Fire Emblem Echoes Shadows of Valentia is a complete reimagining of Fire Emblem Gaiden, adapting the game to a more modern design philosophy and not only just expanding on every character, but adding new characters that fit so well, I only realised there was new character additions after looking at the wiki after my time with the game and also adding a much more deep and thought out story. I will be referring to both games as Echoes and Gaiden for the sake of simplicity. The story is set in a fantasy medieval European setting on the fictional continent of Valentia. The continent is divided in two with the north (Rigel) and south (Zofia) both associated with a God/dragon with different ideas on how humans should live their lives.Mila in the south believes that humans should live without strife, creating peaceful people, while Duma in the north believes that through war and hardship, humans will become hardy and strong. There is a prologue establishing Alm and Celica as childhood friends, how nobility behaves, which I’ll come back to and Celica must leave and go into hiding someplace new, however the story only truly begins when Alm is offered the chance to join the Deliverance to defend Zofia from the Rigelian army.

I want to talk about the gameplay first because I don’t have too much to say. It's the typical Fire Emblem experience, but magic and skills have a hp cost, it uses the sometimes questionable original Gaiden maps and has for the most part a fine difficulty curve.

There are two protagonists, both of which story happens simultaneously and once or thrice interweave. Alm and Celica both approach the current state of Valentia differently. Alm is a boy from the most rural of villages. He has a strong sense of justice and very much believes anyone can achieve anything regardless of the station of one's birth. He joins the Deliverance army to protect Zofia from the Rigelian army, which is invading. He very much shows how the will of man can change the world. Celica on the other hand is a princess in hiding and very much still lived a comfortable childhood. She feels the best solution to the crops failing, which has led to piratry and brigandry, is to visit Mother Mila and ask for her blessing,fertilising the land. Celica very much embodies the faith in one’s God.

These contrasting ideals reach their zenith when Celica discovers Rigel’ Emperor Rudolf has kidnapped Mila and decides she must fight the Rigelian army, which she chastised Alm for when she met him for the first time in ten or so years. Celica has to exert her will through her own hands, not with her faith, which Alm does the opposite of this when Celica offers her soul up to Duma, turning her into a brainless, soulless shell of a human of immense magic called a witch. Alm hear’s Mila’s voice and kills her with the legendary blade Falchion, saving her life. This shows how both faith and willpower can coexist. Another duality between them comes in the revelation that Rigel’s leader, Emperor Rudolf, is Alm’s father, which means one hails from Rigel and the other Zofia and the marks on their hands that correspond to Father Duma and Mother Mila.

Not only a theme, but a phrase often said within the narrative is “The station of one’s birth”. We first get a glimpse of this in the prologue, were Alm, Celica and friends are excited to see a knight, until they realise that the knight is snooty, stuck up and feels like Ram village should feel privileged to accommodate him, even after acting like a complete bully and saying “I wager we’ll get naught but pig feed and horse piss, but so be it. I shall force it down if I must” in his own words. We get to see this later even within the Deliverance army, as even a “backwaters noble” or even a complete commoner can gain a high ranking position and not the false promises of typical armies, some nobles within the Deliverance still take a problem to this, Fernand for example takes so much of a problem to this he even leaves the Deliverance Army and joins the opposing army. Which he explains as “You and the Deliverance took all I believed in and trod it into the mire. In Rigel, they still have ideals worth upholding.” This shows his mentality and philosophy perfectly. It reminds me a lot of people who say things to the effect of “I should have won that” or “You didn’t deserve that win”, it’s a horrible mentality to have because as soon as you feel like a win is deserved, you won’t feel very happy with a win and you definitely won’t take a loss well also it’s just not fun to be around. Keep in mind the Deliverance does not require a noble reason to fight, even fighting for coin, which I would argue is noble when it’s to provide for a family, which Tobin shows when debating if he wants to join, “I’ve got little brothers and sisters who could use that gold… Ma and Pa struggle to make ends meet, but if there’s a way to help… Hmm…”.
This point is emphasised the most when Alm gets questioned on his decision to go out of his way to save a kidnapped girl. His decision is questioned because it’s just an average girl band not a princess or anyone special. The Rigelian army definitely has a much more nepotistic and typical structure which is best shown with Berkut.

Berkur is the perfect rival/antithesis to Alm. Alm learns his father is none other than Rudolf, Berkut’s uncle, which would make them cousins and Berkut shows what Alm could have been, if Rudolf didn't wish Alm to be hidden from conspirators who may kill him for the mark on his hand which was prophesied. Berkut is a weak, stubborn man who will quickly trade his sense of nobility for cheap tricks and power.

Berkut cannot admit defeat by a commoner such as Alm which his solution escalates from simply more reinforcements, to a magic mirror, when broken a large amount of Revenant like creatures, called Terrors begin grabbing the Deliverance from the ground, and finally hits it’s swan song with him sacrificing his love Rinea to Duma by throwing her into a giant fire in the basement, turning her into a witch. Berkut is so determined by his self worth of being better than a commoner due to the station of his birth that he will sacrifice anything, even the love of his life, who didn’t feel the need to be queen of all of Valentia like Berkut felt she should be. She was just content being with him, but Berkut could not even see that despite being specifically told so as he has never really been told no before. How can one be so blinded by what you want you can’t even see something that simple coming from someone who is the love of your life and you feel is the only person on your side? Berkut’s involvement within the narrative ends with a heavy hearted Alm who offered peace and friendship to his cousin, But a misguided Berkut still rejects Alm, as he feels Alm stole the throne from him and would rather die than see that future.

Finally I just want to talk about a few characters I found cool and/or interesting as Echoes completely expands on every character and they all feel like they have some level of depth and/or nuance, especially compared to the other 3Ds Fire Emblem games and the original Gaiden, some characters only having a small handful lines. Faye for example, while I feel the trope of a female character’s main personality trait is having feelings for the male protagonist is boring, she at least feels like she has some level of consistency in being not that bad, unlike Fiora from the original Xenoblade who is perfect before her death and is extremely uninteresting and bland once she returns. She doesn’t seem to really have changed and only really seems to care about the protagonist, despite her older brother/father figure and childhood friend also being around.

Genny and Sonya have a really interesting relationship and conversation. Genny is very young, shy and comes across as innocent, while Sonya is an ex thief who comes across as strong and extremely comfortable about herself and past experiences. Both are opposites, yet they find common ground and bond over having poor father’s who left them at a convent. Sonya understands why Genny is uncomfortable around “women of your kind” as Sonya reminds Genny of her father. Sonya is motivated so much to end and undo her father Jedah’s actions of being the head of the Duma faithful and encouraging and allowing the abduction and transforming of girls and women into witches, he even did this to his other daughters, that once the credits roll and you get to read what everyone did after the war, she began researching a cure for witches.

The only thing stopping me from giving this five stars is the questionable map design at times and the ending gameplay wise is a bit iffy to me.