Fire Emblem: Awakening, is a Strategy Role Playing Game developed by Intelligent systems. It was released on February 4th 2013 in the U.S, April 19th in Europe and April 20th in Australia. In Fire Emblem: Awakening, players battle and move on a grid style stage. Emmeryn <--exalt

Fire Emblem: Awakening takes place {mainly} in the Halidom of Ylisse. In this time, Ylisse is a country that bandits and other sinister characters have taken a liking too {in terms of a sinister purpose}.
In Fire Emblem: Awakening, you play as the Avatar one of the three main characters in the game. One of the first things you will do when after you start a new game is that you will have to choose if your Avatar character is male or Female. After that you will go on to have the option of changing your character's build, face, hair color, hair type, voice, Birthday, name, Asset and finally Flaw {more about these later}.The game starts off with a short Cinematic video of Chrom and the MyUnit fighting against Validar; you find out later that Validar is the leader of the Grimleal. After the cinematic video, you are given control over chrom and the Avatar character to finish off the fight against Validar; the fight actually ends with your character unintentionally killing Chrom.

~Storyline~
Tensions between the nations of Ylisse and Plegia has arisen, the previous exalt {Chrom, Lissa and Emmeryn's Father} has taken up arms against Plegia.. The Plegian Nation was almost destroyed.., due to unfortunate circumstances the previous exalt died suddenly and mysteriously; with his death, his daugther Emmeryn becomes the new Exalt and the war between the nations cease. The Plegians {with King Gangrel (their ruler)}, developed a deep hatred for Ylissians and for the next couple of years used their army to attack Ylisse's borders...

The real story starts with Prince Chrom, his sister Lissa and Fredrick investigating some of the towns in Ylisse due to rumors of Plegian activty...

^^Storyline Comments:^^
Now, I don't know if this is the case with other Fire Emblem games but we don't learn the full story until more then halfway through the game... I remember playing the game and wondering why the Plegians were so aggressive against the Ylissians; I mean I knew something had to had happen for this aggresiveness but the story until this point was unclear. Overall though I think the story is great, it was not only about war it was also about building relationships with other nations and working together for a common cause.

~GamePlay~
Fire Emblem Awakening, is different from other fire emblem games with a new clear concise in battle menu that you can change from full stats to simple stats. One of the best things about Fire Emblem Awakening is the Support and Pairing system, you can make a lot of strategies with pairings and they affect your gameplay in a lot of ways. The classes also affect your gameplay, you have the option to play with a number of characters who have different classes and skills.



Game Mechanics:

~Asset/ Flaw system~

In Fire Emblem: Awakening, the stat that you choose as your asset and the stat that you choose as your flaws effects your overall starting stats, growing stats and the maximum stats your character can reach. The stat you choose is important because not only will it boost your chosen stat it will also boost some of your characters other stats. As for your character's flaw, it will decrease your chosen stat along with some others. To put this in Perspective, if you picked Luck as your asset you will receive +4 added to your Luck Stat. If you put Luck as your flaw, your character will receive -2 {Numbers taken from Fire Emblem Awakening Wiki}.

Your asset/ flaw stats will effect how powerful your character becomes so picking the wrong stats will not only dampen the effectiveness of your character, but can also lead to your characters death. From what I noticed, every class has some basic starting stats so if you choose the wrong stats as your asset and flaw your character might have less strength they need to defeat a Risen Lord.

~Online features~
When you select the Wireless option in the menu {from the world Map}, there will be a number of options available to you. One of the first options is StreetPass Team, this allows you to set up a team and to send it over to other players via the StreetPass. The next option is the Bonus Box, you can summon teams, claim items, unlock new maps and even unlock Bonus Double Duel Challenges!!.The next option is Renown Awards{more about renown a little later}, you can spend the renown points that you earn here for weapons such as bows, axes & swords; you can also buy items that increase your stat and items that help you reclass (explained later.) To the right of the previous options there is Double Duels, Double Duels allow you to fight along side your friends units; multiplayer fights take place locally {local multiplayer connection}. For a Double Duel to take place, you must either create a Room or select a room that's listed. The next option is the Avatar Logbook, you can hire units that you won from Streetpass or elsewhere. The Avatar Logbook also shows you how many spots you have available to add people and their profile. The Final option is SpotPass, pretty much this allows you to activate or deactivate Spotpass.



~Character customization~
Fire emblem Awakening allows for limited customization {For Avatar only}, you can choose between the following:

• 1 of 3 body types
  
• 1 of five different eye types
  
• 1 of five different hair styles
  
• 20 different Hair colors
  
• 5 male voices you can choose from
  
• 3 Female voices you can choose from
  
• The Avatar's name & Birthday
  
• Asset/ Flaw
  

~Partner/Support system~

If players move their character next to an ally character, there will be an option to Pair up your characters. Pairing up your characters not only allows your characters an increase in stats, but it also allows you to trade items between the paired unit, switch between the two characters and it also allows your new paired unit an increase in movement speed. By pairing units you increase the chances of them building relationships with one another.

>>Since Support is a big subject I will separate it into Relationship support and Support Actions.<<

Relationship Support:

In Fire Emblem Awakening, there are four kinds of support levels available; C,B,A and S. S is the highest support your characters can reach, once a pair has S support they become married. Even though your character has obtained an S ranked pairing it does not mean that they can build support with other characters; it just means that they can't reach the S ranked Support with those characters. Actually, the more support your characters build the better; take into consideration that you may have units that die at unexpected times, by you having your characters interact with other units it allows you units to better support one another and can increase the chances of support actions. Now in maps there is a chance that you can raise your units support by having them step on sparkling squares. After battles, your units might also increase their support with the  Barracks option.

~Weapon Proficiency~
All of the weapons in Fire Emblem Awakening are ranked, they are ranked as E,D,C,B,A & S. It's important to note that each character has a certain weapon rank when they are added to your army. A character can not use a weapon with a rank above their own {weapon rank}. Weapon proficiency can be raised when your character fights opponents, builds relationships (Barracks option) and sparkling spaces on maps.

Here are the weapon Ranks:

E: Bronze Swords, Glass wapons
D:Iron weapons
C: Steel Weapons
B: Silver Weapons
A: Special Weapons
S: ??

~Classes~
In Fire Emblem Awakening there are 21 starting classes and 22 Advanced classes. Most of the starting characters have one or two characters that they can possibly promote into. Starting classes such as Manakete, Dancer and Tanguel are not able to promote to an advanced class but make up for it with higher level caps.

~Skills~
Characters can learn skills from one of two ways, the first is while they are in battle {stage} the other way is when they Reclass. Some classes have particular skills that belong with them. Other skills can be used by a wide range of Classes. Each character in Fire Emblem Awakening can have five skills equipped to them at one time. If your character has more then 5 skills you can select Equip Skills option to choose which skills you want to equip.

~Renown~
In Fire Emblem Awakening, you receive Renown points when you clear chapters, hire teams from the Spotpass and from clearing the prologues.

~Double attacking~
In Fire Emblem Awakening, sometimes your characters may be lucky enough to attack twice. From what I noticed, certain weapons allow your characters to attack twice. Another way to attack twice is by pairing and supporting your units. Double attacking is an important part of your battling experience because it not only allows you a better chance of killing your enemies it also allows your units to gain more experience.

~Reclassing~
In fire Emblem Awakening, you can promote your character to an eligible new class {class tree} when they reach level:10 with the Master Seal item; this allows you to reclass your character into an advanced class. There is also an item called the Second Seal, this item allows you to change into either a previous basic class or in some cases {Donnel} allow you promote to an advanced class. Either way, whether you use the Second Seal or the Master seal your character will revert back to level:1 {of the new class}.

Graphics:
Fire Emblem Awakening is not like the Fire Emblem games that came before it, with the graphics from the 3DS console it allows for beautiful cinematic videos. Fire Emblem Awakening has nice concise maps that fit with the story and in the case with certain stages {the Volcanoe, The Mila Tree etc} really shows how much effort went into showing designing the games; In case of the stage with the Volcanoe, the Vlocanoe looks beautiful and the lava looks like real lava. With the 3D on, you get a game that really comes alive with beautiful imagery and videos.
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Pro's:
+Beautiful Cinematic videos
+Great Storyline
+Online features allow for new characters, maps, items and more
+Class system has a lot of variety
+ Post game content
+Side quests
+ Multiple playing levels
+Unique Characters who have their own personality
+DLC conten Available
+Variety of Stages

Con's:
- Stages may be Repetitive {you can battle at the same stage over and over}.
- Tutorial doesn't go into details about Weapon Proficiency.
-Level Grinding { makes it easier to get through the game} (could also be a pro)
-Limited Character Customization
-Character voices, mostly the characters grunt or say yeah or Ok...

~Reserved for more Pictures~

Moved to "RPG Reviews".