Fire Emblem Awakening: Smooth sailing

A couple of extra hours of play under my belt since my last post, and I'm still enjoying Awakening quite a lot. The ennui that viciously gripped me during my Fates playthrough is nowhere to be felt now, and I sure hope that things will stay that way until the end. I finally decided to stick with my female avatar, leaving an hypothetical male run as an option for future runs; and while I was at it, I got my claws into Chrom and made him my avatar's husband. I seriously doubt this romantic move will unlock anything interesting, but better safe than sorry. It's not like there were a lot of interesting bachelors anyway; the female characters are definitely more alluring, and I'll sure have a hard time choosing my mate when I replay the game with a male avatar — although I've already set my sights on a couple of ladies. But I digress; let's move back to my current playthrough and its unexpected developments.

Or maybe not so unexpected; because let's be honest, Fates had already pulled the exact same trick on me — and I fell for it once again like the FE debutant I am. I'm obviously referring to both games' propensity to offer powerful new units on a silver platter as chapters go by, prompting the player to ditch their overpowered old units without a second thought to focus on the flashy newcomers. That's how I found myself dropping newly wedded Vaike and Sully as well as Lon'qu and Lissa when Libra, Tharja, Gregor and Nowi joined my force. I feel a bit guilty about virtually abandoning the former on the highway after they served me so dutifully since the beginning of my run; but hey, what else could I do? The new units are just ten times more colourful and entertaining, and they are incredible assets on the battlefield to boot. And with Libra joining the fold, I now have three Healers on my hands, and that's definitely one too much. I love Maribelle too much to let go of her, and Libra is such a perfect embodiment of multitasking that I cannot think of parting with him for the life of me; so Lissa has to go, despite the fact that she's one of the main players in the story. And if Lissa goes, so does her husband Lon'qu — heck, the guy has a ridiculously tiny move range anyway. As for Sully and Vaike, they were always pis aller units that I used to fill up my force, so I certainly won't miss them too much.

Having said that, I'm a bit miffed by Fates' and Awakening's propensity to force planned obsolescence on the player by making newer units more attractive than older ones — or rather, I'm miffed by my own propensity to fall prey to that trick and lavish time and energy on units that I don't really fancy and won't keep in my roster till the bitter end. That's a full-blown case of sunk cost fallacy if I ever saw one; yet I cannot help but being salty about all that lost XP that could have been used to power up my absolute favourite units. Now, my own naivety and lack of insight in all things unit management are perfectly forgivable given that I'm still a complete FE noob; but let me tell you, I won't be one forever. I'm currently experiencing burgeoning yet irrepressible impulses to play it my way, taking a page from my own serial solo runner book and focusing exclusively on my very favourite units, even if that involves taking less characters along for the ride than the game actually allows. My next run of a 3DS FE game is definitely going to follow that pattern, and I'll bend the genre to my tastes and make it ten times more enjoyable in the process.

Never were deeper words of love spoken.

And since I've been referring to my favourite units over and over, I might as well introduce them right now. We have the Miriel/Frederick pair, two powerhouses with a really lovely and totally believable love story; and then we have my absolute little darlings, the Ricken/Maribelle pair, whose love story is so sweet and utterly perfect that it made me all mushy inside. Ricken is ridiculously strong despite his tiny stature and young age; and while Maribelle is not that useful on the battlefield, the idea of parting with her just tears my heart out. Then you have the quatuor I mentioned earlier, which made quite an impression, as well as new arrival Anna, which I may or may not intregate into my force depending on her performances on the battlefied and on the evolution of my feelings towards her. I mean, I was initially quite fond of Panne and Cordelia before their mediocre fighting performances and transparent personalities prompted me to ditch them without a second thought.

With that said, I'll see you soon with more Awakening reports, dear fellow gamers! There will be blood and romance, new recruits as well as new romantic developments. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!