Quick Look: Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

Yay anime

Princes who adore you...

I bought this on release and have yet to get around to playing it.

A few things to note for people new to the series:

-press x when battling to get a pink-colored attack range that flags all enemies

-you can in fact evacuate from a dungeon, you just can't from the haven with the mila statue. just pause when you get back into the main dungeon area (i didn't realize this for a few hours and was pissed there was no hint/tooltip)

-in most of the recent fire emblem games you'd be advised to level unpromoted units to 15 or 20 before promoting as promoting resets your level to 1. So if you promote early you can get the stat boost in a pinch and any additional abilities/bonuses, but if you wait until 20 to promote you'll have 40 levels total and better stats overall. I'm a little unclear on how this one works mechanically but the consensus from FE fans is that the difference in stat growth rates between promoted and unpromoted is not as severe and you'll do best promoting around level 10. Personally I enjoy leveling them up all the way and watching my units become super powerful, but it seems like in this game that aspect is limited and you might make the game more difficult in the mid-game by trying to min/max as you progress. There's no right way to play the game, just maybe take a moment to think about it when the option to promote becomes available.

Just got my copy in the mail; gonna start it tonight.

As someone who thought FE7 was the only good FE game, and doesn't really like FE's RNG bullshit, I really like this game. Turnwheel especially.

Also, Ben's villlager choices bother me.

Faye: Cleric

Tobin: Mage

Grey: Mercenary

Cliff: Archer

Is imo the best setup for every character. Faye gets Psychic very early as a cleric, which is an amazing ability. Tobin gets Excalibur early. Mercenary helps Grey's speed. Cliff can probably be anything, but Archers are very very good, and there's no reason not to make him one.

I don't know how much of this stuff was in the original game but I really like some of the features here.

I hope they bring the turnwheel back for the next game and reintroduce the stamina meter.

@yokunakatta: I'm the same way. I definitely enjoyed maxing before I promoted in previous titles, but the growth is a lot slower in this one so it makes sense to promote as soon as you can. I didn't learn that until chapter 4.

You can tell it's a remake as it's missing some core 3ds FE stuff. I miss building relationships and making babies...and being able to transport low mobility types with a pegasus knight or cavalier.

After reading some people stating it was missing features from the previous titles I've played, I was worried. However I'm really enjoying my time with it.

Holy cow the portrait art of your soldiers are really GOOD looking! I have a soft spot for that kinda stuff.

... What's a jape?

Also, Ben might be Judge Doom... I would have that looked into or get some Dip just in case.

Ben's reaction at 16:03 is pure gold

What happened to this website...

Spin Doctors ref for the win

Which 5* character should i get when i re-roll? Is Hector OP? I need orbs.

I'm still playing too much FE Heroes

Really like this one. Been a big Fe fan since the gamecube days and, while being really different from a gameplay perspective, this one feels more like a traditional fe compared to awakening (which I liked) and fates (which was not great). Hope they keep the echoes series going in the future with more remakes.

@yokunakatta: So the differences with SoV and promoting is that there are no "internal" levels like there were in Awakening/Fates. So not only do characters go back to level 1 when they promote, they gain experience faster after doing so. In addition, the promotion gains are not fixed, but rather a unit is just brought up to the new class's minimums. So if you ground your unit out for a ton of level gains, you may get nothing but HP and MOV from promoting. Growths are also much lower, so those extra levels aren't worth as much on average. So promote early and often, but different classes can promote at different levels; it's not always 10.

Also the voice acting gets really really good. It's too bad they never got to Celica's route. All the Toyota jokes.

@getupkid Also, obligatory

I'm really enjoying this game... did wonder if a quick look would show up... and low and behold! Forsyth is my hero!

Glad they ended up doing a quicklook for this, got it the day it came out and I've had a really good time with it so far. I need to do some research on the original, but I was super surprised by how well all the changes they've made to the FE formula work, it's a really great sequel from the perspective of someone who got hooked on the GBA games.

Jeff Bakalar: How's the running around?

This should be interesting as I expect fire emblem will not be a game or genre they have much love for...eh and shouldn't have skipped that cut scene. The best of the story was there and it was pretty great and was a masssssive improvement over the NES game.

Ben doesn't seem to know you can issue commands to all units at once using the touch screen. Like "charge" for instance. Would have been useful several times.

I've beaten this, and it's a really great Fire Emblem game. It needed a break from the anime/dating/rubbing mechanics of Fates. A lack of pair ups makes me think a lot more about tactics, too. I thought the lack of weapon triangle would be blasphemous but it works pretty well here as well. They really did well by this game!

I'm about 10 hours in. My main complaint so far is that the mobs you fight inside dungeons are no fun. There's no strategy to it because they're all super weak, and I'm playing on Hard mode. These encounters don't really add much to the game.

What if they made an Advance Wars game?

I thought the occasional in-battle chat was in Awakening as well?

Really tempted to get this now. Beat Awakening, Conquest, Revelation...... Can't quite get into Disgaea 5

PS. best srpg of all time: (PC only, released only in Asia, not even in the GB database......)

Sangokushi Sousouden (Legend of Cao Cao)

30+ special weapons/armor/accessory that gain power with XP (Lu Bu's stuff is really powerful, but you kill him and take all the goodies, and his woman...)

pretty cool one-on-one battle cut scenes

moral alignment system that leads into 2 story lines (divergent 10+ levels and ending)

easily modded, a couple very cool total conversion mods for other historical periods exist

it was the fifth and last sRPG from KOEI, at the height of their powers, who since then have made way too many Mosou games instead...

And now I'll be singing Spin Doctors for the rest of my life. Thanks Jeff and everyone else. I hate and love you all simultaneously. Needle skewing to hate ever so slightly.

Looks like a nice change of pace from the recent FE games.
cool to see dungeon crawling. Seems like the dungeons could get boring if the enemies are that weak.

Gah. This is bad timing. This game looks really cool, but I'm playing stuff on Switch now and I'm not going to start carrying two portables around. I'm not sure I'm on 3DS enough at this point to play through a whole FE game, and I never even finished Birthright. Not super high hopes they'll port this up, either, since I seem to recall they announced a separate FE for Switch coming up at some point.

@goosemunch: Vocal fry is that low, throaty, shaky voice that has come to be associated with stoners.

Some people seem to really have an irrational hatred of it.

something i'm convinced recent giant bomb commenters made up, but that's just me. :)

Not sure if it was the first SRPG to include it, but Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together for the PSP let you redo turns as well. Credit where credit is due.

Gaffes are for Monsterdunking.

Well, if Jeff doesn't like something, that usually means it's good (metal music, FFVII, RE4, Half Life 2). Guess I'll be checking out Nosferatu.

Who the fuck would turn animations off for a Quick Look honestly

So do battles ever get more complex or interesting?

The only FE I ever tried was the GameCube one but got super turned off by the combat and bailed out early on.

I've always meant to give it another try, since wtf did I know back then, and this seemed like a good one to pick up! I've been hearing all sorts of positive changes to the standard FE formula that make it seem more my style.

But just watching this quick look... I'm already tuned out half way through and making a rambling post instead -_-

I love SRPGs! Everything from XCOM to Super Robot Wars. I even dig table top war games ala the 40K and what have you. But Fire Emblem just seems so insidiously simplistic. Positional awareness and a basic attack. That's it, ignoring a handful of special healing and magic users. But over all it's pick a place to stand that won't get you murdered and hit the attack button. Or don't. Even the weapon triangle is kind of over simplified, I find it makes everyone feel samey since there's no meaningful distinctions between characters out side of rock paper or scissors.

Even the famed difficulty seems more like a side effect of the lack of player options. My take away wasn't a fun challenge but rather a lack of player agency. You make the "right" choice or get blown up.

What am I missing? Permadeath is really cool in a personality driven game but beyond that... Is it really just the characters and story that's the main draw? Does the gameplay ever open up beyond what they show here?

The new guy Ben has the goofiest laugh yo, shit makes me laugh just hearing it

Don't think I got the time to play through another Fire Emblem right now.