Steel's Echoes Hardcore Ironman Challenge Playlog - No Resets, No Revival Shrines, No Milas Turnwheel

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Steel's Ironman Echoes: SoV Challenge Playlog - No Resets, No Revival, No Milas Turnwheel, Hard Classic

After much delay, I am finally going to start playing Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. As an introduction, I've been with the series since FE7 released on the GBA, and have played FE7, 8, 11, 13, and 14. I've done a text playlog on another site, where completed Conquest on Lunatic/Classic Blind, with no DLC, online, or stat boosters, which is probably the biggest challenge I have completed in Fire Emblem. So this thread is a sort of successor to that.

Now, when I play Fire Emblem games, I like a challenge. I like to think and plan and strategize and have my knowledge and ability and creativity be put to the test. Gaiden isn't too difficult, and I hear that Echoes doesn't do much to increase the difficulty. So I've created my own challenge.

I've already played through Fire Emblem Gaiden (up to Ch 5 anyway) in the past couple months, so I should be pretty familiar with how this game works. So this isn't truly blind, although it's my first time playing SoV as Gaiden is very fresh in my memory.

This will be a screenshot playlog as I play through Echoes for the first time under this challenge ruleset. Ideally I'd do a video lets play but I don't have the means to record Echoes with anything approaching decent quality, so text + screenshots will have to do. Since I'm sure most people here are playing SoV, I won't talk too much about the story aside from some reactions here and there. I'm sure y'all will see the story on your own. I'll keep things rather brief and to the point. Maybe this could be usable as a sort of strategy guide in the future. I will focus on the strategies I use and on the challenge at hand.

Here are the rules I am planning to play by in my Hardcore Ironman Challenge playthrough:
-Hard/Classic
-No DLC
-No Revival Shrines
-No Milas Turnwheel

My goal is to complete the game with without resetting, and with as few character deaths as possible. If a character dies, they will stay dead. If I get a game over, then the first part of this challenge will have failed, and I will increment the game over counter, restart the map, and continue to play from there under the same rules, trying to complete the game with as few resets and deaths as possible from then on.

I won't use revival shrines even though they are part of the game. If Alm or Celica dies, I will consider that a game over. I'll keep playing but I'll have to increase the game over counter by 1, and maybe implement some other consequence. I won't over-level by grinding too much. I might do a bit here and there as from my knowledge of Gaiden, having certain units promoted by certain points is quite important. But I'll keep it to a minimum.

Feel free to make predictions/bets on whether I will succeed, how many resets it will take, how many units will die, and who will die.

Welcome to Steel's Ironman Echoes Playlog. Bring it on! Hope you guys have fun reading along! I also welcome any relevant comments and discussion - just please don't spoil anything past where I'm currently at in the game.

PS. If anyone is interested, I did a video Let's Play of Gaiden: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrhvZk3o62Z1kbKbpmJtJB8-txc_Ekjzk

PS#2. I'm also posting this playlog on another website as well.

 

Edited May 23, 2017 by Xaos Steel Wing

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Prologue

There's not much to say here, it's mostly story.

Already this game has more worldbuilding in the prologue than all of Fates.

I love the voice acting and the dialogue too.

So this little scene where Alm runs to Celica serves to introduce players to free 3D movement which will later be used in dungeons. A neat way to introduce a brand new mechanic to the series.

Alm and Celica... promising to be together forever already... how cute. So sugary sweet. I love it. Oh, and matching marks on their hands... it's destiny! (I'm a sucker for childhood friend romances...)

Wow, language!

Ah, Slayde...

Spoiler

I know he'll be a boss later on. Funny, when I faced him in Gaiden, he just charged in alone and his men kinda stayed back and let him die...

 

I find it cute how the villagers have "Boy" and "Girl" as their classes.

How good it feels to have movement range indicators and battle previews again. Oh how I missed them so dearly back in Gaiden. No more counting enemy movement ranged by hand! I had some game overs and deaths in Gaiden just because I miscounted enemy movement ranges...

So this battle is pretty much of Mycen men. Put him on a grave tile just in case, not that it was needed.

I guess that's the tutorial? Super basic. At least they tell new players about terrain bonus. Terrain will be very important in this game.

Oh no, Alm and Celica are separated :'(

Anyway, excellent first impression. I love the dialogue, the voice acting, the interface, to feel of the game... Yeah, it's just the prologue, but it's off to a good start!

Future updates will be more gameplay focused. I just really like the start of Echoes. The storytelling is shaping up to be real nice.

Edited May 23, 2017 by Xaos Steel Wing

[Xaos Steel Wing]

I'm noticing many differences between Gaiden and Echoes, so I may as well point them out, for those who haven't played Gaiden. Don't worry, the updates will become more and more gameplay/strategy focused as I get further into the game. Right now, I'm just taking it all in. And loving the start so far - a great first impression.

Instead of walking around the village, you talk to people and examine things through sort of menus. I guess that's a way to put the 3D of the 3DS to use.



Some of the examine captions are pretty funny. They're nice little touches. A bit of extra light worldbuilding.


So far, the beginning of the story is pretty much the same as Gaiden. Just, with much more dialogue and details. So much voice acting, too!


The king is dead, killed by his chancellor/general Desaix, a rebellion... errr... Deliverance arises to fight back against the wannabe tyrant. War hero Sir Mycen refuses to join, but Alm rallies to the cause, and his friends come along - whether it be for money, to protect Alm, to see the world, or just to fight.



Tobin and Gray have some great interaction. I like how there's already a lot more to the characters.


Oh, and more longing for Celica.

- Chapter 1 START -
Play Time: 00:30


The world map! Looks a lot like Awakening or Sacred Stones. Certainly less colorful and more map-like than Gaiden. And what's that? Currency? Gaiden didn't have any money or currency!


1) Some of the villagers come equipped with consumable healing items. Gaiden did not have consumable items. Healing was done through spells, equippable items that healed 5 per turn, fort tiles, or a classes with innate healing skills. But no vulneraries, concoctions, elixirs and the like.


2) Gray starts off at level 5, ready to promote - with a brand new icon indicating readiness to promote!


3) Faye exists.


Chapter 1-1



As easy as it gets. Not much to say here.


I love the details on the village. The graphics really have improved. Such attention to detail!


I lead with Alm and Lukas, placing them on the forests just in case. I try and feed the kills to the villagers, they are in more need of experience to get them promoted soon.


On the second enemy phase, the two remaining bandits run past my units without attacking. What? Looks like the strange AI behaviour carried over from Gaiden. Sometimes damaged enemies won't attack your units. Even if they could kill your units. Guess they have a sense of self-preservation. Except that they die the next turn anyway.


A kill chart at the end? This brand new! Neat!


Group / bonus experience is also displayed at the end. So is group exp in Echoes distributed right when its earned after each fight like in Gaiden, or is it withheld and only distributed at the end of each battle? Either way, it's a nice visual indication.

An easy start. Though there is one more difficult map (read: sudden difficulty spike) coming up in a few.

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Chapter 1-2: Fleecer's Forest Battle
1:30

Spoiler

 

Naughty bandits!


Another straightforward open square map. A decent bit of forests for cover.


The first time we face an archer. Archers in Gaiden/Echoes have 3 range by default and can counterattack and melee range. So they're quite a bit more versatile and annoying than in other FEs...


There's not much in the way of strategy. I have Alm and Lukas lead, the villagers off to the side and just run them in to get kills and experience.


I got the villagers more damaged than I'd like to, but still an easy victory.


Alm, Tobin, Gray and Lukas get level ups.


I like how level-up quotes can address what stats they get. That's a pretty neat touch!

FlaringtheChari posted...

Promote them right away. you'll need them for the leather shield mercenary.

Ah yes, the infamous 1-3 Merc. He gave me a ton of trouble back when I first played Gaiden. When I didn't know about the shrine....


Ok, 10 Defense? So at the moment my units would only do 1 damage to him per attack! 11 attack? He would do 6 damage to Alm and Lukas... and at 13 speed, he'd double them!!!

So our 1 damage per battle versus his 6x2=12? No way that's going to work.

Into the shrine we go.

 

Chapter 1: Thief Shrine
01:44

Spoiler

Oh boy, first time exploring dungeons... in full 3D! They actually really nice!


So that's how enemy encounters work. You can run into them or avoid them in real time, like encounters work in Paper Mario or the Tales series. Neat! So you have the choice whether to fight or not. Sneaking around bandits here.


Alright, here's the fight. There's actually a boss and an archer here - didn't have those here in Gaiden.


Wait, is that a... ROCK>?!?!?? There's TERRAIN in dungeons? Whaaaat?


In case you're wondering why I'm flipping out about this... back in Gaiden, every single shrine battle was fought on this exact open square map. This exact same map, every time. Just with different enemies.


As for the battle, I split my group into two groups. One led by Alm, one led by Lucas. 2 villagers in each.


Lucas' group gets into a bit of trouble with the archer and the boss. The archer is actually fairly durable...



But Alm takes out the boss easily.


What, Battle Complete?!?! You just had to take out the boss? That makes things easier. In Gaiden, pretty much every map was a rout map. So, we have another difference. Good thing too, as Lukas may have been in trouble against the archer.


Who's that lying there on the ground?


We meet Silque! Turns out she was actually sent by Celica (or so I assume) to find Alm? Convenient enough that Alm ends up rescuing her.


And now we get Mila's Turnwheel.
One of the game's highly touted new features. Not that I'll be using it to rewind time... that would be too easy, wouldn't it?


Visions of the future?!?!?


And here's the shrine statue which allows for promotion... It's a physical location instead of promotion items in later games.
And brand new in Gaiden, giving food offerings to restore party fatigue? I see the fatigue bars in the character stats, apparantely it lowers their max HP if it gets too high? Hasn't been an issue, yet.


Turns out there's some exploring to be done too! You can knock open boxes and stuff to get loot and supplies. That's a neat new addition.


There's also an iron sword that gives +2 attack. Iron? Gaiden didn't have Iron weapons, it went right to Steel. And is it just me, or does it change the sword Alm holds in his dungeon crawling model? Cool, that'll help vs the merc on the next map.
Also have a silver mark for... forging? That's a new feature.

Overall - I really like what they did to dungeons/shrines. The 3D exploring, the ability to choose whether to fight or avoid enemies, the little exploring and item finding elements, and perhaps most of all, shrines being more than 1 screen of a straight path and a 1 map battle that's just a small open square. The shrine looked quite nice too...

Looking forward to what other dungeons are like.

Until then... I think I'd like to promote the rest of my villagers before taking on the leather shield merc on the next map. As is; Alm would still do only 2 damage against him.

Shrine Promotion Time

Spoiler

They really made this place look nice, with the cave river...


I should admit, the first time through the shrine I ran past the bandits, just to see if I could actually skip these fights. I'm going to have a heck of a time with the 1-3 mercernary without promoted villagers, so I'll fight these guys a couple times just till I can promote them.
After 2 fights, one of them was at level 2, 99 exp. Sigh. I want to play this run with minimal grinding, but I really don't want to have to come back here just to promote 1 villager, so I did an extra fight. I only did 3 bandit fights total. Can you even call 1 extra encounter "grinding"?
Hopefully, beyond this point, I can get through the game with no grinding? I'll try!

Here we go, promotion time!

Gray will become a Mercenary!



Tobin will become an Archer!



Kliff will become a Mage!



Faye will become a Cleric!




So, Silque. She's a cleric. Basically a healer. And has quite some other talents as well. So she's quite useful. She will eventually get the Warp spell. But no Physic for distance healing, which is why Faye was made into a Cleric.


In Gaiden, she was an extreme pain to level, because healing did not give experience, and Nosferatu had 50% hit rage (and was usually 40something after factoring enemy avoid).
In Echoes, healing does give you exp and Nosferatu has 60% hit chance... so it should be much easier to level her.


Not the greatest stats, but physical enemies tend to have very low resistance. She'll mostly be healing anyway. Her super high resistance means she tank magic... but enemy mages also have high resistance so she can't exactly damage them much either.


Also, camp conversations! Pretty cool. An additional way to interact with your characters and learn about them. I like the game's character and world building already.

 

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Chapter 1-3: Storming of Ram Valley
03:30

Spoiler

 

Now we're ready. This map is probably the first difficulty spike of Gaiden. If you want to see what happened the first time I tried this map in Gaiden, check out this video. Stuff starts to fall apart around 23 minutes in.

 

So, these are the enemies we face. Nothing too threatening here.


See this level 6 bandit that's the boss? He's not the real boss.


THIS GUY is the real boss. This mercenary has a leather shield, increasing his defense by 3, giving him 10 defense. He has 13 speed so he doubles everyone, and has 11 attack. At this point Alm and Lukas have 6 defense, so he would do 10 damage a battle to them... while Alm would do 2 damage and Lukas would do 1... Ouch. But - he has low resistance!


The strategy: First, move the entire group to the right and take out the bandits. Try and fight on the forest, putting my tankiest units on it to dodge and take less damage. Set up a decent defensive formation and these guys will be easy.



The mercenary will slowly walk down across the mountain, 1 tile at a time. So that gives plenty of time to take out every other enemy, then the merc can be dealt with alone. He's still a pain though.

Alm and Lukas have the highest defense, so I run them in to meet the merc, then I back up to this forest tile.


Perfect positioning. The 2 tile path between the mountain is blocked by Alm and Lukas.
So my clerics can heal them, and Kliff is free to throw his magic at the merc to take him down without putting himself in danger.


See, it's easy if you know what to do.

If you DON'T have a mage at this point, I suppose you can do the same tactic, but instead just have Alm and Lukas keep tanking hits and having Silque heal them, and slowly whittling down the merc 2-3 HP a turn in a war of attrition that you will win thanks to your cleric healing.

What if you went to this map first and didn't go the shrine - and have no mage or cleric? You're in for a heck of a time. See my above video from Gaiden. Sure, I completed the map with some good use of the forest and forest terrain, but it was a real struggle and Gray died in the process.


And I get the Leather Shield. Time to make Lukas even tankier!

Anyway, there's the first "challenge" of Echoes. Wasn't too bad, but I was aware of it from Gaiden so I knew what to do.

Also.... SUPPORTS!


Gees Kliff, what's your problem? Here I was all excited to here you guys talk... and you don't want to? What kind of support is this?



Faye is totally cray craye.
I'm not sure if I love it or hate it.

That's pretty much my reaction to Faye too...


Anyway, time to move on to the Southern Outpost!



Gray and Tobin are hilarious. I like the way Gray thinks... and Tobin often seems to say what I'm thinking. They're a great duo. It's almost like they're the Christmas Cavaliers of this game - in terms of their dynamic anyway.

Chapter 1-4: Attack on the Southern Outpost
4:20
 

Spoiler

A fortress map. What makes this interesting is the archer with the Steel bow, granting him huge range. At least this game warns you about it. It was quite the surprise in Gaiden to see an enemy shooting at 5 range all of a sudden! Oh, and there's 2 archers here now, Gaiden only had the one to the right.



Strategy: Alm is equppied with the Leather Shield, which boosts him to 10 Defense. He will go around on the right to reach the archer and take him out on his own (well, possibly with some help from Tobin). Meanwhile, the main force moves to the center and engages the enemies there, with Lukas leading.


Those hit rates for Tobin, yikes. The tiles in the fort give 20 avoid, and archers already have a low hit rate. Even worse, the archer goes onto the supplies - which give him 40 avoid!


Alm easily took care of the archer. The rest of the enemies are none to threatening.
I don't get what's up with soldier on the left in the fort. He just stands there and doesn't move at all. I just have Kliff set him on fire, but still... what's the point of this unit that just sits there, can't counterattack, and doesn't move? An AI mess up?


Chapter Complete! 9 turns


Let's check out the Southern Outpost, shall we?


I like what they've done with the place. Some loot you can pick up... including the Almighty Lightning Sword!

Here's how the Southern Outpost looked in Gaiden for comparison. Quite the evolution!



This thing is great, it allows the user to attack for 1-2 range with a magic attack, and does a flat 15 magic damage regardless of the user's attack. Basically, Alm can solo the next few maps with this. Not that it's a good idea in terms of experience distribution. This sword was totally overpowered in Gaiden. In Echoes at least is has a downside: 3 weight (-3 speed when its equipped). It's still insanely powerful in Act 1.

But there's something even better in here!



I just love this CG. Clair looks so beautiful here. She just holds her hand out... expecting Alm to help her up.



Oh, Clair... Quite amusing, her view on villages and peasants and farm animals.

Clair - Pegasus Knight

As a unit... Clair is not that great. She's rather fragile, and her attack isn't very good. She is quite fast so she can double a lot, and has good resistance, so she's good for fighting enemy mages and witches. But she's quite fragile and does little damage versus melee units.
When promoted she will be super effective versus terrors. But from my experience in Gaiden, she's not very good, mainly due to her weak damage output and low HP.


Oh, Faye... I can see why people talk so much about her Alm obsession.

Chapter 1-5: Battle of Southern Zofia
4:39
 

Spoiler

Check out all the items we now have! Certainly a lot more than you'd get early on in Gaiden - in Gaiden at this point you only had the Lightning Sword and Leather Shield.

Oh goody, a wide open square map with minimal terrain!


The only new thing here is the cavalry. They're quite far off though. But they do have decently high speed so they're a threat to mages.

Strategy: Advance North aggressively and take out all the nearby enemies before the Cavalry arrive. So when the cavalry get to the party, they can easily be dispatched.



I ran Tobin into the enemy archer's range to get things moving.

The Lightning Sword has a cool lightning effect to it. But I kept mis-timing my screenshots XD.
Here's how it looked in Gaiden for comparison:



Nothing too difficult really. These enemies aren't very threatening. Clair takes a lot of damage - her defense and HP are quite low for now.


The main enemy group is all cleaned up by the time cavalry get here. The cavalry are easy to take out with the melee units - just need to position them so as to block off the more fragile mages who can get doubled.


Chapter 1-5 Complete! 5 turns


Fernand? What's this guy's problem? He seems awfully conceited.


He even talks down on Lukas! How could he, Lukas is such a great guy!
You tell him, Clair! Put this stuck up noble in his place!
Some hints at Fernand having a sad backstory and reason as to why he acts like that are given...

So it looks like the Deliverance has its own divisions and internal conflicts, along class lines. We might be fighting on the same side, but seems like we have little in common.

 

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Chapter 1-6: Second Battle of Southern Zofia
5:04

Spoiler

Chapter 1-6: Second Battle of Southern Zofia
5:04



Two of the less interesting types of maps in Gaiden... Echoes are maps that are basically wide open squares with minimal terrain, and maps that come down to holding a simple chokepoint.

This map is a combination of both.




Basically a large open square, but divided in 2 by a river with a single bridge crossing it. And a fort.

So we have two groups of enemy cavalry. Four in the bottom left, and four in the top left corner. The cavalry at the top of the map are level 4 and 6, the ones at the bottom are level 2.

Strategy: Start by moving aggressively to the west, and engage and take out the first group of cavalry quickly.
Then send the tankiest unit to block the bridge before the cavalry from the top can get there. Taking out the second group of cavalry should then be easy with a high defense unit holding the bridge, and ranged units attacking from across the river without being in any danger.


First group of cavalry is super easy.


Lukas can hold the bridge. He has 7 Def +3 with the leather shield for a total of 10. So he only takes 1-2 damage from these enemies. Ranged units help bring them down.


What's this? Their leader is running away!

This is another thing about Gaiden/Echoes AI. Enemies sometimes retreat to heal when they are at low health. It's kind of unique, enemies in other FEs dont exhibit this kind of behavior - they run in and fight to the death!
Usually this is mostly just an annoyance, having a couple units run to heal up is rarely a danger, it just makes the map take a bit longer...


Finally, I catch up to him. This boss running away to heal when he was at 3 hp literally wasted 4 turns.
I bet this is super annoying in LTC playthroughs and you'll have to plan around finishing units so they won't retreat and escape like this, or even in some cases not attack and leave them at higher HP so they won't get low enough to trigger the retreat behavior.

Battle Complete! - 11 Turns


No, I haven't! :)

Chapter 1: Deliverance Hideout
5:27

Spoiler

I keep wanting to call them the Liberation... a carryover from Gaiden.

I've wondered that too... Makes sense, make your HQ in a graveyard crawling with undead so its hard for the enemy to get through as well.


I'm really impressed with what they did to the dungeons. There's definitely a lot more room to explore.
Back in Gaiden this dungeon was literally just a single straight path and single encounter on the open square map that every dungeon was.

If you haven't played Gaiden, here's what the Liberation Hideout originally looked like, you can see for your self. Quite the step up in echoes.

 

It's cool that the weapon Alm has equipped shows on his dungeon model. The Lightning Sword helps light the way!

First time I ran into a zombie, the sound they gave off kind of freaked me out.


So it looks like this dungeon has the same flat square as back in Gaiden... disappointing.


The Revenants have high HP... and that's it. Otherwise their stats pathetically weak and they pose no threat at all. Just fodder.
I do wonder why they all have cleavers stuck in their heads. Any reason why people tend to use that specific weapon against them? It doesn't seem effective if they're just back up again.

Battle Complete - 2 turns


Two enemies blocking the path. The door can't be opened so the only way is through. The only mandatory fight of this dungeon.


Just a flat square. Quite a few enemies, but they're quite weak, as tends to be the case with zombies and skeletons.


The Bonewalkers look pretty awesome in this game, with their flaming heads and skull shields and spiky swords. More powerful and durable than the revenants, but still not at all threatening.

Strategy: Advance forward and place the more durable melee units in a formation that will protect the more vulnerable ranged units. Quite simple really.




Battle Complete - 2 turns

I'm running around smashing open crates, but not much interesting has dropped from them.
4 silver marks and about 3 or so beverages... not that we can actually consume the wine or anything.
Still, like in Zelda I feel like I have to smash open every destructible item.

Two chests - one has an iron bow, the other has 20 silver marks. Which I still cannot yet use.


Anyway, onto the Deliverance hideout.


It's Sir Clive, leader of the Deliverance!


WHAT? The inexperienced Alm to lead the Deliverance? So that's why they wanted Mycen...


Looks like things were bleak for the Deliverance... Lukas with the great metaphor. I think he's becoming my favorite character.


Fernand doesn't like it one bit.
An ideological/class divide amongst the resistance.
Turns out Fernand does have a good reason to mistrust the common folk... and it's exactly what I thought it was when it was hinted at earlier.

Turns out story and exploring took more time than actual battles did here.

See, I think Gaiden/Echoes is more of an RPG with strategy elements than a strategy game with RPG elements... but that's another discussion.

There's a Spring in the LIberation HQ.
Attack and Defense.

A real difficult choice, both are immensely useful stats. Do I upgrade a strong unit's strengths to make them even better, or improve a unit's weakness?
I'm thinking to maybe give some defense to Clair to make her more durable which is her biggest problem. I don't know what else. Any ideas.

Also, 3 new units... 2 of them solid, 1 kind of weak.

Clive - Cavalier

The first Cavalier. Starting stats look decent. But his growths, not so much. Decent attack and HP (40 and 55) but poor speed (25) and defence (30).
And his 1 Resistance is awful... he is super vulnerable to magic. Especially to witches who can teleport.
In Gaiden I found him usable but underwhelming. Mathilda will be much better.

Forsyth - Soldier

A solid soldier. More green than I remember from Gaiden, where his hair was... pink. A bit more offense and a bit less defense than Lukas. Lukas I think is better. But Force (as he was known in Gaiden) is alright).

Python - Archer

Another Archer. He started off quite weak for me in Gaiden but became pretty good in Chapter 4. I gave him a few points in speed from a spring in Chapter 4 and when he could double enemies, he was a real force to be reckoned with. Great at taking out mages from a distance. His speed starts low but he has a prett good 55% growth.

Later today: the March on Castle Zofia!

Hope to get Chapter 2 done by the end of this weekend. At the least.

After that, the real challenge starts.

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Alm 1-7 (Finale): Liberation of Zofia Castle
6:27

Spoiler

Alm 1-7 (Finale): Liberation of Zofia Castle
6:27


Alm channeling his inner Nino. Let's go!




The treachers chanceller Desaix... killing the king and betraying Zofia and allying with Rigel!
And Fernand, that traitor!

We also meet Berkut, nephew of Rigel's king Rudolf and heir to the throne.

Quite a nice cut scene, but his music is so ominous...


So he's another on of those nobles who look down on common folk types... just like Fernand.
But Reina seems to be a bit more softhearted... I foresee a conflict between them at some point.




So this map is a straightforward fortress assault... that's actually a chokepoint map.


Two bosses. Slaying Slayde will cause Desaix to retreat.
But Desaix will drop the Dracoshield if he is defeated.
Slayde isn't a particular threat...
Desaix, on the other hand, has defense and resistance so high that all our units can only do 1 damage to him (2 per round because they double) and he has a huge attack... Oh, and he heals for 5 each turn. Yeah, it's gonna be tough to take him out.

Strategy: Take out the enemy archers with my own archers.
Then move in, and create a 3 wide defensive line at the edge of Slayder's movement range, and hold this formation in that corridor till most of the enemies are taken out.
After that, it's just cleaning up the enemies in the final room where Desiax starts, which conveniently offers a 1 tile chokepoint.


Archer vs Archer combat. The enemy archers have 20 avoid from terrain, which makes hitting them a pain. But Tobin and Python double the enemy archers and do much more damage, and can retreat to heal. So my archers will prevail in the long run.


Here, we make our stand!
The 3 wide corridor allows for the creation of a defensive line with the tankiest units, that enemy can't break through.
The cavalry is fast, it could even double Clive with his steel lance so I had to trade him Clair's iron lance.


The first enemy mage... er... "Arcanist" we face.
The thing about magic enemies is that your units don't have resistance growths in this game. What you start with in Res is what you end with. Strange.
But Arcanists tend to be quite slow with their magic weighing them down. This guy can also heal.


The enemy archers are taken out by my own archers. Otherwise, just holding my ground and my ranged units help take out the cavalry too. Takes a few turns but my units are never in any danger, and Faye and Silque can heal the frontline too.


Just a couple more enemies to clean up!
Slayder has retreated to heal and left his men to die.
He actually had 1 HP, and Alm missed what was supposed to be the finishing blow.

Ah, but does this retreat give me a chance at fighting Desaix and obtaining the Dracoshield?

 

Chapter 1-7 continued:

Spoiler

Chapter 1-7 continued: Taking on Desaix, I say!

Uh-oh!!!


Unexpectedly, Desaix has marched forward to meet my forces. As Felicia would say, we've got trouble! Or... an opportunity?


The way he is positioned, it actually works quite nicely.
I have 4 units that can attack him (doubling him) each turn, doing up to 8 damage per turn... plus Alm will do 2 damage on the counterattack.
So I can outdamge his 5 healing per turn!!!
Desaix can only attack Alm, but my clerics can outheal his damage in the long run, and Desaix has no crit, so Alm is safe.
Nice!
This is working out better than I thought!

So I can take my time and slowly but surely chip down his health.
The Dracoshield is within sight!

I got Desaix down to 16 health, and things are looking good...

Except that Desaix retreated to the supply tile, and Slayde advanced to block his positon... great...


I just have to chip down Slayde's health to get him to retreat again and then Desaix will advance again after healing up a bit, right?


Impossible!!!
Tobin accidentally crit Slayde while trying to chip down his health to make him retreat again...........
Cmon, Tobin! That's not what we were trying to do!
So close... Almost had Desaix, only to accidentally slay Slayde on a crit...


Desaix retreats, and no Dracoshield for me...


It's an hardcore ironman run, so I roll with it. No Turnwheel for me!
Although that's exactly where the feature would come in useful...

Zofia is freed!



Clair is wonderful~ I love her, she's so much fun with her haughty but well meaning manner of speech.

But this is just the start!

Ah, Gray and Tobin... Never cease to be entertaining.

Inside the castle we pickup the Ridersbane, an Iron Lance, and an Iron Shield.
Ridersbane? It was called a Knight Lance in Gaiden... which I mistakenly thought to be super effective against knights, not cavalry.


Some rumors about the slain king Lima's daughter escaping... Got to be Celica, right?

In Gaiden, much of the story came from things people in towns would say. I like how they kept that aspect, how talking to NPCs in places like this castle still adds a lot to the story.


Old man confirms that Alm is not Mycen's son, kinda new that already... who is he then?
Some heavy moments as Alm begins to realize that this victory is only the beginning of a greater war, and that a heavy burden lies on his shoulders!


Look who's here... Lots of questions to ask, but get conveniently interrupted.


This is only the beginning of the struggle. Castle Zofia may have been re-taken, but there will be no peace until Rigel is defeated for good.

ACT 1 COMPLETE!!!

So far, I'm loving the game... I'll post a quick summary after I go to sleep, then on to Act 2 with Celica!

 

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Act 1 Summary

Prologue: 3 turns
1-1: 3 turns
1-2: 5 turns
Thief Shrine: 5 turns
Thief Shrine Extra Encounters: 3 + 2 + 3 turns
1-3: 4:20 / 5 turns
1-4: 4:20 / 9 turns
1-5: 4:39 / 5 turns
1-6: 5:04 / 11 turns (the boss ran away to heal)
Deliverance Hideout: 5:27 / 2 turns
Delivarance Hideout Extra Encounters: 2 turns
1-7: 6:26 / 23 turns (tried for the Dracoshield but accidentally crit Slayde)

Total Time: 7:44
Total Turn Count: 81
Casualties: 0
Resets: 0

Thief Shrine Spring: +2 SPD to Tobin, +1 SPD to Lukas
Delivarance Spring: Not used yet, but planning to give +2-3 DEF to Clair

Units:

Spoiler

Alm lvl 7 - Lukas lvl 8

Gray lvl 6 - Tobin lvl 7

Kliff lvl 5 - Faye lvl 5

Silque lvl 6 - Clair lvl 4

Clive lvl 6 - Python lvl 4

Forsyth lvl 4

 

 

Act 2: The Pilgrimage

Spoiler

Act 2: The Pilgramage



"I'm on a boat." - Celica, Act 2

Most of this map is ships... which are pretty much basic chokepoint maps. With the exception of one very annoying ship map, they're pretty uninteresting. And there's about 6 of them. So it's a rather weak start to Celica's route, map design wise. A couple of Gaiden's flaws: chokepoint maps that tend to be quite easy and involve very little thought... and repeating maps.

Not too exciting a chapter. Not much in terms of major threats or challenges for this ironman. There's the Necro Dragon, but Celica should have Seraphim (super effective versus it) by then. Maybe the Sea Shrine will be at least interesting?


A dream of Alm and Rudolf... or is it a vision?
I love the cinematics in this game. So much better than those of Fates!


Famine, drought, monsters, war... and rumors Mila, the earth goddess, is missing.
So Chapter 2 and 3 of Celica's route are basically a journey to Mila's Temple to see what's going.


That's what I'd like to know. Why would Rigel invade Zofia?


I love the dynamic Mae and Boey have. Reminds me of, well, me and a certain friend of mine.
Looks like they're the Tobin and Gray of this route.


Celica has a great design. I love her outfit.

So, units. Interestingly, all 4 starting units in Celica's party are magical.


Celica is pretty great, as it tends to be the case with FE protagonists. She knows magic right off the bat, and she'll eventually learn the very powerful Seraphim spell which is super effective against monsters.


Mae isn't quite a-mae-zing, but she's pretty good. She's got good starting speed. And knows 3 range Lightning magic right away (which she makes a point to rub in the face of Boey, which she actually does in Gaiden too) which is super useful.


Boey... not so great. He's got good HP and Def, but that's not what you need in a mage. Hes got rather low attack and speed. And magic weighs him down further.


Jenny... Genny? I don't know. In Gaiden she was a massive pain to level and use outside of healing. But that's because Gaiden Nosferatu had 50% hit rate, which was usually 40-something% after enemy avoid is factored in. So she did very little damage AND she missed more often than she hit. But Clerics are much better in Echoes, so I think she'll be alright.


Fountains. +atk or +spd, tough choice.

I ended up giving +atk and +spd to Celica, and +atk to Mae.

I thought about giving a whole bunch of Spd to Boey, shoring up his major weakness... but even then I don't think he'd be great, and he'd only catch up to Mae for the time being. I found Boey to be quite weak in Gaiden. He didn't do much damage, rarely doubled, and would get doubled a lot himself. Might be the same way in Echoes.

Celica will be great anyway, doesn't hurt to make her better to start off. Though what she really needs is some defense. I also thought about giving Mae some speed, since magic reduces speed... but you only need 1 more than the enemy to double, so I think she'll be ok with her growth of 40%.

In retrospect, I should have given Boey the speed, and maybe given Mae a point in speed rather than attack (so she can double pirates with Thunder). Oh well.

 

Act 2-1: Graveyard Skirmish
08:15

Spoiler

Act 2-1: Graveyard Skirmish
08:15



The only way to the port to get to mainland Zofia is through this cemetary.
Turns out Boey is afraid of ghosts, and Celica reminisces about her long dead half-brother.


Yep, Boey and Mae... So much fun together. Definitely an exchange that would happen between me and a friend of mine (I'd be Boey...).


The map is a graveyard with plenty of forest and grave tiles.

This battle seems like a tutorial on using terrain. Forests give 40 avoid, graves give 60 avoid.
So using terrain advantage is very important in Gaiden. Especially with the hit chance being what you see, not the "average two rolls" formula of other FEs that makes very high and low probabilities even higher/lower (if Im explaining it right).


Magic is not affected by terrain in Gaiden/Echoes. Another advantage mages get. Makes them great versus bosses that have a higher dodge rate vs physical attacks.
I kept forgetting this in Gaiden.....

Strategy: Advance forward staying on terrain when possible. The Revenants here really don't pose much of a threat. Celica's all magic team has their magic hit chance unaffected, the enemies meanwhile very much have their hit rate lowered. This map is more of a terrain tutorial than anything.

Of note, giving Celica 2 atk from the spring would let her one-round these terrors. Not that it matters much.



Battle Complete - 4 turns (or was it 5?)

Those terrors sure went after Genny... maybe they wanted to give her a hug? Or touch her adorable puffy hair?

Novis Seaport

Spoiler

Novis Seaport
Pirates plague the seas, so ships can't sail. No problem, we'll just take them out and help the people of Novis in the process, right?


Cats.


Looks like Celica has the right idea! She's a cat lover? I like her even more!


We meet Saber, a heavy drinking sellsword. And for the mere price of a single dagger, he'll escort Celica all the way to the Mila Temple. Or is it something more?


Celica still pines for Alm, after all these years.
I love these CGs.


Evil floating eye? Where have I seen this before... What sorcery is this, Jedah?

2-2: First Pirate Raid
08:27

Spoiler

2-2: First Pirate Raid
08:27




Pirate King... Barth? Marth? Barf? Really? I think he was Daha in Gaiden.


The first of many ship maps. Super simple. It's just a single chokepoint.

Strategy: A basic chokepoint hold. Stick Saber at the bridge, have the mages behind him.
Then slowly advance every turn, taking out a pirate using magic, then advancing into his spot with Saber or Celica.


This map can be done just sitting there on your ship and having the pirates run into Saber, very little can go wrong here.


But it can be done in less turns by aggressively advancing across the bridge and taking the fight to them.

Battle Complete - 5 Turns

Act 2-3: Second Pirate Raid
08:48

Spoiler

Let's talk about Saber, our first of several Mercenaries on Celica's route.


His notable growths are 60% HP, 35% Atk, 35% Spd, 45% Def.
So his growths seem to point him towards being a defensive/tanky unit.
But his starting stats (only 4 Def, 22HP) don't lend themselves to that.
On the other hand, he starts with 10 Spd which is pretty great, so his 35% speed will be fine, though if he gets speed screwed he might be doubled by myrmidons/dread fighters later on.

So his bases and his growths point in different directions.
But he'll be fast enough to double just about everyone that isn't in the myrmidon line, so the defenses are welcome.
Though Valbar will serve as the #1 tank for Celica, if Saber is equipped with a shield he can act as secondary tank.

Act 2-3: Second Pirate Raid
08:48



More ships. Except this time, there's two paths between them.
The enemy pirates will rush forward and use both bridges to invade your ship.

Strategy: Send Saber to hold the right bridge with the mages backing him.
Send Celica to the left and have her fight by the mast on our ship. Three or so pirates will spill onto our boat but Celica can solo them.
Have Saber hold the right bridge and use the mages and him to take out the pirates, and have Genny healing him.
Use magic to take out the merc, physical attacks barely scratch him.


Mae's Lightning can reach across to the other ship. Super useful.
Sadly she's 1 speed away from doubling them (7speed - 5weight for Lightning). If only I gave her +SPD at the Spring.
BUT she takes a lot of damage from the archer. So have to be careful.


Celica easily handles the pirates that come over the left bridge. Saber and the mages hold the left side.


Another Leather Shield Mercenary. High attack, speed, and defense...
Aha, but only 1 Resistance. And we have 4 magic users!

So just have Saber hold the bridge and tank his hits, while the mages strike him down. It's like Alm's 1-3 leather merc... but easier because of the chokepoint and having more mages.




One of the pirates survived due to Celica missing, then ran away to heal.
This burns a turn. In other FEs he would have just attacked into my units and died on enemy phase. Not in Gaiden/Echoes, they have a sense of self preservation! Must be annoying for LTCs, stuff like this.

Battle Complete - 8 turns!

 

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Act 2-4: Pirate Fort
9:08

Spoiler

Oh Celica, you have such a good heart. I'll not let that pirate filth touch you!



This map seems pretty simple. The pirates are numerous, but not very strong.
The boss, self-styled pirate king Barth (who has an awesome pirate accent) is very vulnerable to magic... which is kind of a trend here in Act 2. Units/bosses that look strong but are very weak to magic.

The issue is these guys over here.


Valbar, Kamui, Leon.
They will join you after this battle... if they survive.
They are controlled by the AI.
Which is actually a HUGE problem.

Here's what happened when I first tried this map in Gaiden (interesting stuff starts at about 17:50):
Leon recklessly charges into the boss range with almost no HP and promptly gets himself killed.

 

From my experience with Gaiden, the allied AI here is extremely reckless.
So you have to move fast enough to defeat enough enemies and perhaps even the boss before Leon gets himself killed.
If anything, the stupid AI creates a timer that kind of makes you move fast and makes sitting back and taking it slowly not a good idea.

Strategy: Split up my forces, sending Saber + Mae to the left, while Celica, Mae, and Genny go to the right bridge. Basically, move fast and take out the enemies who will move towards our ship so I can then rescue Valbar's crew and help them before someone there dies. The boss is easily dispatched with magic.


A good start.

But the enemies ganged up on Leon.



Wow... Good job, Leon. Getting yourself killed by the pirates, just like Gaiden.
I'm not sure what I could have done.
He died before I could even get near him.
I expected this to happen, I tried to move fast... but the enemies just all ganged up on Leon, and he positioned himself horribly.

So, that's the first death of this ironman run... kind of? He was under AI control... and Boey, was the AI awful. And perhaps a bit unlucky.


Barth is easily taken care of by Thunder magic from beyond the wall with it's 3 range.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand... my game crashed.

Right after this battle, my game crashed. Right after I defeated the boss. Seriously. I'm not making this up. I didn't even really care about losing Leon. I've played Gaiden without him before. It might have something to do with my custom firmware on my 3DS. This is the 2nd time Echoes has crashed for me.

Maybe it's just Mila's will that Leon survives. I have no choice but to re-do the map.

Act 2-4: Pirate Fort - Revisited

Spoiler

Act 2-4: Pirate Fort - Revisited

Due to circumstances outside my control (my game crashing), I have to redo this map.

I figure I may as well use this opportunity to try and save Leon. I know it's supposed to be a no-reset Ironman run, but my game did genuinely crash, so I have no choice but to redo the map.

My thinking is that if I get my units in the range of the enemies who attack Valbar and friends, the AI will choose to rush my team instead, thus taking the pressure off of Valbar's group. So I'd have to try and move even faster.

This time I'll try to move everyone to the right exit from the ship, and move further out on the first turn. Oh, and this time I actually equipped Celica with the Leather Shield to boost her defense to 8. I forgot about it the first time.


The enemy still goes after Leon. Though a few more attack Valbar instead this time, so it's looking good?


Oh my freaking goodness, not again. Leon is almost dead, and there's an enemy that can finish him off...



WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT>!?!??!?!!?
The pirate runs beside Leon... and DOESN'T attack him! He just passes his turn!?
The pirate could have attacked and killed Leon, but he just stopped there?

What the...?
I think this might be something with the retreating to heal AI... but why on earth would that pirate NOT attack Leon there? It would have very likely killed him, and a dead Leon can't counterattack, can he. But nope, the pirate just stood there.


Oh well. I'll take it.
Leon died due to horrible allied AI last time, now he lives due to horrible enemy AI.

To the rescue! I block off the enemy's path to Leon.



Once again the boss is easily vanquished using magic, and this time I complete the map with all 3 of the green allies alive. Phew.

Looks like Mila really wanted Leon to get out alive, huh.

Battle Complete - 9 turns (?)


Genny can now summon units! And Boey now has Thunder to attack at 3 range! Awesome!
I loved using Invoke in Gaiden. The summons make for great shields and are good for luring out enemies into favorable positions. Enemies tend to favor attacking summons over your actual units, so that's very helpful on an ironman run.


So at the Pirate Fort, we can recruit whoever survives of Valbar, Kamui, and Leon.

We also learn of the big, scary zombie dragon at the Seabound Shrine, which hides some great treasure.

Ok, ok, I get the hint. The necro dragon is weak to Seraphim magic. If anything, it's extremely difficult without it.
Celica learns Seraphim at level 5, which she'll easily get by the end of the next map.


That sweet pirate booty!
An Iron Sword, Rusty Shield, and Steel Sword to be specific.


Is this C support some meta-joke about how little there is to the characters' personality?


So what do you guys think: should I recruit Leon, or leave him?
Do I accept what happened the first time and go on without Leon, or do I take the game crashing and having to re-do the map as a sign that Leon was intended to live?

 

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Act 2-5: Pirate Raid 3 - The Summoning
09:54

Spoiler

Act 2-5: Pirate Raid 3 - The Summoning
09:54


It's just a single enemy?



That's what I'm thinking, too...

I really got caught by surprise when I first did this map in Gaiden. I had zero clue this guy could summon units! Unlike Echoes, Gaiden gives you just about no information, so I had genuinely no idea that he would summon an army of the undead.


This map took me an hour and a half in Gaiden... but at least I got a lot of experience from it!

This map introduces you to Summoners... or Cantors as they are called here. Perhaps the most annoying pain in the rear in the game... until you get easy ways to deal with them much, much later on.

Heck, I even made a video about summoners in Gaiden.

 

Cantors.
Each turn, they can summon 0 to 8 terrors of a specific type.
Cantors will NOT attack you when you move in their range.
Cantors will NOT attack you on the enemy phase at all.
They will counterattack you when you attack them though.



This guy has some pretty heavy stats. The first actual challenging boss of the game.
So he has a very high attack, a decently high speed so that he can double your magic users, decent defenses, and high resistance.

AND he is on a supply tile he will not move off of. So he'll heal 5hp a turn and have 40% avoid from physical attacks.
Oh, and he has a self-heal for 5hp skill too.
So he will heal for a net of 10HP per turn. Yukes.

Thankfully, the revenants he summons are pathetically weak. High HP but not much else. They barely scratch even my more fragile units.

Initial Strategy: Move fast towards him. Establish a 4 unit defensive wall to block the zombies.
Attack the cantor with Mae and Boey's Thunder magic and Leon's bow so the Cantor can't counterattack. He may do high damage - but not at 3 range!



This... didn't quite work.
Mae, Boey, and Leon did a net of 16 damage, assuming everyone hit.
The cantor heals for 10 per turn. And Leon only had a 34% hit chance... So the cantor was mostly outhealing my damage.


But this won't work, either...


Revised Strategy: Turns out I forgot about the weapons acquired in the Pirate Fort.
I gave Celica the Iron Sword and Saber the Steel Sword.
Now, Celica can do 5 x 2 damage to him, and Saber can do 6 x 2.
This will bring the Cantor down much quicker.
While he may do huge damage to Celica and Saber on the counter, he won't attack on enemy phase so there is no fear of getting killed on enemy phase after being damaged on player phase (and the zombies do 1 damage to them).



I need Celica to get to level 5 to learn Seraphim for the Necro Dragon coming up, so she needs to strike the final blow.


And she misses. Waste of a turn.


There we go!

Battle Complete - 11 turns
Could have been 9, but 1 turn delay to let Celica get the final blow, and another turn because she missed twice.


Turned out not be all that bad. The revenants summoned were super weak, and fast melee units could do decent damage to the counter. Taking heavy damage on the cantors counterattack didn't really matter as the cantor doesn't attack on enemy phase so he won't kill anyone.

So I had to revise my initial strategy, but it all worked out. MUCH faster than I expected, too! Only 11 turns, and it could have been 9.

Act 2-6: Beast Hunt
10:30

Spoiler

Act 2-6: Beast Hunt
10:30


Time to finally take on the dread Necro Dragon...


Wait, there's TWO?!?
Well, that was unexpected. Gaiden only had 1. Not that I expect it to be an issue.

The Necro Dragons look intimidating. 16 atk, 13 def, 12 res... and a huge 8 flying movement!!!


But we have a secret weapon up our sleeves. Or should I say not-so-secret, because the game tells you about five times.

Celica's Seraphim magic, learned at level 5. It's actually the only way to do more than a couple points of damage to the Necro Zombie. It should take them out in 2 hits.


I'm not sure how I feel about the way Echoes presents this.
There's this enemy hyped up as super dangerous, but you also have a super easy way to take it out... that the game spells out for you about five times. I'd rather the game NOT tell you Seraphim is super effective outright and beat you over the head with it. Maybe give you a subtle hint and let you figure it out for yourself.

I have an even more interesting trick up my sleeve.

Invoke.


These mist soldiers act essential as "living shields." (Though they're not really alive, are they). I found in Gaiden the AI tends to prefer to attack these summoned soldiers instead of your actual characters. So they can be used as shields to bait out enemy attacks while your characters are ignored. They can also do some chip damage to tough enemies.

So these summoned units are SUPER useful, especially in an ironman run. They make things so much safer, they'll absorb a ton of enemy attacks and save your units from taking a lot of damage. And they might steal some exp once in a while, but better that than losing a unit.



So pretty much only Celica with Seraphim does any damage. That's ok.

INVOKE!!! The summoned soldiers act to protect my units and prevent the dragon zombies from flying around and reaching my healers.

Get those fragile mages the heck out of there!


We have you surrounded!


Seraphim... pretty feathers, but you don't actually see a little group of fairies/angels flying over to hit the enemy like in Gaiden.


Battle Complete - 5 Turns

That wasn't so bad, was it?


We also get the Prayer Ring. It basically heals for 5HP a turn. That's cool. In Gaiden I gave it to Genny so she can self-heal so she can use Invoke more often for summoning shenanigans.
Or it could be given to a durable frontline fighter for more survivability so that you don't have to retreat to a healer to heal up.

But in Gaiden, there were a lot less weapons and shields, so there was more reason to give rings to melee units as there were less useful weapons for them. I think I'll keep it on Genny to allow her to self-heal up enough to use Invoke multiple times for certain battles.

That's another thing that makes Gaiden/Echoes different from modern FEs. Equippable rings (and shields) - not just weapons. I think FE4 had them too.

Act 2: Seabound Shrine
10:44

Spoiler

Act 2: Seabound Shrine
10:44

My approach to dungeons: I won't go out of my way to grind, but I'll fight any enemies I do happen to run into on my way through.


Looking pretty cool! Celica uses fire magic to light her way instead of a lantern like Alm. Nice touch.

Another open square map with fodder monsters, it seems... But hey, this tileset looks pretty cool.

Battle Complete - 2 turns

And another, but this time with skeletons. 9 defense? Ouch. But they go down quick to magic anyway.

Battle Complete - 2 turns

After those 2 fights, it's the Mila Shrine.

This fisherman is starving, asks for "anything", but then says a loaf of bread ain't good enough? Ha!
Feeding him does result in 30 silver marks. Which you get plenty of by cutting down grass around here anyway. Celica's Lawn Care. Has a nice ring to it.
Oh, and a hint about a not so secret passage in the next room.

I wonder what lies behind this...


Uh oh. I bet these statues will come to life and attack us!



Gargoyles. High movement range, high speed, flying. VERY annoying. They become less of a threat later on as your frontline units defense will outscale the gargoyle's attack. But early on they can be a huge threat to your backline as they can double pretty much any non-merc early on for decent damage if they unit is fragile. So these gargoyles necessitate protecting your backline, but it's not always so easy when they have 8 movement and there's little terrain to use for cover or blocking.

Just gonna throw my melee units to take the first hits. These early shrine battles really don't involve much strategy. Just advance with melee units, make a frontline, and protect your ranged units behind it.


Genny gets exposed but a quick Invoke protects her! Don't want to take unnecessary risks!


After defeating the gargs, we get the real prize of the shrine:

The Blessed Sword. 3 might, 0 weight, and super effective against monsters.
I think it might also heal 5 hp per turn in Gaiden, not sure on that, don't know if it does that here.
Celica already has Seraphim which is super effective against monsters, so I might want to give it to someone else.

Kind of a nice looking dungeon, this was.


One last thing in the Sea Shrine: The Springs.
First, there's +HP and +SKL.
Neither seem very useful stats to increase.
I'm thinking maybe +HP to Genny so she can eventually Invoke / Expel more often without needing healing.

In the "secret" area, there's also a +Level and +Res shrines.
I don't know if both of these are linked for a combined 3 uses, or are 3 uses each.
Not sure what to do with these either.
+Res is interesting because characters have almost no RES growth... but 1 point isn't really going to make much of a difference. Units tend to have either very high or very low resistance. The former don't really need more, the latter will still be very vulnerable to magic even with a boost.
Maybe Celica most deserves it, she has middling RES.

As for the +Level... this might be better saved for later when experience gains are slower?

As for the Mila Statue: Only Saber can promote so far (level 7).
He gets +4HP, +1Atk, +1SKL, +1SPD, +1Mov.

Act 2-7: Fourth Pirate Raid
11:30

Spoiler

I've decided to save the fountains for later.
Turns out the Res and Level fountains are separate and have 2 uses each.
I've also decided to wait until level 10 to promote Saber.

Act 2-7: Fourth Pirate Raid
11:30


More ships? Not only that, but we start running into the infamous re-used maps here.
It's the exact same as the first ship map. Pretty lame. Gaiden does this a lot, re-using maps... and the boring single chokepoint or wide open square ones too.


Except now there's two archers and a few mercs. Not that they make things much more difficult.
Valbar barely takes any damage from the merc, and Saber is fast enough now to not get doubled.

Mercs? Valbar doesn't care.

Strategy: Exact same as last time. Stick a tanky unit on the bridge (now in addition to Saber we have Valbar, and can give Celica or Kamui the Leather Shield).
You could just hold the bridge as a chokepoint.


Or, to move faster, take out the pirates immediately ahead of your units using the mages and Leon, and advance aggressively up the bridge and boarding the enemy ship with your melee units to save turns.


Also, Celica is one-rounding the pirates now. Nice!


Battle Complete - 4 Turns

Mae and Celica B Support!

Aww, Mae has a crush on someone! She's a real fun character.
Celica's so nice too. Love em both!

Act 2-8: Fifth Pirate Raid
11:55

Spoiler

Act 2-8: Fifth Pirate Raid
11:55


May as well note that neither this map nor the previous one have any story to them. A tad unusual to have maps with no story at all amongst modern FEs. But I guess the game will make up for that by throwing way too much story at us at the end of the Act.

Oh look, another re-used ship map. Just like the second ship map! Except at night!


Ok, this one has significantly different enemies, so I can kind of give it a pass for that.

Interestingly, all the enemies on this map are Arcanists.
So we run into the issue that our melee units have low resistance and so take a lot of damage from their magic, but our magic units which have high resistance... do low damage to these arcanists because they also have high resistance.

Oh yeah, and the boss. He has a Mire spell, which has 10 might and 3 range, giving him a total of 20 magic attack. Ouch.
I actually didn't notice this at first until I got hit with it...


Strategy: Have Genny start alone on the left and cast Invoke. This will split the enemy forces and occupy their turns with attacking the illusions, making it much easier to handle the enemy while sustaining little damage ourselves.


Genny will be fine, she has super high Res.
The enemies will attack these summons anyway.

Note how the enemy forces split as a result. The regular arcanists went to the left where the summons are, the boss went to the right on his own.This actually worked out far better than I expected.



The boss was easily eliminated when he's isolated like this. Started off shooting him with Leon, Kamui finished him off.

The boss does a lot of damage to melee units with Mire, but takes a lot of damage from them too.


Now it's just a matter of moving to the left and taking out the remaining enemies. They'll attack the illusions on their turn, so don't need to worry about taking damage.


I should also note that Leon finally came in useful here.
He can attack the Arcanists from outside their range, doing just enough damage that other units can then one shot them, thus avoiding any damage.
Archers are a great way to take out enemy mages in this game in general, so this is a tactic I will be using a lot.

This one little rascal managed to run away...




Battle Complete - 6 Turns

And that's a wrap for Act 2! Or at least it would be, if this was Gaiden.

There's still a little bit left to Act 2, but I'll take care of that after I wake up.

Just glad to be done with the ship maps.

 

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Act 2 Summary
2-1: 8:15 / 4 turns
2-2: 8:27 / 5 turns
2-3: 8:48 / 8 turns
2-4: 9:08 / 9 turns
2-5: 9:54 / 11 turns
2-6 Beast Hunt: 10:30 / 5 turns
Seabound Shrine: 10:44 / 2 + 2 + 2 + 4 turns
2-7: 11:30 / 4 turns
2-8: 11:55 / 6 turns
Castle Zofia Ambush: 12:30 / 4 turns

Total Play Time: 12:55
Total Turn Count for Act 2: 66 turns
Total Turn Count: 81+66= 147 turns
Casualties: 0* (Leon died under AI control originally but game crashed so I re-did the map and he lived)
Resets: 0

Seabound Shrine Springs (+Skl or +HP, +res, +level): Saved for later

Overall, Act 2 was quite easy, was mostly just ships, and not much happened story wise aside from the beginning and end.
I still really enjoyed it, mainly because of the increased focus on story and especially the characters from Gaiden.
It's been smooth sailing so far - but in Act 3, things finally start to get interesting gameplay wise.

Units:

Spoiler

Celica Lv 9 - Genny Lv 7

Mae Lv 7 - Boey Lv 6

Saber Lv 8 - Kamui Lv 7

Valbar Lv 3 - Leon Lv 7


Celica is doing quite good. May is turning out really nice, she keeps getting speed - having a mage that could double and hit hard is super great!
Boey is a tad slow and has stats in all the wrong places. Genny is mostly going to heal anyway, but she's a lot easier to level and better than in Gaiden.
Saber is turning out quite good... and is better than Kamui in every stat.
Leon seems pretty weak. He got rather poor growths, no speed and only 1 or 2 attack.
Valbar is promoted so he gains XP slower but he's a slow tank and will remain that way.

Act 3 Start

Spoiler

Act 3 Start


I'm going to start on Alm's route, go about halfway through, then move to Celica's. This is so one side doesn't get overwhelmed with enemy reinforcements that spawn on the map.


Everyone's talking about Alm and Celica's little fight.
They missed each other so much... what happened?


Aw, Clair has a little crush on Alm?


Might not want to look into the sun there, Alm.


Went back to give the man in Ram that wine... and all we got for our trouble is some moldy cheese? Thanks, we travelled halfaway across the country to get you that wine.


So this is really cool. You get to control TWO seperate armies at once on the world map. Part of what makes Gaiden/Echoes really unique. Pretty cool how it does the route split, you can progress on either route at your own pace.

Act 3-1 Alm - Northern Zofia Battle
12:55

Spoiler

Act 3-1 Alm - Northern Zofia Battle
12:55



Fernand, that traitor! He'd rather betray his country than fight with commoners? These elitists!
Also, a nice cinematic battle between Fernand and Clive. They're really stepping things up with the animations!

So, the map itself. Basically a HUGE wide open square with a river that cuts it in two. Hey, I think we've fought here before!
This time, we won't get to the river bridge chokepoint in time. So this map may as well be a wide open rectangle.




3 sets of enemies here.
First, a squad of soldiers, archers and knights.
Second, a group of four cavaliers + an arcanist.
Third, two witches and the Boss, Zakson, a knight.

Witches...

They can teleport ANYWHERE on the map. Kinda fast magic users. In theory, they are a huge threat.
But if this is anything like Gaiden, the witch AI is rather wonky.
Sometimes they teleport and attack you right away.
Sometimes they walk and don't teleport at all.
Sometimes they walk for a few turns and then teleport.
There's no real way to tell what they'll do, their behaviour is rather unpredictabel.
Who they target... seems somewhat random. Multiple witches could easily teleport and take gang up on your slow, low res units... yet in Gaiden, not once did they ever do that. If the AI was actually good, they would be a huge problem. But with Echoes keeping the AI much like Gaiden... witches usually end up doing whatever and attacking whoever without much rhyme or reason, and so they're not much of a threat.

Strategy: Advance North and engage the first group in the wide open field. Take out the archers first if possible. The knights have very high defense so magic must be used to take them out. The witches may or may not teleport to my force, if they do, take them out ASAP. Ideal, take out this first group before the cavalry from the west arrives.

Formation wise, I'll use a right-angle type formation with melee units up front, blocking off the enemy form reaching my mages and archers.

Advancing into the enemy range. Taking a few hits from archers is ok. They don't do much damage. But better take them out sooner than later before they start to chip away at my more fragile units.


One of the witches teleport to attack Clive the first turn. Easily took her out. The second witch decided to walk instead. See, what the witches do is completely inconsistent and unpredictable.

The enemy makes a line... what kind of formation is that? I advance to take out the archers, then move my melee units so as to protect my ranged units.


From then on, slowly advance and meet the enemy forces head on, making sure that the melee units block off the ranged units. I take a middle of the road approach between being aggressive and attacking and staying back in a defensive formation. Trying to both at the same time I guess.


By the time the cavalry reach me, I've taken out most of the first group and have a solid defensive formation set up. This is the right-angle / square I was talking about, with my melee units taking up the north and west flanks, and my ranged units in the square behind them.



Fernand, the mini-boss.
For all his talk, he's barely stronger than a generic cavalier.

And all we get for defeating him is... a loaf of bread?


The boss and the witch have almost overlapping range. I back up my units out of the witches range. I don't want both the boss and the witch to attack the same unit, that could be trouble.

There's a problem. The witch teleports to attack Silque. She's also in range of a cavalier, who after the witch's attack can kill Silque. A mistake in positioning I guess. I considered that Silque could survive an attack from the cavalier, but not that the witch could attack her!

UH OH!!!!!MAJOR DANGER


Silque ends up critting the cavalier on her counter. We're good. Phew... Real close call. Almost lost Silque there.

The boss, Zakson. High attack and defense, but vulnerable to magic.
He'll only take about 1 damage from my melee units, but he's weak to magic.

Kliff and Gray's Lightning Sword easily take him out.

This joker ran away... ugh. Wasting a couple turns as Clair catches up.
Must be so annoying on LTC when this happens, this enemy retreat AI.


Battle Complete - 9 Turns


Not a difficult map. Heck, it's a wide open square.

But with the variety of enemies (archers, knights, witches, cavaliers) you have to be smart about positioning, especially when the cavaliers arrive so they don't run past your frontline and tear up your mages and archers.

As you saw, a smartly placed square / right angle front line does the trick.

So this map is mostly an exercise in open field positioning. Get used to it, a lot of maps will be like this.

Act 3-2 Alm: First Battle of Zofia Forest
14:03

Spoiler

Act 3-2 Alm: First Battle of Zofia Forest
14:03



So, this is yet another wide open square map.
Now, there are plenty of trees. But all the enemies are magic users. And magic is not affected by terrain.
So we do not benefit from the terrain, since all the enemy damage we're facing is magic, but most of Alm's army is physical, so the enemy benefits from the forest.

Strategy: Move forward at a moderate pace, baiting one or two arcanists per turn. The enemies are spread out, so you can split your forces in two then pick them off one by one. As long as you don't put your units in the range of too many arcanists, should be easy going.



The arcanists can't solo your units, and if only one arcanist can attack any one of your units... then there shouldn't be any chance of them dying.


Most of the arcanists only have Mire (translated as Dora in Gaiden), but the last two have Miasma.


Mire has 10 might. With 12 attack, the boss has 22 magic damage... which, considering most units only have a couple points of resistance, is a ton. But at least he can't double. Oh, and Miasma has 3 range...




Taking on the boss, tough magic enemy... Aha, archers!


After an attack from Tobin and Python from beyond the bosses' range, and the boss is at pretty low health. At which it's easy cleanup for just about anyone.

Clair crit seals the day!


Battle Complete - 5 turns


Nice and easy!

Faye x Alm B Support


Oh wow Faye... and she just say's it to Alm? Wow, she's hold, doesn't even hide her feelings to her crush?