Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - Hands-On Discussion!

[Busterman64]

Self explanatory. Watch. Enjoy. Learn. 

The hype is real...

Remakes! Remakes! WE WANT MORE REMAKES! 

[maybe]

i want to know what this guy discovered, but I don't want to listen to him talk for 25 minutes

has anyone watched the whole thing yet and if so was there any new information here

[LB44]

22 minutes ago, unique said:

i want to know what this guy discovered, but I don't want to listen to him talk for 25 minutes

has anyone watched the whole thing yet and if so was there any new information here

Yep, support conversations are included, no marriages ala Awakening/Fates style, and fatigue is back. Although I don't think it's necessarily Thracia style but rather where the more you use a unit, their stats drop. 

[maybe]

thanks

[Lord Tullus]

I said it once, I'll say it again.  Why does Shadows of Valentia Need Fatigue?  Half the units in the game are complete ass if we're going off of gaiden standards.  When I watched the video, I heard that an item can be given up to get rid of all fatigue.  Does that go for fatigue on 1 or 2 units?  Because I'm not going to sacrifice any item that's not some sort of damn cheese for two units to go without stat drops.  

Fatigue was about using other units, and making it so you couldn't cheese the game with a small group of Overpowered war hungry units. It worked decently with thracia because the vast amount of units still allowed for flexibility in who you wanted to train - with likes and dislikes.  But with Echoes, it seems, that I'll have to train everyone.   A small cast and an incentive to grind means that you don't see a major difficulty spike, sure.  But Why in Echoes?  What about this updated NES game makes it a must for fatigue to return?  I think the game would have been fine without it, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  

[Iridium]

3 hours ago, Lord Tullus said:

But with Echoes, it seems, that I'll have to train everyone.

That is presumably the point, yes. Gaiden has some ridiculously strong characters and I assume Fatigue was introduced so that you could not just skip the game by relying on them entirely. Gaiden's design philosophy lends itself well toward training everyone anyhow, with a greater emphasis on promotion gains and stat boosts compared to individual levels and 'leaked experience' being present as an actual mechanic. Weapons and spells, also, usually matter more than stats.

After all of the complaints about Robin/Ryoma Emblem, it makes total sense that they would try to mitigate how terribly Alm and Catria can violate the game in an illegal manner. I'm interested in seeing how exactly they go about handling it, but I'm somewhat optimistic.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Iridium

[Thane]

3 hours ago, Lord Tullus said:

I said it once, I'll say it again.  Why does Shadows of Valentia Need Fatigue?

I believe it's to encourage alternating between Alm and Celica's parties instead of clearing one half before the other. If I were to guess, entering a fight with Celica's team will let Alm's rest up.

[FallenVanguard]

55 minutes ago, Thane said:

I believe it's to encourage alternating between Alm and Celica's parties instead of clearing one half before the other. If I were to guess, entering a fight with Celica's team will let Alm's rest up.

Possibly a way at balancing some units without directly influencing those units as well.

Those of us who have played Gaiden, or seen it be played at least, know how easy it is to kick back and let Falcoknights do everything.

[Thane]

4 minutes ago, FallenVanguard said:

Those of us who have played Gaiden, or seen it be played at least, know how easy it is to kick back and let Falcoknights do everything.

I'd even call it vital to continue the game, at least if you hope to squeeze any enjoyment out of it. I mean fighting against those Mogalls who kept summoning new ones in the swamp sort of required Falcon Knights, otherwise you'd have been swarmed, and it's not like they were pushover units either, what with having 18 speed. I believe I used all the Whitewings and it still took me about 30 minutes to clear the map. They just. Kept. Spawning.

I really, really hope they fix the map design and summoning system. Aside from not including supports which are now confirmed, those are my biggest concerns and they've yet to be addressed.

[Pikappa93]

1 hour ago, Thane said:

I really, really hope they fix the map design and summoning system. Aside from not including supports which are now confirmed, those are my biggest concerns and they've yet to be addressed.

Every map we've seen so far seems to be pretty much identical to the original Gaiden I'm afraid (those who played the demo also confirmed this). I've already kind of accepted this, though I'm personally hoping they're adding new maps to the already existing ones.

As for summoning, if I remember correctly, the description of Genny's Invoke spell said it could summon up to 8 soldiers, so... yeah, I think that's going to be the same too.

[Thane]

Just now, Pikappa93 said:

Every map we've seen so far seems to be pretty much identical to the original Gaiden I'm afraid (those who played the demo also confirmed this). I've already kind of accepted this, though I'm personally hoping they're adding new maps to the already existing ones.

As for summoning, if I remember correctly, the description of Genny's Invoke spell said it could summon up to 8 soldiers, so... yeah, I think that's going to be the same too.

I know, that's what worries me. I'm holding out hope for more varied maps later on and easier ways of dealing with summons, but we'll see.

[Mox]

Sounds great so far.  As I have no experience with Gaiden I can't really comment on it, but I can say that I'd like to see Genealogy and Sacred Stones remakes in the future.  

[Night Zap]

In the discussion they said something interesting about the dialogue scenes: The upper screens show's Alm's perspective (explaining why the characters look into the camera), while the lower screen shows his face, and how his expression changes in response to the things he hears.

[Carnation]

35 minutes ago, Night Zap said:

In the discussion they said something interesting about the dialogue scenes: The upper screens show's Alm's perspective (explaining why the characters look into the camera), while the lower screen shows his face, and how his expression changes in response to the things he hears.

Huh, that's really interesting. My first thought was how well that lower screen would work with dialogue options, but I kind of doubt they'd add something like that in the game.

[bufkus]

On 3/27/2017 at 0:04 AM, Lord Tullus said:

I said it once, I'll say it again.  Why does Shadows of Valentia Need Fatigue?  Half the units in the game are complete ass if we're going off of gaiden standards.  When I watched the video, I heard that an item can be given up to get rid of all fatigue.  Does that go for fatigue on 1 or 2 units?  Because I'm not going to sacrifice any item that's not some sort of damn cheese for two units to go without stat drops.  

Fatigue was about using other units, and making it so you couldn't cheese the game with a small group of Overpowered war hungry units. It worked decently with thracia because the vast amount of units still allowed for flexibility in who you wanted to train - with likes and dislikes.  But with Echoes, it seems, that I'll have to train everyone.   A small cast and an incentive to grind means that you don't see a major difficulty spike, sure.  But Why in Echoes?  What about this updated NES game makes it a must for fatigue to return?  I think the game would have been fine without it, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  

Even with a small cast you can't use everyone in your party in battle, so why not? Fatigue is an excellent mechanic that ensures you utilize your full army, not just your favorite units. Fatigue improves the game in every way possible.

[Leif]

1 hour ago, bufkus said:

Even with a small cast you can't use everyone in your party in battle, so why not? Fatigue is an excellent mechanic that ensures you utilize your full army, not just your favorite units. Fatigue improves the game in every way possible.

I've been pondering this as well, and it really makes sense. In Gaiden, you only really needed to rely on good units like Palla or Catria to sweep through most of the maps. Other units like Luthier or Atlas could get left by the wayside and you wouldn't suffer the consequences. In this game, fatigue handicaps overpowered units so you can use other units to fill their place in battle. This mechanic only works in Gaiden because the cast is so small. The new kind of fatigue mechanic would not work on other fire emblems, like FE7 or Fates since the cast is much larger.

I like the idea on paper, but let's see how well executed it is. If Archer!Tobin gets tired, Python can fill his place in another fight. Or if Clive gets fatigued, Matilda can take over. 

It could very well be that fatigue can be easily cured so maybe it won't be much of an issue at all. I hope we get more news soon.

[Dunal]

1 hour ago, Leif said:

 The new kind of fatigue mechanic would not work on other fire emblems, like FE7 or Fates since the cast is much larger.

I don't see how cast size is relevant? It's not like those games aren't best being low-manned -- same for most of the series. 

In Fates it would a good mechanic to keep units like Camilla in check, if anything. And in FE7, the endgame is so easy that near-soloing is as prominent as ever. Of course, that's partially the game's difficulty/balance at fault there.

I also hope it isn't "easily cured" because that kind of goes against the idea of preventing the notion of putting-all-eggs-in-one-basket, so to speak. Since you could just circumvent the mechanic on 1 or 2 units specifically by spamming the 'curing' items on them. In other words, making it easy to recover fatigue benefits better units much more than the worse ones.

I think the mechanic has a lot of potential, personally. If I were envision it existing in certain games, it only benefits them. Probably because every single game in the series is best played by spamming 3-5 of the best units for the most part.

[Lord Tullus]

1 hour ago, DLuna said:

I don't see how cast size is relevant? It's not like those games aren't best being low-manned -- same for most of the series. 

In Fates it would a good mechanic to keep units like Camilla in check, if anything. And in FE7, the endgame is so easy that near-soloing is as prominent as ever. Of course, that's partially the game's difficulty/balance at fault there.

I also hope it isn't "easily cured" because that kind of goes against the idea of preventing the notion of putting-all-eggs-in-one-basket, so to speak. Since you could just circumvent the mechanic on 1 or 2 units specifically by spamming the 'curing' items on them. In other words, making it easy to recover fatigue benefits better units much more than the worse ones.

I think the mechanic has a lot of potential, personally. If I were envision it existing in certain games, it only benefits them. Probably because every single game in the series is best played by spamming 3-5 of the best units for the most part.

I disagree.  Even with fatigue Certain games can still be broken because of other mechanics in place.  With how many games in the franchise rely on higher stats on at least a few units in order to win the later chapters, fatigue would make it unnecessarily difficult.  If units aren't able to survive one attack near the endgame, they are a bad choice for the end game, considering you have tried to give equal experience to everyone.  

One of the reasons fatigue worked for Thracia was because the stats capped at 20.  So the units that you didn't use for a while could still reliably catch up.  There wasn't really a gap in usability, and the staff users were all broken if you could get their skill and magic up.  Even with fatigue you could still abuse the game to it's limits.   No mattar what, people will always find a way to trivialize mechanics.  Unless there are things put in place to prevent abuse (fatigue is a good starting point, but it's not perfect) people will find a way.  

Also with cast size: the larger it is, the more you need to swap out for - leaving more and more to fall behind.  So, you have many mediocre units aside from the protagonist(s), and one good unit.  That means that if Future fire emblem games, like others in the series, prioritize higher stats near endgame and the caps are not low like in Thracia, fatigue only makes it so only a few are working at their best.  It makes everyone who is susseptable to being behind in stats.... behind in stats.  With a smaller cast, you can easily swap out a few units at a time and still be good, because you are not sacrificing huge benefits to large troops.  

Edited March 29, 2017 by Lord Tullus

[mikethepokemaster]

On 3/27/2017 at 6:06 AM, Pikappa93 said:

Every map we've seen so far seems to be pretty much identical to the original Gaiden I'm afraid (those who played the demo also confirmed this). I've already kind of accepted this, though I'm personally hoping they're adding new maps to the already existing ones.

As for summoning, if I remember correctly, the description of Genny's Invoke spell said it could summon up to 8 soldiers, so... yeah, I think that's going to be the same too.

I persoally think this took IS a year and a half at best since their main focus probably on Switch and that game coming out in 2018 so they probably was working on this and the switch fire emblem but Fire Emblem Switch got more attention. who know maybe they had a team A work on this and Team B work on the switch. with all the fire emblem games coming out people might get Fatigued(see what I did there) of the games. So hopefully after this  they slow a bit on content and let people digest the games they have out now. Pokemon relase a new game every 2 years I think Fire Emblem should practice that mind set. Echoes a remake or re-imaging of a old game so they probably wanted to keep the maps the same or they were just Lazy. 

[Lord Tullus]

3 hours ago, mikethepokemaster said:

. Echoes a remake or re-imaging of a old game so they probably wanted to keep the maps the same or they were just Lazy. 

I actually think that Gaiden's maps fit it's archaic mechanics well enough to be a decent and engaging game at times.   Map design?  If people can deal with Chapter 3 from Fire Emblem 12 (Mangs couldn't)  Then people can handle Gaiden's map design.

[Extrasolar]

3 hours ago, mikethepokemaster said:

Pokemon relase a new game every 2 years I think Fire Emblem should practice that mind set.

Pokemon uses essentially the exact same game with a few new features and a new coat of paint put on (i.e., with the exception of the Stadium games and Colosseum series, you're traveling through routes, collecting badges, fighting a villainous team, and challenging the Elite Four at the end). It doesn't take too long to tweak an already pretty much established formula slightly, so I don't imagine their games spend all that much time in development (especially in comparison to games which change a lot more of the status quo with each installment).

While with FE we have a format of map-based chapters, everything else changes, from map objectives to map layouts and bosses and items and what have you, and they have to veer further away from the status quo of previous games with the series than Pokemon does. Unless we're talking a remake, in which much of the framework is already in place and just needs a few more mechanics added and a bump in visual presentation, 2 years per game seems far too soon. I think the quality of the games themselves would see a drop if that was the case.

[mikethepokemaster]

9 minutes ago, Extrasolar said:

Pokemon uses essentially the exact same game with a few new features and a new coat of paint put on (i.e., with the exception of the Stadium games and Colosseum series, you're traveling through routes, collecting badges, fighting a villainous team, and challenging the Elite Four at the end). It doesn't take too long to tweak an already pretty much established formula slightly, so I don't imagine their games spend all that much time in development (especially in comparison to games which change a lot more of the status quo with each installment).

While with FE we have a format of map-based chapters, everything else changes, from map objectives to map layouts and bosses and items and what have you, and they have to veer further away from the status quo of previous games with the series than Pokemon does. Unless we're talking a remake, in which much of the framework is already in place and just needs a few more mechanics added and a bump in visual presentation, 2 years per game seems far too soon. I think the quality of the games themselves would see a drop if that was the case.

Don't if you were triggered or what but you do know they released 3 games back to back between 2002 to 2004 right, so your argument with the whole it would loose luster doesn't hold up.  POR and RD were only 2 apart or 3 years apart from ech other I think. So yeah a year or 2 year for a game to be made isn't out of the question for IS. They have 3 games coming out with 6 months to a year from each other.

[Extrasolar]

20 minutes ago, mikethepokemaster said:

Don't if you were triggered or what but you do know they released 3 games back to back between 2002 to 2004 right

"triggered"

Lol. Okay bro.

...and they were all GBA games working off of the same engine, thus cutting down production time. So....

You realize that unless they use the exact same engine for every future FE game, then releasing games back to back like that is a recipe for disaster? Or did you get "triggered" by someone pointing out the glaring differences between Pokemon and FE?

20 minutes ago, mikethepokemaster said:

POR and RD were only 2 apart or 3 years apart from ech other I think

And as much as I adore them, there were several parts about POR and RD that were unpolished and/or unfinished. POR had janky animations and visuals, a few bugs that affected gameplay, and whatnot. RD...had a host of other problems, including unit balance and availability, some issues with writing and consistency, and the like.

More development time is for the better with video games. Not to mention, unless you want horrible FE oversaturation (which if you want it to be like Pokemon, this is exactly what you're advocating for), then releasing a new game every two years is just too much.

So. The games coming out in the future.

One of them is a hack and slash warriors game that doesn't use main series FE gameplay at all.

One of them is a main series game that's likely been in development for years for a brand new hardware.

And one of them is a remake with all of the framework already developed.

So I mean...not sure the point you're trying to make here.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Extrasolar

[Dunal]

20 hours ago, Lord Tullus said:

I disagree.  Even with fatigue Certain games can still be broken because of other mechanics in place.  With how many games in the franchise rely on higher stats on at least a few units in order to win the later chapters, fatigue would make it unnecessarily difficult.  If units aren't able to survive one attack near the endgame, they are a bad choice for the end game, considering you have tried to give equal experience to everyone.  

One of the reasons fatigue worked for Thracia was because the stats capped at 20.  So the units that you didn't use for a while could still reliably catch up.  There wasn't really a gap in usability, and the staff users were all broken if you could get their skill and magic up.  Even with fatigue you could still abuse the game to it's limits.   No mattar what, people will always find a way to trivialize mechanics.  Unless there are things put in place to prevent abuse (fatigue is a good starting point, but it's not perfect) people will find a way.  

Also with cast size: the larger it is, the more you need to swap out for - leaving more and more to fall behind.  So, you have many mediocre units aside from the protagonist(s), and one good unit.  That means that if Future fire emblem games, like others in the series, prioritize higher stats near endgame and the caps are not low like in Thracia, fatigue only makes it so only a few are working at their best.  It makes everyone who is susseptable to being behind in stats.... behind in stats.  With a smaller cast, you can easily swap out a few units at a time and still be good, because you are not sacrificing huge benefits to large troops.  

Again, not sure how this is specific to a larger/smaller cast?

Whether Thracia had a cast of 20 units or 50 units would make very little difference. Fatigue just made it so you'd increase your chosen unit roster from like 12 to 20 for most players. Although realistically, playing 'efficiently' would be more like 5 units to 8-10.

I mean, Fatigue is entirely specific to individual units, not the entire army, so whether you switch out X unit for a certain period has nothing to do with unit roster (it's more to do with how Fatigue actually functions and the severity of it). If Fatigue is expecting you to you use 15-20 units in Echoes based on how Fatigue works, then it would be 15-20 units in any other game with the exact same mechanic... you'd just have the option of which 15-20 units out of the 40/50 or so available. Difference in Gaiden is that you use almost all units instead of your choice of units.

Caps are nearly irrelevant since numbers are relative to the game (In Thracia most units only really cap ram effectively with scrolls and that's because growths are overall fairly low) and only matter later on -- growths are more important to this. Games with massive growths like Fates means that if a specific unit has to miss out on a map, that could be detrimental because both player/enemy growth is really high, so they potentially miss out on more stat boosts to keep up. Lower growths means that the gap between higher and under levelled units is much closer. So missing out on a map doesn't mean too much.

Plus, the idea that you need to overuse units for them to be fatigued in the first place (Echoes specifically) means that more powerful units are prone to this more in the first place. Weaker/average units might not even be affected by it whatsoever given moderate use (that they usually do have). Maybe equally using a roster of 10-12 means the mechanic isn't even a thing if you manage well? 

There's tons of exploration to be had with the mechanic as well. Double attacking could inflict more fatigue, which is good nerf to speed (It's extremely logical as well)! Or using more powerful spells or more powerful weapons etc... So it could potentially go further than just unit balance. Maybe bows could incur the least fatigue? Or moving further fatigues more (good for armors). There's some nice things here potentially. Even skills as well; sprinting to move further in return for energy; or a battle stance that actively prevents you from doubling to save energy etc... you get the idea.

[mikethepokemaster]

3 minutes ago, Extrasolar said:

"triggered"

Lol. Okay bro.

...and they were all GBA games working off of the same engine, thus cutting down production time. So....

You realize that unless they use the exact same engine for every future FE game, then releasing games back to back like that is a recipe for disaster? Or did you get "triggered" by someone pointing out the glaring differences between Pokemon and FE?

And as much as I adore them, there were  several parts about POR and RD that were unpolished and/or unfinished. POR had janky animations and visuals, a few bugs that affected gameplay, and whatnot. RD...had a host of other problems, including unit balance and availability, some issues with writing and consistency, and the like.

More development time is for the better with video games. Not to mention, if unless you want horrible FE oversaturation, releasing a new game every two years is just too much.

So. The games coming out in the future.

One of them is a hack and slash warriors game that doesn't use main series FE gameplay at all.

One of them is a main series game that's likely been in development for years.

And one of them is a remake with all of the framework already developed.

So I mean...not sure the point you're trying to make here.

My point is it not impossible for them to make games multiple in the span of 2 years to 3 years when did Fates come out in japan 2015 so 3 years they been working on this game. your arugement still fall over since you admit they still made game within a certain time span. It take up to 2 to 3 years for a main fire emblem to come out really since what the DS days. there a 2 years difference between Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem and they were Remake but like Echoes they remade from the ground up. it took them another 2 years to make Awakening after New mystery of the emblem and Awakening was on a different hardware. 3 years for Fates and those were 3 games in one.