Customer Reviews

Fire Emblem: Awakening

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While my favorite game in the series continues to be Radiant Dawn, I am very keen on this game.

-Its story is bland, as mentioned in other reviews, but it has some fun and silly characters which have their own personality quirks, which makes even the most minor characters memorable. This is something I don't think the other games in the series have managed to consistently do. Otherwise the story is pretty stock Fire Emblem fare.

-Its gameplay is very fun, strategic and engaging, simple and yet challenging. I played the game on Hard Classic, which is most like the 'traditional' Fire Emblem experience. I like that you can play the game in a variety of ways; if you hate the permanent death, you can turn it off, even if otherwise you want a challenge. I feel like the difficulty modes allow you to recommend it to a newcomer of the series. The one complaint I have about the gameplay is that the reinforcements appear and attack immediately. While this is probably most accurate to a real life ambush, it means that sometimes your characters die in ways beyond your control, which to me defeats the purpose of having such a highly predictable game(NOTE: This only happens in Hard mode and above). There are skills which are unique to each class of characters which spice up the differences between the people. The difference in quality between the characters is lower than the other Fire Emblem games, which means you can feel free to use whoever you want more readily!

-Aesthetically, the game is great. The graphics are nice (even if the people don't have feet), the music is lovely, and the character art is very nice.

Overall, I think Fire Emblem: Awakening is a great game with a couple of flaws, but still worth playing.

Awakening is a great addition to the series. The support system is one of my favorite features of the game cause of all the different actions and reactions of the different characters.

I like the story aside from not caring about the characters. Strategy system is great, awesome wifi/street pass options. Weapons system could be better, DLC thing stinks, it's like saying they screwed up and want you to pay for their corrections.
It's been quite fun.

Things I liked about it:
- new Casual mode, so no permadeath
- how you could make your own avatar
- marriage system and pair up system. I liked reading the support conversations, and pairing different people gives a new experience each playthrough
- for streetpass, teams can be exchanged and seen on the world map. You can fight, recruit, and even buy items from these teams.
- character art is pretty
- the sprites are detailed too

Things I didn't like as much:
- story was kinda predictable
- no new game+ (it keeps track if you cleared the game though, and that clear file stays before the endgame)
- it would've been nice to have further developed support conversations/ more support levels

This Fire Emblem game is not to be missed!

This is a great game for the new comers and the veterans. I really do believe that it's the best 3DS game so far. The 3D is amazing.

"Fire Emblem" is a tactical role playing game much like a board game or tabletop miniatures game in which you move armies around a field. The trademark of the series has been it's difficulty, and the fact that if a unit dies, you lose them FOREVER. However, in "Fire Emblem: Awakening" you can turn this feature off, which I believe makes this a much more enjoyable experience (the game is still hard if you want it to be, of course - I am playing on Insanity/Casual, meaning that my units don't die forever, but the enemy will always outnumber me 3 to 1. On lower settings, you can outnumber the enemy most of the time!).

The story is a bit bland, but the actual game play is amazingly fun and addictive. There are random encounters on the world map, bonus challenges (You will learn to hate Donnie the farm boy), and optional DLC maps as well (some of which are, as of this writing, free) and random downloadable maps and items that add to the experience.

This being a "Fire Emblem" game, however, there are moments when you feel like you just can't win. You can, but it will take all of your patience and reserve to not snap your 3DS in half. One of those moments in this game comes early on ("The Exalt and the King" chapter), and can be a turn-off, but is worth the patience to get through.

All in all, it's a nearly-perfect game with some weird balance issues that still maintains a tremendous amount of sheer fun and a lot of options to customize the experience. It's slow paced and thoughtful, and can provide hundreds of hours of play.

And as a side note, yes, the third party sellers are all scum. Don't pay more than 39.99$ for this game.

I think I replayed the same stages a dozen times; I keep overlooking an archer in range of my Pegasus knight, or pick a fight with a weaker weapon enemy that ends up carrying a big punch and the 47% chance to hit lands while my 81% chance to hit misses (likely because I didn't account for terrain). But if this was no good, I would not replay it over and over again...

I do miss the in-stage arenas from Fire Emblem Sacred Stones; they allowed me to create a super unit (thief turned assassin) in a relatively brief amount of time, and that unit usually cleared one third of my maps (including boss/elite units); so far I haven't found such a shortcut, and I feel bad about cheating, but boy was it fun to see my assassin getting swarmed by axe-wielding idiots that had no chance of harming him... but I digress.

The only thing that really bothers me: the absence of feet. I think I'll end up turning the battle animations off, it messed with my head so much. Oh yes, I also turned off the 3D (though the dialogue makes nice use of it). Off topic: Who decided the 3d is not suitable for kids under 7? How would you conduct a study that comes up with that recommendation? Is the researcher some shady doctor in some third-world country?

BTW, third party sellers, mark ups of $20 over retail - so nice of you to buy up the stock and turn around to sell it less than a week from release. Game's already available for download from e-shop, and will eventually re-stock.

UPDATE: I finally got what the "second seal" is about -- not just for switching between classes, but most importantly, for allowing more experience gain when reaching level 20 (max); you can use the seal, select the same class, and character level resets to 1 while all stats remain the same; so you can gain experience again. Quite useful.