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Fire Emblem: Awakening - Character Spotlights

Standard story characters? Yes. DLC and Spotpass characters can be recovered by playing the DLC chapter or summoning the Spotpass team again, but that means they'll return to their initial levels and stats.

Casual Mode should still be in effect for story characters even in DLC maps, I thought.
 
Standard story characters? Yes. DLC and Spotpass characters can be recovered by playing the DLC chapter or summoning the Spotpass team again, but that means they'll return to their initial levels and stats.
We will call it "Operation Human Shield", meanwhile Chrom and all the story characters will perform "Operation Get Behind the Downloadables". It's a fool proof strategy. Of course, since Ike was DLC in Japan, he might just kill the entire enemy army like he's used to...
 
*blink*

Is the game difficult and make the use of such bonuses mandatory ? Because that sounds a little broken.

Also, thank you very much for the wallpaper !

I finished the game on hard. The first half of the game is the difficult part. You don't have enough tanky characters, maps usually have several enemies within range to attack you (and you're unlikely to able to defeat them with a single character each), and they're quite aggressive. On top of that, when playing on hard mode and above, enemy reinforcements are allowed to act on the turn they spawn (I really wish the series did away with this mechanic). Furthermore, there are several missions where you're heavily discouraged from stalling, by having challenges like having your party split up, or recruitable NPCs appearing on a map a significant distance from your party, usually with a small cluster of enemies in between, or enemy reinforcements that spawn behind you (and their spawning may even trigger existing enemies to move in on your position!) Probably the toughest mission I faced in the early game is one of the gaiden chapters, where
there are 3 villager NPCs surrounded by enemies, and the villagers are hellbent on moving westwards, even if that would put them in range of an enemy that will kill them in one hit. The terrain in that map is awful, AND the enemy has pegasus knights, while you only have one or two, but they're too weak to go out and escort the villagers on their own. Saving those villagers was actually optional, but you get good items from them at the end of the mission.

I didn't find much use for the Pair Up system early game, because I figured I needed more people out on the field to kill the enemies more quickly (plus having extra bodies to block them was useful), and that far outweighed the minor stat boosts you get early on. Late game, however, pairing up gives such huge boosts you can easily clear entire maps using just a single pair of characters.
 
Wait, so is Hard Mode available from the start? Typically FE games unlock the Hard Mode after you beat it...or is like some of the previous FE games, where the Japanese version had a Normal, Hard, and Maniac modes? In FE10 I believe they actually kept the Maniac mode, but renamed them to Easy, Normal, and Hard. In FE9 I seem to remember that they just threw out Maniac entirely.

I think Normal, Hard, and Insane (Lunatic) are already available from the start.
 
Yeah, I think that's awesome.

On the other hand...Destructoid also says that the free DLC will only be free for a week. That's pretty bogus in my opinion, especially since it was free for like a month or so in Japan.

This is especially sad if true, since even though I preordered it, I don't know if it comes within a week or not.
 
Cool, thanks. Hopefully they don't muck with the difficulties (besides possibly renaming them) for the NA release. They've had a history of doing that...

Did they change them in Radiant Dawn and Shadow Dragon? I don't remember seeing anything about that, really have no idea. If not, it will probably be the same here aside from naming differences.

This is especially sad if true, since even though I preordered it, I don't know if it comes within a week or not.

Yep. Hopefully I get it in time and am not busy that week. One week is pretty terrible. Why not just make it a preorder bonus?
 
Cool, thanks. Hopefully they don't muck with the difficulties (besides possibly renaming them) for the NA release. They've had a history of doing that...

Yeah, I hope so too.

You know, I should really rephrase myself, just in case. I know for sure that the Japanese version starts out with three (Normal, Hard, Lunatic), and Dtoid says there are three available from his preview build (Normal, Hard, Insane). I think the easiest and quickest assumption to make is that Lunatic was renamed to Insane, but as I think about it, there's nothing conclusively saying that they are in fact the same; Insane may as well be something different (or any of them, for that matter...).

I don't know, I'm just throwing the possibilities out there. I do personally wish that the straightforward interpretation of the only difference between the two versions being that Lunatic was renamed to Insane is the case, because I've heard Lunatic is crazy.
 
Yeah, I hope so too.

You know, I should really rephrase myself, just in case. I know for sure that the Japanese version starts out with three (Normal, Hard, Lunatic), and Dtoid says there are three available from his preview build (Normal, Hard, Insane). I think the easiest and quickest assumption to make is that Lunatic was renamed to Insane, but as I think about it, there's nothing conclusively saying that they are in fact the same; Insane may as well be something different (or any of them, for that matter...).

I don't know, I'm just throwing the possibilities out there. I do personally wish that the straightforward interpretation of the only difference between the two versions being that Lunatic was renamed to Insane is the case, because I've heard Lunatic is crazy.
Destructoid might just be mixing up the names, too.
 
Dunno about Shadow Dragon, but they kept the originals in Radiant Dawn (just renamed them). That was the first localized FE that had the original difficulties, I think. FE7, 8, and 9 all had the hardest mode removed, I think. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

I know FE9 was changed. Don't know about FE8 at all, and 7 is a weird. Off the top of my head I'd guess Eliwood's story was adjusted but not Hector's, because that was quite a bit tougher IIRC. Been years since I have touched 7 or 8.
 
Destructoid is the only place I've heard where they specifically mention the free DLC only being available for a week, if that means anything. Also keep in mind that in that article, the way the dude describes the beginning of the game is very off from what actually happens in the Japanese version of the game (unless it is somehow different in the preview build?).

Dunno about Shadow Dragon, but they kept the originals in Radiant Dawn (just renamed them). That was the first localized FE that had the original difficulties, I think. FE7, 8, and 9 all had the hardest mode removed, I think. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

I haven't heard of any differences in difficulty with Shadow Dragon, and I don't believe either FE7 or FE8 were any different either, but I wouldn't know for certain. Not sure about FE9, either.

Destructoid might just be mixing up the names, too.

You could be right as long as other people who've posted impressions haven't already said that there's an Insane difficulty, Dtoid's the only one I've read that's this specific about everything.
 
I know for sure FE9 messed with the difficulties...they added an "Easy Mode" that wasn't in the Japanese version, got rid of the Maniac Mode, and replaced it with an easier mode they called "Hard". It actually caused problems if you played on "Easy" when trying to transfer save data to FE10. Supposedly it had something to do with the differences between the difficulty levels from the Japanese version and them not taking that into account.
Which led to, perhaps, the greatest unintentional localization trolling Nintendo has done.

In Radiant Dawn, they just changed the names of the difficulties. Normal became Easy, Hard became Normal, and Maniac became Hard. So everyone thinking that Normal is about as hard as Path of Radiance Normal were in for a bit of a surprise... For some reason Radiant Dawn got a reputation of being difficult. Because a lot of people were actually playing on Hard.

Not the brightest moment in Nintendo localizations.
 
Haha, yeah, forgot about that. Normal was pretty difficult, but worth it. I won't touch Hard/Maniac though, mainly because of the fact that you can't view enemy ranges...to me, that's not a way to make the game more difficult but just more annoying.
Yeah, same here. Boost up the enemy count and stats if you want for higher difficulties. Make the AI more cruel, too, while you're at it. But don't degrade the UI and call it difficulty. I can count, you know, but when I know the game has a button to do it for me, then I'm going to call foul on it being disabled just because.

Radiant Dawn also became easier near the end. The endgame usually is dominated by crazy-powerful units, and if you don't have enough overpowered units, you're can just use the new ones you get for free right there.
 
602869_429724450432885_1777301181_n.jpg


Today we’re spotlighting Vaike from Fire Emblem Awakening. A Shepherd who considers himself Chrom’s rival, Vaike has a loud personality and more confidence than his ability warrants.

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Miriel from Fire Emblem Awakening is a Shepherd who adores her research and obsesses over her studies. She’s quiet and organized but can be tough towards people who are careless.

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I must say I really like the new art design, much better than the horrendous style of the FEs for NDS.

But I don't like the new Marth. Compare him to his old design:
TGJ0S.png

You would think he should be roughly as strong as Chrom, but now he looks puny. I mean, I wonder if some of the girls aren't stronger than him now. :|

Ah well, it's probably because im not a big fan of these girly designs for men in general. It's not like they all have to look like the Hulk, but maybe a little bit stronger when we're speaking of an experienced fighter.
 
But... oh you :P

Anyway,is this a good Fire Emblem game to "jump into"? I haven't played any at all, and only knew some via articles and Smash.
 
Which led to, perhaps, the greatest unintentional localization trolling Nintendo has done.

In Radiant Dawn, they just changed the names of the difficulties. Normal became Easy, Hard became Normal, and Maniac became Hard. So everyone thinking that Normal is about as hard as Path of Radiance Normal were in for a bit of a surprise... For some reason Radiant Dawn got a reputation of being difficult. Because a lot of people were actually playing on Hard.

Not the brightest moment in Nintendo localizations.

That explains the jump of difficulty I'm experiencing going from Path of Radiance to Radiant Dawn.
 
But... oh you :P

Anyway,is this a good Fire Emblem game to "jump into"? I haven't played any at all, and only knew some via articles and Smash.

As a player who entered the series with Awakening, yes, it's a great start. I was never lost and the systems were explained well enough, and there was enough left unexplained for me to figure out on my own.
 
I must say I really like the new art design, much better than the horrendous style of the FEs for NDS.

But I don't like the new Marth. Compare him to his old design:
TGJ0S.png

You would think he should be roughly as strong as Chrom, but now he looks puny. I mean, I wonder if some of the girls aren't stronger than him now. :|

Ah well, it's probably because im not a big fan of these girly designs for men in general. It's not like they all have to look like the Hulk, but maybe a little bit stronger when we're speaking of an experienced fighter.
.... have you written this after playing the japanese version of this game?
 
.... have you written this after playing the japanese version of this game?

No, I don't know much about Awakening. But I guess I know what you're implying.

Doesn't seem to be a big secret though. When I looked at the official art works I thought the masked person was a girl at first and was kinda surprised to hear it's supposed to be Marth anyway. I mean the fricking box art shows you that pseudo marth has the same shape as the women on it. -_- Don't tell me, if my guessing is correct or not and don't tell me who this person is.
 
For those that have played the Japanese version, is Attack Speed based on Constitution minus weapon weight (like pre-FE9), or Strength minus weapon weight?
Weapon Weight, like in FE12, was taken out of the game entirely, so Attack Speed is just Speed.
 
Guess I'll wait for a price drop then.

Edit: I really hope they make the DLC a better deal for us, because if they following the Japanese pricing it's going to cost $70+(!) for all of it. Goddamn, I didn't know it was that bad.

Really?! That's a lot of money!

Then again its not going to come out at the same time and I don't think all of it is worth buying anyway. With that said I'm buying all of it to support the game so I don't have to see this localization bullshit from nintendo again.
 
Oh, really? Hm, interesting. Weapon weight was always something I had to consider, but I guess that streamlines things a bit. I assume the double attack qualifier is still having four more Attack Speed (just Speed now) than your enemy?

Also, for the regular mode (non-casual, where your units actually die), is there a quicksave option like Radiant Dawn had? (A temporary save that would allow you to restart to that point in the battle once. Made ally deaths less painful because if you were smart about when you quicksaved you wouldn't have to restart an entire map.)

If I remember correctly, only Casual mode has the save-anywhere system. Which is kinda pointless. Classic mode doesn't have any saves, not even save tiles like the DS games.

Although both modes should still have suspend.
 
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