New fire emblem echoes3/13/2023 Alm believes Zofia needs to militarize against Rigel, while Celica wants to prevent as much violence as humanly possible. Beyond that, SoV frames them as star-crossed lovers with two very different answers to the war they’ve found themselves in. The two briefly lived together in Ram when Alm’s adoptive grandfather, Mycen, took Celica in. Naturally, the story has two protagonists: Alm, a farm boy from Ram Village, & Celica, a Princess-in-hiding raised on the holy Novis Island. Echoes’ framing ends up being one of the best parts of the experience. Gameplay is also split between two distinct armies on separate parts of the continent, offering different glimpses at Valentia both mechanically and narratively. Battles don’t just transition into each other either, as there’s now an actual overworld to traverse (think Final Fantasy Tactics). Each act is made up of a several smaller battles instead of dedicating entire chapters to fleshed out battlefields. Rather than following a chapter based structure like the rest of the series, Shadows of Valentia is act based. It speaks to both Echoes’ quality and just how much Fire Emblem has changed over the years. You can jump from Three Houses to Shadows of Valentia without so much as missing a beat, whereas not even The Sacred Stones - the closest thing Gaiden had to a spiritual successor for years - can prepare you for how off-kilter FE2 really is. While it would take years for the likes of free grinding or reclassing to become franchise staples, all these mechanics keep a black sheep’s remake surprisingly palatable for modern fans. Limitless grinding, no weapon durability, classical monsters, and reclass opportunities (which actually began life as a glitch that SoV turned into a feature) all got their start in Gaiden. The end result is a remake that’s surprisingly faithful to its Famicom source material while perfectly at home with modern Fire Emblem.Īs unique as Gaiden is, the game also introduced several concepts that titles like Awakening & Fates would later embrace. Gaiden’s RPG elements are even more pronounced in the remake, with villages undergoing an overhaul and dungeons offering an interesting layer of light exploration to the gameplay loop. Maps are faithfully flat recreations of their Famicom counterparts. The weapon triangle is nowhere to be seen despite previous remakes incorporating the mechanic. If anything, Echoes is as faithful a modern remake could have realistically been without just being a 1:1 conversion. What’s especially impressive is that Shadows of Valentiadoes so without straying from Gaiden’s many eccentricities.
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