Fire Emblem: Awakening

Nintendo did not bring last Fire Emblem DS to America, namely Fire Emblem 12, to the extent that the fans create their own English-language translation. Fortunately, the same does not happen with the next Fire Emblem Fire Emblem is also the first in the title of the Nintendo 3DS Fire Emblem: Awakening.

Fire Emblem: Awakening tells Chrom, the prince of Ylisse and his army in defending his kingdom from attack Plegia. Throughout his journey, Chrom will meet with a variety of unique characters, ranging from the creation of our character, Robin (name can be changed) up to the legendary hero, Marth.

Chrom, the main character Fire Emblem: Awakening

Story Fire Emblem: Awakening is indeed serious, but tinged with witty dialogue between the characters; make this game a serious but relaxed. Are you able to help Chrom in the struggle?
For the fans, of course familiar with the Fire Emblem series gameplay, and Fire Emblem: Awakening is not much different from its predecessor. We will fight using a turn-based battle grid with character animation when we attacked.

Marth legendary hero

Fire Emblem is famous for its incredible difficulty levels, along with fan favorite system, permanent death, aka the character who died on the battlefield is dead forever. However, Fire Emblem: Awakening again follow the lead of the previous game, Fire Emblem 12, which comes with include a feature Casual Mode. In this mode characters die in battle would only back off, do not die forever.

Fire Emblem: Awakening also features character creation, just like Fire Emblem 12. Unfortunately, the choice of face, height and hair not too much, and also our characters will instantly become Tactician class, no longer able to choose a class.

Grid based battle

Of course, nothing prevents a class if we want to change the future, because this game also has a class change system using a Master Seal and Second Seal. Master Seal is used to upgrade us to be more advanced class, while the Second Seal is used to replace our base class, so for those who do not like the Tactician class is sort of a mix between the mage and swordsman, able to use Second Seal to turn a class into Myrmidon, Archer and so on.

Unlike the Fire Emblem is usually where the story run in a sequential system, Fire Emblem: Awakening use a world map ala Final Fantasy Tactics that we can explore. In the world map, we can visit places ever to shop for. In addition, sometimes on world map enemies can appear to us invite war.

Avatar creation feature is quite simple

As usual, we have to look at war "weapon triangle rule" where swords beat axes, axes beat spears, and lances beat swords. Outside the triangle, there is also a kind of dart guns, magic, and so on. Of course, if our character is too strong, the effect of the triangle is not too pronounced.

Donnel, one of the characters that we can recruit

Positioning is very important in Fire Emblem, because if the wrong position, be prepared to see our character slaughtered by opponents. Fire Emblem: Awakening also introduces a new system, namely pairing. We can combine the two units into one, where the unit will be supporting other units by adding stats and various bonuses.

Both attacking

Unit’s side by side position will also give each other bonuses and stats can sometimes help us to resist attack or aid attack the opponent.

In addition to met the enemy, if we turn on the Spot Pass feature, then we will also get to meet the other players who played Fire Emblem: Awakening. Units they will appear on the world map and we can interact with them. We can buy their belongings, they hired (if the money enough), and we can also challenge them to war.

Bonus stats of the units side by side

If we win a war with other players Spot Pass characters, then we can also recruit them, and even then of course if we can win, because sometimes they are much higher level than us and the possibility of defeat is 0%.

In addition, by using Spot Pass, we can also get extra content (DLC) in the form of skirmish and a new chapter.

In Fire Emblem: Awakening, we can pair the character of men and women in marriage. The longer they fight together on the battlefield (to help each other, we are pairing and so on), then they will be even higher affinity, and if they reach the affinity S, then they will get married. What is the use of it?

Gaius and Tharja

One of the most interesting topics in Fire Emblem: Awakening is time travel. Of the future there will be a group of adventurers who are trying to change history by means of time travel to the present. Well, it turns out this time explorers are children of couples we marry.

If we could find the time travelers, then they will be able to join in the fighting along with our team. Creepy? Yes! Interesting? Of course! We will be able to combine the skills of both parents and see the results of the 'interesting' this.

This game also has a multiplayer mode which is unfortunately not played strategy. We will only use our characters are dueling co-op only, no war strategy using a turn-based battle grid. There is no versus mode too, because players will simply alternately duel against the CPU alone.

Anime as a cut scene in Fire Emblem: Awakening

Fire Emblem: Awakening no longer using 2D animation. Now they are using 3D characters with 3D backgrounds as well, where we can turn on the feature stereoscopic 3D on the 3DS to see the fight with more 'depth'.

War really smooth animation, it does not look stiff at all. Unfortunately, there is one peculiarity in the game's graphics. I myself have never seen a character with no nose and only three fingers. But this time I noticed that the soles of his character and his stump look like a horse's feet. Whether this is a 3D design wrong or how, because of the use anime cut scene, their legs look normal. What the hell?

In terms of sound, Fire Emblem: Awakening has two voice options, one in Japanese and one in English. Unfortunately, we must often go to the option to change the sound because the game has a glitch that sometimes the sound can change from Japanese to English.

Not fully voiced

Unfortunately, the voice acting in this game is not fully voiced and voiced only be partial, so that sometimes we are not aware if the sound settings that the Japanese had suddenly turned into English, and realized later.

As a Fire Emblem game, Fire Emblem: Awakening feels a bit different to the previous Fire Emblem. This is because the world map and a random battle.

If first we definitely see that Frederick the Awesome is a character who is very good in the early game, surely we will kick him out of the team because we do not want to experience points and make him eat all the other characters lack the level that actually makes the game become more difficult because usually characters like this will be less powerful than the other characters. It is now no longer a problem because we can raise the level of all the characters via random battle.

The same thing was the amount of money and items that we have. No longer do we have to carefully draw up a weapon and use the money because we can do farming by way of random slaughter opponents in battle.

War like this is very addictive

Fire Emblem veterans may be disappointed with the new features, but it does open the door for new fans who often hear how difficult it played Fire Emblem. The casual player can save anywhere, while the classic version players can only put a bookmark (after a save out game, after load, save deleted) only, moreover the game pretty addictive with a very high replay value. What if we marry with Virion Tharja? Or Lon'qu we marry with Panne? Luckily, the 3DS could be discharged batteries. If not, we can lose track of time playing it.

Conclusions

Fire Emblem: Awakening suitable for all fans of turn-based strategy, especially fans of the game of Final Fantasy Tactics. Fire Emblem for the fans, no one forbids you to play using the Classic Mode, ignoring random battle and continue to run the story as befits playing Fire Emblem series.

Salute to the Intelligent Systems who managed to make Fire Emblem become somewhat casual, but still can be played in hardcore.

Score: 9.0 (Excellent)