Shadows of Valentia is such an interesting case where it's almost a perfect game. The presentation, voice acting, narrative, and music are all so goddamn perfect that it carries that really repetitive and mediocre gameplay that this game has. It's clear that Intelligent Systems wanted this game to be pretty faithful to the original Gaiden in terms of gameplay, but I feel that is what really brings it down for me. Especially in the last quarter of the game where the dungeons become a lot longer and the map design is either nonexistent or really bad.

I do really love this game, but replaying it after 4 years from my last replay has made me realized the game's highs and lows pretty clearly.

Drastically modernized remake of the 25-year-older second game in the franchise with good execution overall.
+ excellent gameplay presentation particularly for the clean zoom into swift battle animations
+ relatively personal storytelling that focuses on both main characters equally in their respective routes
+ clear cast separation making few units truly obsolete
+ outstanding soundtrack featuring the arguably best vocal track of the series
+ neat overworld map for free travel
+/- linear class progression for most units
- interesting but unpolished 3D dungeon crawler segments
- a lot of pointless but unavoidable battles padding out the game time

What this game has above Awakening is the insanely good art and voice direction. This was the only 3DS Fire Emblem to feature almost full voice acting. It kept things engaging all the way through. This game is a remake of an NES title, so it doesn't include the modern FE waifu shit. Some prefer that, but that was the stuff that got me interested in the series to begin with. The map designs are also super dated. All of that aside though, it was a very enjoyable experience and its one of the best looking games on the 3ds.

Possibly the best story of modern FE alongside Three Houses. One of the most impressive 3DS titles visually and having every character conversation voiced was a first for the series and it adds even more emotion to the stories of characters. Unfortunately, the gameplay of later maps and some enemy units begin to suck the fun out of the game. Slow poisonous swamp levels and enemies that teleport to the player and one shot their units are not fun to fight and the start of the game is a bit slow before you get a full team. You do feel like you are truly building an army in this and it is very satisfying to show up to the final few levels with a massive amount of units you trained.

I had a blast replaying Fire Emblem Echoes because it is my FAVORITE fire emblem game. Alm and Celica continue to be my favorite characters (they are my children) and surprisingly, Fernand is in my top 3 now all because his english va is Ray Chase and I had little knowledge about va's back in 2017. I LOST MY MIND WHEN I REALIZED FERNAND WAS RAY I HAD A FREAKING MELTDOWN Ray Chase is one of my favorite va's :,) (i had an overall meltdown when i realized how stacked the va cast was but ray chase was on a whole other level)

The music? I'm eating it. that's a fucking 10-course meal right there.

The art? I'm also eating that. Hidari's art is so scrumptious and works so well for the remake because it invokes a sense of nostalgia. It's warm and welcoming.

I love Alm and Celica so much. They both want to save Valentia and bring peace, but don't meet eye to eye. Their deep bond, trust, how much they care for each other ;-; IM GENTLY HOLDING THEM

As much as I love this game to death, it left me thinking about what could be improved. Supports could be improved. Three Houses really spoiled me with support and helped me realize this. Supports could be longer and that could really help flesh out a lot of the characters. Faye's a good character, but all she's known for is her love for Alm. Alm's support doesn't do much and neither does Silque's, stunting her as a character. If you recruit Faye to Celica's team, you get no support conversations, making her very basic and just there to deal damage. Genny is kind of the same way. If you fail to recruit Sonya, she's kind of just there. The same with Berkut, Rinea, and Fernand who have a lot of potential. If there were more supports or memory prisms to dive deep into the character, oh wow then the characters would be so much more complex and intriguing. (So many ideas are buzzing around in my head AAHHHHHHHH)

The dungeon crawler mechanic is really unique and I think it should be in future FE games. Echoes integrate characters from archanea, which expands the world-building and I love it when games do that. Knowing there are characters from other lands opens up Valentia rather than isolates it (and the fact that you can go to archanea in act 6). It also makes me interested in playing the original. I want to get to know these characters more from what I discovered from the supports. One day I'll explore archanea.

For now I'm going to think about Fernand and the game and the doc I'm going to write. Will I post it here? Maybe who knows. Or maybe I'll edit this because I have a lot of thoughts about the game.

Best presentation Fire Emblem has had, sad we'll never get it again. Beautiful character designs, wildly good music(that I was shocked to find was all just remixes of the dang NES tracks!), peak vibes. Just a joy to go through and see the story through to the end. The Fire Emblem I'd recommend most to people who simply want a nice JRPG/SRPG experience without particularly wanting to get into Fire Emblem, because it's both poorly representative of Fire Emblem gameplay as a whole, and not a very good Fire Emblem to play. On its on, though, as something on the outside - indeed, as a gaiden, it's great.