Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS) (Spoilers)
There are rare instances when I feel like every single facet of a game was designed to please me. This year saw two such games: Fire Emblem: Awakening and Pokemon X.
Fire Emblem has been a favorite of mine since I first stumbled upon the game probably a decade ago. I bought the first GBA title thinking it was an action-platformer, based on a televised commercial I had seen some weeks before I bought it at Target, on the way home from what must have been LegoLand. Of course, it wasn’t that- it was an introduction to my favorite genre in video games.
That’s easier to say after playing Fire Emblem: Awakening. That the SRPG is my favorite genre. Easier to say when Fire Emblem: Awakening might just be my favorite game.
A difficult claim to make, as it always is when contemplating something so important, so defining to my character. Choosing a favorite game of all time means displacing your last favorite- such a claim would suggest that I liked Fire Emblem: Awakening more than Super Smash Brothers Brawl. And in turn more than Pokemon X, more than Radiant Dawn, more than Disgaea 4, more than Call of Duty: Black Ops, more than 007: Agent Under Fire, Warcraft III, Tales of Symphonia, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Lord of the Rings Conquest- than every game I’ve ever played, than every world I’ve ever fallen in love with.
Writing about Fire Emblem: Awakening is difficult then, you can imagine. Trying to impart how I feel about it is nearly impossible. Certainly, it isn’t something I’m capable of.
A checklist never does a game justice, slapping “amazing” next to every aspect of the title, its music or story or graphics or gameplay, or the relationship between all of those. A checklist can never do Fire Emblem: Awakening justice either.
I always felt like a game’s OST can gush about it more than I ever can. I purchased Fire Emblem: Awakening’s OST for my brother’s birthday. I probably haven’t ever given a gift I wanted more for myself than that one. The cover was amazing, exquisite art of Lucina that spread for a nearly full-body display. The plastic case even sparkled. The whole of the OST is amazing, but one song moves me to question every word I could use to describe Fire Emblem: Awakening. “Don’t Speak Her Name.”
The stage blew my mind. I have done nothing more difficult in my life than command my troops slaughter the Plegian men of Mustafa, their great general. I’ve read novels, watched movies, played games that tried to impart to me the terrors of war. “Don’t Speak Her Name” and the rest of Chapter 11 succeeded. Every single action, every move, every attack made me cringe, because I knew there was no choice but to fight through the Plegian soldiers.
For the first time in any medium, a death did not leave me with a thirst for vengeance- it left me only with bleak, empty sadness. I was crushed. It took me almost an hour to beat the level, every action I took heavy with contemplation. All while “Don’t Speak Her Name” riveted my soul.
But Fire Emblem: Awakening was not The Last of Us: there were plenty of moments to be found that were not drenched in gut-wrenching sorrow-sauce. Marrying Sumia, meeting my daughters, discovering Lucina’s true identity- there was happiness to be found. Until I accidentally saved over my original file, my original persona, my original wife, my original friends. It could not be replicated- I did not even attempt to.
I married Anna after that, and I think the match far more suitable. I’m happy with her (you’d think her real). Her wit and verbal sparring with me thoroughly entertained me, and crushing began immediately. Though it’s probably safe to assume I’ve been crushing on Anna since Blazing Sword. I made a new team, regrew lost relationships, and re-met the world’s calamities.
And, oddly, the loss of data seems appropriate in a game about separate timelines. My new file was simply a new timeline, and by recruiting my old avatar, a new head-canon was created, one in which a Michael had to face the terrible truth that his world was dead, his wife married to another man, his daughters claiming different fathers in this new world. Saddening, but he had another Michael at his side who could understand.
About nine other Michaels, actually. Yep. I’ve farmed up ten individual, identical avatars, each with different abilities that seek to specialize their traits to the extreme. One has crit that would make a Berserker blush. One has so many means to heal he’d likely never die. Another halves all forms of damage. The original has every Breaker in the game. An army of elite. The world’s greatest soldiers.
Fire Emblem: Awakening ensured my 3DS never left my pocket save to sit in my hands. Its gameplay resonated with its themes, its themes resonated with its characters, and its story resonated with me. Every single piece of Fire Emblem: Awakening is part of a whole that isn’t just cohesive, it’s flawless.