(Recommendation of the Week)
If you've been looking for something alongside the new game Animal Crossing: New Leaf to sink a massive amount of time into, look no further than Fire Emblem: Awakening for the Nintendo 3DS. A tactical RPG by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, FEA is loaded with a massive amount of colorful characters with rich dialogue, many branching options for character growth, and a wide range of free and paid DLC, all packaged together with beautiful graphics and sounds. This a game that should be played in 3D whenever you can, especially during cutscenes (which I really wish there were more of), and should definitely be played with headphones, because even the great speakers the 3DS has don't do the breathtaking soundtrack justice.
It would take nearly forever for me to cover everything in the game because there are so many little details and so many varying options, the most of which I still haven't tried myself, but don't let that discourage you if you're new to the Fire Emblem franchise. This is my first step into the world of Fire Emblem, and I found Awakening to be very easily accessible, so much so that I started speeding through menus and micromanaging in my head within the first few hours of play (although that could be because I play a lot of Tetris). The massive cast of characters allows you to play however you'd like; each character has their own classes and weapons they can use, suiting all kinds of strageties to be used on the battlefield. While some crucial things aren't explained (such as the fact that weapons can break, how weapon efficiency XP works, etc.), discovering every little detail packed into the game is part of the adventure, making finding out something new feel like an accomplishment. You can also pair up characters and make them stronger (similar to the Social Links in Persona), giving you full control over the side-stories presented through Support Dialogue and providing more depth to the characters you're controlling. You also start up the game after creating an Avatar to represent you, which implants you into the story more than you might think. FEA gives players the option to play in three different difficulties (Normal, Hard, and Expert) as well as two different game modes (Casual and Classic; Classic features permadeath for individual characters on the battlefield while Casual removes the feature), allowing the player to customize the flow of the game to however they like and giving more replay value to a game that already can eat up huge portions of your time. For reference, I played Super Mario 3D Land twice, 100%ing the game each time and getting up to 35 hours over the course of a few months. In FEA, however, I reached that exact amount in under a week, and I still don't consider myself to be done with the game; in fact, I'm nowhere close. Normal mode allowed me to play through the beautifully-written storyline, but I may just play the entire game all over again in Hard mode and choose different options along the way, just to explore.
A physical copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening is hard to find due to shortages, but the box art and game cart make it well worth the wait. If you'd rather have it in your hand ASAP, then FEA is also available as a full download on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Both physical and digital copies are $40.
If you've been looking for something alongside the new game Animal Crossing: New Leaf to sink a massive amount of time into, look no further than Fire Emblem: Awakening for the Nintendo 3DS. A tactical RPG by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, FEA is loaded with a massive amount of colorful characters with rich dialogue, many branching options for character growth, and a wide range of free and paid DLC, all packaged together with beautiful graphics and sounds. This a game that should be played in 3D whenever you can, especially during cutscenes (which I really wish there were more of), and should definitely be played with headphones, because even the great speakers the 3DS has don't do the breathtaking soundtrack justice.
It would take nearly forever for me to cover everything in the game because there are so many little details and so many varying options, the most of which I still haven't tried myself, but don't let that discourage you if you're new to the Fire Emblem franchise. This is my first step into the world of Fire Emblem, and I found Awakening to be very easily accessible, so much so that I started speeding through menus and micromanaging in my head within the first few hours of play (although that could be because I play a lot of Tetris). The massive cast of characters allows you to play however you'd like; each character has their own classes and weapons they can use, suiting all kinds of strageties to be used on the battlefield. While some crucial things aren't explained (such as the fact that weapons can break, how weapon efficiency XP works, etc.), discovering every little detail packed into the game is part of the adventure, making finding out something new feel like an accomplishment. You can also pair up characters and make them stronger (similar to the Social Links in Persona), giving you full control over the side-stories presented through Support Dialogue and providing more depth to the characters you're controlling. You also start up the game after creating an Avatar to represent you, which implants you into the story more than you might think. FEA gives players the option to play in three different difficulties (Normal, Hard, and Expert) as well as two different game modes (Casual and Classic; Classic features permadeath for individual characters on the battlefield while Casual removes the feature), allowing the player to customize the flow of the game to however they like and giving more replay value to a game that already can eat up huge portions of your time. For reference, I played Super Mario 3D Land twice, 100%ing the game each time and getting up to 35 hours over the course of a few months. In FEA, however, I reached that exact amount in under a week, and I still don't consider myself to be done with the game; in fact, I'm nowhere close. Normal mode allowed me to play through the beautifully-written storyline, but I may just play the entire game all over again in Hard mode and choose different options along the way, just to explore.
A physical copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening is hard to find due to shortages, but the box art and game cart make it well worth the wait. If you'd rather have it in your hand ASAP, then FEA is also available as a full download on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Both physical and digital copies are $40.
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