Fate's Spoiler Free Review (Awakening Comparison)

[Raybrand]

Hi, I wanted to make this thread for people who haven't played the game and want a spoiler free review, plus I had an hour to kill at work. Here I'll discus the game comparing it to Awakening and would like to see other people give their own opinions on the game.

I recently finished Conquest after playing Hoshido, I've taken a bit of a break before I start to play Revelations for the first time. I know there are different threads that discus the various features of Fates such as story and gameplay but I thought I'd get a summery of everyone's experience in one place and compare it to Awakening.

My Review Thus Far:

Gameplay

Fates still has mostly the same battle template that Awakening has but with quite a few changes some subtle some very big.

Subtle changes include:

• balancing, skills such as counter (now only triggers if the opponent attacks the user)
  
• difficulty, hard made on Fates is harder than hard mode on Awakening, Lunatic in my opinion provides the same challenge but its not as unfair as Awakening, no lunatic+.
  

More drastic changes include:

• weapon triangle changes, the new triangle is 'Sword and Magic > Axe and Bow > Lance and Hidden Weapons >'. To me I quite liked this change it didn't feel too out Fire Emblem Tradition, I felt that it improved gameplay because now units that use bows and tomes are now involved with that extra layer of strategy that most other units are involved. Players now have to throw that element into their strategy when they use those units, which is good in my opinion because after experiencing this mechanic it didn't feel good in Awakening that some units and weapons are above the triangle rule, and now that Fates has added in throwing weapons your formations and tactics are going to be a little more complex.
  
• weapon durability removal, at first I was a little uncomfortable with this since every fire emblem game I've played has had item durability (haven't played as many as the others here, only 2 on gba, game cube, one on wii and the two 3ds games). The item durability mechanic in Awakening was interesting for me because you have limited gold so you can't abuse silver or brave weapons, so when selecting a weapon you are thinking 'Do I desperately need that extra bit of damage or do I need to save it for a bigger threat' which adds a fair bit of depth especially when your weapons are near breaking point but this mechanic usually only applies when strategising in the long run, its rare when it applies to the immediate threat which is how Fates's new item mechanic compensates for the loss of durability mechanic. In Fates it is not as simple as choosing the strongest weapon to deal damage, to compensate for the loss of durability using strong weapons have negative side effects, for example, Iron weapons deal standard damage and no negative or side effects, steel weapons are stronger but are harder to land double attacks, silver weapons are powerful but lower your stats, brave weapons/spells drasticly lower your stats, other weapons double/reverse weapon triangle effect, other weapons are weak but deal massive counter attack damage and more. Personally I preferred this mechanic, because in Awakening and other Fire Emblem games consequences of poorly choosing your weapons won't be felt till after while whereas in Fates the consequences are felt in the same chapter.
  
• Pairing up is now different than it was in Awakening, in Fates if you pair up you get stat bonus and your support has a chance of blocking the attack, every few battles the pair will get a guaranteed block, however the support unit cannot attack. When the units enter a battle and they have an adjacent allay who is not paired up, that allay will be able to land an attack on the opponent. This is an interesting change because in Awakening pairing up had very little consequence, now units who are involved in dual strikes are just as vulnerable, so you have to make a choice between an attack formation or defence.
  
• Reclassing, this no longer resets your level, this is somewhat important as you will still be subject to exp penalties, in Awakening you can abuse this to get very powerful. You can still continue to strengthen your units who have reached max level buy using a special seal the increases the lv cap which is great for me because in Awakening and Fates I'd always just focus on a small squad and train'em to have max stats. In previous Fire Emblem games it always relied on luck whether your max lv units will have as good stats as you hoped. Fates still allows you to reach your character's absolute potential but can't be as abused in Awakening.
  
• personal skills is a great addition, it makes certain characters feel more unique but it can make certain characters feel outright superior than others in certain ways which I don't like (good add'on but little balancing issue in my opinion)
  
• dragon vein I'm somewhat indifferent to, some maps make it so that using dragon vein add quite a bit of strategic value and can give you an advantage, e.g. turning tiles into healing or damaging tiles or summoning a storm that heavily restricts flying unit's movements. Mostly dragon vein is used to open up a new path on a map aka its the same as lock picking a door in Awakening. It doesnt play a huge role in most maps.
  

Although I've played Conquest and Birthright both on Lunatic I can't say if one is harder than the other, the general view is that Conquest is harder on the other difficulties but I'm not sure if its because the maps and enemies are harder or because Birthright is easier because it allows for grinding, i.e. I don't know Birthright is just as challenging as Conquest but just gives the player opportunities to better equip themselves. I found Birthright on Lunatic very engaging, I didn't really use free battles that much, only used'em to build supports and bring up to speed units I didn't use much incase I wanted them to replace my other units. Both campaigns you have a different array of units, classes and weapons available which further distinguish the two campaigns apart which give me a different experience. Nohr has more of the traditional units you see in old Fire Emblem games and most of em prioritise Strength/Magic and Defence, and Hoshido has the new Japanese themed units and they prioritise Skill and Speed.

Birthright has the free battles that Awakening has, but Conquest has more of the units that where in Awakening.

Story

I think the Story have a very strong start, it does a good job justifying your reasons for joining either side, it doesnt feel like one path is more ideal or writers have favouritism, your reasoning for joining one side does not contradict the reasoning for joining the other side.

Birthright - Hoshido is being invaded, Nohr ruler has shown himself to be untrustworthy so you hope to find peace by oppressing the invasion from Hoshido's side while making every effort to reach out to your adoptive siblings.

Conquest - You may not agree with what Nohr is doing nor understand the tragedy that happened prior to the chapter with the branching choice but that is why you must go back to find the truth and hope to find a peaceful resolution from within.

This is a very strong early plot compared to Awakening because I was a lot more engaged with whats going on, I was very sympathetic to the main character regardless of his/her choice. The main character is a lot like the typical main characters like Chrom where they are just a people pleaser and all they want is for everyone to be happy, it does make them feel somewhat bland but in Fates the main character feels a bit less 2 dimensional compared to Chrom due to his struggles early on.

I think the Story in Awakening is great, but the pacing and execution is a little off, i.e. The bad guys Gangrel, Walhart, Yen'Fay (only included him because I think hes cool) they are not that much connected to the main story i.e. preventing the world falling to ruin by Grima. I liked The Walhart saga, because Robin's tactical prowess lead the story and what happened next was somewhat unexpected, but Walhart has no ties to the main story and there was no relation between what happened during Gangrel's saga and his.

Fates tells a similar story, two politial/military powers opposing eachother just like with Walhart and Gangrel but you will notice just how much more you are involved. Because in Fates you know who is on the opposite side and you have a clear goal where as in Awakening Gangrel and Walhart are only there to serve as the villain for part of the game till the true enemy reveals himself. That element is in Fates, it does develop but the point I'm making is that the villains you fight early, mid and late are all directly related.

But after playing fates and trying to compare the stories I appreciated Awakening a lot more, Lucina is a great character I loved the scene where it reveals who she is, Robin and Chrom took command at different times to figure out the next plan of action, Walhart saga I liked. Current Robin, Future Robin and Grima I thought that plot had quite a bit of depth, it could have been handled better like why reveal evil robin out of the blue like that when he searved no purpose at that time, due to how it was handled it was no surprise when current robin is actually going to turn evil, why did they reveal that grima can only be killed by robin, Naga should have just said defeating it will only put it to sleep then later on Robin decides if I am Grima and Grima is all powerful then what will happen if I finish it off striking it with its own hand?

This part of the discussion is not a direct spoiler but I describe the pacing and flow of the story, no names or specific events but you may not want someone elses impression before you start playing.

The game does a good job keeping you attached throughout the campaign, but when I looked at both campaigns as a whole as was less impressed. In Birthright the story plays out almost exactly as you would imagined it, hoshido is fighting the evil empire and you defeat the bad guys running the show to free hoshido. Conquest you are supposed to change Nohr from within but all you do is medigate the damage you don't make any change at all, near the end of the campaign plot convience will reveal the true target and conviently make everything better when you win

[Leif]

Nice review. This entry in the Fire Emblem series will probably have the best gameplay out of all of them.

I can't wait to get me hands on this game next week. I'm still debating whether or not to do a mostly text-based let's play/diary of sorts as I go through all three campaigns.

Trust me, I will go through the story and give a detailed analysis. I can't wait to share my thoughts too.

[stahl_gaius_fan]

Very in-depth! As someone who only started with Awakening, I'm glad to see the direct comparison so I can know what to expect difficulty wise and especially with the new mechanics.

[Delfino]

I agree with just about every point you made! You forgot to bring up the incredible soundtrack, though. ;)

I really want to emphasize how much I like weapon durability being gone in this installment. Late game in Awakening, there was really no reason to carry around anything but the best of the best weapons, and durability turned into not much more than a nuisance because you could easily just go buy more of most everything. Plus I've got this nagging What if I need it later? feeling when it comes to items with limited uses in just about every game I play, so it made me not want to use the godlike weapons ever.

I love how in Fates, you're encouraged to carry around many different kinds of the same weapon type to fit all sorts of situations. I found that giving Harold a frying pan as a back up weapon, for instance, was quite useful thanks to its higher accuracy compared to a lot of other axes and +10 avoid. I think removing durability allowed weapons to be more complicated and have more immediate consequences as a result. It makes you think even more about what you want to end your turn equipped with, and I really like that.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Delfino

[Ennui]

I agree with just about every point you made! You forgot to bring up the incredible soundtrack, though. ;)

I really want to emphasize how much I like weapon durability being gone in this installment. Late game in Awakening, there was really no reason to carry around anything but the best of the best weapons, and durability turned into not much more than a nuisance because you could easily just go buy more of most everything. Plus I've got this nagging What if I need it later? feeling when it comes to items with limited uses in just about every game I play, so it made me not want to use the godlike weapons ever.

I love how in Fates, you're encouraged to carry around many different kinds of the same weapon type to fit all sorts of situations. I found that giving Harold a frying pan as a back up weapon, for instance, was quite useful thanks to its higher accuracy compared to a lot of other axes and +10 avoid. I think removing durability allowed weapons to be more complicated and have more immediate consequences as a result. It makes you think even more about what you want to end your turn equipped with, and I really like that.

The thought of Arthur/ Harold using a frying pan is funny. I wanna do that when I get the game.

And I really like this review. I paid more attention to the gameplay portion and I like the heads up about this game's Hard mode being more challenging than Awakening's, as well as Lunatic being fairer. I'm probably never going to do Awakening Lunatic b/c I have patience problems, but I will definitely give this game's Lunatic a shot.

[Delfino]

The thought of Arthur/ Harold using a frying pan is funny. I wanna do that when I get the game.

And I really like this review. I paid more attention to the gameplay portion and I like the heads up about this game's Hard mode being more challenging than Awakening's, as well as Lunatic being fairer. I'm probably never going to do Awakening Lunatic b/c I have patience problems, but I will definitely give this game's Lunatic a shot.

Oh it is funny. Especially when he crits with it. And that's bound to happen with Harold-- er, Arthur.

I hated Lunatic in Awakening. Your units are like helpless infants compared to the enemy right from the beginning and you have to rely too much on Frederick carrying and Lon'qu dodging/critting while you just get rushed by the entire enemy army, and then you end up with only a small group of units that are actually useful while the rest are pair-up fodder. Haven't played much of Lunatic on Fates, but I'm already liking it much better since the difficulty seems to stem more from predicting enemy movements, positioning yourself accordingly, and planning around enemy abilities rather than just hoping that two or three units can tank an onslaught. Oh, and units you get are actually useful. I agree with Raybrand in that it seems much fairer.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Delfino

[luis_lara12345]

Please marry Laslow and give me Soleil name:)

[Leif]

Please marry Laslow and give me Soleil name:)

Yeah, on this note, share more of the children's names and Skill names if you can!

It's up to you, of course.

[Raybrand]

glad you guys are liking it, a lot of spoiler free details about classes, inventory and skills but when I thought by reposting it here I can give my opinions on it after seeing those mechanics in action.