#given that I am a very big LoZ fan it is no surprise my favorite FE game mechanic is:

[loregoddess]

5, 8, 28 + a question you'd like to answer for the Echoes Ask Game!

5) What's an aspect of Echoes you feel is underappreciated?

Hmm, I dunno so much if it's "underappreciated" but my favorite, favorite aspect of the game is being able to move around the map and enter towns and crawl through dungeons while still having the core FE-battle mechanics intact, like especially for my second run where I wasn't as concerned about trying to level every single character up and I just picked out my endgame team in my head and used those characters for my dungeon-diving team. I really enjoyed the passive worldbuilding that comes with being able to actually walk around and explore stuff.

Both Zofia and Rigel felt like really fleshed out settings, and I could visually see the differences between the two. Not to mention getting to talk to random NPCs really grounded the game's conflict in a more believable way bc I got to see/hear exactly what the everyday people who were being affected by their gov'ts and the war felt, which gave the entire story a more somber and serious feeling without losing the FE charm of the lighter or goofier moments because the writing strikes a nice balance and knows when to be serious and when to be lighthearted.

It just adds an entirely different layer of environmental storytelling that isn't quite present in other FE games, at least not in the same impactful way.

8) A scene or character moment you really liked?

Hmm, I guess the entire sub-arc with Lutheir and Delthea. Don't get me wrong, I'm as wary of the "FE damsel in distress who sometimes doubles as a brainwashed damsel" as the next person (and I personally really hate brainwashing as a trope outside of FE, like, I just have personal beef with that trope specifically whereas I'm wildly neutral on the damsel in distress trope outside of FE). But like, there's something so human about Alm wanting to help this random village girl bc they happened to run into her brother, and the fact that Clive, despite being pretty okay for a highborn noble, like, cannot wrap his mind around the importance of taking this detour (which isn't a detour, but eh, story writing) for some random girl, it just...I dunno, something about this arc really worked well to show how shortsighted Clive is despite all his good intentions and grand words, and how different a world view Alm as because he grew up as one of those lowborn villagers, and it shows why Alm does and will make a good leader down the line because of his empathy, which is a neat bit of foreshadowing and character building.

Actually, in that same vein, Python's DLC supports with Clive are also like, extremely cathartic bc Python really does break down the flaws with Clive's ideology, which works both the highlight how intelligent and perceptive Python is, as well as how growing up a noble has a deeply ingrained privilege in Clive that he isn't even entirely aware of it. I swear I actually do like Clive, but he is so, so flawed--and because of this, his writing is very believable because of how he acts in the game.

28) Your take on a controversial topic about the game, whichever you prefer.

A-are there controversial topics about Echoes? I mean outside the usual "child soldiers, war sim, sexism, etc." takes? Listen, I have a good portion of the fandom blocked so I can browse the FE tag in peace (which, to be fair, I only started blocking blogs bc of 3H), and I refuse to haunt most fandom spaces outside this website, so I dunno what the petty arguments are about this game. I personally think it's one of the best games that I've played so far, and that it is better than 3H if we're going off the total game experience, but aside from that I don't think I have any hot takes. Even if I did, I know better than to throw rocks at hornet nests.

37) If you could make a big change to it, what would you change?

I would swap Clive and Mathilda narratively in the game. Clive says at one point that the Deliverance was Mathilda's idea (if I recall correctly?), and like, given that Mathilda is implied to be this force to be reckoned with, I think she should fill the narrative role that was given to Clive, and that Clive should just be her trophy fiancé who also got himself captured and imprisoned. It could also work for the narrative w/ Fernand leaving the Deliverance and defecting to Rigel if like, the idea of a woman leading an army for a time was already going against tradition and norms, and so when Mathilda hands the Deliverance over to Alm to lead bc he's a peasant who could unite the army better than she, as a noble, could, it then becomes the last straw for Fernand and he defects.

The only major drawback to this is, of course, the narrative has Alm take lead of the Deliverance, and a lot of fans would be pissy about "a man taking the power from a woman" even though the themes of class are more central to Echoes than are the themes of gender roles. But honestly, if the writing was careful, this switch of power wouldn't be too much of an issue since Alm's "leadership" could be a means of uniting the commoner army members, as well as putting to ease any unrest caused by Mathilda leading bc she was a woman, while Mathilda still maintains her agency as an important character and woman via the role of advisor to Alm since she actually does understand how a military works and can run it effectively, thus still allowing her most of the power but also having her work alongside Alm for a common goal, and further showing that Alm is a kid who's growing into the leader role by learning from good leaders. But fans would probably still be really annoying about it.

Overall I feel like Mathilda fits Clive's narrative role better, and Clive fits her role better. The writing can still have Clive, and even Mathilda, be shortsighted due to their privilege of being born nobles. And like, there are plenty of women characters who should have gotten more narrative importance, but I feel this especially for Mathilda bc she is one of the strongest characters in the game, both in her characterization and her actual game stats.