Fire Emblem Awakening: I'm in deep

Did I mention that I absolutely adore this game? I'm quite sure I didn't, because that's a pretty new development. I started falling in love with Awakening in earnest a couple of chapters ago (around Chapter 12, if I remember properly), when the game suddenly opened up and I gained access to more Side Stories and complimentary battles than ever before. I obviously lapped up all that free grinding and polished off all the extra engagements that were offered to me, raising all my favourite units' weapon proficiency to A and their levels to the big 20 in the process. Everybody that could benefit from a Master Seal got a class change, and my force is now pretty much set and ready to follow my avatar till the bitter end. And talking about my force, I'm totally planning to write a post about my units of choice before I wrap up the game. Stay tuned!

Awakening is proving to be a much deeper game that Fates: Birthright, which only confirms that the latter is a truncated game and thus a complete rip-off. Maps in Awakening are ten times more varied than in Birthright, and the former doesn't need a browser game in disguise to keep players occupied. There's more than enough going on with the side stories, the complimentary battles, the recruitment, the refurbishment, the grinding to raise levels and unit closeness and last but not least, the romance. And talking about the romance, a couple more units tied the knot since my last post: Tharja and Libra, who go perfectly together as the brooding sorceress and the kind priest hiding dark secrets behind his ever-present smile; Gregor and Nowi, whose adorable relationship revolves around the latter crafting dragon scale outfits for the former; and last but not least, Noire and Morgan, whose hilariously silly love story involves the latter helping the former get rid of her fear of bugs.

I would gladly have worked on more pairings; but alas, my force's size is limited, and some units cannot marry anyway. I obviously went out to my way to recruit my units' progeny, even though they didn't join my force afterwards most of the time; the only offspring that's yet missing is Frederick and Miriel's one, whom I failed to recruit when I polished off the 'Shadow in the Sands' Paralogue. (But hey, how could I have known that a potential unit was in hiding in one of the villages? That's not fair, game!) And heck, I just don't want my playthrough to end yet! I'm relishing that game so much that I want to keep basking in more grinding and swift battles. But all good things come to an end, including amazing runs; and as my force is leveled up to the max, Master Sealed and pimped up with the best gear available, it's now time to tackle the ultimate chapters and find out if my avatar is indeed an unwilling traitor, as the game has been implying pretty much since the beginning. Brace yourselves, last chapters: I'm coming full force — in every sense of the word.

My only gripe with that amazing game so far is pretty much a pet peeve: to put it simply, I really dislike Awakening's soundtrack and voice acting. The former is just plain weird: if there's any such thing as martial elevator music, then Awakening's soundtrack is exactly that; and while those tracks have a way of getting stuck in my head, I just really, really don't fancy them. As for the latter, it's not really full-blown voice acting, just a couple of sentences thrown in here and there; yet those snipets have a way of not squaring with the characters' text nine times out of ten, effectively destroying the mood completely and preventing immersion. Complete silence would definitely have been a better choice, if you ask me.

With that said, dear fellow gamers, I'll leave you for the time being; I have battles to fight and a playthrough to wrap up. I'll see you soon with an exhaustive breakdown of my favourite units; until then, thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!