Common Sense Media Review
By Chad Sapieha
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Excellent strategy RPG skews older because characters die.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Videos and Photos
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 6 parent reviews
Based on 13 kid reviews
Kids say this game offers an engaging blend of strategy and storytelling, making it a strong entry point for newcomers to the franchise. However, parents should be aware of some mature themes, including violence, mild language, and suggestive content.
- strategy gameplay
- engaging story
- mature themes
- character death
- romance options
- mild violence
Summarized with AI
Summarized with AI
What's It About?
Set in a fantastical world filled with political intrigue and nations at odds, FIRE EMBLEM: AWAKENING puts players in control of a big, ragtag band of warriors and mages led by Chrom, a prince questing on behalf of his homeland. However, old feuds and border disputes eventually take a back seat to concerns of a supernatural nature. Players engage in turn-based battles on tiled maps, moving units with varying abilities across the landscape to wage war against enemies with equally diverse skills. Combat is automated and plays out according to attributes and percentages. It's a game of strategic offense and defense, with success depending on the player's ability to exploit his or her units' strengths in working together and using obstacles in the environment to help. On harder settings, characters under the player's control will die permanently when killed in battle, cutting their stories short and making the rest of the game that much more difficult.
Is It Any Good?
Like its predecessors, Fire Emblem: Awakening offers a deep and challenging play that will likely appeal to serious gamers on a couple of levels. The finely balanced combat system demands a shrewd understanding of your heroes' skills, enemies' weaknesses, and which units best complement each other. At times, it also requires a willingness to make difficult decisions, sacrificing one unit for the greater good. These sacrifices are all the harder because of the other thing the game does so well, which is make players actually care about its characters. Each of the game's dozen heroes has his or her own story, as well as evolving dramas, friendships, and even light romances that play out in cut scenes between battles. Should they perish, their story will end prematurely, with players never knowing what might have been in store for them. Few tactical RPGs combine action and narrative so successfully, making Awakening a real treat for fans of the genre.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the notion of self-sacrifice. Have you ever done anything at great personal cost out of love for a friend of family member?
Families can also discuss violence in media. How do you feel if a game character you care about is killed? Does the possibility of a character's permanent death affect how you play the game and how you feel about its cast?
Game Details
- Platform : Nintendo 3DS
- Skills : Emotional Development : empathy , persevering , Thinking & Reasoning : logic , prediction , strategy
- Pricing structure :
- Available online? : Not available online
- Publisher : Nintendo
- Release date : February 3, 2013
- Genre : Strategy
- Topics : Fantasy ( Magic )
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : October 9, 2025
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