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Pikappa93

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

    in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, CompteSecours said:

    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.

    Oh, now I got it. Yes, characters of the same class often end up being very similar, what differentiate them a bit is RNG in level ups.

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

    in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

    Posted

    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 :)

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

    in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

    Posted · Edited by Pikappa93

    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!

    Origins of Mila and Duma (unmarked Endgame spoilers)

    in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Tamanoir said:

    Saying SoV is a retcon of Gaiden is like saying ORAS retconend Emerald.

    Gaiden is irrelevant to the discussion, because, clearly, this isn't Gaiden. (Berkut and Conrad shows this perfectly. Because, they are far bigger retcon.)

    I wouldn't call it a retcon though. They didn't change anything plotwise, they just added some new characters. And yes, this is Gaiden.

    "I just want to know one thing!"- Shadows of Valentia Edition

    in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

    Posted · Edited by Pikappa93

    3 hours ago, CompteSecours said:

    Hey guise. Is it better to promote as soon as possible or to wait like other FE ?

    I'm aware of that base stat thing, I promoted my villagers asap, but i'm wondering about T2/T3.

    + I heard that the only dancer you can get is Faye as a priestress, is it true ?

    Thanks.

    - Yes, promote as soon as possible, for every class. This is because characters automatically gain the missing base stats for the class they're promoting to, so there's no point in waiting.

    - True. However she learns the Again spell very late (you'll need grinding) and costs many HP. Don't know if it's worth it actually.

    "I just want to know one thing!"- Shadows of Valentia Edition

    in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Azz said:

    We don't know currently since the reclass item is not in the game, but I doubt it. It would be way to OP.

    I have my own question, but it's a bit spoilery:

      Hide contents

    Is Hark's role in the game changed? It now seems that Alm just promotes at a Mila's shrine at level 20 rather then Celica speaking to Hark, based on some footage of a stream I saw on YouTube. So I was wondering if Hark provides something else. I'm pretty sure he has some kind of connection with Conrad, based on Base Conversations.

     

    Spoiler

    Hark still unlocks Alm's promotion when Celica speaks to him. But rather than promoting automatically, he needs a Mila's statue like everyone else.
    Celica's promotion is also a bit different. She promotes at Mila's Temple at the end of Chapter 3 rather than at Grieth's Fortress.

     

    Are the Villagers Worth Using?

    in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

    Posted

    It's more like you'll have to use them since there aren't many characters in Echoes. Anyway, once they're promoted they become pretty good. It also depends on how lucky you are with RNG, because every character's growths are kind of low in this game.

    Kliff is an excellent Mage. Not much to say.

    Faye gets very unique spells as a Cleric, but she also worked well as a Pegasus Knight for me (I went for that because Clair would be the only Pegasus on Alm's route otherwise). Don't know how well she does as a Cavalier, but Mathilda already covers that and she's amazing.

    "I just want to know one thing!"- Shadows of Valentia Edition

    in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Xanek said:

    Wait, can you recruit Faye/Cliff/Lukas or w/e if you go down to Ram's Village as Celica in chapter 2? Or was this a Gaiden glitch (minus faye)

    Lukas can only be recruited by Alm (along with Gray and Tobin). Kliff and Faye can also be recruited by Celica going to Ram Village in Chapter 2 (they also have special dialogues). Don't know if this also applies to other characters in Alm's route like Silque.

    Battle Skills

    in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

    Posted

    6 hours ago, AzureSen said:

    Well, a lot of the skills have secondary effects to make them more useful than just regular attacks: additional power, accuracy, avoid and crit rate, moving units around, HP drain, Brave effect, adding other stats to attack, etc. Even the ones that don't have something out of the latter usually have enough attack/hit bonus to justify using them over regular attacks.

    Plus, the reason why skills can't double is most likely the HP cost; even early game stuff like Aiming or Steel Blow could be harmful if overused, especially in Alm's army which doesn't initially have a healer.

    True, I didn't take the HP cost into consideration. Personally, I find Aiming to be one of the most useful ones.

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