Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (2017)

30 hours of Classic Hard Difficulty.

At first the game felt like Fire Emblem dared to throw many of the staple machanics out the door to bring some freshness to the franchise. That freshness lasted just a few hours... Then I started thinking that maybe the game was just rushed. There are not enough "novel" ideas there to fill in the gaps of the system they decided to forgo.

The "Dungeons" are superficial and full of repetitive, unimaginative design. Character classes are linear and somewhat redundant. The items system, while interesting at first, quickly revealed it superfluous nature. Map design also took a hit to quality as I find myself in another "field with a bunch of trees" between you and enemies and not much more. Don't even get me started with how weak the "Support Conversations," guess great characters won't save this.

And, last but not least, I get terrible vibe that the game is heavily DLC-Influenced in its Design (DLC that costs more than the game by the way). Classic Fire Emblem has always been stingy and had some manner of resource management, but here I can't seem to find any of the in-game money except on the DLC maps made specifially for this purpose. I have half a dozen equipment waiting for upgrades but no way to get the coin to cost it. The game is not impossible or even hard without these upgrades, but that just shows how superficially balanced the system is. I do feel like the DLC is optional if you just want to complete the game story. But I can't help but feel that some things delegated to DLC, like money and item grinding, could have been properly integrated into the original game package in a balanced way. Also the 4th and final Class Upgrades are delegated to DLC and so they are not necessary for the game completion, but rather make your characters game-breaking overpowered, just another thing that could have been properly integrated but I digress.

Thank goodness for the Fire Emblem strategy game loop, because it's the main thing that keeps me coming back, and it's still good and snappy, but a tad bit shallow without the weapon triangle.

PS: I think you get no axe wielders during the game.

I kind of hate this... 😬It's very obvious this was written in a different era. The bad guys threaten sexual violence regularly (and to children even) which was kind of shocking/something not usually found in the games I play. The female characters have very little personality, and all of the support conversations between all party members are just... lackluster.

A lot of them, an entire support conversation will be like this:

• Char A: Hey what's up
• Char B: Ugh
• Char A: What did I do?
• Char B: Leave me alone
• Char A: Uh, okay. I hope you're not mad at me?
• Char B: Hmph
• Char A: That was weird

Like, more than one of them had that as an entire support convo (that I did a lot of battles grinding to get? so I was p disappointed). Faye doesn't have a personality beyond an obsession with Alm bordering on creepy.

And Alm and Celica... they're the entire driving force of the narrative - their bond and how they made a promise to each other and how they care about each other. But... in the opening scene, they say Celica has been living in their village for a few months and then she leaves. It's hard for me to believe that they're both so hung up on someone they knew for a few months back when they were like 9.

As for gameplay, I liked that even on easy mode, I wasn't one-shotting the enemies (and conversely they were also not one-shotting me). In Awakening and Fates, it felt like most battles ended with one unit dying. Immediately. Maybe that's because I've always played on easy, but I appreciated the change-up.

The dungeons were kind of entertaining, except you'd get quests to send you back to a dungeon you already cleared.... which. Ugh.

I got stuck on a boss battle that only takes damage every 4th time you strike him. Which.... sigh. Isn't a fun game mechanic. It's just tedious. I don't think I care enough about the game to bother with that battle so I can carry on. Especially since the other Fire Emblem games are much more fun.

Capsule thoughts here, full review with the link at the end of the text.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is the best modern handheld-era installment of the long-running franchise. It dispenses with much of the convoluted time holes and offspring management systems that dragged down Awakening and Fates.

In its place, a deeply mature and satisfying story of conflicting personal and political ethos between the two protagonists. Alm is the traditional hero but with a deeply troubling look at the "lower" class he comes to lead. Celica is one of the best protagonists I've had the pleasure to guide in years. Her journey is filled with wounded warriors driven far beyond their limits because of personal trauma they suffered. The combat in her sequences is likewise complicated with poisoned landscapes and treacherous sands making her more redemptive quest one of physical, emotional, and spiritual troubles.

I was a bit down on the dungeon system at first but it grew on me in replay, adding a bit of variety and unpredictability to encounters in contrast to the static confrontations of the other 3DS Fire Emblem titles. Paring down the extra stuff applied to the combat as well, where I was more concerned with troop placement than I was hitting paper with scissors while keeping rock protected.

Shadows of Valentia is a mature growth of the often too-fantastic 3DS entries, and I hope the next mainline installment follows its lead.

http://www.cantstopthemovies.com/2017/06/fire-emblem-echoes-shadows-valentia-2017/