FIRE EMBLEM 13: Awakening Retrospective - ShaneBrained
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 มิ.ย. 2024
- Support this series! / shanebrained
0. Title 0:00:00
I. The Modern Era (Intro) 00:00:14
II. From the Brink (Development) 00:02:33
III. The Shepherds of Ylisse (Story Synopsis Part 1) 00:11:55
IV. The Conquest of Valm (Story Synopsis Part 2) 00:18:58
V. Awakening (Story Synopsis Part 3) 00:27:15
VI. Perspectives (Story Analysis Part 1) 00:33:59
VII. Beyond the Familiar (Story Analysis Part 2) 00:40:09
VIII. To Fight as One (Gameplay Analysis Part 1) 00:49:04
IX. Broken Emblem (Gameplay Analysis Part 2) 00:53:46
X. Finding the Balance (Conclusion) 00:59:17
Special thanks to my script editor, Minute Rice!
Follow me! / shanebrained
Game: Fire Emblem Awakening - เกม
![[TH] VCT Pacific Stage 2 - Week 2 Day 1 // RRQ vs TLN | DRX vs PRX](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_OWt_-Lu3AE/mqdefault.jpg)
Developer 1: "nah this is possibly our final game, we should set it in archanea"
Developer 2: "BUT MAAAAAAAAAARS!"
It would be cool to see some new settings, as opposed to different shades of medieval fantasy. Especially since IS has been making the big bucks
i want a spin off in mars or modern day that would be pog
Welp that explains certain story decisions in Three Houses (trying to be as vague as possible in case of spoilers) as well as Book 5 in heroes having literal mechas in it.
Won't be surprised if the next few entries have even more scifi elements in them.
@@samuelscalise9686 "post apocalyptic medieval fantasy" you say....
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THREE HOUSES BELOW
Certain plot points and lore details HEAVILY imply this being the case in three houses, although its largely left up to interpretation. Granted it's somewhat undercooked but still, thought it was worth pointing out that it isn't as farfetched and weird for the franchise as you may think.
this is why smt x fe was hype. But it turned into tokyo mirage sessions, which is a good game on itself.
Also I feel the need to keep reiterating this every time I talk about Awakening, but I LOVE that the character creation screen uses the phrase 'Create an Avatar' with the Avatar capitalised, because it's a very prescient reference to the part where Robin is the Avatar of Grima.
ALMOST 10 YEARS AND I DIDN´T NOTICE THAT, OMG THAT´S SO COOL
Turns out Robin wasn't your Avatar but Grimas Avatar all along. We've got bamboozled. :D
Wtf I never thought about that.
"There's something a lot more satisfying about having your pairing result in completely new characters"
That's a weird way of saying "it's cool that the characters I ship together made babies"
I ended up playing Awakening and tried to do the best Communist pairings for the children (also used robin as a rallybot to avoid using dlc characters as a challenge) and so I gave them Luna or VV as well as Galeforce if possible and all of them ended up being really powerful
@@nightwish1453 Yeah child units in Awakening and Fate were definitely really powerful
@@samurottman6832 I honestly the children from the games I would rank as FE4>Awakening> Fates since fates children add nothing in both story and gameplay and the parents could beat all the in-game content fine
@@nightwish1453 Oh right cus it's fate and they have the royals, yeah you right on that. Can't comment on Genealogy as I have yet to complete it though I will say "communist pairing" is an interesting way to word it
@@samurottman6832 well some awakening kids ask more then others, like Severa is one of the best and just needs a myrm to really get good Lon'qu is good but Brady would love that high speed and isn't as good so I gave Severa Stahl instead
Robin and Lucina were romantic partners in my first playthrough, so the scene where she decides to kill him to save her father had an extra-juicy layer of melodrama to it.
Same!!
Hehe, no feet.
My kink tho! 😅
@@moosiemoose1337 Honestly I cant help but think the situation of a person with a foot fetish playing this game and noticing right away is kind of hilarious ^^'... I actually didnt notice it until post game and thought my game glitched out. XD
But hey, at least those people may have been appeased by corrin and Sothis in the more recent titles x,D
@@sothe0539 I have seen some Sothis fan art...😐
Honestly I'm an idiot and never noticed until it was pointed out to me like a year after beating it.
No feet didn't stop the foot artists!
I took a 2 day drawing workshop with Yusuke Kozaki, he signed my Fire Emblem Art book, drew a picture of Lucina in it, and I can die now.
You will never be her Mar-Mar, Shane
Were beyond that level mate
I love the story where Robin is Lucina’s mother, because Lucina is also willing to kill this world’s version of her brother as well as her mother in order to save her father. Heartbreaking
And honestly, it changes the context of the entire dynamic of the story. From a large scale war to a story about family. It makes the ending choice to kill Grima or put it to sleep extremely personal. It now not just saving the future - it's making sure your daughter and all daughters after that never have to go through this.
Which I know can be said with any of the kids. But not just any of the kids get a cutscene of them 1v1ing the big bad while the world burns.
Chrobin makes this game for me. %100.
Hate it or love it, it brought series back on its feet
While the game character having no feet.
@@alsaiduq4363 isn't this just the purest form of irony XD
My Thoughts Exactly.
Then Fates wanted to show off those feet
If I'm not mistaken, no mention of the incredible soundtrack?!?! Feels almost criminal to leave that out. That said, great review nonetheless.
Ah, Awakening. For all its shortcomings, be it the disjointed story or the Toon Link feet or how laughably easy it is to break, it still does a lot right. You don't bring a franchise back from the brink without there being _some_ kind of quality experience! Though I might be biased here--while it wasn't my first Fire Emblem game, Awakening cemented me as a fan for the long run, and Robin even became one of my favorite characters in all of gaming.
Didn't hurt that this time around, Fire Emblem got an actual attempt at marketing and released at a spot where it wasn't immediately overshadowed by other Nintendo games. And it worked wonders--I still remember how hard it was to find physical copies in the US for the first couple months it was out!
Was nice to see how you understood the greater context of the more...divisive changes. Especially considering how much _more_ divisive things got with the followup...
Awakening did bring me back to Fire Emblem as well. :D
I played 7 and 8, sadly missed PoR/RD and wasn't too hyped with the Akaneia remake. So, Awakening was like a fresh wind that reeled me back in.
For me as well, was Robin for a long time my favorite gaming character (The male one, i think he had the better support convos). Well, until Seteth came along and completely swept me off the floor. But that's another discussion.
I'd love to eventually get a remake of awakening with some better fleshed out story (like RD/PoR even though those are a bit on the other spectrums extreme), fates fighting system and some.. better.. mapdesign that doesn't just involve routing everything or killing just the boss.
Wow, on my side, I really can't understand how a character like that can be so high ranked in character polls (same for Corrin and Azura tho).
He so kind that every one of his support is boring to me.
As for the plot I think he is part of why awakening story is so bad.
The fact that Byleth and Corrin are even more uninteresting and a nuisance to their plot let me think that Kris (New Mystery avatar) is probably one of the worst thing in Fire Emblem history.
And the fact that we still have an avatar in engage absolutely broke me to tears. (Yeah i'm pretty invested here haha)
It's kind of funny but when I look back Marth, Roy, Eliwood or Seliph really are boring MCs too.
Maybe the problem is FE's MC in general.
The fact that Marth (and some others) are that well beloved in Japan is also something that I have difficulties to understand.
Why are they loving that much blend characters ?
I really think that the greaaaat guy/perfect prince are the worst archetype of FE and it has to be MCs.
I think that we need a real personnality in our main characters.
Claude, Edelgard or Dimitri were more interesting by far than empty shell Byleth..
A good, well measured reaction to this game. I rarely disagreed with you, and never on anything objective. I'm glad you were able to take an honest look at this game in spite of all the divisiveness in the community surrounding it. While it's not my favorite, I do hold a lot of love for this game and I'm glad to see people can still have similarly positive experiences with it.
Also you married Tiki, which instantly raises you in my estimation considerably ;)
As somebody who married Tiki as well, man of culture!
But looking att it. Tiki is like.. 5000sth? Robin is.. maybe 25 at the very highest. (I usually picture him about 18-20?) And Tiki is Nagas daughter while Robin is Grimas Avatar. That pairing should be an absolute mess, especially since morgan kinda gets two super dragonpowers as a legacy. :D
But the support convo is really cute.
Man it might be nostalgia goggles but Awakening was a freaking good game! It may be because it was my first FE game but there's something super good about Awakening
It is a blast to play haha, but there's no harm in looking at it critically
53:13 Hoo boy, Three Houses is gonna be a trip. Just wait until Shane finds Stride
To be fair to 3H there’s a lot of of a learning curve, and the stuff I don’t think breaks the game at least in maddening but rather makes it more fun to utilize everything. Awakening on the other hand...
What's the song during that timestamp?
@@rez8248 Champion (Calm)
@@Yarzu555 NGL going to 3H maddening you're right that you do "generally" use more of your tools even on maddening but honestly stride just breaks the game in half. Far too many maps can be one turned by simply having a dancer and stride and unlike past titles, it's not like you need too much to set it up properly. Generally most commander enemies are actually more fragile in 3H than they have been in past titles (or I just get lucky growths) but it's not like Conquest Shadow Dragon where you can have a hit rate of about 50% with a high def stat and just about no chance to double. Commanders in 3H are around the level of those in Binding blade but most of the time not receiving any throne bonuses.
I think 3H has a lot for you to play with but I really think you're giving it a lot of unwarrented praise by saying it has a big learning curve. Most combat options in the game are pretty straightforward/self explanatory, The only learning curve really only comes from the monastary (specifically teaching and gardening) as knowing who to teach what can make your early game significantly harder or easier. Which overall has gotten a lot of backlash from the community in recent times.
@@janrosa7243 The learning curve takes into account what new features a person is presented with what they can play around with. Much of it isn't needed sure as until maddening it was one of the easier fire emblem games, and possibly still is (if my dumbass can even do maddening). Battalions, their bonuses, units tend to have a lot more skills to choose from, learning how valuable tanking adjutants are on maddening, combat arts etc. While not overly complicated at first its a lot more then what most people are used too.
The monastery too I guess, though all the complaints I've heard about it comes down to the monotony of it all and not making things easier/harder. Hopefully they leave something like that out of the next game.
This if course was all relative to the comparisons of broken designs and how they directly compare to awakening however, which I stand by in saying its not as bad.... as awakening had the spaghettis on wall method of feature design.... only they only bothered to check what stuck when designing Fates.
I started with 7 but i still love Awakening and i feel its judged somewhat unfairly by the communjty, so it's great seeing a fair analysis that doesn't feel biased for or against it. Keep up the great work Shane.
To be fair most FE games get judged unfairly these days with either being considered flawless masterpieces because story or nostalgia, or very bad in every way because story and nothing else...
@@V-Jes FE fans just have a strange thing of "the game is only good if it's a masterpiece" and that's really annoying
@@Zerorenren4761 And FE fans often regard FE4 as the only "true masterpiece", so it definitely gets annoying. Had to eventually disregard the fire emblem subreddit after seeing too much hate for any game that wasn't Genealogy.
@@NoonDragoon the entire fandom is basically Tellius and Jugdral fans shitting in every other game
@@NoonDragoon The funny thing is I am playing that game now and I already have a laundry list of complaints. I am wondering if it's a game that's mostly liked only because people haven't actually played it. The really really long maps are interesting since it's trying to simulate a war war, but not having item trading available and instead having to sell and re-buy stuff is a bit silly. The character balance is really awful. Since the map is so huge most foot units are absolutely worthless. The game's idea of difficulty is just throwing large waves of enemies at you. And the inheritance system seems strange from what I'm reading about it. Also what's the point of having a unit guard your castle? If you're ever doing bad enough to where someone can actually attack your castle, you've already lost. And the story of the first map was a kingdom deciding to believe this random spooky mage and then being surprised pikachu face when the spooky mage turned out to be evil.
The FE fandom is very silly. My favorite game is FE9, but I also like a lot of the newer games which causes apparently a lot of old man malding.
Awakening was to Fire Emblem as Skyrim was to Bethesda games: the right game at the perfect time to rocket the franchise into the future, but also carrying with it changes that would serve as grim harbinger to the future. My gut tells me that Fire Emblem will probably never have its “perfect” game, akin to Final Fantasy’s sixth or seventh installments, where any flaws simply pale in the face of everything that it did right. Awakening was not that game. Hell, it wasn’t even the best game in the series, but it did pull it back from the brink, and for that it deserves to be respected.
I’d say thracia 776 is the final fantasy 6 of fire emblem. I can’t think of any significant flaws outside of healing staves missing.
The Genealogy remake will be that perfect game.
@@johnclever8813 I mean....what does it do better then other games then for it to be the FF6 of Fire Emblem?
FF6 and FF7 aren't perfect though...if anything Awakening is kind of like the FF7 of Fire Emblem with how they are both some of the most popular games in each series and helped popularize each series but they aren't usually regarded as the actual best but as one of the best. Awakening is the FF7 of Fire Emblem.
Can't wait for Awakening: Special Edition and Anniversary Edition.
"It both is, and isn't, Fire Emblem"
haha well said. Great video as always!
@Shamir Nevrand It is Fire Emblem because it contains all the makeup of what FE is composed of. All the same classes, weapons, stats, etc. It has similar direction, similar story beats and keeps things classic to series like the exp coefficient, returning existing skills and mechanics, support convos i could go on and on.
It isn't Fire Emblem because like ShaneBrained mentions in the video, it throws all prior restraint out the window. Even in Sacred Stones you couldn't grind a unit 20/20, then reset their level with a second seal to ultimately get all the skills and cap all their stats just cus you wanted to. Although this indulgent change to the series deviates and makes the game more interesting in ways, it totally kills off the strategy element. It's no longer at a certain point an "srpg" and just turns into an "rpg" with just an FE aesthetic. The map design in Awakening supports this. At a certain point, they couldn't possibly account for how broken people's units could be, so as a result, maps just become gauntlets with an emphasis on survival being based of how broken your units are, not strategic thinking. Thats why u can end turn with 5 noseferatu tomes in robins' inventory paired up and solo the whole game.
This is a divide, a divide that I.S themselves address in the very next FE game! Birthright is awakening. Your resources aren't limited, and you can grind. Conquest is what traditional FE is like (although not very well done imo) your resources are limited and there is an emphasis on map design and strategic thinking. Keep in mind that I, and if you watched the video Shane, both appreciate awakening to a certain extent. It wasn't afraid to deviate and is probably the most content-dense FE still to this day, which is cool.
That's the measured response to this game, yes.
The non-measured response is "What if Fire Emblem copied Disgaea's homework".
And then the response from grognards like me is "This isn't Fire Emblem, this monster was created by a dark pact, and rose from the grave wearing Fire Emblem's skin. It began devouring everything it used to love, and now it has produced a soldier petting hell where war and mass murder are fun pastimes, and the psychopath mass murderer is thought to have a few good points because they're hot. Also it copied Disgaea's homework."
To each their own, though.
Was Awakening the best? No, but it did save the series for western audiences, and you know what? It did a pretty good job. Definitely deserves more praise.
Build an army, trust nobody.
What happened to Dorcas?
@@ikt7397 I put poison in his mutton.
*laugh track plays*
fire emblem: only for gameboy advance
It's finally here! I know this game was a controversial one, but it was my introduction to the series so I appreciate it for what it is.
Awakenings story definitely hit some high points for me. Emmeryn’s sacrifice was fantastically done. The music in the chapter afterward brought me to tears. My first play through with a male Robin- I married Lucina. This made the confrontation especially memorable to me.
Fates’ story, though it has some of, if not the best game play of the series, was a huge let down. The sad part is the story could actually be fixed and quite compelling with one simple change; making Garon a great father/ruler and not the comically awful bad guy. It would offer a compelling choice between the two games- blood vs family. At a time when Game of Thrones was the most popular thing ever, I was really interested in this choice from Fates. Alas, I was so disappointed to learn that Garon was just another big bad.
Luckily 3 Houses writing was, for the part, outstanding.
This man knows what's up
I replayed Awakening lately and i was really surprised how little Robin was actually talking. They usually just stood besides or semi-behind Chrom and answered if addressed but that was kinda it. (My First Robin got force-married to Chrom, Second married Tiki for the lulz of having Dragon-Morgan. Was actually a very sweet support, even if a bit fucked up considering the age difference and what Robin is) But generally, Awakening did emotional scenes very well. Emeryn falling, followed by Mustafa, who is incredibly beloved by the community despite only appearing in one chapter, as well as Lucina finally coming clear of who she is. The scene where Robin and Lucina meet up somewhere before the big fight, after finding out what Robin is. Especially if Robin is either Lucinas other or her Lover (this sounds fucked up..). I mean, the rest of the story wasnt quite as detailled as i'd have liked it, but it was pretty much on the solid side. Robin as the Avatar was also likeable because they actually developed as a character and didn't feel like a paper-cut-out most of the time. Gameplay was a bit messy though as the new pair-up system definitely broke the game. Anything paired up with Freddy-bear became a physical nuke. And everything had an additional randomness to it wether or not soembody pitched in a hit or defended and whatnot. The mapdesign was very.. basic as well. mostly open fields and route or kill boss. I'd love a remake of Awakening (with some more fleshed out story, maybe akin to RD/PoR/3H) with the Fates fighting system and some better mapdesign. (And personal skills!)
Fates story was definitely bad, my gripe being that Corrin is entirely unnecessary (as well as Azura). They would have had a wonderful premisse of conflict with Nohr being a barren Land, desperate to feed its citizen and Hoshido, the bountiful one, turning a blind eye and refusing trade. They could have had Garon being a regular king, but slowly descending into madness driven by desperation to keep his people alive while sumaragi got more and more violent by trying to keep Nohr out of their borders, which would devolve more and more until a bloody, all out war breaks loose, maybe even by an assassination of the Hoshidian queen at an attempted peacetalk in one of the neutral countries. Bam, plot, you can choose your side and go conquer the respective other side. On the other hand the gameplay aspect was a joy. Mapdesign was great (mostly on Nohr-side), the battles were alot more predictable as they introduced a blocking-gage when being paired up. As well es Enemy-pair-ups added some additional depth to your own strategy to overcome certain hurdles. (Like wyvern dropping down armour knights)
As for 3 Houses, i think Byleth wasn't all that needed either. He didn't add to the story besides being a neutral person and stroking the players ego. (I don't need to be told how awesome i am every second conversation, thank you!) Actually, i think that Byleth was 3-Houses weakest Link and could have been ommited without loosing any value. The focus could have been more on the actual Lords and maybe Seteth on the church route. But generally, i loved the fighting system (The gambits are great! And using the skills was pretty fun, especially nuking stuff with Dimitri) Sadly they kinda reverted back to the old kill boss/route-maps with mostly open terrain, which made maps a bit.. boring. The enemy pacing yould have used more work as well, especially in the Tower with Miklan.
@@Aurirang to answer your point about Robin not speaking very much throughout the game, I just want to point out that Robin is the deuteragonist of the game for the first two acts. This means that he's just sort of Chrom's "sidekick" in a lot of cutscenes. It's not until the third act when Robin becomes the main focus due to him being the vessel of Grima and canonically taking him down. Well, that's just my 2¢
Awakening have an horrible story imo, the worst after Fates.
And I find 3H story pretty average too. At the opposite of Awakening the writing is good but it isn't well executed.
I think it could have one of the best story if it was a game with only one big and developped route.
But we just have 4 tedious ones...
I'm really sad because it's the first time since Radiant Dawn that we have a Fire Emblem with decent character and WORLD BUILDING.
It was almost totally absent of 3ds games even if it's one of the most important thing in a fantasy setting.
So I'm glad that 3H gives us a real wb.
Still, I think one big story with a better narrative structure is really needed in my opinion
@@Aurirang I disagree with Byleth not being needed. While the story could have been written without Byleth, having the backing of Byleth did have significant effects on the characters. Golden Deer it allowed a stronger unifying force since Claude couldn't cut it by himself. He knows how to scheme, but not how to build trust. Dimitri needed a way back from crazy town. Edelgard felt more confident about going around slaughtering people. But I do agree that a story without him just focusing on the lords would have been a cool way to go. Just the lords themselves and the story would need to change for them to have complete character arcs.
"Awakening is a great RPG, a less than good strategy game, and one hell of a mess of a Fire Emblem"
@Shamir Nevrand K
I think this is where a lot of people stand with their opinion on Awakening when they say they don't like it and/or "what it did to the series". Too many people think because people say they don't like it, it's all hate or they're just echo chambers. Granted those same people who assume that are the ones who also live in a "Awakening is amazing!" echo chamber too.
The series has become much more RPG leaning with modern entries which is fun, but I, like many others, want a middle ground. Three Houses kinda did that but it's still much more RPG.
Awakening is just Bad Disgaea.
Fite me
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Or worse Agarest War...
@@tmitsurugi7777
Oh god I had those neurons quarantined what have you done to me
I like to pair Female Robin with Chrom, because to me, it makes some of the storry beats have a stronger impact.
Like Ribin beeing forced to kill her husband, and how at the end *SPOILER* Chrom has to make the desition of letting evil incarnate live on, or let his whifu sacrefice herself to end it.
Sure it works with a brotherly love thing, but its a little more dramatic, in my opinion.
I loved being Lucinas mother ❤
And I'm still proud of her.
Me too.
She’s one of the reasons why I kept marrying Chrom every playthrough. I didn’t want her to be someone else’s daughter!
@@MsAbixxx same 🤗❤
I love my girl so much
46:39 Having played this right after Shadow Dragon, this scene hit me really hard. I almost cried....
Absolutely love your work Shane! You allow for nuance in a fanbase that is notorious for black and white takes. You are well researched and I absolutely love this docu series. Keep up the good work!!
This series literally sparked me to start playing these amazing games.(admittedly a DIEHARD Shining Force fan) I’ve always put these games to the side. Until this month. I’m starting off (any recommendations) with New Mystery and simultaneously playing Binding Blade . After truly understanding how permadeath can literally make you wallow in sadness. I can say these games are amazing. Thank you for taking the time to make this labor of love.
Pretty much just play games like Sacred stones, Path of radiance, Awakening and/or Fates Birthrigth and you should be more than fine enough to play any game in the series other than Thracia and Gaiden/Echoes as those are bit harder for first time players. Meanwhile Three houses meanwhile is also good overall but the Persona like calendar system and school can be bit mixed on how it affects the players enjoyment of the game.
Decent starting games, yeah
I've played the og Shining Force and its remake on GBA. Wonderful games.
As a long time fan since Fire Emblem, aka Rekka no Ken aka Blazing Sword aka FE7, i would HIGHLY recommend the Tellius series if you can get your hands on them. Path of Radiance is my personal favorite in the series and Radiant Dawn has its quirks but is a nice sendoff to tie up the duology.
Three houses is great so is path of radiance
Honestly I enjoy Radiant Dawn more if only because it has such a unique flow to it. It's weird
Missed opportunity to use "It's a wonderful day for pie" when briefly talking about Sumia.
I also think the reason this game gets called more "anime" is because it actually has character writing. In most previous games, the writing was sparse and vague enough to allow one to imagine the characters as more realistic, especially games with slow supports. Awakening has lots of gameplay reasons that cause you to get more supports than in old games, and there are more supports in general. So you see more of the writing, so it feels like theres more of whatever is in it
You married the best girl. Good man.
I see another man of culture 👌👌👌
Tiki is best girl
tf are you talking about he didnt marry Panne
@@glasssawsslipperstraws7410 lies. Deception
@@The_Pikaboi bro i played shadow dragon before awakening and people who waifu tiki are weird to me like idc if she's 1000 years old now she is still a lil small baby child bro
i have so much nostalgia for awakening i played 100+ hours of it when i was in middle school and now i'm in college. i spent so many hours looking at guides on how to galeforce optimize even though i really didn't need to because i was playing on normal/casual lmao
Same :)
Honestly even after hearing a lot of analyses on Awakening, I still think the story is pretty underrated. I don't think it's just fine for an FE story. It has so many emotional moments and powerful stories. And the valm arc is really underrated. Walhart is a really intense villain with more presence on screen than even Grima. And the subplot with Say'ri and Yenfay was really cool too.
It's been a long time coming. I cant wait for this one
Not watching this because I haven't played for myself yet.
Just commenting to help w/ the alogorithm.
I love this game so much.. Tho i played as F!Robin and i thought the story was really good when you've Chrom as husb or Lucina as your wife. Because feel much more personal than say Three Houses , where Blyeth feels so distant..
I agree.
If you married either Chrom or Lucina, it definitely seemed to add a lot more emotion and drama to the story.
Am I the only one that REALLY like the "no feet" aesthetic? I find it so stylish, I kinda missed in Fates and Echoes. It had the perfect chibbi models without being overly cute, it was perfect. The no feet style made it even more unique.
Personally, I liked the graphics A LOT, the soundtrack, the characters, even the basic story... this game was my first Fire Emblem ever that got me into the series and one of my very first 3DS games when I decided to buy one with a few games, and I loved every second of it, it has such a special place in my heart. After playing other Fire Emblem games afterwards and looking back at it, yeah, it's not perfect, it's has a lot of cliches, but god damn it's awesome, I'll never forget this game and I'll probably replay it again after I finished all the GBA trilogy :)
I think this game is the worst srpg I've ever played (and I played a lot of them). But I can't understand the "no feet debate".
Except the OST the game did everything wrong, wtf we care about feet seriously ? 😅
The greatest eugenics simulator in videogames.
Naaah, that's Genealogy
Crusader Kings 3 says hi.
nice man, you really did this game justice in this review. sorry i couldn't be there for the premiere.
It's great that you adressed almost, if not every main point that is brought up about this game (i.e the divide between the old gen and new gen, the broken mechanics, story, etc) and didn't let these get in the way of your personal enjoyment of the game (even tho the first point has effectively been brought down).
looking forward to seeing you tear revelation apart- i mean can't wait to see your fates review!
edit: i meant to say this before but i love how your example of how supporting two characters used to just result in a paired ending, the game you use to visually represent this is the one with no paired endings (though rutger and dieck really should have one in shadows of the scouring/binding blade remake)
Funny thing is, he seemed to not mind Revelation, judging by his twitter
oh damn really? well this'll be interesting
good for him then, glad he could get enjoyment out of it.
other than the story i honestly liked fates (outside of revelation lategame)
Fe6 does have paired endings, but only for Roy.
I am aware of this lol, but expanding it would be nice
About time been waiting for this one, I love this game it’s every thing I love about Fire emblem
Same here I feel bad for people who hate this game. Hopefully they'll get a FE game with a mix of all the other stuff FE is known for.
@@Chelaxim it’s a shame those people will probably never understand the love and passion that went into awakening
Id (Purpose)
thats it. That song is the theme of the game that saved this incredible franchise.
So refreshing to hear a well thought out analysis of this game. Awakening is one of my favorite games in the series, despite being a veteran fan that recognizes it's flaws. I think you broke down perfectly what made Awakening work, and why it's so divisive in spite of that. Great video!
Glad this video is out. Awakening is one of my all time favourite games in the series. I can't wait for the fates video!
incredible review as always, kinda also sums up my thoughts on this game, while it introduced me into the series via a twisted vision, it also gave me the need to feel more, to play harder, or more complex games in the series, hence why I played FE4 just after awakening, I'll keep loving this beautyfull broken mess for ever
Awakening has been my favorite game so far. Ive played birthrights, 3 houses, echoes, and engage. Awakenings story, characters, gameplay, graphics, and literally everything about it just captured me like no other entries have.
My smile wouldnt subside after watching this. So grateful that this video was made. Some people just tend to forget on how to "have fun" when playing games. I swear Ive seen a lot of em watching some playthroughs first rather than blindly tackle it. They tend to get swayed from another person view. If you enjoyed something then its good for you if theres something you didnt then just because Theres always black in white and vice versa.
Amazing video man! So well put together in both editing and narration. Bravo!
Gosh, I'll never forget the angst of Lucina telling you she has to kill you or else your gonna kill your husband😭
I’d say Fire Emblem is my favorite video game series, and I’ve loved this series since it came to America... but this is easily one of my favorite games EVER, and for the life of me, I struggle to understand how longtime fans can dislike the direction this game took. I can understand why fans of the more hardcore GBA runs favor the older games for the challenge (and the maps of FE13 do suck, I agree with that) but I don’t know that I agree with the “this game is too anime”. A modern presentation included more ways to present characters than just sprites, so I can get how the cutscenes and presentation may have been outside the expectation of older fans, but I don’t think most of the characters were much more “anime” or one liner than older games. I adored most of the story (bit too many arcs and changing villains), the class system was a strong (if slightly broken) improvement, the children characters were handled well, and Lucina is the series’ best written lord besides Ike. I adore this game just as much as FE7 or FE9.
(That said, everything I just defended this game for absolutely yanked my enjoyment of Fates, a straight mess in my book, so maybe I’m not one to talk).
The amount of work you put into your videos astounds me everytime.
The only way to play fire emblem
Build an army, trust no one
What happened to Dorcas?
@@fyrflyr2378 I put poison in his mutton
@@DocDevious23
Took someone long enough.
@@fyrflyr2378 Somebody had to do it, so I did
Really love your retrospective videos! You give a nice perspective of every game of the franchise, keep up the great work!
The gameplay/story union is really what made me love this game so incredibly much.
Absurdly good video.
Wow, this is amazing! You just won a new subscriber 😄
Hey Shanebrained, just wanted to say that the intro and development part was really good. I don't really like what Awakening did to the franchise's direction, and I don't really like the game itself (too rng dependent, ambush spawns, valm arc lost me). But your 2 opening sections posed the development of awakening not as a marketing tactic to get new anime fans interested in the series, but as a passion project by developers to go all out for something they thought would be their last project. It made me appreciate the game, so thank you.
Awakening is a fantastic Fire Emblem sandbox game. Especially since it allows you to bring damn near every character from all of the past games to make them a broken monster like you always knew they could be. Definitely not for the hardcore audience but I had a LOT of fun with it. The system of having children, thereby basically raising your own army of custom units is a system I would love to have in as many future entries as possible. Don't care if it doesn't make sense, plop it in there! I spent more than half my time with this and the next game just looking at and making my own charts detailing every possible combination of characters that would net me the best children growths and class possibilities and skill combos.
I love these videos my dude. Great work
I can't help but love this game, even after playing almost all of the other ones.
Awakening, the game I’m incredibly critical of because I love it so much, love this game to death, great review
I don't what it is but seeing that a video is an hour or longer and has "Retrospective" in the title always draws me in. It's not like a review is bad if said word is not in the title or is a shorter video but these things always get me.
Thanks for this excellent analysis.
Revisiting the story I feel like its so much better than I remembered. It is basic for the most part but its still rich idk and definitely emotional. Also I cant name a more iconic duo than me being in finals + Shane releases a new retrospective
Awesome video as always
To be honest, playing blind was super fun. It was my third game and I didn’t find the exploitable features. It was a perfectly serviceable fe game. Playing now, Jesus. I love this game more for its broken mechanics. Being able to shatter a game in half is surprisingly fun especially on some of the hardest modes.
I love how even with Engage, series vets still complain about people who entered the series at Awakening. "Y-You've only loved these games for a whole decade! You're just a casual series fan!"
At this point awakening has been around for most of fire emblem’s time in the west (especially in europe where FE7 released in mid 2004). Fire emblem awakening fans now have been around as long as FE7 fans were when awakening came out
This game was not the first FE I played, I distinctly remember playing 7, 8, PoR, and Shadow dragon when I was younger, but it is the game that got me into the franchise as I am now. As such, it holds a real soft spot in my heart. Just the characters, their writing and designs, the music and visuals in general, while I enjoyed 3h and had fun with it (playing through 3 of the 4 routes), the cast never stuck in my mind quite like Awakening. I can still fondly remember a lot of my favorite supports and get a wave of nostalgia wash over me when I see part of one I don't remember as well. I do wish that the issues the game had were better, if they were I think Awakening would be among the peak of the franchises long history.
I have come to realize that what carries me through a game is being compelled by something. When I play Dark Souls I am compelled to see what lies ahead that I will have to figure out how my character build interacts with it. When I play Fire Emblem Awakening, I am compelled to see where the characters grow together by my natural play of having them fluidly fighting side by side. A game doesn't need airtight mechanics and systems to be good for me (though it helps), it just has to do something that keeps me invested in pushing through the repetition of tasks. Which is why in spite of a lot of valid problems this game can be criticized for, I keep coming back.
They should make a game about Lucina that ends with her traveling back in time
So excited I can't wait!
The fact this only has 26k views is criminal. This is an incredible retrospective and deserves to be seen more!
I got a New 3DS, FE Awakening and was looking at videos to find.
And stumbled on this. Great work.
Subbed
Hands down, my favorite game of all time!
I got the mark of Naga tattooed on my arm just like Chrom’s
I remember playing the demo for this game in highschool. I had so much fun that I played it over and over! I begged my dad to get it for me the next day! Replaying it now as an adult and its still a blast, even with its flaws. As a kid I played smash bros mele and I was really interested in Marth and Roy, and so disappointed to find out it was Japan only. I wish I knew about Radiance when i was a kid!
Even though i dont like this game as much as i used to, i’m glad it introduced me to my favorite game series. Great review as always!
My favourite game on the 3DS. Possibly my favourite ever, and I feel it gets way more hate then it deserves.
I still haven’t found something that sucked me in as hard as my first playthrough of Awakening.
The game is just pure fun to me. I guess it’s because it was my first FE game so I didn’t have any expectations carried over from earlier games, so I was just able to have fun with it. Call me a degenerate or whatever, but I am the embodiment of that meme where the guy smooshes his action figures together chanting “Fight, fight, fight. Kiss, kiss, kiss.”
I’m a huge romantic and an JRPG fan, so if there’s a game where I can pair people up like the matchmaker from Fiddler on the Roof and they can have babies too, sign me up!
But even so, the story and its characters sucked me in too. And it also got me interested in the franchise as a whole, so that’s gotta count for something right?
For a lot of people like me it's the biggest disappointment of their life.
It's important to have a balance between people like you and me ! 😄
A masterpiece of a video 😳😳
Just gonna sit here for 45 hours straight vibing for the video to release happy thanksgiving everyone
Awesome video 👍
Child units was such an amazing feature of this game because of the level of unit customization you got out of it. A child unit could be any unit you wanted it to be and could have almost any skill you wanted it to have and even their growth rates could be modified with the right parent. It was so much fun and rewarding to build the child units the way you wanted. Fe 3 houses accomplishes this customization in a way but i feel in a more grindy way with the student instruction lessons, also there are less unit classes so it doesn't feel as fleshed out as awakening's customization. The balance of this game may have been non-existent but you got to admit making game breaking units was part of the fun of this game, this is why i loved it so much.
Awakening was my entry point in 2014 (LONG)
You don't have to read the rest, just this first part from seeing Nah again made me realise something.
It never hit me until this exact moment, why the people who were forced to look after Nah, despised her.
She was a Dragon in a world conquered by a Tyrannical Dragon shunned by the only people who looked after her, to think it took me nearly a decade to truly grasp this, fuck me man.
Back to my FE experiences.
I'd seen Marth in brawl who *to quote 12 year old me* "woooooah she's stacked" You can imagine how that went.
And I enjoyed my time playing Marth and Ike in Brawl, even to this day, even if the roster is unfavourable to Ike and Marth is worthless due to Lucy.
I've played everything in this series and beaten mostly everything with some games being like 5 chapters from completion and others being a far few more, fe1, fe2 doesn't count just play sov, fe3 b1, fe5 (Really liked it though, probably the best old fe aside from dismounting) fe11 (very close to endgame but that's a long gone file) and currently sitting through fe12.
There isn't a single game in the series I think deserves complete and utter hatred, even... fates, there will always be people with a differing opinion, I don't like a certain character in SOV, because all their other work sounds the exact same and the character in SOV is *dumb* AVATAR BAD (bar robin and maybe alear, yeah they are).
I've certainly gained my own opinions over time, but even I was a filthy normal casual player on my first experience with fire emblem (here's all the recruitable people I killed because again, first playthrough)
Gaius, saw talk spring up, but then I crit him OOPS, Tharja, not my fault I was dealing with those birds in the backline and saving Libra, both of my daughters in Cynthia and Morgan (I even did the talk thing again to Cynthia by mistake), tiki.... (i'd marry her on one route, that was a fun file, love adult tiki) and when I got Lucina, I even tried to figure out how to kill Sumia just so my character could marry her instead, truly, truly I should not be allowed to pair units in real life. (I'm a bit foggy on the rest, but do not expect many optionals from paralogues to survive) I really wish the support log showed who you supported first, that'd be a neat touch one day, but my memory will have to do.
I'd go back > buy dlc at my friends house on old nintendo account I don't have and make a Female Robin and probably do what the devs intended, Play Hard Classic after gaining a grasp of the game, it was pretty good, sure the maps now are complete baby compared to what I've done with the franchise now, but I remember being stuck at not getting deathless on the Ricken and Maribelle chapter for aaaaaaaages.
I never did finish the uber hard dlc maps (hell in a month from now on cart they'll be impossible to obtain on my new nintendo account and my pc sure as shit can't handle ahem "that methodology" to play them) but yeah everyones right galeforce was broken and it was so boring (grinding) being an MMO gamer knowing to follow the META, but fuck was it fun.
Shoutouts to FE13, though FE may be part of why I have some of my complications through some of the people I've met, it has no doubt brought subtantial happiness and enjoyment over my in 1 years time decade long Fire Emblem Experience.
remember to like comment and subscribe or I will put you in the fates baby dimension and I will not let you out.
The fact that FE is my favorite franchise and that this game saved it will make Awakening among my favorite games, if not, my #1. I actually enjoyed the powercreep in a sense. I'm a completionist, so being able to max out my stats and give them godlike skill sets was a plus for me.
The biggest flaw I have is how restrained Lunatic and Lunatic+ were. They locked grinding to DLC maps, which took the fun out of it. Give me Divine Pulse/Save states so that I can more easily test out my units as I'm grinding them would have been ideal for me
The biggest problem is the level design imo. The awful writing of characters and story isn't a problem after the first run. But that level design is so infamous that I can't bring myself to start a third run.
I never understood what's "wrong" with having the OPTION to grind your way to an OP build. So what if multiple Galeforce is strong. If that's how ppl choose to enjoy the game, let them? If you feel it takes fun away, then don't intentionally grind out an army of Galeforce users. Seems simple enough to me, anyways.
this was my introduction to fire emblem and couldnt be happier
I stilll believe that if fire emblem didn’t wait till the GBA era that it would’ve done wayyyyyy better, since the turn based RPGs were their biggest in the 90s
>awakening is anime
All of FE "is" anime, the thing is, awakening is modern anime and the last original FE was tellius which felt like early 00's although it came in the late 00's, anime from the start of the 00's to early 10's changed a lot, and all of it is seen in fe13, everything is made to appeal the consumer, every character just orbits around him in one way or the other, this kind of world appeals clearly to certain kinds of person and due to (justified) association it makes others cringe and look down upon it
FE13 is just an easy way to spot all the cultural changes in juvenile entertainment from japan
and this is why i'm not as big of a fan of modern jrpgs as a whole. or modern anime in general.
they are clearly catering to one specific fanbase not to everyone as a whole like what happened during the 90's and 2000's.
People been saying the same shit about "modern anime" forever. Anime is a very broad medium. Look at you dick riding 00s and 90s anime when I remember that time and people were malding that series like Haruhi, Digi char at, K On, Angel Beats, and Azumanga Daioh were popular and going to ruin anime.
Awakening is divisive because fans of the older games are salty that this new upstart entry into the series completely pulverized their favorite entry and forever changed the series going forward. The same exact thing happened with Persona 4.
yeah this is common. a popular entry overshadows all the other games and the new fans pretend they don't exist and the series started with said entry.
a western example would be divinity original sin 2 or fallout 3.
Probably more because it does everything wrong except on the music side. Probably the worst srpg I've ever played by far.
I am glad someone remembers this. Salty old dudes ranting until Persona 4 became retro and suddenly it's cool to like again. Meanwhile my view on Persona 4 is the same as it was when I played it. A pretty solid rpg with a great soundtrack.
The thing is with these fans is you just ignore them and don't let them gaslight or bully newer fans.
I can’t explain how much I love to start and finish the game with the same cutscene, it makes me teary eyed every single time. It’s not a perfect game, but the story is super charming and the characters super lovable, Chrom is my favorite lord by miles, the dude is just the best awkward husband, love to see this game getting a fair review!
Haha I can say the exact opposite of what you said for every single sentences, but I did think it's pretty cool that a FE Games, make you feel that way.
I can agree with the point that the first game played in a series will often make it one with the most tantamount connection for a person, I know it was largely the case for myself, even though I had played Shadow Dragon beforehand. The thing that I found kept bringing me back though was the sheer fun of it. Awakening gets ripped because of a lot of different reasons but the key point to remember is that just because it was different did not make it bad nor did it directly append all changes to the entire series, especially with the fact a majority of mechanics were revamped from older games. The ability to just shred and destroy the games mechanics via skills was not only ridiculous and crazy but after a point became the driving force or replayability alongside support conversations, that frankly made it far more worth playing for the diversity it could bring in subsequent or still-standing playthroughs.
Congrats on the video
My favorite one in the series :)
My least favorite one..
Oh.. Revelations does exist my bad
Awakening it's such a messy experience, the game's narrative and gameplay definitely suffer because of how overload everything was with combining many old ideas with the new ideas... But I can't blame the game too much for this because it gives a quite unique appeal in the franchise despite how derivative it's overall.
It's a messy but charming experience, a love letter to Fire Emblem (specially if we consider how the fanservice exists both implicitly and explicitly, in the latter case through the Spotpass units).
don't forget the dlc art some are nay or yay
Awakening was my first fire emblem game, I've been in love with the series since
Awakening was so good, as someone who bought a Wii just for fire emblem and knowing awakening could have been the last game, once I started playing it I knew right away the series was saved, game was just so good
Appreciate your take here Shane. Awakening is definitely a flawed game, but it does so much that I personally adore and still proud to call it my favourite FE game.
No matter what every Fire Emblem fan can agree that Cervantes is the best character to grace the series
Very well done! Agree with most of your point. Personally, I managed to break lunatic after slogging through the first 10 ish chapters, beelining for gale force on all the units that could, make child unit pair ups where both partners have galeforce and are strong, so that way I switch and get 3 turns, do this for the whole army, and 1 turn every map. And then astra cheese grima at the very end, also in one turn. Because that's what heroes do.
I absolutely love this game, done 20+ play throughs so much to love about it the characters, the optimal play ,The GaleForce lol . Music etc just a nicely wrapped love letter - This was the game to get me into the series and I’m glad it finally got recognized as one of the new Nintendo juggernauts titles 🖤✨
Awakening's story always makes me so emotional
It more emotional to me when you play Marth games and echoes.
@@starmaker75 true, I hadnt played both before awakening.
Now that I've played every FE game except 3H and Thracia I want to see how much I'll enjoy it
@@starmaker75 I dont know why you're telling me this but I have played every fire emblem from Geneology to Echoes excpt thracia. so yes I know how tiki is and unfortunately I have suicided her into medeus, and revived her
Awesome!
Currently playing through this game on the 3DS at the moment.
Thankful that Awakening saved the series and been a Fire Emblem fan since the GBA era, though I am not been a dedicated fan but more of a casual fan of the Fire Emblem series since I first saw Marth and Roy in Smash Bros Melee back in 2002.
The best thing with Awakening was that it had a Casual mode to allow people to not worry about permanent death to their characters. Something that the GBA games didn't have and I personally think that was what prevented newer fans from getting into the series or keeping support for that series during 2003 to 2009.
I also loved Fire Emblem Echoes also on the 3DS so I am awaiting your review of that game that was a remake of the 2nd Fire Emblem game with updated gameplay and visuals to match how far the series had progressed.
I was quite a fan of the characters having kids later on in the game depending on their relationship status as it gives you an idea how to ship your characters in the game.
One that I've always loved about this game was the characters the art design. Even the generics look good enough to be there own characters.