Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

Nintendo put remaking older Fire Emblem titles on the backburner after the fiscal failures that were the DS remakes of Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem. It wasn’t until Awakening that Nintendo found their golden goose to revive the slow-selling series. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia feels very out of place with that philosophy. It goes against almost every design choice and convention that Awakening and its follow up game, Fates, had established. Player avatars and marriage systems are thrown away in favor of a game that focuses more on the tactics side of things. Being a remake of the old NES Fire Emblem Gaiden, Echoes brings back and polishes a lot of unique gameplay choices from one of the oddest entries in the Fire Emblem franchise.

Echoes does a little more than just discard mechanics from the last two successful titles though, as it even reworks or gets rid of elements that have been staples in the franchise for the past decade and a half. The biggest overhaul is the weapon triangle, a rock-paper-scissors system that would dictate advantage in a fight based on a unit’s weapon of choice. Instead, advantage comes from either luring enemies out with a beefy wall unit or by picking them off from outside their attack range. Echoes supplements this by providing a wide range of unit types that have their own advantages and disadvantages. There’s also the fact that enemies will constantly swarm you on higher difficulties, so knowing how to properly pull groups becomes a key victory tactic. Like in previous games, there is a casual setting for less experienced players, and there’s even a system to rewind turns a certain number of times. These tools do not detract from the overall difficulty though, and veteran players can ignore them for a more challenging experience.

Another interesting part of Echoes gameplay is that you navigate the overworld at your own pace rather than being guided from one battle to the next. This was something established in the original Gaiden, and fans of Awakening should find themselves in familiar territory. The world map in Echoes is covered in towns, shrines, and dungeons that you can explore between segments. Towns are used to find quests and improve equipment. Shrines are used to promote characters to stronger classes. And dungeons can be explored to find rare items and gain experience fighting monsters and bandits. There are no stores in any of the towns, so all the equipment and items you find have to come from spelunking adventures you make into the various caves and dwellings dotting the map. The one downside to this system is that you can also be attacked by randomly spawning units and forced into encounters to move forward. Often these fights involve less than 2 or 3 enemy units and feel like a waste of time and effort, but this a minor issue to an otherwise enjoyable game.

The most intriguing change in Echoes is its magic system. Magic was also dictated by the weapon triangle in previous games, but no more. In Echoes magic-users are potential tactical nukes. Mid-to-late game spells are incredibly strong and can 1 or 2 shot several bosses, but there’s a system to keep things from getting out of hand. Casting spells now costs health, so you can put your mage in a potentially bad situation if you’re not careful to keep them protected. Magic is also learned by leveling up a character, rather than through a purchasable tome. Different mages will learn different spells, so your cast of casters will remain pretty diverse. Non-caster characters can also learn skills by equipping certain weapons or accessories. Mastering certain skills can help offset weaknesses by giving slower characters high damaging moves, or allowing someone frailer to attack from a distance.

Much like previous games, Echoes is divided into chapters to separate up its story. You control either Alm or Celica while making your way across the continent of Valentia. Valentia torn by war. Its two halves, Rigel and Zofia, worship opposing deities, and this led to Rigel aiding a coup d’état of the Zofian throne. Alm is a farm boy turned soldier, and joins a resistance group called the Deliverance to reclaim Zofia from its current ruling general. Celica is the crown princess of Zofia, and managed to escape the coup when she was child while the rest of her family was killed. Her goal is not the throne though. Celica was raised in a church dedicated to Mila, Zofia’s goddess, and seeks to find out why Mila has forsaken the kingdom in its time of need. Alm and Celica also have their own history with each other that becomes a little more fleshed out as the game goes along.

There are 5 chapters in total to the main story, but each can take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours to complete. A chapter is not a single stage, but rather several battles mashed together on the overworld. Mixed in with this is the aforementioned dungeons and random encounters, which can lead to Echoes lasting just as long as most other portable RPGs. Game length isn’t necessarily a good measure of quality though, and in an RPG, story is typically one of the harder driving forces. Thankfully, Echoes delivers a pretty engaging narrative.

Echoes’ story doesn’t have too much work with in terms of characters, being a remake of an NES game. Alm, Celica, and the some members of the supporting cast get a lot of exposition, but most of your party members are shown once or twice and then their only other forms of development come from unlockable support conversations. Much of your supporting cast has a more gameplay-centric existence rather than story one; they are important for the tools they add to your army rather than the drama they add to the story. But for what it is, Echoes’ story is actually pretty compelling. There’s an overarching theme of hierarchy and power to it that makes the earlier chapters interesting, and then events that happen in the climax of the latter chapters are pretty gripping. It’s hard to get into the story without getting into major spoilers, but it does its job in staying interesting.

If there’s one downside to Echoes’ story it’s that the cast feels very 1-dimensional. Alm and Celica do get their fair share of backstory, but they’re kind of boring. There’s no real growth to anyone on the “good” side, but some of the minor antagonists go through whole arcs of change and realization. For the entire game Alm is pitched as someone who puts the needs of the individual over the needs of the many. It would have been interesting to see this mindset come to bite him later since there’s a few instances where you can go off the beaten path from your main goal.

Echoes’ story is supplemented by a rather good orchestral soundtrack and several voiced cutscenes. Most scenes play out through still shots of character portraits talking back and forth, but every now and then 3D models will be used when action needs to be conveyed. The in-game modeling is on-par with that of Fates, and while the simplified style of the models fits, the lack of moving mouths in some scenes is sometimes jarring. On the other hand, there are pre-rendered cutscenes that have much better animation. The in-game scenes look and sound okay, but it would have been nice to see those few scenes reworked or remade to be animated and pre-rendered instead.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia feels like one of the stronger Fire Emblem titles to come out in the past half-decade or so. Its story and characters were already established thanks to it being a remake, and Intelligent Systems focused on crafting and refining its gameplay instead. What’s left is a great remake of the series’ black sheep, and a game that both fans of Fire Emblem or other tactical RPGs can enjoy.