Fire Emblem: Awakening [Now Playing]

It's been a long time coming, but I finally got myself a 3DS. Now, to be honest, I actually thought very poorly of the 3DS when it was struggling during its launch. But as the years went by, the library of games started stacking up and I found that all of the games I was interested in were on the 3DS. As soon as I got money coming in, I confident enough to buy the device and a handful of games immediately.

My first game? Fire Emblem: Awakening. I was intrigued by the enormous amount of praise it was getting, so I bought into the hype and let this be my introduction to the 3DS. I've actually never played a Fire Emblem game before this, but I'm a huge fan of strategy RPG's so I knew I would click with the series immediately. Now, I recently completed the game...

And man, Awakening did not disappoint. This game single-handedly made me a fan of the series, and assured me that I did not make a bad decision by buying a 3DS. Everything, from the presentation, to the gameplay and polish really seemed solid to me. I was most impressed with the dedication to content in this game. There are a huge amount of recruitable characters, and each character is able to form relationships with each other. Every time their level of intimacy goes up, you're treated to a full conversation between the two characters. The fact that they had this much content just amazed me.

Having said that, there is one thing that left me a little hollow. If you have access to certain DLC (which I think is free at this point), you can start grinding very early in the game. This allows you to create an obnoxiously over-powered team that can make the rest of the game a cake-walk. Playing different difficulty modes can make a difference, but only until you get to the aforementioned DLC. The only true way to take in the hardcore strategic action is playing Classic mode. In classic mode, your units are mortal. If they die in battle, they stay dead forever. It seems a bit intense, but this has been a Fire Emblem tradition for its entirety.

So, if your experience is unsatisfactory, know that there are a handful of options to appease your exact desire. There's even an option for Japanese voice acting (which I didn't bother with, since the English voice acting is great). Most of us are probably just late to the Fire Emblem party, since there haven't been many opportunities for us to play the games. We're just finding out that the games have always been great. Still, Awakening is definitely something special, and probably one of the biggest reasons to buy a 3DS.