Bachelorettes of Awakening: Introduction

It's usually scary when I can count the number of video games I touched over the past month-and-a-half on one hand. Normally, this is a sign that I'm too busy with tasks or I'm somehow being social. However, I have plenty of spare time even after performing mundane activities or hanging out with my friends... and yet that number is still countable on one hand. There's one reason - one culprit - responsible for this "travesty."

To say that I've been obsessed with Fire Emblem Awakening would be a sheer understatement - it has consumed my soul. I've just racked over 200 hours of game-time on the 3DS game (and that's not counting the resets and lost time spent after receiving a casualty), and yet I'm still drawn to it despite the fact that I beat it a month ago. I already made it quite clear how much this game has gripped me (there's a reason why it's still on that "Current Video Games" list to the left), and its influence was strong enough for it to land a spot on my last Top List.

Before the more attentive of you start asking: yes, this entry is the one I promised back on the 13^th. Matter-of-fact, it's the introduction in a series of entries I'll be posting on here. (Yes, I said "series" - prepare for a project that was long overdue.) There's a major dilemma I'm facing in-game and I'm having problems bringing myself to some kind of conclusion.





For those of you who know nothing about the Fire Emblem games (which is impossible, since I've discussed it a few times already on here) it's a tactical turn-based strategy RPG series drawing from Eastern RPG archetypes and Western medieval lore. The games are well-known for the surprisingly-developed mass of characters in each game and the fact that death for any character is permanent. However, those aspects are not what we're talking about today.

Frederick, what are you getting yourself into? Cordelia's crazy, man!

(Re)Introduced in Awakening is the marriage system, where you can pair up members of your army and eventually get them hitched. Initially conceptualized in Genealogy of the Holy War, this system allowed characters to develop romantic bonds with one another. It's pretty open-ended - a good chunk of your party is able to befriend each other. A good portion of that chunk is also able to fall in love with and marry each other as well (no homosexual marriages, though - there's probably reasons for that that I won't get into).

A special case that is worth mentioning is the case of the player-created Avatar. In Awakening, you're able to create a character of your likeness who ends up becoming an amnesiac who gets recruited as the Ylisse army's tactician. What makes your unit so special, you ask? Well, apart from getting to be your very own class (Swords and spells FTW!), you have the ability to create a support bond with every recruitable character in the main storyline. Consequently, your Avatar is also able to MARRY any one opposite-gender character from that list.

The Avatar is just realizing how whimsical Anna can be.

Enter my dilemma and the subject of this series of entries. As I've mentioned before, there's a lot of characters in this game that can be recruited (I can't give the main count as that would be a partial spoiler). And a good chunk of that number are women. Now, while I found myself liking a decent bunch of characters in each Fire Emblem game, I found myself liking virtually everyone I recruited in Awakening.

Currently, I've been powerleveling my army so that my team is the best anyone can see, and while that happens I've been working on everyone's support conversations (or at least the conversations that can occur with the people I'm using). Since your StreetPass team has to include your Avatar, it was only obvious that I was the first one to be trained. While I did that, I worked on my bonds with virtually every character (by pairing myself up with everypony).

Now, to marry someone, your bond has to be at the highest level possible (in this game, these levels are ranked as "C," "B," A," and "S" in ascending order - "S" is where the proposal occurs). As I've leveled my bonds with all the characters, I'm at "A" with everyone, but I have yet to choose a girl to get myself hitched with.

To be honest, no one in my game is married. Barring one (potential) plot-driven marriage, everyone is still an eligible bachelor(ette) on my 3DS. And it's not because I'm trying to play matchmaker with each of them. The real problem* is this:

I don't know who I want to marry myself.

I honestly cannot decide. Most (if not all) of the ladies present in-game each have a gravitating presence to them. Some are very pretty; some have a personality that called to me; some have realistic goals and what not that remind me of what I actually look for in companionship. (And some are downright hilarious.)

* = My girlfriend Wendy finds this to be an amusing thing for me to worry about. This is mostly due to the fact that she decided to have her Avatar marry Chrom from the get-go. Sure, she's mentioned that some of the other guys are pretty funny and/or charming, but I guess she has a thing with the Fire Emblem lords. Could be a case of "first guy wins" for her or something, but maybe I'm just looking into this whole "get Avatar!me hitched" thing more deeply than I have to... *shrugs*

For those of you who are pretty deep in-game (say, Chapter 13+): keep in mind that I'm not factoring my child(ren)'s potential stats and skills in these selections. While I could just become a munchkin and totally marry so-and-so because their kid's gonna be a beast with Galeforce, Counter (or Axefaire; I haven't decided what I'm passing along) and ridiculously-high stats, I told myself I didn't want to do that. I wanted my Avatar to marry someone that I felt like he was falling in love with and not so their pairing could become a game-breaker. (Although a marriage with someone awesome who spawns a game-breaking Morgan isn't a bad idea.)

These are some of the women my Avatar is able to marry in Awakening. SOME of them.
(Greyscaled and censored to make things interesting for the people not playing the game.)

So, this project of mine is is going to be a simple one. Over the course of the next few... whenevers... I'll be talking about my "situation" and gripe about my indecision. Each day that I feel like posting about this "dilemma," I'm going to pick a potential girl that I could call my wife, talk about her pros and cons, and rant to you about why I maybe kinda sorta want to (not) want to marry her. After I'm done talking about each woman, we'll see who had the better ratings or responses or what not.

Of course, I'm willing to bet that I'll still be indecisive at the end of all this, but hey - that just means I'll have to be careful who to marry when I begin my Lunatic run.





Well, that's enough about me blathering about my romantic indecision. For those of you wanting to follow along with this ridiculous silliness, I've created a very special "Bachelorettes of Awakening" tag so you can quickly locate and ID any of the corresponding entries to follow. Until the 'morrow, everybody!

Someone seems shocked at getting picked (to die) first.

Oh, and speaking of follow-up entries: the first girl I'll be looking at in this project is the second princess of Ylisse and Chrom's little sister: Lissa. *snerks* Hey, don't act surprised, missy.