During the latest Nintendo Direct the hotly anticipated 3DS strategy RPG Fire Emblem: Awakening was finally given a release date. The game arrives in North America on 4th February and will land in Europe at some point in April.

Some people may be unfamiliar with the Fire Emblem series, so to give a little introduction to the upcoming game Nintendo has released a short video exploring the different characters, their bonds with one another and the tactics you can use on the battlefield.

The video takes a look at the main characters such as Chrom, Lissa and Sully, and then looks at ways in which you can build upon their relationships. This can be done at the base-camp in cutscenes and also in the heat of battle by positioning certain characters near each other. This builds upon their relationships, meaning your characters become stronger when near each other resulting in some devastating attacks. We saw this element in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, but it appears to have been refined more in Fire Emblem: Awakening.

Check out the introductory video to Fire Emblem: Awakening below and let us know your thoughts.