 |
So I'm playing Fire Emblem: Awakening these days, and I'm doing so in the most casual way possible. I found out that this game lends itself really well to very short playing sessions and is just the perfect game to fiddle with when you're stuck performing mundane, unescapable tasks — for instance, I polished off a battle the other day while I was cooking pancakes and it was a much welcome and pleasant diversion. Since then, I've been snatching ten minutes here, fifteen minutes there, for a total play time of roughly three hours. Playing Awakening in such a disjointed way obviously makes the task of keeping track of the story a tad harder; but I'm handling it well so far, mostly due to the fact that Awakening's story is more streamlined and less convoluted that Fates' one. And since I'm mentioning Fates, I must insert a disclaimer before going any further: since Fates was my first ever Fire Emblem game, my writing about Awakening is going to be brimming with Fates comparisons. With that said, on with the show!
To be honest, this game has a lot going for it. Apart from its aforementioned player-friendliness and streamlined story, I'm totally in love with the art style used in cutscenes, and I really dig the fact that the action flows without pause and that I don't need — at least so far — to waste some time taking care of headquarters and effectively playing a browser game in disguise. I'd much rather be prowling the land with a limited team of characters — although if Fates is any indication, I'll probably end up with a full regiment by the end of my playthrough. I also find quite interesting that my avatar is not the main hero of Awakening, but rather an observer of sorts that finds themselves embroiled in a conflict that seemingly doesn't concern them. Of course, if the opening cutscene is any indication, it will probably turn out that my avatar is deeply linked to Awakening's events after all and that their amnesia is due to time travel or something similar. But hey, let's play and see! I'm just here to enjoy what the game has to offer, from the smooth no-casualties battles to the striking no-feet character designs.
On the negative side, I could mention the fact that the cast is painfully
transparent: they feel like unpolished beta versions of the colourful Fates cast,
and the fact that they are all dressed in drab garb certainly doesn't help. The
most interesting character, apart from my own avatar, has to be Chrom; but he's
still dull and unremarkable compared to, say, a Kaze or a Silas. And since I'm
mentioning Chrom, I'm pretty miffed that Awakening is actually sneaking
in some romantic innuendos between him and Sumia. How dare you, game? As the
resident hero and face of Awakening, Chrom should be my avatar's
exclusive turf, period. I was planning to bag him up from the very start in the
hope of unlocking interesting narrative developments; now, I feel like a
homewrecker of sorts doing just that, and that's totally your fault, IS. To add
fuel to the fire, those romantic innuendos between Chrom and Sumia are ten
times more romantic and touching than the support conversations between
the former and my avatar, which revolve solely about bumping into each other in
the steam tent and thus forming a bond thanks to the shared experience of
having seen the other naked — jeez, kill me already. Now that I think of it,
Sumia is really lovely, and I sure would love to snatch her away from Chrom.
Hey, maybe I'll just restart the game with a male avatar; I can afford to lose
three hours, and I'm starting to get the feeling that Awakening's story would
work out better with a male avatar, just like I got the feeling that the Fates
story would work better with a female
avatar back in the
days. And if the chemistry between Chrom and my avatar — or complete lack
thereof — is any indication, I won't miss on a lot of character and narrative
developments anyway.
Well, I'll ponder that option in the next days; and at any rate, I'll see you
soon with more Awakening goodness, dear fellow gamers. I can safely
state that for now, I like Awakening much more than Fates,
despite the dull cast and disappointing interactions between my avatar and the
game's resident hero. Now that I think of it, my aborted romance with Azura
in Fates was
also quite lacklustre; maybe it's just a better idea to woo secondary
characters than to make a pass at the cover character in Fire Emblem
games. Until next time, thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
I'd stick to
this female playthrough. It may seem like Sumia is oh so important right now
and that pisses me off as well, but she and every other wife of his gets
dropped like a rotten potato as soon as the first part of the story ends, and
then you spend the entire endgame with Chrom proclaiming his
love/"friendship" with the avatar to the point where he trusts them
even when it's horrendiously stupid to do so. I won't go into spoiler
territoty, but trust me, it's there, and if you're not his wife it's annoying.
If you're a guy, then ehhh, you get a stalker as a reward and a just as
annoying "destined" love interest that loses relevance pretty quickly
and unexpectedly. I won't spoil who it is, but you've met that person already
(they are not the same person as the stalker). Oh, and Chrom still fawns over
the great bond you two have ad naseum by the endgame. I guess it's sweet, but
geesh, it sure takes him a long time to realize it.
Either stay single, or just give into the pairings the game tries to force on
you, male or female. Because none of the romances for the avatar are that
fufilling TBH. I tried all of them, and most are just as awkward. That was one
of the things that Fates did better, as flawed as that game is. Some of the
romances between NPCs are fine, but no such luck for the avatar. If you go for
a male, Lissa is actually one of the better ones IMO.
If the romance in Awakening is rotten overall, then I'll gladly stick to my current female avatar, thank you very much. Restarting my playthrough of Fates from scratch was annoying enough, and the male character models in Awakening are not that great anyway. On top of that, I already have my favourite units and Sumia is not part of them due to her inherent fragility as a flying unit, and I really don't fancy having her in my force just so that my male avatar can woo her. Not to mention that I just reached S-rank support with Chrom, and I can now focus on other entertaining pairings. Vaike and Sully are definitely going to be an item, as well as Lissa and Long'qu. More than that, I cannot say for the time being. :p
Sumia is not
the implied love interest for the male avatar, don't worry, but in some ways I
find the actual love interest to be even worse than Sumia. I'll spoil who it is
when you get to that relevant part of the story.
Lissa and Lon'qu have one of the cutest romances in the game, so that's a very
good choice. It actually makes me mad, because Lon'qu was my first choice for
my avatar but his romance with her is sooo awkward. If you think the Avatar and
Chrom being naked and stuff around each is bad, then you haven't seen nothing.
Just as a little spoiler, the avatar acts like an awkward moron and ends up
throwing vegetables at Lon'qu as "training" in their first event. The
remaining events are just as bad, but by the end Lon'qu seems to get used to
the avatar and decides to marry such an annoying woman. Yay...
Keep that in mind when you see the much cuter romance between Lissa and Lon'qu.
We players got robbed. Most of Lissa's romances are very cute in general, which
is why I recommended her for your male avatar, but there's a little something
later on that might imply that Lon'qu is her "canon" husband. I'll
point out what it is once you're further along in the game. Though keep in mind
the developers try their hardest to not favour any pairing, so its canonicity
is mostly fanon, but it’s still a nice piece of trivia.
Oh, and speaking of Sumia, if you want to have access to her child, get her
married ASAP before you make too many pairings. She has very few options, so
it's incredibly easy to get distracted and marry all of her men to other women
early on and miss out on Sumia's kid completely. Awakening is the opposite of
fates in this regard, kids are dependent on the mother, not the father.
I'm working
hard on Lon'qu and Lissa as well as on a couple of other pairings. I love how
the game suggests canon couples in a really subtle way and how these pairings
usually have great chemistry - although I have to admit that I sometimes
totally ignore the game's clues and follow my own matchmaking instincts. :p
This time, I'm also battling exclusively with my favourite units and enjoying
the game ten times more thanks to that unwavering focus. I'm playing on Normal
Mode without Permadeath anyway, so it's not like I need to strategize much to
progress. ^^
After playing
the (mostly) trainwreck known as Fire Emblem Fates, one can really appreciate
that Awakening simply wasn't that terrible. It's a fun game with a ton of
things to grind and do. A shame that 90% of the maps are terrible. At least
they improved a lot in that department with Fates/Conquest.
Also, Maribelle a cute.
So far, I sure
love Awakening much more than Fates. It's simpler and more streamlined, with
less useless gameplay fluff (goodbye cursed headquarters) and a less convoluted
story.
Yup, Maribelle is just irresistible. I nearly leaped with joy when she joined
my force, because I was sure at that point that she was an NPC. I unfortunately
couldn't marry her since my avatar is female, but I found the perfect mate for
her - which is probably her canon mate anyway, if the game's suggestions are
any indication. More on that in my next Awakening post! ^^
I'm on the same
boat. Mechanically speaking, Awakening is a lot less balanced, mission
objectives and maps are absurdly repetitive and most of the characters are more
or less the same as units but the game feels a lot less boring and cluttered
than Fates. Story is a moot point though, both Awakening and Fates were
extremely poor in that regard but yeah, gotta agree that at least Awakening is
just a vanilla FE story with not as much as a convoluted mess as Fates's.
Eh, there's no canon pairings at all in FE (except for those story related
pairings in other games). Sure, there can be some pairings that make more sense
than others, but ultimately there's no real canon pairing. And despite loving
Maribelle, I did feel kinda bad for Say'ri and Anna though, since their only
romantic pairing is the Male MC.
When I talk about 'canon pairings', I'm referring to the romantic clues and innuendos provided by the games, such as Sumia tripping on her own feet when she's close to Chrom and Chrom blushing when Sumia rescues him on her pegasus. You know, these little things that make you think that the involved characters may have a soft spot for each other and make you want to uncover more of that implied love story. And it so happens that such suggested love stories are usually much more believable and rewarding than the ones that are not alluded to by the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment