Fire Emblem Echoes tells a fantastic story with a great cast of characters (albeit just a few are 1 dimensional) but is weighed down by some frustrating gameplay.

This is evident in the fact that with Alms side of the story you mostly come across plains with lots of soldiers that you tactically navigate around. While on Celica's side...You come across some of the most painful map designs ever, with a prime example being Dead Man Mire which is flooded with swamp tiles that deal 5 hp per turn and are slower to navigate and I ALSO HATE CANTORS. I also do like the inclusion of dungeons overall but there were a lot of aspects that were just exhausting to get through such as Duma Tower and think the game is incredibly grindy.

I genuinely think that the time wheel as an addition to this remake is a huge saving grace because I would not like to feel what it was like to tackle these areas in Gaiden.

But there is more good to say about this title and that is, I love Hidari's art style and want to consume more games with them behind it like the Atelier Dusk trilogy because it just is so charming.

The soundtrack is phenomenal with this title and helps sell the scenarios that you are undergoing throughout the game, really allowing you to take in each environment that has a special track to go with it.

Overall: I enjoyed how this title came together, with its excellent voice acting, its art style, and the way it sounds. The title delivers those aspects. It's if you want to go into this title expect some real garbage maps because it will force you to go through pain.

You cut the tape with my stanley knife and we unpack our life ♫

Moving is scary -- not only is it a lot of work, it's usually the sign of a big change taking place, and depending on the nature of that change, the move can come with feelings of anticipation and excitement just as much as bitterness or melancholy. In that midst, we pack up our things, an act that. as repetitive as it may be, carries with it a lot of introspection. As we take down shelves and empty out closets, we discover objects we might not even remember: pictures, lost belongings, keepsakes from important events, obsessions from other times... we see parts of ourselves expressed not only in the things we find, but in the ones we decide are important enough to keep with us on our new journey.

Unpacking turns all of this into a narrative framework. The game has you unpacking boxes of a woman, from her early childhood to well into her adult life, every time she moves houses. The goal is to place her things around the new house in appropriate places. In gameplay terms, these are observation-based puzzles where you try to figure what the purpose of an item probably is and where this person would reasonably place it within this new house. Sometimes, objects are packed in boxes for the wrong room, and sometimes, they come out of left field and need a bit more context from other stuff from the move.

It's an endearing gameplay loop that sets the relaxed pace in which the game takes place, the boxes slowly disappearing as the player makes the house more lively. It also serves as the perfect framing for the star of the show, which is the story being told with next to no text through the different locations and belongings. To go any deeper into this would be to spoil parts of the game, but it's a fascinating experience to know so much about the health problems, relationships, food preferences, all these details about the life of a person you don't know the name or face of.

It's why, for my part, Unpacking is just a blanket recommendation: A novel and approachable game that tells a story in a way no media other than gaming probably could manage, with a phenomenal amount of emotion to boot.

Hype:
The Xeno series is one of my favorite series ever. I started with Blade 2 and played everything. This is the 1st time s entirely new game in the series came out for me and I couldn't possibly be more excited. The trailers gave me a lot of Gears vibes and the concept of worlds fusing is such a cool idea so I had high expectations from the start.

Gameplay / Combat:
The combat and gameplay are easily my favorite in the series. The new mechanics are fun and it fixes problems previous games had. No more needing to lure enemies to shore. You can just fight them in water! No more bad tutorials! Field skills aren't annoying anymore! It just feels amazing! I loved exploring the world and doing as many side quests as possible. The UI is effective and less cloged than before. Being able to teleport to monster tombstones is really good as take it easier to rematch them and gives incentive to beat them so you can get to places faster. Most of my complaints are minor like I think the chain attacks (which are amazing now BTW) should be a little less RNG (like heroes only have a chance of showing up). My biggest complaint is the lack of playable mecha like what Gears, Saga, and X have but I understand why it lacks this.

Story:
I had to describe this game I'd say: "Imagine if the worlds of 1 and 2 fused together to make a pseudo Gears remake with some Saga elements and borrowed ideas from Final Fantasy 10, NieR Replicant, and other games." 2 universes colliding with a plotline that people from each world need to kill each other is such a amazing unique concept that I love. The story gets right to the point quickly and I can't think of a single point where I became uninterest. That being said I think it failed to meet some of my expectations. Xenogears is my favorite story ever and the similarities made me kinda hope it'd be on the same level. I love how they did chapter 6 of this game. It's very similar although I think the way the twist happened in Gears was better and Blade 3 honestly overall feels like a very watered down Gears. That doesn't mean bad. It just means it's not my absolute fav story ever. Also as Blade 3 I expected it to expand upon 1 and 2 a lot. 2 added more that makes you look at parts of 1 in need ways. 3 doesn't really do that. It's story feels moreso self contained rather than really building off of and connecting to the other games as much as it could have. Not many past characters show up, new major twist that changes how you look at previous games, etc. Something Xeno is absolutely known for is plot twists and lore. Gears has insane lore, Saga is literally like 5 religions of lore stuffed together, and both Blade 1 and 2 have very interested lore dumps in the later parts of the story. It's just kinda weird that this title doesn't add much on top of what already existed and overall I think there's less "OMG WHAT!?" moments as the other games. There were a few moments that cought me completely off guard but it was fewer than the average Xeno game. Shock value doesn't necessarily mean better but it's definitely something to note. Something that makes a story good is not having loose ends. Blade 1 ends with basically no significant questions left unanswered. Blade 2's ending is a little more open ended but still almost everything is answered. Meanwhile 3 leaves multiple plot holes and has a bit too many coincidence that go unexplained which I can only hope get answered in DLC. There's quite a bit of ways it could've been better but again these don't mean I dislike it. In fact I loved this game's story deposited it's flaws. It's potentially my 3rd favorite Xeno story behind only Gears and Saga 3.

Characters (Main Party):
The party of this game was definitely amazing! Probably my 2nd fav only behind Saga's cast. Each character felt really important to the story. There was no one who felt "just there" like Sharla did. Even the least important still felt more important than half of Blade 1's party. I was worried Lanz would just be Reyn 2.0 and was worried about a few other characters too but they all stood out in their own way. Noah is my 2nd fav protag behind only Fei. Mio is basically a mix of Elly and Nia who are 2 of my fav characters. I'm not sure how I'd rank them tho. Taion is a lot better than the characters he's based on (HB and Akhos). I liked him a lot. Sena is my fav of them. I really liked how her story was about being the one in others shadows, being a loner who wanted to fit in, etc. The whole party felt realistic but her especially so to me. Riku and Manana are nice traveling companions. They're my favorite Nopon in the series this far.

Characters (Villains):
I'm mixed on the villains. In concept the Consuls are very similar to Saga's Testaments which are super cool but they aren't as intimidating. The side quest consuls are mostly mid but at least I remember they exist I guess. I remember Consul U quite well actually. For main story D was interesting to a extent but it took too long for his story to be explained and I think there could've been more to him. D looked a lot like Grahf so I was expecting him to be similar but he kinda turned out to be Mumkhar which is still a fine villain but not as much. I really like J and N. N turned out to be the Grahf I was looking for. I think he's not as good as Grahf but again that doesn't mean bad. Still a wonderful villain. J was really unique and I actually did not expect his ch 3 plot twist until soon before it happened so that was nice. Z is interesting in concept although his personality was boring and he didn't actually do much besides watch from the shadows for most of the story. Main villains like Albedo and Malos with interesting personalities and take action a lot throughout the story are much more interesting. X, Y, and other consuls honestly didn't need to exist and don't add much to the game besides being filler villains. There is 1 non consul villain in ch 6 and side quests that I won't name because spoilers but I did really like their perspective. Their writing felt 'real'.

Characters (Heroes / Classes):
The heroes are amazing. They're
each very unique and add so much to the game's world building and gameplay. Their side quests are some of the best in the series and most of the classes are really fun to use. My fav heroes in terms of story was probably Ethel, the Nopon, Isurd, Juniper (based nonbinary representation), and of course the post game heroes which I will not name here. Some heroes have really broken arts and chain attack abilities which are really fun to mess around with such as Fiona giving U a extra chain order.

World:
The map is HUGE and filled with references to locations from 1 and 2. I loved exploring it a lot. Seeing a certain area inside Uraya even made me open up 2 again to compare it. I could see arguments for X's world being better but Aionios is my fav. My favorite area is the Maktha Woods. Mixing the land of Morytha with Makna Forest is a insane idea and I love it. In general seeing previous game locations thrown in so casually is just really cool. I haven't felt this way since finding older Zelda game locations in BOTW. One thing about the map that I think could be better is the colonies don't look as appealing as towns from previous games but that's not a big deal for me. A slightly bigger complaint is I feel a few areas could've been more interesting but weren't really. Specifically I think Mechonis Sword and Agnus Castle should've been larger (in terms of explorable area) and also I feel the snow area is the weakest in mainline Xenoblade. It's really small and honestly I don't even really get either Valak or Tantal vibes from it. Was kind shopping for a super janky ice slide TBH. Still tho the map is amazing. One of my favs in any video game.

Blade 3 VS Gears:
As stated already I think Gears has a much better story, execution, and villains but Blade 3 definitely has much better gameplay and the unique takes on Gears's ideas were nice to see. I'd consider Blade 3 a better game despite thinking Gears's story is much better. If you're a fan of either you'd probably love the other because of their similarities.

Blade 3 VS Saga:
Saga by far has the most complex lore and I think the characters are better. I love turn based combat and I think Saga 3 is one of the best in that regard although I would probably replayed Blade 3 more because I love Blade combat as well and this game in particular is fire (plus a Switch game will obviously have way more QoL than a PS2 game). Saga 3 and Blade 3 are each amazing conclusions to their trilogies. It's hard to say which I think is a better conclusion. Blade 3 is definitely much better than Saga 1 and 2.

Blade 3 VS Blade 1:
I struggle to find much I like about 1 more than 3. I'd say 1's world concept is more interesting (the entire game takes place on 2 massive humanoid titans) but I love 3's gameplay, characters, story, and emotional impact a LOT more. I found 1's gameplay to be my least fav even behind the PS1 and PS2 games. Half it's cast does nothing in the party which holds 1 back a lot. 3 fixes all those things. That being said I think it'd be better to play 1 1st because they're connected. This is another example of if you like either you'd like the other.

Blade 3 VS Blade X:
X has a amazing world and was the 1st game in the series to have a class system. Although they're not connected: it is clear that they took ideas from X. I personally enjoyed exploring in 3 more because the world includes locations from previous games but I can definitely see a argument for X's world being better. Story and character wise X is the least interesting to me so 3 is definitely better for my tastes but if the exploration aspect is what you're looking for then these are both peak.

Blade 3 VS Blade 2:
2 is a game close to my heart because it's what got me into the series and Nia is one of my favorite games ever. 2 does do a few things better like I like the idea of the world mostly being giant animals and more skill based chain attacks. That being said it's undeniable that this game has better tutorials and fixes other things that were complained about in 2. 3 also gets to the point of it's story much much faster. From a game design standpoint I would definitely consider 3 better. For personal reasons I think I prefer 2 tho (it helped me more emotionally). Similar to 1: I would definitely recommend playing 2 before 3 since they're connected and things will hit different when playing them all in order.

Conclusion:
This is yet another Monolithsoft master piece. It's not perfect: there are things other games do better but there are also things it's the best at not only in the series but in the genre as a whole. It's one of my favorite games of all time. I've been so excited and had so much incredible fun playing through this. I was gasping, happy crying, and just having the best of times playing this. It's definitely in the top 4 in the series for me (which I'm still unsure how I'd rank because I love Gears, Saga 3, Blade 2, and this for all entirely different reasons). I would highly recommend this game (and series)! Even my least fav in the series is good to me and the best are the best! You absolutely will not be disappointed if you like RPGs. This game is amazing standalone and the more of the previous games you play: the more you'll love and appreciate it.

DLC Wave 1:
Nopon coins and color alt costumes is a decent day 1 DLC. It's nothing I really care about but this wave is moreso a "thanks for buying in advance" wave rather than the main course so it's fine.

Update After 1 Month:
I feel this didn't quite leave a long lasting emotional impact on me like a few past games did. I still love it but it's hard to say I do to the same extent as the others. I already stopped actively playing the game. I hope DLC answers some important plot holes and adds enough to get me invested again.

My review of the special edition:
https://www.backloggd.com/games/xenoblade-chronicles-3-special-edition/

I reviewed the DLC separately as well.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the definition of the word perfect

This game does everything it could have done right it did right and went beyond that. From the opening cutscene to the last frame of the credits this game is just a constant emotional ride.

The story and cast of this game are the best i've seen in a game. There is so much to be said about both the story and characters but i know someone else will do that and they will do it better than me so i will not go into it.

The gameplay is one of the big standouts from 3 aswell. I was worried for some aspects of it prelaunch but after actually playing the game it turned out to be perfectly smooth in all ways it could have been.

The open world of this game is brilliant too with it basically always having something for you to find and mostly not feeling padded out at all. All the quests you can find around the world genuienly feel like they were made with care and passion unlike the very repetitive sidequests of the previous games in the series.

This game really felt like the game Takahashi always wanted to make and which is why i believe there's probably never going to be a game like this one

Breath of the Wild is a game of absolute extremes. It shows total understanding and mastery over the craft, but it also shows fundamental misunderstandings of them at the same time. It gives you so much and then tells you to put what it gave you aside. It is a struggle between game designs.

Zelda has always been a series of exploration. It has always known how to make you feel wanderlust even when you're exploring relatively linear worlds, but in most cases, that feeling was more aesthetic than actual, which is fine, of course, but Breath of the Wild sought to be able to give the most authentic sense of wanderlust a game can give someone. Now let's talk about how it goes about accomplishing that goal, the flow of the game, the gameplay loop.

In a word: contradictory. And not the fun kind. Self-sabotaging may be a better word for it, but Breath of the Wild portrays a very simple gameplay loop on its surface. You explore, you find something, you explore. But when that "something" is a shrine or dungeon, which it is most of the time, you run into issues. The biggest issue of Breath of the Wild. The dungeons, the second half to any Zelda equation, are horrid. There are 120 shrines dotted all around Hyrule and they usually hold one puzzle idea in each of them. Or they don't and you just have to fight something, or you just don't have to do anything, and the puzzle was getting to the shrine itself. This is awful and shows a basic misunderstanding of what dungeons do in Zelda games. Dungeons are never about a puzzle, it's about the puzzle of puzzles. Dungeons in Zelda are a collection of interlocking puzzles that in themselves form one puzzle. It is tedious and ruins game flow to be exploring the gorgeous open world only to be rewarded for that by being taken out of that open world into one of many homogeneous boring rooms to do a puzzle that is completely disconnected from everything else. What makes dungeons in Zelda so fantastic is how they work with the overworld. When I was going through Faron Woods in Skyward Sword, I was excited to see how this location's most pivotal point, its dungeon would be integrated with it, and Skyview Temple feels like something that I was exploring for. It feels like an ancient ruin deep in Faron Woods, it feels like part of the overworld. The shrines and even the divine beasts don't. They all look the same, and trust me, while it does look nice, seeing the same exact aesthetic over and over and over again with no major changes to it gets really grating when there's such a beautiful and diverse overworld I could be exploring instead. And when I overcome a shrine or a divine beast, I don't feel like I accomplished much. Instead of giving you an item half way through a dungeon, divine beasts give you control over one aspect of the beast once you get the map. This is so under developed and the dungeons aren't even that intricately designed that you ever need to use those controls in inventive or unique ways. And after you defeat the divine beast, instead of having a new tool that you could use to access more of the overworld like in most zelda games, you're given a spell that is either completely useless, barely noticeable, or a huge convenience that makes the other three spells look actively terrible in contrast. (I'm talking about Revali's Gale of course. In a game about exploration, the one spell that explicitly helps you do that is so obviously better than the two that are focused entirely on combat, and one that is just a recharging fairy.)

Oddly enough, these problems could be solved easily. Just have typical dungeon structure. Have around 9 dungeons sprinkled around the map and have them be traditional Zelda dungeons. When you first get to Lurelin village, have the locals tell you of the old abandoned temple that's on an island off the coast. Have a dilapidated old mine in Eldin where the Goron chieftain's father went to combat a great monster decades ago and never came back from, just anything that feels like it's part of the world and not some weird abstracted separate realm where nothing you do in it feels like you're exploring a part of the world you want to explore. They don't even need items in them or mini bosses or a map and compass like most Zelda games. Just a location in the world that feels like it fits where it is and isn't just home to the same reused assets over and over again. And have the puzzles have meaning. Have each puzzle in the dungeon come one step closer to unraveling the whole puzzlebox. I have no motivation to solve Breath of the Wild's puzzles. They mean nothing to me after I get my stamina maxed out, which is usually fairly early into the game for me, I might add. They don't mean anything if all they do is give you a heart piece. Heart pieces that have two loading screens you need to sit through in order to get it. They don't help unravel one big puzzle, they don't feel rewarding after you get all the useful stuff from them, and they all look the same and have no individual personality to them.

Now you may say that that's because the dungeons aren't meant to be as important as they were in previous Zelda games. I'd then ask why then they're absolutely everywhere. You can't go thirty minutes without finding one, and that's due to another of Breath of the Wild's contradictions.

I want to get lost in Hyrule. Nintendo wants me to get lost in Hyrule. It is then really annoying when they drag me out to make me climb a Ubisoft Tower. These towers are there to give you a mission when you enter a new region. They are huge, you can see it from all over the region it gives you the map of, which goes against the wanderlust of the rest of the exploration. When I wander, I want to wander. I don't want a giant glowing beacon to tell me that I need to get to it. This is baffling to me. Design wise it goes against exploration. You do not explore to find the Ubisoft Tower, you can see them from across the map. I think either you should fill out the map of where you've been, or there should be map merchants like in Majora's Mask wandering around Hyrule or at inns. They would then sell you a map, and the closer to where you currently are, the more expensive the map is. Or the map of each region should just be hidden somewhere in that region, and thorough exploration of the region would then be rewarded with the map. In a game about the whimsical mystique of exploring the worst thing you can do is give the players a map too early. And this leads us back to the shrines. The contradiction of Breath of the Wild I mentioned before that led to the shrines being absolutely everywhere is that they are your fast travel.

Having so many fast travel points in your game is baffling to me when the point of the game is to explore. It's saying that you don't think your world is good enough for people to want to see it a second time, which by the way isn't true. It's just another way this game's mechanics completely undermine its open world at times. You already have the stables, and they are all located in perfect locations to be your fast travel. Also I think fast travel should cost something. In a game where the main gameplay is exploring, getting to skip some of it should cost some currency. Which you can only make by exploring, so exploring, and exploring well, lets you skip some of it later down the line. I'm thinking carriages that take you to and from any stable in the game that is accessible at any stable.

But when this game lets you explore, it is breathtaking. I adore running through woods, stopping along the way to checkout a small cave, or a small abandoned shack in it. I love having to survive by hunting and gathering, I love having to constantly be scrounging up weapons, and I love when I discover something big. Be that a town or an old temple or a giant waterfall, it's all so masterfully crafted and truly does give me genuine wanderlust, it doesn't just imitate it. I love going to a stable, and hearing someone talk about a mythical horse roaming the nearby area, or have someone ask me to show them proof of the Great Fairy Fountain. But that's where the third part of the Zelda formula comes in. The sidequests.

Zelda games typically flesh out their world by having great sidequests. While most Zelda games don't have too many of them, they all have at least one quest in them that's remembered as one of the best in the series. Breath of the Wild has many sidequests. Many many more than Majora's mask even, which is THE sidequest Zelda game, but they're all so lackluster. There's no heart in most of them. This isn't helped by the game's equally lackluster cast. There is no Groose or Linebeck or Midna in this game. The closest is Sidon, who doesn't get enough screentime, and even then still can't match anyone from Skyward Sword. Or Majora's Mask. Or Twilight Princess. Or Windwaker. Or Link's Awakening. You get the picture.

The sidequests used to be what gave the overworld its life back in Ocarina of Time. When you first got to Kakariko in Ocarina of Time and saw cuccos running around and find their owner distraught over their escape it made the village feel like more than just seven polygonal houses and a windmill. It made it feel like people really lived in this village. Granted, those people never moved from their designated spots, but still.

Breath of the Wild doesn't need that. I don't need a sidequest for the game to tell me that people really live in Hateno Village, that's just self-evident from how they move around town and the town feels like it could really exist as a town, and not just an area for you to explore in a video game. But when I actually talk to people and do their sidequest and its all robotic and nobody feels like a real person, I am quickly reminded that I am not actually in a village with real people, but rather I am in an area that I'm supposed to explore because I'm playing a video game. Which wouldn't be so bad if that isn't what the game wants me to do, and likewise isn't what I want to have happen. Also like, the quests themselves aren't usually even that fun even if you are just treating it like a checklist item to do in a video game. Most of them just involve getting x number of items and giving it to the person that asked.

This game is very combat focused. Which is interesting, and the combat is very fun. The flow of it is basically the same as its been since Ocarina of Time, but with enemies that actually support the combat system like in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. It's fun enough, but whenever I'd have to fight a lot in quick succession, I'd end up very tired of the combat. It works best when you've been exploring for a while and come across a group of enemies attacking a fellow traveler, or get ambushed by a yiga clan assassin, which is good because it means that it's a mechanic that actually positively flows into the games main mechanic of exploration.

Finally, I'd like to talk about the exploration. And only the exploration of this game. Ignore the things in the game that work against it and give it its proper due, because I am truly in awe of it. Breath of the Wild's world is one that I want to get lost in, I want to wander. I see so many different adventures in the distance and get excited to have them. I love stumbling upon a secret hidden treasure chest, I love that when I get lost I am rewarded. I am rewarded with treasure and beauty and the thrill of adventure. I love finding a town and buying new equipment at its shop and spending a night at its inn and then going on my way off to another adventure. I love gathering up local ingredients and sitting down to cook them all into what I think would be the best combination of dishes. I love seeing the destroyed world of Hyrule and the history it tells without any text boxes, it is truly a masterpiece.

Just not one that you get to experience to its fullest.

Detractors of this game often say it relies too heavily on emotional manipulation, but I'd argue it's ability to emotionally manipulate you is precisely why it's so brilliant. The characters, beautiful setting, and score especially, all combine to form the perfect synesthetic experience that had me gripped the entire way through. Anyone can see the plot undeniably has "issues" when viewed outside of the experience, but Taro still weaves a beautiful tale in the moment, and infuses it with the gameplay itself in ways that not many other game creators grasp.

Despite a few small falters in execution, this game still has the best thematic implementation I've seen in the entire medium, every potential theme someone can take away from it has some sort of implementation within the actual mechanics of the game, the emphasis on the importance of language and communication manifests via the words system, for example. As cliche as it sounds, it really is a "love letter to videogames!", while also stepping out on its own and carving a niche within the medium. It's also the sequel to Ocarina of Time. Basically, it's fucking awesome even through the monotony