![]() Instead, effectiveness is dictated purely by the stats of the individual character, such as attack, defense, resistance and luck. Previous titles were defined by a weapon triangle that dictated the strategy of the game: swords beat axes, axes beat lances, and lances beat swords. Outside of these additions, the actual core of the top-down, turn-based strategic battles that define Fire Emblem has changed too. Dungeon crawling helps to break up the more intense strategic battles of the game’s story, and I really appreciated their presence. This works extremely well with the Fire Emblem formula, and I’d be sad if it doesn’t make a return in some form. Not only do you get experience from the monsters you’ll encounter, you can also find loot, fountains that boost your character’s stats, and shrines that serve to upgrade your troop’s classes like in other Fire Emblem games. Meanwhile, dungeons are fully explorable 3D environments that behave like a typical RPG dungeon.ĭungeons are typically optional, but are very rewarding. You can investigate the scenery to find items and information, as well as talk to merchants, quest givers, potential recruits for your army, or simple peasants. One very close comparison I can make is that to how the Ace Attorney games handle their investigation sections. However, in addition to encountering enemies in different battlefields, you can now also visit towns and dungeons. Basically, the game takes place in a world map you can travel, not too far removed from the world map of Fire Emblem Awakening. Most notably, the game has explorable environments, something that I’ve really been wanting in a Fire Emblem game for a long time. All Out WarĪs I mentioned, there are a couple of departures made by Echoes that are not featured in any other Fire Emblem game. This factor alone elevates the characters a couple of notches, and made them feel really organic. Echoes is the first fully-voiced Fire Emblem game, and the acting is spectacularly immersive. Additionally, the cutscenes and conversations are highlighted by some terrific voice acting. Similarly, the visuals and environments are top of the line for a 3DS game, particularly the game’s fully 3D dungeons. The character art is just beautiful, a vast improvement over style of past games. Luckily, this story is complemented by the best presentation ever provided in a Fire Emblem game. That is not to say the fantasy is in short supply–you’ll run into plenty of gods, zombies and dragons here–but at its core, Echoes is the simple struggle between two warring nations, and it brings all of the necessary intrigue and complexity to keep it interesting. The world of Echoes, although filled with cliche story beats and bland characters, does manage to stay interesting, and serves as a nice contrast to the fantastical melodrama of the newer Fire Emblem games. As such, you manage Alm and Celica’s army separately, which gives the game a good sense of variety. Many years later, the evil Rigelian Empire has invaded the kingdom, and the two heroes, now living on separate ends of the kingdom, must raise their armies under vastly different circumstances in order to fight back. The two heroes are childhood friends from the kingdom of Zofia that were separated at a young age. The core to Fire Emblem Echoes lies in the structure created by its two protagonists, Alm and Celica. Instead, Echoes sets out to take the mechanics of the original game and improve on them in order to make them the best that they can be. The series’ staple rock-paper-scissors weapons triangle? Nowhere to be found. Since then, the Fire Emblem series has progressed in other forms, ultimately reaching its own excellence in games such as Fire Emblem 7 on the GBA (The first game in the series to be released in the west), and Fire Emblem Awakening on the 3DS.įire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is a full remake of this NES game that does not attempt to hide the quirks of the original, nor impose the mechanics of the newer games. Like Zelda II, Nintendo ultimately back pedaled when it came time to make the third entry, returning to the roots of the first Fire Emblem game. Gaiden introduced an explorable world, dungeons and more complex character progression. When it was released on the NES in 1992, the game touted many changes to the underlying mechanics, much like with some other NES sequels of the time, like Zelda II, for example. ![]() Fire Emblem Gaiden is considered by many to be the “black sheep” of Nintendo’s turn-based strategy franchise. ![]()
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