Fire Emblem Awakening

Fire Emblem Awakening is a 2012 tactical role-playing game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. It is an installment of the Fire Emblem series, and the first to be developed for the Nintendo 3DS. The gameplay, like previous Fire Emblem games, focuses on the tactical movement of characters across a grid-based battlefield and fighting enemy units. Other features include the ability to build and foster relationships between characters to improve their abilities and multiple camera perspectives in battle.

In Fire Emblem Awakening, the player begins the game as one of the central characters, a customizable Avatar: while the character’s default name is Robin, their name, gender, hair color, features, and voice can all be customized. There are two modes of play: Casual Mode and Classic Mode. In Classic Mode, characters defeated in battle are permanently dead and unable to be used for the rest of the game. Casual Mode enables the player to disable permanent character deaths, with fallen units being restored after the completion of a battle. 

When Chrom or the Avatar character dies in battle in any mode, the player receives a “Game Over” message and must restart the battle. The game has multiple difficulty levels, with the three standard modes being Normal, Hard and Lunatic; a fourth difficulty level, Lunatic+, is unlocked after completing the game on Lunatic mode. The playing mode and difficulty level are selected at the beginning of a new game. After dreaming of killing Chrom, an amnesiac Avatar awakens in a field, where Chrom and members of his personal army, the Shepherds, find and take them in.

The Avatar joins the Shepherds after exhibiting the qualities of a tactician when they defend a nearby town from Plegian bandits. After gaining an alliance with Regna Ferox, the Shepherds move to fight Plegia’s forces and revenant monsters called the Risen, and are aided by a masked man calling himself “Marth”. After a confrontation between Plegia and the Shepherds, Validar and his minions almost kill Emmeryn. However, the assassination plot is foiled with aid from “Marth”, who has prior knowledge of the event and is revealed to be a woman. 

Soon after, Plegian forces capture Emmeryn as she goes to parley with King Gangrel, Plegia’s ruler, with Gangrel demanding the Fire Emblem in exchange for her life. Though Chrom almost accepts Gangrel’s terms, Emmeryn stops him by throwing herself over a cliff, becoming a martyr to both Ylisse and Plegia. Eventually, the Shepherds triumph over Plegia, defeating Gangrel and restoring peace to the continent.