People preference Does Anybody still like Awakening more than Fates.

[Thor Odinson]

I'm not too fussed on plot at the end of the day, but I'm a lot more attached to the cast of Fates (moreso in Birthright than Conquest) and I don't really have strong attachments to anyone in Awakening. I think it's safe to say I care about Ryoma alone more than the Awakening cast added together, and he's certainly not the only character I like in Fates.

But also, stronger gameplay too.

[Butterstroke]

Honestly, Awakening is better to me than Fates as it was the game that brought me into Fire Emblem. Also, I like Chrom and Frederick more than Corrin and Azura (As much as the ocean's gray waves). But, Fates (Birthright at least.) is still a good game to me.

[TheSilentChloey]

I neglected to mention that I find Awakening to be the more enjoyable game for me because I'm more invested in the characters than what I've seen so far of Fates. And I doubt that will change even if I were to get Fates.

[mikethepokemaster]

I neglected to mention that I find Awakening to be the more enjoyable game for me because I'm more invested in the characters than what I've seen so far of Fates. And I doubt that will change even if I were to get Fates.

I feel the same, I like Fates characters but Awakenings cast is better to me and I just like the comedy that Fe 13 has too. :) Fe 14 while it has it funny moments it more a drama filled story.

[SageOfAnys]

I do like Awakening - heck, it introduced me to the series - but after Fates, I don't know if I can go back at this point. I'm invested far more with much more characters in Fates than I was Awakening, and after playing Fates and the other older FEs, I find Awakening's gameplay extremely bland and unexciting at this point. Conquest has just the right amount of challenge and the great design I never really knew I wanted so bad. Also bonus points to Fates once again for the amazing OST and actually having a challenging Final Level in Conquest unlike Awakening's and Blazing Sword's. What about Sacred Stones you say? HAHAHA we don't talk about that final level.

[mikethepokemaster]

I do like Awakening - heck, it introduced me to the series - but after Fates, I don't know if I can go back at this point. I'm invested far more with much more characters in Fates than I was Awakening, and after playing Fates and the other older FEs, I find Awakening's gameplay extremely bland and unexciting at this point. Conquest has just the right amount of challenge and the great design I never really knew I wanted so bad. Also bonus points to Fates once again for the amazing OST and actually having a challenging Final Level in Conquest unlike Awakening's and Blazing Sword's. What about Sacred Stones you say? HAHAHA we don't talk about that final level.

While I don't think just because an game is outdated and play style is update doesn't mean you stop playing that game. I like Fate but I still play Awakening too.But glad to hear you still love Awakening. :)

[Captain Karnage]

I never liked Awakening's pair up, dual strike, and dual guard

it was way too luck based and you couldn't rely on it early on in game

map design was poor

the difficulty was inconscent

F*ING AMBUSH SPAWNS

Lunatic was luck based

Street Pass was kind of a mess

I felt like there were too many throw away supports

the story felt uninvolved

NOBODY ACTUALLY DIES IN AWAKENING

and I enjoyed Conquest's plot more than Awakening's

Awakening's plot was just too dull and boring for me to enjoy

Edited April 28, 2016 by Captain Karnage

[FrostyFireMage]

I can't help but be reminded by the "Zelda Cycle" when reading this thread

[mikethepokemaster]

I can't help but be reminded by the "Zelda Cycle" when reading this thread

Zelda cycle what is that.

[Captain Karnage]

Zelda cycle what is that.

unrelated but here an example

whenever the newest Zelda game comes out everyone hates it and praises the last one that came out, even though when that game came out everybody hated it

like how Twilight Princess is to Skyward Sword

Wind Waker is to Majora's Mask

and How WiiU/NX will be to Skyward Sword

as for FE

Sacred Stones to Blazing Sword

Shadow Dragon to Radiant Dawn

New Mystery of The Emblem to Awakening

now its Fates to Awakening

[shadowofchaos]

I think one thing I really dislike about Awakening that made me jump onto If/Fates... it's not the whole "Chrom/Lucina x MU" BS. People's choices are a lot more varied... hence, the rabid shippers are fewer.

I, in particular, had to deal with this a lot more, being one of the bigger owners of an FE based channel.

[The Geek]

Awakening is a fine game and still ranks highly for me, but Fates absolutely blows it out of the water.

I don't even need to explain why Fates' gameplay is better, even Birthright which is the most similar to Awakening benefits from the revamped pair-up/dual strike and weapon systems.

Hoshido and most of Nohr's class designs are fantastic whereas a lot of Awakening's were meh.

And I'm not as bothered by Corrin as I was by Robin because Corrin is actually capable of screwing up in the story.

The characters too, in general, I found much more engaging than Awakening's. Awakening's cast was enjoyable and memorable, but Fates' cast is that and more.

Also, I liked that more characters actually had stuff to do with the story than in Awakening where almost all the story was surrounding Chrom, Robin, and Lucina, with Frederick and Lissa sometimes chiming in to give their thoughts on the situation.

[SageOfAnys]

While I don't think just because an game is outdated and play style is update doesn't mean you stop playing that game. I like Fate but I still play Awakening too.But glad to hear you still love Awakening. :)

Oh I'm not going to stop playing and I'm not going to stop having fun by breaking a game in two. I still actually have 2 playthroughs left I still need to finish (1 normal throw-away one and another Lunatic one), but I know that I won't enjoy it as much as I did before. I already felt the feeling at a smaller scale when I went from Conquest to Birthright, so I can only imagine the transition to Awakening.

[mikethepokemaster]

I think one thing I really dislike about Awakening that made me jump onto If/Fates... it's not the whole "Chrom/Lucina x MU" BS. People's choices are a lot more varied... hence, the rabid shippers are fewer.

I, in particular, had to deal with this a lot more, being one of the bigger owners of an FE based channel.

Really I thought the shipping wars were just as bad you have people screming Corrin x Azura canon or Oboro x Takumi vs Camilla x Takumi. I love Robin x Lucina but Lucina x Inigo is a sweet pairing too. To bad Fate ruin severa, Owain, and Inigo endgame pairings. -_- I guess I can look at like there are different timelines, thanks to the outer realms.

unrelated but here an example

whenever the newest Zelda game comes out everyone hates it and praises the last one that came out, even though when that game came out everybody hated it

like how Twilight Princess is to Skyward Sword

Wind Waker is to Majora's Mask

and How WiiU/NX will be to Skyward Sword

as for FE

Sacred Stones to Blazing Sword

Shadow Dragon to Radiant Dawn

New Mystery of The Emblem to Awakening

now its Fates to Awakening

Really I didn't know Zelda fanbase was that bi-polar. I just assume Awakening was dislike because it wasn't hard to vets

[Anomalocaris]

I like both, but I think I'll have to give the edge to Awakening for a number of reasons. One of which is that it was my first foray into the series so it kinda holds a special place in my withered, blackened old heart.

First let me sing Fates' praises. Fates has better map design, ESPECIALLY Conquest. Even Birthright and Revelations generally had more interesting maps than Awakening's, which only had a few particularly stand-out maps. Some of the aesthetic improvements, like the character models having feet and the camera whooshing down to the battlefield are nice, and My Castle is a lot of fun. It also has a more fair and balanced Hard and Lunatic difficulties (Mostly due to reinforcements), but I don't mess with those difficulties much anyway. Some quality-of-life improvements like being able to summon enemies on the map without Reeking Boxes or learning new skills more quickly after reclassing are also nice. Also less gender-locked classes, and the ability to adjust difficulty mid-file.

But just about everything else I prefer Awakening.

- The characters. I just find Awakening's cast more entertaining and engaging. Sure, there's a few gimmicks like Ricken's shortness, Cordelia's Chrom-obsession, and Kellam's... lack of presence, but I just personally find them more interesting characters than what Fates has to offer; It has a few standout characters like Arthur and Setsuna, but a lot of the other characters, especially the siblings, just feel rather bland and uninteresting.

- The player avatar. I've written paragraphs about this before, but Robin is WAY better a player avatar than Corrin. Most of it is because Robin is a viewpoint character but they are NOT the main character, whereas Corrin tries to pull double duty and winds up failing at both. I wrote more here, if you want to read: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=61304&p=4316915

- The story. I think most people will agree with me that Awakening's story is superior to all three of Fates'. But honestly, I never understood why Awakening's story is considered so bad. It's fairly standard stuff but I don't see what makes it much worse than any of the other stories in the series, and I actually feel like they did a good job handling the three separate story arcs and keeping the characters' actions consistent and understandable. It works for me.

- The villains. Another point that most people would agree with me on. Garon and Hans are just mindless thugs who kill for no reason and have no other defining traits, Iago's just Excellus but even more of a failure and doesn't even seem to have any actual goal, and Anankos is pretty mindless outside of the DLC. Awakening's main villains are better in my opinion. Gangrel and Walhart are a lot deeper than they appear at first glance (Even excluding their post-recruitment stuff), and a lot of the minor bosses like Cervantes, Pheros, Excellus, and Aversa have some interesting dialogue and motivations if you engage them with the right unit. Validar's the only human antagonist who comes across as pointlessly evil and stupid. Grima's also fairly bland since all we see of him is that he's gonna destroy the world, but he at least manages to be entertainingly sardonic every time he speaks.

- Between Awakening's weapon durability and Fates' various properties, I think I have to give it to Awakening. Yeah, it means there's no reason not to just stock up on Brave weapons, Thoron, Hand Axes, and Javelins for everything, and legendary weapons having durability sucks, but Fates' weapon system is a bit too complex for my liking and I feel like there's pretty much never any reason to use any B- or A-rank weapons. It just feel like a jumbled mess of stat-ups and -downs.

- Kids. I don't think I need to elaborate on why Awakening's child system is much better than Fates'.

And then a lot of more minor points, some of which people have already stated in this thread; Awakening's UI is much more intuitive and useful, its map is much more interesting than Fates' "smears of colors with random points chosen as levels", the general color schemes and menus feel a lot nicer and more welcoming than Fates', the forging system is a lot less inconvenient, the dialogue and voiced lines are a lot wittier, the confession artworks are better than Fates' Live2D confessions, so on and so forth.

To sum it up, I like both as games, but I can get lost in Awakening's world for eons, while Fates I just want to play the maps and move on. I can see myself returning to Awakening again some day despite doing 4.5 playthroughs of it, while Fates I don't see myself doing much beyond the remaining DLC and maybe another Conquest run.

Edited April 29, 2016 by Anomalocaris

[Captain Karnage]

outside of chapter 24 in Revelations the later half of Revelation's maps are horribly gimmicky and I'd rather have Awakening's 3 best maps than the latter half of the game

[mikethepokemaster]

I like both, but I think I'll have to give the edge to Awakening for a number of reasons. One of which is that it was my first foray into the series so it kinda holds a special place in my withered, blackened old heart.

First let me sing Fates' praises. Fates has better map design, ESPECIALLY Conquest. Even Birthright and Revelations generally had more interesting maps than Awakening's, which only had a few particularly stand-out maps. Some of the aesthetic improvements, like the character models having feet and the camera whooshing down to the battlefield are nice, and My Castle is a lot of fun. It also has a more fair and balanced Hard and Lunatic difficulties (Mostly due to reinforcements), but I don't mess with those difficulties much anyway. Some quality-of-life improvements like being able to summon enemies on the map without Reeking Boxes or learning new skills more quickly after reclassing are also nice. Also less gender-locked classes, and the ability to adjust difficulty mid-file.

But just about everything else I prefer Awakening.

- The characters. I just find Awakening's cast more entertaining and engaging. Sure, there's a few gimmicks like Ricken's shortness, Cordelia's Chrom-obsession, and Kellam's... lack of presence, but I just personally find them more interesting characters than what Fates has to offer; It has a few standout characters like Arthur and Setsuna, but a lot of the other characters, especially the siblings, just feel rather bland and uninteresting.

- The player avatar. I've written paragraphs about this before, but Robin is WAY better a player avatar than Corrin. Most of it is because Robin is a viewpoint character but they are NOT the main character, whereas Corrin tries to pull double duty and winds up failing at both. I wrote more here, if you want to read: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=61304&p=4316915

- The story. I think most people will agree with me that Awakening's story is superior to all three of Fates'. But honestly, I never understood why Awakening's story is considered so bad. It's fairly standard stuff but I don't see what makes it much worse than any of the other stories in the series, and I actually feel like they did a good job handling the three separate story arcs and keeping the characters' actions consistent and understandable. It works for me.

- The villains. Another point that most people would agree with me on. Garon and Hans are just mindless thugs who kill for no reason and have no other defining traits, Iago's just Excellus but even more of a failure and doesn't even seem to have any actual goal, and Anankos is pretty mindless outside of the DLC. Awakening's main villains are better in my opinion. Gangrel and Walhart are a lot deeper than they appear at first glance (Even excluding their post-recruitment stuff), and a lot of the minor bosses like Cervantes, Pheros, Excellus, and Aversa have some interesting dialogue and motivations if you engage them with the right unit. Validar's the only human antagonist who comes across as pointlessly evil and stupid. Grima's also fairly bland since all we see of him is that he's gonna destroy the world, but he at least manages to be entertainingly sardonic every time he speaks.

- Between Awakening's weapon durability and Fates' various properties, I think I have to give it to Awakening. Yeah, it means there's no reason not to just stock up on Brave weapons, Thoron, Hand Axes, and Javelins for everything, and legendary weapons having durability sucks, but Fates' weapon system is a bit too complex for my liking and I feel like there's pretty much never any reason to use any B- or A-rank weapons. It just feel like a jumbled mess of stat-ups and -downs.

- Kids. I don't think I need to elaborate on why Awakening's child system is much better than Fates'.

And then a lot of more minor points, some of which people have already stated in this thread; Awakening's UI is much more intuitive and useful, its map is much more interesting than Fates' "smears of colors with random points chosen as levels", the general color schemes and menus feel a lot nicer and more welcoming than Fates', the forging system is a lot less inconvenient, the dialogue and voiced lines are a lot wittier, the confession artworks are better than Fates' Live2D confessions, so on and so forth.

To sum it up, I like both as games, but I can get lost in Awakening's world for eons, while Fates I just want to play the maps and move on. I can see myself returning to Awakening again some day despite doing 4.5 playthroughs of it, while Fates I don't see myself doing much beyond the remaining DLC and maybe another Conquest run.

I like how much depth you put into your post I can tell you are a passionate fan of Awakening. Yeah I agree with you on Awakening handling the children better and just the main cast better as well. While I like certain characters like Keaton, Benny, Charlotte, Effie, Arther, and the siblings I can't seem to find the other character that interesting. I like Flora, Felicia and Beruka too (Conquest IP) :). Awakening stoy hold pretty good, I especially like Walhart's arc some might consider it filler, but it is good filler. The character in Awakening are all good characters from best girls Cherche and Lucina to best dude Gregor, well some are meh Panne for me is meh.

[mikethepokemaster]

outside of chapter 24 in Revelations the later half of Revelation's maps are horribly gimmicky and I'd rather have Awakening's 3 best maps than the latter half of the game

Sorry for double posting but revelation map are bad? I am playing Revelation right now, along with Conquest. I a on chapter 12 I think. I really hated the frozen ice map with the boats, I had to wait like 6 turns to do anything -_- rest of the maps were cool.

Edited April 29, 2016 by mikethepokemaster

[Arch]

Just go play FE5.

[Sunwoo]

I feel like I don't know how to answer this question.

On the one hand, the only FE game I've been playing lately is if. Yes, if. I play the Japanese version more than the English version, which I really have no explanation for other than I think I enjoyed it more when I couldn't understand anything. On the other hand, I got burned out on Fates a hell of a lot faster than I did on Awakening. I was still playing Awakening like … over a year after I had gotten it? Fates, I didn't even last a year. The English version lasted even less.

On the one hand, I enjoyed more characters in Awakening. Miriel, Laurent, Maribelle, Henry, Sumia, Cherche, Brady, Cynthia, Gerome, Olivia, Inigo … and Lissa and Owain weren't bad either. I did find I liked more characters. … But on the other hand, I like the characters I do like in Fates more. Takumi, Oboro, and Sakura I really like, and I like Takumi and Oboro more than any of the Awakening cast. There are a few other Fates characters that I also have favorable opinions on, but my attention is mostly on the above three. So, do I go with quantity or quality here? That said … Robin was all right to me and I liked Robin a lot more. I barely tolerate Kamui.

Gameplay … is really not a contest. Fates is good at gameplay.

If you asked me which one I enjoy playing more right now, I'd say Fates just because I'm playing it now and I hadn't touched Awakening in months. But if you asked me which one I got more mileage of and enjoyed more at the time, I'd have to say without a doubt Awakening.

[mikethepokemaster]

Just go play FE5.

Tried it, its to old for me, no offense to ya. I couldn't get into it, maybe if they remade the game I would give it a try. I did play 4 a little bit too good story, I just couldn't get into the game play. I am probably to use the gba and 3ds fire emblem games. sorry :(

[Topaz Light]

While I feel my better judgment warning me not to post my thoughts here... I'm going to, anyway.

Aaaaaand my better judgment won out so I'm just gonna shorten this drastically to "Fates wins in gameplay, Awakening wins in story".

Edited April 29, 2016 by Topaz Light

[eclipse]

They both have their good points.

Awakening: Other than the legendary weapons/stat boosters/other things that are supposed to be rare, mostly everything was easy to get. Forging was a huge step up from the DS games (as in, WAY less broken and I feel it's a lot better than Fates' hoarding system). The item menus were a lot less obnoxious, and your character actually equipped a weapon if they fished it out of a chest/inventory! Also, the bajillion throwback characters were amusing.

Fates: MUCH better mechanics, and better handling of avatar's class choices. Personal skills are a wonderful touch. Skirmishes not being tied to stores is great, because it means I don't have to beat up enemies just to buy stuff like Javelins. Proper two-ranged swords, one-range bows, a weapon of every type that works off the magic stat (along with classes that can use 'em), and the return of the reavers!

Can't really say I like one better than the other, because their strong points are in different places. I feel that Fates' main story maps are stronger, but Awakening is a lot more fun to optimize for endgame weapons. As for Actual Story and Characters. . .Fates barely wins in story (by fixing Awakening's flaw of "too many things at once"), and I like the guys in Fates better. Characterization is a toss-up - some of the characters in both games had amazing supports (Maribelle/Gaius versus Niles/Beruka, plz don't make me choose).

Edited April 29, 2016 by eclipse

[Inference]

Awakening and Fates are both fodder for the Start button in my eyes, so I'm not going to waste much time on story.

But it took me this quote:

Conquest is probably one of the best FE's I've ever played, when I finish it(on chapter 23) i might end up changing my favorite FE.

to think about and truly realize just how much I adore Conquest's gameplay. Add to that some of the most entertaining supports in the series and there is no way I can even talk about Awakening and Conquest on a similar level.

Edited April 29, 2016 by Inference

[Geo☆1088]

To be fair I haven't actually played Conquest yet, but after playing Birthright I definitely still prefer Awakening. Even with Birthright, the gameplay was better than Awakening's 2 battle types, and I preferred Awakening's story to Birthright's. (Also, I liked Awakening's menu UI/UX better but that's a totally different conversation.)

We'll see how that all changes once I get around to playing Conquest/Revalation though.