Jhedin Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 So I finally am branching out from Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn to check out the other Fire Emblems I can get my hands on; this is partially spurred by my steady playing of FE Heroes, and therefore being interested in the additional cast. I got a copy of Awakening, so I'm starting there, which was my hope anyway. Some initial thoughts - I'm just starting Chapter 14... - The cutscene with Chrom and Lucina in Chapter 13 is 100% on point. Despite already knowing who she is due to FE Heroes, the CS definitely hit home. It's a good example of how to achieve emotion with minimal effort; Chrom's initial apology is on-character, and I think any person can empathize with Lucina getting to finally reveal herself to him. - I love the changes they made with supports. The "dual strike/guard" is a great addition, and seeing when actions encourage support (the little heart bubble) is nice. I also like that there seems to be an unlimited number of supports (besides spouses, of course). - On that note, marrying my characters weirds me out for some reason. I have no rational reason for this, it's just very foreign and messes with my sense of trying to have "canon" runs. At any rate, I married Chrom to Sumia and they've become my team's backbone except when I forget there's an archer over there. - Pair Up is a huge improvement over being penalized for using Rescue, but I still don't fully grasp how to best implement this strategically. - Second Seals are really nice. I have a tendency to grind RD and abuse Battle Save to get good level ups - with Second Seals, I can grind more "productively" by re-classing and then using the random battle maps. It's still grinding, but it feels more fruitful and fun than spending a ton of time Battle Saving and reloading. - Not classing up automatically at 20 weirds me out, but that's fine. - I really like the avatar and the hero being separate characters, and the avatar being optional on most maps. It gives the player a different perspective on the game compared to PoR/RD where the hero and avatar are basically the same character. Anyway, having fun with it so far. Mostly familiar with the overall story due to FE Heroes, so playing more to understand/appreciate the characters. So far so good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smgrinus Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 @Jhedin Awakenings is a good way to branch out into the 3DS series of Fire Emblem games. Intelligent Systems did a lot of things right but you are not the only one to get weirded out by some of the relationship choices you can make. I do wish the map design was better and bigger overall but it's a minor gripe. I do miss the height maps from Radiant Dawn which I think adds a lot. I'm unsure how you will feel about Fates when you eventually go to that. You may want to play Echoes after Awakenings for something different since it's essentially a retooling of the Gaiden series on NES and it's good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RexBolt Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 I'm also playing Awakening for the first time currently, having onlt played PoR before. While i love many of the changes and the characters, i'm having trouble to feel as engaged with the story and the gameplay as i was with PoR. I'm still in Ch. 17 because there's times i can pass days without playing simply because i don't feel like it, wich i never felt before. I see a lot of people loving Awakening and playing it for the Nth time in various challenges, but i don't see myself doing it. I just wish i could feel for this game what these other people felt. I wonder if it will be better for me in Fates. Did you also go tru something similar while playing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eclipse Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 The marriage system was first introduced in FE4, and it was a lot less fleshed-out there than in the DS games. But I will leave it up to FE4 to justify their system (while the technical aspects were strange, I think it was the best story implementation in all of FE). Pair-Up gives stats based on: 1. The other unit's class 2. Support levels 3. The other unit's stats Anyway, a light-and-fast class will give light-and-fast modifiers (Speed/Skill and whatnot), while a tank class will give tanky modifiers (Defense on Generals and the like). Knowing how to manipulate these is really helpful, especially if you're going for certain skill activation thresholds. For more details, read here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jhedin Posted September 9, 2018 Author Share Posted September 9, 2018 Marriage is just a little odd to me because it's odd to me to think that there aren't canonical parents (at least both of them) for the children. I'm not sure why that bothers me, or what that says about me, but it just strikes me odd. I do love the support retoolings though, otherwise. Support always felt more... passive... in RD, and in PoR I always felt limited and like I had to be highly critical of who supported who due to limits; whereas in Awakening, I can let everyone become friends and really see them get support points and see significant boosts when side-by-side with the dual strikes/guard. I pushed Chrom and Sumia since I planned to marry them, and I noticed their higher support really pushed them past the other characters by a mile. I hadn't actually noticed that elevation didn't affect battle, but I had a hunch that was the case from the Ch13 battle. I did like how PoR/RD did that. What is killing me is that cavalry/flyers don't get to move again after battling. That's been really hard to get used to. As for overall engagement, I feel like I can't judge that fairly - I know the basics of what happens from playing Heroes, so I can't speak to how engaged I'd be if I didn't. I'm intrigued to see where things go, and I like seeing who these characters getting love in Heroes are. It's also fun to see systems change/evolve from game to game. I'm planning on Fates next, since I haven't gotten a copy of Echoes yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Light Strategist Posted September 10, 2018 Share Posted September 10, 2018 1 hour ago, Jhedin said: Marriage is just a little odd to me because it's odd to me to think that there aren't canonical parents (at least both of them) for the children. I'm not sure why that bothers me, or what that says about me, but it just strikes me odd. If it helps, the only other instance of any of the kids showing up uses their default hair colours, gives an in-lore explaination for how it was done and fully changes their identities (for some reason). Of course that's because following up Awakening and using 3 of the kids means they have to find a way to change things withut upsetting people's pairings. Which is nice that they cared but they could've tried a little harder with the reasons for the identity changes. Honestly, I don't see why they couldn't just import the Awakening Data via a small app or something but I digress. Otherwise, they do a great job of keeping the fathers of the characters entirely unmentioned so don't worry about it too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jhedin Posted September 17, 2018 Author Share Posted September 17, 2018 Finished. Overall, enjoyed it. The support system modifications - dual strike/guard - were definitely my enhancement of choice. It feels good to actually "see" supports in action, as opposed to in the Tellius games where while you enjoy the benefits, they're just passive gains, and you don't have that same feeling of cooperation. It mean something to me that I had spouses constantly paired up fighting side-by-side. I ignored random map battles, and while doing so sped up my playthrough, if I play again I'll probably abuse them like crazy to build supports. The only children I recruited were Cynthia, Noire, Gerome, Nah, and Kjelle. I'd like to do more in the future, but there just wasn't enough time/maps left by the time I got to the end. Similarly, I feel like getting the parental supports done earlier will actually encourage me to use the children later. But I got them so late that there was no point in building up someone from level 10. I also liked the Second Seal concept more than I expected - reclassing was more fun than grinding intentionally good level ups (something I do in PoR/RD), and let you have some level of customization on your characters' skillsets. Giving Robin Astra was rather fun! Plus it seemed to build out their stats - I reclassed both Chrom and Robin a couple times and both had super beefy stats by the end because of it. Otherwise, the story didn't feel like anything too special. It was good, but didn't blow me away. This was one game where I wanted to the story to go faster so I could get back to the gameplay. Not a bad thing, just different. The final battle was pretty wild, though, and the meeting where Lucina reveals herself to Chrom is just perfect. I had Robin do the final blow, as well, and I rather liked that ending - nothing crazy over the top, just nice and low-key subtle. While I mentioned the story not being super special, it hits all the right notes, and does so with a certain grace - it's not smacking you in the face when it could be, and just lets moments be moments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥 Posted September 17, 2018 Share Posted September 17, 2018 some refer to Awakening as the saviour of the FE franchise, so i guess it's a title with its own charm. it has a nice amount of character customizations, and there's plenty of tactics you can use in battle. all in all, it's a good game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnie Posted September 18, 2018 Share Posted September 18, 2018 On 9/17/2018 at 7:21 AM, Jhedin said: I ignored random map battles, and while doing so sped up my playthrough, if I play again I'll probably abuse them like crazy to build supports. The only children I recruited were Cynthia, Noire, Gerome, Nah, and Kjelle. I'd like to do more in the future, but there just wasn't enough time/maps left by the time I got to the end. You can easily get all of the children in a no-grind run even on Hard Mode. You'll be spreading the experience a bit thin in the early game, but once you get to Chapter 12 you should be good to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi Posted September 18, 2018 Share Posted September 18, 2018 Another thing of note: kids coming in at level 10 can be deceiving. They inherit 1/3 of each parents' gains on top of their own bases and growths, so a kid with very experienced parents can end up fighting like a unit 20 levels higher than normal (once promoted), with the EXP gain rate of a regular level 10 (read: very fast). This can make certain early-mid-joining kids quite viable (Robin's kids get especially silly if they inherit Veteran or reclass to Tactician because they gain a level after every kill—and that's on top of them likely having very high bases due to Robin generally seeing lots of combat in most peoples' runs). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jhedin Posted September 19, 2018 Author Share Posted September 19, 2018 33 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said: Another thing of note: kids coming in at level 10 can be deceiving. They inherit 1/3 of each parents' gains on top of their own bases and growths, so a kid with very experienced parents can end up fighting like a unit 20 levels higher than normal (once promoted), with the EXP gain rate of a regular level 10 (read: very fast). This can make certain early-mid-joining kids quite viable (Robin's kids get especially silly if they inherit Veteran or reclass to Tactician because they gain a level after every kill—and that's on top of them likely having very high bases due to Robin generally seeing lots of combat in most peoples' runs). So I should have used the kids after all hahaha - well, that's what next time is for :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥 Posted September 19, 2018 Share Posted September 19, 2018 (edited) On 17/9/2018 at 1:21 PM, Jhedin said: I ignored random map battles, and while doing so sped up my playthrough, if I play again I'll probably abuse them like crazy to build supports. The only children I recruited were Cynthia, Noire, Gerome, Nah, and Kjelle. I'd like to do more in the future, but there just wasn't enough time/maps left by the time I got to the end. eventually, you can also challenge the bonus teams via streetpass if you want to build up supports and a bit of experience early. Edited September 19, 2018 by Fenreir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkwing Posted September 19, 2018 Share Posted September 19, 2018 On 9/17/2018 at 7:21 AM, Jhedin said: I ignored random map battles, and while doing so sped up my playthrough, if I play again I'll probably abuse them like crazy to build supports. The only children I recruited were Cynthia, Noire, Gerome, Nah, and Kjelle. I'd like to do more in the future, but there just wasn't enough time/maps left by the time I got to the end. A word of warning that the random battle maps are little more than free experience on Normal difficulty, but on Hard difficulty, they act more like challenge maps. All of them are still doable, of course, but expect to earn your extra experience. And on Lunatic... lets just say they it's a very clear sign that you won't be cheating your way through the difficulty via grinding. On 9/17/2018 at 7:21 AM, Jhedin said: I also liked the Second Seal concept more than I expected - reclassing was more fun than grinding intentionally good level ups (something I do in PoR/RD), and let you have some level of customization on your characters' skillsets. Giving Robin Astra was rather fun! Plus it seemed to build out their stats - I reclassed both Chrom and Robin a couple times and both had super beefy stats by the end because of it. On a bit of a side note, I also find relcassing to be good tool for ironmanning. You have to decide whether or not you're going to sacrifice a units current role to fulfill a different one, either to replace a fallen unit, or have a backup of, say, a thief. It adds another layer of strategy to the game, even if it results in it becoming even more broken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vercio Posted September 20, 2018 Share Posted September 20, 2018 On 9/9/2018 at 12:56 PM, Jhedin said: - Pair Up is a huge improvement over being penalized for using Rescue, but I still don't fully grasp how to best implement this strategically. Yes and no. Let's say that, in general, if you abuse the pair up command in the right way it can be op. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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