Is Awakening your top/favorite FE game?

[Reginleif]

Best graphics & ... CHILDREN <3

[Airship Canon]

Yes.
Why? Replay Value. This game's got it in spades. Why? Pairing system, reclassing, elite tweak factor.
Throw in a huge amount of content, and wham.
Sure the story's not that great, but outside of the Jugdral games (and maybe Sacred Stones, maybe) it's not that great anywhere else in the series.
But it's got a great cast. I don't think I've liked a set of characters this much at all in the entire series. Sure there's some that I don't like (Donnel, Boring'ri, Gangrel (both as a villain and as a playable), Aversa), but other than that, I've found myself enjoying these characters more than any others... and a lot of the "bland character" complaints are failures at reading comprehension. (Most notably for Lucina, but there's plenty of others. (Say'ri, I think was robbed, honestly. She has a solid base, but her lack of supports ruin her. Completely.))
Oh, and guess what? I like the maps. No, that's not a jest. I really do. They're like FE4's, which were the best in the series if you ask me. Only ones I don't like really are One from FE7, One that plays like it's from FE6/7/8, and a single forgettable map with too many forest tiles.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Airship Canon

[Fire Emblem Fan]

No, Awakening is not my favorite FE game nor do I think it is the best in the series (obviously, since it isn't my favorite). The customization, the big amount of content, and just all the options in general are cool. But the story wasn't too great, the map designs weren't very good, and the Avatar just completely took over everything after a certain point of the game and they had no feet. However the music was cool, and the graphics were good. And although the story overall wasn't great it did have a couple certain parts that were good.

My favorite game in the series is 7. I liked nearly every character, most of them are among my favorite characters of the series. I like the map designs, they fit each section and weren't overly big or small. I like the entire story, it felt deep to me after learning everything through replaying it multiple times (learning things like Ninian and Nils being Nergal's kids, that's deep man, and then even more emotional deepness when Eliwood 'killed' Ninian), and the Morphs made nice villains. The music was good, too, the recruitment theme in that one is my favorite. And I cannot leave out the beautiful battle animations, so smooth and fluid.

[Ema Skye]

No, not really. I find people taking this game way too seriously kinda kills my enjoyment with the game (waifu wars, optimum pairs).

Guess that's kinda supposed to be expected though because it's new.

[Mighty Kamina]

I'd say for now Awakening is my favorite because I have had more fun with Awakening than with almost any other game I've played (Only beaten by Xenoblade Chronicles and a few other games). However that being said it is definitely not the best in the series. That title belongs to FE5 IMO.

I mean the cast is my favorite in the series, but the plot had a lot of wasted potential IMO (lol Valm Arc), Gameplay is fun but ridiculously unbalanced (That being said I like how no character is unusably bad like some characters in older FE games), etc.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Virion

[Constable Reggie]

They're like FE4's, which were the best in the series if you ask me.

Fe4's maps were specifically tailored for one (important) reason, though. I'm not sure many people think Fe4's level design/interestingness gameplay-wise is that great.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Sunwoo]

^If you have a smart phone then, FE1-8 are at your disposal at school.

I have a DS that I use to pay FE7 and FE8. I can't find my charger though and the battery ran out, and I'm too lazy to look for it. I'm also too lazy to setup my Wii to play the Tellius games, plus I have no idea where I left off last time. I like Awakening and it has high replay value and I'm clearly playing it a lot now, but it's not my favorite. It's good, but once the "new game" hype wore off I found that it doesn't draw me in as well as Tellius or Elibe did.

[Airship Canon]

Fe4's maps were specifically tailored for one (important) reason, though. I'm not sure many people think Fe4's level design/interestingness gameplay-wise is that great.

However, I do, and this is a strictly subjective point.

I enjoy use of tanks and positioning in more open battlefields. (Hell my favorite map in FE4 was Ch9. Guess what? There weren't any real chokepoints (sure there was the Northern canyon, but there's no enemies there, besides the derpy mercs). It was wide open, and the enemy was a fleet of fliers the whole way. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THAT MAP.)

[darkkfan]

I still like the Tellius games more, since PoR has a stronger narrative and RD has better map design by like miles. Still, I enjoyed Awakening a whole lot and it's among my top 3DS games, only just below Etrian Odyssey IV probably.

lolnope

I fall in the middle. I think it's a great game that has a few issues that keep it from being grand. That fanboying over this game is a bit annoying as is the polar opposite reactions.

But hey, what do I know, my favourite games are FE8 and FE11.

These two basically sum up my overall views on Awakening if you replace FE11 with FE10 in the second post.

FE13 was a step in the right direction towards adding difficulty with Luna+, but mechanics like pair up and counter mean that it could be a lot more refined. Not to mention all the things people already touched upon like lack of map variety and objectives, as well as plot.

[Thor Odinson]

Gameplaywise it's up there, not from a balance point of view but pure fun point of view. Story/cast is far from.

Thracia is my actual fav tho.

[Vorena]

Fe4's maps were specifically tailored for one (important) reason, though. I'm not sure many people think Fe4's level design/interestingness gameplay-wise is that great.

FE4 chapter layouts end up having a rather unique niche in the series for me. I think a couple chapters here and there could have avoided the feeling of having to back track so much such as Ch 2.

[Knight]

It's normal mode is too easy, there's large parts of the plot I dislike, most NPC's and villains are uninteresting (though the PC's were excellent) and there were a number of bland maps as well. Overall, the game has added some great elements, and was truly ambitious. Many of the ideas and features added in this I hope become staples, while many others I hope not. It's 2nd on my list of favourite FE's, 1st is a three-way tie between 7,9, and 10.

[LunaSaint]

Not my favourite, but it has replayability in spades and a system reeking in potential.

If people ever work out how to hack this, it will likely shoot up my list.

[Shin]

FE13's somewhere in the middle for me, I prefer the likes of FE4, 5 and 9.

[PrinceLeaf]

I've spent over 80 hours playing Awakening. It the most well polished Fire Emblem to date, but its not my favorite. The game I love and keep going back to is FE4. I loved the story in that game, I loved how it takes place in two generations, I loved the overall challenge, and I loved the skills that were introduced and carried on to future games. This was the first and only game before Awakening to use the marriage and kids feature. With this feature, your actions in generation 1 determine how your units will be in generation 2. I'm such a huge sucker for this feature because it opens a door to different possibilities. I do consider Awakening to be my second favorite in the series because of these reasons: Awakening borrows many great features from previous games and expands upon them immensely. That, and this game is ****ing massive! There is a lot of replayability in Awakening. Had I played Awakening first however, I may have hated FE4.

Edit- One thing I forgot to mention was how much I love the soundtrack for FE4.

Edited July 31, 2013 by PrinceLeaf

[Phoenix Wright]

Once I finish FE4 and FE5, I'd imagine my complete list would be as follows:

FE5 > FE7 > FE4 > FE13 > FE12 > FE9 > FE10 > FE8 > FE6 > FE3 > FE11 > FE2 > FE1

Maybe 5 and 7 switched.

7 was my introduction and a fantastic game with amazing characters.

Gameplay ALONE, though, it's probably FE5 and FE13 at the top, followed by GBA, GC/Wii, SNES, DS, NES. The discrepancies after the GBA era are very minor (honestly I think all of the FE titles are a ton of fun to play).

[Carter]

lolnope

I fall in the middle. I think it's a great game that has a few issues that keep it from being grand. That fanboying over this game is a bit annoying as is the polar opposite reactions.

But hey, what do I know, my favourite games are FE8 and FE11.

I liked FE8 too! It was my first FE game anyways, so that's what got me started.

[1% critted]

It took my favorite features of other FEs(Children,World map,DS games hax difficulty, Reclassing,Marriage), added good things(can do all supports in one go, a postgame), I liked the pair up system as well. It has excellent soundtrack and great visuals, and a lot of replaybility and depth in customization.

Right now it's actually my second favorite game of all time, only beaten by the MSTRPIECE that is Xenoblade.

Edited July 31, 2013 by 1% critted

[ZemZem]

FE13 used to be sitting below FE7 as my favorite, but now it's sitting below FE8, FE4, and about to be knocked down to fifth place by FE9.

[nocturnal YL]

It's... kind of complicated for me. FE13's the best in overall, but break it apart, there are better candidates. Like FE6, FE10 and FE12 for the characters and story, and FE4 for the music. No FE has perfected gameplay, in my opinion.

[Darros]

FE13 is kind of the middle for me. Nothing will ever beat FE4 in my heart, FE4 is still my favorite video game of all time.

[Raminax]

'tis hard to say. On one hand I do love the overall gameplay in Awakening, but there's a bunch of niggling doubts that bother me about it. I never finished FE5 and FE12, so it'd feel unfair judging already, but there's also the fact that Awakening feels a bit... soulless for me. Sure, it's got the Fire Emblem spirit in it, with all the recurring character archetypes, the titular Fire Emblem, blue-haired Lord and so on, but the fact that Awakening took many previously popular gameplay elements from previous Fire Emblems makes it feel like a stitched together creature. Sure, it's fun and all that, but I dunno, this entry in the series just feels like it lacks an identity of its own. Though it may partially be my fault for already having played all previous Fire Emblem games, it also just doesn't feel very creative (perhaps a bit justified, considering that Awakening HAD to sell if the stories are to be believed). Hopefully the next game in the series takes a few more creative liberties.

Suppose I'll have to do some more soulsearching. :P

[shadowofchaos]

It's normal mode is too easy

A bunch of my newcomer friends would disagree with you.

Fresh blood into the series is hard to get if you have Hard Mode difficulty for normal mode right off the bat.

[BrightBow]

Well, to me Awakening is the absolute bottom of the barrel.
PoR is my favorite but I do admit it is mostly because of story and worldbuilding and the way it intervenes story and gameplay.
But the gameplay is rather lackluster. Thracia and TRS beat it by miles.

Still, PoR tries it's best to keep the game varied.

Chapter 8 has three choke points attacked by entirely different kinds of units.
Chapter 11 has a lot of stuff going on.

Recruiting Zihark without killing the members of the vigilante group, beating the thieves to the houses and seizing the harbor. If you don't get these things done fast, you have the Black Knight after you.
Chapter 12 has you fighting on a small ship against an entire army of fliers.
Chapter 14 has fog of war, so careful movement is neccesary.
Chapter 15 allows you to take advantage of the enemies transformation gauge. Use it to kill the enemies while they are weak or use it to outmaneuver them and collcect tons of BEXP. Your choice.
Chapter 17 is an endurance round of several skirmishes.
...
Well, let's just stop it here. It doesn't get any less varied for the rest of the game.

Some of those designs suck (chapter 10. Avoiding being spotted is soooo not worth it.) but there is definitely a lot of effort there to keep things interesting. And I can respect that.
A lot of them fall apart because of weak enemy stats but since the highest difficulty was removed during localization, I won't blame it for that.


Awakening merely resorts to deploying random enemies all over the place. There doesn't seem to be much of a pattern to it.
Heck, the game even applies random skills to enemies every time you reenter the map.
All of them will then begin charging from all directions, forcing you into the defense.
Sure, you could charge yourself but since enemies are everywhere, the result is the same: Random enemies charge at you from every direction.
It makes me feel like I am playing the same map over and over. just with higher stats on both sides. So the game goes extremely repetitive in a very short time.
It kinda reminds me of facing armies in FE4. But that game got repetitive for the same reason. Still, at least the armies had a theme to them and weren't entirely balanced.

Then of course, there is the emphasis on instantly moving reinforcements.
Announced or not, you do not know when, where they arrive. You don't even know what arrives. Every class can spawn, they can have every possible skill and every possible weapon.
And that's kinda important, since you can never entirely safely approach spawning points because of that.

And after Gangrel, the game stops giving you new units to replace death ones. And because of state inflation, you can neither use the old ones or the kids.

Normally, I would just restart anyway. But dying to those unfair reinforcements feels very undeserved, so I would rather progress.

And I just leave it at that for now. There is a lot more I would like to say but this are definitely the main reason that Awakening was such an unpleasant experience.

Edited July 31, 2013 by BrightBow

[Vashiane]

It's really the only one I've ever played - two chapters of RD with my cousin doesn't count - so I can't really say it's my favorite when I haven't even tried anything else. But it's a good game, so I can't complain. It was a great way to start into the series, and I'm glad this game was my first.

I should probably work my way backwards from this point..