Nintendo announces it will shut down 3DS online services in April of 2024

[Lanko]

They announced it today, with the extra caveat they might even do it sooner if they feel the need.

How does this affects our 3DS Fire Emblem titles?

 

For Awakening, we have Paralogues that allows us to recruit new characters, like Priam, Walhart, etc. However, if I'm not mistaken SpotPass data once downloaded remains on the cartridge or SD card, and it's not tied to a specific save file, so if you already download those paralogues, you should have them forever on any save file.

I'm unsure about the units from other titles, however. Each FE game prior to Awakening has a team with ~10 recruitable characters from other titles. They are just Avatars with colors that are similar to the character in question, there are no voice lines and only the portraits are unique.

 

I don't remember if Echoes using SpotPass for anything, I haven't even finished it yet, have just arrived on Act 5... more info on Echoes would be appreciated.

 

Fates is the big one affected. Basically you won't be able to visit other castles anymore, which will significantly affect Forging since you will basically be stuck with a single food/ore and will take forever to eventually exchange them. Will also hamper early game experimentation without easier access to Heart Seals and Dragon Vein points to build and upgrade buildings.

And of course, Skill buying. You will still be able to acquire skills, but it will be significantly harder and tedious. There are two methods. First is StreetPass, which is significantly rare, and has 8h to 12h to be able to StreetPass the same person again (I don't know how this ties with the "one visit per day" on a castle).

The second method I heard is Parley. It's the Wireless method, and requires a friend. So one player becomes the "host" and the other joins the session. I'm unsure if both players can do a battle or only the player who joins. Anyway, this requires both players to have the game and close proximity. The "advantage" of this method is that there's only a 1h cooldown, however it requires a RL friend or for you to own two 3DS with Fates. You can visit the same castle and buy skills from the same player multiple times a day.

The last thing I remember is Renown. I'm still far from the 9999 Visitor/Battle points items. I'm guessing you still will be able to do that with StreetPass (good luck) and I don't know if Parley counts either.

As far as I remember Fates don't have SpotPass chapters like Awakening.

 

So is there more things to remember that are affected by this? Or more methods for the online stuff in Fates specially?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Ooh. This is making me strongly consider replaying Pokemon Y, while Wonder Trade is still a thing. That was a great innovation, and I'll be sad to see it go.

2 hours ago, Lanko said:

So is there more things to remember that are affected by this? Or more methods for the online stuff in Fates specially?

My guess is, fans will set up their own independent servers, like we've seen for DS titles that use Internet. But I'm not sure how complicated those might be to access.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

just how far reaching are the implications for Fates' game balance? Is visiting other player's castles the only way to collect those other resources? Are there weapons you simply can't forge in offline play? I imagine mechanics base on the real life passage of time will still work so long as the 3DS' internal clock is still ticking.

@Shanty Pete's 1st Mate There is Pretendo network, still in development. Though it involves soft modding your systems, and none of the fire emblem games seem to be on the to do list. Also, your NNID won't come with you, along with any information that's tied to it. 

Edited October 4, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Lanko]

2 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

just how far reaching are the implications for Fates' game balance? Is visiting other player's castles the only way to collect those other resources? Are there weapons you simply can't forge in offline play? I imagine mechanics base on the real life passage of time will still work so long as the 3DS' internal clock is still ticking.

No, you can get those other resources through random conversations on my castles with other characters, with random shiny spots on random battles, the lottery building.

You can also exchange your resources for the other ones.

The problem is, it's extremely slow. Let's say you need 10 of a certain ore. You get ~3 per day on your own mine. Might get a random one from a daily random convo. Then the Arena building you can bet one of your mats to get up to 2 more copies if you win both battles.

So you'll need multiple days to forge a single weapon, and if you want to forge multiple ones or raise it's forging to +5 it's gonna take weeks for a single one when you could do it in a matter of minutes. Now add this to more units in the roster or a unit with multiple forged weapons.

And that's just forging. You also need those mats to buy accessories, make food and maybe other stuff. While you don't need any of this to finish the game, it's one of those things that allowed you to customize and have fun pretty much gone.

[FRZNHeir]

Yeah the biggest loss is going to be the resource acquisition. It makes actually upgrading any weapons in fates impossible if you don't already have a few of other resources lying around.

 

Also, you lose out on inheriting skills from other units. That's a big loss IMO, as you can make some pretty broken units with it. Granted, you can just. Hack the units into being busted but it's really not the same. Getting my Witch!Ophelia a near guaranteed crit chance through inheriting skills was my fav thing during my first run of owning Fates.

[indigoasis]

Man, that's super unfortunate. I know things like this are inevitable, but I was very fond of the 3DS/Wii U era.

I find it so bizarre how services shutting down completely neuter certain aspects and features of old games. Twilight Princess HD's Miiverse stamps are entirely redundant collectibles (but they already were from the start), Awakening and Fates have entire characters and modes that are going to be almost completely unplayable, there won't be anymore Pokemon trading, Xenoblade Chronicles X will be completely fine (I think), and worst of all, Splatoon 1 will be entirely unplayable outside of the campaign (although that's typically what happens with shooters anyway).

We are truly living in the end times of humanity.

[Interdimensional Observer]

29 minutes ago, indigoasis said:

Xenoblade Chronicles X will be completely fine (I think)

Squad Tasks, Squad Missions, the two Global Nemeses, and being able to temporarily recruit other players' avatars will all be lost.

As a result, Reward Tickets will almost entirely disappear. Barring the 5000 Tickets obtained from 100%ing the Survey of Mira. As the Yggralith Zero and Telethia Plume drop certain materials that their offline counterparts the Everqueen and Endbringer do not drop, you will have to spend those limited 5000 Tickets on the relevant materials, if you wish to craft anything requiring them -namely the Ares 90. The loss of farmable Reward Tickets is also serious blow to convenience, if you desire to make a lot of postgame ultimate Augments or level 60 Skells and Skell Superweapons. As grinding the materials the normal way instead of trading Tickets from the Nemeses for the mats can be more tedious.

Access to the hibiscus flower headgear obtained from fighting the Plume shall also become forever inaccessible. And, IIRC, there is at least one ingame achievement that requires fighting a Global Nemesis. Inability to fight the Zero, Plume, and I believe there is another Yggralith Tyrant that appears only in a Squad Mission, I believe these enemies all register in the Enemy Index.

-If all you wanted to do is finish the story, and maybe all the Affinity Missions, Heart-to-Hearts, and questlines. Then the loss of online is no big deal.

-If looking to complete the Mira Survey, then the loss of online means you won't have access to the Ares 90, which stacked with the right Augments is usually considered the cookie-cutter method of defeating the last hurdle to 100%ing the Survey. It won't be impossible, you'll just need to spend more time and effort farming the mats for a replacement strat for fighting the Endbringer.

[indigoasis]

20 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Squad Tasks, Squad Missions, the two Global Nemeses, and being able to temporarily recruit other players' avatars will all be lost.

As a result, Reward Tickets will almost entirely disappear. Barring the 5000 Tickets obtained from 100%ing the Survey of Mira. As the Yggralith Zero and Telethia Plume drop certain materials that their offline counterparts the Everqueen and Endbringer do not drop, you will have to spend those limited 5000 Tickets on the relevant materials, if you wish to craft anything requiring them -namely the Ares 90. The loss of farmable Reward Tickets is also serious blow to convenience, if you desire to make a lot of postgame ultimate Augments or level 60 Skells and Skell Superweapons. As grinding the materials the normal way instead of trading Tickets from the Nemeses for the mats can be more tedious.

Access to the hibiscus flower headgear obtained from fighting the Plume shall also become forever inaccessible. And, IIRC, there is at least one ingame achievement that requires fighting a Global Nemesis. Inability to fight the Zero, Plume, and I believe there is another Yggralith Tyrant that appears only in a Squad Mission, I believe these enemies all register in the Enemy Index.

-If all you wanted to do is finish the story, and maybe all the Affinity Missions, Heart-to-Hearts, and questlines. Then the loss of online is no big deal.

-If looking to complete the Mira Survey, then the loss of online means you won't have access to the Ares 90, which stacked with the right Augments is usually considered the cookie-cutter method of defeating the last hurdle to 100%ing the Survey. It won't be impossible, you'll just need to spend more time and effort farming the mats for a replacement strat for fighting the Endbringer.

Like I said, totally fine! That Switch port will be coming any day now, after all!... right?

[vercio]

Well, it also means no more Corrinquests unless you already have something on your 3DS copy already. On the positive side, it also means no Aptitude for everyone.