Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - Nintendo 3DS Standard Edition

For FE veterans: get this game. For FE newcomers & on-the-fence: this game will be more challenging than Awakening and Fates, but it's worth a try. I did not know FE Gaiden was even a thing back in Famicon days. Had no idea this was a remake. Initially, I was put off by the idea that magic mechanic will not be fueled by tomes but by mage's HP (gasp, but they are so squishy). But I was itching to play more FE after Fates and patiently waiting for Three Houses. I am really glad I gave this a try because this is a fantastic remake and what Gaidan needed to bring that second title back to the modern gaming age. What SoV does not have compared to recent FE titles: - no S-supports = no waifus/husbandos - no child units - no My Unit - no My Castle - no armory - not much room for grinding even with dungeon feature - no weapon triangle - do not expect support conversations for every characters interacting with every characters - no casual/phoenix mode; Permadeath. Permadeath everywhere. Muhahaha. What to expect: + Fantastic soundtrack as always + Great, well-translated, well-paced story + Interesting class change system + Interesting dungeon feature akin to Final Fantasy than previous FE titles + Interesting skill system + Beautiful character art + Well developed characters +++++ Mila's Turnwheel + Voice acting. Oh, yeah... Every dialogue (that isn't fetch quest) is voice acted. That was a welcome change. The game's 5 acts took me about good 45 hours to finish; standard RPG time. (Remember to take breaks for your thumbs). For this remake, they added the new battle animations from Fates to give it more cinematic oomph. It took me a couple of maps to get used to the change in UI (how stats are shown for % of Crits and Dodge), but the new UI does the job of conveying the necessary information. Even on normal difficulty, some of the maps were challenging. But there's the Mila's Turnwheel that lets me avoid doing soft resets (L trigger + R trigger + START) every time I realized I made a tactical mistake. So scour for Cogs to increase the Turnwheel ammo. It's super useful! Another thing that made Sov difficult were the dated map design. While I read Gaidan was notorious for its difficulty back in the day, I did not expect how dated the maps would feel. There's a lot of empty space to traverse on many units that start with just 4 movements (those 5 movements were taken for granted). And the enemies are all the way across the map. At least the bosses can move instead of being stuck on the seize tile. Few things that did bothered me were the choppy animation in cutscenes and repetitive grinding. Turns out the choppy animations is the style for the studio who were in charge of SoV. So, I guess I can't really complain, but I did prefer Fates' fluidity (no pun intended). All in all, SoV is different than Awakening and Fates. Even Path of Radiance. But I see that as a good thing as it gives the fans to try something relatively new with FE. Now Intelligent Systems has a few remakes under their belt, I am hoping they remake Genealogy of Holy War and Thracia 776 for us relatively and brand new fans to FE :D 'cuz that would be awesome. Cheers.

In my opinion, this may be the best game in the fire emblem series, despite being a remake of Gaiden. I replay every single English fire emblem game every couple of years, so take that how you will. I love the new mechanics, the battle system is cleaner and simpler than Fates or Awakenings, and the difficulty settings just felt very good to me overall. I enjoyed the story, and felt that the plot was very strong. The animations are gorgeous, and get flashier as characters become more skilled. A Villager might simply poke forward with her sword, but a promoted Dread Fighter leaps and pirouettes around her enemies. More detailed- I like the class system and promotion more than previous games- experience gain is slower at higher levels, so often you need to promote earlier than level 20 in order to keep up with enemy growth. I think this sort of decision making is more interesting than "promote at level 20 or you're doing it wrong" of previous installments. There is no weapon triangle, so no more boring "rock paper scissors" combat. Strength and Magic have been rolled into a single Attack stat, which gives characters more flexibility on whether to be a magic or melee class. Magic also has a fixed hit percentage instead of being reliant on the Skill stat, so lower Skill villagers can still be successful spellcasters. The spells themselves are "fairly" well balanced overall, but you'll find that some of them tend to be more generally useful than others. Level design- most levels feel well designed and not frustrating. External reinforcements do not really appear in main story missions, but- minor spoilers- many levels tend to have a never ending flood of annoying, weak units that only stops the turn or two before you beat the level. There is also a strong endgame after the main story that is more difficult, requires a decent amount of time/grinding/strategy to clear, and gives more world lore backgrounds that supplement other fire emblem series. AI- the enemies artificial intelligence feels much more lifelike in this game than previous installments. In Fire Emblem 7, for example, the game would try to calculate the greatest chance of killing your weakest character in attack range, then dog pile every enemy on them even if it would lead to their certain doom. Fifteen pirates would cross the gangplank and kill themselves on the tank if it meant the sixteenth that turn would kill the tank. It felt very mechanical overall. In Echoes, human enemies have self preservation, and will attempt to retreat to medics or fortifications if they are close to death. Every human unit feels like they have their own agency, and not part of a larger hivemind. However, the zombies will still blindly march forward. Overall, I think this game may have been the most personally enjoyable one in the series. Many obnoxious aspects of previous installments were removed, and every aspect of the game feels very solid. I love the music, story, (most) characters, combat, animations, classes and weapons, etc. My only major complaint is the quantity of enemies that you have to chew through on some levels in order to proceed safely.

This game is a bit difficult requiring at least 4 grinding sessions 2 per protagonist before the final dungeon but the story and the fun gameplay makes it totally worth it.

Not much to say. Plays similar to the other Fire Emblem 3DS titles. All the more reason to add it to a fan's library.

Elegí darle 5 estrellas porque no hay opción para darle 4.7 Lo que me gusto: El juego es excelente, tiene una de las mejores tramas de los últimos juegos, posee diálogos con voces 100% lo cual aumenta muchísimo la inmersión del jugador y facilita el desarrollo de personajes, la música es para mi gusto la mejor de los últimos años en la serie y el poder explorar calabozos le da un toque de acción que otros títulos no tienen. En general me parece que este juego debe ser la piedra angular para el siguiente (ya sea nueva historia u otro remake) titulo de la saga. Lo que no me gusto: Al ser un juego un poco mas viejo, algunos diseños de mapas son demasiado grandes para mi gusto, existen ocasiones en las que por las condiciones de terreno solo puedes moverte 1 o 2 espacios por turno así que para poder llegar al rango del enemigo e implementar tu estrategia tienes que moverte demasiado, algo que no decrementa la gran experiencia pero si da momentos de tedio al iniciar un mapa muy grande o tener que re iniciarlo. Se lo recomiendo a cualquier fanático de RPGs tácticos, fans de la serie e incluso a cualquier persona que quiera intentar entrar a la serie pero se siente intimidada por el nivel de dificultad, ya que es muy accesible y existen muchas opciones que harán de tu experiencia mas ligera (muchos mapas para incrementar tu experiencia y nivel, muchos personajes, una opción para rebobinar a turnos anteriores)

Gran juego, si te has visto alienado por los waifu games como awakening y fates (aunque ami tambien me gustaron) PERO quieres un fire emblem dificil como los "viejitos" sin tanto enfasis en como tener hijos con tus personajes... haz llegado al lugar indicado : -Dos excelentes protagonistas -Una buena historia -Modo de juego nada complaciente -Personajes de apoyo carismaticos -Geniales voces en ingles -Montones de batallas y un postgame desafiante -DLC que complementan la historia, aunque no hay huecos argumentales como en Awakening y Fates donde muchos datos importantes y casi escenciales fueron "cobro aparte" -Si te gusta la estrategia y quieres jugar con personajes cuyos destinos quieres cuidar (no como otros donde manejas montones de tropas genericas) es momento de regresar a Fire Emblem

Bought for my son's collection. Loves the Fire Emblem games.