![]() ![]() ![]() Instead, you’ll want to carefully plan your attacks, position your heavy-hitters up front, and then bring in your long-distance players (who typically have lower defense values) to safely wipe out any lingering enemies.Īll this makes for a game that feels slower and more deliberate than the other recent Fire Emblem releases. You’ll quickly learn not to charge headlong into battle. Terrain also plays a part, which reinforces this game’s heavy focus on tactics. Similarly, there’s less emphasis placed on the traditional weapons triangle instead, Echoes focuses more on the interplay of distance attacks versus close-quarters combat and magic versus weapons. In Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, gone are series touchstones like breakable weapons and helpful combo attacks from linked units. Oh, there’s action all right! While Fire Emblem has always been about political intrigue, hidden motivations, and convenient foreshadowing, the real substance of the series takes place on the battlefield. Lots of cut scenes? Lots of reading? Searching rooms for items?! But what about the action? You’ll have plenty of time to enjoy its unparalleled production values, too, as you follow along its meaty (though sometimes cliché) storyline, explore new environments to locate helpful items and weapons (a bit like searching for puzzles and Hint Coins in the Professor Laytonseries), and navigate expansive overworld maps.Ĥ. Add to that ample anime cut scenes and stellar voice acting throughout-which helps along the text-heavy plot development-and it makes for one of the most beautifully cohesive Fire Emblem titles yet, and likely one of the best looking 3DS games overall. There is a soft, almost watercolor style to the pop-up images-reminiscent of classic Final Fantasy titles or the Bravely Default series. The overall art direction in Fire Emblem Echoes is impeccable. You’ll command both their growing forces as they follow separate (but intermingling) quests to save Valentia and uncover their own hidden histories. The duality of this exotic environment is mirrored in its pair of protagonists, simple villager Alm and enlightened priestess Celica. Valentia, a continent long divided by two sibling gods, sees its fragile peace threatened by sinister forces. More specifically, it’s a remake of the 1992 Famicom release Fire Emblem Gaiden, the second entry in the Fire Emblem series. Let’s give this latest chapter a look and discuss what you need to know before you buy. This week, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentiahits store shelves. For many of us, it was the first proper introduction to this fantasy-leaning tactical RPG franchise, and in the years since, what was once considered a niche title in an inaccessible genre has garnered a rabid American fanbase. In 2003, Nintendo and Intelligent Systems took a chance, localizing Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken for the Game Boy Advance as Fire Emblem here in the US due, in part, to the warm reception of 2001’s Advance Wars and the popularity of Fire Emblem characters included in the Super Smash Bros. ![]()
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