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We've had Fire Emblem Awakening for about a week now. Here are our early thoughts.
I assume I'm not the only one who was surprised to see Nintendo billing the upcoming Fire Emblem Awakening as its premier Q1 title for the 3DS. A series released sparingly outside Japan and known chiefly for its punishing difficulty, Fire Emblem doesn't exactly have the cachet of Nintendo's most beloved franchises. After 10 hours with the game, though, I can see why Nintendo was willing to put its faith in Awakening; it's a game that defies tradition if, and this is the genius of it all, you choose for it do so.
You can look forward to a more thorough evaluation of Awakening when my review goes live next week, but for now I’d like to highlight some of the basic elements that make the game appealing to both newcomers and veterans alike.
Unparalleled Customization
The first thing that struck me as I began to play Awakening is how customizable the experience is. Upon starting the game for the first time, players get to choose the difficulty, as well as whether or not they want to have the infamous “permadeath” feature turned on or off. If turned off, characters that die regenerate after the battle is over. While this eliminates the most recognized feature of the Fire Emblem series, it also makes for a far more welcoming experience for newcomers. Besides, purists can simply leave the feature on.
Once you have your difficulty and play style selected, it’s off to the character creation screen. For the first time in North America, players are allowed to create their own character. Gender, appearance, and voice are the more superfluous customizations, but the real fun comes in choosing a base strength and weakness for the character. Will you prioritize strength and sacrifice speed? Maybe gamble with a luck boost while decreasing the ability to use magic? I’ve only played as one character so far, but I’m interested to see how these choices impact the overall play style of the main character.
After that, there is a whole bevy of in-game options you can tinker around with. You can play with Japanese voices instead of English, turn off battle animations to speed up enemy encounters, enable auto-play to handle less difficult battles, and a whole lot more. For a series known for its difficulty, Awakening really offers a lot of control to the player.
Fire Emblem Welcoming
Apart from its staggering amount of customizable options, Awakening also does an excellent job of inviting new players in with great production value and clear, informative tutorial screens. The game features beautiful cut scenes that highlight the more noteworthy moments in the story, while the majority of the between-battle banter moving things along is delivered by the in-game models (which look great, except for the feet. What is up with the feet?). There is some voiceover work, but for the most part, you’ll be doing a lot reading. Still, everything looks great, and I’ve yet to find myself bored while moving from one battle to the next, which is a common experience I’ve had with past Fire Emblem games.
While there is no denying that Awakening can be a deep and challenging game, it does a great job of preparing you for what lies ahead. During battles, when you come across something new, like a recruitable character or a village you can visit, the bottom screen displays a tutorial slideshow, which explains what is going on and how to interact with it. The brilliant thing is, these slideshows don’t halt the action in anyway; if you want to read the slideshow, simply look at the touch screen and do so. If you already know what you are doing, just keep playing and ignore it. It’s smart decisions like these that serve to encourage new players while staying out of the way of experts.
Building Relationships
My favorite aspect of Awakening is how characters begin to build relationships as you play. If two of your characters stand next to each other on the battlefield, they assist each other in attacking and defending. Initially, this results in a simple accuracy bonus, but as particular units work together more, they improve their relationship. The higher the relationship grade (C, B, A, and S), the more perks bestowed upon them, such as an increase in evasion, damage, etc.
You will begin to find that it is much more fruitful to pair up and build the relationships of particular units who work well together. For instance, one of my favorite duos is that of an archer and cavalier. By positioning the archer directly behind the cavalier, they each receive attack and defense bonuses, while the archer can use his extended range to hit further away enemies. However, he is protected from oncoming melee opponents, as they must first get through the hearty cavalier to approach him. You’ll find no shortage of complimentary relationships such as this one.
The relationship system creates a little bit of a mini-game to coincide with the main quest. It pushes you to use different characters in different situations in order to max out relationships. While optional, given the steep benefits in battle, I think this is something that will draw a lot of players in.
So that’s a little bit of what I think makes Fire Emblem Awakening such a unique and inviting entry in the series. The game launches on February 4 in North America, but in the meantime, you can check out the demo for yourself, available now on the eShop. You can also look forward to my full review next week.
Fire Emblem: Kakusei
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Fire Emblem: Awakening
