Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fire Emblem: Three Houses are both tactical role-playing games in which the player controls multiple units and strategizes the most effective way to win. Both games are impressive, incorporating a large number of cutscenes and introducing many memorable characters and stories.
Fans are split in regards to which game is better. Given that the games have unique features and were released seven years apart, they are vastly different from each other. Each game has its own strengths and weaknesses, but they both stand out as some of the best installments in the Fire Emblem franchise and the tactical RPG genre as a whole.
10 Three Houses: It Has The Most Ambitious Storytelling
Three Houses tells its story from multiple points of views, and when comparing each house leader's motivations and actions, it is impossible to claim that any of them are actually the villain. It is politically complicated, as there are so many issues that often do not have a right or wrong solution.
Being able to tell a cohesive story from so many different perspectives is an impressive feat, and a player's experience is drastically altered depending on which route is chosen first.
9 Awakening: There Is More Freedom To Customize Robin's Appearance
While Byleth and the other students have access to other costumes, their appearances do not drastically change. At the start of Awakening, players can change Robin's hair, face, body type, and even their voice.
The player can also choose what skills Robin is good and bad at. Robin is also a more interesting character than Byleth, as Byleth is more of a silent protagonist. While the player is able to choose what Byleth says, it doesn't have a huge impact on the game most of the time.
8 Three Houses: It Has Better Graphics
Fire Emblem: Awakening released in 2012, nearly a decade ago. While the graphics are by no means bad, the pixelated sprites on the battlefield and the still portraits of the characters pales in comparison to what Fire Emblem: Three Houses has to offer.
Every voice line in the newer game is dubbed, and there are many cutscenes that are absolutely gorgeous. There is a lot of attention to detail in the monastery as well, with background characters roaming the grounds and the students located in a different place each month.
7 Awakening: There Are Recruitable Characters From Other Games
When using Wi-Fi to connect to the 3DS's StreetPass feature, players were able to battle and recruit a large number of characters from other Fire Emblem installments. Unlike Three Houses' DLC, which introduces four new recruitable units, Awakening offers many more characters for free.
The only downside is that these characters do not have unique support conversations, but it's similar to Fire Emblem: Heroes, without the need to grind for orbs. Also, it should be noted that StreetPass is no longer available in most areas, but it was still a major part of the game for many years and Awakening still gets credit for having had the feature.
6 Three Houses: It Features Well Over 100 Hours Of Gameplay
There are four different routes in Three Houses, and considering that each route can take roughly 70 hours, it is definitely worth the money. In order to get a complete understanding of the story, the player needs to play through every route, allowing the mystery to slowly unfold over time.
Each route is just different enough to make each run feel unique, especially after the game's timeskip. The DLC offers even more content on top of this.
5 Awakening: Characters Are Recruited During Battle
Three Houses requires players to win students over by raising specific stats and raising Byleth's proficiency with different weapons. Although New Game+ makes this process a little less frustrating, recruiting the students can take some grinding.
Depending on what weapon players want Byleth to master, it can be counter-productive to spend weeks raising their proficiency in a weapon they might not use. In Awakening, characters can be recruited during battle as long as specific characters talk to them before the battle is over.
4 Three Houses: It Has The Best Characters
Three Houses has a vast array of engaging characters. There are so many small details that allow Byleth to learn more about students, such as being able to return lost items and small conversations that happen during various church activities.
As Byleth unlocks more support conversations, the students reveal their unique struggles and some show a surprising amount of depth. Even their support conversations with other students reveal a lot about them.
3 Awakening: It Has The Coolest Final Map
Awakening has a very memorable final battle. Enemy units continuously appear to attack the player's characters as they fight on the back of the final boss, Grima.
This is an effective way of showing how massive and intimidating the villain is, and it isn't an easy fight to win. The final map of Three Houses varies depending on the route, but none of them can compare to fighting on a dragon in the air.
2 Three Houses: There Is More Freedom To Explore
Rather than just moving from one battle to the next, players are given more room to breathe. Byleth is responsible for teaching a group of students, and in the monastery Byleth can receive training from other instructors, go fishing, feed the animals, share meals with the students, and more.
This gives players an opportunity to decide how they want to spend their time in order to make the characters ready for the next battle.
1 Awakening: The Pairings Have S-Rank Support Conversations
It was a little surprising that Three Houses removed S support conversations, meaning the maximum for anyone other than Byleth would be A. This means the players need to be careful not to make certain characters reach A-rank with too many people if they want them to end up with someone in particular.
Pairings feel much more meaningful in Awakening, given that the couples not only had a child, but they had more romantic dialogue that wasn't boiled down to just a paragraph depicting their futures.