This wasn’t my first experience with Fire Emblem as I played Three Houses earlier this year and I thought it was good. I would probably give it a 7/10, but I definitely didn’t get the massive praise that game got. I just didn’t like the Garreg Mach sections that much at all, they got boring fast and you end up spending so much time there that I got bored of the game around the time skip. I did really enjoy the traditional Fire Emblem gameplay though so I was excited to try out another Fire Emblem that didn’t have that section that I didn't like in Three Houses, and that brings us to Echoes. Recently I, and a couple of friends, started to buy the 3DS Fire Emblem games because Nintendo is closing down the eshop which will probably increase the prices of 3DS titles, we wanted to own the games before that happened essentially. So I got all of them and then we decided to play Echoes at the same time as we all now owned it. There wasn’t really any reason why we chose Echoes over the other ones, it just happened.
So now onto the game, how was Echoes? I thought it was great with a couple of weak points and a section which I thought sucked. This game is split into two main protagonists, Alm and Celica, and you experience both of their journeys at the same time. It is a really cool way to structure a story and I thought it worked great in the game. I liked how they had to help out each other at certain points to progress, a smart way to make sure you were caught up with both at certain points. Now onto the gameplay, I enjoyed it a lot. I don’t think it is better than Three Houses because I thought the maps in that game were slightly more interesting to play even if it reused the maps all the time. The maps in Echoes are overall pretty basic and I guess it is understandable, the game is a remake of a Famicom game after all. There were some maps in Act 4 which I thought was shit however. The shit maps were swamps and I hated them, you just move so slowly in them and you also take damage every turn. The first swamp map I thought was the worst one as you had to traverse a big swamp to even get to the enemies and it took like 7 turns which just sucks. Then you get to the other side and there are now so many enemies to kill, it just felt unfair and not fun. That was my experience of most of Celicas side of Act 4. I just didn’t enjoy her side that much in act 4. Otherwise I really enjoyed the gameplay. The dungeons were great and fun to explore and I want to see them in more Fire Emblem games. I don’t like how enemies respawn if you switch rooms but that was more of a minor problem.
The music in this game is so good it’s insane. This is one of the best gaming soundtracks I have heard, it’s that good. I actually enjoyed the music more here than in Three Houses and I thought that game had great music too, it’s just amazing. The voice acting is also great, all of them did a great job. Special mention to Berkut which I thought did the best out of all of them.
Now onto the characters, they were great also. Not as good as Three Houses but that was like the best part of that game so it’s understandable, it’s a very high bar to reach. Alm and Celica were both great protagonists and they were fun to follow throughout the game. I enjoyed their relationship quite a bit too. Most of the other side characters were good too and it was fun to see them interact with each other. There were some characters that didn’t do much and were just there and some that I didn’t find that interesting but that’s bound to happen with so many characters to recruit, they did an overall good job with the characters. The villains I enjoyed also. My favorite villain and favorite character in the game was probably Berkut. I enjoyed his presence a lot and I thought his character was very well written and interesting to see throughout the game. His relationship with Rinea was good too. The ending to their characters were handled so well I thought, had a great arc. The other villains are pretty basic but they work for the story I think.
So to the story, I thought it was pretty good but not amazing. The biggest problem is that some of the twists were really obvious but I don’t think the writers realized how obvious they were because they have these big dramatic scenes to reveal something so obvious to the player. Some characters feel like they could reveal things but they just don’t for some reason. All the twists of the game weren’t like this, it was just some of them. The story is also a pretty basic war story that turns into a save the world story but it is well done overall even if it has been done a lot before.
So overall a very solid game that I enjoyed a lot. Biggest problem is the maps but most of the games maps are fine enough that it doesn’t bring down the game too much. I overall enjoyed it more than Three Houses and I give this game a 8/10.
So now onto the game, how was Echoes? I thought it was great with a couple of weak points and a section which I thought sucked. This game is split into two main protagonists, Alm and Celica, and you experience both of their journeys at the same time. It is a really cool way to structure a story and I thought it worked great in the game. I liked how they had to help out each other at certain points to progress, a smart way to make sure you were caught up with both at certain points. Now onto the gameplay, I enjoyed it a lot. I don’t think it is better than Three Houses because I thought the maps in that game were slightly more interesting to play even if it reused the maps all the time. The maps in Echoes are overall pretty basic and I guess it is understandable, the game is a remake of a Famicom game after all. There were some maps in Act 4 which I thought was shit however. The shit maps were swamps and I hated them, you just move so slowly in them and you also take damage every turn. The first swamp map I thought was the worst one as you had to traverse a big swamp to even get to the enemies and it took like 7 turns which just sucks. Then you get to the other side and there are now so many enemies to kill, it just felt unfair and not fun. That was my experience of most of Celicas side of Act 4. I just didn’t enjoy her side that much in act 4. Otherwise I really enjoyed the gameplay. The dungeons were great and fun to explore and I want to see them in more Fire Emblem games. I don’t like how enemies respawn if you switch rooms but that was more of a minor problem.
The music in this game is so good it’s insane. This is one of the best gaming soundtracks I have heard, it’s that good. I actually enjoyed the music more here than in Three Houses and I thought that game had great music too, it’s just amazing. The voice acting is also great, all of them did a great job. Special mention to Berkut which I thought did the best out of all of them.
Now onto the characters, they were great also. Not as good as Three Houses but that was like the best part of that game so it’s understandable, it’s a very high bar to reach. Alm and Celica were both great protagonists and they were fun to follow throughout the game. I enjoyed their relationship quite a bit too. Most of the other side characters were good too and it was fun to see them interact with each other. There were some characters that didn’t do much and were just there and some that I didn’t find that interesting but that’s bound to happen with so many characters to recruit, they did an overall good job with the characters. The villains I enjoyed also. My favorite villain and favorite character in the game was probably Berkut. I enjoyed his presence a lot and I thought his character was very well written and interesting to see throughout the game. His relationship with Rinea was good too. The ending to their characters were handled so well I thought, had a great arc. The other villains are pretty basic but they work for the story I think.
So to the story, I thought it was pretty good but not amazing. The biggest problem is that some of the twists were really obvious but I don’t think the writers realized how obvious they were because they have these big dramatic scenes to reveal something so obvious to the player. Some characters feel like they could reveal things but they just don’t for some reason. All the twists of the game weren’t like this, it was just some of them. The story is also a pretty basic war story that turns into a save the world story but it is well done overall even if it has been done a lot before.
So overall a very solid game that I enjoyed a lot. Biggest problem is the maps but most of the games maps are fine enough that it doesn’t bring down the game too much. I overall enjoyed it more than Three Houses and I give this game a 8/10.