Author Topic: Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia - Echos - The Fire Emblem we waited for!  (Read 22191 times)

Hello Purvis

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  • Hello Jerry
I hear SoV's strong point is basically in its story rather than its gameplay. Given that apparently it's the #1 selling 3DS game in the west, that really says a lot.



Eeeeehhhhhhhh....yeah kinda? The problem is, a lot of its characters aren't all that strong? And there's a whole lot of superfluous battles that don't mean anything? Like, in fates and awakening, most of the battles have at least some story to them or around them? In SoV, lots of them are just random encounters. So while the story is a strong point, it's also stretched out like hell? Some characters do get good, but it takes awhile? Also it's really hurt by the fact that no one has more than a couple supports, so any one dude is going to ignore 90% of everyone else?

All in all, there's no question it's a step behind Awakening and Fates in that regard, but it's not godawful. Just a let down.

BT

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Eeeeehhhhhhhh....yeah kinda? The problem is, a lot of its characters aren't all that strong? And there's a whole lot of superfluous battles that don't mean anything? Like, in fates and awakening, most of the battles have at least some story to them or around them? In SoV, lots of them are just random encounters. So while the story is a strong point, it's also stretched out like hell? Some characters do get good, but it takes awhile? Also it's really hurt by the fact that no one has more than a couple supports, so any one dude is going to ignore 90% of everyone else?

All in all, there's no question it's a step behind Awakening and Fates in that regard, but it's not godawful. Just a let down.
Naw, the maps are duller compared to Fates but that's because they're old-school and strive to actually kinda be coherent with the overworld, instead of making up some gimmicky bottomless pit or endless staircase shebang. As for the other thing, there aren't a lot of supports, and most of them are kinda uneventful, because the original game didn't have supports at all, so, hey, I understand. At least the core story gives some character to a bunch of the mains on its own. (childhood friends / deliverance guys / saber / etc.)

commandercool

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Naw, the maps are duller compared to Fates but that's because they're old-school and strive to actually kinda be coherent with the overworld, instead of making up some gimmicky bottomless pit or endless staircase shebang.

I don't know if I'd say it's BECAUSE of that... And mundane maps are one thing, but that doesn't really justify the abysmally bad stage designs. You could still do interesting things with enemy placement, AI or special scenarios on a flat, simple map. Echoes has just chosen not to.

In fact, the simple maps should have fixed the lack of variety too, but they didn't. Seems like if your maps aren't complex then producing a whole bunch of similar, but not identical, ones for random encounters SHOULD have been easy and intuitive.

The wasted potential in this game hurts me. There is plenty of great stuff in it, but it's miles and miles from being a great game and that's really too bad.
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BT

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I don't know if I'd say it's BECAUSE of that... And mundane maps are one thing, but that doesn't really justify the abysmally bad stage designs. You could still do interesting things with enemy placement, AI or special scenarios on a flat, simple map. Echoes has just chosen not to.

In fact, the simple maps should have fixed the lack of variety too, but they didn't. Seems like if your maps aren't complex then producing a whole bunch of similar, but not identical, ones for random encounters SHOULD have been easy and intuitive.

The wasted potential in this game hurts me. There is plenty of great stuff in it, but it's miles and miles from being a great game and that's really too bad.
I won't argue about the gameplay package. It is a shame that the remake stayed so faithful to the Gaidenbook instead of fleshing out all the novel stuff it introduced, but that's just how it is, I guess. Here's hoping the next mainline game does that instead, maybe reintroducing the rescue mechanic while we're being hopeful here.

commandercool

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I don't think we'll be seeing rescue in a non-remake title any time soon since it's redundant with pairing up, which seems like it's here to stay. Or at least I hope it is, since it's got a ton of strategic depth in Fates.

The Fates version of pairing up is arguably needlessly complex and unintuitive depending on who you ask though, so I guess maybe rescue could be considered a simplified version. One of the most important design things Fates does is enabling enemies to pair up rather than reserving it for players only, and I guess it might be interesting to see enemies that can use rescue. Or, more likely, paired enemies that are able to separate more freely.
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Hello Purvis

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  • Hello Jerry
Pairing up was the best shit.

Also CommandantChill has beaten me to it. I mentioned Fates AND Awakening for a reason. Awakening had some fairly mundane maps, and they were still made fly as hell. And they all pretty much had a shitton of story and plot importance to them. Fates had more some more exotic locals, but some good mundane ones too.  SoV just has "Here's some dudes. They're here. They got no character whatsoever. Go murder 'em. All of 'em." for like...what, 60% of its things?

Also, "They just added supports because they weren't even in Gaiden" is some weak reasoning for taking multiple steps back from the games preceding it in terms of quality and quantity. There's no reason why everyone couldn't have a shitton of supports like in the previous games, and it would have done a LOT to flesh out SoV's characters. Hell, Genny doesn't even HAVE supports if you got Deen. What's up with that?

MewMewHeart

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Pairing up was the best shit.

Also CommandantChill has beaten me to it. I mentioned Fates AND Awakening for a reason. Awakening had some fairly mundane maps, and they were still made fly as hell. And they all pretty much had a shitton of story and plot importance to them. Fates had more some more exotic locals, but some good mundane ones too.  SoV just has "Here's some dudes. They're here. They got no character whatsoever. Go murder 'em. All of 'em." for like...what, 60% of its things?

Also, "They just added supports because they weren't even in Gaiden" is some weak reasoning for taking multiple steps back from the games preceding it in terms of quality and quantity. There's no reason why everyone couldn't have a shitton of supports like in the previous games, and it would have done a LOT to flesh out SoV's characters. Hell, Genny doesn't even HAVE supports if you got Deen. What's up with that?
I loved the supports on the older Fire Emblem titles I mean it allows me to get what each character is like around a certain person... on top of that the maps from Fates (I need a little boost to get started on Awakening) were gorgeous... while SoV's were like so bland.... too much space.... nothing going on.... like just so many unwanted gimmicks too. The pair ups were awesome too Fates especially seeing the boss pair up with some cronies be like "Oh shit gotta fight fire with fire!" like bruh I get it you wanted to please the elitests but please think of what can you do to balance both like learn to put a little twist on things.

(Remake of Sacred Stones please?)
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Hello Purvis

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  • Hello Jerry
Like, lots of space can be fine, if you do cool things with it?

You also know what I missed? Being able to unequip people to make them high priority targets to the enemy. That's always fun.

commandercool

  • alter cool
I actually kind of love the Echoes inventory mechanics. They're arguably silly and confusing but I think they make for theoretically really interesting choices. Plus the way the cursed items work is super cute design.
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BT

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I'd just like to say that you're totally right, and I'm just sort of still jaded from some of the stuff in Fates.

Man, though, you just made me think about how the rescue mechanic would work if the AI actually utilized it to its advantage. Must be some tough AI to code. Like, imagine if along with attacking and retreating, an enemy unit also has to calc whether it should rescue another unit? Damn.

Hello Purvis

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  • Hello Jerry
I actually kind of love the Echoes inventory mechanics. They're arguably silly and confusing but I think they make for theoretically really interesting choices. Plus the way the cursed items work is super cute design.

You know, I'm 100% with you there. I also liked the forging, even if Gold Marks are a pain in the motherfuck.

commandercool

  • alter cool
I'd just like to say that you're totally right, and I'm just sort of still jaded from some of the stuff in Fates.

Man, though, you just made me think about how the rescue mechanic would work if the AI actually utilized it to its advantage. Must be some tough AI to code. Like, imagine if along with attacking and retreating, an enemy unit also has to calc whether it should rescue another unit? Damn.

I love Fates (which is to say I love Conquest) but I don't blame anyone for being jaded by it. It's deeply flawed even if it is the best game in the franchise in my opinion.

Yeah I don't know if the AI could handle it, but guess they could at least pre-program the enemy AI to pick up and drop off under certain specific, scripted circumstances.


You know, I'm 100% with you there. I also liked the forging, even if Gold Marks are a pain in the motherfuck.

I'm not generally pro-forging because it encourages all-eggs-in-a-few-baskets minmaxing which I think is a boring way to play Fire Emblem and therefore shouldn't be encouraged. But it does feel very clean and intuitive in Echoes which is nice. Encouraging grinding is a sin, but the underlying mechanic is pretty solid.
I made a PADHerder. It's probably out of date though.