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(spoilers) Thoughts on the game from those who are playing it?


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Wondering what those who caved and pirated are thinking of the game. The only real writeup I've seen is from somebody on the subreddit who did Hard/Classic and is saying it's the worst in the series and below even Gaiden; it'll be nice to have a broader sample so I can adjust my expectations accordingly.

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Actually, there was a much more positive review posted a few days earlier on Reddit as well here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/63vq9a/my_thoughts_on_shadows_of_valentia_spoiler_free/

Different people will have differing tastes in games, and honestly, it's probably a kneejerk reaction. I'd rather wait and form my own opinion on the game than take someone else's (possibly biased) review of the game too seriously.

Unfortunately, Reddit seems to be circlejerking again (worse than Revelation, really?), but that's just typical /r/fireemblem 

 

 

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I also read that review and I disagree with pretty much everything (I didn't play the game myself but I managed to watch some streaming of Chapter 1-3 and some parts of Chapter 6). The game was fun. And honestly, is not being able to ORKOing anything that bad of a thing? I mean, last week everyone was still complaining about Awakening and Fates being too easy. C'mon.

51 minutes ago, Korath88 said:

Unfortunately, Reddit seems to be circlejerking again (worse than Revelation, really?), but that's just typical /r/fireemblem

Exactly my thoughts.

Edited by Pikappa93
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Started Ch4 now and I love it. Then again, I'm of the weird sort that liked Gaiden to begin with. I don't know, it feels like a perfect remake AND upgrade of the original and I don't get the hate. How could it possibly be worse than the total letdown FE14 was? I'll keep you posted as I near the end. I'm mostly interested in how the new Ch6 plays out and hope it doesn't feel too shoehorned in.

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2 hours ago, Korath88 said:

Actually, there was a much more positive review posted a few days earlier on Reddit as well here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/63vq9a/my_thoughts_on_shadows_of_valentia_spoiler_free/

Different people will have differing tastes in games, and honestly, it's probably a kneejerk reaction. I'd rather wait and form my own opinion on the game than take someone else's (possibly biased) review of the game too seriously.

Unfortunately, Reddit seems to be circlejerking again (worse than Revelation, really?), but that's just typical /r/fireemblem 

 

 

Oh, didn't see that. Only just now been looking at more things besides SF and the OST.
And yeah, I wasn't taking it too seriously; a lot of what it said sounded screwy. "Fatigue is only in dungeons"? We've seen indicators of it in normal gameplay. "Unit balance worse than Revelation"?

I think the best news so far is that normal mode is actually normal mode and not easy by another name. Hard mode is looking in some ways more like Lunatic than anything.

1 hour ago, NaokiP said:

Started Ch4 now and I love it. Then again, I'm of the weird sort that liked Gaiden to begin with. I don't know, it feels like a perfect remake AND upgrade of the original and I don't get the hate. How could it possibly be worse than the total letdown FE14 was? I'll keep you posted as I near the end. I'm mostly interested in how the new Ch6 plays out and hope it doesn't feel too shoehorned in.

Fates was a total step up from Awakening for me-- I spoiled myself entirely and knew what to expect. I really liked a few of the characters (while none of Awakening's cast appealed to me), the gameplay is a huge step-up (even on Birthright), and I found the OST appealing. It's not the best in the series, but it's certainly far from the worst.

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I really worry about that comment regarding Dear. Nerfing the quickest way to getting rid of enemy summoning spams strikes me as a very bad idea. With any luck, this is offset by something else.

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42 minutes ago, Thane said:

I really worry about that comment regarding Dear. Nerfing the quickest way to getting rid of enemy summoning spams strikes me as a very bad idea. With any luck, this is offset by something else.

You could always kill the Summoner and I think they would all despawn

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Just now, Wayward Alchemist said:

You could always kill the Summoner and I think they would all despawn

I'm well aware, but they're often far away and protected by enemy units, walls and those healing spots. There's not much you can do if they start spamming Gargoyles and Zombie Dragons except fight your way through, especially now that both Dear and Warp have been nerfed.

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1 hour ago, Thane said:

I'm well aware, but they're often far away and protected by enemy units, walls and those healing spots. There's not much you can do if they start spamming Gargoyles and Zombie Dragons except fight your way through, especially now that both Dear and Warp have been nerfed.

I'm not denying that they will be a pain, but 65% chance to despawn each of the unprompted monsters isn't too shabby. Additionally, Support Bonuses to help with the shitrates of Gaiden can let you pick off the Summoner with an Archer or a Mage with a long-range spell or the Magic Ring. The old Dear was nice in Gaiden, yeah, but it wasn't a necessity and at times it felt really overpowered to be honest, and between the nerfed Dear and the buffed hit rates, I doubt it will be too much of a calamity.

However, I didn't know Warp got nerfed, and the Str/2 thing does seem somewhat shady considering the lower stats in general. I feel that while Warp was strong, it wasn't overpowered like Dear, and honestly I think it will just slow the game down more than anything. 

Edited by Wayward Alchemist
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Just now, Wayward Alchemist said:

I'm not denying that they will be a pain, but 65% chance to despawn each of the unprompted monsters isn't too shabby. Additionally, Support Bonuses to help with the shitrates of Gaiden can let you pick off the Summoner with an Archer or a Mage with a long-range spell or the Magic Ring. The old Dear was nice in Gaiden, yeah, but it wasn't a necessity and at times it felt really overpowered to be honest, and between the nerfed Dear and the buffed hit rates, I doubt it will be too much of a calamity.

However, I didn't know Warp got nerfed, and the Str/2 thing does seem somewhat shady considering the lower stats in general. I feel that while Warp was strong, it wasn't overpowered like Dear, and honestly I think it will just slow the game down more than anything. 

We will see. It's not like the summoners were frail in Gaiden, and if the bloke on reddit is to be believed, enemy bulk is an issue. The thing is that monsters later on in Gaiden just slowed you down and Dear as an invaluable time saver - having to deal with summoned units more frequently doesn't sit well with me since I heavily disliked them in the original, but we'll see. Maybe skills and stuff will make them easier to deal with.

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2 minutes ago, Thane said:

We will see. It's not like the summoners were frail in Gaiden, and if the bloke on reddit is to be believed, enemy bulk is an issue. The thing is that monsters later on in Gaiden just slowed you down and Dear as an invaluable time saver - having to deal with summoned units more frequently doesn't sit well with me since I heavily disliked them in the original, but we'll see. Maybe skills and stuff will make them easier to deal with.

Yeah, a lot of them seem very strong. Who knows, maybe they nerfed the amount of enemies that can be summoned at a time or something.

One thing, though, what is up with the Mercy skill? What's the advantage to leaving an enemy at 1 health? The only application I can see is to feed kills to your scrubs.

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Dear is still plenty useful, don't worry. And most of your units won't have trouble dealing with summoned mobs anyway. They're not that strong on Normal, at least. Just think of them as free exp. Not to mention you can skip the battle animations now (i feel like i spent more time in Gaiden staring at the battle screens over and over than actually doing anything else)

Edited by NaokiP
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Still grinding stuff at Chapter 3 here, but thoughts so far. Disclaimer, I only watched LPs of Gaiden and haven't bothered to play it myself so take my opinions with whatever grains of salt you have available.

Spoiler

So far I really enjoy this game, flaws and all. My opinion of it might even go up when the English ver is released and I can enjoy the story along with the gameplay.

The maps are very faithful to the original games and all the maps are route maps...I suppose in the grand scheme of the war it makes sense most are route but I feel like having a seize or two would be nice. But the simplified offense/defense mechanics kinda balances it out, and you still need to play around the map to kite/pick off enemies and such. Invoke is still a fun AI distraction tactic I have used way more than I should.

While some units are not as useful as the others (hello Jesse), I still find use in fielding everyone possible meatshielding and the RNG with lvls will break or make them. Notable examples of my luck have been:

  • My Palla has leveled str ONCE since I recruited her despite her 60% growth and its really frustrating while Atlas has been lvling spd at least 4 times despite his shitty growth in that stat.
  • I missed enough 80% magic to believe there is some hidden terrain RNG at work....Mae doubles everything but hits only one of her two spell casts and its very odd

Dungeon crawls can get repetitive if you spend time to grind like I do, but the atmosphere is nice and spooky for those who like that. The camera angles in the dungeons can get wonky and that has caused me to get ambushed a few times. But I can now avoid the encounters if necesasry and go on my way. Havent played Normal mode so I cannot say how different it is from Hard mode but when comparing to a friend currently playing Normal mode, the enemies are beefed up in terms of defense which does make it hard to 1RKO and it has not been too awful dealing with that, since I do like wittling enemies to feed to weaker units so they catch up. Monsters with steel weapons and not their default weapons are scary godamn

 

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39 minutes ago, kynimdraws said:

Still grinding stuff at Chapter 3 here, but thoughts so far. Disclaimer, I only watched LPs of Gaiden and haven't bothered to play it myself so take my opinions with whatever grains of salt you have available.

  Reveal hidden contents

So far I really enjoy this game, flaws and all. My opinion of it might even go up when the English ver is released and I can enjoy the story along with the gameplay.

The maps are very faithful to the original games and all the maps are route maps...I suppose in the grand scheme of the war it makes sense most are route but I feel like having a seize or two would be nice. But the simplified offense/defense mechanics kinda balances it out, and you still need to play around the map to kite/pick off enemies and such. Invoke is still a fun AI distraction tactic I have used way more than I should.

While some units are not as useful as the others (hello Jesse), I still find use in fielding everyone possible meatshielding and the RNG with lvls will break or make them. Notable examples of my luck have been:

  • My Palla has leveled str ONCE since I recruited her despite her 60% growth and its really frustrating while Atlas has been lvling spd at least 4 times despite his shitty growth in that stat.
  • I missed enough 80% magic to believe there is some hidden terrain RNG at work....Mae doubles everything but hits only one of her two spell casts and its very odd

Dungeon crawls can get repetitive if you spend time to grind like I do, but the atmosphere is nice and spooky for those who like that. The camera angles in the dungeons can get wonky and that has caused me to get ambushed a few times. But I can now avoid the encounters if necesasry and go on my way. Havent played Normal mode so I cannot say how different it is from Hard mode but when comparing to a friend currently playing Normal mode, the enemies are beefed up in terms of defense which does make it hard to 1RKO and it has not been too awful dealing with that, since I do like wittling enemies to feed to weaker units so they catch up. Monsters with steel weapons and not their default weapons are scary godamn

 

Wow... you're on here. That's news to me (seen your tumblr art and you in the occasional Pokemon FFA).

RNG is RNG-- I've played Conquest three times and three times out of three Niles has gotten strength screwed and Arthur has gotten speed screwed.

As for camera angles in dungeons, the Nu3DS apparently allows you to manually adjust it. I'm currently wondering if the CPP will have the same effect-- I know it did in MM3D despite not being advertised. (/spoiler)

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I'm in the middle of chapter 3. I'm a " gameplay " guy, so I won't speak of relations/waifu/scenario etc... I read them but to me it's really basic ans boring. Only Telius/Judgral are good on this point.

This game feels weird. Due to the low growth rates, it feels like I'm doing the same chapter over and over. It's kinda boring actually, there is no real evolution you know.

I'm think the replay value will be near ZERO, because of the growth again. Stat wise, every character are really alike. I don't think I will finish the JAP version, but i will just finish one time the EU version.

The balance between Physical Units and Magicals Units is good tho. EXCEPT Archer of course, there are too powerful.

In HM, ennemies have 0 LCK, so it's CRIT LAND.

So for now... Not a really good FE like Fates ( for example ) but not that bad like FE11.

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also a gameplay oriented guy.

Much harder than the other 3DS FE games that's for sure. Really challenging and makes you think way more.

Uh, chapter 6 felt really shoehorned in, could have been better/expanded a bit more.

 

I'm not a "research stats" or w/e kind of guy, I just play the game without much knowledge of stat grows or anything. Didn't use the whitewings after I promoted them, dreadfighters I love. Uh, idk....

Chapter 6 is bullshit

Edited by Xanek
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I might give my thoughts as well. I played on Normal/Classic and I overall loved it.

First of all, I am one of the very few people who actually enjoyed Gaiden and I also played it more than once, as crazy as it sounds. Echoes succeeds in being a Gaiden remake, while playing I got the feeling I was going through a much more polished version of the original title and that's exactly it. It's religiously faithful to Gaiden in most of its aspects.

The presentation is fantastic, graphics is the best out of the FE titles for 3DS and Hidari's artworks are just gorgeous. Music also is top notch, they did a great job in reorchestrating the original tracks as well as composing new ones. Really no complaints here.

I found the game to be quite easy in the first two chapters. Starting mid-Chapter 3 things got a little more complicated. Chapter 4 and 5 were challenging (at least for me), even if I took the time to grind so that every character was promoted. The most difficult maps for me were Nuibaba's Mansion, Rigel Falls and of course the Final Map. I'll talk about Chapter 6 later.

I cannot say much about the story since I can't speak a word of Japanese, but seeing the amount of dialogue and character interaction I can tell it's been greatly expanded. I also liked how secondary characters like Gray and Tobin (or Mae and Boey on Celica's route) would show up even during story events. Nice touch.
Support conversations are just 1-2 per character and they're kind of short, but full voice acting actually manages to hide this detail (meaning that you often don't get the impression the conversation was just a few lines long). On the other hand, there are a lot of base conversations and ten memory fragments about the characters' backstories (and they're not short).

As for the gameplay, it's literally Gaiden with some minor changes (some very broken items have been nerfed, as well as some really strong Cleric spells such as Warp and Dear - they're still very useful, but you can no longer abuse them). Growths are still very low, so some characters can easily get unlucky, but not as low as the original. However, don't expect to see perfect level ups, they're very rare. Resistance is still a weird stat, but there are now fountains that can permanently boost it as well as certain items that can make up for that. Archers still have an insane range, but this is often balanced with not so good accuracy. Some support bonuses help increasing hit and crit rates and that can make a difference. Magic units are also well balanced in my opinion. Magic is fundamental due to being able to ignore the massive terrain bonuses this game offers (up to 60% evasion on graves on Celica's route, if enemies get there and you don't have magic they become nearly untouchable).
Something I did not like was the skill system. I think the idea to associate skills with weapons is very good, but it needs to be refined. I often dealt more damage by not using them since they cannot double (I think this is also because they cost HP and are no longer RNG-controlled). They're mostly useful for slow characters or when you desperately need more accuracy (i.e. Archers). Some are very good like Alm's Twin Lions, others not so much. They're very occasional anyway.

Mila's Turnwheel is probably the best addiction to the gameplay. The possibility to rewind through any actions (for limited use) sort of emulates save states and that's literally a lifesaver. It also spares several soft resets in case you just get unlucky with RNG. Really, Gaiden especially needed this, but I hope we'll see this feature in future titles too.

Map design is the most criticized aspect and it's totally understandable. I'm personally ok with them, apart from a few ones that I really cannot defend. They're certainly inferior to map design of previous games, but I think in some cases they simply require another kind of strategy. What I don't like is them recycling maps like they did in the original. Some people say this was just IS being lazy, but I actually believe they were fully aware of what they were doing - being as close as possible to the original was a thought choice, I think.

Dungeon crawling surprised me quite a bit. I was expecting a very basic experience for an element that is almost entirely new to the series, but many dungeons were huge and I had fun exploring them. Well done.
Enemies are not always easy to avoid though, so that might become a little bit annoying eventually.
Fatigue is also an exclusive dungeon mechanic (it reduces max HP when affected), but I found that to be rather... irrelevant? You can restore it by eating food or doing an offer at a Mila's statue and you find plenty of food. This means fatigue will never actually bother you. I don't know if it becomes more prominent on Hard mode, but I doubt so.

Now, about Chapter 6. The good thing is that you're finally able to control both parties as a single army and switch between Alm and Celica as the leader. For the rest, it's kind of a missed opportunity. There's no actual story in it, so it's not even a real "chapter", just new areas you can visit. It's just three more boat maps (the last one also features reinforcements by the way), a village and a massive dungeon. It's really hard, I had to go back grinding because enemies were way stronger than my units (and even after that I had a hard time). The dungeon is 10 floors long without saving points, so if Alm or Celica dies... well, I feel sorry for you (I suppose that's part of the difficulty?). Postgame boss is ridiculously strong and bulky, it can ORKO even units with maxed stats if you're not careful.

To sum up, I have the feeling this is going to be a love or hate game overall. The original game was odd and the remake is odd as well, but this is also why I liked it a lot, flaws and all. I'm looking forward to receveing my Limited Edition to enjoy the story and going through it one more time, probably on Hard mode.

If I forgot to talk about some elements or something I wrote was not clear, feel free to ask me!

Edited by Pikappa93
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1 hour ago, Pikappa93 said:

I have the feeling this is going to be a love or hate game overall.

That's what I'd been guessing. Wonder which side I'll fall on.
Disappointed about Chapter 6 just being shoehorned in, though.

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I say this as someone who hasn't played the game, and is only going off of what i've heard: Even if Ch.6 was shoehorned in, I do feel that it's alright, given that it takes place after the main story (and thus, doesn't affect it), and also that Ch.6 does provide some very much needed...

Spoiler

...backstory on a certain Fell Dragon.

Fire Emblem barely does post-game content in the first place so i'm happy with what we got. Who knows, Echoes' post-game may turn out to be my favorite FE post-game.

 

I would ask some questions regarding Pikappa93's review but quoting individual sections of a post is a pain when using a mobile device (or maybe it's just my phone being bad). I'll do it tomorow.

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3 hours ago, The DanMan said:

That's what I'd been guessing. Wonder which side I'll fall on.
Disappointed about Chapter 6 just being shoehorned in, though.

Yes, it's a good postgame challenge where you're clearly supposed to spend time grinding your units, but I was expecting more from it (especially plotwise).

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

I would ask some questions regarding Pikappa93's review but quoting individual sections of a post is a pain when using a mobile device (or maybe it's just my phone being bad). I'll do it tomorow.

Sure, whenever you want :)

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13 hours ago, Pikappa93 said:

What do you mean by this? Because they're definitely not alike. Maybe you're referring to stat growths?

For example, i don't really see the difference between Tobin ( Archer ), Python and Leon.

Same with Kamui and Saber, they have the same stats lol.

Since growth are very low and promoting gives you base stats, a lot of characters end up the same.

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