Fire Emblem Kakusei / Awakening Review [3DS] review

[briareos_kerensky]

Almost completed my Lunatic playthrough...a rather steep hill, and now I find myself stuck at one of the endgame spotpass missions, Wellspring of Truth...haven't attempted the other spotpass mission I have to complete (Garden of the Giants), but that can be beaten by powerlevelling. In the Wellsping of Truth you face copies of the characters you bring in that battle, with top-of-the line equipment. It's already hard in other modes, but here I find myself overwhelmed if I bring my usual characters or the ones I barely used, and there are no easy ways to get through it.

I've also spent a lot of time unlocking as many conversations as possible, though I'm nowhere near in having a full conversation log...it's nice that Awakening doesn't limit support conversations to five and it's easier to increase support level via pairing, but I wish there were more Seeds of Trust available (it's an item that lets you increase support between characters). Still have to create one more couple to unlock the last Gen II character...now, who to pair with

->Open Spoiler<-

a female Taguel

?

[Dogg Thang]

I have been playing this a little while now. Missed the free DLC by one day due to forgetting about it. Doh! Very much enjoying it. Before this, I played I think two of the GBA versions but no others and enjoyed those a lot too. I love the permadeath mechanic and I am paranoid about losing team members I like. Even on Normal difficulty, it is very easy to lose people. One problem I am having right now, for example, is that my core team is quite powerful but it's hard to level up the other characters because they can't survive encounters.

Story hasn't quite grabbed me yet but it's early days and I am hoping it will build.

So is the DLC worth it? Is it good?

[briareos_kerensky]

One problem I am having right now, for example, is that my core team is quite powerful but it's hard to level up the other characters because they can't survive encounters.

Use Reeking Boxes on early maps, enemy level will scale down accordingly. Though it might be very hard to level up healers and dancers to level 10, where you can then use a Second Seal to transition in an other class. Don't try to level up everyone, it would be a monumental task; focus on the classes you prefer, try to have Chrom and your unit (and their spouses) at level 20 as soon as you can, but not every character is important. Depending on your unit's strong point, you might want to ignore one of the units you get during the game.

So is the DLC worth it? Is it good?

It's good, but beware of what you buy. 5 stars maps are meant for level 40+ characters (level 20 base+level 20 advanced) and can still be very difficult, so you won't be able to play them until the endgame.
The are DLCs focusing on the Awakening party and DLCs focusing on characters from previous FE games; if you get someone's card as reward, it's about old characters.
Maps focusing on Awakening characters might feature special images and dialogues, and go for the packs, they have the best value...though in a twisted decision, maps available in packs might be locked out until released as stand alone.

[Dogg Thang]

Cheers, thanks for the tips and the info! Will give that all a go.

[Geddoe]

Recently finished playing this and my only regret or mistake was that I played on normal difficulty because it was my first fire emblem game I had played and went with the in game advice lol. My characters became strong enough to evade most attacks specially Donnel he is a beast. It is a really good game and I liked it a lot so i'm kind of glad I get to replay it a bit later maybe once all the dlc is out and try this lunatic difficulty. Altho if I do lose a unit I prolly would reset and reload my save.

[Dogg Thang]

Is there any benefit to pairing up units if one of them is a healer? They don't seem to do anything when paired up so it would seem better to just keep them close to fighting units but not actually paired up. Am I right or have I missed something?

[Geddoe]

other than the social standing side of things when you promote them to an advance class they might get access to nukes and pairing them up may make the nuke stronger.

[Brad]

Enjoying my first couple of hours with this. 3d works well with these type of games too.

[J0e Musashi]

I started this yesterday. It seems decent enough, and I'm up to chapter 4 without really knowing what I'm doing. I've never played a FE title before, but I'm not sure I can play this as well as AC and MH3U at the same time. I'll likely shelve it until I've got my AC town established enough that I don't have to tend to it everyday.

[Guts]

Snipers with Silver Bows are a pain in the behind. And I'm playing on "Normal".

Great game, the support mechanism is cool and the conversations are quite funny stuff. 3DS really is going strong at the moment.

[briareos_kerensky]

Snipers with Silver Bows are a pain in the behind. And I'm playing on "Normal".

If you've trained your Pegasus Knights well, you can use them to pick them out and see how other enemies (except mages with wind magic) helplessy try to stratch them, especially if paired with their spouse. And if you got

->Open Spoiler<-

Dark Fliers past level 15

, it's even funnier .

[Brad]

Annoyed by the characters' missing feet. The 3ds really is a feeble console. The game's art director claimed they had to omit 'some detail' in the feet. WTF!? They haven't omitted detail; they've omitted the feet entirely. Looks like the characters have fallen through the floor.

[MrKirov]

You can't knock Fire Emblem! It's utter amazeballs! 50 hours in and only at chapter 17, been playing it for months and its brill Even bought some DLC for later!

[Brad]

Love the game. Just. The feet! Has a 3ds really not got enough grunt to render feet?

[briareos_kerensky]

They thought that with multiple big models (Wyvern Riders, for example) the framerate would suffer, but there when everything was done they realised there was enough headroom for proper feet. But everything was done with those models (cameras, animations, etc), so they kept the "no-feet" characters.