Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - Zelda II: The Adventure of Alm

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Terper: Jun 26, 2012

CHARACTERS SHOULD IMMEDIATELY BE PROMOTED WHEN THEY CAN BE. NO EXCEPTIONS.

"The earth split, the seas parted, and the heavens themselves threatened to come tumbling down. The battle transcended any that history had yet known."
- The Book of Valentian Revelations, Chapter 15

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is a remake of the second installment in the popular turn-based Strategy RPG series, Fire Emblem Gaiden, released exclusively in Japan in 1992. It will release May 19th in NA/EU and May 20th in AU. It's got a lot of new stuff, but also a lot of old stuff. New to the series? Check out the general Fire Emblem thread if you wanna know where to get started.

The Story

quote:

Once, the gods themselves walked these lands. Our continent of Valentia was home to two of them: sibling gods named Duma and Mila.

The elder god, Duma, believed mankind must be ruled by strength, lest we become corrupt, while his sister, Mila, believed we should be free to pursue lives of pleasure and comfort. The two clashed ceaselessly. It was a long, dark age before the bitter conflict was resolved with the binding of a divine accord. Valentia would be divided in twain - with Duma ruling the north and Mila ruling the south - and in order to secure a lasting peace, each pledged never to violate the other's dominion. For millennia, this accord was honored, and peace did indeed reign.

In time, the Kingdom of Zofia, which Mila founded in the south, prospered with the goddess's love and blessings. Hers were a happy people who knew no toil and lived free of hardship. But Mila's gifts spoiled the Zofians, and it was only a matter of time before they sank into depravity. Meanwhile, in the north, Duma had built his own empire. Tempered by harsh lands and the even harsher teachings of their fierce god, the people of Rigel had grown strong. But in their quest for power, the Rigelians had let their hearts grow cold and numb to all kindness.

Both halves of the continent were in a fragile state, and the cracks had begun to show. And now, Valentia lies on the cusp of a terrible war that could forever alter its history...

In Shadows of Valentia, you follow the stories of two people: Alm, a simple village boy who finds himself embroiled in the fires of war, and Celica, a childhood friend of Alm's and the last remaining member of the Zofian royal family. The two fight their own individual battles with their own armies, but their desires are the same: to end the war and restore peace. This is not like Fire Emblem Fates or Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones in which you had to choose which story to follow. In Shadows of Valentia, you follow both Alm and Celica at the same time, but they go to separate parts of the continent and fight in different battles.

The Gameplay

The classic Fire Emblem gameplay is still here with its permadeath (though Casual mode, which allows your units to return to your party after the fight is over is still in) but there are quite a few differences that makes it stand out compared to other games in the series:

No Weapon Triangle
No weapon degradation
Learn spells by leveling up
Spells and healing magic costs HP to use
Significant terrain advantages
Characters may only carry one item, including weapons
Characters can learn new skills by using one weapon a lot and gaining experience with it
When characters are able to promote is based on their class, and they should immediately be promoted when they can
Bows can attack at 1-range
There is no Pair-Up or Attack Stance
Mila's Turnwheel allows you to go back a few actions if the RNG screws you over

And much more. Shadows of Valentia also features fully 3D, explorable dungeons with loot in treasure chests and boxes, guarded by monsters roaming the halls. Attacking an enemy (or being attacked by one) throws you directly into a normal FE-style skirmish with them.

The Other Stuff

Characters can get bonuses in battle through the Support system. By fighting near each other, characters can unlock conversations between each other that grant some insight into their character, as well as make them fight better when near each other. There is no marriage or child system, and each character has only 1-3 characters they can support with.

There is no Avatar/My Unit system.

The art is no longer done by Yusuke Kozaki, like in Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates, but is done by Hidari. He does good art, as you can tell.

The localization is done by 8-4, who also did Awakening (Nintendo's own Treehouse did Fates). You might know them from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Nier, and other good localizations.

It's like, 75% good jank and 25% bad jank.

Reviews

Endorph posted:

wassup homies and homiettes (kill me), after 2 days of EXTREMELY IMPORTED AND NOT EMULATED echoes gameplay, im here to dish out some Endorph... endorph... e... ensights. Anyway I know JP unlike the rest of these fucks so I can actually give full thoughts.

THE GOOD

-The Music. Gaiden has always had the best music in the series, and Echoes updates it beautifully. There's not a song in this OST that I don't like, and my only complaint is that there isn't a lot if it and they didn't backport the FE13/14 ablaze system. After two games of that, it's jarring to have the music switch back and forth between the map theme and the attack theme.

The Writing. The writings' actually pretty strong! The main plot is expanded on and fleshed out in a way that makes you feel for both Alm and Celica, the new antagonist isn't especially interesting but he does a good job giving the villains an actual face. Gaiden's always had some interesting core conceits, and Echoes does a good job expanding on them without making the whole thing too overdone or pretentious. Some of the nitty gritty of the plot is still a little doofy, but the pacing's pretty strong and the Celica and Alm actually have a pretty compelling dynamic and give-and-take.

The Characters. Adding supports and base convos does a lot for these guys, and more than that the fact that there aren't a lot of either characters or supports means nobody really wears out their welcome. I think everyone could have done for a couple more supports, but after Fates and Awakening it's nice to have a one-note gag character like Faye just do her gag and then be done with it. My personal favorites are Leo, who's a perfect boy, and Grey, who's also a perfect boy. A couple of people in the cast are kinda dull (Valbar, for instance) but I didn't dislike anyone. And even if you did dislike someone, there's enough to characterize people but not enough for them to wear out their welcome.

The Balance low growth rates own, gently caress all y'all

Graphics The combat animations are freaking fantastic, smooth and natural and with a lot of pop. The best the series have ever had, bar none. Due to the small cast, everyone also has unique outfits even when they promote and stuff, and the villagers keep their color schemes through all their classes, which is nice.

The Questionable

Map Design I think this game's map design is more defensible than Awakening's, because it doesnt have pair-up cocking up the core gameplay of Fire Emblem, but it's still mostly big fields and almost zero side objectives. And there's some places where it's indefensible, like the string of desert maps midway through Celica's Route.

The Balance? The game's fairly balanced by having such a small cast and splitting that already small cast up - even if, say, Leo is strictly worse than the other archers in the game and also every villager as an archer, he's on Celica's route and everyone else except potentially Atlas is on Alm's route, so he still has room to shine. But on the other hand, there are still places where the balance is kind of weird. Tobin and Grey getting buffed and Kliff getting nerfed, for instance, so that Kliff has nothing making up for his low base stats since he isn't even the best mage anymore.

Also there are way too few classes. I get why, since there's no weapon triangle, but by endgame your party is the lords, 5-6 mages, 2-3 healers, 5-6 cavaliers, 6-7 mercenaries, 4-5 peg knights 3-4 knights, and 2-3 archers. its just kinda dull.

Villagers, in general For the record, I freaking love villagers. They're basically my ideal version of 'reclassing,' since you can just pick a class you want these characters to be without having to futz with second seals or heart seals or grinding up gold way before you're supposed to be able to or whatever the hell else hoops I had to jump through just to do a run of Conquest where everyone was in their alt. classes. But if you're playing the game without a guide, it's pretty much impossible to make an informed decision. You can't see their growths, you can't see their spell lists, etc. It just feels like such a waste to make casual players guess blindly about what everyone should be. It's not super complex or anything and you can beat the game with the villagers in any class you feel like, but you will have to look up serenes or whatever if you want to make any decision besides blind guessing.

The Bad

The Desert. gently caress the desert.

The post-game chapter God, this place sucks. The enemies are all incredibly overtuned, at least on hard, in a way that I can't help but feel like was designed to force you to buy DLC. My tankiest unit, Valbar, dies in two hits. Everyone else dies in one. More than that, it's just a 15 floor dungeon crawl with no dialogue besides wall scrolls. this place blows my rear end. Pretty much the only reasonable way to get through it is to spam Silk's 'summon illusions' spell, since enemies seem to prioritize the ghost soldiers instead of your guys, and just sitting there while Silk summons 50 danny phantoms and Leon and Atlas take turns shooting the baddies from 5 spaces away isn't enjoyable or interesting.

overall: 8/10.

It's not shadow dragon, at all, because it's an actually good game for starters, but it's got some mild jank due to its status as a remake of an old-rear end, weird game. A lot of that jank is fun, but it gets irritating in a few places, and I think there's more they could have done to make the game more fun while preserving the things that make Gaiden unique. It's still a very fun, enjoyable game though, and due to its short length and choice-based elements like the villagers and sonia/deen, filled with replay value.

Help what do I class change the starting characters into

Endorph posted:

actually while im typing about it here is a big-rear end post that whoever makes the echoes op can feel free to copy/paste since i imagine this will get asked a ton

VILLAGER PROMOTION GUIDE

GRAY
Lvl. 5 Villager

HP: 24 (45%)
Str: 9 (40%)
Skl: 4 (30%)
Spd: 4 (30%)
Lck: 2 (25%)
Def: 4 (25%)
Res: 2 (0%)

Spell List: Fire Arrow (Lv 9) Thunder (Lv 10) Recover (Sage Lv 1)

Gray is the bruiser of the villagers, with insanely high base str and a great growth in it, a good hp growth, and mediocre growths and bases everywhere else. As such, he favors classes that allow him to leverage his high strength and also fix his speed issues.

Mercenary: Is such a great choice that it's basically the default for him. Its high base speed will fix his issues there for almost the entire game, and he can make great use of the Levin Sword if Alm doesn't feel like wielding it. It's a class with basically no downsides for him, especially since Alm gets no default mercenaries and the other male villagers are arguably worse at it than he is.

Cavalier: Is okay. Unlike the massive boost to speed Mercenary gives him, Cavalier will only slightly patch it up by a couple points, but it makes him into a far-moving beatstick. Compared to Clive, Alm's main cavalier, he'll be slightly stronger, slightly slower, and noticeably less tanky. Essentially, he'll be moving around finishing units off or covering for other people's misses.

Archer Is basically the same as Cavalier, just that in exchange for being more inaccurate and not getting any speed boost at all he won't have to move into danger. Compared to Python, Alm's main archer, he'll be slightly stronger and noticeably slower. Again, not a great trade. And with his low skill and the accuracy of bows, he will be missing a lot.

Soldier Doesn't even begin to fix his speed issues, but it actually makes him fairly tanky, and with his high strength he can make a great wall, tanking hits and crippling units so allies can finish them off on your turn. The main issue is that Alm already has both Forsythe and Lukas, the former of which actually has a speed base and growth and the latter of which will be slightly tankier in exchange for having slightly less strength.

Mage A weird choice. Gray doesn't learn anything besides the default Fire spell for a while, and his spell list is extremely limited compared to the other villagers. However, he learns arrow, a 1-3 spell with high power, much earlier than Kliff and Faye do, and Tobin doesn't learn it at all. It's still not much of a claim to fame, and this still doesn't fix his speed issues, but much like with Archer, he can leverage his high Str from far away, and with spells that have higher accuracy than bows.

Overall:

Mercenary > Cavalier > Mage > Soldier > Archer

KLIFF
Lvl. 1 Villager

HP: 20 (35%)
Str: 7 (30%)
Skl: 1 (45%)
Spd: 2 (60%)
Lck: 10 (20%)
Def: 3 (40%)
Res: 8 (0%)

Spell List: Fire Thunder (Lv 4) Excalibur (Lv 9) Arrow (Lv 15) Aura (Sage Lv 5) Recover (Sage Lv 1)

If Gray is the bruiser, Kliff is the speedster - but he also has the best Def of the guys and a decent enough str base to cover himself for a while. On the flipside, his base skill and speed are so low that he can have a tiny bit of trouble actually getting the levels he needs to promote early on. It's not a huge issue or anything, but you do have to be conscious of him and feed him a few kills. It's worth it, though, and once he promotes he's fine due to how promotion works in Echoes. Well, once he promotes, depending on how you promote him.

Mercenary: It immediately fixes his low base speed and skill, but he can actually develop a small strength problem in this class, and Gray is much more suited to it. However, if you've opted to make Gray something else and still want a Mercenary, Kliff is a much better option than Tobin for this class.

Cavalier: It has all the problems of Mercenary, with half the benefits. He does have the growths to do okay as a sort of speed cavalier, but Clive is a passable enough Cavalier on his own, and he'll get totally outclassed once you get the endgame dump of pre-promoted cavaliers. Not really recommended.

Soldier lets make the guy whose saving grace is his speed growth an armor knight. It won't improve his speed at all, so he will be getting doubled constantly until his growth kicks in. And the base defense isn't very high, so it's not like he'll be noticeably tanky either, at least not until he promotes again to armor knight. In the long run he'll probably be better than Lukas, but unless you feed him levels all throughout the early game he'll just be constantly behind Lukas.

Archer With his high speed, he can double from afar once he gets going, but it won't fix his low speed base, so it'll be a while before he actually is doubling.

Mage When you saw that spell list, you probably figured this was his default, and you'd be right. However, it's not without its problems. He learns excalibur and arrow at a fairly late level, and his low base speed won't be improved at all by the promotion, so he will suffer for a time. It basically makes him into even more of a project unit, but once he promotes he'll have great spells and strong stats, and he'll easily be on par, if not better, than any of the other mages Alm gets.

Overall:

Mage > Mercenary >> Archer = Cavalier > Soldier

SHUT UP, TOBIN

Lvl 2 Villager

HP: 22 (40%)
Str: 7 (30%)
Skl: 2 (50%)
Spd: 6 (25%)
Lck: 4 (30%)
Def: 3 (30%)
Res: 4 (0%)

Spells: Fire Excalibur (Lv 6) Recover (Sage Lv 1) Physic (Sage Lv 5)

If Gray is the strong one and Kliff is the fast one, Tobin is the poo poo one. He has terrible growths in just about everything except Luck and Defense, which are average, and Speed, which is garbage. However, his good speed base means he's still workable, and you don't really have a choice in whether or not you use him due to the small cast size of Echoes anyway.

Mercenary If you dont make Kliff or Gray one, you definitely want to make Tobin one. Mercenary is a good class with fantastic bases, and Tobin will be, uh, okay at it. Not great, but he'll do fine. It's more just making him a mercenary to have one than him bringing anything to the table, though. I guess high skill and luck = crits?

Cavalier Isn't really much help. He has a high base speed but not so high that it'll be above the cavalier bases, his offensive and defensive growths are kind of mediocre, and he's the frailest of the villagers. If the others are competing with Clive, he's just flatout worse than them.

Soldier is slightly better than Cavalier, since by the time he hits knight it'll patch up his defense, but you need to feed him a lot of exp to get to that quickly or else he'll just kind of be deadweight.

Archer Is more a choice by default than him being good in it. His high skill and luck will fix the accuracy issues of bows, and since he'll be so far away from the frontlines his defense and low speed won't put him in any danger, but he won't have much strength. He'll just be a walking chip damage dealer.

Mage Is actually an option! His spell list is much smaller than Kliff's, but Excalibur is an extremely good spell (it's basically a Killer weapon), and he learns it much earlier than Kliff. Physic will also be extremely good once he promotes, and it's unique to him among mages, with only a lategame prepromote healer and Cleric!Faye learning it besides him. His main issue is that he learns neither thunder nor arrow, so he's limited to 1-2 range instead of 1-3. But due to his high base speed, he'll actually be doubling early on as a mage, unlike Kliff and Gray, which feeds into how early he gets Excalibur, and once he has Excalibur random crits will keep him in the green.

Overall:

Archer = Mage > Mercenary > Soldier > Cavalier

FAYE

Level 1 Villager

HP: 19 (40%)
Str: 9 (40%)
Skl: 1 (30%)
Spd: 2 (30%)
Lck: 6 (30%)
Def: 3 (40%)
Res: 6 (3%)

Learned Spells (Cleric): Recover Nosferatu Physic (Lv 6) Rescue (Lv 10) Angel (Saint Lv 1) Again (Saint Lv 14)
Learned Spells (Mage): Fire Angel (Lv 8) Arrow (Lv 12) Recover (Priestess Lv 1) Freeze (Priestess Lv 6)

Faye is the all-rounder of the bunch. Due to being female, she loses Mercenary, Archer, and Soldier in exchange for Cleric and Pegasus Knight. Considering those two are amazing, in-demand classes, I'd say that's a fair trade.

Cavalier Faye has the growths to make a decent one, but her other options are just more unique. As a cavalier, she'll be a slightly better version of Clive, on par with two of the four (!!) lategame paladins, and worse than the other two. If you can get her early levels and promote her before Clive, she'll do pretty good, but you could say the same for her other classes. She isn't bad in this class, it's just not making use of her unique options.

Mage She doesn't learn Excalibur, which sucks, but the other villagers don't get Angel as Mages. Freeze is also unique to her, and is a pretty decent spell to have laying around. However, she gets Angel as a Saint, and Freeze isn't TOO amazing a spell. She'll do fine in this class, she has good growths and good spells, but again, her unique options are, well, more unique.

Pegasus Knight It's basically just Cavalier+. She still moves far, but she flies and it does more to fix her low base skill/speed. She's slower than Claire, Alm's only other Pegasus Knight, but in exchange she's both stronger and far more durable. A durable peg knight is a fun time.

Cleric Alm only gets one other healer for about 70% of the game, and having two clerics is a godsend in a game where spells cost HP to cast. More than that, she gets some great spells - an extremely early Physic, Rescue which is basically unique to her, Again which is literally unique to her (though it comes very late), and Angel so she can do some damage to monsters. It's slightly wasting her decent bulk, but on the flipside, hey, a healer who can take a couple hits is always nice. Just look at Moulder.

Overall:

Cleric > Pegasus Knight > Mage >> Cavalier

ATLAS: Y'GUYS GONNA GO FINISH OFF THAT BASTARD, GEYSE?

Lvl 10 VIllager

HP: 30 (45%)
Str: 14 (50%)
Skl: 3 (30%)
Spd: 3 (25%)
Lck: 4 (25%)
Def: 5 (25%)
Res: 4 (0%)

Spells: Fire Arrow (Lv 8) Recover (Sage Lv 1) Rescue (Sage Lv 4)

Atlas is Celica's only villager, and she gets him about 1/3rd of the way through the game. He's basically a more extreme version of Grey - he's a giant sack of HP and STR, with no other redeeming qualities.

Mercenary Now, Atlas makes a decent one - it fixes his skill and speed immediately, letting him leverage his massive STR - but Celica already has a fuckton of them, most of whom are better than him (except maybe Kamui). And they'll all be higher level than Atlas by this point. In a vacuum, it's a good option for him, but it basically makes him just another sword guy, which is both boring and doesn't do much to help him standout.

Soldier Celica already has Valbar, who, again, would be higher level than him and do his job about as well. It does fix his defense issues once he hits Knight, but it doesn't fix his skill at all. Having another wall can be handy, but he still wouldn't do a ton. And being low on move would mean he gets less chances to hit dudes with his STR stick.

Archer Well, here's one way to fix his defense issues. He would have accuracy issues still, but he'd do massive damage once he did hit, unlike Leon who's a bit on the weaker side - and Leon is his only competition on Celica's route, and unlike Valbar he isn't perfect at his job, so having another archer could be useful.

Cavalier Celica has no cavaliers, but she spends a third of her route in a desert and having a slow guy with no defense running headfirst into the enemy formation doesn't seem like a great time

Mage His spell list is tiny and he doesn't learn Excalibur, but you know what he does learn? Rescue. Rescue is a great spell, and it's extremely hard to come by - only he and Cleric!Faye learn it. Not to mention, spells have fixed accuracy, so it'd fix his skill issues, and using arrow from three spaces away would fix his defense issues. And his massive STR would lead to longer range rescues and better healing. Celica's route does have a lot of mages, but if you're using him mostly as a supportive unit once he promotes, he's only really competing with Genny.

Overall:

Mage = Archer > Mercenary > Cavalier > Soldier.

Thank you for writing the majority of the OP, Endorph.

Terper fucked around with this message at 16:26 on May 24, 2017

# ? May 16, 2017 17:19

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 20, 2024 03:45

General Morden: Mar 3, 2013; GOTTA HAVE THAT PAX BISONICA

no myunit no buy!

# ? May 16, 2017 17:22

Silver Falcon: Dec 5, 2005; Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and barbecue your own drumsticks!

This will be a good game and I look forward to playing it. Thanks for putting those Endorph effortposts in the OP! I will definitely refer to them when it comes time to promote my dudes.

And then still probably post about in here!

# ? May 16, 2017 17:24

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

I don't even know what the world is coming to when I can't make two fire emblems kiss and get a two sentence blurb in the epilogue about how they lived together happily forever.

Nintendo is withholding crucial gameplay here.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:28

Terper: Jun 26, 2012

Ah gently caress, I should have held off on the thread title, IGN gave it a 7.8 which is prime meme material.

Zore posted:

I don't even know what the world is coming to when I can't make two fire emblems kiss and get a two sentence blurb in the epilogue about how they lived together happily forever.

Nintendo is withholding crucial gameplay here.

IGN posted:

My dreams of hooking up devil-may-care mercenary Saber with pious priestess Celica were dashed because there�s no marriage system.

Terper fucked around with this message at 17:38 on May 16, 2017

# ? May 16, 2017 17:36

Tae: Oct 24, 2010; Hello? Can you hear me? ...Perhaps if I shout? AAAAAAAAAH!

Zore posted:

I don't even know what the world is coming to when I can't make two fire emblems kiss and get a two sentence blurb in the epilogue about how they lived together happily forever.

Nintendo is withholding crucial gameplay here.

There's still sort of that in the endings.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:38

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

to be fair the ign review was pretty positive overall, not just super enthused. which is fair.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:41

Terper: Jun 26, 2012

Yeah I wasn't trying to dunk on them or anything, making characters fall in love through battle has been a thing since like, FE4 and I enjoy doing it.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:43

Tae: Oct 24, 2010; Hello? Can you hear me? ...Perhaps if I shout? AAAAAAAAAH!

A lot of the negative aspects of the reviews are the same things everyone else complained about: Bad maps, long tedious maps, lack of variety in maps, and the dungeon crawling is really underutilized. Basically anything Echoes is carrying its weight, anything OG Gaiden is what's bringing it down.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:45

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

to be fair the heavily expanded dungeon crawling is an echoes thing, not a gaiden thing. and there are things that gaiden did that I see being praised, like how mages work or the lack of a weapon triangle.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:46

Avalerion: Oct 19, 2012

No weapon triangle, guess that means you just whack away with the strongest thing you got?

# ? May 16, 2017 17:48

RME: Feb 20, 2012

grind those weapon skills

# ? May 16, 2017 17:49

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Avalerion posted:

No weapon triangle, guess that means you just whack away with the strongest thing you got?

Weapons don't really work like other fire emblem games. Everyone only has one inventory slot and weapons just alter your stats slightly, and you don't need to have a weapon equipped to attack or anything, everyone just has a default sword/lance/whatever they'll use.

No weapon triangle mostly just means you worry more about stats and terrain.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:49

Tae: Oct 24, 2010; Hello? Can you hear me? ...Perhaps if I shout? AAAAAAAAAH!

Avalerion posted:

No weapon triangle, guess that means you just whack away with the strongest thing you got?

There's no axes at all, so terrain is king because stuff like Tombs give +60 avoid (but magic negates terrain).

And things generally die much, much slower. In most other FE games, you end a fight at 2 fights maximum. Echoes is more like 2 minimum outside of specific situations.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:50

Terper: Jun 26, 2012

I will, however, dunk on My Nintendo News

quote:

It�s a real shame given the exceedingly good quality plotlines of recent 3DS series titles such as Awakening and Fates. In this case, it isn�t the oldest stories that make the best ones.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:51

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Real talk, there are a lot of things across all the reviews that give me a lot of pause. Like 1 item/unit seems like a really weird choice. Or fixed accuracy for spells. Or terrain with +60 goddamn avoid. Female units lacking tier 3 classes. The fatigue system. The maps. 1-5 range bows.

I do think the way mages work is cool though, and it would be neat to see that expanded on in a future FE title. Things that make characters non-homogeneous is always cool.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:51

Pureauthor: Jul 8, 2010; ASK ME ABOUT KISSING A GHOST

I wish there were more Supports, but you take what you can get.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:52

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

In order:

1 item/unit is kind of neat.
Fixed accuracy for spells is interesting since hit rates are such a problem in the early game: it makes mages useful in a unique way.
Terrain with +60 goddamn avoid can be countered by weapon skills you learn very early on or by mages.
Female units are some of the best units in the game - the lack of tier 3 classes doesn't impact them at all. It's more like they start in tier 2 than anything, and the reason they function this way is probably just that in OG Gaiden Alm gets literally two female units for 90% of the game, and by the time you get to Celica's chapter some of Alm's guys have already promoted. It's not 'women don't get to promote!" it's just the female units working in a way that makes sense given the progression of the game. Dichotomy between the genders is actually a theme of Gaiden so at least there's a narrative reason for the guys and the girls to be slightly different in a mechanical sense.
The fatigue system only comes up at the very, very end of the game, and you're drowning in food so much that it's hardly worth worrying about.
The maps are kinda crap but there's no pair-up cocking up the game and you aren't drowning in reinforcements the way awakening and fates liked you to be. gently caress the desert though.
Bows do barely any damage and are very inaccurate, and aren't effective against fliers.

# ? May 16, 2017 17:55

mandatory lesbian: Dec 18, 2012

I swear I read the op and if I missed it, well I guess that's on me now, but does this game have Casual Mode and all that on it? I really prefer playing on Casual cause I don't like resetting if someone I like gets killed

# ? May 16, 2017 17:59

marshmallow creep: Dec 10, 2008; I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

Which classes look coolest for which villagers? That is all I need to know.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:00

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

it does but there's also a gimmick called mila's turnwheel where you can turn back time a turn or two which lets you do different moves and save someone from dying. it's got limited uses but it restores uses fairly often. so you can play casual, classic while using the turnwheel, or just pure classic.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:01

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

marshmallow creep posted:

Which classes look coolest for which villagers? That is all I need to know.

Tobin: Archer or Soldier.
Gray: Mercenary or Cavalier.
Kliff: Mercenary or Mage.
Faye: Pegasus Knight or Mage.
Atlas: Archer or Cavalier.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:02

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Endorph posted:

In order:

1 item/unit is kind of neat.

I get its kind of neat, but doesn't it remove a lot of in-chapter tactical stuff? I dunno, I like having a variety of options with various tradeoffs which it looks like mages get and no one else does.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:02

marshmallow creep: Dec 10, 2008; I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

What I saw in some videos of people playing late game suggests non mages can learn skills that work a bit like spells to do certain tricks. Like an archer can learn some kind of super shot skill that lets him hit from even further away for the cost of a few hp.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:05

Terper: Jun 26, 2012

mandatory lesbian posted:

I swear I read the op and if I missed it, well I guess that's on me now, but does this game have Casual Mode and all that on it? I really prefer playing on Casual cause I don't like resetting if someone I like gets killed

*cough* oh uh yeah it's

alright, yeah it's there, hah, you stupid idiot how'd you miss it

# ? May 16, 2017 18:07

mandatory lesbian: Dec 18, 2012

Endorph posted:

it does but there's also a gimmick called mila's turnwheel where you can turn back time a turn or two which lets you do different moves and save someone from dying. it's got limited uses but it restores uses fairly often. so you can play casual, classic while using the turnwheel, or just pure classic.

Interesting, but also leads me to wonder when they stopped doing the thing where the RNG seed stayed the same even if you reset the game. Probably since Awakening, I guess?

# ? May 16, 2017 18:08

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Kind of? Realistically, you weren't really using those tradeoffs that much, mostly just switching to 1-2 range weapons when you needed them or equipping stuff that was effective against whatever you were hitting. Sometimes you'd switch to whatever was more accurate even if it did less damage, or fish for a crit, but there weren't really that many tactical considerations. Fates kind of changed that, but it kind of overcorrected imo, it had a huge floating numbers problem.

Weapon Skills sort of make up for the lack of them, plus Echoes emphasizes positioning, terrain, and enemy prioritization over who to send to attack/what weapon to use to attack with/etc. And since you deploy every unit in every battle (except in dungeons) you can sort of think of your two cavaliers/three mercenaries as your different 'weapon' options.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:08

mandatory lesbian: Dec 18, 2012

Terper posted:

*cough* oh uh yeah it's

alright, yeah it's there, hah, you stupid idiot how'd you miss it

d-drat, how'd I miss that incredibly obvious bullet point that was definitely always there

# ? May 16, 2017 18:10

Avalerion: Oct 19, 2012

Mila's wheel thing sounds great, I think the games are more fun if you can't just sacrifice units recklessly but loosing someone to an unlucky crit in the last turn made me casual anyway.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:10

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

marshmallow creep posted:

What I saw in some videos of people playing late game suggests non mages can learn skills that work a bit like spells to do certain tricks. Like an archer can learn some kind of super shot skill that lets him hit from even further away for the cost of a few hp.

You learn skills from weapons. The longer you have a weapon equipped, the more wexp you get with it. Different weapons teach different skills, but you need the same weapon equipped to use the skill. So Alm learns a skill that lets him attack twice in a row from the Regal Blade, he learns it by using the regal blade a lot, and he has to have the regal blade equipped to use it. Skills have to be activated on the player phase, don't let you double, and cost HP.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:10

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Endorph posted:

Kind of? Realistically, you weren't really using those tradeoffs that much, mostly just switching to 1-2 range weapons when you needed them or equipping stuff that was effective against whatever you were hitting. Sometimes you'd switch to whatever was more accurate even if it did less damage, or fish for a crit, but there weren't really that many tactical considerations. Fates kind of changed that, but it kind of overcorrected imo, it had a huge floating numbers problem.

Weapon Skills sort of make up for the lack of them, plus Echoes emphasizes positioning, terrain, and enemy prioritization over who to send to attack/what weapon to use to attack with/etc. And since you deploy every unit in every battle (except in dungeons) you can sort of think of your two cavaliers/three mercenaries as your different 'weapon' options.

I think you're underselling the tactical switching a bit, especially w/r/t effective weapons and juggling them across your party even in a pre-Fates world. Like you listed a whole bunch of situations where you'd use various weapons over another and arranging your limited inventory of weapons across your characters was always a fun little optimization game I liked to play.

Fair enough on the weapon skills though, and the every unit deployment though. It looks like Echoes overall just doesn't have a ton of variety in classes/weapons anyways.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:11

Terper: Jun 26, 2012

SoV (and Gaiden) leans more on the RPG side of the SRPG spectrum than other FE games do, so things that might make you go "Huh?" really do make more sense in-game

# ? May 16, 2017 18:13

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Zore posted:

Fair enough on the weapon skills though, and the every unit deployment though. It looks like Echoes overall just doesn't have a ton of variety in classes/weapons anyways.

The player has access to maybe 6-7 classes total, yeah. Fortunately the small roster and split nature of the game means most everyone has a unique niche to fill anyway. For instance, Celica gets like 4 mercenaries, but Saber's unique niche is being an early game tank for an army of mages, Kamui's is being a pretty strong offensive unit that usually doubles, Dean's is being a lategame glasscannon, and Jesse's niche is being bad. (Okay he has great bases and growths but he comes pretty late and his best growth is inexplicably luck) Not to mention stuff like mages and clerics having personalized spell lists, which is something I adore.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:15

RME: Feb 20, 2012

the most tactical consideration was using trade as a way to switch what weapon a different character had equipped, but that was generally relevant because of weapon triangle and effective weaponry kind of stuff anyways

# ? May 16, 2017 18:16

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Endorph posted:

The player has access to maybe 6-7 classes total, yeah. Fortunately the small roster and split nature of the game means most everyone has a unique niche to fill anyway. For instance, Celica gets like 4 mercenaries, but Saber's unique niche is being an early game tank for an army of mages, Kamui's is being a pretty strong offensive unit that usually doubles, Dean's is being a lategame glasscannon, and Jesse's niche is being bad. Not to mention stuff like mages and clerics having personalized spell lists, which is something I adore.

Yeah, personalized spell lists are rad as hell and easily the feature I'm most hoping makes it into a new FE game.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:16

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

On the fence about this. Don't have any nostalgia for this game since I never played it. Kind of feel like if I went back to such an old janky game I'd just end up wishing I was playing Conquest instead.

Terper posted:

I will, however, dunk on My Nintendo News

I'm struggling to think of any standard by which you could describe the Fates plot as "quality".

# ? May 16, 2017 18:19

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Internet Kraken posted:

On the fence about this. Don't have any nostalgia for this game since I never played it. Kind of feel like if I went back to such an old janky game I'd just end up wishing I was playing Conquest instead.

I'm struggling to think of any standard by which you could describe the Fates plot as "quality".

Fates had a really good hook and in broad strokes Birthright is totally passable I guess.

Conquest is absolutely insulting though.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:22

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Internet Kraken posted:

On the fence about this. Don't have any nostalgia for this game since I never played it. Kind of feel like if I went back to such an old janky game I'd just end up wishing I was playing Conquest instead.

This game felt like a breath of fresh air to me after conquest, but I've really soured on pair-up and its map design since it came out, so your mileage may vary. It isn't really that janky, though - some of the map designs are a little janky, but they've smoothed over a lot of the mechanical cracks. Supports and weapon skills help with the weird hit rates, the game's been rebalanced to not be so feast or famine at the start, etc.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:25

Andrast: Apr 21, 2010

I dislike the normal FE promotion system so the one in this seems like a straight upgrade to me.

# ? May 16, 2017 18:47

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 03:45

RME: Feb 20, 2012

i havent soured on conquest but im real down for an offball/idiosyncratic entry

# ? May 16, 2017 18:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - Zelda II: The Adventure of Alm

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