BANRYU

I was actually really hoping it WOULD have a huge amount of story chapters when I first got it, personally. It's a shame it didn't work out, but maybe next time. *shrug* Onward and upward, folks.

IMO the biggest flaw with Awakening is the story. It has easily the weakest story of all the Fire Emblem games I've ever played, and I think the overcomplicated, Final Fantasy-esque plot devices play a big part in that. Most the other games had relatively simple worlds, setups, and plot devices that just utilized a lot of political intrigue and some plot twists to make an engaging story. Awakening just fell pretty flat in that regard. But, not done that can be done to fix that without completely rewriting the game's script. I like the OP's idea of a FE4-esque time skip, but in general, I think there are so many possibilities on how to change the story that it would be impractical to discuss. Son instead, here are my three easy steps to making this game passable on the mechanical level: 1.) Eliminate Grinding I agree with the OP as to the principle, but not so much the execution. As much as I love Sacred Stones, I feel like it set some subpar standards for the series, among them the ability to grind which is fueled by the ability to free-roam on the map. An easy solution to the grinding problem is to disallow free-roaming on the map until the postgame. This would also help add an actual sense of urgency to the game's story that it's sorely lacking. (The ability to take a leisurely vacation to Valm while the plot wants your army to rush to the Dragon's Table as fast as possible is at least part of the reason why the game's story has little impact, IMO.) 2.) Balanced Higher Difficulties I pretty much agree with the OP on this one. I enjoy a good challenge meself; I love me some challenging-but-fair Megamanz, but I'm not touching Awakening's Lunatic mode. No bragging rights are worth that kind of misery. 3.) Fixing the Magic System This was by far the simplest / most obvious to fix thing about the game. Why, when not so long ago we had the lovely elaborate double-triangle magic system from Radiant Dawn do we now go to just having Wind and Dark magic? Yeah, Fire and Lightning are in the game, but they're pointless since nothing is weak to them. That seems pretty unbalanced to me, and makes me wonder why they're even there at all if the Anima weakness triangle doesn't exist. That, and the fact that any magic-user can use any type of magic really lessens the impact of the different elements of magic even more. RD had a great system, why fix what isn't broken? (hell I don't even care that Light magic isn't in the game; it'd be nice, but most of the classes seem like they were designed without it in mind, so meh) Easily fixed by doing this: - Mages > specialized Fire / Wind / Thunder Mages - Dark Mages / Sorcerers use only Dark Magic - Sages use all three + staves, making them the only class to get all three - Fire Mages upgrade to Sage or Dark Knight (Dark Knights wield Swords and Fire Magic) - Thunder Mages upgrade to Sage or Valkyrie (Valks use Staves and Thunder Magic) - Wind Mages upgrade to Sage or Darkflier (DF use Lance and Wind Magic) - Tactician picks a type of magic to specialize in, then another one on promotion to Grandmaster for a total of Sword + 2 types of anima - Beast units weak to Fire / Wyvern units weak to Thunder (also have Pegasus Knights be only Flying / Wyvern Riders be only Wyvern; Griffon Riders being both Beast and Flying would be more unique that way) It sounds more complicated than it actually is, but yeah. That's what I'd have done. EDIT: I'd just like to say in response to this that time constraints absolutely are an issue in this field. I don't know the details of it myself, but everything has deadlines in the professional field, and you just have to work with what time you have. Incidentally, while I regret that nearly all the effort in Awakening's script went into its very high-school-locker-room-esque supports, I think it's at least noteworthy to realize that this opens up the Fire Emblem series to a larger audience, meaning not only the survival of the series (it wasn't going to continue after Awakening if it didn't do well), but the possibility of greater improvements now that it's sort of hit the 'mainstream' among gamers. It may not have been as great as previous games, but at least there's that silver lining.

Thank you! And apologies, I don't speak/read whichever northern european language that is .w. ;;

A lot of the characters left really poor first impressions on me, like Virion, Maribelle, and Henry, but in time I grew to love pretty much everybody. …Except Anna. She's the only one whose weird, unlikable quirk was too lopsided compared to any positive traits she was supposed to have-- and so far as I've seen, there really aren't any. Avarice is not a likable personality trait to have, especially when it's your only one. I think she COULD have been interesting, if maybe they dove a little deeper into why she's so tightfisted with her money and such, but as it is, she's basically just greedy without explanation nor concern for anyone but herself. (Hell even Tharja's questionable actions with how she treats her daughter are explained better, if not justified!) I think her confession quote pretty much sums up what I don't like about her: Anna's cool in the other games, but I hate how she has hardcore Nurse Joy syndrome in this one… And that's… just… …stupid. ...Incidentally, everyone's favorite punching bag Tharja is one of my favorite people in this game. <3 I get why people have a problem with her, I really do, but... I just can't bring myself to dislike her, she's so morbidly adorable >w< And not altogether a terrible person either despite how she treats people. I swear I must be the only person who doesn't just like Tharja because she's hawt.

Thanks, folks! Ah, BlueWyvern's reply reminds me; Are there any sprite resources for Awakening anywhere in here? I've checked places like the Spriter's Resource and the Fire Emblem Wiki, but they have minimal Awakening sprite resources at best-- specifically I'm looking for things like the NPC units and avatar mugshot options and such. Might anyone around have that stuff, or the tools to make it happen?

'Sup, everyone? I made my debut here last night hanging out with some lovely folks on the chat. The name's Banryu; no need to capitalize it when addressing me, I just capsed it because it looks cool. I'm a big FE fan and I've known about SFF for a while now, so I suppose me joining is a bit late in coming, but better late than never I suppose? I'm in the US and thus my first introduction to the series was SSB Melee, as well as the followup US release of Blazing Sword. I've also played a bit of Sacred Stones and own Radiant Dawn and of course Awakening. I love both the strategy and the relationships, and I particularly like how most of the games up until the Shadow Dragon remake don't oversexualize their character designs, a simple design choice that I've always approved of. Eh, but maybe I'm going a bit overboard on introductions. Sorry, tendency to ramble and all that. Any other relevant information...? Well, I like to have intelligent conversations and debates with people, and I try to keep it respectful, though I do sometimes get a little heated / blunt / rude-- though usually I try to do it for comedic effect, I typically mean no offense. I might try to do some RP on here, or more likely just confer mad strats for Awakening Streetpass stuff. I suppose that just about does it…? Oh yeah, one more thing. I'm Batman.