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.
