bothers me about this act is that Gangrel is just evil, he’s not so much Saturday morning cartoon villain (I’ll get to Validar later) as he is just the stereotypical, crazy character. I can’t even hate him because he’s just so laughably pathetic and poorly written. So many people hate him because he laughed at Emmeryn’s death. But Emmeryn’s death was extremely forced and really unneeded. I know it caused Gangrel’s armies to stop fighting, but the thing is, his entire act could be cut out and the game would be better. You could say that there was a rebellion in the neighbouring nation. You could even have levels where the Pelagians are fighting against you and keep in the attempt on Emmeryn’s live. Gangrel was an unnecessary character in a game that already has way too much going on. Hell it’s revealed in a DLC that Gangrel didn’t actually die during the fight with him when he joins the main cast. He was a completely pointless villain. Honestly I found this portion of the game extremely poorly written. Even if Chrom uses violent methods to win wars

There are other things in this arc that I could heavily criticize. For instance, it’s later revealed that Virion is a lord from another nation. He even acts like he doesn’t know any of you when he’s been fighting along side you against the Pelagian army. This even happens if you married him. Virion has no point in being a playable character until Walhart’s act. In fact, the only reason he’s even around is to hit on Sully. Meaning his entire purpose boiled down to chasing tail until later in the game.

Okay, it isn’t all bad though. There’s one level that’s really good. It’s chapter 10, named Renewal. Mustafa is portrayed as sypathetic and a soldier doing his job for the sake of his family instead of being portrayed as just another one of the many commanders you fight in this game. I always try to go through this level killing as few enemies as possible because they’re all fighting for Mustafa instead of for Gangrel and you can spare most of them if you go straight for him. You still kill him, but he begs you to spare his men, who no longer have a reason to fight Chrom and his army. There’s a very human aspect to this level, unlike literally ever other level in this act of the game.

Well, I suppose we should move on to Walhart’s act now.

Wallhart is a good villain. He holds very similar beliefs to Chrom and is a foil to Chrom’s character. He should have been the villain for the entire game and they really shouldn’t have made the game about killing some Fell Dragon that we don’t even see in a flashback until the final act of the game. Walhart stands on what he thinks his is moral ground. He knows that the quickest way to gain unification is to conquer, so he takes on the title of the Conqueror. He’s even fighting against the same evil forces you are. There isn’t a single level I felt was out of place in this part of the game nor do I think that any character, with the exception of one, is a poorly written character. I really actually like this act. That said, there’s not too much I talk about within it. With one exception. Excellus. Because they just had to have one evil character in this group. Yeah, that was pretty bad.

If anything I would suggest the game just for this act. And hell, you can actually download DLC to have Walhart as a playable character. Meaning that Chrom didn’t actually kill his foil and finish off a character arc. Well fuck off Nintendo.

Now let’s move on to Validar’s act.

Oh, sorry wrong villain. I can barely tell these two apart when it comes to their character.

Validar is extremely poorly written. Not only is he a cultist, to a dragon of death that eats souls at the table like everybody else, but they try to pull this Vader like thing with Robin and him in Walhart’s arc. I pulled a Skeletor voice with him when reading the dialogue out loud and it fit really well, too well. A lot of this stuff sounded like something a Saturday morning cartoon villain would say. The same could actually be said about Aversa, though she’s more of a lackey to Validar than his superior. She does however show more of a human side as she attacks you for having killed Validar, somebody she had respect for. For a character who has a weapon named after her, she sure doesn’t have a lot of character.

And then we get to Grima. Who’s also Robin from the future. And you’re literally fighting yourself. So, there’s one thing that can’t happen at this point and that’s Robin dying. Why, because Morgan has even been conceived yet, and Morgan has to potential to be a character, given that you married somebody. This is why i hate time travel plots, there’s often no tension because you know how it’s going to end. Robin can’t die, there for there’s no tension to see them die. 

But, like Gangrel’s arc, I did like one thing about this act. When Lucina finds out how and why you kill Chrom in her future she confronts you. If you’re her mother then she’s extremely reluctant to do so. Telling her to kill you so Chrom won’t die only makes her more reluctant and later Chrom comes by to reassure Lucina that their bond is stronger than Validar’s magic. It gives all three Robin, Lucina, and Chrom very human qualities. But that’s only if you’re her mother, if not she doesn’t have any reservations about killing you. Chrom has to stop her.

The Ending:

It’s shit. Chrom gives a speech about how they either killed Grima or put Grima into a slumber. And yeah, that’s it. People reassure Robin that her death would detrimental if you put Grima into a slumber but she’s just depressed.

In Conclusion (of this part):

The game doesn’t actually have a really good story. It has a massive up to it with Walhart’s act but the rest of it just kind of sucks. It basically felt that they had ideas for three different games starring the same characters but instead only created 1, which was to their detriment.

Gameplay:

This game is way too easy. It really speaks to how broken the combat system is when you can get any character to 80 health without bogging them down with items that raise their health. Not to mention that you can actually use a second seal with your character to go back to a base class from an advanced class with only minor detriments to your abilities. this means that if you put enough time into it you could potentially max out nearly ever stat on the Avatar character. Second Seals and Master Seals are broken in this game. See both of them send you back to level 1, but you still have most of the stats that you had earlier and there’s no limit to how often you can use them.

I don’t actually mind the idea of breaking weapons, it serves to slightly nerf your character, so you can’t just constantly use a single overpowered item.

In other words, this game has a lot of major balancing issues.

I was capable of beating the entire game using only Chrom and Robin. Playing the game on Lunatic mode would be a lot harder and it’s a welcome challenge.

They do have a good reason as to why Chrom and Robin can’t die in casual mode, which was a great addition in this game and was the reason I picked it up. Chrom is basically the motivational centre of the group while Robin is their tactician, if either were to leave the battle field their army would be at a detriment. It’s a nice bit of subtext to go with the sub-par story.

Music:

It’s great and fits the tone of the game. It’s nothing special, but it doesn’t distract from the game. Yuka Tsujiyoko did a decent job on.

Characters:

Well, I already talked about the villains, and Virion. But this game has a decently interesting cast of characters if you’re willing to use them. Though I never really gained an attachment to any of the characters, I can see why a lot of people would. 

Though there are a few characters I don’t like.

Tharja is a yandere, though she doesn’t really have any reason to be. It feels like there was a cut scene where Robin saved her, but it would make more sense for her to after Chrom, whom actually convinced her to change sides.

Henry doesn’t need to exist and only serves to be an annoyance. He shows up out of nowhere and has no bearing on the plot what so ever. I honestly don’t see the point in his character when every character has a comedy relief side to them.

Gaius is a thief who was looting Emmeryn’s castle as part of the Pelagian army. He likes candy, that’s his entire character.

Both Tharja and Gaius can be easily accidentally killed because they’ll attack you.

In Conclusion:

This game was fine, it was decent. A good 5/10 for me and that’s not a number to really sneeze at, it’s a middle of the road game with a lot of problems to it and that’s about it. If you don’t want a really complex story with complex characters and a shade of grey morality, then go ahead and buy it.

Next time I’m going to do an analysis for Fates using the same material.

#fire emblem #fire emblem awakening #review #decent #comparison #part 1 #fun #nintendo #5/10