Narrative in FE: Awakening
Cover art from Nintendo’s website.
The tactical JRPG Fire Emblem: Awakening for the Nintendo 3DS was released in the spring of 2013. Slated to be the series’ final installment if sales were poor, developer Intelligent Systems incorporated the nostalgic medieval-fantastical resonances of past games with new – and therefore risky – player-game dynamics. For the first time, fans were actively engaged in world building and had their own subplot embedded within the main narrative, via their role as main protagonist Chrom’s tactician (named Robin by default). In addition to this new mechanic, the game offered dedicated fans closure by positioning the story arc within the franchise’s main universe or timeline: 2000 years after the events of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.
Screen capture from Nintendo.
At the onset, players are thrust into combat in medias res. Upon killing the tutorial stage boss and experiencing brief victory, a cinematic cutscene depicts the player betraying and murdering Chrom. The scene abruptly shifts to the player waking up from an amnesic spell and perceiving the (very alive) king they betrayed moments ago. With this ominously ambiguous premise, the narrative thus follows the player-protagonist’s mission to uncover their mysterious origins and piece together an alternative future, all the while fighting a war alongside Chrom’s army. Battles are enacted through turn-based combat, requiring the player to consider each unit’s unique capacities as they manoeuvre their entire team around a grid map.
The opening chapter of FE: Awakening titled “Invisible Ties (Premonition)” foreshadows many of the storytelling tools and narrative techniques one can expect in their playthrough. Firstly, key plot points are often depicted in non-interactive sequences and cinematics, featuring English and Japanese voiceovers and movie-like perspectives. For instance, Lucina’s introduction and Emmeryn’s self-sacrifice are depicted in cinematics. “Invisible Ties (Premonition)” also begins with a cinematic shown through the eyes of the player-protagonist as they fight with Chrom against Validar.
A moment on the defensive marks the transition from NIS to an in-game cutscene, where players gain control of Chrom and Robin. They share some evocative dialogue before a combat tutorial guides players through the controls and objectives. Anecdotally speaking, most backstories and subplots in FE: Awakening are presented in this manner. The backdrop of these in-game animations are varied; many are triggered by certain actions in battle, or preface and debrief a map; others are placed overtop illustrated scenes and static environments. Intelligent Systems also introduced a new pairing system that required players to deliberately form bonds between specific characters on the battlefield in order to access platonic, familial or romantic “support conversation” cutscenes. Although limited by each character’s potential matches, this game mechanic seems to be partly informed by the concept of found narrative in how some characters (the offspring) can only be recruited when certain pairings (the parents) reach max support levels. Other elements of found narrative in the game include obscure references to past games in item or map descriptions, as well as the subtle quirks of a character that are foregrounded when players opt to sell their inventory.
Evidently the Fire Emblem franchise is still alive and thriving today. Excluding remakes, successors to Awakening all locate character customization and “support conversations” as core story and gameplay elements. Subjectively speaking, Awakening succeeded in designing a plot that integrated players as “themselves” in the game, adding deeper nuances to the role-playing dynamic. Robin’s overall plot trajectory and premise is not unheard of; a person suffering from amnesia finds themselves in a larger conflict. Rather, the how and who elements of the cast communicated through cutscenes and text-based scenes exceeded the dimensions of previous games in permitting players certain amounts of authorship and world-building. The game also to some degree succeeded (again, subjective) in staying true to its roots by including elements of past lore and familiar weapons, as well as a portal to a fourth dimension where players could battle legendary teams from past games.
One criticism is that a large portion of these were situated behind paywalls and DLC, gatekeeping access to the larger and richer narrative universe. Furthermore, player authorship with regards to pairings was strictly limited to heteronormative child-raising couples. To the extent of which this can be ‘justified’ in a neo-medieval setting is not as important as the potential avenue for fantasy or supernatural forces. Indeed, this was one such way in which the fantasy elements of Fire Emblem could have manifested, such that queer relationships could still be pursued without the “penalty” of not producing and/or recruiting the child for one’s team. One final criticism is that the voiceovers were not consistently present throughout the gameplay. Aside from cinematics and phrases spoken at the beginning of conversations, the gravity and emotional weight of Robin’s amnesia could have been more clearly communicated and explored, exasperating their internal conflicts with Grima. Moreover, the storytelling would not be dependent wholly on the player’s ability or intention to read through static blocks of text that obscure the more subtler inner workings of an otherwise scrutable character.
Written for CRWR 310: Video Game Writing and Narrative, taken in 2020W T1.