FIRE EMBLEM 13: Awakening Retrospective - ShaneBrained

[Music] on april 20th 2010 the fire emblem series celebrated its 20th anniversary throughout the two decades it had existed fire emblem as a franchise told a tale of success and failure being a series that had attained a sudden burst of energy and enthusiasm even achieving reasonable success outside of its home country before a series of unfortunate business decisions led it to almost complete extinction despite its still positive reviews fire emblem awakening nowadays is known as the game that saved the entire franchise there are multiple factors as to why this was of course but it is still undeniably true although the game that we're going to cover in detail today inspires a lot of feelings reactions and sometimes fiery rants throughout the fire emblem community there is no doubt that all of these debates still continue to happen due to this game ensuring that there would still be a fire emblem series to constantly bicker about awakening left an unforgettable mark in this series through its gameplay through its storytelling and through its popularity and we definitely have a lot to talk about today it is finally time to start breaking down this extremely long awaited entry as i always do i played through it fully twice and in order to best understand the bigger picture of its unique systems and changes i elected to do this once on normal casual mode and then followed this with another run on hard classic mode i think i can say that both experiences really weren't what i was expecting as always in order to best explain the impact of the game and my experience with it in this video i'll be covering its development history then giving a synopsis of the story along with my analysis and finishing by going into the gameplay alterations and tweaks that make this entry stand out far from any others that came before it i am sure that this is a video that many have been waiting for welcome to what is considered at this moment the beginning of the modern era of fire emblem it's time to awaken at the time that the 13th fire emblem game entered development the series as a whole was in its darkest hour after finding a strong audience from its days on the famicom super famicom and game boy advance the series first ambitious attempt to jump to 3d with the ninth game unfortunately crashed and burned leading to the lowest sales in the franchise over the course of the next three games disappointing sales and waning interest in the western market led to the series eventually going back to being a japan exclusive where on top of everything it then failed to meet these even lower expectations in response to what nintendo saw as a series on the verge of collapse the developer intelligent systems was given a very clear ultimatum for their next game if it did not sell more than 250 000 copies then fire emblem would be coming to an end this demand threw the development team into panic and plans were frantically made for what could possibly dig the series out of the hole that it had been stuck in for years they at first thought that maybe a change of setting would ignite new interest so even out their ideas such as moving the series to modern times or mars were considered although they were eventually dropped in favor of a more traditional fire emblem setting something significant still needed to happen though and as a compromise within the team it was decided that for this being possibly the final game they would do their best to make it a culmination of the entire series throughout fire emblem's release history many new game systems had been tried left behind resurfaced tweaked or abandoned but to make this next game really stand out there was never any better moment to try and gather the most popular of them and attempt to make them work together somehow these included character marriage and child units which started in genealogy of the holy war the branching promotion system and open maps of the sacred stones and gaiden along with the skills system seen in various forms throughout multiple entries whether or not to bring along more recent ideas such as the casual mode which had just been introduced in the previous game was actually not a given even though they had decided to include it in new mystery this came after much debate and even at this time including it again was still opposed by many within the development team once again this topic raised a lot of debate but the producer hitoshi yamagami along with others on the team were ultimately able to defend including it again two key themes were decided for the game that was taking shape these being one a focus on the player's love for their characters and two the bonds that the game's characters would make over the course of the story these really set the tone for what this game would become as an unprecedented level of attention for its characters took center stage multiple writers were employed to give the cast of this game a lot more personality than had ever been attempted before with each and every one of these units getting an individual backstory and full character art both of these were used to imbue the writing behind the characters with a lot more life resulting in both the critical and non-critical character interactions getting a tremendous level of attention though the team toyed with the idea of using full voice acting including hiring several famous japanese voice actors they were concerned about having too much content to fit onto the actual cart so this was changed to voicing only minor snappy lines which were meant to evoke the feeling of the scenes without having to record everything to help flesh out this cast even more many more character expressions were added with character art this time handled by toshiyuki kusakihara of intelligent systems along with yusuke kozaki a japanese artist familiar with designing for manga anime and multiple video game properties such as no more heroes outside of using this new artwork for dialogue characters were also physically represented in 3d during battle animations and story scenes but due to the 3ds not yet being released during the bulk of the development time the team didn't exactly know how detailed they could make the character models without having a very clear picture of the 3ds's cpu strength a deformed style was chosen but one that omitted certain bone structures from the models namely the feet and ankles this hoof looking design was just a temporary compromise but by the time the team realized that the 3ds would be perfectly capable of handling slightly more detailed figures it was already far too late into the development cycle and things were left as they were though this was an unfortunate casualty of its early 3ds development the cutscenes on the other hand turned out absolutely gorgeous handled by studio anima a relatively new japanese animation studio at the time to many these scenes are still cited as some of the best work in the entire franchise when it came to map design the same priority of pulling all of the series into one place was still kept with the team endeavoring to equally represent the two main types of fire emblem battles the first kind linear story focused maps usually only had one solution or goal while the second kind open maps had multiple routes and typically no two players would have the same kind of experience on them since most games focus on the former of these with only gaiden and a few specific maps from the other games representing the latter this mixture has gone on to be a bit disconcerting for some still the priority was on pulling the history of the franchise together and not exactly a blanket shift in map design all in all the kind of sweeping changes that ended up defining this game's scope storytelling cast game design and visual design were ambitious in a way that only a team fully believing that this was the end could go for internally this game was known as fire emblem finn the children from the brink which reflected the team's acceptance of this series being one slip away from disaster but also hoping that this final project bring about a second generation for the series even though the later games might have been changed in the end amazingly this is exactly what was about to happen when fire emblem awakening finally released on april 19 2012 in japan the success it found was almost instantaneous after being given a total sales goal from nintendo of over 250 000 in japan alone thanks to the multiple changes in series appeal heavy promotion by nintendo an exclusive 3ds bundle and extremely favorable critical reception awakening was able to reach 242 000 copies just 8 000 short of their overall goal in only the first week alone in particular the 3ds bundle with the game was highly sought after with the pre-order website for it actually crashing due to the number of people trying to buy it all at once within 8 months awakening had sold over 450 000 copies just in japan by that time the dlc for the game which included multiple side missions broken into individual dlc pieces had managed to move over 1.2 million units before even coming to the west fire emblem as a franchise had indeed been saved localization for the game took one year this time being a collaborative effort between nintendo of america and 8-4 who had handled the excellent shadow dragon script four years prior finally releasing on february 4 2013 in north america with other regions releases coming in april that year the game received high sales and praise and soon became the fastest selling game for the series in the west thus far moving over 180 thousand copies in its first month incredibly intelligent systems had done it this was the game that could have been the death of the series but instead it was the one that became their biggest success story ever it could be said that this was just the result of enhanced marketing or that the series rode on the success of the 3ds alone however i think fire emblem's lack of success on the wii proved that to a great degree each entry success does depend on its own decisions clearly a new door for the series had just been opened and although there was undoubtedly a great deal of rejoicing within the development team the very enviable question of where to go with the series next was back on the table and needed to be addressed we'll be getting into what came next next time for now we're going to focus on the story of awakening as always you can use the time code above if you want to jump past my story synopsis and just get right to my own analysis of it on the other hand if you'd rather avoid all story spoilers and just jump right to the gameplay sections instead you can use the time code at the bottom alright here we go in three two one following the era of marth the hero king arcanea experienced many changes nations warped and shifted new heroes and new villains rose and fell and over the course of two millennia the land today scarcely resembled that of the past the nation of elise sat to the southeast where the reigning exalt imran now sought peace with her neighbors making up for her late father's warmongering nature to the north regna pharaohs where factions of honor-bound warriors sometimes considered barbarians rule last to the southwest was the land of plagia who still bitterly sought recompense for the pain elise's former ruler had put them through in these days a frail piece held and within this time the heroic prince krom younger brother of imran patrolled the countryside with his loyal followers and younger sister lissa calling themselves the shepherds the prince's band protected the small folk of elise from bandits and other threats this normal routine was broken one day when the royal siblings discovered a mysterious person laying in a field who awoke with no memories beyond their own name robin this mysterious figure soon proved themselves to be a genius tactician making them a more than welcome ally despite the mystery behind their origins while on the way back to the capital the shepherds encountered yet another surprise seeing what could only be called a terror in reality in the open sky above them with waves of undead soldiers pouring down near their location as they began to fend off this bizarre threat another ally arrived a mysterious masked man calling himself marth who after saving krom's sister suddenly disappeared after arriving at the capitol and informing imran of the situation dubbing these undead soldiers as the risen krom learned of aggressive raids coming from plagia as their king gangrel grew bolder and more brazen every day in order to face this threat krom led his group to the northern regna ferocs seeking an alliance after proving his identity to the border guards and meeting with flavia the east khan the group discovered that she was unable to help them currently due to the westcon basilio currently being in charge however her support could be given if krom could win the next tournament as the eastcons champion krom's opponent in the tournament turned out to be none other than this mysterious marth who also inexplicably wielded an identical version of krom's legendary blade the falchion although marth was at first able to match crom move for move ultimately krom and the others were able to defeat him securing the support they needed despite wishing to question marth on how he had acquired a falchion of his own unfortunately the mysterious hero disappeared yet again after returning back home prom and the others soon learned that in their absence one of their allies maribel who was a personal friend of lissa had been kidnapped by pledgian soldiers and taken back across their border emeryn agreed to a meeting with gangrel hoping that she would be able to find a peaceful resolution and see their friend safely returned at this meeting however gengril spun a false tale of how maribel had instigated an act of aggression and demanded that imran hand over the fire emblem immediately with the mad king claiming that it was the only way to make reparations and avoid open war krom unable to accept these blatant falsehoods nor his ridiculous demands angrily struck down some of the plegiant soldiers as soon as they moved to attack imran which finally gave gangrel the excuse to declare his war while the shepherds were able to rescue maribel in the ensuing battle gangrel had definitely gotten what he wanted when returning back to the capital crom encountered marth yet again who brought with him a warning this night there would be an assassination attempt on imran's life claiming to have seen the future the mysterious hero proved it by stopping hidden assassins aimed at taking krom's life though in this ensuing conflict anir miss shattered his mask revealing this marth to actually be a woman soon after her predictions spoke for themselves as the group faced a sneak attack led by validar a plaguian mage who seemed to recognize robin shortly before his attack was stopped and validar was slain without the means to hold out against the main plagian army the shepherds and emeryn reluctantly fled their capital and only a short time later they were informed of the terrible charge they just barely managed to avoid which had completely conquered their homeland in order to try one last time to make peace with gangrel amaran decided to head back to speak with the king whilst entrusting the fire emblem to crom's care while he continued to flee after learning that this last attempt at peace had only gotten imran captured and scheduled to be executed the prince crom knew now that his only course was to charge straight for plagia and remove their vengeful king from power after catching up to gengril at emeran's execution grounds they were very nearly able to rescue her only to have their plans suddenly shattered by the revelation that plagia was able to control the risen army and summon them to their side gangrel then gave krom one last ultimatum hand over the fire emblem now or watch imran be killed seeking to spare krom from making this terrible choice emeryn surprised both sides by once again reaffirming her desire for peace to every soldier present after this last declaration the exalt sacrificed her own life falling to her death in a show of commitment and sincerity that shocked and touched everyone present or at least everyone present other than gangrel who was gleeful at this dire turn of events though this seemed to be an event that would demoralize the illusions something entirely unexpected happened instead scores of plagian soldiers began deserting unwilling to disrespect the sacrifice of imran whether she was an enemy or not only gangrel and his few soldiers left wished to continue this fight however soon crom and his friends were able to catch up to him and finally slay them all at the border between their two countries and with this act the war was officially over in the wake of this newfound peace krom now finally married his true love with whom he had his first daughter lucina plagia's attempt to conquer its neighbor had ultimately ended in failure but not without a heavy sacrifice soon though in order to keep the peace that they had just found krom would next have to make the first strike against a new oncoming danger [Music] two years had passed since the war and while the life of the shepherds had been peaceful across the water in the former land of valencia now known as valm a conqueror named walhart was setting his sights eastward virion an archer and crom service who had joined him shortly after encountering robin brought dire news revealing himself as a duke who had fled the valmie's conqueror years ago and he now knew that elise was wallhart's next target fighting back the empire of a man who had already won a whole continent for himself would surely not be easy and so reluctantly krom and the others approached plagia for help the man in charge of the healing nation turned out to be none other than validar who apparently survived his wounds after the assassination attempt that the shepherds had thwarted though validar would not be able to pledge soldiers he did pledge a huge navy to the cause giving 1 000 of his ships this was not the only surprise he had up his sleeve though as he next introduced his guests to the new hierophant of plagio someone who looked identical to robin privately validar approached robin through a mental projection revealing that the connection they shared was a familial one and robin was in fact validar's child after the attempt to bring them over to plagia's side failed robin left to accompany crom and the others while their head swam with the revelation that they had just been dealt before being awoken by krom way back in that field so long ago robin had had a vision which they still puzzled themselves over that of themselves having a victory over valadar alongside their friend krom before they themselves betrayed him unto his death before departing a surprise attack of the risen likely sent by validar ambushed the group and shortly after the attack a final assassin got close to kron though he would have lost his life this time the mysterious marth intervened yet again reflexively calling out father during the rescue finally confronting this mysterious figure about her identity the girl revealed the brand of the exalt in her eye a marking that only passed through krom's family lineage and one that exactly matched up with krom's young daughter though she was still an infant in this world this girl in actuality was lucina all grown up who had come from a distant alternate future after witnessing her own land be conquered not by wall heart but the titanic and unstoppable fel dragon grema lucina had made it her mission to stop the return of the dragon in an earlier timeline using the power of the god dragon naga to travel through time itself alongside her own allies from her time having pride and love for his daughter no matter what timeline krom embraced her promising her that together they could accomplish this goal no matter what it took after finally departing the continent for valm the group ran into the vanguard of walhart's navy and through a plan that forced them to sacrifice half of their 1000 ships krom and the others successfully managed to halt this massive oncoming force in the wake of this victory after making landfall in the new continent they soon found a woman named saree making a final stand against the empire upon saving her they learned that she was attempting to form a resistance against the emperor but as of yet still having little success though she was unable to get the competing dinos under wallhart to work together against their emperor the young revolutionary did share her plan to awaken the divine dragon oracle tiki who had been sleeping at the top of a massive tree known as the military located near the center of the continent after facing off with more imperials who were led by a wonderfully mustachioed general krom and the others were able to find the sleeping oracle who soon recognized the greater threat that was currently befalling the world the fellow dragon grema who had been sealed away 1000 years now was indeed swiftly gaining power yet again to stop the future which lucina had already witnessed the group would need to locate 5 powerful gemstones which were meant to adorn the fire emblem with them gathered the true power of the falchion could be awakened and with its new power grima could once again be sealed away luckily krom was already in possession of one of these gemstones and tiki was also holding another however the other three were still out there held by the various nations of the world with tiki now guiding them the resistance movement carried on and as the group continued to win more and more territory the looming threat of the emperor himself said to be able to slay anyone with a single strike drew closer and closer to them in equal measure soon after they learned that they were faced with three armies one led by walhart himself another by yen fae ceres brother and a final one stationed at fort steiger between the other two robin seeking to divide and conquer elected to attack the fort initially the attack went very well however the group's promising progress suddenly came to a halt as nearly all of their forces turned traitor against them and attempted to corner the shepherds within worse yet they learned that both wallhart and yinfei's army were also marching on their location and would soon reach them combining their already immense strength into a nigh unstoppable juggernaut in response to this sudden shift robin suggested that they retreat from the fortress immediately while moving to take out one of the armies bearing down on them the plan was to send a small diversionary force led by the khan basilio to delay wallhart while the shepherds and their remaining forces would attack yenfei and attempt to defeat him before he could combine his army with the emperors however before leaving lucina tried to warn basilio that if he attempted to fight walhart he would surely lose his life just as he did in her timeline in spite of this forewarning basilio chose to go anyway alongside his fellow khan flevia through a plan that involved luring jinfei into a volcanic cave the shepherds were able to eliminate his advantage over them and slay him learning only later and too late that the only reason he had joined the empire was just to ensure his sister's safety while this battle was happening basilio and flavia's assault on wallhart unfortunately went exactly as lucina predicted with basilio losing swiftly to the conqueror though he did impress him with his ability to survive more than a single strike after the surviving con flavia was able to deliver this sad news she passed on the third gemstone for the fire emblem which basilio had kept in his possession leaving only two more to find with the loss of yin fei who was the real figure that held the dinos of the empire together suddenly huge groups of imperial defectors started joining their side in a turn of fate that the emperor found utterly shocking he soon found himself retreating to his capital and before long krom and the resistance had successfully cornered him though he put up a mighty fight soon the mightiest conqueror who would never accept peace or compromise even when it was offered to him at the end lost everything he held including his life at last the valmi's threat had been ended with krom retrieving the fourth gemstone that walhart had kept in his possession at the same time now only the final one kept in plagia remained out of the reach it had been a costly but necessary victory as the exhausted delusions sailed back home at this time they had no idea that this entire struggle had played right into the hands of yet another threat one that now eagerly awaited their return [Music] upon finally returning to his home krom's group was surprisingly contacted by validar who explained that plaguia was in fact willing to give away the final gemstone to them even though this claim certainly seemed suspicious krom knew that they had to get that final stone no matter what and so keeping the fire emblem on him personally for protection he marched into plegia to see what awaited him once they were in their borders validar's true intentions were revealed as he ambushed the shepherds and attempted to slay them all then and there though this attack did not go as planned validar did seem to be able to exert some amount of control over his child robin and gained control of their body long enough to force them to steal the fire emblem away from krom and manage to deliver it to their father after this when robin was able to gain control of their body their clear weakness to validar's persuasion left them racked with guilt and self-doubt as their group now had to make it a priority to stop validar before he could awaken grima at the dragon's table krom attempted to reassure his friend that they were strong enough to resist any future control attempts even though robin himself remained unsure later at sunset lucina approached the tactician though she admitted that she knew that krom and robin's bond was absolutely undeniable she accepted that there was now only one way to save her father's life and drew her sword at them despite lucina's conviction the act of slaying robin proved to be too hard with her hesitation giving crom just enough time to intervene and help talk her down the group decided that whatever their fate the father daughter and partner would do whatever it took to stop validar's plot and to end the threat of grima together after arriving at the dragon's table the dream that robin had had before seemed to repeat itself just as they had foreseen together with krom robin was able to defeat validar followed by the mage attempting to control them which led to robin fatally stabbing krom though the worst seemed to be coming true as validar re-emerged to gloat over his victory basilio thought dead since his battle and balm also reappeared revealing that thanks to lucina's warning he had simply played dead rather than foolishly continuing to fight with walhart and while he was presumed dead this had allowed him to move in secret against plagueia for the shepherds thanks to robin's dream foresight one of the fire emblem's orbs had been swapped with a fake and robin and crom had worked together to stage this false scene in fact robin had managed to fight back against validar's control and weakened the power of the spell that had been used to stab krom doing only minor damage in the end with validar's plan spun completely out of control the madman made one last stand before he was finally slain for good though one threat had been ended the hierophant of plaguia the one who carried the same face as robin emerged as the true threat revealing that they had come to this world at the same time as lucina and were in fact the avatar of grima upon first landing in this timeline the future grima had attempted to assert its control on the robin of this world but failed due to their body not yet being ready to act as a new host though robin managed to survive the attempt this was the action that had destroyed their memories and left them laying in the field where they had fortunately been stumbled upon by krom and their future friends despite this timeline's robin being unable to be used as a host grima did have one way to restore the powers of the fel dragon in this world this was to finish the restoration of this time's grima through the use of human sacrifices that had already been prepared by the mad plagians with the shepherds being able to do nothing to stop this the dark power created by the mass sacrifices was immediately used to bring the fel dragon in its full form back into this world while the titan began its ascension the shepherds scrambled out of plagueia carrying both the fire emblem and the final gemstone with them following tiki's instructions they made their way to mount prism where they were able to use the complete emblem to both restore the true power of the falchion and get in contact with the god naga here they learned of two options which awaited them they could either use the awakened sword to seal away the dragon for another 1000 years or due to grima's unique connection to robin have them finish the dragon off instead whereupon the fel dragon's life could be ended for good unfortunately this second option would almost certainly come at the cost of robin's death as well at the very least doing this did have one small fragment of hope due to the incredible bonds of friendship that robin had made with krom and the others there was a small chance that they could hold on to life in some form with this heavy decision to make the shepherds finally went on the offensive seeking out grima at the place where it was gathering power and preparing for its worldwide conquest using naga's magic to teleport them onto the dragon's back here they found robin's devil awaiting them in this massive final battle after finally cutting their way through the most powerful forces they had yet faced at last prom and robin stood before the avatar of evil if it was krom who slayed the beast with the falchion grima returned to sleep and while this signaled its inevitable return at least the prince was able to keep his friend at his side however when robin dealt the final blow instead the tactician was successful in using their unique connection to the fel dragon to destroy grima forever with no time to celebrate soon robin began to fade away with krom at their side using their last words to thank everyone for the brief but wonderful life that they had managed to find amongst them though peace had been restored the shepherds mourned deeply for their lost friend while still holding out hope that the strength of their bonds with robin would hold true and that someday somewhere they could see their friend once more eventually one day long after the threat of grima had been erased from the world yet again a mysterious figure was spotted sleeping in a field crom and the others could only smile and once again reach out a hand and help them stand once more [Music] unlike other story analysis sections this one is actually going to be broken into two distinct parts because before i even get started talking about my own thoughts about the story i kind of feel the need to take a step back and comment on the obvious instead a lot of people have a lot of different feelings about this game every fire emblem game thus far has had their defenders and detractors but something about this one and the ones that will follow it really feel different so before i get to my opinions i feel i simply have to acknowledge why when talking about this game especially there seems to be so very little middle ground in a way the situation we have here with analyzing awakening is not too dissimilar from the situation with another very popular entry the blazing blade fire emblem 7 was the first game in the series that many fans started with and people build a lot of their attachment to a franchise from their first significant experience with it fire emblem awakening like the blazing blade was a lot of people's first fire emblem and simply from how widespread and popular it got because of this heavily plays into why there's so much disagreement about this game to this day though there are many many fans who played awakening first and thus have a lot of positive feelings for it at the same time for veterans of the series awakening is associated with very very different emotions due to the last game new mystery of the emblem being a japan exclusive awakening was the game that seemed to signal a new design philosophy for the entire series one that and at least the gameplay storytelling and character writing seem to be geared first and foremost for mass appeal it kind of sounds weird to say that this is the game that many see as turning this series into anime but it's something that i've heard very often if you've been watching these videos and paying attention to this siri style it probably doesn't really make sense but i do understand why people can see it that way from the very beginning the fire emblem series has been heavily inspired by anime and the progression of its own visual style does a good job at reflecting that very clearly fire emblem awakening of course does this as well however the reason why it gets this anime distinction is due to a combination of a number of different factors if you look at it just in broad strokes well it's got a plucky cast of handsome young people with very indistinct ages all of whom are badasses to an incredible degree however this cast of badasses still have heavy vulnerabilities and little character quirks that define them such as suffering from a lack of self-confidence or always impassionately analyzing everything in a scientific way we have the cool one the serious one the crazy one the silly one etc on top of this if you really want to start reaching you can even go as far as to say that robin has their own harem since just about every male or female character depending on robin's gender can fall in love with them i guess you could say that if you asked just about any member of the public who only had a passing knowledge of what anime was they might describe it a lot like this game to be fair this can also be a reason why a lot of people liked it whatever corner you find yourself in throughout the fire emblem fanbase there are going to be thousands of different opinions about this game it does only make sense this game sold nearly 10 times more copies than the average fire emblem so the sheer exposure alone is going to guarantee more diversity and opinion since making my series of videos i've witnessed this myself i found it hard to sustain a conversation with anyone about topics concerning fire emblem's 1 2 or 3 for example most people will respond just that they haven't played it yet and therefore can't comment on the other hand just about everyone has an opinion about awakening sometimes criticisms are fair and sometimes they aren't for many people this game isn't just a single fire emblem game it is the herald for what would be coming next if they didn't like what that was going to be then feelings of negativity are going to be magnified simply because this game was such a turning point for the series when you know what's coming next it's easy to let that background knowledge seep unconsciously into your viewpoint which if this doesn't alter your opinions entirely can at least often have the effect of magnifying them both in a positive or negative manner this is exactly what bias is and although this word generally has negative connotations it really is just a neutral term that points out how our perceptions shift based on our own personal life experiences and knowledge while some information about the future of this series dripping down to me is unavoidable i do talk about fire emblem on the internet after all i view having concrete opinions already formed about the future games of this series when breaking down the value of this one to be a form of unfair bias unfair bias doesn't mean the same thing as a bad bias here just that having this kind of preconception demonizes awakening for future developments which 100 did not exist yet when this game was made understand that even my having played all 12 prior games to this is a form of bias my bias is that i know how the series developed to get here which is why to me at least the developments that awakening made to character and story writing are not unprecedented at all to me almost everything seen here is either a repeat of something that came before or a totally reasonable progression of previous design priorities i know that was quite a long build up just to get to my point here that awakening didn't actually change that much but nowadays a lot of the audience's preconceptions about this game are so wrapped up in the general discourse about what modern fire emblem has become that i felt that all of the prior things needed saying before i could talk about it all right let's start analyzing this storytelling and of course i think the best place to start with is kind of the elephant in the room the avatar robin in the last video i went into detail about the issues with the series first avatar chris and how their presence became frustrating due to them being awkwardly inserted into a game that was a remake story which originally wasn't created with chris in mind while an overexposed avatar like chris only builds resentment using an avatar too lightly such as with mark the fire emblem 7 tactician just makes them very very forgettable both chris and robin are not self-inserts though players do tend to project onto them they do need to have a personality and a fair place in this world in fire emblem especially they have to fit in as part of the ensemble a good avatar needs to be relevant enough in the story but not so dominant as to completely steal attention or gravity away from other main characters after the last game i was really worried about how robin would be handled here which is why it was such a pleasure to find out that they did actually manage to thread that needle though robin is definitely important to this overall story they only really become a truly critical part in the last third of it though i'd say we definitely do play from the perspective of robin with us beginning the game with their dream and then being literally picked up from their first person viewpoint at no point did i feel that robin was really overshadowing the rest of the cast and especially not overshadowing krom of course awakening wasn't a remake so we don't have any issues to deal with like we did last time but there are a lot of other factors beyond just avoiding overexposure that keep robin from dominating the narrative and staying in their proper place for one the increased level of detail on the cast in general does a great deal of work in making robin just one part of a greater whole the character writing for a majority of the awakening cast is often rightly praised for me it's simple to see how multiple characters from this game are instant favorites for many while each on the surface can just seem like a bundle of character quirks all of them at least did manage to leave a very strong impression on me this plays perfectly into the support system which is back to being where it was with a lot of varied parodies but on top of this having the ability to give more than just five total support interactions allows every player just in a single playthrough to get to know this cast a lot better since we're on the subject we might as well address how shipping characters takes on an entirely new importance in this game far more important than it ever has been since genealogy of the holy war this of course is due to the addition of s rank supports and how your pairings will play into the child characters who become available for recruitment later on within the story whereas before your time spent raising two units to their max support level only paid off with the support boost in battle and a short story blurb in the character credits there's something a lot more satisfying about having your pairings result in completely new characters ones who have their own pre-existing backstories entertaining personalities and interesting pairing results in general while not every s rank support ends up in a very well written scene there are a lot of entertaining pairs to discover with some of the most fun to be had with the system coming from how you choose to pair up robin since your avatar is able to pair with just about everyone there's a lot of interesting flexibility with how their child characters can end up a standout example of this is how male robin is able to end up as lucina's husband yet female robin can just as likely become lucina's mother if you really think about that for a bit it'll probably feel a little bit awkward but at the same time i can't help but find this kind of wiggle room absolutely delightful especially because both of these unique relationships pay off fantastically in the confrontation scene that happens later on with lucina player and story interplay like this is a place where awakening is able to outshine all of its peers however i have to say that in just about every other regard the rest of the plot here is just about as standard as fire emblem games come in simple terms we have a down to earth lead many enjoyable friends and enemies a long diversion in the middle and a final confrontation with a world-ending dragon there are some interesting twists and turns but for a game that heavily involves time travel and alternate worlds the plot of this game is surprisingly straightforward even on my original playthrough i kind of had the feeling that i've been through this multiple times before honestly the most unique thing about awakenings plot is just how episodic it really is something which i don't really think is to this game's benefit to explain what i'm talking about here many tend to separate this game into three parts part one is the opening up until the death of imaran and the defeat of gangrel part 2 is the entire valm arc and part 3 is the finale as the group outwits validar and then defeats grima though like genealogy of the holy war this game does have a time jump between parts 1 and 2 it really isn't used to very great effect it seems to have mostly just been used to show that baby lucina had the crest of the exalt in her eye so that later on we would instantly understand who the fake marth was of course comparing this to the time jump used in genealogy which the entire game was really built around really doesn't do this game any favors out of all these parts one section in particular does get a lot of hate which is why i kinda feel necessary to address part two even though having a big diversion in the middle of the game is pretty common practice in the series its use in awakening due to its episodic nature i believe makes it seem overly detached from the rest of the game it's definitely the weakest of the three but i have to say that there are a lot of underappreciated aspects about it for one thing i really like how this game uses it to depict how truly frustrating lucina's nigh impossible task would actually be to try to do seen and how far she goes to try to prevent basilio's death and then it's seemingly having no effect at all on top of this there are other great moments of character development and i'm always going to be on the side of bringing tiki back who was a fun character in fire emblem 1 and is very interesting to see all grown up here now very interesting indeed putting the obvious aside there is yet another aspect that i think is probably the most overlooked thing about it and that is the extreme nostalgic appeal of being able to travel freely between the former lands of arcanea and valencia which is something that is going to be lost on many western gamers due to this series japanese exclusive origins if you think about getting to this game from a dedicated japanese player's perspective or also for crazy people like me who chose to play them all in literal release order going back to arcanea yet again is somewhat old hat at this point awakening is technically the fifth game to be set there even if it is thousands of years later going back to valencia however was the first time we'd ever been able to go back to the land of gaiden despite knowing it was there for many years all along for myself just from finding out that i was going to be able to go back to valencia was a major thrill in a way this is not unlike the inclusion of the kanto region into the end game of pokemon gold and silver definitely one of the best surprise editions into any game ever sure it can be said that including this weak arc just for the use of fanservice wasn't the best of ideas but this disregards the mindset of the developers which weighs heavily upon this game remember they thought that this very well could have been their last fire emblem and surely there was a desire to honor the series they were sending off whatever your take on this part of the story is there is clearly a lot of love behind the decisions that led to its inclusion awakening in a nutshell is a very enjoyable combination of a fantastic cast extremely fascinating systems to pair and customize your experiences with them a fun setting that paid tribute to the origins of the series while still making it very different and a very light-hearted cookie-cutter plot these are words that i would have and have used to describe many different fire emblem games but while the storytelling aspects of awakening are well within expectations the gameplay systems which we will be getting into next are where things start to fracture away from what this series even is before even getting into talking about the gameplay we kind of have to acknowledge that at this point this is video 13 in this gigantic series that i've started fire emblem awakening was meant to be the culmination of this series as it brought multiple systems from across the franchise together most of these i have already covered in extreme detail across the breadth of my own videos throughout this video i already mentioned about the origins of many of them so if you'd like to know more about their debut and original functions you can watch the relevant video in this series later on today i am mostly just going to focus more on the sum of these parts not only because i personally find it more interesting but because this is what allowed awakening to go from normal fire emblem to one of the most absurdly broken experiences i've ever encountered before we get to that however i do have to start out with the biggest new system that awakening actually did bring to the table which is para honestly at first pairing up seemed like nothing but rescue in reverse rather than pulling a unit into your same space while taking a stat penalty you now put your own unit into the space as another giving that controlling unit a stat benefit on top of this pairing up also adds a chance for your partner to join into your attacks or to possibly block damage for you with that chance increasing based on the two's support level despite turning around the rescue system sounding kind of crazy overpowered i actually do feel that pair up in this game does come with a decent attempt at balancing out its extreme positives turning your two units into a single more powerful one does have a lot of uses and adding on to this the ability to actively swap who is in control without losing a turn grants you a lot of flexibility at the same time however especially early on in this game reducing your total number of attacks per turn or the amount of ground that you're able to cover can just as easily backfire on you i experienced this a lot in my original playthrough even though yes that was the normal casual run one at the beginning i really underestimated just how much i would need to change to utilize this new mechanic effectively in previous fire emblems there were always reasons to reduce the total space that your units took up and the ability to move a unit out of the way that had already acted was simply so useful that the stat penalty made sense here since pair up only displaces the unit that you are currently controlling this kind of strategy is completely out of the window for example if you left a dancer in a dangerous spot you can no longer just have your armor knight go and hide them away after the fact now your armor knight would have to go and hide behind them and the dancers survival would depend entirely on the extra defense bonus gained from pairing up being enough to keep them alive this compared to rescuing is by far a more dangerous option and it might be part of why this game on hard mode and above especially has become very infamous for frustrating reinforcements put simply the pair up system has a very high skill ceiling but it is also less forgiving of your mistakes switching from rescuing to pairing up would be enough of a mix-up for a typical fire emblem sequel to have however putting this system in concert with the following changes that i'll be getting into next are what shift awakenings gameplay in such a dramatic fashion i have spoken in the past very frequently about how the kanto system of past games was both an incredibly unbalanced feature but also one that was simply a lot of fun to play around with i studied how over time intelligent systems tried a lot of different ways to balance it out and its use in radiant dawn especially made me believe that they had definitely learned their lesson and how to restrain power creep [Music] uh yeah i was definitely wrong about that [Music] in the grand scheme of things pairing up is only an enabler for the other major changes in this game which while they too also could have just been fine on their own pull together to form a unique and chaotic atmosphere let's just start with character skills which i think were last seen in their best form in radiant dawn rather than being linked to reusable scrolls or consumable items awakening skills are learned and locked to characters at specific levels in various classes and their benefits range from mediocre to utterly game breaking in the past i've spoken of certain very overpowered skill combinations such as the infamous wrath and resolve of path of radiance but i don't think anything would have prepared me for the sheer dominance of the dark flyers gale horse which is a skill that gives any unit who slays their enemy on the player's turn an immediate extra full action this is basically a baked in dancer refresh for achieving a kill on your term and in a game with as high a power ceiling for your units as this one it actually turns out to be not that hard of a requirement to meet consistently gale force might not seem too bad at first but if you intuit or learn the steps to get multiple gale force users at your disposal very quickly such as i did on my hard classic run even just 6 galeforce users can completely change the game for you instead of having to think tactically the dominant strategy becomes to just lure a group of soldiers to be just within your range and then on the player's turn just roll over them easily rinse and repeat gale force is broken and yet gale force is also kind of awesome in order to get this skill you're going to be required to work around the branching promotion system which of course includes its own ridiculously broken caveat the one big change to how it functioned before is the inclusion of a new type of promotion item the second seal while a master seal progresses you along your typical class path second seals can allow you to jump tracks so to speak for example i could take frederick who starts out as a great knight and use a second seal on him when he's at level 10 to have him jump over to be a general because skills are now learned by leveling up in classes this is one of the ways that players can pick out desired skills for their units but really that's not what's broken here the big thing about second seals is that they can be used endlessly while they do reset the characters level back down to one upon use you only lose class bonuses your unit will still keep any stat bonuses they gained while leveling up till that point essentially every character can feasibly be grinded up to max stats in everything since awakening takes the form of an open map fire emblem like sacred stones and gaiden extra battles constantly appear on the map these i think are actually done better than in sacred stones because at least you can walk right through these and they don't bar your way by forcing you to engage in a battle if you simply touch them still the opportunity is there for you to completely max out your character and get all the skills that you could possibly want however by even the second class change you will have probably created a completely unkillable unit this actually goes doubly for the avatar robin who is already very powerful without many levels and can also become every normal class due to this change in how you level up it's no longer quite as easy to get a quick grasp on both the power of your own units or the power of the enemy units quite as quickly and it would actually take a lot of work to not lose grips with how far some of your units have come it turns out it's incredibly easy to blunder your way right into destroying this game's already meager balance the attempt to bring back multiple systems from the series history and supercharged them was actually a really cool idea intelligent systems was not currently in a place to need to exercise any restraint and so they didn't use any for some players many players actually breaking fire emblem open like this is exactly what they want this includes i suspect both the new fans and the old it sort of is a betrayal for what fire emblem highlighted in the past but even with all of its issues a more rpg focused over strategy focused fire emblem game like this one is still not really much like anything else out there for the first time ever i was surprised to find out that despite enjoying my time on hard mode to be sure i actually don't think the game works that well on it no it wasn't the reinforcements instead the thing that i really didn't enjoy about hard mode was the quest for power i found myself needing to go on as a natural consequence of the beefier enemies because of things like one gale force user actually equaling two and how pair up can turn casually powerful units into dodge tanking gods with the right support levels ironically needing to take on the difficulty highlighted just how broken this game can become understanding this it seems kind of obvious why this game elicits so many varied reactions from many different people it both is and isn't fire emblem well here we are at last with everything considered concerning this very perplexing game i think it's finally time to come to the end and see how everything stacks up as i wrote this script i felt the weight of expectations on me as it came time to solidify my opinions on this entry but the words that come to me now are really not as complicated as i thought they would end up being on the one hand awakening really is fire emblem at its most fire emblem a strategic rpg where planning is just as important as execution and we're building trust among your army's units is just as important as forming your approach to each new battle on the other hand this is fire emblem at its most twisted where a desperate approach led to intelligent systems throwing out all prior restraint bringing popular systems back in but then unleashing them haphazardly until they can shield into a mad fabulous mess the risks that were taken with awakening in its development are core to what makes this game so controversial today and yet they are also the reason why we still know fire emblem as a living franchise when trying to quantify it for this retrospective series awakening really is an anomaly ultimately though i am glad to have spent so much time on it i can acknowledge just how much it deviated from acceptable balance and how excessive things really got but at the same time it's undeniable that i simply had a tremendous amount of fun here and i thoroughly enjoyed every chance i had to sit down and continue building my crew towards whatever absurd broken strategy i had chosen to employ fire emblem awakening is a distinct break away from the design philosophies of the past and personally i think there is room enough in this series to more than accommodate it i don't really care if it isn't traditional fire emblem as the balance of what a genre or game series is should never be totally set in stone even if we were to be super pedantic and say that these changes make it too different to be included awakening still evokes the feeling of fire emblem in me we are still building a personalized army of named distinct units raising them and watching them build trust and support with each other and then taking them into a series of battles where my own planning and strategies can come together until we find success in the end this is a game that i definitely enjoyed some parts such as the excellent cast and the interplay between the story and gameplay through things like turning s-rank supports into child units were absolutely unforgettable at the same time its many many undeniable issues keep me from being able to view the game as favorably as i have done in the past to similarly flawed but great entries like genealogy of the holy war or shadow dragon fire emblem awakening is a good game but one that i understand why a select group of people are going to love and a different select group are going to absolutely hate above all the shouting this is the game that ensured that the series stayed alive to the point that even brought me to talking about it here today for that above all other things i will forever be grateful to it [Music] me [Music] on our next stop on the fire emblem retrospective we join up with corin and decide our own path as we choose to follow our birthright conquest or revelations join me next time as i finally take on fire emblem 14 fates if you don't feel like waiting for the fates video to come out you can actually watch it this very second all you need to do is click the link on screen right now or in the description to become a patreon supporter for as little as one dollar you can gain one week early access to all my videos which includes the fates retrospective which just became available if you'd like to support for more you can gain further benefits such as being able to watch the shadows of valentia or three houses retrospectives immediately once they're finished without having to wait for a full season's completion please consider helping my channel grow and this series continue with your support today thank you so much for watching everybody [Music] you

Channel: ShaneBrained

Views: 110,603

Keywords: Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem Awakening, Chrom, Lucina, Robin, FE13, Fire Emblem Awakening Review, Fire Emblem Awakening Retrospective, Fire Emblem Retrospective, FE13 review, FE13 retropective, Awakening review, FE awakening review, FE awakening

Id: pHbzeNPn_m4

Length: 63min 58sec (3838 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Yarzu89]

Breaks down the split on why people either love it or hate it pretty well I think.

[u/Odovakar]

This was a pretty good watch. I'm looking forward to his take on Fates.

[u/PaperSonic]

It was shocking to see Chaz on the chat, that's for sure.

The video itself was neat, even if the overhyping of galeforce got a little bit out of hand. Still got the point of "Awakening is a broken game" across, though

[u/Belobo]

In retrospect (haha get it), Awakening's story was actually pretty good.