Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (May 19)

[drahkon]

3 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

It's such a frustrating and cheap mechanic to put into a game. You are constantly having to try and rush the enemy in order to get rid of the guy summoning the reinforcements.

Urgh, the worst mechanic that can be put into a turn-based strategy game. 

I hate bosses in JRPGs that do that. Or enemies that can regenerate parts of their body...usually you have to destroy them first in order to attack the main body...it's the worst.

[Hero-of-Time]

2 hours ago, drahkon said:

Urgh, the worst mechanic that can be put into a turn-based strategy game. 

I hate bosses in JRPGs that do that. Or enemies that can regenerate parts of their body...usually you have to destroy them first in order to attack the main body...it's the worst.

I generally just hate respawning enemies in games when you are trying to push forward. It's a cheap way artificially increase the difficulty. The older Call of Duty games were terrible for this, especially when you played on Veteran difficulty. 

[Jonnas]

I figured the summoners wouldn't be your cup of tea. I personally liked dealing with them, since Strategy RPGs (and Fire Emblem in particular) reward the enemy phase a tad too much, and it's easy to default to a safe, defensive strategy. Summoners force you to play aggressively, and to be smart about it, which was a novel challenge for me (other FE games include secondary objectives to get you moving, but Gaiden's original mechanics and map design didn't allow for much of that).

I also recognize that they're contentious, and plenty of people dislike them. I can only recommend you start using Expel more often (Silque's Warp should also help, especially if Alm already knows Double Lion)

[Hero-of-Time]

I had another rough session on the game last night. I'm still slowly working my way through chapter 4 and I hit a stage ( Storming of Duma Gate ) with Celica that was incredibly frustrating. One of the enemy characters was not only summoning more enemies but also had an ability called Upheaval which is a spell that hits every single party member no matter where they were on the map. It looked a bit like an earthquake so I thought getting into the castle area may have protected me...nope. I then figured maybe by standing near other enemies the attack would at least hit them as well...nope. So here I had an enemy who could summon new enemies, attack me and my troops wherever we were on the map and was protected by narrow passage ways, as well as another Cantor ( constantly spawning more enemies ), Dread Fighters and armoured units. 

I ended up knocking the game off again as it was very frustrating and the with weather being so hot I was very agitated and had zero patience for this type of setup. I returned to the game later on once the weather was a little cooler and I had calmed down a bit and did mange beat the map. I started the next stage ( Duma Tower ) but was so drained from the previous battle that I didn't get that far into it before I saved the game and called it a night.

I'm determined to finish this game but it's really testing my patience. 

 

[Hero-of-Time]

It's finally over and the credits have rolled.

Spoiler

 

Man, the last battle was a bit of a struggle. Having to cope with 4 enemies that were constantly summoning other enemies was a nightmare. It took numerous attempts before I was able to actually clear it. I was also unaware that Jedah couldn't be hurt at every turn. I felt this was a bit cheap, especially as I didn't see any indication that this was the case. I had to look up why the hell I kept do no damage/missing my attacks. Once I found out why I couldn't do damage I just ended up leaving him alive and instead moved forward, while dealing with the enemies that he spawned.

It's a bit of a strange one this. I absolutely loved the story, the music and the characters ( really liked that there weren't too many of them, unlike other FE games ) but unfortunately the gameplay mechanics that arrive later on in the game brings the whole experience crashing down.

I was wondering how come I had so little cash to upgrade my weapons and it seems that the way to get around this is to buy the DLC, where you can rack up the cash stupidly quickly. I gotta say, I find this pretty scummy. Cash and weapons are very hard to come by and by gate keeping a better way to farm this stuff behind DLC is pretty disgusting. Although, I can't say i'm really surprised. I've not been a fan at all of how FE has handled the way it does its DLC and season passes. I've never been a fan of when games announce DLC before the game is even out and I like it even less when they are changing the same price as the main game itself. 

I'm happy to have seen the story through to the end credits but to be honest i'm just happy to be finished with the game. What started off as a fantastic experience turned into an absolute slog.  

[Jonnas]

58 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I was also unaware that Jedah couldn't be hurt at every turn.

I definitely remember knowing this was the case (even during that swamp chapter where he appears, he has the same invincibility), but now that you mention it, the only in-game hint I recall is a villager talking about it. It's pretty weird, since that property could easily be made into a skill with a proper description.

58 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I was wondering how come I had so little cash to upgrade my weapons and it seems that the way to get around this is to buy the DLC, where you can rack up the cash stupidly quickly.

I definitely don't recommend getting the DLC. Even the one that I did buy (the story missions) was overpriced.

The game is definitely designed with limited weapon upgrades in mind. Silver coins are fairly common, but Gold coins are essentially limited drops, which means a set number of upgrades that you must choose carefully. Weapon upgrades aren't meant to be grinded. And then the DLC throws a wrench into that, and I hate it too.

Overall, your viewpoint was a fairly interesting one. FE fans complain more about map design (while being super vague about why exactly, or which maps), or small story/character stuff. But since I know how you prefer to play your games, I now see that summoners are troublesome specifically because grinding doesn't work (I never grind, even in traditional JRPGs). Also, you were the first person I've seen frustrated with the weapon upgrade system, since FE fans are used to limited resources, and tend to forget that any non-story DLC exists. I personally prefer it that way, but I'm starting to see that Echoes might be a bit of a "purist" strategy game.

[Glen-i]

I kinda liked that the weapons were quite limited in how they could be upgraded. Celica and Alm's special weapons are so ridiculously busted though, so I'm glad I saved some gold coins for those.

I kinda found that the summoners were more of a help than a hindrance, really. Didn't really go out of my way to grind as often once they started showing up.

But I do agree that the DLC in this game was particularly heinous. Locking a whole higher tier of class upgrades behind DLC is totally not cool. I never did the post-game dungeon because of that, because it was way too hard, even with my maxed out characters. And I'm talking properly maxed out, reached the level cap of every class before making the upgrade.

It's a blemish on an otherwise enjoyable FE game.

[Hero-of-Time]

40 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

Also, you were the first person I've seen frustrated with the weapon upgrade system, since FE fans are used to limited resources, and tend to forget that any non-story DLC exists. I personally prefer it that way, but I'm starting to see that Echoes might be a bit of a "purist" strategy game.

It's not that I was frustrated with the actual system, I mean I did manage to beat the game with only having fully levelled 3 of the weapons I had. It's more that I'm disgusted that there is a way to get everyone's weapon upgraded and fast but only if you're willing to pay for the DLC.

I've read that there's fast exp grinding maps as part of the DLC as well. This is no different from the likes of EA and Ubisoft who are selling exp boosts and various other bits and bobs as DLC in order to fleece their customers. For some reason this games practices, whether because it's an FE game or a Nintendo game, has slipped by such criticisms in the gaming media.

I forgot to mention earlier that I didn't realise that by retreating and then trying the map again that some enemies are gone. I assume it's a set amount or just the ones that you had previously killed? Either way, once I had realised this it did make certain levels easier as I could get rid of a bunch of enemies, retreat and regroup and then go back into battle with less enemies to worry about.

[Jonnas]

1 hour ago, Glen-i said:

But I do agree that the DLC in this game was particularly heinous. Locking a whole higher tier of class upgrades behind DLC is totally not cool. I never did the post-game dungeon because of that, because it was way too hard, even with my maxed out characters. And I'm talking properly maxed out, reached the level cap of every class before making the upgrade.

In most FE games, it pays off to level up characters and promote them late, but in Echoes, the gains just default to the promoted class's base. Properly maxed out characters likely aren't much of an improvement over early-promoted ones.

I can tell you I beat the post-game dungeon with normally levelled characters, though. Pretty difficult, but very possible.

54 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

It's more that I'm disgusted that there is a way to get everyone's weapon upgraded and fast but only if you're willing to pay for the DLC.

I've read that there's fast exp grinding maps as part of the DLC as well. This is no different from the likes of EA and Ubisoft who are selling exp boosts and various other bits and bobs as DLC in order to fleece their customers. For some reason this games practices, whether because it's an FE game or a Nintendo game, has slipped by such criticisms in the gaming media.

I think this is less bias, and more to do with game design. The microtransaction model depends on the players continually spending money over a period of time (so, a lot of exp costs a lot of money), whereas FE is a one-and-done thing (a lot of exp costs the entry fee and nothing more). You're not paying for each coin individually, you're just buying the ticket that will give you infinite coins.

Secondly, FE games weren't artificially gimped so that players would buy the DLC, and the main game doesn't encourage you to buy any of that at any point (you only found out the gold DLC existed after you were done with the game, right?). The gold DLC for Echoes feels like it's breaking the game, not "fixing" it.

Thirdly, in Awakening, the DLC maps comes with very amusing scripts and it still makes the player "earn" the rewards on a new map. It actually feels like extra content with some effort put behind it, and this makes the whole thing far more palatable.

In a nutshell, this DLC model isn't designed to empty your wallet the same way that, say, FE Heroes does. Gaming media is criticizing these practices, but they tend to stick with the ones that are actually designed to "fleece" the customers.

54 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I forgot to mention earlier that I didn't realise that by retreating and then trying the map again that some enemies are gone. I assume it's a set amount or just the ones that you had previously killed? Either way, once I had realised this it did make certain levels easier as I could get rid of a bunch of enemies, retreat and regroup and then go back into battle with less enemies to worry about.

...This I did not know

Edited July 27, 2019 by Jonnas

[Hero-of-Time]

I dunno, I don't think it's that far off what something like say Assassin's Creed Odyssey done, which was heavily criticized. The main game could be easily completed without buying the x2 experience boost ticket ( not once did I find myself under levelled or struggling to take out enemies ) but the fact that this was being sold off as DLC was quite a nasty business. Same as this, IMO. You don't need the extra currency to finish the game but if you do want to have have the option to grind cash and level up then you have to splash the cash.

In general I just find it a slippery slope when publishers are selling stuff like this separately. Before DLC and microtransactions RPGs usually had one or two ways/spots that players could use to grind cash or experience but it seems developers/publishers know that people who play these types of games do enjoy the grind, min/maxing and finding ways to break the game with certain setups and as such have decided to start charging for such things.