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Some thoughts on the game now that I've beaten it


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(The version I bought was the Japanese Valentia Complete version. I bought it on release date, but started playing 10 days after.)

I've finished Act 5. I've been rather slow at it for various reasons (I started the game 10 days after release), but here I am.

One big thing I wanted to say is that this game reminds me a lot of when I first really got into this series with The Sacred Stones. I don't know exactly why, but both games felt emotional to me: The Sacred Stones because it was effectively the first story-oriented game I played seriously, and Shadows of Valentia because its music, voice acting and RPG-like aspects make it very easy to get immersed. It helps that The Sacred Stones was partly modelled after Gaiden, but I think that's not the main reason.

I was pretty thrilled to see a Fire Emblem game that crosses the SRPG border a bit. It feels a bit like an adventure game and a visual novel. I'd even say I want to see this in a future game.

The remixed music is excellent. The Alm 2, Celica 2 and final battle BGM are all pleasant surprises. The ending themes are all great; although this is something you can say to the earlier FE titles as well.

And this game is probably the best video game remake I've seen. It's a good mix of old and new, and generally doesn't give an impression that the original is better in some aspects (at least to me; this can be very subjective). It also mixes in the new additions very smoothly, unlike Shadow Dragon and New Mystery, which scream "these new chapters and characters are not part of the original".

I can obviously see that the development team improved a lot over time. Though they're all on the same system, Awakening, Fates and Echoes have increasingly improved 3D, with model clippings being less visible this time (they still do exist, though). They've probably pushed the (old) 3DS to the limit with this one. The character models still aren't good enough for closeup shots though, which kind of kills the mood when you get to cutscenes that use those models. IS has never been that good with 3D or physics (see every and all pre-3DS 3D Fire Emblem or Paper Mario), and it still shows - although it also shows that they've improved a lot.

And I do have a few gripes. One is the utter lack of balance for both the original (class system) and new parts (forged weapons, skills, and the nerfed Triangle Attack); particularly jarring seeing that this came out right after Fates. A lot of Gaiden's problems carried over, although I'd say those are forgivable, seeing that being faithful to the original is a goal here. And the videos are of a worse technical quality than Awakening and Fates, being 2D videos with obvious compression artefacts.

The biggest "problem" I have with this game is that it's rather short. You don't even get to see half of its weapons and skills, or get anyone in to the third tier, by the time you finish the game. The post-game requires a far better team, but that part feels rather artificial. I can't really comment since I haven't started it.

Overall, I do really appreciate this remake. As a game, it's not really the best I've seen; but as a story-telling medium, it really shows the effort the development staff put into it. The full voice-acting, the extra writing that actually feels like a Fire Emblem story, and the sheer fact that they're willing to put so much into the remake of what's probably not the favourite FE of many people. Here's hoping they can learn a lesson or two in both the creative and technical sides and make good use of this experience in the Switch version.

 

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I'll just say I would have appreciated the game better if it had better cutscenes. I don't really care about the full voice acting since I feel like the pseudo voice ating of Awakening was enough to convey emotion, but I just can't take seriously those cutscenes with characters made of plastic. The fighting animations are great, though.

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58 minutes ago, nocturnal YL said:

 A lot of Gaiden's problems carried over, although I'd say those are forgivable, seeing that being faithful to the original is a goal here.

Is this what people tell themselves when they come across a flaw in this game while playing?

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1 hour ago, nocturnal YL said:

The biggest "problem" I have with this game is that it's rather short. You don't even get to see half of its weapons and skills, or get anyone in to the third tier, by the time you finish the game. The post-game requires a far better team, but that part feels rather artificial. I can't really comment since I haven't started it.

Really? I got quite a few people to their 3rd tier promotions. I didn't grind. Did you hold off promoting to tier 2 or something?

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6 hours ago, Lyon's Dirge said:

Is this what people tell themselves when they come across a flaw in this game while playing?

I am, kind of. I still don't like Gaiden's utter lack of balance (I'm generally a fan of being able to pick whoever I want in the battles) and the annoying maps; I just forgive those mistakes and accept it as part of the intentional game design.

If I have it my way, I'd actually keep Gaiden's map and story, but change the battle-related parts (maps, class system, and potentially weapons — no more 1-5 range nonsense) to match the modern games. But I also respect the decision to keep those as-is.

6 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Really? I got quite a few people to their 3rd tier promotions. I didn't grind. Did you hold off promoting to tier 2 or something?

I always promote at level 20, because I find my units to be far higher than the next class's base even at the time they gain the required levels for promotion. Not waiting until then seems to be a big waste in terms of preparing for the post-game, which I have no idea what the required power is. I'm actually seriously thinking about waiting until overclass level 20 before venturing in.

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1 minute ago, nocturnal YL said:

I always promote at level 20, because I find my units to be far higher than the next class's base even at the time they gain the required levels for promotion. Not waiting until then seems to be a big waste in terms of preparing for the post-game, which I have no idea what the required power is. I'm actually seriously thinking about waiting until overclass level 20 before venturing in.

You really don't need to, especially for units in the Mercenary line, who can loop back to Villager to grind stats. What difficulty did you play on? If you were playing Hard/Classic and delayed promotion for so long, that must have been extremely hard.

The post game is unfairly hard for a team that just came out of endgame, but at the moment max stats trivializes it already. Overclass level 20 is overkill.

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Hard/Classic. Had to go start grinding as soon as mid-Act 3 on Celica's side,and for Alm I had to grind before Act 1 ended with the aim to have the villagers promote. Since then, Alm's side didn't need much grinding thanks to the sheer defence of Alm and Faye. (I'm aware that some post-game enemies ignore DEF, so blindly throwing Saint Faye to the enemy's side won't work.)

 

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1 hour ago, nocturnal YL said:

Hard/Classic. Had to go start grinding as soon as mid-Act 3 on Celica's side,and for Alm I had to grind before Act 1 ended with the aim to have the villagers promote. Since then, Alm's side didn't need much grinding thanks to the sheer defence of Alm and Faye. (I'm aware that some post-game enemies ignore DEF, so blindly throwing Saint Faye to the enemy's side won't work.)

 

Yeah...promoting earlier would have saved you all that trouble.

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