Fire Emblem Awakening Review [SPOILERS]

The gameplay of Fire Emblem Awakening is somewhat complex, but I was quickly able to understand it. As the head tactician for the Ylessian army, you must command your units across the battlefield to defeat your opponent’s units. Every character has their own unique properties as a unit, such as class, stats, and the types of weapons they wield. The key to winning battles is moving the right units to the right places on the battlefield, making sure they are equipped to handle the enemy, and being able to account for every possible outcome in regards to where the enemy will move. One of the staples of Fire Emblem is permadeath, where if one of your units is defeated in battle, they are dead forever. Awakening has the option of playing with or without this feature, and I played without it as a newcomer to the series. Permadeath makes every move matter even more, and I will definitely keep it in mind, especially when I get to the older Fire Emblem games. Awakening’s gameplay loop is pretty addicting, and I would often play it whenever I had the opportunity to. 

The other very important part of Fire Emblem Awakening is the Support system. The Support system quantifies the bond between two characters. If you continually pair two characters up in battle or otherwise fight alongside each other, they will gain Support. As characters gain Support, you unlock cutscenes of them interacting with one another. As someone who is a big fan of things like the Tales series’ skits, I really liked unlocking the Support cutscenes and seeing all of the characters interact. Support levels start at C, and move up to B and A, with S being the highest for characters who are able to get married. Throughout my playthrough, I had myself and Miriel, Chrom and Sully, Olivia and Stahl, and Tharja and Lon’qu among several others all achieve S-Support and get married. The game offers a ton of replay value in unlocking different support routes with different characters.

The plot of Fire Emblem Awakening is relatively straightforward. Your character (named Robin by default, but there is customization) is found lying in a field by Chrom, the prince of Ylisse. Suffering from amnesia, you befriend Chrom and quickly find purpose as a tactician in his personal army, the Shepherds. The Shepherds fight together, defending Ylisse from bandits, the rival nation of Plegia, and mysterious monsters known only as the Risen. A masked man calling himself “Marth” emerges from a portal, saving Chrom’s life and assisting the Shepherds. Later on, Plegia captures Emmeryn, the ruler of Ylisse, and threatens to kill her if they don’t give up the magical Fire Emblem. However, Emmeryn throws herself off a cliff, and many Plegians give up fighting. The Shepherds win the war. 

Two years later, the world is at peace, and Chrom has a daughter named Lucina. The emperor of Valm, another warmongering nation, threatens to invade Ylisse. “Marth” returns and explains that she is actually Lucina from the future, coming back a la Terminator 2 to stop the fell dragon, Grima, from being resurrected and ultimately destroying the world.  The Shepherds then go off to war again to stop Valm and gather gemstones for the Fire Emblem, in order to perform the Awakening and stop Grima. As the Shepherds successfully fight off the Valmese, they obtain nearly all of the gemstones for the Fire Emblem. However, it is revealed that your character is actually a vessel for Grima, and that you kill Chrom in the future. Lucina tries to kill you in order to save future Chrom, but Chrom orders her to stand down, saying that they will find another way to change the future. After the Shepherds get the Fire Emblem back, it is determined that Chrom defeating Grima would only put him back to sleep, while the only way to kill him forever is for your character to sacrifice themselves. This leads to one of two possible endings, where you either sacrifice yourself or allow Chrom to send Grima back into slumber. I personally went with the latter, which provides a happier ending despite knowing that Grima could potentially return in a thousand years. 

In addition to the main story, there is a great deal of side content to do in Fire Emblem Awakening. The game has a series of side quests called Paralogues, which allow you to gain extra experience and find new characters to add to your team of Shepherds. As the main story progresses, you can unlock new Paralogues in which you can find and recruit your married units’ future children, who traveled back in time alongside Lucina. Between the main story, Paralogues, and unlocking Support conversations, there is certainly no shortage of things to do in Awakening. 

To conclude, I had a great time with Fire Emblem Awakening. Immediately upon starting it and getting into it, I couldn’t get enough of it. I think I got like 13 hours of gameplay after just a week. Although there are console entries released before and since Awakening, I think the Fire Emblem gameplay loop is perfect for handheld systems. While playing through Awakening, I would often bring my 3DS with me and do battles and Support conversations while waiting around. The game is a perfect entry point for Fire Emblem newcomers such as myself, with great gameplay and memorable characters.