LTTP: FE Awakening,,,,, much much better than 3 houses

[AM_LIGHT]

I recently bought a new 3ds LL off ebay, installed custom firmware which was a breeze. I never owned a DS or 3DS so i was excited to play the shit ton of quality games on the systems. My history with the FE series is only the first GBA game on my phone and three houses on launch using the 50$ voucher. The GBA game is incredible but three houses , I found boring and stopped playing around chapter 4. Now to awakening, this game is simply fantastic and very addictive to play . The story is engaging with interesting characters. The gameplay is even better without much fluff . The graphics though simplistic by todays standards look better to me than three houses, especially with the 3d effect. Three houses battlefield graphics are simply butt ugly to me . This is one of the few games where I started a second play through after finishing the story. Played on normal, casual mode which I found a bit easy . I started a second play through on hard, classic mode and it's even more enjoyable with the increased challenge. Tried going back to three houses and that only cemented my opinion about the superiority of awakening. I have FE fates next on my list .

 

[Ryuelli]

Yeah, I completely agree. My favorite in the series is Path of Radiance, but Awakening is probably my 2nd. I thought Three Houses was a step back for the series.

 

[makonero]

I'm playing Echoes right now and my god, it may be my favorite Fire Emblem game. I recommend trying it next.

 

[ShroudOfFate]

Awakening is my least favorite of the ones I've played. The characters really fell flat for me in a way that Fates, Valentia and Three Houses do not.

Three Houses may not be the best looking Switch game but lmao at Awakening looking better

 

[AM_LIGHT]

I'm playing Echoes right now and my god, it may be my favorite Fire Emblem game. I recommend trying it next.

Click to shrink...

Planning to . I heard it's a little more different compared to other games in the series but that makes it more interesting.

 

[MonadoX]

It's better, but I don't know about "much much better".

 

[RochHoch]

Looking back on it, Awakening seems so bland and uninteresting compared to Three Houses

 

[SheriffMcDuck]

The 3ds games are my least favorite in the series, as I find "Pair Up" to be a truly abyssmal mechanic.

 

[amara]

I played Awakening right after beating 3 Houses and honestly I came to the opposite conclusion

 

[AM_LIGHT]

Awakening is my least favorite of the ones I've played. The characters really fell flat for me in a way that Fates, Valentia and Three Houses do not.

Three Houses may not be the best looking Switch game but lmao at Awakening looking better

Click to shrink...

It's subjective about the graphics of course. Same way that 16bit games aged better than other advanced games during their time . Three houses look fine outside of battle. But the battle terrains themselves I found to be ugly and make things harder to distinguish. The simple graphics of awakening are effective and I genuinely found the 3D effect added more to the presentation.

 

[Ashes of Dreams]

I've tried playing Awakening three times, twice before Three Houses and once after it. I've bounced off a few hours in every time. I completely disagree.
I have some issues with Three Houses, mind you, particularly in how it handles it's routes and half the cast being really one note, but It was still immediately more engaging than Awakening. Both in terms of gameplay and story.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Awakening's big boon over Three Houses is that it's pretty free of fat for the most part. Three Houses trying to cram three different campaigns and the school setting into one game was admirable but it really makes the game feel rather thin. Awakening avoids this since the hub, menu, and battle events are much snappier and the campaign doesn't need to account for 2 other campaigns.

Three houses had the makings of an all-time great FE title (and I understand why some absolutely love it) but too much of it feels spread far too thin to my liking.

Planning to . I heard it's a little more different compared to other games in the series but that makes it more interesting.

Click to shrink...

Echoes has more "old school" difficulty encounters compared to Awakening. Personally, I felt the Fire Emblem IF titles were much better if you want more Awakening style content. The story is just kinda whatever though.

 

[AM_LIGHT]

the school setting

Click to shrink...

This is one of my main complaints about it . Takes too much time to battle and the whole school thing I find really boring .

 

[dreamlongdead]

Man, I strongly disagree. When Awakening came out it, I really liked it. But this game does not hold up well.

I bought Fates Birthright and Conquest on launch day, and it was extremely hard to revisit Awakening though they are all on the same platform. Fates has story issues, but the gameplay and QoL adjustments it brought were huge.

Three Houses is also far from perfect, but I didn't think the opinion of preferring Awakening over it even existed until this thread was made. Nice for you, OP?

 

[Jawmuncher]

This is one of my main complaints about it . Takes too much time to battle and the whole school thing I find really boring .

Click to shrink...

You know it's a problem when what you remember most about a game is the "School" stuff and not because you thought it was good, but because it took up so much time.

Man, I strongly disagree. When Awakening came out it, I really liked it. But this game does not hold up well.

I bought Fates Birthright and Conquest on launch day, and it was extremely hard to revisit Awakening though they are all on the same platform. Fates has story issues, but the gameplay and QoL adjustments it brought were huge.

Three Houses is also far from perfect, but I didn't think the opinion of preferring Awakening over it even existed until this thread made. Nice for you, OP?

Click to shrink...

I was saying this even after doing all the DLC for Three Houses lol.

 

[stupei]

Three Houses is also far from perfect, but I didn't think the opinion of preferring Awakening over it even existed until this thread made. Nice for you, OP?

Click to shrink...

I honestly feel like this might end up being a more common opinion over time. Games in the style of Three Houses, with the daily life stuff, sometimes wear thin for people on replays so I feel like this might end up being one of those games people are going to end up being more critical of with time. I personally liked it a lot, but I do hope they streamline the pacing if they continue with this kind of stuff next time.

Still surprised to see that the preference is Awakening, but I have to assume that will change once OP tries Echoes.

 

[Doskoi Panda]

Imo awakening is at its best when you think of it as a stand in for real Shining Force games

 

[Inugami]

Awakening isn't even the best of the series on 3ds. I do like 3 houses more, but that's because it mixed things up. Awakening felt so bland and like you had to grind or save scum like crazy.

 

[monstar]

I've been thinking of giving FEA a shot. I enjoyed the story in 3H, but I had to waste way too much time running around the same monastery over and over again. Then when it came time for actual combat I had to put almost no effort into it as long as I'd done a decent job of prepping my party before-hand. I could just kind of point my guys at the bad guys and we'd usually win. And this was on Hard difficulty iirc.

Is there less downtime between battles in FEA? And is the tactical combat potentially more interesting?

 

[criteriondog]

I agree! I loved 3H but Awakening is sooo good. I'd love to see a remaster one day on Switch, but i imagine they're just going to move towards the next game.

 

[JohnPaulv2.0]

Yup, I've played 8 of the localised Fire Emblems and found every single one a blast except for Three Houses. All of them have their own individual weaknesses but none were heinous enough to hurt the experience for me. Three Houses, however, was a bland fantasy Persona-lite chorefest punctuated by tedious combat scenarios involving sweeping ineffectual opponents from the map while you build your cookie cutter squad of highschool anime tropes. I forced myself to play about 20 hours but couldn't find any enjoyment from it.

Awakening is a really solid all rounder imo. I recommend checking out Birthright and Conquest which have abysmal storytelling but incredible gameplay (conquest particularly). Echoes is fairly divisive afaik because of its rudimentary map design but I really enjoyed the overall experience and the presentation is beautiful.

 

[AM_LIGHT]

Man, I strongly disagree. When Awakening came out it, I really liked it. But this game does not hold up well.

I bought Fates Birthright and Conquest on launch day, and it was extremely hard to revisit Awakening though they are all on the same platform. Fates has story issues, but the gameplay and QoL adjustments it brought were huge.

Three Houses is also far from perfect, but I didn't think the opinion of preferring Awakening over it even existed until this thread was made. Nice for you, OP?

Click to shrink...

I still haven't tried Fates and echoes so they might end up dethroning Awakening when I do play them . As for three houses I stand by my opinion, all the school and daily life is incredibly boring to me and the terrain graphics are ugly to me . In the end it's all subjective, many posters agree with you, some agree with me which is OK.

 

[Leafshield]

FE games have only become more bloated with filler stuff to do between battles as time has gone on. Wasn't a fan of all the weird kid time travel dimension in Awakening (although I liked Lucia's story). Didn't like 'my castle' in Fates, and I wish I could just skip all the school classroom/calendar/hogwarts stuff in TH. It just didn't work for a game where the second half of it is an army on a campaign, and the first half of 'schoolkids doing fantasy special ops!' is just tired at this point. It's been done to death in so many games, it needs to be given a long rest.

One thing TH did do well was to abandon the pair-up mechanic that had gone crazy in Fates, and also develop the cast beyond the one-note tropes they were in Awakening/Fates. I just wish they hadn't felt so chained to the monastery as a hub, it reminds me of Trails of Cold Steel 2 where somehow the school timetable still matters between sending your child soldiers out to murder people.

All in all, I preferred Echoes to all 3 of those games, and more recently the indie game Dark Deity too. I just prefer the older FE games that focus on the battles without all the bloat. Give me a menu screen to handle upgrades and shopping and chats before kicking me back to the map and the battlefield.

 

[Atom]

Peak FE was GBA/GC/Wii era. Its kinda been downhill since with some brighter spots like the gameplay in parts of fates and parts of the narrative and world in valentia.

Three Houses just continues the trend of stuffing extraneous stuff into the games in not good ways. The school stuff is an utter chore at best and weirdly voyeuristic and problematic at worst. I could never shake the feeling that the game felt like it was often about grooming your students. Map design is unremarkable and reused, performance is piss poor, graphical fidelity and art style is less appealing than earlier titles, and the school stuff is such a source of bloat that gets in the way of subsequent playthroughs, even with some of the QoL features that unlock. It's good in the same way a bad pokemon game is good, but I think it was probably overhyped when it came out as some sort of SJRPG masterpiece. It feels like a game that's worse than the sum of its parts. Each piece individually could work in a game, but everything feels undercooked, unpolished and interferes with each other that the result is dragged down.

Awakening I liked well enough. Appreciated the maps and progression more after 3H. Not a fan of the pairing up stuff but its whatever.

 

[AM_LIGHT]

Awakening isn't even the best of the series on 3ds. I do like 3 houses more, but that's because it mixed things up. Awakening felt so bland and like you had to grind or save scum like crazy.

Click to shrink...

Like I said, I haven't played fates or echoes yet . My opinion might change when I do.

 

[dreamlongdead]

I personally liked it a lot, but I do hope they streamline the pacing if they continue with this kind of stuff next time.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, this is definitely where I'm at. Three Houses is amazing despite the bloat, but the next entry definitely needs to slim down. I think that the GBA and GC games are still stellar to this day.

Fates Conquest on 3DS is still a GOAT, so Awakening just fell from grace as a result.

Echoes/Gaiden is at the bottom for me. Beautiful graphics and audio in the remake still couldn't make up for the dreadful game design. It was a one and done for me, which is tragic for a series where I did replays of every other entry.

 

[ghibli99]

Three Houses is the only FE game that's ever hooked me enough to want to finish it. While the daily life stuff grew tiring/repetitive, I did like the relationships that were built throughout. Persona does that stuff better IMO, but was glad to have it be a part of this game. I enjoyed the campaign; felt like it was just the right difficulty for a noob like me. The DLC kicked my ass though. Still haven't finished it.

I've tried Awakening two... maybe three times now, and just can't hang with it. But I've kept it because you never know when a game will somehow click with you; I'm hoping that happens with this.

 

[Kinsei]

Awakening almost killed my love for the series outright. While the school stuff in Three Houses really drags the game down, it has characters I actually care about.

The Tellius duology remains the best, but I think the future of the series looks bright.

 

[RocketDarkness]

I still haven't tried Fates and echoes so they might end up dethroning Awakening when I do play them . As for three houses I stand by my opinion, all the school and daily life is incredibly boring to me and the terrain graphics are ugly to me . In the end it's all subjective, many posters agree with you, some agree with me which is OK.

Click to shrink...

Fates improves the balance of the pair-up mechanic somewhat, though it is still definitely a bit overpowered. Conquest is the best, gameplay-wise. Removing weapon weights and durability seems like it should simplify things, but honestly, it caused them to make some very weird balance changes that I was not a fan of.

The thing I like the most about 3H was how much more it encouraged offensive strategies thanks to improving bows and adding combat arts (thanks, Echoes!), the gambits and removing the weapon triangle by default.

 

[JohnPaulv2.0]

Is there less downtime between battles in FEA? And is the tactical combat potentially more interesting?

Click to shrink...

Yes and kind of.

The downtime between battles in FE have traditionally been an opportunity to fiddle with equipment, trigger some squad interactions and maybe plan out some optimal skill / class / children combinations. This is all short, meaningful and plays directly into the battles that take up the bulk of the game time - which is perfect imo.

Regarding whether the tactical combat is more interesting? Well, in Awakening specifically that'll depend on whether you get enjoyment from min maxing a relatively easy game. Personally, I find that sort of thing fun and my steamrolling squad felt hard earned and something that was the fruit of my imagination and agency as the player.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

awakening story is certainly miles better than three houses...low bar though. Theres a lot of good character writing in 3H at least, but the school stuff is pretty miserable, and the actual battles are about the worst in the series, aside from like the original FE2.

3H mostly pisses me off for poorly doing multiple routes...again...and the gigantic step back it took in character customization from Fates (gender locked classes again...ffs).

 

[AM_LIGHT]

All these posts praising echoes and fates got me hyped. I will start one of them today . Should I play echoes or fates first?.
I know with fates you should start with Birthright because it's easier.

 

[Hrodulf]

3DS Fire Emblem kind of stunk outside of Echoes, and that still had the godawful map design of the original Famicom version.

 

[RocketDarkness]

All these posts praising echoes and fates got me hyped. I will start one of them today . Should I play echoes or fates first?.
I know with fates you should start with Birthright because it's easier.

Click to shrink...

Regarding Fates:
Storywise, the "best" one is Birthright. Conquest is the one with the best gameplay by a signifiicant margin. Revelations is a joke.

Echoes is a wonderful, slimmed-down game, though it does have some balance issues and obnoxious mechanics to content with. So in that sense, it depends what you're looking for.

 

[Scruffy8642]

The only FE games I've played were Awakening and Echoes and idk they were fine? Didn't think that much of them. Stories were pretty weak, and it got quite tiring having so little to break up the flow between maps. Just felt like I was funneled into 30+ minute maps one after the other for most of the game. Been kinda hoping TH would change my opinion on the series, but I guess we'll see.

 

[JohnPaulv2.0]

All these posts praising echoes and fates got me hyped. I will start one of them today . Should I play echoes or fates first?.
I know with fates you should start with Birthright because it's easier.

Click to shrink...

Conquest gameplay might spoil you in a way that could impact your ability to enjoy Echoes imo. But both have very different strengths so YMMV.

 

[stupei]

Yeah, this is definitely where I'm at. Three Houses is amazing despite the bloat, but the next entry definitely needs to slim down. I think that the GBA and GC games are still stellar to this day.

Fates Conquest on 3DS is still a GOAT, so Awakening just fell from grace as a result.

Echoes/Gaiden is at the bottom for me. Beautiful graphics and audio in the remake still couldn't make up for the dreadful game design. It was a one and done for me, which is tragic for a series where I did replays of every other entry.

Click to shrink...

You're not wrong about Fates Conquest at all, I think I just played so much of the other 3DS games that the way Echoes changed up elements of the formula was really refreshing for me at the time. I expected to hate the differences — and maybe going in sort of negative on it shaped how much I ended up enjoying myself (by surprise) — but it was especially fun in bite sized amounts during my commute into work.

Someday I might finally pay to pick up Path of Radiance. GC is the only Nintendo console I've never owned, so it's a huge gap in my collection.

 

[AM_LIGHT]

I think I will start echoes first because it's shorter and more slimmed down it seems.

 

[Diarrhea Day-Lewis]

I loved it in 2013 and wouldn't mind replaying or a remaster please but I cannot remember more than 2 characters but 3H I remember like half the cast lol.

 

[Nali]

+1 for Echoes being the best game in the series across the two systems. The map design is definitely vintage, but the retro nature of it means it also otherwise dodges a lot of the narrative and design pitfalls the series keeps stumbling into while still having some QOL modernizations and gorgeous audiovisual presentation.

 

[Firemind]

Awakening is my least favorite of the ones I've played. The characters really fell flat for me in a way that Fates, Valentia and Three Houses do not.

Three Houses may not be the best looking Switch game but lmao at Awakening looking better

Click to shrink...

The characters are basically anime tropes. It's like the staff at Intelligent Systems threw darts at a board to compartmentalize all the characters to push as many buttons as possible.

Also, Pair Up trivializes the game. Yes, I'm aware Lunatic exists. It's stupid.

 

[Giga Man]

Awakening was my first in the series, and I became a fan right out the gate. I LOVE that game, and it remained my favorite in the series even after playing Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones right after (two great games); even after playing Fates all the way through. If it wasn't for that free demo, I would have never touched a Fire Emblem game.

It wasn't until Three Houses that Awakening was finally dethroned. It was the best experience I've ever had from top to bottom in a Fire Emblem game thus far. It's not without its issues, of course, the map reuse being my biggest issue, but the story and the characters, support conversations, the unit customization, and battle mechanics, the overall presentation (music, voice acting, etc.) all of it has pros that far outweigh the cons.

The only FE games among the ones I played that I'm stuck on is Echoes, and that's because I found it boring early on, which is a shame because its presentation is unmatched among the 3DS entries. I want to jump back into it though. I just wish it didn't have dungeon crawling... It really slows the pace down.

 

[TurdFerguson]

I completely agree with you, OP. My favorites of the series are Awakening, Shadows of Valentia and Sacred Stones. In that order. I also gave up Three Houses after a short while. Three Houses had way to much fluff around the school, especially since I didn't find the character interactions interesting at all. I also agree with you on the graphics. The 3DS games are way more attractive, IMO. They should have stuck with "high res" 2D sprites for the battle map. Looks way better than the 3D characters used in Three Houses.

 

[Canas Renvall]

Awakening is good, but no way is it better than Three Houses imo. Three Houses is the best FE game in a long, long time.

 

[Rommaz]

I played Awakening after 3H and while I appreciated the lack of fat, the characters and music fell flat for me in comparison. Maps were about the same quality in my eye(I.e Fates did maps better than both)

 

[ryseing]

Is there less downtime between battles in FEA? And is the tactical combat potentially more interesting?

Click to shrink...

There's less downtime but the map/objective design in Awakening is dreadfully boring. Fates Conquest is the 3DS entry with the most interesting combat but that game has issues of its own.

 

[Quinton]

Can't say I agree with it being better than Three Houses, but I think it warrants somewhat more respect than it seems to fetch these days for saving the franchise from the absolute brink.

 

[iksenpets]

Awakening and Three Houses are sort of opposite ends of the spectrum. Some people are going to appreciate the straightforward, bloat-free simplicity of Awakening, while others will be into the scope and narrative focus of Three Houses, but it seems pretty common for people to really prefer one to the other

 

[GamerJM]

I think there are things it does better than Three Houses, but for me it's hard to come back to after Fates which I honestly liked a lot more, and is the 3DS FE that I like more than Three Houses.

 

[Pangorogoro]

I prefer the characters in Awakening over 3H. I found a lot of 3 houses' cast annoying, and when it came to the Blue Lions you have Ingrid and Felix who are horrible and racist to Dedue.