Fire Emblem: Awakening

I'd never played a 3ds game before this, I'd been playing mostly regular DS games on my XL. I was a bit hesitant at first, when looking for games to purchase for my 3ds. I thought to myself "Maybe I should go with a classic, New Super Mario Bros 2, or maybe Donkey Kong Country?" I read some reviews for this game, but I'd never played Fire Emblem before so I wasn't sure if it was just nostalgia or if it was actually a good game. I've now beaten the game and can now confirm that this is a great game for newplayers (And I'm assuming return-players as well) Pros: Good, long storyline: The story took me maybe 40 hours to complete, and none of it felt like a chore at all, I was deeply engrossed in the experience. I've never been so absorbed in a handheld game Characters: Each character has a unique, well-detailed personality, and you really start to feel like they could all be real people, and like they're all really your friends. And with such a vast amount of characters, this couldn't have been easy. There are easily over 30 characters in the game, and throughout the game, you really start to understand each individual one. If you play it on the "Classic Mode" where if a unit falls in battle, they're gone for good (which I'd recommend trying) you really feel like your good friend has passed, urging you to restart and try the whole battle again to save your friends and see what you can do better. Gameplay: The gameplay is a classic turn-based chessboard kind of game, with a lot of strategy, and a little luck, you move all your units, enemy moves theirs, and you get a little overview detailing your odds of winning or losing before striking the enemy. Once you strike, you go into an animation where your unit and the enemy fight. I never got sick of the animation, it was always so smooth. You also have actions you can do during the animation, you can pause, fast forward, and move the camera around. And for those that would get sick of the animation, you can skip it just as easily. Another thing I loved was that you could pair units up, increasing your stats during battle, and after the battle, your units can develop a friendship, or even marriage! As their friendship grows, so do your bonuses, sometimes they will deflect hits for each other, and sometimes they will strike with their partner against the enemy. Each time their friendship grows, you get a unique cutscene and mini-storyline with the two units. I thought this was especially well-done, the mini-stories were all very unique and made you understand the characters more. Characters have multiple people they can marry, and the game does a really good job at making you feel like whoever you have them marry was the person they were supposed to marry all along, there are only two units that the game makes you feel like "These two have to be together" Sound: The music always felt well-placed, intense scenes with intense music, sad parts with sad music and the voice actors and actresses did a really good job getting into character. Even now, it's been almost a month since I last played the game and I can still clearly remember all character's voices and the catchy melodies are still in my head. Graphics: The graphics are as good as 3D character graphics are going to get, It's easy to forget you're playing a handheld game with graphics so rich and smooth Cons: The only thing I really have to complain about is that once you beat it, there's not very much incentive to continue playing, there's a lot of free DLC you can do, but it doesn't really feel necessary to do it once you finish. Some others might find it more interesting than I did, you can keep getting new characters and developing friendships, but for me, it felt like i was done after the main story Closing Thoughts: I'm only upset that I'll never be able to play the game for the first time ever again, the 40 hour ride while playing was a blast, and this game has me a Fire Emblem fan, I only hope the next one is just as good as this one. I'd say the game is a great purchase for anyone who has a 3DS, even if you've never played a Fire Emblem game before. There's a lot of customization, fun gameplay, and a great story that you'll definitely remember

I have to say this is the first Fire Emblem game I have ever played. For those of you complaining about the developers daring to have an easier mode where fallen units return, this change is what got me to play. I was interested in Shadow Dragon (the previous DS installment) but stayed away from it because I thought it would be too frustrating for me to permanently lose units. Now that I have played FE Awakening, I definitely want to play it again on the more difficult setting and see how I progress. I was even able to find a pre-owned Shadow Dragon so I can try that as well. I have been playing video games for many years (I'm a mom to 4 kids and have played on Atari, NES, SNES, Wii, and DS systems) and FE Awakening is the best game I have ever played on any system. I found the story very compelling and it just had me hooked from the beginning. My other likes include: customizing my character, the support system and pairing units together (some units work better together than others), the depth and uniqueness of the characters, class changes and upgrades. I have played through to the end of the game, and even though I was really upset that it was over, I want to dive right back in again. THis is unusual for me because once I finish a game I need to put it away for quite awhile, and even when I play it again there is so much that I remember it just isn't the same. It is hard for me to enjoy it again because I don't have that sense of discovery and surprise. However I can keep playing with my current file (as I have only played about half the DLC maps I purchased, and can summon lots of bonus teams to the map with higher difficulties). My only disappointment was with some of the dialogue toward the end of the game. There is a spoiler alert so I will put the detail of this point down below. My complaint though was not enough to take anything away from my rating, because there was so much more of the game that I loved. Spoiler Alert********** So here is my one tiny complaint. Since I can customize my character, she is a female. And I chose to have her marry Chrom (the main character). As a result, I felt some of the crucial points of the game (especially toward the end when you have to decide wether to sacrifice yourself) take on a different significance than if she was marrired to someone else (or was a male character). I just felt that, even though they took great care to make the dialogue at other points in the game spot on for my situation, at the final chapter or two it just seemed to be very generic (not what I would expect for a man about to lose his wife/mother of his children). Even though he pleges to find my character (because they don't believe she is truly gone), when I viewed the cut scene at the very end it was a little disappointing. It doesn't tell you how long he was searching, but they chose to mimic the scene in the beginning of the game where you are found in the field. I can understand that to a point, but the dialogue didn't have to be word for word the same as the beginning of the game. And again, being that my character was married to Chrom, I would think he could have something more to say than just "Welcome Back". I was thinking later that it would have been cool to have a post game chapter (similar to those where you find Emmeryn, Walhart, etc.) where they would find my character. But I suppose the developers leave it up to the game player to use their imagination at that point. It just bothered me at first because I spent so many hours (over 70 so far) to get to that point,so much energy and emotion--that it just seemed to be too abrupt an ending for me. As I said above, this was not enough to affect my rating of the game.

O si simplemente te gustan los RPG, también lo es. Es cuestión de gustos, pero debo decir que el "opening" del juego me atrapa cada vez que lo juego, es sin duda uno de los mejores. El juego en sí es bastante bueno también, y de los mejores de FE, sino es que el mejor. Es recomendable tanto para principiantes como para aquellos que ya estén familiarizados con la estrategia y dificultad que ofrece esta saga; si eres nuevo, puedes probar este juego en su nivel normal para darte una idea de cómo se lleva a cabo la jugabilidad, ya después de terminar el juego puedes volver a jugarlo en la siguiente dificultad si gustas. Y claro, existen otros niveles de dificultad para expertos, o si quieres realmente un desafío y estresarte con las estrategias. Lo mejor de esto es que puedes personalizar a tu personaje; y la historia, aunque es la misma, varia dependiendo de las decisiones que tomes, por lo que cada que reinicies la partida puedes ser alguien diferente y tomar otras decisiones para no sentir que repites lo mismo un y otra vez (técnicamente lo harás porque la manera de jugar, sólo la dificultad). En sí, un juego que debes tener sí o sí. Buena historia, buenos personajes, magnífica música y horas de entretenimiento aseguradas... o de estrés si te complicas con el nivel experto. ¡Recomendable!

In response to the question above, the cartridge I received was marked for the regions of U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Singapore and it worked for my North American (NTSC) 3DS system, so it may not be compatible with PAL. It also did not contain any Club Nintendo codes, perhaps because of the regions it is marked for. As far as the review is concerned, Fire Emblem: Awakening has great gameplay with an interesting storyline and characters, which will keep you occupied for hours on end without making it boring, and it is definitely worth a purchase. Looking forward to future games in this series.

Eine sehr fesselnde Story zum Mitfühlen und einigen spannenden Intrigen , mit einer schönen ansprechenden Comic Grafik, das ist ein spiel was einfach jeder mal gespielt haben muss

Purchased to shore up my 3DS collection. Confirmed working for a US-region unit. Excellent game.

I was quite surprised when I played the game. I thought it would be an easy tactics game. No. It isn't. The difficulty settings is fantastic! Lunatic mode is impossible for me. The classic mode was brutal. But this game is fantastic for people who are looking for a challenge. It's like a game of chess! Once I finished this game, I woukd love to buy more of this series.