Great Games: Fire Emblem: Awakening
The crowning jewel of the 3DS
SPOILER ALERT: Plot details for Fire Emblem: Awakening will be discussed.
Fire Emblem has long been a popular role-playing game in Japan, but it took awhile for it to get attention in the West. When Fire Emblem characters Roy and Marth first appeared in Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Gamecube in 2001, they became so popular that Nintendo decided to release the first Fire Emblem game outside of Japan in 2003. This interest waned over time, however, with the series eventually suffering a decline in sales. Nintendo warned Fire Emblem’s company, Intelligent Systems, that if their new entry for the 3DS didn’t sell at least 250,000 copies, the series would end. Fire Emblem: Awakening not only had the unenviable task of bringing the franchise to a new generation, it would also have to save the franchise itself.
The first Fire Emblem was created in 1990 by Shouzou Kaga and his friends at Intelligent Systems. It was a hobby game for fans that became an unexpected commercial success. As stated earlier, the series was localized in the West aftter Roy and Marth’s appearances in Melee in 2001. Despite releasing many well-received games for the Gamecube, Game Boy Advance, DS, and Wii, sales started to flag and then came that final warning from Nintendo. The team had their work cut out for them.
For what could have been the final game in the series, the team played around with a number of wild ideas for a setting, from the modern world to Mars. The producer, Hitoshi Yamagami, eventually suggested that they make Awakening an amalgamation of every Fire Emblem game thus far. A send off that would combine the best elements of what had made the series so great.
Toshiki Kusakihara was brought on to do the art and character designs. He had never worked on a Fire Emblem game before, but project manager Masahiro Higuchi hired him to add a fresh look to the series. While his art is certainly different, it does fit within the anime aesthetic of the previous games. The designs are great, as they provide a variety of distinct and recognizable characters. My only objection being that Nowi wears a super-revealing costume, despite looking like an eight year old girl. Yeah, that’s gross.
Fire Emblem: Awakening is set 2000 years after the original Fire Emblem. You wake up as Robin, a tactician with no memory. The player can choose to make Robin a boy or a girl. You are welcomed into the world by Chrom and his sister Lissa, who are royals from Ylisse. Their sister Emmeryn rules over Ylisse as its Exalt. Emmeryn hopes to keep an uneasy peace with Plegia, which was once invaded by Emmeryn’s father and still seeks revenge. With the threat of war looming over them, Robin comes to learn that they are part of a greater conspiracy to revive the dreaded dragon Grima. A return that would wreak apocalypse upon the planet.
The gameplay follows the tactical RPG style of previous Fire Emblem games. You control a cast of characters who can take a number of steps across the board each turn. When your character engages with an enemy, they automatically exchange blows. You can check the enemy’s stats ahead of time and see the likely result of a possible battle. This feature was useful for keeping my weaker characters from dying too early. On that topic, this Fire Emblem breaks with tradition and doesn’t have permadeath on the standard difficulty. Your dead characters come back after each battle, but they cannot be revived in-battle like many other JRPGs.
Awakening has a variety of different classes to keep things interesting. Robin is a Tactician who can use magic, Chrom is a Lord who excels in swordplay, Virion is an Archer who can shoot from a distance, and Cherche is a Wyvern Rider that can fly around the board. In addition to the main characters, there are also optional characters that you can recruit in the midst of battle. Some of them can be killed before they’re recruited, so you have to be careful. Every class also has weaknesses, which you need to be mindful of in battle. Fliers, for instance, are very weak to Archers, so you have to be wary as to where you might place them on the board. Most classes can evolve to a higher class through Master Seals. Though once they have maxxed out the level of their higher class, they have to use a Second Seal to either restart at level one or switch to a different class. When you switch to a different class, you can adopt the abilities of that class, but you will also lose some your previous ones. This ensures a high level of personalization in every playthrough of the game.
The influence of Persona is evident in the relationship building of this game. Like the Social Links in Persona, you can achieve stronger bonds between the different characters by fighting alongside them in battle. This serves two points. The first is to improve the performance of pairs in a fight. Characters close to one another will defend each other from attacks and double team on the enemy. The second reason is that the meat of the character development takes place during these scenes. You’ll miss out on a lot of fun interactions if you don’t invest in this. It also helps that these characters are a lot of fun: Virion being a proud fop, Sumia being clumsy but adorable, Anna’s insatiable greed, Lon’qu’s fear of women, Frederick’s single-minded obsession with being a knight, etc.
You can also choose which characters can marry. Unlike Persona in which you can only engage in romance from the male perspective, Awakening allows you to experience love as a woman. I played this game twice, as both female and male Robin. When I was female Robin, I married Chrom, as it seemed like the natural endpoint of their relationship. When I was male Robin, I married Chrom to Sumia as they made a cute couple. Male Robin’s bride, however, wouldn’t be so easy, given how cute and sexy so many of the women in Awakening were: Cordelia, Anna, Cherche, Tharja, and Say’ri. I initially leaned towards Tharja, given that she’s a scantily-clad, curvy goth chick, but her creepy obsession with Robin turned me off. I ultimately went with Cordelia as I liked her no-nonsense, but kind character. It’s also interesting how you can experience the story slightly differently depending on whether you become Chrom’s lover or his best friend.
Early on in the game, we are introduced to a character that claims to be Marth, the legendary hero from the original Fire Emblem. We later learn that this “Marth” is actually Chrom’s future daughter Lucina. She went back in time to try and prevent the resurrection of Grima and the deaths of her parents. It is supposedly foretold that Robin will be the one to betray Chrom, so Lucina tries, but fails to kill Robin. This scene hits harder if you marry Chrom and become Lucina’s mother.
This is a good twist that adds to the plot on replay, but it feels a little dull when everyone else’s kids come back from the past, too. That said, the children inherit the parents abilities, which makes them indispensable in battle, and their personalities are also very memorable. With Owain’s performative bravado, Severa’s tsundere toughness, and Gerome’s “Batman” loner act. Fire Emblem fans disappointed that the real Marth didn’t show up, will be pleased to see the return of Tiki from the original game. Her design reminded me a lot of Terra from Final Fantasy VI, as both have green hair, wear a red skirts, and are not fully human.
The music by Rei Kendoh and Hiroki Morishita makes Awakening one of the great JRPG soundtracks, alongside Final Fantasy VI, Dragon Quest V, and Persona 4. There are the epic battle themes “Destiny” and “Divine Decree”, the mournful “Don’t Say Her Name” that plays after Emmeryn’s death, the grand finale “Id (Purpose)” that plays during the battle on Grima’s back, and the congratulatory end credits theme “Old Battlefield.” I would love to hear an orchestral re-arrangement of these tracks with actual lyrics.
I don’t know if I’d call Awakening a perfect game, but it’s pretty damn close. It’s accessible enough for newcomers, both in gameplay and in story, but it slacks in neither. The story and characters are developed enough to provide an engaging escape, while the pick-up-and-play gameplay can offer a quick battle in a hurry. Awakening is not only a great entry into Fire Emblem, but also into the amazing world of JRPGs.
