Why do people hate Awakening's story?

[Dinar87]

The gameplay (particularly in Conquest) is great. In fact, the gameplay is just about the only part of Fates I liked. It somehow tries to tell a better story than Awakening but screws it up so badly it ends up worse.

But yeah, consesus of most series veterens is that the gameplay is genuinely good

That's good to hear. It's a shame it's unlikely I'll enjoy the story though as I really love my stories.

[Jave]

That's good to hear. It's a shame it's unlikely I'll enjoy the story though as I really love my stories.

Eh, give it a shot, who knows, you may end up liking it. I've played every game in the series sans FE1 and Fates had the most enjoyable Supports for me.

[Dinar87]

Eh, give it a shot, who knows, you may end up liking it. I've played every game in the series sans FE1 and Fates had the most enjoyable Supports for me.

Oh really? That's interesting to hear...who's your favourite characters in the versions then?

[Emperor Hardin]

I agree with most of your points but, even though gangrel wasn't the worst villain in awakening I still thought he was poorly written. It's been a while since I played awakening but does gangrel ever tell us why he hates Ylisse so much? Or why he wants the fire emblem? Unless I'm missing something he's evil just cuz. Also, I wish we knew more about Chrom's father and what exactly he did to Plegia. They paint him as a bad man and responsible for the likes of gangrel but we don't know enough about him to truly say if we was justified or not...do we?

Per the game, Gangrel's motivation was unrelated to Chrom's dad. He says in his supports, he initially wanted to turn the continent into an empire to fight Valm, but he went mad with power.

Gangrel's supports, and his website backstory never mention the previous war once.

As for Chrom's dad, Chrom ends up doing the same thing, starting a war to destroy the Grimleal, only he succeeds.

[BrightBow]

And probably caused the death of just about the entire population while he was at it. Not just because of all the murder, rape and pillaging that would inevitably go on once the order of a country is overthrown but also because the Risen were still running rampant. Honestly, I am surprised that after two years there were still enough Plegians left to serve as sacrifices.

And I love how Aversa even points this out to Chrom in a setup for a classical "Thanks for helping us with our evil plan" exchange, just for Chrom to completely ignore the implications of what she said.

Btw, isn't it amazing how their is a 2-year timeskip while a zombie apocalypse was going on?

Edited July 8, 2016 by BrightBow

[Emperor Hardin]

I don't think the game ever mentions how Plegia is doing in the epilogue even once, either.

[DeadLuckChris]

Wasnt really that good tbh.

[Sweet_Basil]

One thing I didn't understand...

Since Lucina apparently traveled time to prevent chaos in the future, then why was she always late to the events? The only thing she was punctual to was the event in Chapter 5 I think? Shouldn't she have been more careful of her whereabouts? She was always roaming elsewhere which I didn't understand and found pointless.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

One thing I didn't understand...

Since Lucina apparently traveled time to prevent chaos in the future, then why was she always late to the events? The only thing she was punctual to was the event in Chapter 5 I think? Shouldn't she have been more careful of her whereabouts? She was always roaming elsewhere which I didn't understand and found pointless.

for the same reason why all the other kids were doing fuck all before you meet them.

there isn't a reason, cynthia at least try's and gets tricked so i give her some points for effort.

then you got laurent who literally shows up 5 years prior to the game's events and does literally nothing to prevent the bad future.

[Loki Laufeyson]

The biggest problem I have with Awakening's story is how it has a protagonist-centered morality focus, which as a result makes the motivations and moralities of characters in that world really … shallow.

Awakening doesn't treat its rulers the same way as previous games did. Emmeryn does virtually nothing as a ruler while she's alive, walks right back into danger after a squadron of pegasus knights sacrificed themselves so she could escape, and then she jumps off a rock and commits suicide. She is the very definition of a weak and naive ruler, and yet is hailed as a martyr. Do you know who else was a weak and naive ruler? RD Elincia -- and she had an entire part dedicated to her in which she learned from her weakness and naivety and became a better ruler. Eirika, while she never was and never will be queen, is also naive and in her route she is tricked into handing over the sacred stone of Renais. She's not excused for this. So why is this okay for Emmeryn?

Going back to the Elincia example, though, she was willing to sacrifice someone who was essentially her sister to keep a power hungry lord off her throne, a lord that she knows would be an awful king because he cares nothing for the people. She is willing to sacrifice someone important to her for the good of many, which is something a ruler needs to be able to do. Chrom? Nope, he can't let go of Robin to save the entire world. And if you choose to let Chrom land the finishing blow on Grima, everyone is quick to reassure Robin that it doesn't matter if Grima may one day come back, Robin is too important and is worth putting the world at risk one day. And this is considered to be a good thing? Same logic with Lucina if Robin is her mother or husband: suddenly, the life of her loved one is more important than the mission she traveled through time to complete.

It's not just the characters that are affected by this protagonist-centered morality, though. Plegia is more one-dimensionally evil compared to other antagonist nations such as Bern, Grado, and Daein. You just don't hear much about the plight of the common people, and not even the playable Plegians (Henry and Tharja) seem to really talk about it. While Plegia and Ylisse have lore, it is very barebones. Where did Grima come from? If the world is Archaenea 3000 years in the future, is Grima related to the Earth Dragons? How did the Grima cult start? Why did Chrom's father wage war against the Plegians? Why does Falchion look different and since when could women wield it? What happened to the Aum staff? How is Ylisse related to Archaenea other than the Exalts being from Marth's line? I have so many questions, and it doesn't help that so many of the locations in this world are lacking in a lot of detail and even proper names. The game can't even be arsed to delve more into Validar being Robin's father. It thinks we don't care about world building, and therefore it makes the world feel less real. Really, it doesn't encourage us to think beyond a surface level depth about war and your enemy, like the other games at least tried to do. Awakening just wants you to strike down the "bad guys" and feel good about doing it.

Valm arc was also very filler-y and it always felt like such a slog to get through. It should've either been cut out or incorporated into the game differently so that the main focus of the game could've been Plegia.

Fair enough, but my point was more that Eirika will never become queen of her own merit. You can't "accidentally" kill off Ephraim so that she can be queen of Renais, and if married to Innes she's only queen in that she's the wife of the king -- unlike Elincia and Emmeryn who were already queen and didn't need to get a man to be queen.

And it doesn't change the fact that the characters in not only Awakening, but Fates too, are no longer challenged to make difficult decisions about those they love and what is good for the country. They have an extremely protagonist-centered morality that only cares about the people right in front of them, and any flaws that might make them poor rulers are either just glossed over or we're supposed to believe they're not flaws and that they'll be a fine ruler even with these issues.

There's another thing I forgot in my previous post, and that is how Awakening and Fates treat the concept of pacifism and peace: it's a complete fucking joke.

FE did peaceful countries well in earlier games. They did warlike countries well in earlier games. Going back to Tellius (because it is the one I know best), Crimea may be the "good" and "peaceful" country but it certainly isn't bland. There were several Crimeans who said that their king "had it coming" because he was cooperating with laguz, and even in RD a base conversation shows that some citizens still are wary of laguz. Elincia had nobles outright rebelling against her because they thought she was too weak and idealistic. She responded (eventually) by putting down the rebel leader herself. This shows that despite her pacifism, Elincia knows that peace is something that at times requires force to achieve, and does not mean disbanding your fucking army with only one mercenary group defending the people or throwing yourself off a cliff after some pretty words (Emmeryn). Crimea as a country shows that being "good" and "peaceful" does not mean that there's no room for further depth, or that the people are universally good (Hoshido). Izumo from Fates is apparently the "true neutral", but again they're a bit of a joke. More so in the English version, but even in the Japanese it feels like the writers don't really care in realistically portraying a neutral country? How do Izumo and Ylisse have no army, even Switzerland has an army. The later games don't give a shit about world building. It's basically "peace is good" and "warlike is bad" and "there is no complexity ever". Even other "good" countries like Elibe and Renais are more morally complex than Ylisse and Hoshido.

I don't even want to get into how the antagonistic countries and the leadership become more cartoonish and evil in Awakening and Fates, so I won't … for now.

So this is the right topic this time...

Ehm, the thing is we can't possible say whether or not Chrom's father did a bad thing. Literally all we have to go on is Emmeryn and Chrom saying that it was a bad thing without actually elaborating on the matter. Considering that we lack any substantial information with which we could form our own opinion, Chrom and Emmeryn's judgement is everything we have on the matter. And the game actively undermines their judgement with the claims that the two of them are too kindhearted for their own good and that people like Gangrel are taking advantage of Emmeryn's kindness. So we are left with nothing.

But considering that:

- Gangrel never comes across like he holds a genuine grudge against Emmeryn or Ylisse to the point that he directly mocks Emmeryn for being too kind.

- that all named Plegians are portrayed as evil unless they are also Emmeryn worshippers

- that the feelings of the Plegian people receive zero development. So there is nothing that allows you to relate to them in some way

- that Emmeryn's speech did in no way acknowledge the pain and the injustice caused by Ylisse, let alone apologize for Ylisse's actions. (Seriously, even back when it was first brought up by Gangrel, all she said about it is that she "never denied Ylisse's wrongdoings." One hell of a contrast to Sanaki kneeling before the survivors of the Serenes massacre and begging for forgiveness. And she hasn't even been born when the genocide happened. But yeah, it's Emmeryn who truly deserves that Noble Peace Prize.)

- that said speech consisted of nothing more then telling the Plegians to stop being so butthurt, yet somehow turned the whole country into Emmeryn lovers.

- that the actual Plegia story basically revolves around trying to make the player feel attached to Emmeryn by constantly chilling her for supposedly being the best person ever and by having Gangrel act like a jerk towards her just because he can, before throwing her off the cliff and allow the player to avenge poor little Emmeryn-chan by killing the evil Gangrel

...I dare to say that the arc has a very thick subtext about the Plegian people being unjustified for having a grudge against Ylisse or Emmeryn. An completely emotional sub text of course, since we still don't know anything about what actually happened. But it most certainly doesn't push the idea that the Plegian people don't deserve having bad things happen to them, at least not unless they join the Emmeryn fan club.

You lot just explained why Emmeryn literally disgusts me to the point of being really offended, in words that are better than i could put down. I hate Emmeryn and these are the reasons why. She is the only FE character to disgust me that much and as such, Awakening's story is forever tainted by her existence. Its terrible and treats the audience like they are morons. It was to the point where i began to sympathize with the cartoonish villain. Thats a mark of bad story telling.

Not to mention the other flaws.

What was Chrom's father's name? The previous Exalt who apparently did bad things to Plegia doesnt even have a fucking name.

Where is Virion's nation of Roseanne?

What is the whole point of the Taguel existing in this universe?

Why is Walhart not explored, when he could have been a fantastic Well Intended Extremist type antagonist!

Chapter 14. :|

This game is wasted potential, lazy worldbuilding, giving protags too many passes, and Emmeryn.

[Sweet_Basil]

for the same reason why all the other kids were doing fuck all before you meet them.

there isn't a reason, cynthia at least try's and gets tricked so i give her some points for effort.

then you got laurent who literally shows up 5 years prior to the game's events and does literally nothing to prevent the bad future.

I didn't even unlock most of the children, but I do like Cynthia she's the only child I don't kill off. I'm currently annoyed of the child mechanic, it feels tacky and forced. I feel like Lucina is the worst written lord yet, avatars aside, she's just there to be "Marth" and that's it.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Sweet_Basil

[Dinar87]

While I still don't think awakening is a bad game I do really hate the story in it. It not only feels like three seperate stories crammed into one game being tied together by the gem McGuffins, but there's very little insight into WHY characters do what they do. Gangrel is evil just cuz (he apparently went mad with power in a support convo but why the hell isn't that part of the main story?) and so is Validar and Walhart. Sure there's some things like Walhart wanting to stop the grimleal as well but other than that there's very little depth to them and in an rpg that's fucking atrocious. While I wouldn't say the villains of the past have been anything special (except the black knight and ashera) that still doesn't excuse poor storytelling in 2013! It doesn't excuse not trying again to do a better story? Is their work motto "Fail at something once? Never try it again!"?

​As I said before, you can like or even think awakening has a good story. I won't stop you from doing either of those things. I'm just saying why I thought it was vastly inferior to stories of the old games.

​Having said all of this, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with purely evil characters in fictional stories. It becomes a problem however when they're the only sort of evil characters that exist OR if they never do anything monstrous but are still 'the bad guy' because the plot demands it. Moments like aversa killing her own soldiers or walhart's soldiers killing a villager are nice but they're few and far between.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Dinar87

[eclipse]

I agree with most of your points but, even though gangrel wasn't the worst villain in awakening I still thought he was poorly written. It's been a while since I played awakening but does gangrel ever tell us why he hates Ylisse so much? Or why he wants the fire emblem? Unless I'm missing something he's evil just cuz. Also, I wish we knew more about Chrom's father and what exactly he did to Plegia. They paint him as a bad man and responsible for the likes of gangrel but we don't know enough about him to truly say if we was justified or not...do we?

It's not that Gangrel's writing was amazing. It's that Walhart and Grima's writing was worse. IIRC the supports between male Robin and Gangrel shed a bit of light behind Gangrel's reasons for invading Ylisse, but that's about it.

[Dinar87]

It's not that Gangrel's writing was amazing. It's that Walhart and Grima's writing was worse. IIRC the supports between male Robin and Gangrel shed a bit of light behind Gangrel's reasons for invading Ylisse, but that's about it.

Oh ok. Still, that information in the supports sounds like it should've been in the main story all along and not tucked away in a random support convo. Bad game design!

[blah the Prussian]

Emmeryn, as others have said, is an idiotic ruler who pisses all over great characters like Elincia, Sanaki, and Marth. Gangrel, meanwhile, was potentially interesting before the writers decided that making him interesting was too hard, so they made him a generic insane King. The Valm Arc has no reason to exist. The entire Ferox arc was stupid. I don't have a problem with Lucina. What I do have a problem with is the downright DISHONEST advertising centered around the "Marth" vs Chrom fight. They made it seem like it was a huge part of the game. Finally, Validar's and Aversa's whole "fate lol" thing pissed me off. You literally defeat Validar in CHAPTER SIX. That is NOT how you build up a good antagonist. It's why you don't defeat Ganondorf after Jabu Jabu's belly, or Ashnard at that port level. It's not good writing and it negatively impacts the gameplay, too, as it makes the fight with Validar later less epic.

[Dinar87]

Emmeryn, as others have said, is an idiotic ruler who pisses all over great characters like Elincia, Sanaki, and Marth. Gangrel, meanwhile, was potentially interesting before the writers decided that making him interesting was too hard, so they made him a generic insane King. The Valm Arc has no reason to exist. The entire Ferox arc was stupid. I don't have a problem with Lucina. What I do have a problem with is the downright DISHONEST advertising centered around the "Marth" vs Chrom fight. They made it seem like it was a huge part of the game. Finally, Validar's and Aversa's whole "fate lol" thing pissed me off. You literally defeat Validar in CHAPTER SIX. That is NOT how you build up a good antagonist. It's why you don't defeat Ganondorf after Jabu Jabu's belly, or Ashnard at that port level. It's not good writing and it negatively impacts the gameplay, too, as it makes the fight with Validar later less epic.

Unfortunately, those who love a good story are a minority. You don't need anything else other than good (not great) gameplay in order to score 9s and 10s like awakening did. It had a garbage story (imo) and inferior gameplay compared to the Tellius series yet it's proclaimed as the best in the series lol. It just shows you that our kinds of tastes and expectations are pretty damn rare which is a shame.

What did you hate the most about Emmeryn? I hated the fact that her death had overall little consequence as she survives the fall (albeit unable to speak which makes no sense as she should be dead instead) making her entire s000ysyde less significant. Also, it's incredibly unrealistic that a speech like Emmeryn's would actually change an entire country just like that...things change slowly usually. Overall, chapter 10 could've been good if anyone gave an actual fuck about her...strangely, most players did hence chapter 10 being cited as the best in the game. At least Mustafa was cool.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Dinar87

[blah the Prussian]

Well, the story is rarely important. I mean, Conquest is my favorite in the series and that had an awful story. I'm also pretty sure that very few people in the fandom consider Awakening the best in the series. It's mostly critics who don't strictly speaking know what they're talking about.

Others have said it better than I could, but the fact is that Emmeryn is naive and this is treated as a good thing. Her incorruptible pure pureness always got to me. I mean, they say she refused to arrest someone who threw a rock at her as a ten year old, or something akin to that. Who does that? That is unrealistic and I can't stand it. There's also the fact that her suicide is of course contrived and serves to rush the Plegia arc. That's another thing: Plegia is over too fast. The ABANDON the Ylissean Capitol. No. That's just dumb. Plegia needed more chapters; they only get 5 chapters in the entire game where you fight them: 5, which is more of just a border skirmish, 7, which is rendered null because fuck Emmeryn, 9, which ends with everyone running away, 10, which, I'll admit, was good, and 11, where despite not actually doing anything Gangrel is on his last legs. I feel like a lot wrong with Awakening would be fixed if you cut out Walhart and really spent some time fighting Plegia.

[Dinar87]

Well, the story is rarely important. I mean, Conquest is my favorite in the series and that had an awful story. I'm also pretty sure that very few people in the fandom consider Awakening the best in the series. It's mostly critics who don't strictly speaking know what they're talking about.

Others have said it better than I could, but the fact is that Emmeryn is naive and this is treated as a good thing. Her incorruptible pure pureness always got to me. I mean, they say she refused to arrest someone who threw a rock at her as a ten year old, or something akin to that. Who does that? That is unrealistic and I can't stand it. There's also the fact that her suicide is of course contrived and serves to rush the Plegia arc. That's another thing: Plegia is over too fast. The ABANDON the Ylissean Capitol. No. That's just dumb. Plegia needed more chapters; they only get 5 chapters in the entire game where you fight them: 5, which is more of just a border skirmish, 7, which is rendered null because fuck Emmeryn, 9, which ends with everyone running away, 10, which, I'll admit, was good, and 11, where despite not actually doing anything Gangrel is on his last legs. I feel like a lot wrong with Awakening would be fixed if you cut out Walhart and really spent some time fighting Plegia.

I agree. A bigger focus on Plegia, with some chapters introducing both good and selfish characters in each of the different factions...could've been a lot better than a clichéd 'goodie chrom vs baddie gangrel' plot. Even if they wanted to do a good vs evil plot it should've been built up far, FAR more with both wins and loses on either side-where neither side is significantly more powerful than the other.

​Now that you speak about Emmeryn that way, she sounds like a typical Mary sue- adored by the masses (except for bad guy gangrel) and can do absolutely no wrong whatsoever.

I have VERY ​high hopes for conquest because of all the good things I've heard about it's gameplay. And I personally disagree that the stories of games aren't that important but I'll respect your opinions on the matter.

Edited July 10, 2016 by Dinar87

[blah the Prussian]

No, I mean it isn't that important for my enjoyment of the game. Of course, a good story is necessary for a game to be one of my favorite games. And at least most Mary Sues have the decency to actually be competant. What happens with Emmeryn is the equivalent of some character who the story says is good at math saying 2+2=5, and the story saying that, as such, 2+2 is in fact five.

[Dinar87]

No, I mean it isn't that important for my enjoyment of the game. Of course, a good story is necessary for a game to be one of my favorite games. And at least most Mary Sues have the decency to actually be competant. What happens with Emmeryn is the equivalent of some character who the story says is good at math saying 2+2=5, and the story saying that, as such, 2+2 is in fact five.

In other words, Emmeryn is just a flat out terrible leader. It's honestly hard to say exactly why awakening's story was inferior though other than "I didn't enjoy it as much" because it's been such a long time since I've played it

[Loki Laufeyson]

In other words, Emmeryn is just a flat out terrible leader. It's honestly hard to say exactly why awakening's story was inferior though other than "I didn't enjoy it as much" because it's been such a long time since I've played it

Yes, so terrible a leader, its actually offensive. Awakening is a really fun game, but its story is not that fun at all.

[Sasori]

I think the main problem with Awakening's story is that they where trying to do too many things as once and as a result very few things about had the time to be good.

The game features 4 different antagonists and they had to throw time travel somewhere in the mix as well. None of the bad guys really get the time to establish themselves as good villains and the constant switching of locations also means we don't really get a good feel of the world and its people.

As a result we a generic 'strenght is everything!' villain who unlike Ashnard brings nothing unique to the table. An annoyingly incompetent evil sorceror and an evil dragon who has no interesting background or motives.

The only villain who was somewhat unique for Fire Emblem was Gangrel and he only had a few chapters before Emmeryn pushed an instant win button against him.

Time travel was ok and Future past actually made it very effective. My only gripe is that Lucina never really got to do anything after being recruited. She mostly sits the Valm arc out and the final arc is mostly about Chrom and Robin. She has a scene where she warns Bassilio and her Robin scene, but other then that I don't really remember her doing anything else of importance.

[Illiterate Scholar]

I want to add that I DETEST characters like Robin, Chris, and Korrin. I hate these narcissistic self inserts into the story. I'm still trying to decide who is the worst out of the 3 of them.

I don't think I'd mind Robin as much if he was a regular pre-designed character. Also no POV FMV's.

Plus, who is Grima? Is he Medeus? Did they just throw him into the story out of nowhere? Why connect it to FE3 if you're going to screw up the canon with this all new enemy?

As everyone pointed out, the connection the Gaiden was incredibly lame. They could have saved it by showing us if only just the corpse of Doma so we know WTF it's suppose to be, that would have saved that section of the story. Even a skeleton of Doma. I don't care!

I don't mind time travel to unit the 2 generations though. I thought that was a clever idea. FE4 already did the time skip.

Edited July 11, 2016 by Illiterate Scholar

[Dinar87]

I want to add that I DETEST characters like Robin, Chris, and Korrin. I hate these narcissistic self inserts into the story. I'm still trying to decide who is the worst out of the 3 of them.

I don't think I'd mind Robin as much if he was a regular pre-designed character. Also no POV FMV's.

Plus, who is Grima? Is he Medeus? Did they just throw him into the story out of nowhere? Why connect it to FE3 if you're going to screw up the canon with this all new enemy?

As everyone pointed out, the connection the Gaiden was incredibly lame. They could have saved it by showing us if only just the corpse of Doma so we know WTF it's suppose to be, that would have saved that section of the story. Even a skeleton of Doma. I don't care!

I don't mind time travel to unit the 2 generations though. I thought that was a clever idea. FE4 already did the time skip.

I don't think having avatars works for creating a good story period as, since the avatar is meant to represent the player, you can't really give them a definitive personality and because of this they feel like empty shells of characters.

[blah the Prussian]

I don't think having avatars works for creating a good story period as, since the avatar is meant to represent the player, you can't really give them a definitive personality and because of this they feel like empty shells of characters.

I don't know, Zelda did an avatar protagonist excellently with several amazing stories; Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and Skyward Sword in particular. Then again, Zelda is not Fire Emblem, so it might not be possible to do what Zelda did in an FE game.