The best game in the Fire Emblem series is on the Nintendo 3DS, and it finally
lands in North America.
The Fire Emblem series isn’t as popular in the West as it is in Japan, but it definitely deserves to be, and you’ll agree after playing the latest game in developer Intelligent System’s long-running series. The thirteenth installment in the series, Fire Emblem Awakening, is an epic tactical role-playing game that features stunning visuals, interesting characters, enjoyable gameplay, difficulty levels suited for different kinds of players, entertaining dialogue and an engrossing story.
When starting the game, players select a difficulty level. Series beginners are recommended to select the ‘Normal’ level, the ‘Hard’ level is for experienced players, and players who deem themselves experts are encouraged to select the ‘Lunatic’ level. After selecting a difficulty level, players must choose a game mode. Players must choose between ‘Casual,’ where fallen units return and where you can save anywhere, and ‘Classic,’ where defeated units are lost forever and each decision is important.
After selecting a difficulty level and game mode, you create and name your character. Toward the beginning, your character is found lying in a field with no memory, and he or she is welcomed to be the tactician of a militia known as the Shepherds.
The story focuses on the trials of Chrom, the prince of Ylisse and leader of the Shepherds. King Gangrel of Plegia, a neighboring nation of Ylisse, eventually acts ruthlessly and tries to, at all costs, get a hold of the Fire Emblem, a priceless item vital to the world’s future. For safekeeping, the Fire Emblem is kept with Emmeryn, the exalt of Ylisse and Chrom’s older, more peaceful sister. Chrom’s tasks are to maintain the safety of the people of Ylisse, and to attempt to stop chaos from spreading across the world.
The game features a robust list of deeply developed characters. Each character in your expanding party is distinctive and has his or her own personality. For example, Chrom is compassionate toward his warriors and family; Lissa, Chrom’s younger sister, is a tomboy and, despite her vulnerability, she always wants to accompany her brother on the battlefield; Chrom’s lieutenant, Frederick, is tough, obedient and always willing to accomplish any task to please and protect Chrom and Lissa. There are multiple characters you’ll encounter on your journey; some of them are lovable, and some are annoying and forgettable, but each one of them is unique and provides a welcome addition to the roster.
Nice to meet you, Marth… What’s with the mask?
The characters’ appearances are diverse, and the game’s visuals are bright, colorful and detailed. The game stands out as being one of the most visually appealing games on the Nintendo 3DS, because it features multiple art styles – all of which are charming; however, the 3D models of the characters display themselves as having the tiniest feet, which is quite noticeable and makes it seem like the bodies of all the characters are deformed.
To advance the story, there is an extensive use of scripted cutscenes throughout the game. The dialogue among the characters is usually between two characters at one time. The chat is well-written, and simply by reading the words of each character, you get a sense of his or her persona. Although not as common as the text-based dialogue, the game features beautifully-crafted animated cutscenes, which give the game a whole new life and allows you to see certain characters in a different, intuitive point of view.
I feel so helpless, but at least I have a pretty good seat…
Like previous installments in the series, the game plays as a turn-based tactical role-playing game. There are over 20 chapters, and each of which includes a battle and cutscenes. Battles in the game take place inside a grid, where the player must control Chrom and the Shepherds, known as units on the grid, to protect one another – all while routing the enemies. In each battle, you must try to protect the Shepherds by placing each unit on a square inside the grid that you think will be most beneficial for your team.
If you play the game in ‘Classic’ mode, you want to make sure all your units survive on the battlefield, because if they lose their entire HP, they die and won’t return to help you in the next battles you encounter – despite how many enemies you face at one time. In both game modes, because Chrom is the leader of the Shepherds, if he or your character dies, the game ends, and you’ll have to restart the game from the last place you saved. To survive and become victorious, players must take the time to think strategically to outwit enemies. A silly, careless move can result in the game being over, so it’s the players’ responsibility to continuously keep units on their toes.
Regardless of the difficulty level and game mode you select, nonetheless, the game provides an enjoyable experience to all, including returning veterans as well as series beginners. Fire Emblem Awakening is an exceptional game, and it’s the best title in the series yet, so make sure you pick it up when it arrives in North America tomorrow, February 4th, at retailers and in the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo 3DS.
9/10
Fir…
You could at least completed the word.
Not until you remove my… from your…
…e Emblem!! Gotcha :D
hahaha, nice one dude!
.
Copy and Paste
this is why he died soon after
did you have to write the declaration of independence
..
Clearly I missed something.
so……….. some may say 3DS lack good games
where is your good now?
inb4 3DS sucks, Sony ftw, CoD is the best game of the history
Get cancer and die.
How kind of you.
Go to hell.
Tomorrow, i cant wait and next month the real madness begins.
Which Madness: March or Luigi’s Mansion?
Luigi, monster hunter and others idont remember because of the excitement :)
Can’t wait to get my bundle tomorrow. That and a few other games for my library.
I don’t understand why this isn’t out in the UK for another 3 months,last I checked, the US and UK speak the same language
lol IKR!? I live in U.S so I don’t reeally care, but I TOO would like to know what the hold up is in England.
Maybe cause they are adding german,italian,french and spanish?
Indeed. It’s why scribblenauts unlimited got delayed aswell. Text heavy games take longer to localize.
The UK should just get American games at the same time with just PAL instead of NTSC. I’m sick of suffering because of Europe’s many different languages.
No need to be ethnocentric.
Your forgetting the North American version comes out in Spanish and French in addition to English.
Yes but still come words need to be change especialy in spanish and english cause some words have diffrent and bad meaning.
Really ? What’s the delay then , adding a few more languages ?
Had a feeling since the announcement of Fire Emblem: Awakening and it’s first trailer that this would be the best one in te franchise. Guess I was right!
every review has been positive for this game so I’m psyched.
Fuck…Australia doesn’t get this game until April. ):
Wow! Thirteen games in the Fire Emblem series, and I never played a single one.
thought i was the only one. i think ill pick this 1 up though to give it a try!!
Can’t wait for this game (in fucking April) ! Excellent review though :)
“The thirteenth installment in the series, Fire Emblem Awakening, is an epic tactical role-playing game ”
Wow thirteen?! I wander why I’ve never really known about this series.
Fuck you Nintendo of Europe, why do i have wait TWO MONTHS -____-
That is two extra months I can wait for this specatcular game.
We waited for The Last Story and Xenoblade here in the states. We didn’t even get ‘Disaster day of crysis.’
Don’t worry, the time will fly by before you know it.
Calm down. Sometimes North America get game first, sometimes Europe gets games first. No reason to act like a total jackass.
Except, it is bullshit, its the same with Australia as well, they have to wait.
Next bill hear is that japan is bullshit for having games first -__-
*time not bill.
I can’t wait. :D! “Tomorrow” come quickly!
woah.. can’t you shorten these articles somewhat so they don’t appear on the overview page in full length?
Damn this game looks great.
Man, I’m sick of games always having crazy, hard to pronounce character (or city) names. Where the whole time I’m playing them I’m having to guess how to prounounce things.
Chrom, Ylisse, Gangrel of Plegia, Emmeryn etc. Need I say more? I wish game companies would Americanize these games a bit more than they do. Give characters regular names like Joe, Billy, Kyle, Jake and so on. At least I can pronounce Marth and Roy. Sometimes I feel like I need a professor’s degree in order to play some of these games.
You don’t like creativity?
Chrom(KROM), Ylisse(Elice), Gangrel of Plegia(Gane-Grelle of Pl-EE-Gee-ah), Emmeryn(Em-Er-In). If you don’t know how to pronounce something don’t get so stressed it really is NBD. I don’t know how to pronounce all the Pokemon names half the time and that doesn’t bother me. Its about the game experience not the sound of every character’s name…
pokedex pro! get it!
But I like to feel like I can sorta relate to a charactr in a game. I can never fully get into a game when it has a bunch of crazy foreign names and words. One of the many reasons I LOVE Earthbound is that the 4 main characters have normal names (Though Poo isn’t normal. At least I can pronounce it). And they look like regular, normal kids. But oddly enough, those crazy enemies in Earthbound never really bothered me much.
character*
well maybe if you stopped being a close minded jerk and realised people with weird name are like you as are people named joe or jack. Then you’d be able to relate to them as you should be able since they are humans and you are too.
Damn it. I prefer names like Chrom, Ylisse, Gangrel of Plegia, Emmeryn (which aren’t even that tough to pronounce) than generic crap like Joe, Billy, Kyle, and Jake.
I completely agree. That was one of the things that I didn’t like so much about some of the names in Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones. I mean, Seth, Kyle, Joshua, Nathasha, Ross, Hayden etc.
Lucina(marth) and chrom for smash bros.
Definitly Chrom and the new looking Marth!!!
new marth is lucina, chroms daughter.
SPOILER ALERT YOU FUCKER GO FUCK YOURSELF
Well, that escalated rather quickly…
Sony and xbox fans posting hate on their Wii U browser about the same fire emblem they helped sell out in pre-orders :).
Excellent job on that review, Alba.
Shut the fuck up, Meg.
You shut the fuck up, wannabe… and get a life!
Just let him be. He/she is obviously some idiot looking for your attention. Don’t reply and he/she will get bored and leave.
This game for sure is a must buy. I can’t contain myself! Hold me!
Another nail in Vita’s coffin.
Yeeeah, no, i own both and the experience on both are nothing alike.
Sadly, you will never know the difference
Unfortunately for consoles like the Vita, a lot of people won’t buy something very expensive unless they know they’ll like they’ll definitely like it. The limited amount of people who own them doesn’t help this either. The experience is great as I’ve played one a few times, but I’m a massive Nintendo fan and don’t have the money at the moment to buy a Vita as well as the many games for the 3DS and Wii U coming out this year.
The irony is, my birthday is tomorrow,yet I have no plans to pick this game up.
Same with me and Luigi’s Mansion.
not really ironic, just circumstantial.
and pretty lame
/care
I like Fire Emblem .
I like SFC version .
How many save slots are on the game?
I know, weird quiestion. I just wanted to know if I could play both modes.
There are three save slots, so you can play both game modes. ^__^
Yay! Okay, thank you!!!!!!!
Good job, Alba. You should do reviews more often. You’re much better reviewer than you are news reporter.
I have to say, Youre a better reviewer than sickr is, yeah his short reviews are ok, but they arent very informative.
As with the other guys, you should do more reviews on here! Sickr’s are good, but yours are much more in depth and give me more of an idea of how good the game is as opposed to explaining the game then just scoring it.
“Marth” is Chrom’s daughter in the future. She is born after chapter 11 .
Only americans don’t like hard things…except cocks…
Pingback: US Retailers Suggest That Fire Emblem Release Has Been Slightly Delayed | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Your Characters In Fire Emblem Awakening Can Get Married And Have Kids | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Kotaku Says “The Nintendo 3DS Has Become The Best Gaming Machine Out There” | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Fire Emblem Awakening Dated For Australia | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Nintendo Giving Away Fire Emblem Awakening Art Books | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Nintendo Giving Away Fire Emblem Awakening Art Books | The N-Dub Nation Nintendo Site
Pingback: Forbes: Nintendo Is The New Sega | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Forbes: Nintendo Is The New Sega | Nintendo 3DS News
Pingback: Nintendo Releases Infographic To Show Nintendo 3DS’ Evolution Over The Last Two Years | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Nintendo Explains Why Fire Emblem Awakening Characters’ Feet Are Deformed | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Fire Emblem Awakening Launches In Europe And Australia | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D’s Download Size Is Enormous | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Nintendo Censors Fire Emblem Awakening Character’s Buttocks In North America | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Nintendo Censors Fire Emblem Awakening Character’s Buttocks In North America | Nintendo 3DS News
Pingback: Fire Emblem: Awakening UK Review | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Fire Emblem Awakening Could Have Been The Last Fire Emblem Game | My Nintendo News
Pingback: There Are No Plans For DLC In Super Smash Bros. For Wii U, Nintendo 3DS | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Super Mario 3D World, Zelda: A Link Between Worlds Nab Best Of 2013 Awards From IGN | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Chrom Approaches Super Smash Bros Universe | HyruleCentralHyruleCentral
Pingback: Fire Emblem Arrives Today On Wii U Virtual Console In Europe | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Pre-Order The Art Of Fire Emblem: Awakening For Only $23.99 From Amazon | My Nintendo News
Pingback: Fire Emblem Fates Early Sales ‘Far Outpace’ Fire Emblem Awakening – My Nintendo News
Pingback: Aversa: Dark One Now Available Via Special Maps In Fire Emblem Heroes | My Nintendo News