Fire Emblem Awakening: A glorious end (spoilers!)

True love all the way.

After 20 exhilarating hours of play, my run of Awakening has come to an end. The final showdown was suitably epic, with my force making a beeline for Grima while weathering the relentless attacks of her minions. I let my strongest units gang up on her and the whole engagement was over after a mere couple of attacks, with Noire delivery the final blow. I then let my avatar nobly sacrifice herself for the greater good, only to have her revived in the last seconds of the ending sequence — and let's be honest, I totally expected that outcome. I mean, that's the least karma could grant me after I spent hours toiling to save the world from complete annihilation. Last but not least, Ricken got the gold medal, Miriel got the silver one and my avatar the bronze one. I really, really meant it when I said that Ricken was my absolute favourite unit.

What more can I say? Awakening was an amazing game, a game I only enjoyed more and more as I played it. I really lapped up the no-frills yet deep gameplay, I grew to love the characters more and more as the game went on, and I absolutely adored the whole atmosphere of that game; and let's be honest, I currently have to fight strong urges to replay the whole thing all over again with a male avatar. One thing I didn't like much, on the other hand, is the storyline. Or, to be more precise, I didn't like the whole time travel shebang, which I deem superfluous and pretty much uncalled-for in the context of Awakening. Time travel never works properly as a narrative device; yet for some unfathomable reason, it pops up time and time again in manga, anime and games. From Dragon Ball to Sailor Moon to Steins;Gate, countless series have reprised the trope of the heroes' progeny hailing from a supposedly apocalyptic future and travelling back to the past to prevent said apocalyptic future from happening, armed with a grim sense of purpose and a truckload of unsolvable time paradoxes and plotholes. In a nutshell, Awakening dabbles in a theme that's all at once totally cliché and pitifully inefficient, and there was virtually no chance it would come unscathed out of it.

My main problem with the time travel theme in Awakening is not so much the fact that it's bursting at the seams with plotholes — although it certainly doesn't help matters — but rather the fact that it's nothing more than a very transparent plot device whose sole purpose is to justify the presence of the characters' offspring as well as to make the double ending possible. The story would have been much more striking and efficient without that whole time travel mess: just let Validar be the vessel for Grima and find another explanation for my avatar's amnesia — like, she got a couple of fuses burnt after she tried to stop her evil father or something like that. Then, drop that crap about Grima being impossible to annihilate except by his own hand and let the crew slaughter him for good — all the more so as it doesn't make sense at all that Grima cannot be killed but can commit suicide. What is that, selective death? As for the offspring, well... How about going the sensible way and let the characters age for real? If the apocalyptic future theme is removed, then there is no need to rush things and the story can perfectly take place over the course of two decades. I think the story would actually work out better with a slower pacing and over a longer time period; it doesn't make much sense than my force can scour two continents and fight hundreds of foes over a mere one or two years as implied by the game. Then we could also dispense with the silly fan-service and not have Lucina pose as a boy and call herself Marth. Seriously, the girl deserved better than that cheap cross-dressing act.

But enough with negative musings about Awakening's story; let's rather focus on the many excellent lessons I derived from that game. I'm now more confident about my ability to play Fire Emblem games my own way, and I'm definitely going to change a couple of things during my next incursion into the series:

• I'll use the best weapons as soon as they appear instead of shelving them and making do with low-class stuff. There is always better gear appearing as the game goes on anyway, so there's really no need to spare anything. I had tons of excellent weapons left in my inventory by the time I finished the game, weapons that could have been put to much better use. This won't happen again, I swear.
• I'll focus on my absolute favourite units, the ones I really have a crush on, and totally ignore the rest. Once again, the game consistently delivers new units over the course of a playthrough, so I can rest assured that I will find good recrues for my force no matter what.
• I'll wait until my units have reached Lv.20 before Master Sealing them. I was way too eager to promote them this time around, slapping Master Seals on them as soon as they reached Lv.10, and I lost a couple of yummy stats increases in the process.
• I'll sell right away the items I don't plan to use in order to buy items I do plan to use. During my playthrough, I kept Gaius Confects and Vulneraries in my inventory for hours "just in case", before finally admitting that this stuff didn't square with my playing style and that I would never touch it. No more.

With that said, dear fellow gamers, I'm bidding Awakening adieu for the time being. Or am I? The game is still tugging at me, to be honest; and if it keeps obsessing me that way, then maybe I'll just cave in and polish off a second playthrough with a male avatar. As usual, I'll let my ever-dependable, all-powerful gaming instinct run the show! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!