For Better or Worse: Marriage Returns in Fire Emblem: Awakening

In the latest Iwata Asks column (via AndriaSang) the director of the upcoming Fire Emblem: Awakening for 3DS, Genki Yokota reveals that marriage will be returning to the series in Intelligent System's latest iteration.

Players can marry any units they recruit in the games story or make themselves (so you can have, leterally, the bride of your dreams!) and the team has even gone to the truoble to create unique animations for each character.

Now I know what you must thinking. "Japan loves dating sims, so duh." True, but as a first-party studio, I expect IS to handle marriage with the utmost class. I'm hoping there'll be some kind of gameplay benefits for marrying certain characters. (This was extremely handy during my playthruogh of BioWare's Dragon Age II).

Fire Emblem: Awakening launches in Japan on the Nintendo 3DS this year. Hopefully a western release will follow.