GX reviews Echoes.
Super excited for it.
EDIT: IGN gave a 7.8 loooooooool
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2017/05/16/fire-emblem-echoes-shadows-of-valentia-review
GX reviews Echoes.
Super excited for it.
EDIT: IGN gave a 7.8 loooooooool
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2017/05/16/fire-emblem-echoes-shadows-of-valentia-review
7.8/10, too much strategy.
If bottlenecking units on planks is a highlight, you need to up your game. That's Ship Chapter 101.
CAN there be too much strategy in Fire Emblem?
I do wish there were axe users in Echoes. They couldn't have added like some island local for Celica?
Did he even pay a lick of attention to the story?
@Cyan:
This needs the context of Cecilia being 17 and Saber being in his 30s.
Does it? Cause I gotten used to Fire Emblem games letting you hook younger characters up with older characters…...and the english versions of the games weirdly glossing over it or pulling a Kana.
Oh yeahhhh, I've purposely avoided getting info on this game. Going in blind on hard mode.
Oh yeaaa… They added Lloyd to Heroes, AND I just got Nino. I'm Jaffar-short from having a Black Fang team. Or Linus if they ever add him.
Fishing for jafar will yield ton of useless healers, but you might get extra takumis, to feed your ranged chars. I know it because fishing for kagero has been pain.
Jaffar is quite good especially if you enjoy the sound of a man choking on glass
If you have a spare Saizo, throw Poison Strike 3 his way, it stacks with his deadly dagger
Anyone pick up Echoes? I'm enjoying it so far [Hard/Classic]
! getting used to the UI, archer range, and damage calculation is one thing, but the full voice acting really makes the game come alive. Alm's group has a nice rapport to each other (although Faye is hella thirsty)
! I just got Claire. As far as villager promotions went, I did
Faye - Pegasus Knight
Kliff - Cavalier
Tobin - Mage
Gray - Archer
Anyone pick up Echoes? I'm enjoying it so far [Hard/Classic]
! getting used to the UI, archer range, and damage calculation is one thing, but the full voice acting really makes the game come alive. Alm's group has a nice rapport to each other (although Faye is hella thirsty)
! I just got Claire. As far as villager promotions went, I did
Faye - Pegasus Knight
Kliff - Cavalier
Tobin - Mage
Gray - Archer
For me:
! Faye: Cleric
Kliff: Mage
Tobin: Mercenary
Gray: Cavalier
Atlas: Archer
The "DLC more expensive than the game" ruined my excitement (I am strongly against on-launch DLC), but I want to support FE going back to its roots so I will probably buy it anyways.
However, I still need to finish ME:A, Nioh, Radiant Dawn and play Horizon before I can even touch Echoes.
Apparently in this game (and in Gaiden?) promoting early is a better option.
Promotions give you the base stats of the class, not flat gains. Interesting…
! I went with the cannon classes with the exception of Faye because having only Silque as a healer until your mages promote or until I get Tatiana is a no fun experience.
Gray- mercenary
Tobin- archer
Kliff- mage
Faye- priest
Is it me or Alm is a Mini Ephraim?
Is it me or Alm is a Mini Ephraim?
Does he not pick fights he can't win?
joking aside, Alm is cool and I think his friendship/romance with Celica is so cute. It's like they were made for each other <3
(i am a total sap)
Adoring this game so far.
! I went with the cannon classes with the exception of Faye because having only Silque as a healer until your mages promote or until I get Tatiana is a no fun experience.
Gray- mercenary
Tobin- archer
Kliff- mage
Faye- priest
[hide]From what I've read, those are the optimal class choices to begin with. Namely Faye, as she basically obtains a 'dance' skill to let players move again.
Also, having more than one cleric is an extremely good idea, as they can heal each other for eternity to raise EXP between turns.[/hide]
Welp, looks reading this thread it looks like I messed up the reclassing with the villagers. Hopefully I won't be screwed later on because of that (playing hard classic)
Up to Celica's first part, the boat adventure.
! Mae is cute and Genny is cuter, 10/10 characters
! Plus Saber is freaking awesome. Kamui suicided on the pirate boss but I didn't feel like restarting for him, lol. Valibar and Leon are good enough. The summoner map was rogue with really, really shitty hit rates, but Mae/Boey's 3 range was so useful.
The whole "using HP for magic" thing still has me iffy. How is that working?
The whole "using HP for magic" thing still has me iffy. How is that working?
Not bad at all. Depending on the spell, it always costs a certain amount of HP. For now, my current mage uses Fire, which costs 1 HP. I keep him in the back lines behind all my physical units. Despite other FE games, mages come with a decent amount of health for spell casting, but low defense. Magic usage is infinite. I haven't gotten better magic, but I'm sure those cost more HP while having bigger benefits.
At the same time, clerics come with infinite healing that costs HP as well. So if my mage's HP starts running low, heals are instant and not a problem. Healing cost HP as well from the cleric, and clerics are far more fragile. However…
1. Having two clerics on the field allow for healing for both clerics.
2. Clerics come with the spell 'Nosferatu', which does decent damage and steals HP from the enemy.
Overall, it's almost an afterthought. So far.
Up to the first half of Act 3.
! On Alm's side of things, he and Tobin seem to be the best members on my team, although Clive, Gray, and Clair are pulling their weight. I am worried I promoted Gray too early, but we'll see. Pytheon and his friend kinda seem like filler units to me, dunno if i want to bother training them.
! On Celica's route, Saber, Leon, and Mae are gods. Boey is lacking in speed, Genny is a little fragile, and Celica is…doing ok. Poor Catria died though.
! Magic is stupidly op in this game, because it ignores terrain. It's why Celica's party can steamroll goons while Alm' party has to play very carefully to beat arcanists. Seriously, arcanists healing each other is dangerous, ESPECIALLY if they have 3 range Mire.
! Fernand and Berkut offered a real challenging map - three sets of your guys surrounding three beefy paladins. Best option I had was to use Slique to warp Lukas in with the Ridersbane to tank.
! Also got Atlas.
From what I've read, you don't have to worry too much about promotion in Normal mode. In any mode, leveling Villager to 20 is a waste of time. Leveling Villager to 10 can be a good idea, but honestly, leveling them at three can work fine as well.
Definitely in Hard Mode and up, you should level post-Villager characters to 20 or so before promotion.
^ not true in Gaiden the way promotions work you better off promote the units immediately, you must be confusing with the future dlc classes that you can only promote to then at level 20.
Also at Act 4 in Celica and oh my god, three cantors in the same map that is a swamp map. -_-
Ah, Valencia. Pearl of the Orient.
I've played maybe about an hour and a half of the game so far. Even in its infancy the plot feels a lot more well put together than both Awakening's and Fates'. In fact, the dual kingdoms aspect and their motives for fighting already reminds me of a better executed version of Hoshido and Nohr. All the dialogue being voiced, even the incidental battle messages, is quite nice as is the fact that a number of the voice actors are ones that I don't recognize right away. My only serious complaint so far is that the battle UI isn't quite as intuitive as the one in the previous two games, but maybe that'll change once I play the game at a time other than late at night.
Also, bad level ups, bad level ups everywhere. I take it from some of the talk on this page that there's not much of a point in holding off on promoting the Villagers this time around?
I've played maybe about an hour and a half of the game so far. Even in its infancy the plot feels a lot more well put together than both Awakening's and Fates'. In fact, the dual kingdoms aspect and their motives for fighting already reminds me of a better executed version of Hoshido and Nohr. All the dialogue being voiced, even the incidental battle messages, is quite nice as is the fact that a number of the voice actors are ones that I don't recognize right away. My only serious complaint so far is that the battle UI isn't quite as intuitive as the one in the previous two games, but maybe that'll change once I play the game at a time other than late at night.
Also, bad level ups, bad level ups everywhere. I take it from some of the talk on this page that there's not much of a point in holding off on promoting the Villagers this time around?
I was thinking that as well. It's nice they point out Zofia is full of a lot of lazy people and it's nobles are corrupt instead of the Totally Not Racially Biased Mary Sue-Topia that was Hoshido.
The release of Echoes has prompted me to finally work my way through Awakening. I'm on chapter 9 or 10, where
! a certain Exalt willing fell to her death.
Looking back on the series, I think I sorta had an anxiety issue when it came to Fire Emblem. When FE7 came to the states, I got the game guide as well, and reading the guide showed me all the possible characters you could recruit, or rather, all the characters I would've missed, had I not had the guide with me (I was 12-13, so not the brightest kid anyway). Still, I wanted to recruit 'em all, and it bothered me that you can't possibly recruit everybody (since there's a few unique scenarios, like one chapter changes depending on your lords' levels, and I think each map had a different character you could recruit). So growing up, I had a hard time going through a Fire Emblem game stress-free unless I had a guide (lasted until Path of Radiance).
Also kinda hilarious as at the time, I had no idea that FE7 was a prequel. So when I saw that ominous epilogue with King Zephiel, I was hyped for the "next game". Then Sacred Stones came out, and I was confused why Zephiel was never even mentioned.
Anyway, I've dropped the whole guide dependency, but do you guys think there's any general advice I should be aware of, going forward? (I'm gonna be playing it in the meantime, not waiting on your word or anything).
…I still have my copy of Radiant Dawn in its shrink wrap.
@Mr.:
The release of Echoes has prompted me to finally work my way through Awakening. I'm on chapter 9 or 10, where
! a certain Exalt willing fell to her death.
Looking back on the series, I think I sorta had an anxiety issue when it came to Fire Emblem. When FE7 came to the states, I got the game guide as well, and reading the guide showed me all the possible characters you could recruit, or rather, all the characters I would've missed, had I not had the guide with me (I was 12-13, so not the brightest kid anyway). Still, I wanted to recruit 'em all, and it bothered me that you can't possibly recruit everybody (since there's a few unique scenarios, like one chapter changes depending on your lords' levels, and I think each map had a different character you could recruit). So growing up, I had a hard time going through a Fire Emblem game stress-free unless I had a guide (lasted until Path of Radiance).
Also kinda hilarious as at the time, I had no idea that FE7 was a prequel. So when I saw that ominous epilogue with King Zephiel, I was hyped for the "next game". Then Sacred Stones came out, and I was confused why Zephiel was never even mentioned.
Anyway, I've dropped the whole guide dependency, but do you guys think there's any general advice I should be aware of, going forward? (I'm gonna be playing it in the meantime, not waiting on your word or anything).
…I still have my copy of Radiant Dawn in its shrink wrap.
There's nothing you can really miss per se, outside of non-essential items here and there. All the recruits should be pretty obvious.
The one thing that I would give you a heads-up for is Chrom's shotgun marriage at the end of Chapter 11. He'll usually just pair up with whoever he's got the highest support with, so keep that in mind.
This game will make you fell like an asshole if you do an iron man run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–76tTcsyOU
The one thing that I would give you a heads-up for is Chrom's shotgun marriage at the end of Chapter 11. He'll usually just pair up with whoever he's got the highest support with, so keep that in mind.
Ah darn, read up a bit and it sounds like pairing Chrom with Olivia would be nice, however she's introduced in that chapter… Chrom's highest support so far is a C with another lady, is it even possible to raise the support between Chrom and Olivia high enough in a single chapter?
FEHeroes: was bummed because they did the ninian and then the azura banners and I still don't have my blue dancer and I expended all orbs on the former, buuut I forgot I have the shadow of valentia maps still undone.
I'm a few hours into the game and am impressed that the voice acting hasn't disappeared yet. It's been really consistent so far. Only a dozen or so sentences haven't been voiced so far.
@S.C.:
I was thinking that as well. It's nice they point out Zofia is full of a lot of lazy people and it's nobles are corrupt instead of the Totally Not Racially Biased Mary Sue-Topia that was Hoshido.
Agreed. Even a small flaw is still a flaw. @Mr.:
Ah darn, read up a bit and it sounds like pairing Chrom with Olivia would be nice, however she's introduced in that chapter… Chrom's highest support so far is a C with another lady, is it even possible to raise the support between Chrom and Olivia high enough in a single chapter?
You can't get a C support within the chapter itself, so that lady will win the Chrombowl. It IS possible to have Olivia pair up with Chrom because dancing repeatedly gives plenty of heart points, but to make it happen you'll need to keep every other female away (except Lissa) before then.
I wrapped up Act 1 earlier today. The final map outside the castle got a little hairy because I was a genius tactician and sent everyone up the middle turning things into Bottleneck City and it didn't help that aside from those who had vegetables to eat Silque was my only healer since I had made Faye a Mage rather than a Cleric. She and Kliff have been the stand-out units so far as a Mage and an Archer respectively, and Gray has been pretty solid so far as a Mercenary. Tobin's one too, but I probably goofed on that one since he's been pretty garbo in that role.
I'm still getting used to the idiosyncracies of this game, like skills being tied to weapons. In the Zofia Castle map I kept making sure that Clair gave the archers a wide berth as usual, only to realize towards the end that they actually don't murder fliers by default in this game. Magic costing HP hasn't been much of an issue so far since Clerics come with Nosferatu built-in, which really helps give them longevity.
Act 3 is almost done.
! Alm's Side After dealing with annoying map spawns, I finally got to the one where you finish Desaix off and rescue Mathilda. I liked the idea - you have to rush before the archer/terrors chip her HP down, and now you can't just use infinite range warp to kill the archanist. I tanked the point with Lukas but Desaix himself is VERY strong; Tobin and Alm almost died chipping him down with magic and the lightning sword.
Meanwhile I'm beginning to get anxious whenever I see a witch, the AI is not smart enough to autowarp and kill the best target, but you never know WHERE they're going to warp too.
! Effectivelly Pytheon and Forsyth are benched because their speed is too low and they can't take much punishment.. Also Gray is speed screwed, yaaaay.
! Made it to the next shrine where the difficulty ramps up with Gargoyles and Bonewalkers, each of which take a LOT of chip damage. But I managed to promote Tobin, Kliff, Clive, and Slique - but still have to try to promote the pegasi and Luthier.
! Next map, with the bow knight? Fuck that one, because the multiple 3+ range attackers make it very hard to approach and usually they gangbang the same target (Luthier). I managed to warp Lukas up to choke the bridge so I finally pick them up, one by one. And of course, there are witches.
! Up to the final map - rescuing Delthea. It looks like a nightmare considering all of the magic users and the boss's….D-Death spell. Should I grind the pegasi and Luthier to promotion or tough it out?
! Story wise, Berkut is going to have a rematch soon.....gulp.
! Celica's Side After more map spawn bullshit and re-recruiting Atlas, I took on the desert. The first map is annoying but not hateable, considering Celica/Mae/Boey/Leon had 3 range to counter the archers. Valiber continues to be an awesome tank.
! The second one has you pick - Deen or Sonya, and you must fight the opposite. I picked the Deen map, he looked intimatiding since the Brave Sword has no weight, but magic chumped him pretty hard.
! The THIRD one - Grieth's fortress - looked rough so I rushed back to promote Boey, Mae, Genny, Valibar, and Atlas in the north shrine. The map does NOT play around - there are 3 range arcanists and of course, witches. You really have to use range effectively to pick off the dangerous units. To counter the bonewalker respawns, Genny's Invoke proved to be a good distraction AND a nice wall. Garieth actually died to a Valibar crit, lol. After that it was a very, very tedious task to kill the summoners. Sonya get, and I even got Est too! ….even though NPC Catria died on a previous map and I couldn't get the sisters at the harbor. She's only level 3, and not worth the task to grind up, rip.
! The fourth map can eat a dick.
! Mila's Temple is HARD, because the map summons gargoyles nonstop at you. They're not super threatening and Seraphim obliterates them, but i don't appreciate the wrap around ranges. Plus you NEED to kill both the Steel Bow sniper and Mire user before advancing, and that is NOT possible if you're in both of their ranges. (Leon saved the day with 5 range). Bait one of them out first with Invoke. Also popped Genny/Sonya support.
! THEN you have to bait out Mire users and steel bow snipers AGAIN, one by one.....while dealing with nonstop gargoyle bullshit. There's a line, and it is crossed. Thankfully the boss will prioritize summoning, but he is very tough to beat, given that his magic hits like a truck and he won't move off the supply tile. I got lucky with a Leon crit, then Sonya critted his face to end the misery. She just needs two levels to promote.
! After that, it's a trip to the Mila Temple to promote Saber to Dread Fighter and Leon to Bow Knight, because you know, they weren't carrying the team enough already. Celica also promotes here, as her hertiage is finally revealed in full + we see what happened to Mila. Rudolf you Garon/Walmart-looking bastard, we've got your number.
! So I assume act 3 will end when I clear Alm's sluice map. Really loving the characters and story presentation. You get snippets by talking to people, it's not required but it makes everything feel organic. Only two countries means the world is more compact with lore.
A preview of the Over-Classes coming tomorrow:
The Elephant's (Why is it called that, BTW?) bow looks pretty darn cool.
Welp, decided to grind up the difference for Clair, Faye, Sonya, and Luthier's promotions before heading to begin act IV. I suppose I'll make Delthea a priestess as well.
While everybody else is on Echoes, I'm taking the opportunity to replay FE7, since it's been like a decade.
and MAN, I'm struck by just how much STUFF is going on in each map. It's not just one single gimmick, there's multiple objectives and wrenches thrown in. Chapter 19 stands out in particular - it's essentially an indoors map, which means the usual doors+chests+breakable walls shenanigans. Plus there's a thief trying to steal them before you, but you can recruit him. Then the OTHER thief comes in, and you need to steal HIS member card, and then go to BOTH the secret shops. Plus three sets of repeating reinforcements, from totally different sides of the map. Oh, and you need to defend Merlinius, too. I ended up letting Renault steal as much as he wanted, then recruited him afterwards so he did my work for me, before boxing in the other thief and robbing him blind. While, you know, dealing with the other enemies, including the mini-boss Paladin who rushes you from the start.
And it felt like I could've played the map with different overall strategies, too! I think I'm really starting to see where the criticism of Awakening's map design comes from - with that game, I was more engaged in the "strategy" of raising my units in the way I wanted, and didn't really mind the relative lack of strategy in the battles. Not sure I could overlook that in a replay, though…
Now, I've heard people (on other sites) complain about the boring maps in Echoes, but what do y'all think? How does it compare to other FE games?
While everybody else is on Echoes, I'm taking the opportunity to replay FE7, since it's been like a decade.
and MAN, I'm struck by just how much STUFF is going on in each map. It's not just one single gimmick, there's multiple objectives and wrenches thrown in. Chapter 19 stands out in particular - it's essentially an indoors map, which means the usual doors+chests+breakable walls shenanigans. Plus there's a thief trying to steal them before you, but you can recruit him. Then the OTHER thief comes in, and you need to steal HIS member card, and then go to BOTH the secret shops. Plus three sets of repeating reinforcements, from totally different sides of the map. Oh, and you need to defend Merlinius, too. I ended up letting Renault steal as much as he wanted, then recruited him afterwards so he did my work for me, before boxing in the other thief and robbing him blind. While, you know, dealing with the other enemies, including the mini-boss Paladin who rushes you from the start.
And it felt like I could've played the map with different overall strategies, too! I think I'm really starting to see where the criticism of Awakening's map design comes from - with that game, I was more engaged in the "strategy" of raising my units in the way I wanted, and didn't really mind the relative lack of strategy in the battles. Not sure I could overlook that in a replay, though…
Now, I've heard people (on other sites) complain about the boring maps in Echoes, but what do y'all think? How does it compare to other FE games?
Echoes maps are basically this but much prettier
They are some decent ones by Gaiden standards and others that are really really bad like I'm talking about the worst maps in the series because they didn't improve then and decided to be 95% faithfull to the original game maps.
Plus there's a thief trying to steal them before you, but you can recruit him.
omg someone is talking about him
Then the OTHER thief comes in, and you need to steal HIS member card, and then go to BOTH the secret shops.
yes adore him. the one thief to rule them all! SAY HIS NAME!!!
I ended up letting Renault steal as much as he wanted,
…
While everybody else is on Echoes, I'm taking the opportunity to replay FE7, since it's been like a decade.
and MAN, I'm struck by just how much STUFF is going on in each map. It's not just one single gimmick, there's multiple objectives and wrenches thrown in. Chapter 19 stands out in particular - it's essentially an indoors map, which means the usual doors+chests+breakable walls shenanigans. Plus there's a thief trying to steal them before you, but you can recruit him. Then the OTHER thief comes in, and you need to steal HIS member card, and then go to BOTH the secret shops. Plus three sets of repeating reinforcements, from totally different sides of the map. Oh, and you need to defend Merlinius, too. I ended up letting Renault steal as much as he wanted, then recruited him afterwards so he did my work for me, before boxing in the other thief and robbing him blind. While, you know, dealing with the other enemies, including the mini-boss Paladin who rushes you from the start.
And it felt like I could've played the map with different overall strategies, too! I think I'm really starting to see where the criticism of Awakening's map design comes from - with that game, I was more engaged in the "strategy" of raising my units in the way I wanted, and didn't really mind the relative lack of strategy in the battles. Not sure I could overlook that in a replay, though…
I'm very much one of these people. The GBA games in particular did a good job of providing optional objectives that require multitasking and splitting your army up, and that's something that's a lot less common with the advent of pairing up. Conquest and occasionally Awakening sometimes have these challenges, but they still typically make poorer use of space than their predecessors.
FE7 actually feels more rewarding to me when it comes to unit growth than Awakening/Fates, just by sheer fact that due to having to commit to units you grow attachment to them, and their overall growth across the game matters.
With Awakening/Fates, first there's the fact I could conceivably grind everyone up to speed with DLC or specific maps, and then everyone is strong but it doesn't mean as much. And then there's the whole second generation breeding shenanigans which to me completely kills the value and impact of the journey of original characters you meet along the way, particularly since most of the second generation units are met in side chapters with little to no consequence or impact to the story.
Honestly they fucked up by not making Awakening a proper multigenerational story
Have Chrom get set on fire by Walhart and have the kids take over from there with older versions of a few characters like Fred or Lissa
Have Morgan take over as the avatar and you have something to go with
More Act IV.
! Karmic justice to take down Berkut once again, although his map isn't easy - you can tank the armored knights and paladins but the three Mire users kept putting me in a corner, since Alm's team sucks when it comes to magic users (Sniper Gray is extremely speed screwed). I got lucky and Lukas dodged enough hits, and after that, tanking Berkut+Fernand then dogpiling them both was simple. For a fitting end, Clive defeated Fernand and Alm beat Berkut.
Although he'll be back….
! Celica's side starts with a very daunting swamp map where once again, you HAVE to use Invoke to slow down the summons and beat out the sniper+mires. Enemy Dread Fighters hurt, but Valibar shuts them down.
Jedah swoops in and offers to free Mila for Celica's soul, he's just oozing with evil and is obviously full of it, but our princess really doesn't have too many options. Next map was a simple necrodragon route.
! Next one......has a cantor that summons them. Fuck.
Honestly they fucked up by not making Awakening a proper multigenerational story
Have Chrom get set on fire by Walhart and have the kids take over from there with older versions of a few characters like Fred or Lissa
Have Morgan take over as the avatar and you have something to go with
That sounds pretty swell, although IntSys has a fetish for igniting blue-haired people…
With Awakening/Fates, first there's the fact I could conceivably grind everyone up to speed with DLC or specific maps, and then everyone is strong but it doesn't mean as much.
I get what you mean, although you always pegged me as someone that hates to grind under any circumstance.
Honestly they fucked up by not making Awakening a proper multigenerational story
Have Chrom get set on fire by Walhart and have the kids take over from there with older versions of a few characters like Fred or Lissa
Have Morgan take over as the avatar and you have something to go with
Sounda too similar to Genealogy Of The Holy War…..which they can still remake for us at some point.
Interquel starring Owain who is suddenly a shitty unit, recruits a bunch of random people who vanish after the game (also Marty), the maps are obnoxious, stats cap at 20, and you find Virion who lost his memories and is now a Swordmaster for some reason.