Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

Playtime: 51.4 Hours

Played through the game on Normal/Casual difficulty which is definitely scrub mode, but the only time where Casual mode made an actual difference was when Luthier got ganked in one map with a ton of snipers. I was too lazy to even turnwheel that temporary death since I don't actually use Luthier for anything so I just let him revive after the map was over. Honestly, with all the tools you have in this game to avoid death, I don't think the Casual option is actually necessary for anyone. I did do some grinding right before the last fights of Act 4 to get maxed weapons - it probably trivialized the end of the game a bit, but I wasn't having any trouble up until that point anyway. I originally wanted to push all the way to the overclasses but the grinding was just far too slow to justify the time commitment, especially since I was already 1-rounding everything.

On Alm's side, I had Tobin and Kliff go double archer because they're incredibly broken as I learned from my previous attempt at a playthrough a few years ago, and so I wouldn't have to use Python who is probably one of the worst units in the game. Faye went cleric because of her great spell pool, but didn't ever get Anew (wouldn't have needed it to be fair), and Gray took the Mercenary line. All the villagers were actually really good - Tobin was spotty in the midgame but became really solid by the end because of Hunter's Volley. Forsyth and Lukas were both very solid (especially with the Dragonshield, which I cheesed off Faux-Desaix in Chapter 1), Mathilda was every bit as ridiculous as I could have expected her to be, and Delthea was essentially a loli-nuke with ~6 range. Alm himself kind of sucked - it's kind of funny that he's the main lord but his entire entourage is far better than he is for most of the game. Alm's party took Shade and Yuzu from the Cipher DLC - both of them were great and very useful.

On Celica's side, I had another 2 archers in Leon and Atlas (which was a very good correction, since I promoted him to a shit merc in my previous playthrough for some reason). They completely wrecked the game - especially Atlas, who has an absurd strength growth. I took Sonya over Deen for the early Brave sword and to avoid fighting witches; that helped me kit Saber and Kamui quickly into becoming the backbone of my army. Palla and Catria were solid utility units, good at picking things off but without the power to really sweep enemy formations. Mae and Sonya were solid, but did fall off in the later parts because of all the mages in this route. Celica herself was great - I had to give her the DLC Boots but she had great strength and defense, and even speed growths. Alm's party took Emma and Randall from the Cipher DLC - Emma was pretty much just another flier, which is still useful, but Randall didn't see much use because of all the movement-restricting terrain in Celica's maps.

This playthrough was actually my second attempt at this game, since the first one crashed and burned around halfway through Act 3 the last time I tried. One thing that can't really be overstated is how different this game is compared to the "traditional" Fire Emblem experience. Not only do you have 2 separate parties to control throughout most of the game, but you also have more RPG-like mechanics in the dungeons that you can explore with respawning enemies (for grinding), quests to do for experience and items, and a proper overworld compared to the series of stages that form the core of other FE games. There are a few other FE games that do have the last bit (namely FE8 and FE13) but the overall experience still feels quite different from this one. I'd say this game feels about as close to a hybrid between FE-style SRPG and a typical JRPG as you can really get.

A very common criticism of this game is that it's a little too faithful to the original, which means that many of the original maps, fights, and other game balancing decisions are similar to Gaiden (FE2). The primary fights are very simplistic in nature, where most maps just have a pile of random enemy units that aren't arranged with any real care or thought to actual tactics. I don't recall there being any reinforcements in the game, even in pretty pivotal battles, so there are no additional considerations - and terrain generally boils down to large empty fields with some forests or trees, and maybe a small fort with a healing point. On the other hand, for the few fights that do have some actual map design, the construction of the map generally tends to be terrible. Several maps like the archer fort requires around 5 turns to even approach the enemy because of the desert, then the single chokepoint on the map forces most of your units to stand around like chumps while 1-2 characters do all of the work. Other maps, like Nuibaba's abode in Alm's Act 4, force you take the long way around with the same result - forcing you to waste 10+ turns moving your units for literally no reason, since there aren't even any real enemy attacks to worry about in that time. Finally, the terrain bonuses in this game are completely out of hand; while forests and mountains give a reasonable (but still incredibly powerful) +20/+40 to evade, somehow standing in some graves gives you +60 evade (!) and just standing around indoors gives you a natural +20 for some ungodly reason. Given that this game already has some pretty horrible hitrates by default, these additional evade bonuses really make the combat feel inconsistent at times.

Continuing on with the "too faithful" point, class balancing and stat scaling is pretty absurd in this game and quite nonsensical in some ways. I'll say that most classes do find a solid niche which really helped make everyone feel useful at times, but some of them are a little too good compared to the others. The poster child for this is probably the Bow Knights, which are probably the best unit in the game - high movement at 8 and +3 bowrange, and the ability to attack at 1 range in this game. With access to the Killer Bow and Hunter's Volley, each of your BKs are delete buttons on most enemy units. Dread Fighters are also fantastic to the point of being almost essential; ignoring the dread-looping tech for infinite stat scaling, the speed and resistance buffs make them top-tier antimages and great frontline damage dealers, and at 7 mov they aren't actually much slower than the mounted classes. It might be worth noting here for the DFs that resistance growths basically don't exist in SoV, so these class abilities are pretty much the only way you can tank some very late-game magic users like Jedah with the Death spell. The scale between these high-mobility, high-damage classes is a critical point in devaluing Alm in your army, who is stuck to a (normally respectable) 5 mov and doesn't end up contributing very much as a result.

Characters and unit growths have seen substantial improvements from the original game, which has the lowest growth rates of any game in the FE franchise. This is one of the only places where they didn't stick to the original at all, which means that your units can actually improve consistently and quickly enough to feel better over the course of the game (instead of praying for a 15% growth). I think general stat spreads have also been rebalanced as well, though I don't know how that actually impacts the game since I have no experience with FE2. I had a very good time with a number of units that I might as well mention here so I don't forget forever. Kliff was an absolute legend for Alm's side, with the most absurd Def growth I think I've ever seen (mid-20s by endgame) and enough Spd to double enemy dread fighters with a maxed Killer Bow (I think he had ~25?); his strength wasn't the absolute best, but he still had enough to shred everything in the game. Tobin was a bit more shaky, with poor Def and Spd, but neither of these are an issue with KB+HV; with supports, he was hitting almost 80 crit when using Hunter's Volley, with good strength to back it up too. Mathilda had incredible growths, ending up with almost base-20s by the end (and 2 Res levels, I think?). Lastly for Alm's side, Delthea got Str/Spd on almost every level, ending up with high 20s in each - again, enough to double basically any enemy even when using spells.

On Celica's side, Atlas was an absolute monster of a BK. His only stat is strength, but when he has ~32 of that stat, HV hits like a freight train. Shoutout to his Celica support, making that buff super easy to maintain in fights. Saber was about as good as I could have hoped, with another extremely high Def growth (mid-20s), fantastic Spd, and reasonable Str. Kamui was also in that same league, but trading out a bit of Def for much higher Str; these two DFs pretty much carried my party by hunting down most Cantors and Mire/Death users before they ever became a problem. As I mentioned earlier, Celica herself was also great, landing at almost base-20s herself (aside from Res). All in all, across both parties I feel like I was very fortunate with stat growths this time around; unlike my first attempt, my units were able to hit all the key benchmarks for tanking, doubling enemies, and cleaning them up without exposing my units too much - to be clear, I didn't do any real grinding until right before the endgame so the comments apply for the first 90% of the game. It felt so much smoother than the first run, where I felt like my units never hit and never did any damage even if they did. I genuinely feel like my earlier run was just completely RNG-screwed from beginning to end, whereas this one was blessed to counteract it. Neither playthrough felt "average", if that makes sense.

So the story isn't worth mentioning to be honest, pretty typical FE fare. Alm is hailed as a hero but Kliff should really be the king of Valentia, but they needed a pretty prototypical boring JRPG dude. I find it a bit strange how the game kind of writes Celica's main goal to be kind of stupid or pointless, in that her entire journey ends in a giant dud; for being a full half of this game's story, the purpose of her character is mostly sidelined to be a damsel in distress at the end of the game. But to bring up a bigger point, splitting up the armies and the entire game into 2 parts makes the pacing really strange, as each Act only ends up being a few real fights. Valentia ends up feeling small, and the grand journey feels more like a small trek down the coastline; this isn't helped by the lacking scale of even the most major battles. All in all, this game is confusing because so many elements mesh together very strangely; dungeons feel underused and undersized, the tactics gameplay doesn't really shine on maps and encounters that were not put together with any real care, the scale of the in-game map doesn't match the scale of the story, and the sense of progression is dulled by the fact that you're resetting your progress when you switch armies. Despite all of this, I had a fun time with the game and also spent 50 hours playing it, which is on the longer side of any FE game (would be ~10 hours less without the weapon grind, which is still long). I don't regret that investment, but I wouldn't want another game like this in the series.