Deltre

Clair is surprisingly great as a unit in this game compared to Gaiden. Giving her 2/3 Attack Lion Statues basically sets her up for life, with her only immediate competition being Silque. While that is a pretty big investment considering that Silque will always appreciate the ATK no matter how she turns out, fixing Clair's number one issue (damage) right off the bat is a pretty good move that pays off long term. Unless Cav!Kliff is in play, she's most likely going to be your Ridersbane user for quite some time. Mathilda doesn't actually need the Ridersbane to ORKO Cavs, so Clair can use that time to continue growing into a powerhouse. By Act 4 she's really hard to stop, only requiring average stats to really put in work. Banish is one of those skills that is really nice on paper, but in practice it just doesn't come into play all that often for Alm's route. Still, given her stupidly high 70% Speed growth, she's almost guaranteed to double Mogalls in 5-E, so that's pretty nice, if a little situational. Clive is just alright. Not great, not bad, but just alright. Maybe a little above average, depending on the map. I do think that he's better than a lot of people realize however, given that all he really needs to stay relevant after joining is 1 Level in 1-F. It's pretty easy to make that happen, though depending on who else you've been raising up he may have some serious competition for that experience. If you can get him one level though, he gets immediate access to the Paladin class that carries some respectable bases and 8 move. He doubles all the generic Cavs in the next few maps with Paladin bases, leaving them injured for your other units to clean up as needed. The Ridersbane is of course better used on other characters, but he can use it in a pinch or pull off some trade shenanigans or whatever, so it's at least worth mentioning. He probably won't hit Gold Knight unless you go out of your way, but he's reliable in the things that he can do, and that keeps him from being irredeemable in my eyes. Mathilda is way better tho

There really aren't any. For me, I'd say: -Fixed Encounters Only -Fixed Items Only (no grinding silver or lucky drops, basically), sidequests allowed -All battles count towards Turn Count (including map battles) That's the least grindy/arbitrary way to play Echoes IMO. Avoiding encounters all together is pretty simple except for Celica's last dungeon, which I'm sure is a pain. You can go back into dungeons as much as you want this way, the only thing you have to think about is potentially spawning more map reinforcements, making it much more important to plan out who can promote and when. Map battles can't really be abused this way either since they all count against you in terms of Turn Count.

I'm glad you feel that way! I won't, and never have said that the game doesn't have some dumb moments: (Some early Act 3 Cav Map, for context) I do however think that there is significantly more thought put into many of these maps than people give credit for at a first glance. My problem with that reasoning is that, well, it's false. I'd be more than happy to admit that I'm wrong about this in the presence of actual, hard proof (be it numbers, or whatever), but all I have to go on from the arguments presented are theorycrafting and anecdotal evidence based on one playthrough, however good the player may be. I have a lot of respect for Dondon's gameplay and that hasn't changed, but the reality is that there hasn't been one single piece of hard evidence to suggest that lowmanning is 100% the way to go in this game, that the benchmarks for ORKO's are more strict than recent titles (FE12 especially), that forging/item passing is so simple they're all essentially "non-choices", etc. While some maps can definitely be trivialized by a select few (see above), many maps end with kill distributions similar to this (totals vary with enemy count, obviously): No strategy? No tactics? That's not even to mention the fact that Kill Distribution lists are already shaky evidence since they don't account for non-lethal action. Again, I'm not grinding, the only optional battles fought have been dungeon encounters, no more than once, and at this point I'm avoiding them entirely. If anything, because of me taking some randoms, the units that can "solo" should be even more capable of doing so in my own run, and yet, that's simply not the case despite receiving the amount of favoritism you would expect. Shoot, I favored the big three (Claire, Mathilda, Palla) in randoms too. I'm at Duma's Tower with Celica, and have progressed as far as possible with Alm, so unless the endgame becomes one giant solo, I can't agree with this point at all. Even then, if the 75% of the game I have played managed to avoid that pitfall, then surely Echoes is at least on par with if not better than many FE titles in regards to soloing with OP units. The only way that strict lowmanning yields comparable results is to hinge a lot of your gameplay on unreliable dodges and crits, which admittedly are more impactful in this title thanks largely to the Rout heavy gameplay and enemy power relative to the player. The incentive to use multiple characters is clear: reliability. If you're actively using everyone for something, be it chip, finishing a dangerous enemy, or part of a defensive formation to wall out other enemies, then the game becomes not only easier, but more reliable as well. I think there has been some kind of misconception to what I'm suggesting here. Do I think that the best strategy is to evenly level every team member? Absolutely not. But I do think that given all the incentives to use multiple characters (notably generous deployment, and BEXP) the other characters should be contributing something whenever possible. Because unlike most if not all other FE titles, the threshold to fulfill a useful role in this game is very, very low, and getting multiple characters to reach this threshold without compromising offense is very, very easy. Class bases alone can carry a unit far, and if they have good personal bases on top of that (like Mage!Tobin and Delthea), then hey, good on you. Even a character such as Boey, who is generally seen as pretty bad, can contribute almost instantly (Level 3, easy to hit from BEXP and Fire chip alone) with valuable 3-range chip. In the interest of keeping this one more concise, I'll just say that I find the premise of the entire argument to be untrue, and in the absence of more concrete evidence, I'm going to continue thinking that way. I find the fact that Mage Ring pass hasn't been brought up yet particularly shocking, given how powerful it is despite requiring the use of several units who have yet to be mentioned. The Awakening comparison is incredibly untrue. Say what you want about the maps, but as a game Echoes isn't half as broken as Awakening. I think a much more reasonable comparison would be to FE12, where Kris certainly can stomp in combat, but we all know s/he's not doing it alone. Wanting more varied map objectives is certainly a valid line of thinking, but making a blanket statement that all the maps are objectively bad for their absence just doesn't wash for me when many maps highlight the strengths of Echoes' unique mechanics so well. I view the maps in a similar way, except that I really don't think that the bad maps are "bad" per se, more like boring. I do agree that some small changes like the one you suggest could increase the flow of some of the more boring maps. To Echoes' credit, it actually does do this in a lot of cases, and it really shows. Couldn't have said it better myself. I do think that some of the map changes were much needed as well. Dracozombie Cantor map in Celica Act 4 now has a much more reasonable bog/landmass ratio for example. Jedah starting closer to the player makes dealing with his Mogalls far more reasonable as well, regardless of stats. I personally view the changes to Warp/Expel/Physic as generally positive. It has yet to come back to bite me, and as you say, these elements make positioning a much more important factor when moving your healers. I do believe that Expel is less accurate, which I could have done without, but it generally gets the job done without insanely bad luck. Not to mention the fact that Warp/Rescue actually has combat use in this game, since you aren't forced to save them for specific occasions. In fairness, on Hard Mode, you hardly ever come across Archers/Snipers/Bow Knights without Anti-Fliers. I do wish that they would have handed out Silver Bows or perhaps even forged Bows more frequently however, since Iron/Steel Bows really don't scale well without forging.

Witches are strange, they're both consistent and yet inconsistent all at the same time. From what I can tell, for the most part they work something like 1. Attack in Range -> 2. Try to Warp -> 3. If no, move max range -> 4. If yes, attack outskirts (random target?) -> 5. If Warped, don't gang up Their attack patterns don't really deviate from that ever, from what I've played. I've consistently found that they tend to attack whoever is in the rear of your group on maps that are more spread out, and found that they would usually even attack the same unit under identical circumstances. . .but not always. There's probably more to it than that, but there's enough to suggest that they can be manipulated somewhat. Now as for whether or not they feel like warping is a different story entirely. I have no clue what determines that, if anything at all. Some maps, they always do (for me), while others not so much (Fear Mountain in particular). EDIT: They don't Warp -> gang up, but they can Warp -> ORKO, so if a Unit can be killed by a single Witch/a single Witch + non-Witch, it's probably best to leave them out, or at least keep them topped off.

The best way to deal with it early on is to just not leave enemies on low health during Player Phase, unless you can catch up to them easily/without wasting time. This AI only takes effect on maps with heal tiles/healers IIRC (which admittedly is most of them), and Terrors don't have this AI at all. Once you hit Sniper with one of your bow units this basically becomes a non-issue, since Snipers have such massive range. ORKO's become attainable surprisingly quick if you're aiming for them, and of course sometimes you'll want to engage on Enemy Phase anyways, making the AI irrelevant. If you're honestly not fighting on Player Phase at all though, then you might be overcompensating for the retreat AI just a bit. It's really not been that hard to play around in my experience.

I never once said that. I said that benchmarks exist, as they do in every FE title. You're stating facts that exist in every Fire Emblem since the first. Every single one requires certain stats to kill certain enemies with certain weapons, bar none. I did not cherrypick points, doing so would suggest that I had no intention of addressing good side objectives, as I did. You're clearly only choosing to see the points that you would like to see. Have a discussion, or don't. I haven't watched gwimpage's gameplay, so I can't really discuss that. I assume that he probably is good, but this game is too new and different to assume that it has been fully explored when not released even a week. Nor is it intended to be exactly the same as every other FE title. Provide examples or agree to disagree, but don't come in here acting like this when there's really no need. In fact, how can we even begin to truly discuss anything resembling efficient play when there's no metric? Are we talking no encounters? No dungeon items? Only chest items? Let alone accounting for Forges. Each of these things have direct impact on how the game is played. Even taking one extra battle skews the experience curve in significant ways.

Here's the issue I have with that though. Boiling down the gameplay to nothing but the most powerful characters is disingenuous. It would be like if I took FE1/3/5 and said that they come down to Rena/Safy warpskip, with some favoritism to [bosskiller of choice probs Asvel] and called it a day. We both know that there's so much more going on there than that. To say anything else kills the possibility of examining the merits that Shadows of Valentia actually brings, and how the changes from Gaiden make it more than just a new paintjob. It's also worth mentioning that the top-tiers in this game are very tame, but fulfill an important role all the same. All the top tiers in this game can do one thing very well: Map Control. Unlike in other games where top-tiers trivialize entire levels at their leisure, the top tiers in this game never really do more than help you get your foot in the door. It's almost, dare I say, kind of balanced. Lowmanning in this game is actually a direct detriment to you more so than in any other Fire Emblem title. The class system is rigid with each classes filling a roll that the game expects you to have an answer for. Even in an efficient run, it's actually a much better idea to feed Tobin/Python/Leon/Archer!Atlas a bone every once in a while than it would be to not do so. In fact, making Atlas in Archer is itself a nice bit of strategy actually. It's a long term investment, and he'd be really nice to have around since he's strong as hell and doubles Mire Mages forever, not to mention he makes the Cantors that summon Gargoyles a lot more reliable simply by existing. The game favors the long term a lot more, and punishes poor team composition pretty severely. For example, those retreating enemies that people hate? Snipers have an effective area of influence that covers 10 tiles in multiple directions. That is a greater range than any enemy, bar a Witch can move in a single turn. Being able to easily pick these enemies off as needed allows your front-liners to keep moving, and prevents you from being forced to play clean up with more valuable units. Because their range is so huge, they can easily catch up to your fastest units immediately in most situations, and will never be out of range of slower moving characters. The bonus EXP system makes this very easy to do so as well, and encourages you to use more player units than you are suggesting due to its very design. I admit that long term planning isn't something that everyone enjoys, but this game actually has a surprising amount of things to consider at any given time. How quickly do I want X character to promote? Who should have which item and when? If I need to get an item to a certain character on a certain turn for a specific task, how can I make that happen without losing an action? How should I use the traders? Which weapons are most valuable to forge (without grinding)? How can I get X character to Y location by turn Z despite unfavorable terrain and/or enemy match-up reliably? Even Deen vs Sonia is a long term choice. Many of these elements are present in other FE titles as well, of course, but in SoV they're all heavily emphasized and far more punishing than in other games within the series. What makes this okay in my opinion is that the very mechanics of the game encourage you to think about these things constantly, and if you properly utilize the BEXP system, you can have at least one unit for any given role at all times thanks to the very well defined classes. It's on the player themselves to make sure this role is filled, while still maximizing EXP for other units. The game is designed around its mechanics, but lowmanning screws you hard to the point that it feels luck based. Because yeah, at that point it is. You're expected to use a wide variety of units, and unless you do nothing will seem reliable. With the exception of Jesse (who is entirely redundant) and Valbar, who the late game is very unkind to, everyone finds use on Celica's team. The same can be said for Alm. My Berkut 2 strategy requires Delthea/Luthier/Kliff to do a lot of the heavy lifting for example. Hell, it involves using an untrained Forsyth for something only he can do. My level 6 archer Python gets crucial combat use (unless I get lucky crits) while still being able to execute some important trade shenanigans that let Alm and Luthier survive turn 3 so the map can end in 4 Turns. As an aside, itemplay can be pretty fun in this game, thanks to the unique nature of their properties. Boey may yet make it to Sage by the time I beat the game, despite rarely never favoring him with kills unless mandatory. This leads me to another point against lowmanning: Units in this game are rarely, if ever, actively harmful to deploy. They are on the field for essentially free. Have them do something. If you aren't, for the most part it's usually not bad design to blame. It's poor planning. I looked at some of the benchmarks you'd be likely to want on some of your units relevant to where I'm at in the story. Keep in mind, I'm at the start of Alm Act 4. In order to OHKO Berkut's Cavaliers for a 4 turn, Claire needs a Strength of 16 and a Max Forge Ridersbane. On average, with the 3 Lions Heads she will hit that at 12/3, with plenty of time to get there. She's probably more like 12/4 or 12/5 by this point as well, given the amount of things she does in Act 3. It's kind of irrelevant before this point since she's either carried by the Ridersbane's +9 or needs a crit for a fast clear anyways (Act 3 Fin comes to mind). Another one more relevant to all the Cantors/Terrors that Celica has to face. The Gargoyles summoned on the Duma's Gate chapter have 15 AS. On Average, Palla never doubles and Catria will have enough by 12/2 to ORKO with a forged Iron Lance. Again, 12/2 doesn't seem like an unreasonable benchmark, but let's say that for whatever reason, she's not there. Mine was at that mark (17 speed in fact), but I foolishly chose not to do anything with the Iron Lance, so effectively she couldn't double with any weapon. What actually happens in this case, and do you lose time because of it? No, you actually don't unless you get screwed HARD by the RNG (I.E The Cantor gets 8 summons and you whiff every one with Expel Terrors). Realistically what happens is that the Terrors closest to you weaken themselves on EP. You'll probably throw out an Expel at this point since it's relatively risk free, and Genny doesn't need to heal this turn. Leon, Est, and Saber have nothing to do this turn besides re-position. Catria is likely injured from drawing the Knight Terror to the wall so that Mae can blow him up, so she's available to play some keep away with the Javelin as well. Since flight is so great in this title you don't lose out on a lot of positioning ever really, and nothing is lost in this case. You'd probably want her to hang back a bit anyways, since Nomah has caught up around now to throw out heals on the back line. Anyways, that's 4 Gargoyles right there, keeping in mind the intent to keep things moving. If there's a fifth, Kamui/Deen (potentially room to handle a 6th if you used both Deen and Kamui) can get another kill too, and there's room to make up the time later with some improvisation. In hyper efficient play, let's say you can deal with 4 Gargoyles since Est isn't FK yet (mine barely made it, and I'm playing a bit more casually) and you probably won't use 3 Dread Fighters. If you can't deal with that many enemies in a single turn, that's not bad design. That's bad luck. Or poor planning. But this scenario is so heavily stacked in favor of the player. There's no more luck to this whole situation than there is to an enemy phase where a player needs to dodge 1-2 of several 50% attacks, or something similar. It's simple risk/reward really, as is present in every Fire Emblem. You're risking the fact that your units should be able to clear through Terrors in such a way that won't slow you down, and the reward is a fast clear. Also similar to other FE's is the fact that this Risk/Reward system is usually skewed heavily in favor of the player. Perhaps the benchmarks become unreasonable late-game (can't really say) but for now, they really aren't unreasonable at all. Even more so if you're just playing casually, so it's great for people who want to do that as well. Certainly much better than something like FE12 Lunatic, where missing out on benchmarks may well be the end of your run (even on a "casual" Lunatic run). And no, not having often times frivolous side objectives does not automatically make a map worse. In fact, many side objectives are often skipped over in efficient play (many treasures for example), or outright detrimental to the design of a map in the case of recruiting Machis in FE12, or being forced to move Marth and only Marth to certain far off villages in FE11/12. In other cases, they are so trivial to complete that they may as well not be in the game at all in terms of a strategy standpoint (click X Staff, use X Staff). Some are thought provoking, granted (such as keeping Douglas alive in FE6, and really everything to do with Xavier in FE5), but many truly aren't and to pretend that they are is false and disingenuous. The combat in this game is engaging enough that it doesn't need to draw focus away from that as often as other FE titles do, and when it does it works well (in the cases of Delthea and Valbar's maps). Determining how to take a tough enemy formation can be just as thoughtful as many of these side objectives are in reality, thanks to the mechanics of this particular game. I haven't read through that entire thread at this point, but that post and this write-up are some pretty interesting perspectives. Needless to say, I disagree with Mogall Hell being better than Cantors in SoV for the simple fact that Cantors are far less intrusive. It is true that they serve as obstacles and not as the goal of the map, but the fact is that the terrain is so punishing that by the time you actually reach the Arch Mogall, there's dozens of Mogalls in the immediate area. Not to mention, the randomness involved in which those newly created mogalls may decide to divide again and create even more mogalls. Strangely, it's actually good when they do divide though, because TRS requires stats as well. Since the mogalls lower their own HP to divide, it does help a bit in the sense that most of your units won't double, but all the same, if you aren't ORKOing them, the map drags on quite a bit. Their speed is enough that few characters can 100% reliably land a hit, and Holmes has better things to do since he's one of 3 potential characters that can actually open a chest. The map is a Holmes/Vega/Shigen/Xeno/Raquel stomp, with other characters struggling to find combat purpose. Xeno may not even be good enough to fulfill his purpose, since he's quite dependent on his first few levels, and very guilty of potentially snowballing himself. Vega, Shigen, Lionel, and of course Narron are all incredibly guilty as well, off the top of my head. Throw in Juni (and Maerchen in hyper efficient play) strictly to grab chests and that's really it. Note that I didn't get Lionel, so I imagine you would swap Xeno for him if you were to try and optimize this. That's not even to mention the fact that, at the end of the day, I could solo/near solo the final map of TRS with dozens of different characters if I wanted to because the balance is so out of whack, Final Boss not withstanding of course. Statistically, you could kill him too if the game would let you. And this is coming from the perspective of someone who loves TRS. It is true that the design of indoor maps in TRS and other games with dismount curb the ability for a mount stomp, but I could just as well argue that SoV does it's own things to prevent that from happening. For example, the mounts in SoV are actually well balanced. Mathilda has no defense and middling speed, Palla has middling speed and no resistance, Catria is frail, Est is forever playing catch-up. Conrad is statistically a bit better off, but the actual map design keeps him in check for the most part. The only really suspect one is Clair, but even she is mortal and there's only one of her and on the route where there's only one other particularly useful combat mount. It also drains almost all of your Lion Heads and other resources to get her there. Any unit in the game would be good if favored as heavily as Claire needs to be, in fact. She just happens to give you the most bang for your buck. And Clive, while nothing special without some luck, can still fulfill the purpose of a high movement unit in this game (map control) in a satisfactory way. There are no Narrons, Titanias, Seths or Marcias to be found in this game. For the first point on your post over here, I do openly admit that castle tiles were a poor thing to keep, but I maintain that it's only particularly obnoxious in the early game. Forges and Arts help you secure kills even when facing such terrain. Supports build naturally in a way that allows the gameplay to keep moving forward, though not every support builds hit%, and they won't always be in play. Celica's team is mostly comprised of Mages and accurate swordsmen in the early game, so the tiles largely benefit your own units as much as the enemy. Additionally, she never faces them until Act 3, when forges and such are available. You only have to deal with them once on Alm's route before forges, but I admit the map is weaker for it. Witch AI can be manipulated to either A) always do the same thing or B) warp in such a way that it doesn't matter if you knew exactly where they would go because you had a pretty good idea and multiple options that don't affect the long term approach to a battle. First and foremost, they will almost always attack someone in range before trying to warp. I was able to take advantage of this on Duma's Gate by giving them a target in Est, while Sonia moved in to start 1v1ing the group in the forest by Turn 2. But let's say they do warp. They have a strong tendency to attack your back lines, more than anything else I've noticed. It didn't really matter who was there either. On Grieth's map, the Witches always teleported to attack Atlas and Jesse who were bringing up the rear, and will never gang up on a unit that doesn't fall within their natural attack range. Similarly on Duma's Gate, the only Witch that did teleport still only attacked the back lines, this time brought up by Nomah. While the exact tile they attack from can't always be guaranteed, the impact on strategy is overall minimal and will never affect the long term. It can be manipulated for reliability, we can't assume that SoV functions the same as Gaiden in this regard because in many ways it does not. It's really not any more intrusive than it is in TRS (I'd say even less so because these Witches are in fact quite predictable) and it's certainly not as bad as dealing with Renee. I've already mentioned why Cantors aren't actually as bad as they are on paper above, but I concede that Upheaval is sort of BS simply for the fact that sometimes the boss can use it a turn early which messes things up pretty badly. There's nothing inherently wrong with that for normal play, but it sucks for efficiency. As for the early game issues you're describing, I'm unsure as to why you aren't factoring in a Mage somewhere into this equation. Most people naturally tend towards Kliff as an early game mage, but after having this discussion I'm thinking that secretly Tobin is the better mage. With his Base 6 speed, unlike Kliff he won't be getting doubled by enemies right off the bat. With one additional point, he can actually start to double the early game enemies that have only 3 SPD, and if given a point or two of the early game Speed Lions, he'd be quite valuable long term on paper. I found that there wasn't as much competition for the Speed Lion as you would think, so it's worth considering IMO. He also gets early Excalibur, to really boost his PP offense. His shaky skill then becomes irrelevant because magic and Excalibur is a very accurate attack. He does lose out on Thunder compared to Kliff, but his significantly better early game and potential for late game physic makes up for that, I should imagine. Regardless of how you feel about investing in him for the long term, the game does expect you to consider party composition. And not having a mage when there are at least 2 viable early game options is not strong party composition. In the short term, bringing one along allows you to move much more quickly without having to wait for your growth units to start to shine. I think Kliff may have a calling as a Cavalier, but if you didn't want to invest in him long term, why not make him a mage as well? Suddenly those enemies aren't all that bulky, and better yet, Kliff + Tobin do such a good job of weakening enemies that almost anyone could pick up the kill. They'd also both be relatively free of RNG BS. I think that before we decide a game is good or bad, we should take a good hard look at the options the game gives to us, and their effects on both the short and long term. I won't say that I don't wish Act 1 enemies had a bit more bite to them, but at least in terms of designing a game I can't say that it's inherently bad design. Not everyone has played Gaiden, and there are many new elements to acclimate yourself to. In terms of game design, I think it's a good choice that enemies aren't immediately overbearing, even if it does leave a more experienced player wanting for a little bit more. The early game is more a matter of "how quickly can I do this" rather than a matter of survival. Even then you do get glimpses of actual danger in the form of enemies like the Mercenary with the shield, Desaix 1, etc. Now I can't really speak much on Sonia's map (I killed Deen rip me), but I can at least say that the thought behind her having a shield is so that you don't gimp her. Now I actually quite like the fact that enemies are properly outfitted as compared to Gaiden, and I even more so like the fact that for once in a Fire Emblem game I'm actually in danger of being doubled. This increases the value of classes that are typically irredeemable in most FE games, such as Knights, since your other front liners will get picked to pieces very, very quickly. Shields are an option of course, but this compromises offense greatly. I also find Deen to be a fun boss, from a statistical standpoint, even if you don't agree with the map on which he appears. I actually think that Grieth's Fort is received more positively than you're giving it credit for too. The combat focus does highlight a lot of what being a good front line unit is all about. Things like mobility, the ability to take a hit or two, and an offensive presence at the front of the battlefield are all traits needed by a front line unit, and at least 2 out of 3 are needed to not immediately become terrible. Take Clive for example: his offense is pretty lacking, but he can take a hit and get there fast. Therefore, he's at least average. In every single Fire Emblem game since the first, it's the units who combine all three of these attributes into one who are the best combat units, with no exception. To name a few off the top of my head, Seth, FE7!Marcus, FE9!Titania and Marcia, Miledy, and Percival. The difference between these high mobility combat units and the ones you get in this game, is that all of the above mentioned units can bench press their respective games, and they can do it from the word "go." No one in SoV is soloing, ever. Keep in mind I've only beaten Celica Act 4 and started to work on Alm, but I don't find myself hurting for ORKOs in order to keep the pace going. I hate to go back to this map again, but I guess it left an impact on me for highlighting a lot of the things that I like about this game, despite the unfortunate Upheaval mechanics. On Duma's Gate, there's almost no emphasis placed on ORKOs at all. In fact, being able to do so outside of the Witches is statistically quite unlikely for the most part. Palla may be able to ORKO the Dark Mages (I honestly don't remember their stats off the top of my head), but they all appear in formations such that if she tries to do so with no foresight she will immediately get put down by the Knight Terrors and Fortify Dark Mages. The Lightning Sword Dread Fighter in the middle restricts her movement a bit as well, since he will double and play on her low resistance stat. Despite being a great unit, she's really doesn't ever want to take more than two hits, and sometimes she won't be able to take even that depending on the actions you take. Genny can't strictly be dedicated to healing Palla after all, since there's lots of things she would rather be doing on a given turn. Catria and Est have their own problems here as well, such as lack of power and durability. The Dread Fighters will double either of them easily, so that's a no go for both. Incidentally, Conrad isn't amazing on this map either, due to the terrain. He can still zip between lines quickly (as a high mobility unit should IMO), but the restricted corridors inside mean that you don't want him taking up valuable space as you move into the fort. I don't think that being able to ORKO the Gargoyles is a bad thing, and I pointed out above that they don't actively harm your strategy without significant amount of bad luck even should you fail to reach average benchmarks. Benchmarks which may I add, are quite forgiving to this point in the game. I think the fact that there are easily attainable countermeasures to Terrors is in fact good design. The game assures that there's never a shortage of ways to take them on, and much like the Mogals you sited in TRS 16, they are meant to be obstacles rather than the direct goal of the map. If that were not the case, then killing the Cantor would not expel all of his Terrors immediately. I think that one thing that turns many off from Gaiden is the fact that it places more emphasis on tactics than other games in the series. A lot of the times in Fire Emblem, once you get a group of enemies into your range, that's it for them. The threat level of these enemies varies from game to game, but very rarely do you have to consider the possibility of enough of them surviving the turn to still pose an issue as you press onward. Contrast that with SoV where simply drawing a group of enemies does not automatically mean their defeat. Berkut 2 is a great example of this kind of gameplay in my opinion. You can aggro the armors on either side on Turn 1, but unless you've grinded like mad you can bet that they'll be around for a while. I'm just barely able to kill them along with the rest of the enemies by Turn 4, and it was not an easy process planning it out. The strategy on paper, without talking about the execution, is admittedly pretty simple: Claire gets warped to the north to handle the ponies on that side, Lukas/Kliff/Gray/Clive take the left, Alm/Faye/Silque/Python/Luthier/Mathilda/Forsyth, Delthea is immediately warped to the center to distract the mages, and Tobin works the middle picking off units and chipping the mages further still. It sounds simple enough, but then you have to actually execute this. And damn if it's not hard. Damn if it doesn't take some brainpower to actually make this work in 4 Turns. Maybe I'm terrible at Fire Emblem and didn't realize, but to me, a map like this plays on all of the strengths of SoV very well. And there's a fair bit of strategy to be had as well, once you quit looking at the basics/theorycrafting, and actually get down to the execution. Very specific items have to be placed on specific characters, characters must be at specific locations at specific times to execute shield trade chains, benchmarks barring Claire (who is very likely to meet the needed 16 STR) don't matter much if at all since everything can be accomplished by characters that are at or close to base level for their class, so there's next to no luck involved. Your long term decisions of what classes you've chosen for your villagers comes back in a big way here, and doubly so depending on how much you actually bothered to train them up. Taking certain items from Celica can ease pressure, but that's only if you decided to do her route first. Even then, you're limited to just 3 (4 throughout the course of the game) and if you take an item that she needs then you'll have to give it back using up even more of your precious few trades. Similarly, your forges are actually quite limited in the long term if you aren't stopping to grind. Choosing when and where to forge these items, and deciding when/if you should trade in old gear to potentially tune up new gear is also worth consideration, since unlike other FE games you can't just buy another Iron Lance or whatever. These are all long term decisions that go into the strategy of a single map. And of course, deciding who is actually suited for the job is part of the strategy too. SoV places more emphasis on the long term than other games, I find. For example, favoring Claire with as much exp as possible does wonders for her in the short term, and ensures that she'll be great in the long term. Conversely, if you favor Claire too much, you probably won't notice in the short term, but it will bite you in the ass in the long term when she's the only one that can get anything done. To make a comparison to chess, Claire and Palla are sort of like the Queen, Mathilda/Conrad are like Rooks, and so on. They dictate the flow of battle due to the versatility of their roles, yes, but it's really what you do with the other pieces that can make or break a game. All those other units that haven't been brought up for whatever reason have vital roles to fill as well. To ignore their part is to ignore a huge portion of the game entirely. Contrast that with almost every other Fire Emblem, where roles are frequently compressed into one single unit so tightly that even by midgame many units quickly fall into irrelevancy, or if used are only coming along for their mobility options. The combat units in these games are like Queens, but every time the enemy tries to take your Queen with anything other than another Queen, you just take their piece instead. I truly believe there to be a lot of untapped potential for strategies surrounding this game, even if it may not be precisely 1:1 with some of the stronger traditional FE titles. Where the difference lies, in my opinion, is 100% in execution. While it make take a lot of thought to plan out when and where exactly to use the Warp Staff to save the maximum number of turns, the reality is that executing that strategy is incredibly boring. There's no tactics involved whatsoever. Warpskips don't make for exciting and fun gameplay at all. In fact, half the time they seem to be aimed at mitigating some BS design or another that shouldn't have been that way to begin with. Gimping a boss on a Defeat Boss map is sometimes amusing, but depending on the map I wouldn't exactly call that groundbreaking either. Contrast that with my above example on Berkut 2, that while simple on paper is quite complex in it's execution. Every move counts, and even misplaying by one tile screws everything up. TL;DR Traditional Fire Emblem is a SRPG with a tactical element to it. It was hard to tell with Gaiden, but SoV makes it clear that this is a Tactical RPG with (in my opinion many) SRPG elements to it. Judging SoV based solely on one element makes little sense when you consider that it's not like any other Fire Emblem game in the series. It would be like judging the rest of the series based on their merits of tactical gameplay (there is very little). You still get some silly things like Ridersbane being absolutely broken in Act 3, but overall for what this game sets out to do I think it succeeds surprisingly well, and does in fact make for good gameplay.

I read your entire post, and I particularly agree with the points about Gaiden/Echoes incorporating far more RPG elements than standard FE. It's a large reason why I feel that combat is so heavily emphasized in this game, perhaps more than any other Fire Emblem title. It's also a large part of the reason that many of these maps are over in a flash, which I honestly feel is a good thing given the overall design of the game. 1) I disagree that there is no strategy to be had in some of the storyline battles that feature more open terrain, but I don't really have much to say in defense of grinding maps/dungeon maps. Part of the issue is that you're required to play through certain grinding maps at least once in order to progress. I wish the enemy formations were unique during the first encounter, but sadly they are not. I will say that technically you don't ever have to fight any enemies in dungeons though, other than one Dracozombie encounter. In terms of grinding for experience though, the maps being so simplistic is actually somewhat of a strength. It's essentially the games version of a random battle from more traditional RPGs. They're short, and over quickly similar to how most trash mobs in other games tend to be. 2) This is fair. Act 2 is by far the worst offender and I won't try to mask that. The 5 or so boat maps could have been consolidated to three (first one, Valbar mission, and the Cantor) and the game would have benefited hugely in terms of pacing, and keeping things fresh. It is worth mentioning that later on some of the maps that originally felt pretty samey in OG Gaiden now have some noticeable redesigns that keep it feeling new. 3) I disagree wholeheartedly on this point. I originally dreaded these guys in OG Gaiden, but with the cleaner interface of SoV I now understand their purpose. They make for high priority targets and encourage long-term thinking when approaching these situations, especially in terms of how to utilize Genny, your one and only long distance healer. You have to juggle your actions carefully in order to keep things moving, because especially early on, if you need to use Expel you need to make sure that your frontliners are going to survive long enough to get healed. Leon really messes with Cantors since he won't get countered, and does a fine job of leaving them injured enough that someone else can safely get the kill. The Whitewings can all get there relatively fast, but will likely need some help to make things safe. Mae can destroy them late game, with her effective 9 Attack Range, though you'll need to get within 8 tiles to really smack them. Dread Fighters take next to no damage from them, and with the Blessed Sword/High Powered Forge can cut through their monsters. And let's not forget, killing the Cantor immediately banishes ALL their summoned monsters. I think that given the tools you have, Cantors are fair. 4) I'm not going to say anything definite on this one until I clear the game, but I can confidently say that this hasn't been my experience thus far, and not one time have I done this on Celica's route. The closest thing I've done to what you're describing is the way I handled Deen's map. I'm not and haven't been from the beginning arguing that the game is perfect; it's absolutely not. No game is truly perfect imo. I believe the maps in SoV to range from average at worst (with Wolf's Fort being outright bad admittedly) to great at their best, with the majority of the maps falling in the "good" category. But to hear others tell it, you'd think the maps were all somehow, impossibly, worse than Revelation. It's that kind of thinking that I disagree with, and the reason I made this topic to begin with. From the beginning I've also conceded that I think Alm's maps are overall weaker, and the more I play of Celica's route, the less I think that I will change my opinion on that. And none of the "worst maps" this game has to offer are even half as intrusive as the worst maps in other FE titles. Take FE6 Chapter 8 for example. That Chapter by itself is designed more poorly than anything SoV has to offer, and it's arguably not even the worst chapter in that game. It doesn't have strong enemies, summoners, disadvantageous terrain, or anything, it's just flat out poorly designed. I find that a surprisingly large number of Celica's maps are pretty defensible, actually. The more I'm thinking about Alm's maps, the more I realize where this "encourages lowmanning" argument is coming from, in that Claire and Mathilda can basically run the game the second Warp becomes available. I'm going to withhold final judgement on that until I see how his lategame plays out, but Act 3 Alm is guilty of this to a degree. Even then, I'm still regularly finding use for Alm, Gray, Tobin, and Kliff along with the occasional Luthier and Clive. When you account for the fact that I'm using Faye and Silque (obviously), that brings us to 10/14 being useful more often than not. I'm at the start of Act 4, but it's possible that Delthea may be useful in some situations, so the number may in actuality be 11/14. No matter how you slice it, you'll still be using more of your units than a game such as Awakening if moving efficiently. I concede that Claire with some favoritism (it's even efficient to do so) can certainly trivialize some of Alm's maps, however. Similarly with snowballing, if you're talking from the perspective of Alm's route, as I learned firsthand it's efficient to favor Claire early on because she makes the best use of early statboosters. For Act 1 this isn't offensive at all, because the rest of your army is still very much required to rout the enemy in a timely fashion. Claire more often than not is however able to break Act 3 with this level of favoritism and a forged Ridersbane. It's basically Caeda and her Wing Spear all over again, except Shadows of Valentia enemies (particularly Cavs) aren't nearly as difficult statistically as something you'd find on H5 Shadow Dragon. It's unfortunate, but with all the little things the designers did to tone down the Whitewings, they accidentally ended up breaking Claire somewhere along the way. Even with that said I think that Claire is still not the most abusive Top-Tier this series has seen by any stretch of the imagination. Celica's Route on the whole however absolutely does not encourage lowmanning or snowballing. At worst, they encourage efficient EXP distribution which is in fact the mark of good game design, not the opposite. It is efficient to level Genny as much as possible on the earlygame enemies, because her lasting contributions more than make up for her initial shaky accuracy and relative frailty. It is efficient to train up Palla and Catria because they provide unique utility that no other unit can provide, similar to any other top-tier in any other FE title. In fact, I can't think of one FE title off the top of my head where the best move is to do anything but favor the characters who provide unique utility to some degree or another. Now, I'd agree that it's not good design to force the use of certain characters, but with 16 Units per route and 14 deployment slots for each route's lategame, they don't weigh against other characters as much as they might in other games since competition for deployment isn't as high. If you aren't literally one of the worst two characters on either respective route, you're getting deployed. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is doing something on Celica's maps, with very little exception. I would say that 13/16 units on Celica's maps have been useful for the majority of their time on the team, and I would probably be bumping that to 14/16 had I made Atlas an Archer -> Sniper instead of another Mercenary. Stat benchmarks are a bit trickier to nail down in this game compared to a traditional FE. On one hand, you have someone like Claire who probably wants a point or two of early strength to really kick her into overdrive in combination with the Lion Heads. On the other hand, Units who are not statistically likely to hit their class bases in key areas before promoting have a much better time than they would in a traditional title. Take Leon, for example, who is very unlikely to hit 16 Str by the time he becomes a Horseman. He benefits greatly from the system as is, in a way that isn't possible in other titles. In this way, getting screwed in a certain stat has less impact on the longterm, while still allowing characters to be blessed in other areas and leaving the short term implications of stat blessing/screwage at roughly the same level as any other title. Did you have a specific example in mind for an unfair/brutally tough benchmark to hit? I know that personal experience means nothing, but I've rarely come across any situations where I said to myself "I wish Unit X had one more point of Y stat so I can do Z strategy" and would be shocked to find a situation where the benchmarks are more strict, or even simply as strict as FE12 Lunatic. If a strategy relies on a unit being far ahead of their average at a given time with no statboosters in play, then it's not really fair to call that a reliable strategy. Lack of side objectives is a legitimate thing to dislike, but it is one that doesn't come without a bit of personal preference. Echoes is a much, much more combat-centric game than many if not all others in the series, and on that I think we could agree. It is true that for the most part, you won't be scrambling to save characters, recruit enemies, or grab treasures on the battlefield. It does happen occasionally, but not to the extent of standard FE for sure. If a map doesn't have as many side objectives as a standard FE, but does a good job of highlighting all the unique mechanics of Echoes in a way that encourages thought, places emphasis on things that make the combat good in this title, and doesn't overstay it's welcome, is it fair to call that a bad map though? I would argue that no, it is not. As the saying goes, you can't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Echoes maps are certainly different than other maps in the series, but ultimately what it comes down to is how they work in Echoes, and not how they may stack up against other titles.

That's fair. The Mire is the first swamp map and Dolth Keep is the second with Dracozombie Cantor. As for what I think makes a good map, you have to consider that Shadows of Valentia (particularly Celica's Route, Alm's is more about movement and I think we agree on that) is a lot more combat focused than other FE titles. Is that objectively good or bad? I can't say, and I don't think anyone can. But I can say that the mechanics of SoV are so good that the fact that it's so centered around combat is not a detriment to the quality of the game. If I had to ever play a level that restricted movement in a FE game, I would pick the ones in SoV every single time over the ones in other titles, because the game is so tightly designed around these aspects. If you think that maps that restrict movement are inherently bad (a statement I'd disagree with) then I can see your grievances. Even then, I still think the movement restrictions in this game are a lot less intrusive than in other FE titles. For example, Living Legend/Arcadia in FE7/FE6 are both much more punishing to your lower move characters. Any of the swamp maps in Radiant Dawn punish your lower movement characters more too. The closest comparison I can make is Scorched Sands in FE8, because similar to in Shadows of Valentia, you can cross in 2-3 turns. You never really have to spend longer than that, and most of the time you're still doing something with your units as you move forward, and in the cases that you aren't, you certainly will be by the time you've crossed the terrain. The worst maps in FE usually leave me wondering "why?" but this hasn't been my experience with SoV. I understand clearly why each of the design decisions were made (for the most part, again there are some things like castle tiles I don't agree with keeping), and even in the case that I didn't like it, I'd never be bothered for more than 2 to 3 turns tops. Wolf's Fort is the only real exception to that I have found so far. That one sucked in Gaiden and sucks now too. Now I'm the one who's not sure which map this is off the top of my head. I'm assuming it's the first swamp map though. It's not that your foot units can't handle the gargoyles, because as you say they can. I didn't even have a Dread Fighter yet, but both Saber and Kamui could take them no problem. The issue is that they'll arrive at about the same time as the enemy Dread Fighter if you bait him south and into the swamp, meaning that unless you've dealt with them right away, your Mages can be attacked from multiple angles, and you really need that Dread Fighter dead as well since he is pretty scary all by himself. They can also chip down Saber/Kamui which is pretty bad if you've drawn the Dread Fighter to them, and even worse if you're starting to work on that first Sniper as well. I can't remember the layout of the map exactly, but I distinctly remember that Palla got annihilated if she even thought about going on the opposite side directly. Best case scenario you could use her to draw the Dread Fighter through the swamp, and the first Sniper to the south. By the time you've done this, your foot units near the front should have crossed/be able to reach land on their next move. The whole setup feels very deliberate, almost like a puzzle in a way. It's actually very similar to Conquest in that regard. I also have to say that I think that it's a testament to the overall design of the game that you're using the Arts to get an advantage in some situations. Echoes has the most combat options out of any Fire Emblem game that I've played, and I really do believe that for the most part it's put to good use with the way they've balanced the game. I won't argue that Palla/Catria are top tier (and I think Est is Mid to High-Mid since flight is such a blessing in this game), but because of the mechanics of this game, really everyone is useful. Tiers feel a lot closer together in this game than they do in a lot of other Fire Emblem games, in my experience. I just got the Mage Ring for example, and now if I want, Mae/Celica/whoever can actually match any of the Whitewings in terms of overall attack range. Leon has been outranging them since basically their entire existence. Saber/Kamui/Deen/Jesse are all much better overall at taking damage than any of the Whitewings, since magic users are plentiful and only Est has good resistance. Ultimately, they only lose out on movement by 1 point as well, though obviously they don't fly. Palla doesn't really become a Juggernaut unless you dump the defense Lion Head and defense stat booster onto her (I did), but before that she's plenty mortal and you don't even get the option until very late chapter 4. Even then, Dark Mages and even Witches are a huge problem for her since she has only 5 Res, and enemies are strong. And even with all that said, I could argue that Genny is still overall a better unit than any of them. Really, the only characters that have it bad are Jesse and Atlas, and even then it's not that they're statistically bad units. They just come at a point when their counterparts are starting to come into their own. Everyone has a weakness, and there's really no One-Man-Army situations, at least on Celica's Hard Mode. The map design in Shadows of Valentia is decidedly better than Gaiden for a lot of subtle reasons that all accumulate into a better gameplay experience. Enemies are shifted around a bit to make the maps flow more smoothly at times, starting positions are reworked to remove "dead turns". I've noticed that on Alm's maps, battles that were originally very open with few enemies have now had entire groups of enemies added to make the fight play out more naturally, removing a lot of the waiting that Gaiden is known for. Enemies have overall higher stats (nothing crazy like Awakening, but enough to make them threatening) and now frequently have proper weaponry. It may not seem like much on paper, but in actuality these changes go a long way. That tends to go away for the most part as the game progresses. I can't speak about Alm's Act 4, but Celica really only has to deal with that until people start to promote. Even then, it's bad for the enemy too, which is great for the player since the enemies are actually quite threatening now, especially in larger numbers. That's an interesting perspective on things to me. I'm still holding judgement on Alm's route until I beat the game, but I will say that I had some fun with the Cav maps. Not as thought provoking as some of the other battles had been, but it was still fun trying to clear them out as quickly as possible, and there was something novel about seeing Claire murder an entire squad of Cavs in one turn that I really enjoyed. In my experience, maps like these are over so quickly that I don't have time to find myself getting bored. Maps in this game really don't overstay their welcome, I find. I'm very surprised at your opinion on Mila's Temple though. Neither my Kamui nor my Saber were Dread Fighters by that point, and I can tell you with no exaggeration that battle was incredibly difficult for me to beat. Easily the hardest map on Celica's route to that point and very climactic.

I'll give you the Mire Boneyard is bad, and that it definitely places too much emphasis on the Whitewings. Genny maybe trys for an Expel Terrors or something once but that's about it really. None of the stages that were grinding maps originally are really that great in this remake, I openly admit. The dungeon battle maps really aren't all that special either. Still fun to play, but aside from the (ironically) very earliest dungeons when you're weak the battles are almost entirely mindless even on hard mode. I disagree with Dead Man's Mire and Dolth Keep being bad though. Palla/Catria/Est aren't soloing either of those maps by any stretch of the imagination. I played Dead Man't Mire like garbage and I still beat it in around 9 or 10 Turns. I didn't realize I could safely draw the Dread Fighter until a few turns in and I didn't restart or anything. The Dread Fighter can actually move 3 tiles through the bog, so it doesn't take long to draw him. I didn't have one myself at this point, but if you get Deen he can definitely be one by this point, which would mean he could cross the swamp in 2 turns as well. My Saber was just short of promotion I believe, so no dice there. Even so, if you draw in the Dread Fighter to you, your non-flying units can contribute right away. Genny can Expel when the Cantor summons and when you inevitably miss a few, your Mages/the sword fighter who is not dueling the Dread Fighter can pick apart the Gargoyles while keeping forward momentum. And Leon is pretty great here as well thanks to his huge range. The bog has very clear reason to slow your units down as well since it's constantly draining your HP for a meaningful amount of damage. This in turn makes the Gargoyles summoned actually a little scary and it means the Snipers are pretty threatening by the time you cross to the other side. If you neglected to do anything about the Dread Fighter, then you're in real trouble. The swamp pressures your team greatly, especially considering that Genny is both your only Expel user and Physic user all in one. It would actually relieve all the pressure almost immediately if you could walk straight across the bogs here, and the map would be more boring for it. Dolth Keep is a similar situation, only a little bit more forgiving since there are plenty of little islands to travel across. I had a Dread Fighter by this point and they can zip across pretty quickly to the South. You can use your fliers to take potshots and kill certain weaker enemies, but you're still going to need to help them out a lot if you want this to be win in a reasonable amount of time. I do think that this one is weaker than Dead Man's Mire since in Dolth Keep, the Cantor's Dracozombies will be flying right at Palla/Catria/Est since they hang out near the front. In Dead Man's Mire, the monsters come from the side, making the swamp more meaningful since you'll be able to use your other units to fight if you get unlucky with the summons or with Expel. With the summons flying directly to the spot where Palla/Catria/Est are most likely to be, they tend to do the most work on this map for sure. Still, actually taking the fort is going to require more than just the three Fliers to get the job don. As an aside I really don't see where Palla/Catria/Est are even half as centralizing as some other Top Tier Characters. They are all incredibly mortal, for different reasons. Palla falls over to any mage that looks at her funny, Catria is really frail in the long-term, and Est takes forever to get going (even though she's still worth it to train). Banish is only +10 to monsters, and there are plenty of those who can survive a round with any of the three because Palla will never double and Catria/Est are too weak. Est in particular can't stay in range of anything until she's a Falcon Knight, since she starts with 20 whole HP at the point where 20 damage starts to be almost nothing. I do think that flight is good, and I do think that Palla, Catria, and Est benefit from this fact, but I'll ask this: Is it honestly bad that we're using our high-movement units to get to the enemy first? That's kind of what they do haha. And given that you really only ever have to bench a max of like 2 guys for any given route (and that's lategame when you have everyone), it doesn't matter as much even if you're not that great of a character. Hell, I've been bringing Boey since the beginning and he almost always finds a way to be useful even if it's just helping me recover from an unlucky miss. The only reason I didn't bring him on the last one is because Witches will actually tear him up, no lie. The Triangle Attack is nerfed too, now costing 10HP and not even being an Auto-Crit. Topping that off, something I learned just today is that there are more Archers/Snipers/Horsemen in Echoes than in OG Gaiden. I posted an example of that with Alm's map, but there are also times that the enemy placement was changed around a bit, usually in a way that makes that group of enemies a bit more thought provoking than in the original Gaiden. The deployment zones have also been altered a bit from what I can see. Intelligent Systems actually knew where some of the more obvious character balancing flaws were in Gaiden, and tried their best to address them. I'm actually really impressed by that to be perfectly honest. They didn't get it perfect by any means, but I feel like every character is good enough to be useful on Celica's route if you bother to use them, and I still think Sniper!Atlas might have some potential.

I can understand why 4 Move standard can turn you off a bit (I just got Celica's promotion the other night, and ugh...), but I think in a way the game does benefit from it in a large way. Now I have reason to use lower move units like Knights, since they're able to keep up when needed in the beginning. Of course, they definitely fall off late game, but still, it's nice to see a game where Knights are remotely useful IMO. Valbar was very nice on certain maps, to be sure. I definitely disagree that this game encourages lowmanning though. I'm actually finding it to be the exact opposite, in that in order to clear a map as fast as possible everyone should take at least one meaningful action during each battle in order to reliably clear these maps quickly. I'm always bringing units just to chip, or people that might really only be good to fight one or two enemies tops for that battle. I understand that not everyone plays with any speed in mind at all, and like to take their time with each map. But from the perspective of someone who's been playing this pretty casually overall, only fighting enemies in dungeons the first visit, no other grinding (if I need to go back I avoid encounters as best I can) the majority of the maps have been incredibly engaging. I just played Celica's Duma's Gate Chapter for example This is how the map looked at Turn 5 right after whiffing an Expel Terrors on Turn 4 (Not pictured: Sonia, who reliably solo'd the Witches in the forest despite being way underleveled). It's basically over, at any rate. Now originally, this was going to be a 6 Turn, but I actually got a little bit lucky with a crit here, so I was able to finish the Boss with just Mae. Originally I was going do some trade shenanigans to make this work but I didn't end up having to do that because of that little bit of luck. Mae deals a ton of damage with Seraphim, at any rate, to the point that I would have been able to pick him off regardless. It took me 6 Turns anyways because I missed on the Dread Fighter in the end. That's Gaiden for you. I looked it up since, since I'm almost at the end of the game, and my Mae is a little screwed on Atk too, so that's another thing that could have made this easier. She does 16x2 with 17 Magic, which makes it possible to juuuust kill the boss before he drops the quake on you. If she could have done 18x2 (which would put her at average Atk I believe, the crit is like 10% I think so not unheard of). And I definitely had to use every unit to make that happen. Alm's route is a lot more guilty of encouraging lowmanning IMO, what with Claire and Mathilda being able to murder everything along with the occasional Gray. That's why I said I felt that Celica's were a bit better overall. With Grieth's Fort, you're fighting things on Turn 1, and definitely fighting things on Turn 2. By Turn 3 Saber is drawing the Myrmidon from the fort on Turn 3 enemy phase, at least 2 Witches are dead and the units in the central tower are dead/dying. Echoes certainly doesn't have high enemy density compared to other games in the series, but the enemies are quite powerful on Hard Difficulty (except summoned enemies and Cavs up until at least Chapter 3, those are crap. I dunno about C4 Alm yet since I haven't finished), so the fact that you're killing 4 enemies actually means you killed about 20% of the entire map. It's not really a high enemy density game. Hell, I think Conquest is probably more dense, and the density in that game wasn't very high either. I'm just not seeing where this game plays slowly, even from a totally casual perspective of not going ultra tryhard or anything. If anything, going slowly in this game is punished so much more than any other Fire Emblem game, what with how enemies will take chokepoints before you if you aren't careful, and Cantors in general. Other games in the series punish this play by taking items with thieves, or burning villages. This game does it by giving the enemy the advantage. It's self fulfilling really: the slower you play the more punishing the game gets. I haven't found Cantors to be all that annoying though, for the most part. They're more troublesome early on, but once you get Expel Terrors you have a pretty good shot of them becoming very little more than an annoyance, and once your mobile units and ranged fighters start to pick up steam, you can more easily kill Cantors and nullify any remaining summons. At that point it's really not that bad. Especially considering that units that are likely to snipe a Cantor have either 1) Banish or 2) use bows which is great mid-late game since most Cantors seem to love summoning Gargoyles, with a mix of Dracozombie for some flavor. If I ever replay this I'm definitely making Atlas an Archer to help with this. I haven't really had to deal with them on Alm's Route yet, but Warp/Rescue is a thing there so I'm sure it's fine.

Because none of them play the same and the desert terrain isn't actually at all intrusive outside the Wolf's Fort map, which as I said in my above post, actually is pretty bad. As you might gather, I didn't play Sonia's map, so I won't speak for that one.

This just honestly hasn't been my experience at all. I wish I had been a closer track on how I cleared each map, because I completely disagree that they play slowly. That Cantor map did not take me nearly as long as you're describing. Doesn't he have Mire? The 10 Wt weapon with nothing to offset that? Either way, there's no way he's doubling everyone unless you flat out did not use Mae, Celica, or Saber at all. Coincidentally, Angel has 90% accuracy, and Celica gets that pretty early. He's constantly draining himself anytime he does anything at all, and Magic completely negates his avoidance. Yeah, he actually has a resistance stat but Mae and Celica can both outdamage that pretty reliably. It's actually a lot more generous than the rest of the series where you just have to deal with the mad Throne/Gate bonuses. In fact, this one is potentially one of the faster maps in the game since it actually is a Defeat Boss map. Okay, I'll be completely honest, and I don't mean offense, but no, one weakened enemy does not "always get away." At the end of the day, you as the player let that happen. It might be annoying just like it is in every other Fire Emblem game, but it doesn't have to happen. And with your example, the game gives you the Ridersbane for free. It's not even a dungeon item. And it gives it to you on Alm's route, which has far more cavalry than Celica no less! If you're choosing not to use that, then how can that not be the player's own fault? Every character that can use it sees an immediate benefit, especially Claire and Mathilda who are typically fast enough to double and potentially one round kill any Cavalier and some Paladins too. Lukas/Forscythe/Whoever can use it too, it just takes them longer to get there. Unless of course you Warp, and there is no way Silque is not level 7 by now no matter what you do. I'm not sure why you're so frequently leaving enemies so low on Player Phase either when you know that they're going to go heal. Just like they will in most Fire Emblems, in fact. Everything that you have described in the second paragraph can be applied to every single Fire Emblem since the first. Missing sucks, enemies that can't be one-rounded exist. Most people get robbed by the RNG in every Fire Emblem game at least once, either by a low percent crit or missing a high accuracy attack, or whatever. I will concede that this game can be more punishing for missing at a critical moment, but not in the same way that it does in other titles. Typically, if you miss in some of the harder games, you can easily be dead, whereas here it's really more of an annoyance in a lot of cases. Even so, Arts exist, most of which boosts both your power and almost all of which boost your accuracy. Forging increases your accuracy further still. And there's plenty of things that you can forge even if you don't want to grind for marks (which I did not). Forged Steels are plenty powerful, and eventually maxing an Iron Bow (Silver is much more expensive, not worth it for one more point of Might) is probably a good idea too. And if the Paladins are still too much, then just forge the Ridersbane. Act 3 ends the second you do. I'd really prefer to stick to talking about the maps, but I do understand that the mechanics are kind of important to the flow of these maps. If the one desert map you're referring to is the Wolf's Fort, then I definitely agree that map is pretty dull. It was one of the weakest maps in the original IMO and it definitely is here too. No argument about that one at all haha. I did say their were some stinkers to be fair, and I'm not arguing this as if the maps are untouchable perfection. What I am arguing is that a lot of them can be surprisingly thought provoking at times, and really fun to play. Those are qualities I'd generally mean when I say a game has good map design.

Interesting that you feel that way about Dean's map. That leads me to another thing that I really quite like about these maps, actually. They really have a tendency to be over very quickly if you know what you're doing. I suppose that could be negative to some, but to me figuring out how best to rout the enemy is half the fun. From what I've played, I think the longest turncount I've had on any given map has been about.. .15 Turns? There are plenty of longer maps in plenty of other games. You say that it's bad because. . .why exactly? I'm honestly a little bit confused about that. This map lasts like 6-8 turns maximum, if you're taking an active approach to the map. You're really only holding that position for one, maybe two turns with Valbar before you really start clearing them out. With Mae/Boey/Leon/Celica. You may only have one healer, but Genny is one of the strongest units in the game easily. She can pretty easily have Physic at this point, so that area is covered. You don't need every unit on full health at all times, it's sometimes perfectly fine to let a unit sit on low health for a while. What matters is that they aren't dying. Palla/Catria can kill the first Mercenary on their own, and whoever didn't take the hit takes on the next while the other is chipping with the Javelin safely. Since again, the Mercs can't move more than 1 tile, this is perfectly safe without healing. Also I don't know why you wouldn't go through the desert at all. Sure, you can't move as far but what does movement matter if you're headed somewhere you aren't needed? Saber can cut north to take on a Merc while Mae/Boey moves up behind to fry Mercs with Thunder. That's 3 Mercs right there, and you're only on the start of Turn 4. Dean dies the same turn he makes it to the front, and the next turn few turns can be spent cleaning up. I actually really like the desert here, where it encourages you to think long term in your choices. Although the desert does restrict movement, it's a worthwhile move since some of your characters are better off there. You're still pressing North and you end up really close to where the most of the action will happen. If you send everyone up to the grassy patch like you suggest, then of course the game slows to a crawl. That's not efficient use of your characters. If you're letting the Cavaliers retreat from you, that is 100% on you as the player. You're going to have to refresh me on the map you're talking about, but if it's the one that comes to mind (in act one, yes? with the Knight boss?) then it's on you to get someone across that bridge before the enemy does. Choke the point from the opposite side and suddenly it's not bad at all. Silque gets Warp early, and I'd definitely have to recommend people get that one early. And yes, I do mean to say that the abilities you have in this game are meant to be used in tandem with the map design. To say otherwise is pretty crazy, to be honest. I wouldn't, for example, take a game with Canto or Rescue (not the staff) in the game, and judge the quality of the maps based on how it would play without those mechanics. It wouldn't make sense to do so. Yes, summoning is in the game. So you ARE expected to know how to use these abilities. When you aren't using everything the game gives you, how can you blame the game? I wouldn't, for example, refuse to use Marcus in early HHM or FE6 HM, and then blame the game for being too difficult. Both titles are both clearly designed around their "mechanic" (Marcus is a character, but the point stands), and by refusing to use this mechanic is going to have a negative effect on my overall performance. I won't say a lot in defense of a flat 20% avoid bonus on certain castle tiles. I actually rolled my eyes at that myself. Given they went so far as to nerf Warp for balance it was kind of surprising they did nothing about that. Disregarding those tiles however, I will say that yes, if you're going to allow an enemy onto a terrain tile you'd best be sure you have a way to hit them. Again, positioning means a lot in this game, especially because fighting an enemy on unfavorable terrain can be a nuisance. It's very punishing in terms to positioning, but I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily. Supports are also in this version, which can patch those "Shakey" hitrates up to 100% depending on the Character/Support/Spell/Item. The game is 1 RN, but so were hitrates above what, 50% in Fates? It's interesting that the Awakening comparison was made, but understandable. These maps are a lot more engaging than anything Awakening has to offer from the time Robin gets rolling until the end of the game (DLC excluded). I don't really see how a person could argue against that, really. In fact, Awakening is literally able to be soloed by the Avatar Unit, even on higher difficulty levels. Whether you like Echoes or not I think most can agree that it's a more engaging experience to have to use multiple units as well as you can to get good results rather than to actually make your life harder by using anyone other than the My Unit of the game.

Yes, I'm being completely serious. Playing through these maps has been some of the most fun I've had with Fire Emblem in quite some time. I won't say that it's quite Conquest level, but the more and more I play of this game the more I'm realizing just how well thought out some of these maps actually are. As an aside, I'm basing this on a Hard/Classic playthrough with the intention of moving somewhat fast (not LTC, but actively trying to end maps quickly), so I can't really say for certain if any of this holds on Normal (though I imagine it probably does). So why is it that now, 25 years later that these maps work so much better than they do in the original, despite being functionally very similar if not outright identical? One seemingly small, but in actuality HUGE change that's transpired is the obvious interface upgrades between SoV and OG Gaiden. Gaiden had a lot of little intricacies in its mechanics, and now with 3DS hardware it's easy to see and keep track of these mechanics in a way that efficiently conveys information to the player. No longer do you have to keep track of Weapon Might, Weapon Weight, Attack Ranges etc. making it much less annoying to plan out your moves. While this is technically possible to do in OG Gaiden as well, the fact is that save for the most hardcore players, most people (myself included) would rather make low effort/low risk moves to save on time rather than deal with the cumbersome menu systems and stat screens of the original. It's really nice to have everything laid out, with no need to keep a tab open with all the HP Costs, weights, etc. open in another window, and this by itself turns Gaiden from a turtle fest into a much faster paced game. The other absolutely CRUCIAL game changer is the ability to easily re-order your units from the deployment screen. It's funny, but in a video I made back in January I was actually talking about how this function would make Gaiden maps a lot better all by itself. Lo and behold, it most certainly does and allow me to explain why. In the original Gaiden, deployment may as well have been random for most of us who didn't want to memorize deployment positions for every single map in the game. I'm willing to bet that 99% of us fell in that camp, right? Well the decision to neglect that mechanic actually comes back in a big way to make these maps feel dull and boring. Let me just create a scenario here. Have you ever started a map only to realize that all your low movement, squishy units are at the front of your lines while all your high movement units bring up the rear far away from any actual enemies? Obviously, you can't draw the enemies with these units because they either can't move far enough or would be easily overwhelmed. Most of us would be content to spend a turn or two fixing that up, not realizing that in doing so the pacing of the map is already way out of whack. By the time we've fixed our initial deployment, the enemy is right at our doorstep. In other words, because you didn't have freedom of deployment in the original, every map proceeds at the enemies pace and NOT your own. This is HUGE. This is the sole reason that Gaiden has this reputation for being slow, repetitive, and mindless. After all, with 6 Cavaliers right outside your range and maybe a few Archers or Mages that are checking those Cavaliers, what CAN you do besides turtle up and clean them out on the next turn? Enter: Shadows of Valentia. Suddenly, you can choose to move the units that are most suitable for tackling the first wave into position before the battle even begins. Suddenly, you have real options. And most importantly, suddenly, YOU'RE in the driver's seat of this battle, not the enemy. I can say confidently with no exaggeration that this changes the flow of the entire game. The fact is, maps in Gaiden have had this level of flow all along: they were just masked beneath dated mechanics. Let's look at a few maps to use as an example of what I mean. This is Garth's Fort. I couldn't find images of SoV similar to this one, but this map is identical in terms of enemies (though they're tougher in SoV HM) as it it in SoV so I hope you'll excuse that. I figured that this map might be a decent example of the point I'm trying to make, since it combines a lot of the elements people didn't like in OG Gaiden into one map (Desert, Summoners, Witches). The person who captured this image (taken from DKII's LP on lparchive) actually doesn't have a terrible deployment order here, but you can easily imagine how this could be worse if you're not keeping up on unit order. Not to mention, though decent, this deployment order still makes this map more painful than it has to be, which I will come back to when relevant. For the map itself, the Snipers all have Iron Bows (It may have been Steel, it's a bit fuzzy. They have 1~5 and effective damage is the part that matters), and the Dark Mages all have Mire, a very powerful 1~3 Range Spell. The hallways on either side are certain death for any of your units on Hard Mode as things stand, but if you'll notice, the Sniper and Dark Mage in the middle aren't being covered by the other Snipers very well at all, and the Witches will move away if there's nothing in their immediate attack range. This is sort of a "weak point" in the enemy lines, and playing through the game you'll notice this kind of thing happens a lot on these siege type maps. The Myrmidons on either side are strong and quick, with precisely enough movement range to attack someone on the desert tile directly in front of them. They aggro together, so if you activate one, you activate the other. The third Myrmidon to the south will approach you from behind, and mess with your plans if you're too slow as you approach the fort and leave your back lines exposed. And of course, there's the boss room that houses Garth himself, a very scary Dread Fighter with high stats across the board, Resistance +5 and to top it all off, an ability that halves magical damage. With him are a Myrmidon, two Mercenaries, two Fighters (basically fodder by this point), one Dark Mage with Miasma (I think?) + Recover to heal units as they retreat, and a Cantor that will summon Bonewalkers periodically. I'm sure that many of us came to the same conclusion in terms of strategy (clear the units in the middle, then push through the left hand side), so now it's time to execute. But given all the things we've mentioned (Desert terrain, Cantors, Witches, and powerful ranged enemies) this map is going to be a slog, surely? Not so, I say, with a little bit of planning. Let's go back to the above image and look at how we can make this much more bearable simply by moving our starting positions around a bit, because as it stands you WILL be wasting time on those boring actions that a lot of people criticize Gaiden for. Right now, the problems I see are as follows: 1) Can't kill the Sniper in the middle without Palla and Catria both taking a hit (Only Genee can heal from a distance at this point) 2) A need to draw the Myrmidon on the left out of the hallway by the time Catria and Palla have cleaned up the middle 3) The only people who can safely attack the Myrmidon in the south are one of Palla/Catria, or Saber/Kamui (Jesse gets rocked on Hard Mode), who all have better things to do that will make the map flow more smoothly 4) Mae starts in a terrible spot. Considering she's still so powerful at this point, she'll be wanted on the front to help with that Myrmidon and her range is great for clearing out the left hand hallway 5) Leon is just out of range to attack the Sniper Turn 1 (may or may not matter) 6) Why the hell is Boey leading the charge? Because of these issues, you'll likely have to spend at LEAST 1 turn setting yourself up properly, but by now the Witches have started to warp in, and the Cantor may even get an extra Conjure or two in because you couldn't reach him as quickly as you should otherwise be able to. Again, you're forced to play at the pace of the enemy, and not your own, and it feels slow and sluggish. You'll have to wait to draw the left-hand Myrmidon in because no one can cross the desert quickly enough. You'll have to wait to kill the Sniper in the middle because you don't have enough firepower in that area. You have to dedicate extra resources to that Myrmidon closing in from behind, and because your lines are all out of whack you may as well just wait for the Witches who are otherwise not that threatening. From where I stand, the best possible Turn 1 in this scenario involves a whole lot of waiting, and waiting is boring. Worse yet, you'll have to wait even more while you wait for your more powerful, low movement mages to get in proper position as you approach the hallway. You'll have to wait an extra turn so that Saber can draw the Myrmidon in the hallway out of range of the Sniper/Dark Mage. And with each turn you waste waiting, the Cantor has another chance to summon more enemies. Now let's change the deployment order a bit. For the sake of argument, let's assume Saber is the north Mercenary, Kamui the south, and Jesse the southwest. Similarly, let's assume Catria to be the western Pegasus, with Palla the east. Now: 1) Saber stands where Boey currently is 2) Leon stands where Palla is 3) Mae stands where Catria is 4) Kamui stands where Saber is 5) Valbar stands where Leon is 6) Palla stands where Kamui is 7) Jesse stands where Valbar is 8) Boey stands where Jesse is Let's look at our opening moves again. This time though, you're able to move your characters with clear purpose, not just to make up for some silly deployment issues. Saber can push hard north, with Kamui right behind him to eventually take his place when he becomes weakened. Leon is now free to take potshots at the enemy Sniper from the get go (hell, you may be able to kill him Turn 1 with Catria or Palla with a little luck and planning, though the Witches probably wreck you in combination with Mire). Alternatively, since Mae is closer, you can draw the Sniper to the wall and fry him with a well placed Thunder on the next turn. Valbar laughs at the Myrmidon to the south, and is now in a position to do something about it. Mae is now close enough to support Saber/Kamui as they push the left hallway without having to wait for her to catch up, and Boey follows shortly behind. Jesse is in the back where he belongs. With flexible deployment zones your attack starts to feel planned, and more meaningful as opposed to random, chaotic, and boring. You're actually able to formulate and execute a long term strategy, based entirely on your ability to freely plan out the very first turn. To keep the example going, the Witches will have started to warp by now, so you easily clear the middle room by the end of Turn 2 or the start of Turn 3. That's great, because it just so happens that by Turn 3, Saber can draw the Myrmidon on the left out onto the stairs, and off the evasion boosting tiles. If you've healed Palla and Catria, they'll be in a great position to swoop over to the left hand side and harass the Sniper/Dark Mage by this point as well. I'm not going to go turn by turn through the entire map or anything, but needless to say that if you continue moving tactically at a somewhat brisk pace, you'll find lots of "happy coincidences" like the ones I've pointed out so far. As one last example, and a counter to the whole "Cantors are BS" argument, if you're moving at a pace similar to what I described, Genee just so happens to be in range to Expel Terrors at about the point your frontliners start to take them on. As a tangent, this little detail right here is another reason think that Gaiden secretly had (a lot of) good maps all along. You mean to tell me that it's a coincidence that Saber just so happens to be able to move the perfect amount of tiles to not only draw the Myrmidon on the left hand side, but also draw him off the beneficial terrain all at the same time? And this all happens to take the exact same amount of time it would take to clear the middle room, and make crossing the hallway a much safer feat? And Mae (or Boey if that's your thing, but really, Mae is better) just happens to be able to back Saber up from this position? The Snipers just happen to not cover one another from their starting positions as well? Genee just happens to be able to keep up in a way that lets her Expel Terrors right when you're likely to start fighting them? No way. One or two of those I might buy as a coincidence. But all of them together feels too deliberate. And this is one reason that I believe Shadows of Valentia to have some great, fun maps. But Garth's Fort is probably closer to a more traditional Fire Emblem map, despite being in my opinion a well designed level. What about some of the more open maps that Gaiden is known for? Gaiden, unlike some Fire Emblem games, places heavy emphasis on Terrain and Map Control. Most areas of interest (I.E places where you'll likely encounter enemies) have some sort of Terrain you can take advantage of, either to gain evasion or to prevent enemies from attacking your back lines. Here's another example of the things I've been talking about coming together in a way that feels very deliberate. This time, let's look at a more open map: This map is quite a bit more open than the last one we looked at. Lots of desert terrain, and lots of Mercenaries that can easily eat your mages alive at this point. Unfortunately, they're pretty tanky too, and it's hard to deal heavy damage to them without magic since you may not double at this point, and almost certainly won't double the Myrmidons. So how would you do this without slowing your game to a crawl? Simple enough, if you use the desert to your advantage. With some reordering, Valbar can actually reach a very important spot on the map by Turn 2. I'm referring to that patch of grass that is one tile south of the southwestern post of that supply stack. By blocking that area with a high defense unit, The Mercenaries are forced to go the long way through the desert if they want to get behind your lines now. But if you've been planning ahead, By Turn 3, one of either Kamui or Saber can step into the desert tile just right of Valbar. Suddenly, it's going to take a really long time before any enemy can even think of threatening your mages. And because the desert is so hard to traverse, the only person who Dean will be able to attack is Valbar, who tanks even a crit or two with ease if you give him a shield. All the while Catria/Palla/Mae/Saber or Kamui can harass the eastern group of Mercenaries and take them out before they join with the main group in the north, then double back to help take out the other group a single turn later. It's crazy to think about, but on a map like this, the desert actually accomplishes so much more than simply slowing the game to a crawl. In other words, the terrain is used as it should be: as a tool to strategize around rather than an obstacle you have to put up with. Some maps really don't have a lot of terrain to take advantage of other than the layout of the map, however. It's very unconventional to be sure, but Gaiden and by extension Echoes is an unconventional game. A game that expects you to understand the tools that you have if you want to succeed. Let's look at one more map: Here we have the Valbar Rescue mission against the Pirate King Barth. Because you have such a high number of Mages, I'm sure many people would be more inclined to take this one a bit slower, since the enemies while weak, are numerous, and your Mages lower their own HP as they attack. The problem, of course then becomes the fact that Valbar and his group will eventually be overwhelmed if you don't do anything to save them. There's not a lot of terrain here, so in the end this one is going to come down to a brawl, one way or another. So what can you do to survive that, when there isn't a lot of terrain and your units will be worn down quickly by this number of enemies? Well, first let's switch Genny for Mae. Now, once again, it just so happens that one of the first spells Genny picks up is the Invoke spell, which allows you to summon between 4-8 allied units. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, but these allied units start out surrounding the caster. Knowing this, you can simply move Genny off the boat and to the left, Invoke Spirits, and suddenly all the pressure is taken off Valbar and his squad since now your own units are closest to the enemy. Additionally, your other Mages can now safely move in because of the allied forces creating barriers for you. On maps like these, especially in the early game, Invoke can help you "make terrain" in locations where it's otherwise barren. Since you now essentially have an impassable moving wall, and an army of Mages, I'm sure you can guess how this ends for these unfortunate pirates. You can do a very similar thing on the other Boat Maps that Celica faces in Act 2, to very similar effect. If you can't take advantage of the terrain directly, then the skills you have at your disposal can pick up the slack and keep things moving at a reasonable and fun pace. While a map such as this would certainly fall flat in a more traditional title, because of the abilities that you possess in this game, even a flat map like this can actually be very enjoyable once you understand the options that you have at your disposal. Now you may have noticed that all of my examples have come from Celica's maps. Now that's not because I think that Alm's maps are bad by any means (although from what I have played I do think that Celica's on the whole have been more enjoyable. That opinion could change though). The reason I haven't brought up his maps are because, despite appearing in the same game, his route actually plays quite a bit differently than Celica's. Where as Celica's route relies on Genny understanding of terrain, the lay of the land, and positioning around those factors, Alm's route revolves a lot more on his group and their own unique options/items, as well as aggressive turtling here and there. However, Rescue and Warp from Faye and Silque respectively are the main things that set Alm's group apart from Celica's. The fact that you can get Rescue so much earlier now is HUGE, as is Warp despite the nerf. In other words, what makes Alm's maps unique from Celica's are the large amount of movement options that you have with his group. The more open nature of his maps actually compliment this in a lot of ways, since Warp and Rescue are now expected to be utilized unlike other Fire Emblems where they are saved for specific occasions. Of course, watching the terrain on his maps is important too, especially since you won't have evasion-bypassing Mages to use as freely. I have a lot to say about Alm's maps and why they are (mostly) good in their own ways, but I'm feeling a bit burnt out from typing all of this as is. One quick example of what I mean by Alm and his group's movement options though: With proper positioning, you can do some fun things here. It's perfectly possible even with the Warp nerf, to have Claire solo the two Paladins on the left (there is a Horseman there in SoV instead of a third Pally) while you Warp Mathilda closer to the Dark Mages on the right. You can then Rescue/Warp Claire to the boss on Turn 2 for a chance to kill him. Not that there's a reason you'd want to kill the boss quickly on this map or anything, but I just thought I'd point that out. Now for me personally, my one and only true gripe is the abundance of Rout missions present. I think the only one I've played that hasn't been Rout so far (up to Act 4) was the Boss of the Thieve's Shrine of all things. I will say that while I wish some of the stages were changed to "Defeat Boss", because of all the fun options that you have in this game, it's actually been really enjoyable to plan out how to kill all the enemies as quickly as possible. TL;dr: Shadows of Valentia has great maps that are a blast to play even when they're ripped straight from Gaiden. The new interface helps convey information to the player in a way that is convenient, which makes a huge differences in a game with as many nuances as Gaiden. The trick to understanding these maps is to understand that Gaiden is not your average Fire Emblem, but a game in which you have several unique options that you won't find in other FE titles. If you don't use these options, you may find yourself frustrated, because much like the OG Gaiden, SoV isn't going to hold your hand and force you to use these new abilities. However, if you take advantage of what your characters can do, you'll find that the maps are certainly designed with all the unique mechanics in mind. Shadows of Valentia definitely has it's own unique flow, that while different, is every bit as good as any other well received Fire Emblem title. There are still some stinkers (though the maps that are tend to be more boring than offensive, really), but overall I find the maps and gameplay to be very enjoyable on the whole. And this is coming from someone who was initially very worried about the maps, and almost didn't pick this up Day 1 because of that fear. If you disagree with the maps being good feel free to leave a reason as to why that is. As I said I personally find them to be quite good overall, but I'm sure there are people that feel otherwise and would be interested to hear from you guys in that camp.

This was definitely not a perfectionist clear of Chapter 15. Like I said in the video and as I'm sure a lot of you know, the only way to get max Bonus Experience for this map is to spare all the Laguz on the entire map bar Muriam. I didn't do that. At all. Unfortunately, I forgot the Boots which I have a very great need for, so I'm redoing this one anyways. I'll probably do the Soren/Stefan conversation in that case, since I haven't seen it. It's not a recruitment, but I've heard it's interesting.

This isn't true. As long as the nmm is set up to the correct table you can use nightmare on basically any ROM that's recognizable as Fire Emblem. Did you mess around with the class/character list at all? Make sure that the number at the top of Character List.txt and Class List.txt are less than or equal to the amount of entries that you have for those modules. For example. if you have 128 classes in your table, make sure that you're only set to display 128 classes in Class List.txt. Same thing goes for characters in Character List.txt.

To be fair, I'd be using Thunder magic anyways since it's far and away the best type of magic in the game. E->D is worse than D->C since Elthunder gives 2 points per use too. I don't think that kills give double wexp in this game which is pretty bummy, but what can you do? Anyways, there's the last bit of chapter 14. I ran out of time when recording so this last part is kind of short.

As a fun fact, Seth actually has the 4th best growth rate total in the game, only coming in lower than Eirika, Ephrahim, and Myrrh. Comparing him to the other potential Paladins (Forde, Franz, Kyle, and Amelia) he smacks them or is at worst equal in every single category bar speed (which he loses by 5%), and has a whopping 15% Def growth (for a total of 40%) on Kyle, who has the best defense out of all the cavs (at 25%). People aren't kidding when they say Seth literally breaks the game in half simply by existing.

That's really interesting! I usually reset whenever I lose a character (even if I'm not going to use them) so I never knew about that. I'll have to bring that up in the next one. And yes, I do know how to get Stefan. I don't know how you're supposed to find him without a guide though. He definitely is. His character art is pretty good though, I'm surprised to say. There's part 12 for you guys. The rest of the chapter will be up in a few hours or so. There was a surprising lack of enemy density on this map; it honestly didn't feel that much different than Hard Mode. If anything, it's probably less scary since the boss doesn't have his +15% Crit bonus here.

Redo was probably the wrong word. Scan and replace is probably a better way to put it; I have a little musical background so I'm a lot more comfortable messing around with the notes on a staff than I am directly editing the .s file. Anyways, thanks for the help man. It's a shame the GBA developers got a bit lazy with the sound system, it really can do a lot more than you'd think.

I had noticed before that FE12 uses a lot of different samples for the same track. Originally I wanted to directly import the samples, but I was afraid it would clash with GBA samples a little too much (not that it doesn't already with 16 tracks). Right about now I'm wondering if that was a good decision or not because using the GBA samples seems like a lot more work haha. That's a very strange way to handle samples though. I can't for the life of me think of a situation where that would be more useful than having all the octaves line up, unless you really just wanted to mess with hackers. Anyways, I separated the tracks as you suggested and played around with them a bit. Success! Kinda. The highest part of that strings section hits you pretty hard when it first kicks in. Maybe a quick run or something would help, if I was feeling a little more ambitious. And of course, I have to redo the entire drum track...ugh...is there by chance a chart somewhere that maps out each of the drum notes (D1=Snare D#1=Snare Roll etc.) or have people generally been doing that by ear/trial and error? I'm also having a bit of trouble getting this to work. I have next to no background in programming other small things I've picked up from hacking FE8, but from what I've gathered, it needs to be compiled before it can be used correct?

I'm a bit new to adding music to the game, so bear with me here. I ripped the song Endless Battle straight from New Mystery and inserted it into FE8 without any problems from what I can tell. However, there don't seem to be any native instruments that work with some of my tracks. It's be easier to show my problem then try to describe it, so here's a video of what I'm talking about: With the horns at the beginning, I figure I can probably just use a multi-instrument or something, since I really like the way they sound for the rest of the song. I have no idea what to do about the strings section though. I've tried throwing any instrument I can in that slot just to see what works, and it's usually an instrument that's hilariously inappropriate, if it even works correctly at all. There's some other things I'd like to change around too, of course, but honestly right now I'd be happy if I could get rid of that Proto-Man sounding part. The part in question starts around 0:35 in the original song

I'll definitely use her where she's mandatory. There were about 18 or so other characters people had requested though, so I can't promise much beyond that :/