Hello Paralogue #20, Happy Birthday to a certain cowardly future party member, and welcome back to the Awakening Liveblog! Last time, our main protagonists Yukari and Chrom got into serious trouble in a dream sequence, and then met for the first time in person and worked together to save a village. Let's see what wacky hijinks they get involved with this time, shall we?
CHAPTER 1: UNWELCOME CHANGE
Night has fallen on our way to Ylisstol, and the bugs are really bothering Lissa. After a small talk about enduring hardship and delegating tasks, a small campground is set up, and bear meat is on tonight's menu. Chrom and (surprisingly enough) Yukari are enjoying the meal, but Lissa is against it, and Frederick does a bad job of covering up why he isn't eating any of it himself. Later that night, Chrom feels some kind of disturbance and accidentally awakens Lissa while getting up to investigate. Together, the siblings walk a short distance away into an eerily quiet part of the forest, feel the earth shake, and stumble into yet another cutscene. For those of you keeping track, out of the twelve or thirteen cutscenes the game throws at us, we're already at #4.
The earth is moving, the siblings are running, and fireballs (yum?) soar out of the cracks in the ground. Chrom and Lissa escape the forest fire, only for the giant eye in the sky from the opening cinematic to appear. Humanoid figures with glowing red eyes and breathing black smoke ooze out of the thing, and when Chrom tries to slice one in half with his Falchion, it confirms itself as undead by turning its head 180 degrees and shrieking at him. While Chrom does succeed in jumping up quite high, stabbing the zombie in a chest, and reducing it to black and purple fumes, the other one has cornered the defenseless Lissa against a rock and a tree. Just when it looks like she'll get 'game over-ed', the eye in the sky glows bright, and "Marth" leaps out of it. Blocking the zombie's axe with his sword held behind him, the newcomer gives Lissa an excellent view of the Butterfly of Doom mask on his face, and then "Marth" and Chrom work together to kill the monster.
The bad news is, as we're shown the map this chapter's battles will take place on, that there are more zombies in the area ready to gut Chrom and Lissa like fish. Also, "Marth" has vanished. The good news is that Frederick and Yukari have awoken from the commotion and are ready to lend a hand. Also, there are a few abandoned forts that increase a unit's defense will restore some HP to a unit if they begin a turn on it, one of which is also a glittery Event Panel. Time to burn our dread! ...I mean, clear away the fog of lies and reveal the light of truth! ...I mean, defeat some zombies! Yeah, that one sounds right.
- Yukari & Lissa: They start by standing next to a fort that Chrom will take shelter in, and weakening a Risen (A hideous creature of otherworldly origins) with magic. Yukari gets D in Tome aptitude in the enemy phase, allowing her to equip and utilize higher-powered weaponry in combat. At the start of the next turn, she moves into the fort that Chrom left, and attacks the foe that had attacked her...and misses, even though the Hit chance was shown as 76%. She and Chrom then more or less swap places, with Yukari standing at Sully's side and giving a Risen a preview of the most recent Epic Rap Battles of History video on Youtube. See, it's Edison versus Tesla, and...actually, this is supposed to be a summary, so I shouldn't go off on a tangent. Anyways, the Risen falls, and Yukari actually gets five stats increased when she levels up. While the others head down to take out the boss, Yukari heads up, killing an archer on her turn and a Risen with an axe on the enemy's turn. Lissa didn't do any healing, but I wanted to wrap this up quickly, and the game gives you plenty of opportunities to train inexperienced characters.
- Chrom & Frederick: Chrom starts by killing the Risen that Yukari weakened, getting a tiny amount of relationship points between himself, the Paired Up Frederick, and the standing-in-an-adjacent-space Yukari. He also gets a bit of weapon proficiency in the event, reaching D in sword aptitude. Next turn, he moves from the fort to a forest, giving up extra defense for some evasion and the opportunity to attack a nearby Risen that can't deal a single point of damage back. Chrom then heads north and swipes at an archer while Yukari heads south. Chrom then weakens the boss, earning a decent level-up.
- Sully & Virion: These two pop up at the beginning of Turn 2, with Sully referring to Chrom as a Captain, and the latter having no real connection to our blue-haired lord but is admired by Sully's beauty and is willing to propose during their first conversation together. After Sully dismisses the noble-looking man with a swift kick, the archer settles for accompanying her into combat. Virion's an archer, but since any enemy he could attack immediately would just walk up to his face and punch his lights out next turn, he merely gives Sully a small stat boost as she kills the foe Chrom weakened. The cavalier (a horse rider able to use swords and lances) gets to D in lances during the enemy turn, and steps out of the boss's range of attack before defeating one of her assailants. Sully later kills the boss that Chrom weakened and reaches Level 3, though this chapter isn't over until all of the opponents have been obliterated. Thankfully, Yukari takes care of that problem quickly.
- Turns: 4
- Heroes: Yukari & Lissa
By the way, it's not really important for me to tell you this, but Yukari died at least once while I was getting through this. I sent her to the north in order to counter the archer instead of running away from it, and every enemy in range went after her on their turn and beat her senseless. That's the nice thing about the Fire Emblem Awakening AI: if somebody's going to die, the enemy takes care of it immediately, rather than leaving you guessing until the very last enemy makes his move. Thankfully, this is Casual mode, and I save at the beginning of every turn.
Moving back to summarizing major plot points, it turns out "Marth" quickly vanished in order to defeat other Risen in the area, and has come back. After Chrom and Lissa thank "Marth" and ask for his name, he tells them to call him...well, Marth. I guess that means I can stop using quotation marks when referring to him. Chrom remarks how their ally is named after the ancient king, and asks where Marth learned how to fight, but Marth would rather talk about how the world is doomed and that tonight's chaos was just a prelude before walking away. Frederick suggests that we should continue heading to the capital now that we're all awake, and we get a save prompt, telling me that now's a good time to take a break from this if I want to avoid a dramatic cliffhanger.
Before we end this installment, as with the last entry, let's take a paragraph to discuss Supports. I swear, the option to initiate them is just around the bend! Now, the only pairings that have been brought up so far are Chrom/Yukari, Chrom/Sully, Ricken/Yukari, and Frederick/Lissa. I've only done one play through with my digital copy of Awakening, and while I will not go through with a pairing that I've done on that file, that has not been an issue as of yet. Considering all of the possible pairings, I would be quite surprised if if was. I'm slightly worried that two different pairings with Chrom (whom I originally paired with the Pegasus Knight the game keeps shoving into your face) have been brought up, but I'm sure that you guys can sort it out before the chapter where it becomes a major issue. Also, to those unfamiliar with the game, I would like to remind you that there are now two more characters you may want to think about when it comes to relationships:
- SULLY (The red Cavalier): A Shepherd with a foul mouth and no-nonsense attitude.
- VIRION (Our only archer for a really long time): A grandiloquent noble with a love of tall tales and romance.
In my last play through, Sully bonded with an axe wielder over how they joined the Shepherds, and Virion wound up winning the heart of a Cute Monster Girl because he was too much of a gentleman to say no to her dangerous games and did not judge her for her odd appearance or crazy antics. Will the cravat-wearing archer be able to find love in this play through? Will either of them actually have a role of even minimal importance in the story in the days to come? How much longer until people completely unfamiliar with this game get to meet this 'Ricken' that's been mentioned a couple of times? And will any of my 'summaries' for what paired units did in battle ever be less than five sentences long? I suppose that the answers to these questions will be revealed in time. Thank you, and have a wonderful day!
Comments
