Fire Emblem: Awakening

Fire Emblem: Awakening is the first title in the series to come out for the 3DS and it's being released in North America on February 4th (in about 3 weeks). It was designed to be a good entry point for people who've never played any Fire Emblem before, and I've heard some really good things about it. I decided to post this thread in Kawaii because a) it's Japanese b) it's got dating elements c) I wanted to bring it to the attention of people who might not otherwise know about it.

The game is a strategy-RPG (you control multiple units on a grid-like battlefield). The dating elements come in when you position two units of the opposite gender next to each other in battle. This strengthens their bond and eventually those two characters will marry (you get to see mini-events of them interacting with each other). You can do this with (almost) any two characters, including your custom-created protagonist, meaning that you can ship anyone you want (no same-sex marriage, unfortunately).

Here's a demonstration of the battle system.



There's also a class-switching mechanic. Most units are restricted to a handful of classes, but your protagonist can change to any class you wish (probably gonna go Pegasus Knight on my first game).

As for the plot, here's a very barebones summary from Wikipedia to avoid spoilers.

The voice track is dual-audio, so you can switch between the Japanese and English voices. Nintendo recently released a video which compares the english opening sequence with the japanese one (blue-haired dude is Prince Chrom, by the way. The blonde is Lissa, his sister). The cutscene is in first-person from the perspective of the protagonist.

...This is the marriage of two of my favorite things and I don't know how to deal with my feelings.

Oh I have it now. *prepares to go into a musical because I AM JUST THAT DAMN HAPPY*



Also Nebty I knew nothing about this so thank you, you have a Loyal Soli unit for life. Can I smish you to pieces now?

Oh, very well, if you must. I-It's not like I want you to hug me or anything.

Also, I think I already know who I'm going to marry.



Chrom has really pretty eyes. <3

*FLYINGGLOMPTACKLES* Also you have brillig taste. He has a very nice name too actually. ;4

Wait agh this is for the 3DS. Now I have to get it. But the game first.

So excited for this!

Not really thrilled about the dating element, though. It seems really distracting, like I can see myself deliberately not putting opposite-sex units close to each other because I don't CARE about relationships, dammit, I just want to kill things. And it also seems inherently shallow, like any two characters can just magically become close due to standing next to each other...? The battle field is no place for romance!

Anyways, looks like a lot of fun and hopefully that aspect will be optional or at least easily skipable.

Some characters can't hook up with certain other characters. There are also scenes that show the two of them getting to know each other, so the romance doesn't just come out of nowhere. And it's not just standing next to each other. If you position two units side-by-side then they attack together and protect each other. Basically the rationale is that if you pair up two units enough then they become battle-buddies, and the relationship progresses from there. There are also friendship scenes between characters of the same sex (some more suggestive than others) as well as between brothers and sisters or parents and children. So it's really more of a relationship system which is added to the battle system.

Can love bloom on a battlefield, Jacquelle?

Fair enough! That does sound intriguing, I like the platonic relationships aspect. Now I'm even more excited.

Actually I'm quite glad to hear that, had a few niggling thoughts that were satisfied.

The voice acting for both sides is rather marvelously done and I think I'll be switching back and forth come the time. Confound them though, that's a heck of a way to start, give us a mystery and vision of what may come to past yeesh. The perspective thing is pretty btw.

Here's a video that shows how the pair up system works in battle.



EDIT: Top comment on the youtube video is perfect.

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY I CAN'T WAIT TO TRY OUT EVERYONE WITH EACH OTHER

Nebty you're really spoiling me mate. Also I predict my siblings and I will fight over who gets to play.

There's a demo! And it comes out at noon today! Don't forget to grab it if you've got a 3DS.

I WANT TO PRE-ORDER THIS GAME SO BADLY but my siblings keep telling me not to.

Mostly because I have two preorders coming out one after the other, I'm mostly broke and they're telling me I should wait until a complete edition comes out because there's a lot of DLC.

That, and we don't have a 3DS BUT WHEN HAS THAT STOPPED ME BEFORE?

Nebty, I love you for this. So much.

My whole day suddenly vanished before my eyes.

Both Matt and I will be losing many, many hours of our lives to this game.

Until Etrian Odyssey 4 comes out, at least. I gots to get my cartography on.

The lethal combination of this and Etrian Odyssey 4 are predicted to create a time-suck of heretofore unseen proportions; one could almost call it a Life Black Hole.

Have you not played any other Fire Emblem title? In the other games, there are support conversations where if certain characters stand next to eachother for a certain amount of turns you unlock conversations that give light to the backstory and also give stat bonuses when the characters are near eachother. It's a very important game mechanic and while some characters do end up together not all do. You don't have to click on them, but by skipping out on them you lose a lot of potential.

it's also not all that unusual to become close in times of great hardship, like a battlefield.

I played a lot of Shadow Dragon, which as a remake of the first game didn't have that mechanic.

The battlefield comment was a joke.

Shadow Dragon wasn't very good, I know it was a remake of the first game, but I don't think they did it very well. I'm really looking forward to this game since SD was such a disaster and while I certainly didn't dislike Radiant Dawn, I didn't like it nearly as much as the other games in the series I've played beforehand, especially the game it was a sequel to. So it's been a while since I've played a Fire Emblem game I could love.

Got the demo!

EDIT: Nintendo, you fuckers! I can't believe you restricted female avatar selection! Aaarrrghhhhh.

WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT I am not pleased.

As someone who doesn't have a 3DS and can't try the demo but is sorely tempted to get one for this game and others what exactly did they do?

I can't wait for this,I'm literally going to send someone to USA just to buy me this game and I've been on a countdown since the japanese game was anounced,I love Fire Emblem so much.

Feel I should warn you that the 3DS is region-locked, so if your literally is actually a literally that strategy might not work.

LOL don't worry I've been waiting so I'm already prepared for that.

If I'm interpreting that correctly, in the demo, you can only be male? I'm guessing they did that to lower the download size, they don't have to have all the voice files for the girl avatar.

Yeah, JoshV is right. Both genders will be available for the final game but for the demo you're stuck playing a male.

It's not a disaster, just an unpleasant surprise.

Other than that, though, the demo is AMAAAZING. I love everything about it. The battle system really sucks you in, too. And there's this first-person mode for attacks which is super cool with the 3D on. In fact, I found myself leaving the 3D on during the whole battle, and I usually hate 3D. It's very well implemented in this case.

And I love Chrom already. I'd paired him and the protagonist up to fight the bandit boss in the first battle, and the counterattack took out a lot of my HP. Then the enemy attacked again and Chrom stepped in like a badass and defended him, allowing the protagonist to pull of an amazing special counterattack which won the battle. It was so awesome!

I said it once I'll say it again I want this game.

I LOVE SULLY

This thread makes me want a 3DS.

She is the best! She pretty much won that second fight for me, with a little help from Virion. They actually work pretty well together. And Frederick's a BEAST. He took out the whole upper left side all by himself.

ROMANCING SULLY FIRST

Oh man, I've been ridiculously excited for this ever since it was announced. And they finally have good supports back! And you can marry the characters and recruit ones from other games with the DLC and it's the first new continent since Tellius and asdfghjkl;

Also, apparently they're releasing the FE 3DS in the USA that I want SO BADLY, except I already have one. I honestly might get it, though. LOOK AT HOW GORGEOUS IT IS.

STOP MAKING ME WANT THINGS I CAN'T AFFORD GROSS SOBBING

That is legitimately beautiful though, do want.

Too bad I can't afford that one but at least I'll get the game.
Speaking of do you guys already have planned who you're going to marry?

Same here. I would usually skip something like this, but it's Fire Emblem, and dang it's the most beautiful piece of technology I have ever seen.
I even considered importing it when it was a Japan exclusive, and now it's here and I DON'T HAVE IT.

Chrom (that looks weird, I'm so used to seeing it translated as Krom). I also want to get the DLC for Paris and marry him, too, if it's not too expensive.

Everyone.

Whoa, that 3DS is gorgeous. Too bad I already got a 3DS for christmas, though I really like that it's shiny and fire-engine red.

I've been trying to ignore FE:A until now (since it was so far from release), so I don't really know much about the characters. I am almost certainly marrying Chrom in my first file, though. Other than that, I'm not sure. This guy's design looks pretty interesting, though.



Apparently his name is Henry.

Oh no why did you have to post that beautiful 3DS. My poor wallet. T_T
Why did I have to get myself a cheapo PSP for Christmas...