Fire Emblem: Awakening (Revival)

[NeoCracker]

Timey Wimey BallHer exact words are "I'm about to save your life. From him."

However, she later explains that he would have survived anyway, but been given a permanent wound which would have weakened him and been partially responsible for his death later.

The timelines don't quite match up in any case. In the current timeline, Chrom dies when she's about three years old, while in her future, she claimed to learn the sword from him, and have memories of her mother. She also claims that she comes from a period "more than ten years hence". This indicates that the final battle in the current time happens a lot sooner than it did in Lucina's future.

Let me ask you this, though, NeoCracker: Are you interested enough in the characters and stories to want to play a more traditional RPG featuring them?

Alright, that explains that oddity well enough then.

And yeah, hell I'd love to keep in an SRPG, just using a different SRPG system. I really enjoyed the characters.

[Skyblade]

Timey Wimey BallHer exact words are "I'm about to save your life. From him."

However, she later explains that he would have survived anyway, but been given a permanent wound which would have weakened him and been partially responsible for his death later.

The timelines don't quite match up in any case. In the current timeline, Chrom dies when she's about three years old, while in her future, she claimed to learn the sword from him, and have memories of her mother. She also claims that she comes from a period "more than ten years hence". This indicates that the final battle in the current time happens a lot sooner than it did in Lucina's future.

Let me ask you this, though, NeoCracker: Are you interested enough in the characters and stories to want to play a more traditional RPG featuring them?

Alright, that explains that oddity well enough then.

And yeah, hell I'd love to keep in an SRPG, just using a different SRPG system. I really enjoyed the characters.

So I take it you haven't heard that Atlus is currently developing a crossover RPG with Intelligent Systems? Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem.

[NeoCracker]

...Really? You would think that I, one of the forums biggest Atlus Fanboys, hasn't heard of this?

YEs, yes I know of this and want to get it when I have a WiiU. :P

[Bolivar]

Turning off combat animations actually do make the battles go quite quickly.

[Skyblade]

Turning off combat animations actually do make the battles go quite quickly.

If you press "Start" during an enemy turn it will fast-forward through the entire turn as well, only pausing if a character dies or levels up, or a story boss is slain.

[Flaming Ice]

Turning off combat animations actually do make the battles go quite quickly.

If you press "Start" during an enemy turn it will fast-forward through the entire turn as well, only pausing if a character dies or levels up, or a story boss is slain.

And in options isn't there's an option that allows you to make units move faster?

[Skyblade]

I'd like to take a moment to point out Nintendo's current promotion. Anyone who registers both Fire Emblem Awakening and Shin Megami Tensei IV on Nintendo's site gets a gift card code that can be applied to the 3DS's Nintendo Shop worth thirty dollars.

The reason I'm bringing this up? Because those funds can be used to purchase DLC. So many of you haven't picked up the DLCs due to lack of funding, but if you grabbed SMT IV, you just got a boon to your e-wallet as soon as you register. Get it before the promotion ends, and start grabbing the DLCs. They're worth it!

Also, I should point out that the final piece of SpotPass content, the Book of Naga, has now been released, so sync up at your local WiFi hotspot!

[TrollHunter]

Reviving this old thread because I want to revive a thread with revival in the title. I need more people to talk to about this game.
It has devoured the past month of my life. It is FAR from a perfect game with some extremely glaring flaws... but its a blast to play all the same.

I'm playing through Lunatic/Classic right now in preparation for Lunatic+
Is anyone else still playing this little title?

[Skyblade]

Reviving this old thread because I want to revive a thread with revival in the title. I need more people to talk to about this game.
It has devoured the past month of my life. It is FAR from a perfect game with some extremely glaring flaws... but its a blast to play all the same.

I'm playing through Lunatic/Classic right now in preparation for Lunatic+
Is anyone else still playing this little title?

What are these glaring flaws, exactly?

I am still playing, at least. I recently discovered just how useful StreetPass can be, allowing you to set up shops to regularly pick up stat-boosters, Hammerne staves, Dragonstone+/Beaststone+, Second Seals, and some rare weapons (like Celica's Gale), as soon as you get Wireless Access. It is such a boon to Lunatic level grinding to have a reliable source of Second Seals before the shop that normally sells them becomes available.

[TrollHunter]

Reviving this old thread because I want to revive a thread with revival in the title. I need more people to talk to about this game.
It has devoured the past month of my life. It is FAR from a perfect game with some extremely glaring flaws... but its a blast to play all the same.

I'm playing through Lunatic/Classic right now in preparation for Lunatic+
Is anyone else still playing this little title?

What are these glaring flaws, exactly?

I am still playing, at least. I recently discovered just how useful StreetPass can be, allowing you to set up shops to regularly pick up stat-boosters, Hammerne staves, Dragonstone+/Beaststone+, Second Seals, and some rare weapons (like Celica's Gale), as soon as you get Wireless Access. It is such a boon to Lunatic level grinding to have a reliable source of Second Seals before the shop that normally sells them becomes available.

yeah streetpass can be very useful for runs. You're going to really want some streetpass team items for Lunatic+ by the way. So I'd recommend finding out which bonus teams sell the best stuff (levin swords, brave weapons, mire, stuff like that)

And glaring problems? Well, the longass read coming up covers what is glaring to me.
clears throat
Swordmaster was horribly nerfed and got nothing out of it. Most of the swordmaster stat caps are lower than assassin, and assassin gets bows as well. Not to mention the loss of their critical bonus. Its only good point is swordfaire/astra but since reclassing is a thing thats hardly great.

Validar was an absolutely terrible and generic villain, and the deus ex machina at the end of the game was ridiculous and goes entirely against the self-insert avatar character (SPOILER)basically, our avatar character went behind our back and came up with an insane plan. It's basically the ultimate example of how not to do a self-insert character. The avatar is also extremely bland is a complete mary sue/gary stu.

choicesMany of the choices you can make in this game serve almost no purpose whatsoever. What choice you make regarding Emmeryns fate changes nothing, what you say when Lucina tries to kill you means nothing, and even if you let the avatar sacrifice himself at the end of the game it goes and implies that even your sacrifice had no real consequences because he just comes back because of the power of love. I honestly would have preferred having no choice. No choice>Choices that dont matter in my opinion

Many of the characters in this game take their gimmick way to far in support conversations. Kellam was amusing at first but before long it was clear that his only defining trait was that no one notices him. It stops being funny and just becomes a nuisance. Same goes with Pannes racism and Cordelias crush on Chrom. There are some really fun and awesome characters, but many of them just become their trope or gimmick. It's a huge shame. At least there are plenty of awesome characters that are a joy to read.

Due to stat changes the sorcerer class becomes extremely overpowered. Due to their buff to defense and the removal of the constitution stat Sorcerers are pretty much ridiculous. In the GBA titles the heavy weight of a druid/summoners tomes and lower defense held them back. And even with those shackles they were still amazing. Here? Pfft, please. I'm just going to armsthrift sol nosfertank the entire game without worry. Heck, you dont even need armsthrift or sol to make it insane, those just add insult to injury.

The pair-up mechanic, while AWESOME, is broken because enemy units cannot make use of it. This tilts the scales largely in your favor and the pair-up mechanic also results in this game heavily rewarding small skeleton crew teams of a few elite pairs. I love using a ton of units, but I just feel like im gimping myself because I know I'd be better off with a small balanced a-team of destruction. Also, pair up makes the veteran skill and by association the avatar that much more broken. (Getting avatar to Lv.20 by chapter 3? Easy.)

Lunatic+ was handled very poorly. Especially during the earlygame its almost entirely based on good RNG and the game not giving every enemy hawkeye and luna+. You could have the perfect strategy but "oh, too many enemies have counter/pavise+/aegis+ or luna+ I need to restart because the battles already lost". This gets more manageable as your units become more powerful, but earlygame is just completely stupid and requires reset after reset just to give a level a real attempt (I'm looking at you chapter 2).

Galeforce is broken late-game. Maybe if it functioned like cavaliers in FE9, but here its just ridiculous. And because of pair-up you can get double galeforce...

Also, let me just say now... Some of these character designs were horrible. General and Great Knight being prime examples of utter silliness. Sorcerer also looks basically like a bunch of fanservice on the female end. I feel like they could have done a lot better here.

And really... a ton of the content in this game just felt rushed. Like the multiplayer functionality for one. Yeah, I'm going to give my team to a bunch of incompetent AI and let them fight someone. It just feels tacked on and I'd rather it not have wasted development time. Also, the barracks/event tiles feel out of place and weird. The "conversations" units have on them largely make no sense and some of the items you get from them can just break the earlygame. It adds a bit too much more RNG to an already RNG based game.

Getting close to the end here... we come back to supports. I'm referring to the generic parent daughter/son supports that are the same regardless of the parent (bar a few exceptions). They make a ton of units act extremely out of character and just feel strange (Nowi!Morgan and Virion!Inigo being prime examples). This was bound to be an issue though due to the number of potential combinations. It'd be insane to have different supports for them all, but it doesnt make the generic supports less of an issue.

And FINALLY, I feel that the mission variety and map design was really dumbed down in this game. Every mission is either "route the enemy" or "defeat the commander" with absolutely no fog of war or any other fun gimmicks. The map designs are also largely simplistic and are extremely easy to just zerg-rush through. And on lower difficulties enemy formations seem to appear random and haphazard due to them just removing enemies from formations for easier difficulties. The challenge DLC had some really fun gimmicks and map design though, I had a blast with that DLC. Oh, also... Enemy thieves also only steal one item in this game, and usually its a pretty useless one. This basically kills any sense of urgency you may have to open what few chests there actually are.


I do LOVE this game though, I swear. It's just that I've put a ridiculous amount of time and research into it. It has a nice artstyle, the music is OHMAGODYES, the game doesnt take itself too seriously but it knows when to crank it up (chapter 10. MUSTAFA NO). The battles are also a lot more fun to watch than say... PoR or RD which were a lot more awkward and rigid. The game looks gorgeous, the new features like Pair-up and reclassing is awesome, and I love how brutal the game gets in some later DLC. Expanding on the pair-up mechanic, I kind of love how it works in a way that even characters that would be considered useless have a place as support. It makes it to where anyone can be viable if used correctly. They also greatly expanded on the skill-system in this game, and I think that helped one of FEs bigger issues of enemies being pushovers by giving them sadistic stat combos. I love the depth of character building that can go on, and I love the children mechanic. This game is beautiful and amazing, but its also one of the most breakable FE's to date.

PHEW, that was fun to write. Hopefully it wasnt too much of a pain to read.

[Skyblade]

I agree with a lot of those, but not all of them.

Character flaws are actually massively toned down for the series. Compare Stahl to a character like Ilyana. Both have the "always hungry" thing going on, but it shows up way more in Ilyana's Supports. In Awakening, with the exception of a couple characters, the quirks are restricted to the tile conversations or other bonus dialogue, rather than Supports or character building dialogue.

StreetPass doesn't really work as a fighting system, but why would you want it to? There are enemies aplenty, so rather than fight, you should set your team up to pass rare, powerful, or forged items across in the shop. Lack of online multiplayer is annoying, but hardly crippling to the game.

Fog of War was cut for time, and it was felt that introducing a core mechanic for DLC shouldn't be done. But we will likely see it back in the next game.

I actually quite like the map design. While it may be easy to face roll over things, especially at low difficulties or with DLC trained units, there is a lot of depth to be found if you take the time to analyze them, or are trying DLC-free Lunatic/Lunatic+.

(SPOILER)The father/child relationships were clearly caused by the number of possible combinations, and they did fix that in the Future Past DLCs. It's worth playing through them just to see those conversations.

Pair Up is the only thing that makes Lunatic or Lunatic+ possible, it blows the old Rescue system away completely, and adds a lovely system of depth to the customization and combat. They needed to tune enemy stats for it on Hard mode (possibly on Normal too, and actually introduce an Easy mode), but that's about it.

Also, I find Swordmasters really useful for the added survivability. They survive substantially longer than Assassins, especially against magical foes, and they tend to trend slightly better for me on stats while leveling, before the caps are reached. Plus, they are one of only a handful of classes to get two truly useful skills, even if they can both be passed on to other classes via reclassing.

(SPOILER)I also disagree that the Avatar character is bland. If it were, well, that would be a point in favor of blank slate self-insert. But there is a ton of depth of character which comes out in the Supports and DLCs.

I think you missed out on the game's biggest flaw, though, which is the lack of endgame content. So many great systems that make customization deeper and more rewarding than in any previous Fire Emblem, but very few places to use them. Thank goodness for Castle Apotheosis, Rogues and Reedemers (on harder difficulties), and the Future Past.

The game may not be perfect, but it is still utterly phenomenal.

Also, my Streetpass Team is full of max stat (Limit Broken), weapon-forged, fully skilled units, including an Avatar with max Limit Broken stats in every job and every skill learned. Even with a poor AI, good luck.

[TrollHunter]

Alright, let's break this down. You actually said a lot of the same things I was saying with different words
ANYWAY

Character flaws are actually massively toned down for the series. Compare Stahl to a character like Ilyana. Both have the "always hungry" thing going on, but it shows up way more in Ilyana's Supports. In Awakening, with the exception of a couple characters, the quirks are restricted to the tile conversations or other bonus dialogue, rather than Supports or character building dialogue.

How many of kellams supports have you seen? Tharja? Yarne? Panne? The last two especially. Try and read kellams supports without that gimmick appearing at least 500 times. And maybe the gimmicks are more pronounced because you arent limited in number to the ones you can get. It was less of an issue in older FEs due to the constraint on supports due to bonuses. You know, that might actually be a part of it.

StreetPass doesn't really work as a fighting system, but why would you want it to? There are enemies aplenty, so rather than fight, you should set your team up to pass rare, powerful, or forged items across in the shop. Lack of online multiplayer is annoying, but hardly crippling to the game.

That basically proves my point. Using streetpass to fight my friends teams controlled by enemy AI is broken and pointless due to the lack of enemies being able to use pair-up and the enemy AI being basically a bunch of lemmings. Instead of half-assing it they could have put dev time to more important things.
I use it as a shop myself too as its amazing that way. It's just a shame that its really the only use it has. FE has never really had good multiplayer though (llolLinkArena)

Fog of War was cut for time, and it was felt that introducing a core mechanic for DLC shouldn't be done. But we will likely see it back in the next game.

Really? Thats quite a shame. This game definitely suffered from FoW not being there and I cant wait to see it back (or at least something akin to it. I like gimmicks in my strategy games, what can I say? )

I actually quite like the map design. While it may be easy to face roll over things, especially at low difficulties or with DLC trained units, there is a lot of depth to be found if you take the time to analyze them, or are trying DLC-free Lunatic/Lunatic+.

Different strokes for different folks. Aside from a few levels I felt it was quite bland. I might need to replay some older FEs to make a direct comparison.

(SPOILER)The father/child relationships were clearly caused by the number of possible combinations, and they did fix that in the Future Past DLCs. It's worth playing through them just to see those conversations.

I kind of said that in my initial post, but at least we're on the same page.
And agreed, the future past DLC is amazing.

Pair Up is the only thing that makes Lunatic or Lunatic+ possible, it blows the old Rescue system away completely, and adds a lovely system of depth to the customization and combat. They needed to tune enemy stats for it on Hard mode (possibly on Normal too, and actually introduce an Easy mode), but that's about it.

They could have rebalanced lunatic/lunatic+ in a way that'd make it possible with enemies using pair-up. I think that enemies being able to utilize pair-up would have changed the flow of combat in a very interesting way that could have been a nice counter to a lot of popular strategies.

Also, I find Swordmasters really useful for the added survivability. They survive substantially longer than Assassins, especially against magical foes, and they tend to trend slightly better for me on stats while leveling, before the caps are reached. Plus, they are one of only a handful of classes to get two truly useful skills, even if they can both be passed on to other classes via reclassing.

Trust me, I love my swordmasters. The fact is that aside from res they are completely outclassed by assassins. Myrmidon branch kind of has both. Swordmaster is decent for the main game at least, but by post game there is no reason other than love for the class to use swordmaster. Assassins also provide more well balanced stat bonuses when used as a support in pair up, and have access to the sought after brave bow along with brave swords. Swordmaster being restricted to swords horribly cripples it in the postgame when it has nothing truly substantial to make it worth using. I still use my swordmasters, and even when my apotheosis team is finished I will be rocking at least one. That doesnt change how they are utterly outclassed by the assassin class in everything but 2 def and 8 res.

(SPOILER)I also disagree that the Avatar character is bland. If it were, well, that would be a point in favor of blank slate self-insert. But there is a ton of depth of character which comes out in the Supports and DLCs.

Hardly. I'm typically against self-inserts anyway as they are either.
A) Bland, which is not a good thing ever. I dont see how this could ever be a point in favor of a self-insert. This should be a point against their very existence.
B) Their own character like MU was, which is fine if you totally disassociate yourself with said character... that you created... and designed... and named...
C) Or are a bad mix of A and B and just end up being "perfect". See: Mary Sue

I didnt have a big problem with MU, but I felt he could have been written a hell of a lot better.

I think you missed out on the game's biggest flaw, though, which is the lack of endgame content. So many great systems that make customization deeper and more rewarding than in any previous Fire Emblem, but very few places to use them. Thank goodness for Castle Apotheosis, Rogues and Reedemers (on harder difficulties), and the Future Past.

Eh, I think it gets by fairly well thanks to the child paralogues, spotpass units like aversa, priam and the like alongside a good lineup of DLC.
The game is already massive enough as is, but I would agree there arent many places to throw around your limit breaker maxed out units of unholy destruction.

The game may not be perfect, but it is still utterly phenomenal.

Also, my Streetpass Team is full of max stat (Limit Broken), weapon-forged, fully skilled units, including an Avatar with max Limit Broken stats in every job and every skill learned. Even with a poor AI, good luck.

Agreed entirely with that first line, there's a reason I've put hundreds of hours into this game... but...

^Thats still cake. Pair-up makes things like this easy if you take it slow and smart. Also, it should be noted. You have access to all those skills. The player fighting your spotpass team has all those skills+pair up+forges+supports+dual guard and dual attack and is being controlled by an actual human player.

[Skyblade]

Alright, let's break this down. You actually said a lot of the same things I was saying with different words
ANYWAY

Character flaws are actually massively toned down for the series. Compare Stahl to a character like Ilyana. Both have the "always hungry" thing going on, but it shows up way more in Ilyana's Supports. In Awakening, with the exception of a couple characters, the quirks are restricted to the tile conversations or other bonus dialogue, rather than Supports or character building dialogue.

How many of kellams supports have you seen? Tharja? Yarne? Panne? The last two especially. Try and read kellams supports without that gimmick appearing at least 500 times. And maybe the gimmicks are more pronounced because you arent limited in number to the ones you can get. It was less of an issue in older FEs due to the constraint on supports due to bonuses. You know, that might actually be a part of it.

I obsessively go through and complete the Support gallery on every Fire Emblem game I've played, so I've seen almost all of them. Seeing all the conversations in one game may make them feel more pronounced in Awakening, but believe me, they aren't. Yarne and Kellam are the worst (Kellam is definitely worse than Panne, partially because his quirk is more gimmicky). Tharja even isn't as bad as most characters from previous games.

StreetPass doesn't really work as a fighting system, but why would you want it to? There are enemies aplenty, so rather than fight, you should set your team up to pass rare, powerful, or forged items across in the shop. Lack of online multiplayer is annoying, but hardly crippling to the game.

That basically proves my point. Using streetpass to fight my friends teams controlled by enemy AI is broken and pointless due to the lack of enemies being able to use pair-up and the enemy AI being basically a bunch of lemmings. Instead of half-assing it they could have put dev time to more important things.
I use it as a shop myself too as its amazing that way. It's just a shame that its really the only use it has. FE has never really had good multiplayer though (llolLinkArena).

Even if the combat mechanic was solid, and StreetPass teams could team up, why would you ever use it that way? Why would you recruit foes when you can get dozens of better characters through the premade teams (as several of them will have unique skills not normally acquirable by an Avatar)? Why would you fight when enemy teams are a dime a dozen, and random enemies (via Reeking Boxes) on the higher difficulties are going to be more powerful anyway due to the fact that they get double-forged weapons? Since you can only choose one thing to do with each team, the shop is always going to be the better choice.

I haven't gotten the chance to try the actual multiplayer (via the Challenge Rooms), but I would like to.

(SPOILER)I also disagree that the Avatar character is bland. If it were, well, that would be a point in favor of blank slate self-insert. But there is a ton of depth of character which comes out in the Supports and DLCs.

Hardly. I'm typically against self-inserts anyway as they are either.
A) Bland, which is not a good thing ever. I dont see how this could ever be a point in favor of a self-insert. This should be a point against their very existence.
B) Their own character like MU was, which is fine if you totally disassociate yourself with said character... that you created... and designed... and named...
C) Or are a bad mix of A and B and just end up being "perfect". See: Mary Sue

I didnt have a big problem with MU, but I felt he could have been written a hell of a lot better.

I wasn't arguing blandness in favor of self-insert, I was arguing that, if he was bland, he would be merely filling the role of blank slate fairly well.

Overall, though, I think that they did quite a good job with the Avatar's writing.

The game may not be perfect, but it is still utterly phenomenal.

Also, my Streetpass Team is full of max stat (Limit Broken), weapon-forged, fully skilled units, including an Avatar with max Limit Broken stats in every job and every skill learned. Even with a poor AI, good luck.

Agreed entirely with that first line, there's a reason I've put hundreds of hours into this game... but...

^Thats still cake. Pair-up makes things like this easy if you take it slow and smart. Also, it should be noted. You have access to all those skills. The player fighting your spotpass team has all those skills+pair up+forges+supports+dual guard and dual attack and is being controlled by an actual human player.

Have access to, yes. But you might be surprised just how many players never go that far. I've only found a single StreetPass team so far that even uses Limit Breaker, and that was only on one character on the team.

[Bolivar]

The problems I had with the game were the lack of customization, the absence of verticality, and the basic way they handled order of battle. I understand these things may have always been attached to Fire Emblem's identity in the genre but as someone new to the series, it made Awakening feel very simplistic and even dated.

The story was very cliche but I was able to just enjoy it for what it was, considering that seems par for the course on Nintendo handhelds.

[TrollHunter]

The problems I had with the game were the lack of customization, the absence of verticality, and the basic way they handled order of battle. I understand these things may have always been attached to Fire Emblem's identity in the genre but as someone new to the series, it made Awakening feel very simplistic and even dated.

The story was very cliche but I was able to just enjoy it for what it was, considering that seems par for the course on Nintendo handhelds.

I do agree with the lack of verticality now that you mention it, I think it would add a lot of depth to the combat.
But... what exactly do you mean by the lack of customization if I may ask? Because if you're talking about character customization, there is an extreme amount.