Fire Emblem: Awakening

Over a decade after it was originally released, I’m confident that 2013’s Awakening for the 3DS is the best Fire Emblem game of all time. When I think of this series, there’s no other substitute to its thirteenth entry. Fates tried to emulate it by borrowing similar mechanics, but didn’t fully commit to the emotional stakes of its realms-traveling bullshit. Its main cast are so well-fleshed out in the main story that I still get emosh whenever I see the familiar outline of Arena Ferox, where our hero faced off against his mysterious and heroic “ancestor” for the first time, or when the melancholy chorus of the “Id (Purpose)“ track which accompanies the final boss battle rolls in. Awakening was originally meant to be a swan song for the series, and so the developers created a game that wouldn’t leave them with any “regrets.” And they succeeded. Unlike the grittier Three Houses, this 3DS title is unapologetic about fairytale idealism and its humanistic themes.

Unlike Three Houses, Awakening doesn’t try to reinvent anything. It’s unapologetic about the fact that Fire Emblem is a fairy tale at its core and tries to play to the traditional strengths of the series. Tragedies are married with triumph. Awakening introduced child units and the ability to choose who their first-generation parents were, which added a tactical dimension to the normally emotional affair of choosing which characters should marry. It’s also a tightly focused game, lacking the systems bloat of later titles that tried to stuff their worlds with ever-increasing amounts of content. Awakening was exactly what it needed to be at exactly the right time, accomplishing what it set out to do so well that it quite possibly saved the series in the process.