Wow! Number 4 had great discussion. Lots of interesting topics and opinions to consider! Lets see if we can top that with:

Number 4
Fire Emblem Awakening

My Playtime - 50 hours



Fire emblem awaking was a surprise for me this year. I have only briefly played Fire Emblem in the past, and I had not played a strategy RPG since Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. As such I opted to give Fire Emblem Awakening a go. I was amazed by how good it was.

The premise behind Fire Emblem Awakening is that the main character is decided by you as you start the game. You can alter the appearance and gender of this character however it bears little impact to the story. Thereafter, You are introduced to Chrom, the prince of Ylisse and the Shepherds with the task of protecting the country that has been ravaged by war. With the local towns been ravaged by Enemy Soldiers and a new threat know as The Risen, the Shepherds go from area to area defeating these threats and hiring new allies.

Fire Emblem awakening offers a new style of play from previous instalments in that party members can now team up to deal more damage. If a team is used more often, they upgrade their relationship rank which leads to stat bonuses when pairing up. If the pair are of different genders, the relationship rank can reach S rank, which results in the marriage between the two characters.. The more party members that reach this level of relationship, the more secret missions are unlocked which unlock new characters.

With around 50 playable characters and around 12-14 playable characters per the largest maps, the game offers a wide selection of play styles. I for one found that one character later one was so broken that she walked into the enemy stronghold, killed everyone and the rest of my team could put their feet up and have a cup of tea rather than fighting.

Despite never having playing a game in this series before, I found myself engrossed in the game. Leveling up characters to be part of my squad, fighting strong opponents from streetpass/spotpass updates, collecting secret characters all added to the depth that the main story had to offer and padded out the game for grind crazy fellows like myself. Well worth a shot if you can find the time to put into it.