Fire Emblem: Awakening

Are Marth and Roy in this game? Technically![1]
Two sleeping dragons -- one a sacred ally of mankind, the other its sworn destroyer. Two heroes marked with the symbols of the dragons. Their meeting heralds the dragons' awakening -- and the world's ending.
—Japanese logo (completely untranslated)

The thirteenth Fire Emblem game, the first original title (as in, not a remake) since Radiant Dawn in 2007, and set nearly 2000 years after the third game and its remake. It stars Chrom, yet another blue haired swordsman and the prince of the Iris Kingdom who leads a vigilante force, and a player-created custom character who acts as both a strategist and part of his force who he finds with amnesia at the start of the game.

The game brings back the world map system of Gaiden and The Sacred Stones, and reintroduces the Skills system in a form reminiscent of its Tellius incarnation, allowing you to freely swap skills between characters. It sports a graphical style reminiscent of the Tellius games with a more cartoonish bent, sporting a Two Point Five D map and 3D fights. The character design and portrait art style - the work of Yusuke Kozaki - looks like it belongs in a Shonen anime. A new feature introduced allows units to gang up on enemies when next to an attacking ally (the exact mechanics of this are unknown). It received notoriety as the first first-party Nintendo title to feature paid Downloadable Content, mainly in the form of "episodes" comprising map packs telling side-stories, not unlike BS Fire Emblem: Akaneia War Chronicles.

After New Mystery of the Emblem failed to make the translation leap, some fans initially feared the possibility of No Export for You; a European release was confirmed in the February 2012 instalment of Nintendo Direct and as of E3, a North American localization has been confirmed by Reggie Fils-Aime after the Nintendo 3DS Software Showcase event, with no release date given. It was eventually revealed that it would be first (and thus far only) game in the series to use a straight translation of its Japanese name Fire Emblem: Kakusei, which it was universally known as before this announcement (though given this series' history, that's really nothing new), after Nintendo of America has registered a domain for it (though initially just redirects to NOA's main Web site). While the translation did not go to the sheer incompressible level of the next game, the quality is low. Several sections are cut for translation cost, and several scenes were replaced with entirely made up dialog.

Tropes used in Fire Emblem: Awakening include:
  • Accidental Pervert: In their B support, Chrom walks in on a female My Unit naked, and she returns the favor in their A support.
  • Adorkable: Enforced with the "Confessions" scenes the My Unit gets with his/her spouse.
  • Ambidextrous Sprite: Averted with Chrom, who has two different portraits [dead link] for when he faces left or right.
  • Anime Hair: Present, but nowhere near the level of what was previously feared by some. Out of all the characters revealed so far, only Lissa's hairstyle is truly implausible, and, even then, it's not that bad to begin with.
  • Art Shift: The new art style for this game is a radical departure from previous games.
  • Ascended Extra: Anna, the plucky mascot of Fire Emblem who has only made walk-on appearances in every game so far, is finally recruitable.
  • Ascended Meme: Ayra/Ira's description for her guest appearance claims she is "mad strong", referring to her infamous abilities.
    • Why yes, Marth and Roy are in this game!
  • Awesome but Impractical: Most mixed physical/magic units have lower caps for their offensive stats than most pure classes and few characters have the growth rates to use both well.
  • Badass Family: Due to the second generation, you can have one.
  • Bad Future: Lucina hails from one, where My Unit was killed and possessed by Grima, killed Chrom, and Grima as well as the corpse soldiers killed everything.
  • Black and White Morality: Seemingly, the issue between Iris and Perezia. Iris worships the benevolent Divine Dragon Naga, ruled by the kind and just Emelina, and minus the Vigilance Force, is mainly peaceful. Perezia, on the other hand, worships the monstrous Dark Dragon Grima, ruled by the cruel Gangrel, and at least a portion of it's people are Barbarians who like to Rape, Pillage and Burn. Even the Token Heroic Orcs Tharja and Henry don't even seem to be that heroic.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: A few DLC chapters seem to smell strongly of this, such as one in which enemies drop enormous amounts of gold, one consisting entirely of Entombed (pathetically weak undead enemies that give huge amounts of exp) and, perhaps most egregiously "Infinite Divine Weapons". Of course, it's not quite as bad as some other games, as here you actually have to play the chapters to reap the rewards, which could be pretty painful on higher difficulties. And it seems some of them contain nasty traps for those who blindly rush them for farming purposes, such as Level 30 Entombed with Counter...
  • Bucket Helmet: Villager class is badly equipped, and wears these.
  • The Cavalry:
    • The second "real" chapter of the game has Lissa, the Avatar, Frederick, and Chrom fending off a horde of Risen. After several turns, Sully and an archer appears to lend a hand or two against the undead.
    • The sixth chapter has Panne and Marth joining the fray to help the Shepherds drive off Emmeryn's would-be assassins.
    • The next chapter has Cordelia joining your team to warn you about the wave of enemy reinforcements who slaughtered her unit.
    • Despite being your allies throughout the game, Flavia and Basilio won't join the Shepherds until the twenty-third chapter to counter a wave of Grimleal reinforcements
  • Came Back Wrong: Of the Damaged Soul Variety in the case of Emmeryn who is resurrected in a late/post game spotpass-sidequest... tragically, she has amnesia so bad, she can't even talk right. Her condition is stated to never improve, but ends up living a simple happy life.
  • The Cameo: Characters from past Fire Emblem games will show up in some downloadable chapters. So far, Claire from Gaiden, Ira from Genealogy of the Holy War, and Innes from The Sacred Stones have been announced.
  • Canon Welding:
    • Even WITHOUT the dimension-warping aspect of this game, there's overwhelming evidence in this game that every other Fire Emblem game is indeed in the same universe. Taking the dimension-warping into account, it seems that some worlds are historically connected while others are Mutually Fictional, such that characters have heard the stories of the other games as folklore and songs rather than history.
    • My Unit's child will be a tactician named Marc, sharing the same outfit and default name as the player avatar from the seventh game, and the game already has dimension hopping. The best ranking in the Japanese version of Fire Emblem 7 also gives Marc the same "Grandmaster" title as promoted My Unit. The English translation erases these allusions by naming the character "Morgan" instead.
    • The continent Gaiden took place on appears later in the story.
    • The Holy Weapons from the Jugdral games make an appearance (and anyone with the appropriate weapon rank can use them now) as do The 12 Dark Warlords, some of whom are in possession of said Holy Weapons.
    • Donny and Olivia's supports reference Naesala and Leanne!
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: From Serenes Forest's page on forging: "There is an overall limit of 8 intervals that can be raised per weapon. For example, you can raise Might by 5 intervals and Critical by 3 intervals, but no more than that. [...] Enemies on higher difficulties can have weapons that exceed the 8 interval limit." That should tell you enough. And then there's the enemy-exclusive Skills for Lunatic Mode, which include one that always makes them hit, regardless of stats and a Luna that ALWAYS activates.
  • Contemptible Cover: The cover of the manual shows nothing but a picture of Aversa.
  • Cult: The entire nation of Perezia is a theocracy dedicated to the worship of the Evil Dragon Grima.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: The Developers themselves, when designing the "Entombed Heaven" DLC chapter. Its very existance shows they know full well that players love to exploit Entombed for easy EXP, but made sure if you just blindly rush in and started beating them up, you'll be met with a nasty surprise... Level 30 Entombed with Counter. Given that Entombed have massive HP, but abysmal Defence, that's an awful lot of damage coming right back at you...
  • Double Standard: The translation changes Nowi's character so she's only pretending to be childish instead of actually being so, but nobody says a thing about Ricken and Donnel.
  • Downloadable Content: Marth (the real one) and a remake of the first stage of the original game was Nintendo's first DLC. Roy, Leaf, Alm, Micaiah, Elincia, Ephraim, Eirika and Celice followed among maps in an alternate timeline and generic fanservice episodes.
  • Dropped a Bridget On Him: Libra on Virion.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Validar, the leader of the Gimle cult.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: DLC Eirika's Class, "Bride"... guess what that looks like?
  • Giant Flyer: The dark dragon Grima. It's so huge that the final chapter takes place on its back.
  • Hot Dad/Hot Mom: Parents apparently don't age a day. Time traveling kids being the reason, of course meaning potentially all couples will continue to be gorgeous even after having children.
  • Hotter and Sexier:
    • Compare Divine Dragon child Tiki's appearance in Awakening [dead link] with her appearance in Shadow Dragon and see that the proof is in the pudding.
    • Most of the DLC versions of the female lords.
  • I Have Your Wife: Eventually, Gangrel captures Emmeryn and forces Chrom to give him the Shield of Seals for her safety. But she kills herself via falling off a cliff to prevent this.
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes: Whereas the entire franchise so far has generally maintained a (relatively) realistic and practical bent in its character design, this game so far leans much more in the direction of this trope. The best examples by far are the knight characters.
  • Intercontinuity Crossover: 120 Characters from all past Fire Emblems return here, through a dimensional portal that exists in the land. The player can face them, hire them to join his army or buy items from them. And this is mostly unrelated to the game's main story. However, aside from their portraits, they just use generic classes and models colored like their original designs. Only a few characters, who are paid DLC content, actually get their own models and personal classes. The story of the paid DLC does involve many past characters though, including the ones that use generic models.
  • Kissing Cousins: Being cousins does not prevent children from reaching an S Support with eachother. The English version avoids mention of them being married but otherwise changes nothing.
  • Lady of War: Lucina.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: My Unit in-universe. This would be one of the most controversial parts of the game, especially as the next game doubled down on it.
  • Magic Knight:
    • For the first time in the series in a game officially released in English, certain classes are capable of truly[2] using both weapons and magic. The avatar's main class the "Strategist" can wield both magic and swords.
    • NUNSWITHAXES.
    • DLC Class "Demon Fighter", as a result of being ported from Gaiden and its weird magic system can wield swords, axes and tomes. The followup DLC class, the "Bride" class, can wield bows, staffs and lances just so it has a counterpart.
  • Mark of Naga: As proof of their Heroic Lineage, Emmeryn has this on her forehead, Chrom on his shoulder and Lucina in her eye. We have no clue where Lissa's is.
  • Mastery Skill Portrait Attack: The cut-in also occurs on critical hits.
  • Mythology Gag: Cherche's wyvern is named Minerva.
  • Nerf:
    • The forging system had one, compared to how utterly broken it was in the preveous two games. You can now only give a limited number of 'buffs' to a single weapon, meaning you can no longer forge both Might and Critical up to max. You'll need to choose between a weapon that hits really hard all the time, or one that's slightly weaker but criticals more often. Hard mode enemies don't follow this rule.
    • The Holy Weapons, such as Tyrfing, Holsety and Narga, used to have 30 MT and ludicrous bonuses. Now they've got Between 14 and 20 MT, and those bonuses are down from 30/40/80 Stat points to 5/10.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Eirika's new DLC costume. Complete with Giant Poofy Sleeves, Frills of Justice, and what appears to be sheer Fluffy Fashion Feathers. May double as a Battle Ballgown.
  • Player Character: My Unit, you get to select your gender, name him or her, select a character portrait and model, and select his or her voice. In the Japanese version, you could select one of four personalities as well.
  • Powerful, but Inaccurate: While axes are like this in comparison to swords and lances, the differences are normally pretty subtle. However, [the Imposing Axe] manages to be least accurate weapon in the game and hitting harder than most of the weapons, despite it's low ranking.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Corpse Soldiers, in both their portraits and battle animations.
  • Relationship Values: The relationship system and children from Fire Emblem Jugdral returns. Most controversially is the avatar getting in on the action, which many fans would claim got too much of a focus and was aimed at the wrong kind of player.
  • The Reveal: "Marth" is actually Lucina, Chrom's daughter from the future.
  • Shaggy Dog Story: The cast has been through two wars, an cult that's bent on destroying the world and zombies; and the prize for Chrom "killing" Grima is the revelation that he'll be back within a millennium or two.
  • Someone Elses Problem: The heroes' justification for dealing with Grima after he's been sealed away is to hope that someone will triumph over him once he reappears an undefined time in the future.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": Nowi's daughter is named ンン, roughly pronounched un-un or nn-nn. How are you supposed to spell that? The translation goes with "Nah".
  • Spoiler Opening
  • Stock Subtitle: Awakening.
  • Sturgeon's Law: Mild example. The Avatar has the most Support conversation options out of any character. Especially if not romancing the character in question, many of them are a bit more bland and less personal than between other characters due to the Avatar's fairly down-to-earth personality and lack of personal connection to many of the characters. That said, they're still worth reading for sure.
  • This Loser Is You: Completely inverted. Not only does My Unit have a special class and is the first true Magic Knight since Judgral, but s/he can also get paired with Chrom and Sumia, and even have kids. Way to go, stud!
  • Time Skip: Awakening is a direct sequel to the Archanea series, though technology is unchanged.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: Your characters' children come from the future in order to prevent the end of the world. Expect a a lot of this.
  • Variable Mix: The battle music on most maps is a variation of the map's theme, shifting into the arrangement as the scene changes.
  • Yandere: Tharja, as one could tell from her various support conversations, especially the ones she has with My Unit... hopefully you don't have a nice boat...
  • You Don't Look Like You: Due to each DLC having wildly different artists with no style consistently, few characters are recognizable.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Thus far, the biggest examples are males, in the form of Chrom and Marth,[3] who score a grade-A!
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Like The Sacred Stones, one's getting underway with the mass appearance of "Corpse Soldiers"... There's a Bad Future where it got to full-fledged Apocalypse levels.
  1. ↑ As DLC!
  2. ↑ Tellius allowed Sages to pick knifes over staffs, but this was so weak, they couldn't damage anything except enemy mages. There was also a pair of units who could use both swords and staffs.
  3. ↑ It still counts, as DLC Marth wears the same outfit as "Marth".
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