Awakening vs. Fates vs. Shadows of Valentia
The Fire Emblem series has seen a dramatic surge in popularity since the release of Fire Emblem Awakening back in 2013. Widely regarded as a modernization of the series, Awakening and Fates were great entry points for newcomers like myself, and helped to ease them in with elements like character creation, and more importantly, character shipping and baby making after that. Of course, the series’ trademark tactical RPG combat and permadeath system was still in place, and it certainly hasn’t lost any of its punishing difficulty.
Following Awakening, Nintendo released Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, and Conquest, two games which told the same story from two opposing sides. A third chapter, Revelation, was released shortly after that to tie up both perspectives and offer proper closure to the overall story. Fates was very similar to Awakening in that players could create their own characters and pair up their favorite supports, but with the added twist of having to decide where your loyalties lay: with Hoshido, or with Nohr.
And most recently, we saw the release of Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. This one’s a different beast altogether as it’s a remake of the 1992 RPG Fire Emblem Gaiden. It doesn’t feature any of those newcomer-friendly additions like character pairing and castle-building, and even the battle system completely does away with the weapon triangle we’ve grown so used to. However, Shadows of Valentia does place a much larger emphasis on its story and plot, and the key characters feel more alive in this game because of that.
Which, then, is the best Fire Emblem game on the 3DS right now? We’re going to try to answer that question by examining the games in three big categories: story, combat, and additional features that players can engage in outside of the campaign.
Story and Characters
The story of Awakening kicks off when Chrom and Lissa discover the player character, Robin, lying unconscious in a field. With no memory of who they are, Robin eventually joins up with Chrom and the Halidom of Ylisse to oppose the kingdom of Plegia, which worships the evil Fell Dragon. Along the way, there are twists and turns in the story surrounding Robin’s origins and the role they have to play in the events to come.
Awakening’s story is strong because of how memorable its core cast of characters is. Chrom is the courageous and sometimes goofy leader that you can always count on, and Frederick is the serious and stalwart knight that you can poke at every now and then. Robin’s role in the story is also a lot more involved than you might initially think and, depending on who you romance in the game, is a part of some seriously dramatic scenes that will tug at your heartstrings. The Plegia antagonists are actually terrifying as well, and they do a great job of presenting themselves as malicious beings who will stop at nothing to destroy Ylisse. All of this conflict eventually culminates in an insanely epic showdown between the forces of good and evil, made only more memorable because of the bonds you’ve forged with your fellow comrades.
Also, that ending though.
Fire Emblem Fates is a curious set of games. Depending on which version of the game you bought, you start off your story with either Hoshido or Nohr, and your enemies will be your siblings from whichever family you chose to turn your back on. At the end of Birthright and Conquest, you get hints that perhaps there are darker forces at work, and your story isn’t quite over yet. You’ll get closure to your story in Revelation, where the player character and Azura reject both families and strike out on their own.
The overall plot of Fates is engaging, and the payoff in Revelation is definitely worth playing through the two separate campaigns preceding it. However, Fates often feels too much like a game struggling to follow in Awakening’s footsteps. Many characters in Fates feel like reskins of the ones we’ve already seen in Awakening, and there isn’t really a ‘core cast’ to get attached to. The sense of camaraderie in Fates is flimsy at best, causing the game’s plot to lose its weight and brevity at times. The stories of both games are comparable in quality, but overall, Fates feels like the safe sequel that didn’t quite know how to surpass Awakening’s epic tale.
With Shadows of Valentia, the absence of a player avatar and character pairings makes it much easier to focus on the story and plot. Being a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden, Shadows of Valentia has a very ’90s RPG feel. You’ve got the young male protagonist, all wide-eyed and eager when he finally gets to travel out of his village for the first time, you’ve got the canon love interest in a very typical RPG priestess role, and you have a clan of lovable and archetypal sidekicks that stick with you through the journey. It’s all very textbook.
However, Shadows of Valentia also happens to tell a much darker and grittier story than Awakening and Fates. There’s a war brewing between kingdoms in all three games, but Shadows of Valentia is the only entry that doubles down on the horrors of war, and the hardship it brings to the people. It’s a dramatic story of love, friendship, and death. It can feel cliched at times, but ultimately it works.
Winner: Fire Emblem Awakening. As much as I adore the tone of Shadows of Valentia, it isn’t quite enough to beat out Awakening’s strong cast of characters and its intense story pacing. Awakening has it all: a gripping story, memorable characters you can get attached to, and enough plot twists to keep you up late at night, frantically jabbing at your 3DS screen, wanting to find out what happens next. Heck, just writing about Awakening makes me want to drop everything right now and go play it again for the fourth time.
Combat
Both Awakening and Fates feature tactical gameplay that revolves around one core mechanic: the weapon triangle. It’s a rock-paper-scissors type of system involving lances, swords, and axes. You’ve also got magic users (who will always be OP as all hell), flying units, and archers. It’s a relatively simplistic system that makes more sense as you spend more hours with the game. Your units can also level up and get a class promotion after hitting level 20.
Shadows of Valentia is a lot more old-school, and its combat system is all about stats. The amount of damage you deal is determined by your unit’s attack stat and the enemy’s defense stat. Take the difference between those values, and you’ll have your net amount of damage. Archers also work a bit differently in this one. Instead of attacking from one diagonal space away like in Awakening and Fates, archers are now able to hit their targets from a much larger distance. The same goes for magic-users as well. Shadows of Valentia also features class promotion, except Villagers are now able to promote to any base class once they’ve hit level three.
The game also has a rather harsh fatigue feature that punishes your characters’ stats if you push them into battle after they’re exhausted. It’s a brutal mechanic, but it definitely keeps you on your toes. The best part of Shadows of Valentia’s combat system is the introduction of Mila’s Turnwheel, which lets you reset a couple of turns if you make a bad move. It’s a bit of a crutch, but it’s a nice compromise for players who want to experience the thrill of permadeath on Classic Mode, but can’t stop themselves from reloading a save every time they lose a unit.
A big difference between the two styles of games is that Awakening and Fates allow you to pair up your units for enhanced stats. By pairing up units, they can support each other in combat, and deal more damage. Shadows of Valentia doesn’t allow you to actually pair them up, but you can still place units close to each other for stat bonuses (if they have a support relationship), and they’ll continue to act independently.
Winner: Shadows of Valentia’s combat system may be a lot more simplistic, but it also makes a hell of a lot more sense than the weapon triangle. Keeping everything strictly tied to a unit’s statistics makes it easier to get a sense of how powerful it is, and where you should place them on the field.
Additional Features
Outside of support conversations, Fire Emblem Awakening doesn’t have much in the way of additional features. You can interact with various characters in the Barracks, but there isn’t much else to do. Fates expands upon the Barracks in a great way though.
In place of the Barracks, you now have a feature called My Castle, which is essentially a home base that you get to decorate and customize however you like. With StreetPass and online features, you can also visit other players’ castles, battle with them, and exchange resources. Support conversations are still done through a menu system, but the castle itself can also be enhanced with several buildings and structures to help you improve relations and other aspects of your army. Most importantly, your character gets their own private quarters, which can be shared with your S-rank partner once you get one.
Shadows of Valentia does have support conversations as well, but all of that is done on the battlefield itself. The game doesn’t exactly have a home base to speak of, and character bonding features are kept to a minimum. However, Shadows of Valentia does also include 3D dungeons that can be explored, as well as villages with townspeople that you can talk to. All of this helps to flesh out the game world even more, and the villages you come across serve as a respite from the game’s grueling fights.
Winner: Fire Emblem Fates takes this one. The game is built around its social features, and the fact that you get to participate in online battles with other preset teams and visit other personalized villages makes this game the most entertaining one outside of its core content.
So Who Wins?
As always, it comes down to the player’s personal preference when deciding which 3DS Fire Emblem game is for you. If you want a feel-good tactical RPG with a seriously strong cast of characters that you can get attached to, there’s no question about it. Fire Emblem Awakening is the one you want. As fun as Fates is when it comes to its social features, its story beats are largely similar to Awakening’s, except with much weaker characters and less engaging backstories. The player character in Fates is also a lot less interesting than Robin too.
However, if you want a tactical RPG experience with a darker and more serious story along with, in my opinion, a better combat system, Shadows of Valentia is an excellent pick. Support conversations and pairings are kept to a minimum here, and you can’t just force your units to marry whomever you like, but that’s not a detriment. The character cast in Shadows of Valentia is pretty small in comparison to Awakening and Fates, and the support conversations that are available in the game give you greater insight into the game’s ‘canon’ pairings, which in turn also means better writing overall since the player can’t just ship whoever they like.
But that’s just my opinion. Which is your favorite Fire Emblem game on the 3DS? Let us know in the comments down below.
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