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In a previous hands-on piece, we focused on the many ways the support system can help your characters in battle in Fire Emblem: Awakening. Support level is increased by participating in battle together, whether it involves attacking or blocking an enemy attack. Between two characters of opposite gender (Tactician included), however, you can reach an S-rank.
When this happens, the guy (usually) will propose to the girl and you’ll find that, on the status screen, the two are marked “Husband” and “Wife.”
Marriages in Fire Emblem: Awakening affect the end credits, where you see what happens to all of the characters after the game, but also unlock sidequest Paralogue chapters where you can recruit new characters—the married couples’ children.
The why of it I’ll leave for another time, but for every couple, a new area opens up, and there, you’ll fight some enemies and find one of the wayward children. These children’s classes are predetermined, but their stats seem to be affected by their parents. Also, which child and chapter is unlocked depends on the mother, but the child’s appearance is somewhat affected by which father you choose (namely, the hair color).
In addition, the children also inherit skills from their parents. For example, if one of the parents was an assassin, the child may come with the skill Lethality (providing that the parent had learned it already). What class the father is may also affect what classes the child can be promoted to through the use of a Second Seal.
The only exception to the “which child you get is unlocked by the mom” rule are the Tactician and Chrom, who unlock kids of their own when they’re married. This child is a sibling to the child unlocked by the mom.
As an aside, the Tactician (your player character) can marry any of the females, including one of the children. This may pop your brain if you try to think about family lineages, depending on who you marry him to, but as the children can’t have their own children, your kid will end up an only child. Note that their gender is always the opposite of your Tactician’s.
In addition to inherited stats and, to an extent appearance, the children also have extra support conversations with their parents (and siblings, if they have any). The support conversation with the mother is always the same, but I’m not sure if the one with the father remains the same or not.
Most of these conversations are hilarious, even more so than usual (“I’m keeping an eye on you so you don’t cheat on mom in the future! I don’t wanna randomly pop out of existence!!”), and I really enjoyed trying to get all of them.
The only problem is that, although the children have the potential to be really strong, they are at fairly low levels. The Paralogues are in general harder than the main chapters, perhaps even the last few chapters of the game. Once you beat the levels, you can use an item to summon monsters to fight there and train with the crazy-hard enemies. It’s one of the few times I truly dreaded what it would’ve been like had I played on Classic mode, where permanent death is enabled.
This means that you’d have to be at a fairly high level to even finish the mission to recruit the child, and by then the child is far too low leveled to help without some grinding. Thank goodness you can grind in this game, then!
Here’s more of our Fire Emblem: Awakening coverage in case you missed it:
The Things You Can Do On Fire Emblem: Awakening’s World Map
Fire Emblem: Awakening Has Dual Audio Voice Tracks
Fire Emblem: Awakening Has A First-Person Mode For Battles
Fire Emblem: Awakening’s Funny Romantic Pairings And Support System
