This week we check out Dead Space 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dragonborn, Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 2, Fire Emblem: Awakening and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. Beats provided by DJ VInroc: http://www.thatsthatstuff.com.

Posted Feb 1, 2013 | 1:57 | 660 Views

Fire Emblem is the game that essentially kick-started the strategy role-playing game genre in Japan more than 20 years ago, and it has since grown into a thriving and complex niche. While some pioneering games have a tough time evolving along with the genres they helped form, Fire Emblem: Awakening takes many of the best elements of modern strategy RPGs and implements them beautifully into its classic, time-tested formula. The result is a high watermark for the franchise and one of the most engaging and enjoyable experiences on the 3DS yet.

The story in Awakening opens with your player-created avatar waking up in the company of a roving band of soldiers called the Shepherds. The Shepherds protect the interests of the citizens of the kingdom of Ylisse, which has recently been targeted by bandits from the kingdom of Plegia. Plegia is looking to incite a war based on past transgressions of Ylisse’s rulers, but there’s more to the sinister goings-on: strange beings called Risen are attacking towns, and a mysterious masked warrior named Marth claims to see a future in which humankind has been destroyed. While the narrative is filled with interesting melodrama and political intrigue, the unwavering evilness of some of the villains is ridiculous and makes some parts of the story hard to take seriously.

Fortunately, Fire Emblem: Awakening is more than just talking heads spouting off about vengeance and crushing foes before them: it’s a robust turn-based, grid-driven strategy game. Like in many strategy RPGs, you move individual units around a grid, attacking foes while using terrain and character placement to get the upper hand. Certain units and attack types have priority over others: the three main weapons (swords, lances, and axes) form a rock-paper-scissors-style relationship. Archers have attack boosts against airborne units, magic spells can crush the defense of heavily armored fighters, and a host of other factors come into play. Odds and percentages are a key part of formulating your strategy, since some units also have a higher potentiality to hit or miss than others.

However, positioning is more important now than ever: standing next to allies can grant stat boosts, additional attacks, and protection. Keeping two characters in close proximity to each other can allow you to increase their relationship status between battles. In some cases, they can even fall in love and further increase stat boons when they are next to each other in combat. Characters can sometimes help each other in more direct ways, such as following up an attack with an extra strike and shielding each other from damage by foes, and these actions are also affected by how strongly their interpersonal relationships have developed. The burgeoning friendships and affections between allies carry outside of battle, too: visit the barracks to get a glimpse of how characters interact with one another in their off-duty time (as well as potentially gain experience and items), which is a very charming touch.

Like previous Fire Emblem games, Awakening is divided into chapters consisting of story sequences and battles. Unlike those games, however, it’s not a strictly linear progression: you have a world map that allows you to fight side battles and visit shops in-between story events, which makes managing your gear and leveling up some of the lagging characters much easier. You can also play optional side missions with unique objectives in order to recruit new members to your merry band or obtain rare items. The map is constantly changing, too: traveling merchants show up to peddle rare wares, enemy Risen outbreaks happen in random locales, and a StreetPassed team of another player’s warriors might even appear to fight or trade with you.

The class system has also received some welcome changes. In most Fire Emblem games, class progression is fairly linear, requiring specific items to level up to particular classes once a unit reaches a certain rank. These items are more available in Awakening, making it much easier to promote units. This time around, however, units can also reclass entirely with a special item, sometimes to wildly different classes than what they previously held. Each class learns unique skills that grant special boons during combat, which are retained even after switching to a new class, so changing and leveling up classes can often create some very powerful units if you are willing to invest the time and effort.