Fire Emblem: Awakening Review
After losing
track of time and having sleepless nights, I finally finished this game, and
pretty much shocked and disappointed. Disappointed because I wish the game was
real and I had actually gone on such a cool adventure, and shocked because the
two endings sprout some questions. Now I wouldn’t be going into spoilers just
yet, so first we will start with a review of this T-rated 3DS new game.
Story:
9.5/10: A perfect
story, makes complete sense, has “SPOILER1” like Zelda. I have no complaints.
At the beginning the story advances in an easy pace so that even if you’re not
exactly familiar with anything you will pick up the pace quickly. The truth is,
I only played a few of this series. Yet I love it. Not as much as Zelda, of course.
It loses a tiny bit of score because it suddenly advances near the end a little
bit faster than it used to, and that was sudden. But you can’t blame the fact
that this game must be too big. The fact that you can download the rest of the
story as free paralogues proves that this game is too big. The weird thing is
that you can only play all of them when you access the last chapter, and also
the fact that they are not done yet (download one weekly) makes waiting so
hard. Although that doesn’t ruin the story, and in fact makes it so that there
is more to the game than what you thought you finished, it is not entirely a
good thing.
I love this style of the game/ remind me of spirit track's Bryne.
Gameplay:
10/10: The weapon Triforce
has a lot of new quirks and becomes so much better, that forcing your way
against the concentration gradient becomes possible from the beginning of the
game, and also makes the game much better. Also there is this really cool
feature that makes you fight in pairs in two ways: either the two allies are in
adjacent spaces to each other, or one ally is being rescued, or in this case
paired up, with another ally, so they take up one space. It is really good.
I managed to make up more strategies with
these new mechanics. Rare staves aren’t such a trouble anymore (in a way or
another). One might be able to change the entire army into a squad of archers,
for example. Or become some sort of bandits, then when bored might make
everybody into sorcerers, provided they have that much second seals and master
seals. The best thing is that you get this freedom quite quickly, when at least
you realized that somebody maxed out. Well, if it doesn’t suit you, rest
assured, you can keep your low level rogues and sort things out with my
streetpass team.
Menu, Optional
goodies, Wifi: 8/10:
The menu is hilarious, There are many challenges scattered, spotpass old
characters, DLCs, and streetpass too. My complaint is: “Nintendo Y u no bring wifi
battles like Pokemon?”
Excuse the grammar,
and realize how there is sort of a possibility that we battle with our
streetpass teams without being in local play in the Ferox arena. Let’s assume
this person bought the game and does not have any friends, so s/he never got to
know what a double duel is, and wanted to have pokemon-like battles (there is
sort of something like EV training here). Why can’t I show the entire world how
well my characters are trained?
Re-playability:
10/10: The Avatar
Logbook helps a lot. Three save files and two in-match saves. You can summon
avatars from the other save files once you have registered them onto your
Logbook. Streetpass, Spotpass, and DLC characters are the same issue. This
really makes the game good to repeat, also the challenges and the fact that you
can skip pretty much everything is also a plus. Perfect.
RPG
features: 10/10:
Perfect. You can carry five items but Chrom and characters near him can access
the convoy and trading helps make a “link”. Items that permanently increase
your stats are best gotten that way, and spare swords are not an extreme
emergency anymore. There are many things that can be written here.
Difficulty:
Moderate. Like the
tides of the sea, normal difficulty may seem moderate to easy, and on most
occasions, hard. It is because a new chapter suddenly requires higher levels,
and you have to depend on challenges, which appear after some time flows in the
real world. This meant trouble for me who kept the 3DS open the entire time, so
I had to rush through the missions to finish the game (grab my lords into safer
units and dash for the boss). I highly do NOT recommend you to do this; instead
you should try to level up and take on the hordes of enemies. The DLCs did me
justice, and they could help you too.
Lyn's spotpass team is harder the stronger you get!
By the way
Champions of Yore are not good if you get them late in the game. They are
extremely useful at the beginning. There is a DLC that gets you two extra
classes, but I forgot which it is. Although it was part two of something. And
it is not Champions of Yore. Try Lost Bloodlines. Maybe.
Graphics: 9/10: The 3DS had potential; the cutscenes used them well, as well as the 3D
avatar that is present in more than you can remember. The anime-styled
portraits are good too. The only problem is that it was evident that this game
could do more. Now I am not saying that I do not like the 2D sprites on the
map: in fact, I love them. The reason why it lost score is because of the
non-important “SPOILER2” reason. You really do not need to know if you haven’t
played. By the way if you put the 3D on and lower the brightness even the map
becomes amazing. I can only give you one hint about “SPOILER2”, and that is
that I wear glasses, and even when the 3D is off, some maps looks fuzzy; Two,
to be exact.
Music:
10/10: I cannot give
this game any less. Damn Fire Emblem for making me love old fashioned style. It
is so heroic, and so nice. I am not that good in music tastes, but I normally
listen to rock (for some absurd reason), Fire Emblem broke the line completely.
(It was not like there was a line to begin with, but anyway) I love how the
music switched from the normal one into the battle one just like Super Mario
Galaxy and Skyward Sword.
Overall:
9.5/10: If there is
anything it needed, it is the speed in the spotpass maps. It is a perfect game.
The weapon Triforce is a little differently confusing at the beginning, but
this game has a lot of freedom and awesomeness. I can’t imagine a 3DS without
one.
Now for the
spoilers I mentioned above. Don’t read if you don’t want any spoilers!
SPOILER1:
alternate timelines, parallel worlds, and time travelling concepts.
SPOILER2:
the first map is the one with many mountains and cliffs. It makes me dizzy. The
second one is the last map on the dragon scales. The way they are just like hemispheres
but the map should still be “flat” is terribly confusing.
Play More Zelda!
lyn's spotpass team was the only large obstacle my character ever met. I was just training her with lances (she can still use ordinary magic) and suddenly things got serious!! As you can see I am not dead, but dancing with my Pegasus named...
