#awakening and echoes are my two most favourite 3ds games hands down

[andromedasummer]

the fire emblem franchise makes it so hard for me to convince people fire emblem games are good and worth playing. i promise. i promise theres good ones. theres so many good ones. please ignore the toothpaste person. please ignore the babyrealms. please.

[calamitaswrath]

please go in depth on your thoughts of Echoes I care a lot

Alright then, I’m gonna put this under a cut, because spoilers and because it’s probably gonna get quite lengthy:

Okay, so first off, in general: This is probably hands down my favourite 3DS Fire Emblem game, if not favourite Fire Emblem game period. It easily blows Awakening and Fates out of the water, and beyond those, only Blazing Sword and The Sacred Stones come close - though not close enough.

As for some specifics:

Gameplay

So to start with probably my biggest gripe about gameplay, it’s that map design and enemy teams really do kinda show the age of the original, considering how many maps have just big open spaces that you don’t really use and that don’t really have any enemies in them. As for enemy teams, there really were just a few too many “all enemies on this map are of the same class” fights, but even those managed to be kind of interesting since they made me think about how best to approach enemies of that particular class.Now aside from that, I’m honestly rather fond about how simple the core Fire Emblem gameplay is in comparison to Awakening and Fates? In Awakening it was honestly just a matter of putting together strong married units and watch them tear enemy after enemy apart, with some Lunatic mode enemies with skils throwing the only real curveballs. As for Fates, only Conquest was really different from Awakening, and even there it was admittedly a bit of a bother at times that you had to keep track of what enemy had which skill and how they could be dangerous if you forgot about them for just one moment. In SoV it sticks closer to how the GBA games played and you actually have to take advantage of terrain and your positioning, and I honestly kinda prefer that.The dungeon crawling meanwhile was surprisingly fun, though I still have some gripes with them. In terms of design, most of the dungeons are honestly a bit too simple for my taste, and don’t really offer enough other than crates/pots to smash, enemies to either avoid or fight, and the odd treasure chest/stat-boosting spring. I also didn’t really like how the fatigue system played out with dungeons, because I generally prefered making offerings to Mila statues to cure that. . . but seeing as those were generally either at the very end or the very end of a dungeon, that wasn’t really an option. Still, I feel that if they refined the dungeon gameplay in a future title, I wouldn’t mind seeing it return.Other than that. . . oh yeah, the class system was also kinda nice? I actually really don’t mind that beyond chosing what class to chose for your villagers you don’t really have branching promotions or reclassing, since it means less things for me to worry about and consider (and I’m aware of the class looping thing but I didn’t try it yet). What does kinda bother me is that some classes really can’t move very far - like, having the final knight class or Celica’s promotion being only able to move four spaces is really annoying. Alm’s five isn’t that much better, either. And of course it’s rather stupid that they put these overclasses behind DLC, but since third-tier classes are already so strong, I don’t really care that much.Mila’s Turnwheel was also an addition that I really, really enjoyed - I generally always play on classic mode, so having an option to redo specific actions instead of soft-resetting an entire fight was just a huge time-saver. I think most of the time I didn’t even use it to bring someone back from the day, and instead used it to manipulate the RNG and guarantee that a unit actually gets a kill that they otherwise would’ve missed. So all in all I really hope that they bring this feature back in some capacity in future titles, just because it’s such a convenience. And let’s face it, even most hardcore classic mode elitists still reset when they lose a unit, so this thing is just a time saver on all accounts.Town explorations was also a nice touch, and honestly really helped make everything feel more alive.And that’s all I got on gameplay so let’s move on to

Characters and Story

Now this is where SoV really blows Awakening and Fates out of the water, if you ask me. I won’t deny that those two games have (for the most part) good playable characters in terms of personality and everything, but everything beyond that, from villains to the actual story and worldbuilding just falls apart very quickly. In regards to characters, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this game has the best cast in all of FE, but it’s definitely really strong, and the quality voice acting really helps this - as does having an actual believable set of protagonists and antagonists, for that matter.To go a bit more into detail: In both Awakening and Fates, the only protagonist I really enjoyed was Lucina, and she honestly got the shaft as far as focus from the plot goes. As for everyone else - Chrom gets some hint of what could be nice character development for about the first six chapters, and then pretty much remains static for the entire rest of the game, without any real depth to him. Robin meanwhile doesn’t even get a hint of anything of that sort, with the only real saving grace there being that you can project on to them, ‘cause y’know, player character. Fates meanwhile just only really had Corrin has protagonist (I know the game kinda pretends Azura is also one, but it really fails to portray her as one), and they’re quite frankly a total mess. Alm and Celica on the other hand - they still have their problems (like their romance being kinda awkward, Celica believing Jedah so easily or Alm being so slow to pick up on him obviously being royalty, and both of them showing sympathy for some characters who don’t really deserve any), but unlike all other 3DS era protagonists (except for maybe Lucina) those don’t outweigh how well they’re all handled otherwise. They’re properly motivated, have their good moments, and play off the other characters well enough. One last major gripe I still have with them is how Alm clearly gets more focus and better portrayal in contrast to Celica (just look at the game’s Japanese title).As for antagonists. . . well, pretty much every Awakening/Fates can be described as follows: They’re kinda cool. . . but so dumb. Shadily motivated, badly written, and with even more missed potentials than the protagonists. Gangrel, Walhart, Validar, Grima, Garon, Iago, Anankos - there could’ve been so much done with them, and yet they ended up as one dimensional character that are evil just because. Now, in SoV. . . well, I’d say the villains are probably still the weakest point of the cast, but they’re still leagues better than the ones in Awakening and Fates. Rudolf is kinda good in theory, but my big problem with him is that you barely see him. Other than that, his methods are kinda ehh, and could’ve done with a better justification.Jedah overall works well enough, though like I said before, it’s rather annoying how easily Celica believes him. Aside from that, it’s also a bit annyoing that actually taking him out is optional, and even discouraged (or at least made extra hard) by the game from a gameplay perspective.Berkut is admittedly ultimately just an entitled brat, but I think as a villain he works well enough.Fernand is also a good enough villain, but I think they kinda forgot to, y’know, justify why Clive and the others were friends with him to begin with. Even in the memory that shows him in the past, he really just comes off as an ass.Villains aside, the rest of the cast is honestly pretty good in my eyes. Though to get the elephant in the room out of the way. . . Faye. I don’t hate her - she’s honestly nowhere near Tharja levels of bad, but dear god that girl needs to get some hobbies. It really just comes off as the writers not spending more than five minutes when coming up with her character, which is honestly a shame because I really like her design. Anyway, for the rest of the cast, some of my favourites include Mathilda, Gray, Tobin, Saber, Genny, Est, Mae, Boey and Conrad. For ships, I got nothing - I’ve never been much of a shipper, and this game ain’t changing that.Now, the story as a whole is just fine, which is still more than what can say about Awakening’s and Fates’ story. Both of those games I feel were just way too ambitious with their stories. SoV in contrast is a lot more simple with its story, which works just way better. The worldbuilding done by both being able to explore places and investigate them as well as the memory function certainly helps. I know that the story additions this game adds as a remake stand at odds with some of the lore established in Marth’s games, but honestly. . . I don’t care. From what I saw in FE11, Marth’s games didn’t exactly have the deepest plot in the world to begin with, so it’s not really that big of a deal with me when there’s some inconsistencies between those games (original or remake) and this game. That said, I also really hope that this memory thing also comes back in future games.

And I think that’s everything that I can say about SoV right now? At least I can’t think of anything else. I already mentioned before that I really love this game’s soundtrack, so I don’t think that there’s anything else left to mention - and if there is, then it’s probably not important.

[notajinn]

Video Games of 2017 - My Ranking

8. Fire Emblem Heroes

I've spoken much here about how much I love Fire Emblem, and my general disappointment with the direction that Awakening and Fates have been taking the series. So I was both excited and cautious when Nintendo announced a Fire Emblem presentation for February.

The core game they focused on during that presentation was Fire Emblem Heroes, their mobile game. At the time I was pretty neutral on it, and more interested in the other games they announced. Over time, I would come to put more hours into this than Fire Emblem Echoes, and would not even buy Fire Emblem Warriors (something I have spoken about at length on this blog). But despite all that time, Heroes was a mixed experience. It uses a version of the traditional battle system that is both simplified (no dodging, no criticals, no weapon durability, smaller maps) but also has its own unique strategy in the less random nature of battles, and the range of skills.

Where It Excels

By far the best part of Heroes is the  characters. We get to see characters from across the series with new art, with voice acting (in most cases for the first time ever) and with at least some new dialogue. This game is all about playing with your favourite characters. I was lucky enough that my favourite, Matthew of Blazing Sword, was one of the default characters available. The majority of these characters were adapted very well (albeit very simplified in their tropes due to the limited dialogue) and can invoke nostalgia no matter which game you started with.

Though the skill inheritance system, we can also make the weaker characters (like Matthew) significantly more useful by grabbing the right skills. This also works into the Pokemon mentality in letting you create your own movesets and strategies for your team since you have so many choices.My version of Matthew is pictured above.

The game has regularly been adding addition things to help strengthen characters such as Seals (universal skills you can easily equip and un-equip), and weapon forging.

We get a decent handful of free characters between modes like Tempest Trials and Grand Hero Battles, and also get one free summon per banner so we can get more random heroes in our team. In general, the developers have been wonderful over the year in listening to player feedback and implementing changes. They even streamlined things that were problematic the first time, such as the difficulty of the first Tempest Trials.

The variety of modes also helps give you more to do than something like Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. Even if there isn't a new mode to do, it's fun to train your characters and inherit skills onto them.

Some of the art is also spectacular, and all the map music is from whichever game they are representing at the time. For the first six or so months of this game, everything was wonderful.

The gameplay itself as I mentioned is much more calculated, which is fun once you release yourself from an older Fire Emblem mentality. You can actually plan ahead without having to worry about random criticals or misses. And while the maps are small, they tend to have enough variety to make for different strategies.

Where It Fell Short

Heroes is peculiar in that there is a clear time indication where the game became problematic. As I mentioned, the game mostly continued to improve up until around fall. There were definitely problems visible in new units being clearly superior to old ones, and the seasonal banners with limited characters (not to mention almost exclusively 3DS characters), but they didn't feel as large.

But it seemed like the improvements slowed down while the problems kept coming. More and more we found ourselves getting new rare units added that were objectively superior to old ones, and incredibly difficult to get. One particular notable case is of a character named Ayra. For those who don't know, let me quickly explain the monetization aspect of the game.

We get items called Orbs which we spend to summon a new hero. There are different banners which each have slightly higher  chances of getting certain characters. Each character falls into one of four colours (Red, Green, Blue, Colourless), and when you summon you are randomly giving five coloured orbs to pull from. You'll only pull red characters from red orbs, for example. During a banner, if two focus characters are red, it's harder to aim for one over the other. Also as you continue to summon on a banner and fail to get at 5-Star character, your rate for getting one will slightly increase until you succeed.

Really this is the fatal flaw of the game; you need to play a Gacha system to get characters. Will this make them money? Hell yes; this game blew Super Mario Run out of the water in profits. You know who did this much better for the players? Final Fantasy Record Keeper. I called it one of my top games a few years back, and outside of having gotten a little boring it’s still great. By far the biggest benefit is that, in a game where you want to collect characters across multiple games in the series, you don’t have to play a Gacha system. You get characters from events which aren’t too difficult, and since they change throughout the year you still have an incentive to check in regularly. You still have a Gacha system in the form of equipment, and it’s just as important to higher level stuff, but at least you know you can get the characters you want so long as you are around in time, random number generator be damned.

Getting to Ayra, who was not only significantly better than other characters of her type, but also added onto a banner separate from the main banner she could have been on which featured characters from the same game she was in. This means we couldn't get the added multiplier when trying to summon her. A bigger problem is that a second red character who had been in the game for some time was on the same banner, so many people (like me), got him instead of Ayra. Finally there is the fact that Ayra is the only character who was added without an announcement, meaning the developers were likely trying to sneak past the dubious way she was being included.

From here is where the fanbase, myself included, started to notice the problems with the game more clearly. We continued to get seasonal banners with broken, 3DS only characters. We continued to see these 5-Star characters not be demoted to lower ranks (unlike 5-Star characters added during the first few months of the game, who would often be demoted). We stopped getting unique Grand Hero Battles and instead go repeats (except for the two really good characters, who never got repeats).

And even with skill inheritance and weapon refinement, the older characters just couldn't compare to the newer ones. More than ever, it became about spending orbs/money to get those rare characters if you really wanted a chance in the pseudo PvP mode, which is the main endgame mode people play.

Moving past those issues, there were some problems from the start. Some characters got the short end of the stick when being adapted. Raven, a sword-toting mercenary from Blazing Sword, was added as an axe-user. The Light-Magic wielding monk Lucius from the same game was added as a healer.

And a character named Lachesis from one of the Japanese games is able to use a huge variety of weapons and is a female warrior, but was added as a healer and give extra cute artwork that misrepresents her.Compare this from Heroes:

To this, based on her Genealogy of the Holy War design:

Dagger users, like my boy Matthew, are also very underpowered do to their style of gameplay (buffing and debuffing) being too risky compared to something traditional when you only have a 4-character party.

Meanwhile certain setups, like a team of cavalry units with all the easily obtainable “Horse Buffs”, are extremely overpowered. The equivalent Flying and Armor buffs are comparatively much harder to obtain since some skills are locked to 5-Star units.

Have I mentioned how much I hate that all the seasonal banners are only 3DS characters? The exceptions are Bride Caeda/Sheeda) from Shadow Dragon (which is fine) and the abomination that is Blazing Sword's Bride Lyn, which shouldn't exist.How about Christmas Hector?

Final Thoughts

I play this game a lot, and I will likely continue to. I also don't spend money on this game, and I will continue to stay that way. The game is starting to wear off its charm now that I've been able to get and train most of my favourites, and the fact that the last few months of updates have been more negative than positive certainly don't help. I'm glad this game exists, but I think it's likely going to stay at about this quality at best.