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Fire Emblem: Awakening Image

Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)

Release Date:
92
Metascore
 72 reviews
9.0
User Score
 1631 ratings

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Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Game Details: Lead an army of soldiers in a series of scaled turn-based strategy battles. In the process, develop
Lead an army of soldiers in a series of scaled turn-based strategy battles. In the process, develop relationships with your team, utilizing their special abilities on the battlefield to gain victory and advance the story, which features a wide array of characters from a variety of nations and backgrounds. They can be joined by a character of your making, with a unique appearance crafted as you see fit.
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre(s): Strategy Turn-Based Fantasy Fantasy Tactics
Number of players: No Online Multiplayer
Cheats: On GameFAQs
Rating: T
Official Site: http://fireemblem.nintendo.com/
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  • Fire Emblem: Awakening - Official Trailer

    Fire Emblem: Awakening - Offici...

  • Fire Emblem: Awakening - Character Progression Trailer

    Fire Emblem: Awakening - Charac...

  • Fire Emblem: Awakening - TV Trailer

    Fire Emblem: Awakening - TV Tra...

  • Fire Emblem: Awakening - Building Your Army Tutorial

    Fire Emblem: Awakening - Buildi...

  • Fire Emblem: Awakening - Character Classes Tutorial

    Fire Emblem: Awakening - Charac...

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Critic Reviews
(72)
92
Metascore Universal acclaim
72 Positive Ratings 100%
0 Mixed Ratings 0%
0 Negative Ratings 0%
Based on 72 Critic Reviews View All
100
Games.cz
May 19, 2013
"A great turn-based strategy game surpassing not only its blood-related predecessors but step-brothers and step-sisters of the Advance Wars series as well. Fire Emblem: Awakening is the new benchmark of the genre that is practically uncriticizable. At the moment on Nintendo 3DS there is not a better alternative." ... Read full review
100
Gaming Age
Jan 31, 2013
"From a gameplay experience this feels like a greatly refined version of the last few titles, with a boost in presentation to push the franchise even further. 3DS owners will be doing themselves a favor by picking this up." ... Read full review
95
Gamer.nl
Apr 23, 2013
"Fire Emblem: Awakening honors its predecessors and manages to put itself on the same level. With a series, that is according to many, the best tactical turn-based strategy-series ever, we can’t imagine a better compliment to give it. No, you know what, it’s the best in the series. Not in the least because a portable game hardly ever has as much personality and involvement as Awakening." ... Read full review
90
Destructoid
Jan 30, 2013
"While Fire Emblem: Awakening may not turn the notch up to 11, it's everything that's right about strategy RPGs. Whatever options you choose to go with at the beginning of the game, it's either one of the most accessible strategy games to date, or one of the most difficult. " ... Read full review
90
Eurogamer Germany
Apr 24, 2013
"Do yourselves a favor and buy this one. And if you don't have a 3DS, get one in a bundle. Then show it all your friends and colleagues so that they proceed to do the same as you. This way, and no disrespect to Fire Emblem, maybe Intelligent Systems can procure the resources to produce a Game of Thrones spin-off I keep dreaming about." ... Read full review
90
Eurogamer Italy
Mar 27, 2013
"One of the most ambitious game on 3DS. A deep gameplay and a huge amount of contents are going to entertain the fans of the series. The others will love the funny characterization of the characters and the accessibility. The best Fire Emblem to date." ... Read full review
80
VideoGamer
Apr 11, 2013
"As a Fire Emblem newbie, then, I’m now a fully-fledged convert. Intelligent Systems has never shown a weakness in its strategical prowess, but the fact it also has strong storytelling and characterisation chops came as a pleasant, if not entirely unexpected, treat." ... Read full review
User Reviews
(337)
9.0
User Score Universal acclaim
1,473 Positive Ratings 90%
78 Mixed Ratings 4%
80 Negative Ratings 4%
Based on 1631 Ratings and 337 Reviews View All
10
alanm1991
Feb 4, 2013
Great graphics with multiple art styles and a voice acting 2nd only to kid icarus It has the same formula as all the fire emblems you come toGreat graphics with multiple art styles and a voice acting 2nd only to kid icarus It has the same formula as all the fire emblems you come to love but gives you the choice to play on easy mode so beginners to the franchise can first get used to it then can play it harder, it even receives some great crafted dlc and wireless co-op mode to make t on of the greatest games in the 3ds library, that's allot to say considering you have mario 3d land and kid icarus.… Expand
10
bushidoheart
Apr 30, 2013
This is not only one of the best games on the 3ds, but right up there with one of the best games i've ever played. It gives you greatThis is not only one of the best games on the 3ds, but right up there with one of the best games i've ever played. It gives you great characters, amazing gameplay, a story that keep you interested, and much more. the DLC for the game is good for the price you get them at. The only problem I have with this game is there are parts that give you a choice during cut scenes but they really don't do anything for the story as far as I can tell. Overall though this is fantastic, now excuse me i'm on my 4th play through… Expand
10
Allbase42
Aug 22, 2014
I love this game I can spend all day reading getting everyone in the game to A support with each other and the battle are fun and I reallyI love this game I can spend all day reading getting everyone in the game to A support with each other and the battle are fun and I really enjoy a stagy game with actual character instead of customization soldiers.… Expand
10
theculling
Feb 23, 2013
I've been a long time user of metacritic, yet never had the desire to create an account. Having said that alone is a sure indication of howI've been a long time user of metacritic, yet never had the desire to create an account. Having said that alone is a sure indication of how brilliant I feel this game is. I also haven't owned a nintendo product since SNES, but I already feel this system is gonna pay for itself with this game alone. This game is putt my fanboyism to rest, and is a much needed from the shovelware circus that is modern gaming. Why are you still reading? See for yourself.… Expand
9
VidyaBum
Jun 23, 2015
The bad in FE: A :
-The Barracks system is a little silly, you could have had a much more believable cantina system where you have let's sayThe bad in FE: A :
-The Barracks system is a little silly, you could have had a much more believable cantina system where you have let's say 10 tables and you sit down at one of them and listen to the conversation. Instead we get this silly-looking room where everyone comes, walks around and says 1-2 lines then leaves.
-Some gameplay mechanics aren't that well-explained. Like the sword vs axe vs spear thing, supposedly there is a rock-paper-scissors relationship in this, but in some fights I had a strong axe that was "weak" against the foe and a sword that was "strong" against it, yet the axe dealt more damage. These mechanics don't seem to really matter to be honest.
-Because the gameplay is a little poorly designed, almost every battle can be won with just one tactic: turtle your units together, let them get the bonuses they get for grouping, and just walk through the battlefield like a Roman cohort. Battles are varied enough that this never becomes the only tactic and you'll often break away some units, but for easily 1 fight out of 2, my best bet is to turtle my units in one or two groups and blaze through. The system is made so that if you have enough defense, the enemies have virtually no chance of hurting you, so you can literally walk through 10 enemies with 4 units all curled up, and you'll be fine because out of 10 maybe 3 will hit you, and 6 will die.

The Good:
-Despite the mild complaints about turtling up and some mechanics, the gameplay is very very good. Each unit has got its own type, attack, capabilites(flying, distance attack, magic, physical, etc), you have a randomness factor which seldom ever hurts you and serves you a lot, aka the good kind of random that only provides bonuses, every unit has its strength and weaknesses and if you know the game well, preparing your formation and fighting a battle is equally important and fun. The diversity is just right, no units are unused and no units feel wanting. It may be just a tad on the simplistic side here and there, but the difficulty helps correcting that.
-The difficulty in FE is always depending on how many units you accept as casualites. I always played in "real" mode IE if a unit dies, it dies for good, and I found myself restarting some battles over 30 times. Extremely frustrating? Sort of, but honestly, the fact that every mistake could be the death of a unit was very powerful. It kept asking excellence out of me and I learned the hard way, which is the best way to truly enjoy gameplay. I played and played and played until I had come out of the battle with my full team(out of the whole first playthrough I lost only 3 characters). So the gameplay's simplicity is a rather good thing, even if the factors aren't that numerous, they are sufficient to keep the game interesting and the difficulty of not losing anyone makes it a continuously demanding challenge. As long as there is challenge, I'm in for it.
-The story is a little bit of a mess. You get a first story which lasts roughly 9 missions, then a second which lasts about 12, then a third. They feel disconnected with each other and aren't anything that fancy(except the twists at the end). But I genuinely enjoyed all of them, the death of characters were memorable, the situations were well-put and even if it was messy, nothing about it made me want to call writer failure on it, ever.
-Characters are fairly hard to do for a Fire Emblem writer, I'm sure. Simply because you get dozens of them and the game takes care of fleshing them all out. Well, on that front, they did a truly great job. None of them except the main cast(Chrom, yourself, Lucina) are AMAAAAAZING but they all bring something, are all memorable, few are complete duds and I generally enjoyed all of them, even regretting not knowing the one or two that I didn't get to catch through the story.

The Amazing:
With all the points I cited, good or bad, FE: A was going to be around 8/10. Gameplay is nothing formidable and story is on par, despite the general qualities there is nothing astounding about this game, it's just another game with nothing especially fancy on tactical games I played (HoMM5, Xcom) or RPGs (Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy, Persona). While FE: A can't claim to be filled with true genius, it does have the undeniable quality of seriously hard work. The game is polished beyond belief. All its elements, story, characters or gameplay-wise are extremely polished and worked upon, you can tell that this game got a ton of love. The menus are so intuitive and complex, the combat almost never left me dissapointed and surprised me lots, the characters are again not just likeable but also different and memorable. The polish that went into this game is amazing, so many tiny details were added after obvious dozens of hours of work, and I almost failed to mention before that the soundtrack and cutscenes are incredibly good.

It may not reach genius or have one super-strong element, but a game so polisehd easily deserves a 9.… Expand
9
Dadrik
Apr 9, 2017
This is one of the best FE games out there.
Huge replayability, it'll keep you busy for easily 60 to 100 hours, if not even more.
The musicsThis is one of the best FE games out there.
Huge replayability, it'll keep you busy for easily 60 to 100 hours, if not even more.
The musics are stellar, the characters are great as well, and the gameplay is, as usual with the serie, incredible.
You can adapt it to your liking as well, do you want to experience it casually ? Or do you want the classic FE experience ? Well, you can chose, it's as you wish

Graphics are nice, even though for some reason no character has his/her feet modelised.

One of the best games of 2013, if not the best.… Expand
0
Phuz
Mar 9, 2022
So first let's address the elephant in the room. Or should I say horse? Every character has hooves for feet and these huge horse like legs.So first let's address the elephant in the room. Or should I say horse? Every character has hooves for feet and these huge horse like legs. They're ugly. They look like they have been kicked by a horse.

Beastiality isn't my thing. My next waifu being a donkey, doesn't really appeal to me.

Next the battles are awful and I am getting rid of this game after just a short time playing because of it. I played a side quest, made a silly error early doors and started again. My first move was identical on my rerun but the outcome was completely different. I redid this. Started again 4 times. Every time a different outcome from the same move. So I tried a different character. Same thing, random outcome every time. Then I went a step further with this second character and gave them support. They actually did worse with the support than without. Now I am someone who plays Fire Emblem on easy, if the option is available. I am not a major tactical strategist but come on, it is still a strategy game. I still love to plan, even if I'm not very good at it. How can I enjoy a strategy game that is purely down to luck? That is totally game breaking. You can't make a strategy for complete randomness. It just made the game pointless.

Next, the dialogue. I like text and I don't like stupid OTT Hollywood cr*p voiceovers. Give me text any day but please not with a one, or two word audio byte for every line. I don't want to hear constant nonsense like, hey, you sure, OK, urgh, that's right, let's go, or any other rubbish they spout.

OST. It's Fire Emblem - It's great.

Graphics? It's OK. I like the 3D stuff and it looks nice in general but then everything is totally ruined by forementioned horses.

I'm not some FE purist that only likes old games. Radiant Dawn was my first FE and 3 House's is my favourite game ever, if anything I prefer newer titles much more but this is just rubbish.

It has just cost me £35, so far it feels more like it's worth about £2, if that. That is just for the OST. I'm not really enjoying the game at all.

For reference 3 House's is a 10/10 for me and Radiant Dawn an 8.5+/10.

I feel I would enjoy a 3rd playthrough of 3 House's, or maybe actually playing my 4th house DLC a lot more than I'll ever like this.

No one, absolutely no one is giving me the magic that psycho Edlegard did. She was an exciting character. These characters in Awakening have left me disinterested in them, I'm really not that bothered to find out what they do next.

Dull, a polished turd, a gee gee's wet dream. A weird, dull game that sounds beautiful but looks horrific and plays badly.… Expand
User Reviews