Spoiler free review of #FEEchoes #SoV

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As someone who enjoys Fire Emblem in general, I must admit I didn't play the franchise that much when I consider my past experience.
I've played all 3 GBA games, but couldn't find copies for both Tellius titles back when they were released and I just couldn't really motivate myself with both Awakening and Fates, both of which I've played for something like 15 maps before putting them aside, not going back to them.

So back to Echoes, I decided to give it a go in Japanese and unlike the other two 3DS titles, I enjoyed it quite early and finished it within 40 hours in Hard Classic, mostly doing everything I can except the post-game chapter.
Let's say it upfront though: it doesn't mean Echoes is completely better than Awakening and Fates in every aspect in my books, far from it. That said, I enjoyed the game for its actual content so I didn't really make any comparison with its predecessors.

Anyway, for starters, the noticeable thing with Echoes is the apparent love of the developers towards Gaiden, its original incarnation.
I didn't play any FE prior the 3DS titles, but I could tell they really were fond of Gaiden considering all the details in the game which were quite unexpected but welcome nonetheless: its presentation.

You see, the first thing that surprised me quite early was the countless details in the animations and whatnot.
While Awakening and Fates had their fair share of animations for the 3D models, Echoes goes on a new level: smooth and numerous animations for every class, even with details you wouldn't expect. For instance, when a character dodges, they usually do a simple sidestep, but this one isn't just the same depending of the class. But what's more amazing is that they felt that dodge should change depending of the environment. For instance, a mercenary would use a tree as a cover if they were to dodge while standing on a forest tile.
It isn't just the animations: the general art direction and the inclusion of artworks left and right sure help too. Unlike most fire emblem games were you just see a little snippet of your character face, in Echoes their artwork cover half of your bottom screen, without being too intrusive.
And it doesn't stop there: there are a lot of event CG and expressive character sprites for dialogues to boot, so they definitely make great efforts when it comes to visual assets.

Meanwhile, the music composition was definitely great too. After comparing the original OST with Echoes, it is quite impressive how they could deliver the same melodies but with such strong and vibrant tunes thanks to the instruments. I couldn't get enough of Alm and Celica main map themes which didn't really happen with previous games except maybe FE7.
As for voice acting, it had to be mentioned considering it is the very first main title to have a full voice treatment. I will only speak of my experience with the Japanese version, but it was excellent.
Truth to be told, I wasn't really fan of Hanae Natsuki before because of certain anime series, but I revised my judgment after his fantastic performance as 9S in NieR Automata, and he didn't fail to give many nuances when it comes to Alm. On the other hand, while I'm a big fan of Touyama Nao, I think she sounded a bit... off as Celica. I'm not implying she did badly whatsoever, but I can't help but think someone like Hayami Saori or Inoue Marina would have been better in portraying Celica as a princess on the run. I guess her softer voice makes Celica a bit more "normal" than really a princess in my books, if that makes sense to you.
Aside of that, we have some big shots like Koyasu Takehito (Saber), Sakurai Takahiro (Lukas) and so on. So it was quite a treat if you have some seiyuu knowledge.
But well, it isn't like Awakening and Fates didn't have well known seiyuu like Sugita Tomokazu as Chrom, but since the game is fully voiced, the cast is definitely meaningful there, and it is quite a delight considering how Echoes has a lot more emphasis on the plot narrative compared to the other recent games.

The aforementioned virtues go well together with Echoes plot. Although it isn't a mind-blowing story by any stretch of imagination, it is pretty straightforward in a good way. It doesn't try to surprise the audience with some convoluted plot twists and other weird curve balls whatsoever. So we are far from the mess we had in Awakening or Fates.
I could really enjoy the plot considering the efforts in term of narrative, and they made sure you could relate with the characters with some banters and jabs, be it with the support conversations (a bit too few for certain characters though…), normal conversations, plot related dialogues or even when tackling a map. For instance, when someone defeats an enemy unit, it isn't rare for another character nearby to make a jab or praise them for what they did. If someone is getting critically low on HP, someone will suggest they should be healed ASAP. Hell, when you select a unit for the first time in a given turn, they always respond with 1 line that reflects their current state.
It is all of those details that greatly enhance the game experience as a whole.

Now, the package looks nice and all, but Fire Emblem is a tactical RPG after all, and this is where things are a bit rough.
You see, as I mentioned before, the developers really love the original game as far as I could tell with the details and all. But it is exactly because of that point that Gaiden's legacy is too noticeable in Echoes in term of map design, which is unfortunate to a certain degree.
Basically, Echoes has revamped design and some balance left and right, but the maps themselves are basically the same as its NES incarnation and this is the main flaw of the game. In Echoes, there is basically only 1 objective with 1 variation: annihilate all enemy units, while in some very rare cases, you just have to defeat the boss.
Of course, it isn't like FE6 was that different either as 90% of the time it was "seize the enemy base", but the problem in Echoes is that the map design is bland like beyond what I'd expect from a Fire Emblem game. In short, the maps are usually unecessary large to the point that you often waste 1-2 turns in moving your army before you can make contact with the enemies. Worse is that you are often forced to go through a single chokepoint that force you to slowly grind the enemy defenses, which becomes quickly tiring at some point. It is way worse with the usual desert and swamp maps where any non flying unit suffers from a severe movement restriction.
You also have to face some enemy forces in form of skirmish: it isn’t rare to have an enemy army roaming on the world map and slowly coming at you. While these fights are not part of the main plot, you are still forced to take part of them and you just cannot skip them whatsoever.
To make things worse, there are units named cantors which are basically summoners throwing mobs at you on regular basis. The catch is that not only they don't stop summoning things until they are killed (every 2-3 turns depending of the maps) but they usually stand on tiles that grant huge evasion bonus to the point that it isn't unusual to have at most 50% chance to hit them with conventional weapons (magic does the trick, but due to low movement range for mages and their fragile condition, it isn't always the best option). Meanwhile, the game isn't exactly the best when it comes to balance. Sure, you can field your whole army in a given map (Dungeon forces you to select up to 10 units though) so you can't really neglect anyone, but the stats system is so different in this Fire Emblem that some RNG issues might screw you a lot.
Basically, units suffer of "stats deflation" where they start with low stats and have rather poor stats growth in general. On the flip side, promotion raises stats to the base stats of the new tier instead of giving a flat bonus (so for example, suppose the new class has 10 base ATK, if your unit has 3 atk, they will gain enough to reach 10, whereas having 5 atk would still lead to 10. Of course, if your unit have more than the base stats, they will keep that stats as it was although it is very rare to reach such result without grinding like mad). This particular point is quite important because the game doesn’t force you to wait your units to be at level 20 before their promotions, which was quite the norm with previous games.
Now why is it a problem? Because even with that kind of game design, the growth rates are so bad that any missing level up in some tier can screw you a lot. It has to be noted that in Echoes, a unit can double attack as long they merely have 1 more speed than their opponent. So you can tell things can be extremely jarring if your units fail to have enough speed gains in some part of the game. This issue isn't such a big deal at the end of the game but it is still quite an issue where the stats variation can make or break a character.
A notable example would be Booey in Celica's route: as a mage, he has a decent strength and defense... but unfortunately, he has a piss poor speed and an abysmal speed growth rate to boot. Because of this, he is not able to do any double attacks in general, and being slow completely negates his value as a tanky mage because he is double attacked nearly all the time due to the peculiar speed requirement. This is quite different compared to your usual social knights such as Sain and Kent in FE7 where they have a favored stats but that's about it. Here, the characters are quite defined by some stats and it hurt a lot if you don't make up with their shortcomings.

Equipments are rather scarce too as you don't have access to shops at all in this game. Instead, you have to find them in dungeons, defeat certain enemies or clear some subquests to get them. While there should be enough to equip your whole army, there isn't much variety when it comes to this, so it isn't really surprising to stick with iron weapons even during mid games. At least, there isn't any durability to worry about.
Speaking of equipment, there are also skills that are tied to the weapons, contrary to Awakening or Fates where skills were tied to class/characters. While it is a very good idea in theory, in practice, it is a bit of a shame the skill cannot be used if you decide to swap the weapon for something else, even if that weapon is of the same type. As such, it is kind of a pity that some iron weapons are way more useful than stronger weapons because of their skills, which sometime discourage upgrading the equipment of your units (notable example is the iron bow for archer which has "Curved shot", patching up archers inherent low accuracy in Echoes).

In essence, Echoes has some glaring issues as not only the maps are generally bland and tedious to go through, but the RNG can be even more annoying due to the stats adjustments and hit/crit rates in general.
This is probably the very reason why the developers decided to introduce a “legal save state system” which is Mila’s turnwheel. Basically, this feature allows the player to rewind the current state of the map to any desired moment, be it the very last hit that failed to hit and vainquish the boss to the very first turn where you realized you shouldn’t have fielded X character to Y place. This also allows the player to correct a mistake that lead to the demise of one of their characters (sole exception: if Alm or Celica is defeated, it is an instant game over, no turnwheel use allowed). This might sound too easy in paper, but they made sure you can’t abuse this system with a certain number of use, while it lessen any frustration from RNG which would force you to press the usual L+R+Start button combination and redo the whole map.
That being said, at some point, I used that feature mostly to avoid bad level ups (level up stats gain is seeded at the start of a map, not a given action so while you can negate a level up with this, you have to prevent that character to level up in that map otherwise they will get that shitty level up), and very rarely for screwed moves. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if it sort of trivialize the game a bit for some people.

The thing is, the turnwheel itself sounds like an indirect confession from the developers that Gaiden wasn’t exactly fair due to its very archaic map design and RNG oriented aspect (stats, hit/crit and… witches). So while that feature is very handy in theory and practice, it is still a bit of a shame that they just didn’t tweak the maps so we wouldn’t need such kind of features.

Because yeah, Echoes suffers a lot from Gaiden’s original map design, which rarely rely on real strategy, but rather a slow grind with your army marching tightly together (or warp rescue abuse), so it is kind of surprising they didn’t really do something that would alleviate the bland and tiresome aspects of many maps (namely Grieth’s Citadel, Nuibaba’s Mansion, Duma’s tower).

And as for content, the game content is rich enough to keep you busy for at least 20-30 hours. They definitely didn’t cut corners for this, even if you skip the optional dungeons. That being said, I’m not exactly fan of their DLC Business, especially considering how expensive the season pass is. Sure, I welcome extra stuff like the deliverance chapter which are by no means something that were in Gaiden (hell, Echoes has the prologue and a final chapter that are basically all new for Gaiden), so it is a nice addition but… all those grind maps and overclasses are quite baffling, be it for their purpose or price tags. It isn’t like Awakening or Fates were any less shameful in that kind of business, but I must say it is quite disappointing from Nintendo, where they could really just sell them for half the price considering the assets for the DLC aren’t anything to write home about.


Overall, I really enjoyed the game due to its refreshing formula based on a old game. Alas, I wish they did a little more regarding the essence of the game, while they did a top nocht job when it comes to its presentation.

Echoes is a (very) good game although it isn’t polished enough as a "Fire Emblem" one, strictly due to its map. It has its charms nonetheless, and I’d recommend it to fans of the franchise anyway. That being said, it is definitely not a game I’d recommend for any newcomer because it is a bit too different from the usual formula which could warp the perception of the franchise as a whole.

Tl;dr version.

Pros:
-Stunning animation and beautiful art direction
-Amazing orchestral scores
-Simple and focused plot with nice characterization and character interactions
-Enough content and good pacing
-Mila’s turnwheel lessening the frustration in general

Cons:
-Bland and tedious maps and unskippable skirmishes
-RNG being more of an issue than “usual” for a FE title
-Not enough support conversations for some characters
-Mila’s turnwheel being an easy patch without actual map balance
-DLC business being quite exaggerated in this one

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