Another five dead and gone in Fire Emblem: Awakening

It’s been a weekend, and not a good one for those living in my Fire Emblem: Awakening cartridge. Let’s just get to the heart of the matter and list the latest lost loved ones–I can’t confidently say I loved all of these characters, but I couldn’t resist the alliteration–and then I’ll tell you a bit about the how and why they died:

• Lissa (retired)
• Lucina (retired)
• Nyna (dead)
• Kjelle (dead)
• Libra (dead)

Man oh man. Hold on a sec, I need to do some counting. Okay, okay. Since starting Fire Emblem: Awakening  last month and sticking with the whole permadeath aspect and not reloading once, I’ve now lost fifteen characters during Chrom’s plight to save the kingdom and bring about peace. Fifteen, yo. That’s crazy. I suspect I’ll lose a few more in the upcoming chapters as I near the end, but I really hope that’s not the case, as I’m now coming down to a handful of men and women, many of which I like and have strengthened purposely and with tactics in mind. Don’t you dare take away my Frederick, you hear?

Anyways, Lissa died–well, retired, really–during Chapter 14 “Flames on the Blue”, which is set on a bunch of boats in the middle of the ocean. Movement space is severely limited, and there were a ton of Pegasus Knights flying around the enemy boats. If you know anything about them, they have fantastic range, able to attack just about anything on the map within a move or two, and there just wasn’t enough room to keep Lissa safe, no matter where I moved her. As the main healer of the Shepherds, she only carried potions and friendly staffs, going down in just two hits. I ended up replacing her with a downloadable character called Serra, who is a sage and just at good at healing friends. But still, I preferred story-essential Lissa…

As for Nyna, another character that I downloaded from the Bonus Box, but grew to appreciate for her Elwind spells…well, she died during Chapter 16 “Naga’s Voice” because a big ol’ baddie with a Silver Axe rushed her and got lucky with a 2x attack. Not much else to say except that’s a shame, as she was pretty potent, and I had recently reclassed her with a Master Seal in hopes of turning her into even more of a badass.

Which brings me to the slaughter from last night, in Chapter 17 “Inexorable Death.” Now, if there is one large complaint I have about Fire Emblem: Awakening, it is so: you cannot arrange where your units start on the battlefield. They start where the game deems appropriate, and so for this battle, all of the weakest units in the Shepherds were grouped together in one tiny, constricting corner of the map. Kjelle, Lucina, and Libra all did their best, but it was not enough. Scared of losing anyone else, I made straight for the commander and killed him with fire spells and sword slashes and sick little smiles, for those that had fallen that day. And the days before.

Fifteen…