16. Fire Emblem: Awakening (Nintendo 3DS)
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In Fire Emblem: Awakening, your avatar character wakes up with amnesia and is discovered by some pretty important people who throw caution to the wind and recruit you to their cause almost immediately. There's some political stuff going on, but more than that, there's some demon-ish type creatures that start appearing and well... that's some bad news right there. So it's your job to save the future for your kids because even in times of war people still need love.

This is a strategy game, so you move your dudes and dudettes across certain squares depending on their move. Afterwards, you can heal your allies or attack your enemies, depending on the characters job. Eventually they can change jobs or become stronger ones if you have the proper items and such. You can also smoosh two of your people together to make one more powerful unit. Also your characters get friendship points and stuff from doing battle together and then you get scenes between them and eventually they can get married!

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You and me both

General impressions:
This game has a dating sim aspect to it that doesn't involve any nudity which is 100% of the reason I picked it up, not gonna lie. But the game was super hard, even on casual, so I stopped playing. Eventually I said that no strategy game was going to stand in the way of me playing matchmaker so I picked it back up. This time I could play it, although it was never easy. Anyways there's something that made it easier. You can buy monster boxes for grinding. At first I didn't want to do this because I couldn't afford it, but I realized that the loot you get in battle almost always makes up the difference. So being able to grind did make the game much easier and more enjoyable. As expected, the character interactions are marvelous and you have a wide variety of matchmaking choices. I just wish it was easier.

Story:
The story is interesting enough, and it had some very touching moments to it. Most of the good storytelling and interesting bits are very character focused, and there were some plot twists I didn't see coming. With that being said I wouldn't say it was amazing. I feel like I should have more to say but I don't so there you have it.


Gameplay:
The battles and stuff are too hard. I'm glad there was a casual option or all of my characters would be dead. I just don't have a mind for strategy as sad as that makes me. But the character relationships and matchmaking was excellently superbly excellent and that's what made this game rank so high. The conversations, not just among potential partners, but also between friends were touching, well written, funny, and flowed really well. It was fun trying to pair each character up.


World:
As is the case for most strategy games, you don't get much in terms of world. There are different battle maps and stuff but towns are not explorable and nowhere really stood out to me. There's not much more to say, it was par for the course as far as strategy RPG worlds.


Characters:
Best thing about this game hands down. As I mentioned the characters are well written and likeable, their interactions are amazing, ranging from very touching to funny, and there's a very large cast as well, which I really enjoy. Plus you get to have the characters get married and stuff which is great since I love dating sims.

Favourite character: Olivia 5Nss0XT.jpg
Honourable mentions: Ricken, Frederick, Morgan (Male) E9Zsybn.jpgozJhMGH.jpgjJFr3SY.jpg

It was reeeealllly hard to narrow this down because there were so many awesome characters. I liked Olivia because she was a sweetheart and had some great support conversations. Ricken was like my MVP, being my best mage and actually being able to take a hit. Frederick is who I chose as my avatar husband because he's pretty close to my type and Morgan was adorable and sweet and goofy and also very useful in battle.

Overall this game is very difficult, but it has an interesting story, touching moments, and a really awesome cast of characters with great interactions between them.