With Engage's release and subsequent disappointment, I've grown to like Awakening much more - if only for the fact that on a writing and characterization level, Awakening at least partially succeeds in many areas Engage fails spectacularly in.
As a celebratory title in the series, Awakening does a far better job of honoring the series than Engage. Whilst Engage was so creatively bankrupt that it flat out ripped plot points from other Fire Emblem games, Awakening took concepts that worked in previous games but placed its own spin on it. Whilst a second generation or the idea of Robin being a vessel for the main antagonist aren't anything new to the series, both of these concepts are still made interesting as Awakening utilizes them in a different manner than their original games.
Compared to Engage, Awakening's plot also has the advantage of having a slower pace. Awakening's pacing is far from perfect - if anything, the Valm arc feels like filler and the Grima arc feels underdeveloped - but at the very least, plot points are given time to simmer and key emotional moments are given the buildup they deserved. Scenes such as Lucina's judgement or Emmeryn's death, whilst not especially spectacular compared to the best moments in the Tellius games or Three Houses, still manage to land their emotional impact in the way the writers clearly intended. At the very least, I wasn't laughing like crazy when Emmeryn died the same I did with Lumera. Awakening's plot is far from perfect - numerous key plot points feel contrived and the Valm arc feels like filler - but it at the very least it isn't actively detracting from the whole experience like with Engage's plot.
The character writing in Awakening is alright. I think they're overall much better than the cast in Engage simply because the existence of the bed future means that many of the children characters have more to talk about, giving them some depth that the one-note caricatures that comprise most of Engage's cast lack. It's not especially exceptional, but there are some real highlights in Awakening's cast, such as Cordelia or Libra.
The elephant in the room is Awakening's map design. I'm not going to mince words here - I think Awakening's map design is pretty weak and a noticeable step down from Engage - though I don't think it is so bad as to actively detract from the quality of the game. There are a few maps with decent anti-turtling mechanics or side objectives, and even many of the weaker maps are just inoffensive open fields.
At the end of the day, Awakening is for the most part inoffensive. It has an inoffensive story, an inoffensive cast, and inoffensive gameplay - though the flip side is that it doesn't have anything particularly exceptional, such as Path of Radiance's story, Three Houses' character writing or New Mystery's map design.
As a celebratory title in the series, Awakening does a far better job of honoring the series than Engage. Whilst Engage was so creatively bankrupt that it flat out ripped plot points from other Fire Emblem games, Awakening took concepts that worked in previous games but placed its own spin on it. Whilst a second generation or the idea of Robin being a vessel for the main antagonist aren't anything new to the series, both of these concepts are still made interesting as Awakening utilizes them in a different manner than their original games.
Compared to Engage, Awakening's plot also has the advantage of having a slower pace. Awakening's pacing is far from perfect - if anything, the Valm arc feels like filler and the Grima arc feels underdeveloped - but at the very least, plot points are given time to simmer and key emotional moments are given the buildup they deserved. Scenes such as Lucina's judgement or Emmeryn's death, whilst not especially spectacular compared to the best moments in the Tellius games or Three Houses, still manage to land their emotional impact in the way the writers clearly intended. At the very least, I wasn't laughing like crazy when Emmeryn died the same I did with Lumera. Awakening's plot is far from perfect - numerous key plot points feel contrived and the Valm arc feels like filler - but it at the very least it isn't actively detracting from the whole experience like with Engage's plot.
The character writing in Awakening is alright. I think they're overall much better than the cast in Engage simply because the existence of the bed future means that many of the children characters have more to talk about, giving them some depth that the one-note caricatures that comprise most of Engage's cast lack. It's not especially exceptional, but there are some real highlights in Awakening's cast, such as Cordelia or Libra.
The elephant in the room is Awakening's map design. I'm not going to mince words here - I think Awakening's map design is pretty weak and a noticeable step down from Engage - though I don't think it is so bad as to actively detract from the quality of the game. There are a few maps with decent anti-turtling mechanics or side objectives, and even many of the weaker maps are just inoffensive open fields.
At the end of the day, Awakening is for the most part inoffensive. It has an inoffensive story, an inoffensive cast, and inoffensive gameplay - though the flip side is that it doesn't have anything particularly exceptional, such as Path of Radiance's story, Three Houses' character writing or New Mystery's map design.