It's become something of a meme to say Fire Emblem Awakening saved the franchise. The Nintendo 3DS game was a celebration of the series' gameplay, combining elements like the SNES era's marriage mechanic and skills with the supports and side-quests of more recent titles. This was intentional, as Awakening was developed as a potential last hurrah -- but it ultimately became an international sensation that set the franchise on the path to its current popularity.

Of course, with popularity often comes division. Some fans felt Awakening's mechanics were shallower than those of past games, and accused its story of acquiescing to the kinds of anime tropes the series generally avoided. Despite these complaints, Awakening proved more successful than any previous game, and its design decisions set a standard that the series follows to this day.

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fire emblem awakening

It's important to understand Fire Emblem's commercial struggles prior to Awakening. Despite consistently strong reviews, most titles were lucky to break 250,000 sales in Japan, and, despite a decent international debut, there was a consistent decline in North America and Europe. As a result, Intelligent Systems began working on the somewhat-morbidly titled Fire Emblem Fin, believing this could be the last game in the series.

While the game would eventually gain a more uplifting subtitle, the fear of inevitability still permeated every aspect of its design. Fire Emblem antagonists are often anti-villainous by nature, either forced into evil out of desperation or from having lost themselves to some dark power. In Awakening, the enemy is effectively death itself. The Fell Dragon Grima is a cruel, sadistic conqueror who seeks to massacre humanity, raise his victims to serve as undead slaves and reign over the ashes for all eternity.

Grima may not be an especially deep villain, but they don't really need to be. They represent death and failure; the end of an era -- or the irreversible termination of Fire Emblem itself. With this in mind, it's no coincidence that Awakening's hero is a successor to the first game's star. The brash and short-tempered Chrom may be a far cry from his calmer ancestor Marth, but what he lacks in restraint he makes up for with courage and optimism. He truly believes in humanity's potential and fights not just to protect what they've already built, but so his successors will have a chance to forge even greater things.

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It's completely expected, then, that Awakening would allow its audience to join Chrom's quest. While Robin wasn't the first player avatar in the series, they play a much bigger role than previous ones. As the player is directly responsible for guiding their army to victory, it makes sense for Robin to serve as their tactician. This teamwork ties directly into the game's theme of unity being strong enough to surpass even death. To underscore that point, Awakening turns those bonds into a critical game mechanic.

In many ways, the Pair-Up mechanic was a natural evolution for the series. Fire Emblem already contained supports (relationships between units that involve gameplay benefits), but Awakening took them to the next level by allowing characters to fight together, letting partners add their own attacks to those of their allies or protect them from incoming blows. It wasn't the most balanced system, and long-time players criticized how it trivialized much of the game's challenge, but Pair-Up was a perfect fit for the series' core themes.

What was more contentious was how the game advocated pairing units romantically as well as tactically. As the culmination of a support chain, Awakening let players wed their warriors. This would result in their offspring coming back from the future to save the present. These systems led to the now-infamous derision "Waifu Emblem," as the hardcore audience accused Intelligent Systems of pandering to dating sims and anime tropes in pursuit of a wider appeal. Such cries only grew louder as these mechanics persisted into future games, heralding that they might become the series' new staples.

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fire emblem awakening

As a game with a massive cast and myriad combinations, it's fair to say that some of Awakening's romances are better-written than others. Even so, the practice of allowing players to marry their units is still one with merit. Audiences generally get more attached to characters than settings. As such, letting them live out fantasies of having a heroic spouse and being part of a magical universe isn't the most far-fetched design decision. However, while it's easy to attribute the game's success to escapism, the reality is more likely marketing.

Despite starting during the NES generation, Fire Emblem never received the promotional support that games like Mario, Zelda or Donkey Kong enjoyed. This, along with its more niche genre, led to far lower sales. Awakening, on the other hand, had a big marketing push. Previews, trailers and plenty of pre-release gameplay footage all did a fantastic job of hyping audiences up for what could have been the series' grand finale.

Of course, advertising alone can't account for all the game's success. Awakening isn't necessarily the best Fire Emblem game ever made, but its gameplay was strong enough to engage fans while being accessible to new players. That influx practically turned the series into a sensation, helping pave the way for newer games like Three Houses. Love the game or loathe it, the franchise could never have survived without Awakening, and it deserves a lot of credit for helping to keep this fire burning.

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