Fire Emblem: Awakening Westward Bound

The Nintendo 3DS incarnation of one of Japan’s biggest video game franchises is making its way to North America in Fire Emblem: Awakening, though a specific release date hasn’t been given.

Fire Emblem has always been a personal favorite series of mine as it isn’t quite like any other game on the market. At its heart the series revolves around maneuvering various fantasy troops on a grid in a game of turn based strategy. Simple enough.  You have your knights, your cavalry, warriors, archers and various other classes to manage each with their own combat specialties. Each unit isn’t just cavalry #2 or knight #13, they are real characters who have names, personalities and their own motivations for joining your band of rebels, freedom fighters, or vigilantes (it varies from game to game).

What makes Fire Emblem truly stand apart though is its unflinching zero tolerance policy for failure.  Make a poor tactical decision that results in the death of one of your men? Just reload your last save right? Not exactly. In Fire Emblem when somebody dies, they stay dead. There is no producing another knight or the character just respawning next mission. You have two options. Restart the mission entirely and try not to repeat the same mistakes, or push on through and come to peace with your losses.  I personally never accept my losses. I will play the same mission over and over and over again until every one of my troops survive. It makes life difficult for sure, especially in the later missions, but to me it’s worth it.

Which is why I’m so excited for the latest entry in the series. It doesn’t look like anything has dramatically changed gameplay wise, but the graphics are much improved featuring 3D model battle animations over the usual 2D sprites.  But as they always say, why fix what’s not broken? If you own a 3DS and are a fan of fantasy and strategy, Fire Emblem: Awakening should definitely be on your radar.

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