How far did you get: Completed the campaign, did most of the side missions, and some of the DLC
Fire Emblem: Awakening took a different approach. While you can still play this game in the same manner as the older Fire Emblem titles, you now have the option to play in "casual" mode, where your characters are only gone for the battle they are defeated in, and not permanently. Fans of the previous games may gawk at this, but it's entirely optional and gives newer players a way to enjoy the game without getting too frustrated. Most veterans to the series understand that if you lose a character, you're supposed to reset the game and be more careful, but novices won't know to do that.
There is a downside to casual mode, though. You learn to play better when you reset your game to make sure your people don't die, and you won't get as skilled at the game by playing in casual mode. This can be problematic if you want to play some of the higher level side quests and DLC, as they are legitimately challenging for all players and if you're not up to snuff, you're probably going to die a lot.
The game is easily the best presented Fire Emblem game yet. The battle sequences are absolutely awesome to watch, and you'll see a ton of them. Each character has their own unique appearance and voice. Some of the battle shouts and victory boasts are genuinely funny and give you a better understanding of the characters. The menus are all easy to use and navigating them is quick and snappy. It also gives you a lot of control over what you want to sit through and what you don't. All dialog can be skipped (though I wouldn't recommend it) and you can fast forward battle animations if you're in a hurry or just tired of seeing them. You can also pause them, which is a fantastic addition as in the older games, I often found myself needing to do something in real life during an enemies turn and had no way to pause the game.
When it comes to the gameplay, very little has changed, which should excite most Fire Emblem fans. It's not much different than any other strategy RPG, but there's something about it that hooked me more than other games in the genre. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but it's incredibly hard to put down. It still has the weapon triangle and flyers are still weak to wind and arrows, which is where most of the real strategy comes in. I did notice a few balancing issues, though. Fredrick, my Great Knight, was my strongest character for about half the game. I continued leveling him and toward the end of the game, he was noticeably weaker than most of my characters. My trickster (think thief with heal magic) could barely damage anything at the end of the game, despite the fact that I had leveled her more than most of my other characters.
The game has some interesting wireless features. I was fond of the bonus box, which allowed you to grab some good weapons for no cost. Sometimes the game would get updates and you would get new items in the bonus box. You also earn renown by leveling your characters and getting new ones, and you can use your renown points to buy bonuses. There's a support option that allows you to watch a scene between 2 of your characters, which increases their relationship level. These were usually really funny to watch. There's also a barracks option which lets you watch your characters walk around the barracks. Sometimes they would talk to each other, sometimes they would find items, and sometimes they would have an epiphany and gain experience or weapon levels. The conversations during these were usually stock quotes and not really worth reading, but the bonuses were usually nice.
Most of the DLC is designed for higher level players, but 2 of them stuck out to me. There's one that's designed to help you level up, and one that is designed to land you a whole lot of gold. I used these a lot, but I felt like I was cheating by using them. I found a majority of the game to be quite easy because I was able to quickly power level and buy pretty much anything I wanted. They're pretty much a necessity to do post game DLC and the endgame side quests, but personally I don't think they should have been there for players still early in the game.
Fire Emblem: Awakening doesn't do a whole lot of new things, but it improved pretty much every aspect of core gameplay and gave us the best Fire Emblem story to date. If you own a 3DS, this game really should be in your game collection.
Rating: 90/100
