Once again, it’s time to check in to my progress with Fire Emblem Awakening, but this time it’ll be a little different. See, since the last time I played the game to write this feature, Nintendo shut down Miiverse, which was my way of taking screenshots, as I do not own any sort of 3DS capture device. That means, there will be no screenshots in this post. But don’t worry, I’ve found a totally reasonable and not at all ridiculous alternative. You’ll see soon enough, but first, we need to talk about numbers. My current play time is just over thirteen hours, I’m currently on chapter 18, and Ivan Ooze is level 15.

You may have noticed that Ivan is the exact same level he was last time I wrote one of these, despite an extra two and a half hours of play time. That’s because I am all the way in on trying to marry Lucina. To marry her, I need to build Ivan and Lucina’s support rank to its maximum amount, S Rank. To do that quickly, I’ve been starting every chapter with Lucina and Ivan joining forces, with Lucina as the primary unit. This means that every fight the two get into will build support, and because Lucina is on top, she’ll take the brunt of any attack, preventing Ivan from dying and losing the chapter.

So far, this has led to two rank ups, with two support conversations. They basically boil down to Ivan being all, “Hey, Lucina, what’s up?” And then she’s all, “Oh, just thinking about the future.” Very riveting stuff. But hey, if it leads to me marrying my best friend’s daughter from the future, why not?

Chapter 15 starts in the Valmese port, which Chrom says looks well fortified. Suddenly, we see imperial forces attacking a woman. We decide that it would be best to save her. Doing so is pretty easy, just get Chrom over to her, kill off the baddies that are fighting her, and then talk to her. It helps too that ever since Chrom and Sumia got married, pairing them up as resulted in quick death to anyone who gets in their way. So, simply make Sumia the primary unit, bee-line straight to the lady, murder everyone on the way, and recruit her.

The woman’s name is Say’ri, and she tells us she’s a member of the resistance. She’s joins up with us and we easily kill this chapter’s bad-guy-of-the-week boss, some doofus named Farber. Afterwards, Say’ri tells us that she’s been trying to get everyone who opposes the empire to form a united front against them, but it just isn’t working. However, she believes that if we can free Tiki, a dragon-lady who speaks for the Divine Dragon Naga, we can get everyone to come together. Apparently, she’s being held prisoner in her own temple.

Tiki? I know Tiki! She’s that vocaloid who made me describe how donuts taste in Tokyo Mirage Sessions! Of course I’ll free her! Chapter 16 is actually pretty cool visually. Tiki’s temple is located at the top of giant tree, so instead of the typical fields and castles, the whole map is one big tree. It’s nice to see something different! This chapter’s boss is some bozo named Cervantes who’s obsessed with his facial hair. Apparently it makes him invincible. Regardless of his claims, we pretty easily kill him. As I said before, Chrom and Sumia are basically unstoppable, and the combination of Ivan and Lucina, as well as Lon’qu and Anna are pretty quickly getting there as well.

When we reach the top, Tiki awakens. She mistakes Lucina for “Mar-Mar”, or Marth from the original game. But I mean, c’mon, Lucina is clearly a lady! Who could possibly confuse her for a man? Anyway, instead of calling everyone together, Tiki gives us a new task. The Fire Emblem is supposed to contain five gems, which each possess some of Naga’s power. We already have one of them, but we need all of them to perform the “Awakening” and defeat Grima. Tiki gives us one another one and tells us to go get the rest.

Say’ri is excited that the resistance is answering Tiki’s call, even though at no point did Tiki do that. Now it’s time to take the fight to the empire. There are three compounds where imperial forces hang out. Ivan suggests fighting the one in the middle to disrupt communication between them. And that’s where chapter 17 starts.

This compound is under the command of a woman named Pheros. She’s all, “oh you think you can defeat us with such a small army?” But, it seems like yes, I don’t actually have any problem getting through them. Partway through the fight, some weirdo named Excellus shows up and reveals members of the resistance now fighting for the empire. It’s not clear exactly why, but Excellus says there are reasons. He then ghosts, leaving us to fight our former friends and Pheros.

After we’re done, word is received that the rest of the empire is heading our way to crush us. One half is led by Say’ri’s brother, who’s a bad guy I guess, and the other by the emperor himself. Ivan suggests that the bulk of our forces go after Say’ri’s brother while a smaller group, led by Basilio takes on the empire. Lucina jumps in saying that Basilio died in this battle in her timeline, but the Khan’s all like, “Nah, I’ll be fine.”

He wasn’t fine. But before he dies, he passes one of the gems that apparently he had to Flavia and asks her to deliver it to Chrom. No, not Basilio! What will we do without him?

And that’s about where I am right now. What will happen next? Will we defeat the empire? Will Chrom find all the gemstones and summon Shenron? Will Ivan Ooze and Lucina get married? Join us next week and find out!