the fire emblem franchise makes it so hard for me to convince people fire emblem games are good and worth playing. i promise. i promise theres good ones. theres so many good ones. please ignore the toothpaste person. please ignore the babyrealms. please.

please go in depth on your thoughts of Echoes I care a lot

Alright then, I’m gonna put this under a cut, because spoilers and because it’s probably gonna get quite lengthy:

Okay, so first off, in general: This is probably hands down my favourite 3DS Fire Emblem game, if not favourite Fire Emblem game period. It easily blows Awakening and Fates out of the water, and beyond those, only Blazing Sword and The Sacred Stones come close - though not close enough.

As for some specifics:

Gameplay

So to start with probably my biggest gripe about gameplay, it’s that map design and enemy teams really do kinda show the age of the original, considering how many maps have just big open spaces that you don’t really use and that don’t really have any enemies in them. As for enemy teams, there really were just a few too many “all enemies on this map are of the same class” fights, but even those managed to be kind of interesting since they made me think about how best to approach enemies of that particular class.Now aside from that, I’m honestly rather fond about how simple the core Fire Emblem gameplay is in comparison to Awakening and Fates? In Awakening it was honestly just a matter of putting together strong married units and watch them tear enemy after enemy apart, with some Lunatic mode enemies with skils throwing the only real curveballs. As for Fates, only Conquest was really different from Awakening, and even there it was admittedly a bit of a bother at times that you had to keep track of what enemy had which skill and how they could be dangerous if you forgot about them for just one moment. In SoV it sticks closer to how the GBA games played and you actually have to take advantage of terrain and your positioning, and I honestly kinda prefer that.The dungeon crawling meanwhile was surprisingly fun, though I still have some gripes with them. In terms of design, most of the dungeons are honestly a bit too simple for my taste, and don’t really offer enough other than crates/pots to smash, enemies to either avoid or fight, and the odd treasure chest/stat-boosting spring. I also didn’t really like how the fatigue system played out with dungeons, because I generally prefered making offerings to Mila statues to cure that. . . but seeing as those were generally either at the very end or the very end of a dungeon, that wasn’t really an option. Still, I feel that if they refined the dungeon gameplay in a future title, I wouldn’t mind seeing it return.Other than that. . . oh yeah, the class system was also kinda nice? I actually really don’t mind that beyond chosing what class to chose for your villagers you don’t really have branching promotions or reclassing, since it means less things for me to worry about and consider (and I’m aware of the class looping thing but I didn’t try it yet). What does kinda bother me is that some classes really can’t move very far - like, having the final knight class or Celica’s promotion being only able to move four spaces is really annoying. Alm’s five isn’t that much better, either. And of course it’s rather stupid that they put these overclasses behind DLC, but since third-tier classes are already so strong, I don’t really care that much.Mila’s Turnwheel was also an addition that I really, really enjoyed - I generally always play on classic mode, so having an option to redo specific actions instead of soft-resetting an entire fight was just a huge time-saver. I think most of the time I didn’t even use it to bring someone back from the day, and instead used it to manipulate the RNG and guarantee that a unit actually gets a kill that they otherwise would’ve missed. So all in all I really hope that they bring this feature back in some capacity in future titles, just because it’s such a convenience. And let’s face it, even most hardcore classic mode elitists still reset when they lose a unit, so this thing is just a time saver on all accounts.Town explorations was also a nice touch, and honestly really helped make everything feel more alive.And that’s all I got on gameplay so let’s move on to

Characters and Story

Now this is where SoV really blows Awakening and Fates out of the water, if you ask me. I won’t deny that those two games have (for the most part) good playable characters in terms of personality and everything, but everything beyond that, from villains to the actual story and worldbuilding just falls apart very quickly. In regards to characters, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this game has the best cast in all of FE, but it’s definitely really strong, and the quality voice acting really helps this - as does having an actual believable set of protagonists and antagonists, for that matter.To go a bit more into detail: In both Awakening and Fates, the only protagonist I really enjoyed was Lucina, and she honestly got the shaft as far as focus from the plot goes. As for everyone else - Chrom gets some hint of what could be nice character development for about the first six chapters, and then pretty much remains static for the entire rest of the game, without any real depth to him. Robin meanwhile doesn’t even get a hint of anything of that sort, with the only real saving grace there being that you can project on to them, ‘cause y’know, player character. Fates meanwhile just only really had Corrin has protagonist (I know the game kinda pretends Azura is also one, but it really fails to portray her as one), and they’re quite frankly a total mess. Alm and Celica on the other hand - they still have their problems (like their romance being kinda awkward, Celica believing Jedah so easily or Alm being so slow to pick up on him obviously being royalty, and both of them showing sympathy for some characters who don’t really deserve any), but unlike all other 3DS era protagonists (except for maybe Lucina) those don’t outweigh how well they’re all handled otherwise. They’re properly motivated, have their good moments, and play off the other characters well enough. One last major gripe I still have with them is how Alm clearly gets more focus and better portrayal in contrast to Celica (just look at the game’s Japanese title).As for antagonists. . . well, pretty much every Awakening/Fates can be described as follows: They’re kinda cool. . . but so dumb. Shadily motivated, badly written, and with even more missed potentials than the protagonists. Gangrel, Walhart, Validar, Grima, Garon, Iago, Anankos - there could’ve been so much done with them, and yet they ended up as one dimensional character that are evil just because. Now, in SoV. . . well, I’d say the villains are probably still the weakest point of the cast, but they’re still leagues better than the ones in Awakening and Fates. Rudolf is kinda good in theory, but my big problem with him is that you barely see him. Other than that, his methods are kinda ehh, and could’ve done with a better justification.Jedah overall works well enough, though like I said before, it’s rather annoying how easily Celica believes him. Aside from that, it’s also a bit annyoing that actually taking him out is optional, and even discouraged (or at least made extra hard) by the game from a gameplay perspective.Berkut is admittedly ultimately just an entitled brat, but I think as a villain he works well enough.Fernand is also a good enough villain, but I think they kinda forgot to, y’know, justify why Clive and the others were friends with him to begin with. Even in the memory that shows him in the past, he really just comes off as an ass.Villains aside, the rest of the cast is honestly pretty good in my eyes. Though to get the elephant in the room out of the way. . . Faye. I don’t hate her - she’s honestly nowhere near Tharja levels of bad, but dear god that girl needs to get some hobbies. It really just comes off as the writers not spending more than five minutes when coming up with her character, which is honestly a shame because I really like her design. Anyway, for the rest of the cast, some of my favourites include Mathilda, Gray, Tobin, Saber, Genny, Est, Mae, Boey and Conrad. For ships, I got nothing - I’ve never been much of a shipper, and this game ain’t changing that.Now, the story as a whole is just fine, which is still more than what can say about Awakening’s and Fates’ story. Both of those games I feel were just way too ambitious with their stories. SoV in contrast is a lot more simple with its story, which works just way better. The worldbuilding done by both being able to explore places and investigate them as well as the memory function certainly helps. I know that the story additions this game adds as a remake stand at odds with some of the lore established in Marth’s games, but honestly. . . I don’t care. From what I saw in FE11, Marth’s games didn’t exactly have the deepest plot in the world to begin with, so it’s not really that big of a deal with me when there’s some inconsistencies between those games (original or remake) and this game. That said, I also really hope that this memory thing also comes back in future games.

And I think that’s everything that I can say about SoV right now? At least I can’t think of anything else. I already mentioned before that I really love this game’s soundtrack, so I don’t think that there’s anything else left to mention - and if there is, then it’s probably not important.