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Shadows of Valentia Has Damn Good Map Design


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Yes, I'm being completely serious. Playing through these maps has been some of the most fun I've had with Fire Emblem in quite some time. I won't say that it's quite Conquest level, but the more and more I play of this game the more I'm realizing just how well thought out some of these maps actually are. As an aside, I'm basing this on a Hard/Classic playthrough with the intention of moving somewhat fast (not LTC, but actively trying to end maps quickly), so I can't really say for certain if any of this holds on Normal (though I imagine it probably does). 

So why is it that now, 25 years later that these maps work so much better than they do in the original, despite being functionally very similar if not outright identical? One seemingly small, but in actuality HUGE change that's transpired is the obvious interface upgrades between SoV and OG Gaiden. Gaiden had a lot of little intricacies in its mechanics, and now with 3DS hardware it's easy to see and keep track of these mechanics in a way that efficiently conveys information to the player. No longer do you have to keep track of Weapon Might, Weapon Weight, Attack Ranges etc. making it much less annoying to plan out your moves. While this is technically possible to do in OG Gaiden as well, the fact is that save for the most hardcore players, most people (myself included) would rather make low effort/low risk moves to save on time rather than deal with the cumbersome menu systems and stat screens of the original. It's really nice to have everything laid out, with no need to keep a tab open with all the HP Costs, weights, etc. open in another window, and this by itself turns Gaiden from a turtle fest into a much faster paced game.

The other absolutely CRUCIAL game changer is the ability to easily re-order your units from the deployment screen. It's funny, but in a video I made back in January I was actually talking about how this function would make Gaiden maps a lot better all by itself. Lo and behold, it most certainly does and allow me to explain why. In the original Gaiden, deployment may as well have been random for most of us who didn't want to memorize deployment positions for every single map in the game. I'm willing to bet that 99% of us fell in that camp, right? Well the decision to neglect that mechanic actually comes back in a big way to make these maps feel dull and boring.

Let me just create a scenario here. Have you ever started a map only to realize that all your low movement, squishy units are at the front of your lines while all your high movement units bring up the rear far away from any actual enemies? Obviously, you can't draw the enemies with these units because they either can't move far enough or would be easily overwhelmed. Most of us would be content to spend a turn or two fixing that up, not realizing that in doing so the pacing of the map is already way out of whack. By the time we've fixed our initial deployment, the enemy is right at our doorstep. In other words, because you didn't have freedom of deployment in the original, every map proceeds at the enemies pace and NOT your own. This is HUGE. This is the sole reason that Gaiden has this reputation for being slow, repetitive, and mindless. After all, with 6 Cavaliers right outside your range and maybe a few Archers or Mages that are checking those Cavaliers, what CAN you do besides turtle up and clean them out on the next turn? 

Enter: Shadows of Valentia. Suddenly, you can choose to move the units that are most suitable for tackling the first wave into position before the battle even begins. Suddenly, you have real options. And most importantly, suddenly, YOU'RE in the driver's seat of this battle, not the enemy. I can say confidently with no exaggeration that this changes the flow of the entire game. The fact is, maps in Gaiden have had this level of flow all along: they were just masked beneath dated mechanics. Let's look at a few maps to use as an example of what I mean.

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This is Garth's Fort. I couldn't find images of SoV similar to this one, but this map is identical in terms of enemies (though they're tougher in SoV HM) as it it in SoV so I hope you'll excuse that. I figured that this map might be a decent example of the point I'm trying to make, since it combines a lot of the elements people didn't like in OG Gaiden into one map (Desert, Summoners, Witches). The person who captured this image (taken from DKII's LP on lparchive) actually doesn't have a terrible deployment order here, but you can easily imagine how this could be worse if you're not keeping up on unit order. Not to mention, though decent, this deployment order still makes this map more painful than it has to be, which I will come back to when relevant.

For the map itself, the Snipers all have Iron Bows (It may have been Steel, it's a bit fuzzy. They have 1~5 and effective damage is the part that matters), and the Dark Mages all have Mire, a very powerful 1~3 Range Spell. The hallways on either side are certain death for any of your units on Hard Mode as things stand, but if you'll notice, the Sniper and Dark Mage in the middle aren't being covered by the other Snipers very well at all, and the Witches will move away if there's nothing in their immediate attack range. This is sort of a "weak point" in the enemy lines, and playing through the game you'll notice this kind of thing happens a lot on these siege type maps. The Myrmidons on either side are strong and quick, with precisely enough movement range to attack someone on the desert tile directly in front of them. They aggro together, so if you activate one, you activate the other. The third Myrmidon to the south will approach you from behind, and mess with your plans if you're too slow as you approach the fort and leave your back lines exposed. And of course, there's the boss room that houses Garth himself, a very scary Dread Fighter with high stats across the board, Resistance +5 and to top it all off, an ability that halves magical damage. With him are a Myrmidon, two Mercenaries, two Fighters (basically fodder by this point), one Dark Mage with Miasma (I think?) + Recover to heal units as they retreat, and a Cantor that will summon Bonewalkers periodically. 

I'm sure that many of us came to the same conclusion in terms of strategy (clear the units in the middle, then push through the left hand side), so now it's time to execute. But given all the things we've mentioned (Desert terrain, Cantors, Witches, and powerful ranged enemies) this map is going to be a slog, surely? Not so, I say, with a little bit of planning. Let's go back to the above image and look at how we can make this much more bearable simply by moving our starting positions around a bit, because as it stands you WILL be wasting time on those boring actions that a lot of people criticize Gaiden for. Right now, the problems I see are as follows: 

1) Can't kill the Sniper in the middle without Palla and Catria both taking a hit (Only Genee can heal from a distance at this point)

2) A need to draw the Myrmidon on the left out of the hallway by the time Catria and Palla have cleaned up the middle

3) The only people who can safely attack the Myrmidon in the south are one of Palla/Catria, or Saber/Kamui (Jesse gets rocked on Hard Mode), who all have better things to do that will make the map flow more smoothly

4) Mae starts in a terrible spot. Considering she's still so powerful at this point, she'll be wanted on the front to help with that Myrmidon and her range is great for clearing out the left hand hallway

5) Leon is just out of range to attack the Sniper Turn 1 (may or may not matter)

6) Why the hell is Boey leading the charge?

Because of these issues, you'll likely have to spend at LEAST 1 turn setting yourself up properly, but by now the Witches have started to warp in, and the Cantor may even get an extra Conjure or two in because you couldn't reach him as quickly as you should otherwise be able to. Again, you're forced to play at the pace of the enemy, and not your own, and it feels slow and sluggish. You'll have to wait to draw the left-hand Myrmidon in because no one can cross the desert quickly enough. You'll have to wait to kill the Sniper in the middle because you don't have enough firepower in that area. You have to dedicate extra resources to that Myrmidon closing in from behind, and because your lines are all out of whack you may as well just wait for the Witches who are otherwise not that threatening. From where I stand, the best possible Turn 1 in this scenario involves a whole lot of waiting, and waiting is boring. Worse yet, you'll have to wait even more while you wait for your more powerful, low movement mages to get in proper position as you approach the hallway. You'll have to wait an extra turn so that Saber can draw the Myrmidon in the hallway out of range of the Sniper/Dark Mage. And with each turn you waste waiting, the Cantor has another chance to summon more enemies.

Now let's change the deployment order a bit. For the sake of argument, let's assume Saber is the north Mercenary, Kamui the south, and Jesse the southwest. Similarly, let's assume Catria to be the western Pegasus, with Palla the east. Now:

1) Saber stands where Boey currently is

2) Leon stands where Palla is

3) Mae stands where Catria is

4) Kamui stands where Saber is

5) Valbar stands where Leon is

6) Palla stands where Kamui is

7) Jesse stands where Valbar is

8) Boey stands where Jesse is

Let's look at our opening moves again. This time though, you're able to move your characters with clear purpose, not just to make up for some silly deployment issues. Saber can push hard north, with Kamui right behind him to eventually take his place when he becomes weakened. Leon is now free to take potshots at the enemy Sniper from the get go (hell, you may be able to kill him Turn 1 with Catria or Palla with a little luck and planning, though the Witches probably wreck you in combination with Mire). Alternatively, since Mae is closer, you can draw the Sniper to the wall and fry him with a well placed Thunder on the next turn. Valbar laughs at the Myrmidon to the south, and is now in a position to do something about it. Mae is now close enough to support Saber/Kamui as they push the left hallway without having to wait for her to catch up, and Boey follows shortly behind. Jesse is in the back where he belongs. With flexible deployment zones your attack starts to feel planned, and more meaningful as opposed to random, chaotic, and boring. You're actually able to formulate and execute a long term strategy, based entirely on your ability to freely plan out the very first turn. To keep the example going, the Witches will have started to warp by now, so you easily clear the middle room by the end of Turn 2 or the start of Turn 3. That's great, because it just so happens that by Turn 3, Saber can draw the Myrmidon on the left out onto the stairs, and off the evasion boosting tiles. If you've healed Palla and Catria, they'll be in a great position to swoop over to the left hand side and harass the Sniper/Dark Mage by this point as well. I'm not going to go turn by turn through the entire map or anything, but needless to say that if you continue moving tactically at a somewhat brisk pace, you'll find lots of "happy coincidences" like the ones I've pointed out so far. As one last example, and a counter to the whole "Cantors are BS" argument, if you're moving at a pace similar to what I described, Genee just so happens to be in range to Expel Terrors at about the point your frontliners start to take them on.

As a tangent, this little detail right here is another reason think that Gaiden secretly had (a lot of) good maps all along. You mean to tell me that it's a coincidence that Saber just so happens to be able to move the perfect amount of tiles to not only draw the Myrmidon on the left hand side, but also draw him off the beneficial terrain all at the same time? And this all happens to take the exact same amount of time it would take to clear the middle room, and make crossing the hallway a much safer feat? And Mae (or Boey if that's your thing, but really, Mae is better) just happens to be able to back Saber up from this position? The Snipers just happen to not cover one another from their starting positions as well? Genee just happens to be able to keep up in a way that lets her Expel Terrors right when you're likely to start fighting them? No way. One or two of those I might buy as a coincidence. But all of them together feels too deliberate. And this is one reason that I believe Shadows of Valentia to have some great, fun maps.

But Garth's Fort is probably closer to a more traditional Fire Emblem map, despite being in my opinion a well designed level. What about some of the more open maps that Gaiden is known for? Gaiden, unlike some Fire Emblem games, places heavy emphasis on Terrain and Map Control. Most areas of interest (I.E places where you'll likely encounter enemies) have some sort of Terrain you can take advantage of, either to gain evasion or to prevent enemies from attacking your back lines. Here's another example of the things I've been talking about coming together in a way that feels very deliberate. This time, let's look at a more open map:

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This map is quite a bit more open than the last one we looked at. Lots of desert terrain, and lots of Mercenaries that can easily eat your mages alive at this point. Unfortunately, they're pretty tanky too, and it's hard to deal heavy damage to them without magic since you may not double at this point, and almost certainly won't double the Myrmidons. So how would you do this without slowing your game to a crawl? Simple enough, if you use the desert to your advantage. With some reordering, Valbar can actually reach a very important spot on the map by Turn 2. I'm referring to that patch of grass that is one tile south of the southwestern post of that supply stack. By blocking that area with a high defense unit, The Mercenaries are forced to go the long way through the desert if they want to get behind your lines now. But if you've been planning ahead, By Turn 3, one of either Kamui or Saber can step into the desert tile just right of Valbar. Suddenly, it's going to take a really long time before any enemy can even think of threatening your mages. And because the desert is so hard to traverse, the only person who Dean will be able to attack is Valbar, who tanks even a crit or two with ease if you give him a shield. All the while Catria/Palla/Mae/Saber or Kamui can harass the eastern group of Mercenaries and take them out before they join with the main group in the north, then double back to help take out the other group a single turn later. It's crazy to think about, but on a map like this, the desert actually accomplishes so much more than simply slowing the game to a crawl. In other words, the terrain is used as it should be: as a tool to strategize around rather than an obstacle you have to put up with. 

Some maps really don't have a lot of terrain to take advantage of other than the layout of the map, however. It's very unconventional to be sure, but Gaiden and by extension Echoes is an unconventional game. A game that expects you to understand the tools that you have if you want to succeed. Let's look at one more map:

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Here we have the Valbar Rescue mission against the Pirate King Barth. Because you have such a high number of Mages, I'm sure many people would be more inclined to take this one a bit slower, since the enemies while weak, are numerous, and your Mages lower their own HP as they attack. The problem, of course then becomes the fact that Valbar and his group will eventually be overwhelmed if you don't do anything to save them. There's not a lot of terrain here, so in the end this one is going to come down to a brawl, one way or another. So what can you do to survive that, when there isn't a lot of terrain and your units will be worn down quickly by this number of enemies?

Well, first let's switch Genny for Mae. Now, once again, it just so happens that one of the first spells Genny picks up is the Invoke spell, which allows you to summon between 4-8 allied units. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, but these allied units start out surrounding the caster. Knowing this, you can simply move Genny off the boat and to the left, Invoke Spirits, and suddenly all the pressure is taken off Valbar and his squad since now your own units are closest to the enemy. Additionally, your other Mages can now safely move in because of the allied forces creating barriers for you. On maps like these, especially in the early game, Invoke can help you "make terrain" in locations where it's otherwise barren. Since you now essentially have an impassable moving wall, and an army of Mages, I'm sure you can guess how this ends for these unfortunate pirates. You can do a very similar thing on the other Boat Maps that Celica faces in Act 2, to very similar effect. If you can't take advantage of the terrain directly, then the skills you have at your disposal can pick up the slack and keep things moving at a reasonable and fun pace. While a map such as this would certainly fall flat in a more traditional title, because of the abilities that you possess in this game, even a flat map like this can actually be very enjoyable once you understand the options that you have at your disposal.

Now you may have noticed that all of my examples have come from Celica's maps. Now that's not because I think that Alm's maps are bad by any means (although from what I have played I do think that Celica's on the whole have been more enjoyable. That opinion could change though). The reason I haven't brought up his maps are because, despite appearing in the same game, his route actually plays quite a bit differently than Celica's. Where as Celica's route relies on Genny understanding of terrain, the lay of the land, and positioning around those factors, Alm's route revolves a lot more on his group and their own unique options/items, as well as aggressive turtling here and there. However, Rescue and Warp from Faye and Silque respectively are the main things that set Alm's group apart from Celica's. The fact that you can get Rescue so much earlier now is HUGE, as is Warp despite the nerf. In other words, what makes Alm's maps unique from Celica's are the large amount of movement options that you have with his group. The more open nature of his maps actually compliment this in a lot of ways, since Warp and Rescue are now expected to be utilized unlike other Fire Emblems where they are saved for specific occasions. Of course, watching the terrain on his maps is important too, especially since you won't have evasion-bypassing Mages to use as freely. I have a lot to say about Alm's maps and why they are (mostly) good in their own ways, but I'm feeling a bit burnt out from typing all of this as is. One quick example of what I mean by Alm and his group's movement options though:

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With proper positioning, you can do some fun things here. It's perfectly possible even with the Warp nerf, to have Claire solo the two Paladins on the left (there is a Horseman there in SoV instead of a third Pally) while you Warp Mathilda closer to the Dark Mages on the right. You can then Rescue/Warp Claire to the boss on Turn 2 for a chance to kill him. Not that there's a reason you'd want to kill the boss quickly on this map or anything, but I just thought I'd point that out. 

Now for me personally, my one and only true gripe is the abundance of Rout missions present. I think the only one I've played that hasn't been Rout so far (up to Act 4) was the Boss of the Thieve's Shrine of all things. I will say that while I wish some of the stages were changed to "Defeat Boss", because of all the fun options that you have in this game, it's actually been really enjoyable to plan out how to kill all the enemies as quickly as possible.

TL;dr:

Shadows of Valentia has great maps that are a blast to play even when they're ripped straight from Gaiden. The new interface helps convey information to the player in a way that is convenient, which makes a huge differences in a game with as many nuances as Gaiden. The trick to understanding these maps is to understand that Gaiden is not your average Fire Emblem, but a game in which you have several unique options that you won't find in other FE titles. If you don't use these options, you may find yourself frustrated, because much like the OG Gaiden, SoV isn't going to hold your hand and force you to use these new abilities. However, if you take advantage of what your characters can do, you'll find that the maps are certainly designed with all the unique mechanics in mind. Shadows of Valentia definitely has it's own unique flow, that while different, is every bit as good as any other well received Fire Emblem title. There are still some stinkers (though the maps that are tend to be more boring than offensive, really), but overall I find the maps and gameplay to be very enjoyable on the whole. And this is coming from someone who was initially very worried about the maps, and almost didn't pick this up Day 1 because of that fear.

If you disagree with the maps being good feel free to leave a reason as to why that is. As I said I personally find them to be quite good overall, but I'm sure there are people that feel otherwise and would be interested to hear from you guys in that camp. 

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I just Deen's map, the one you outlined above.

That is not a good map. At all.

The desert forces everyone to stay on the grassy area so 90% of the map ceases to mattter until you slowly, ever so slowly, send people to help your pegasus sisters take on the myrms randomly near the sole healing tile that does nothing but annoy you. Meanwhile, at the grassy choke point, it's nothing but slowly trying to hit the myrmidons one to three at a time while hoping they dont break through but slightly and slowly going around unless you use invoke in which case everyone just gets clogged.

Choke point maps can be fun! If it gives you options and other things to do. Not, well, here's a giant desert with a single grassy lane. Enjoy hoping your units are dodgy enough to keep damage to a minimum since you only really have one healer until Celica spends 4 turns getting to wher everyone else is while you also hope they actually hit.

 

Gaiden doesn't have "damn good" map design. It has annoying map design that's a chore to go through even if you do them "correctly". Annoyance has been the single pervading thought I've had in nearly every map. Like Alm's map near Zofia castle. Why is it so big if there's nothing in it? Why is the heal spot so far away forcing you to chase down cavaliers for 2 turns when the retreat AI kicks in. why the single bridge choke point. Celica has this map early in Act 3 where half the map just does not matter because there's a giant clump of enemies at the start and like one on the other end.

 

Also let us not pretend that Genny's Invoke, or one specific character happening to have the one specific thing for a map suddenly makes these map designs good. It's a bandaid to help cope. Magic, for instance, does not make all those maps with every enemy on 20 avoid castle tiles good maps, it means you rely on shaky rates and magic (with static shaking rates).

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I'm a fan of Gaiden and Echoes but I think you're going to have a hard time convincing people of this. There are some good/decent maps, but I have to concede that there are a lot of bad ones too, even though they are improved in Echoes, yes.

It's even unpopular when I say that I view Awakening's map design to be as bad as Gaiden/Echoes and consider them to be the poorest map design in the entire series together, because of how badly people view the Gaiden/Echoes maps. Though I do still believe that.

Edited by Tryhard
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Just now, Tryhard said:

I'm a fan of Gaiden and Echoes but I think you're going to have a hard time convincing people of this. There are some good/decent maps, but I have to concede that there are a lot of bad ones too.

It's even unpopular when I say that I view Awakening's map design to be as bad as Gaiden/Echoes and consider them to be the poorest map design in the entire series, because of how badly people view the maps. Though I do still believe that.

I see a lot of similarities in the map design, but I'm forgiving Awakening because it has stuff in place to help alleviate wide open maps. Enemies are more spread out, there's genereally more little things scattered about (walls, forests, more than a single bridge on a map, rivers, etc). If a map has restrictive movement, there's generally some mobile enemy units to meet you sooner so there's less dead air. Higher stats allow you to more easily handle problems or maintain an even level swarm of enemies. Has more reasonable terrain penalties. More reasonable terrain, in general. I wouldn't make a topic celebrating it as good map design, but, I found myself enjoying it on the whole (except Priam's & Laurent's which are probably the most gaiden maps in the game barring the map that is actually from gaiden)

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50 minutes ago, r_n said:

I just Deen's map, the one you outlined above.

That is not a good map. At all.

The desert forces everyone to stay on the grassy area so 90% of the map ceases to mattter until you slowly, ever so slowly, send people to help your pegasus sisters take on the myrms randomly near the sole healing tile that does nothing but annoy you. Meanwhile, at the grassy choke point, it's nothing but slowly trying to hit the myrmidons one to three at a time while hoping they dont break through but slightly and slowly going around unless you use invoke in which case everyone just gets clogged.

Choke point maps can be fun! If it gives you options and other things to do. Not, well, here's a giant desert with a single grassy lane. Enjoy hoping your units are dodgy enough to keep damage to a minimum since you only really have one healer until Celica spends 4 turns getting to wher everyone else is while you also hope they actually hit.

 

Gaiden doesn't have "damn good" map design. It has annoying map design that's a chore to go through even if you do them "correctly". Annoyance has been the single pervading thought I've had in nearly every map. Like Alm's map near Zofia castle. Why is it so big if there's nothing in it? Why is the heal spot so far away forcing you to chase down cavaliers for 2 turns when the retreat AI kicks in. why the single bridge choke point. Celica has this map early in Act 3 where half the map just does not matter because there's a giant clump of enemies at the start and like one on the other end.

 

Also let us not pretend that Genny's Invoke, or one specific character happening to have the one specific thing for a map suddenly makes these map designs good. It's a bandaid to help cope. Magic, for instance, does not make all those maps with every enemy on 20 avoid castle tiles good maps, it means you rely on shaky rates and magic (with static shaking rates).

Interesting that you feel that way about Dean's map. That leads me to another thing that I really quite like about these maps, actually. They really have a tendency to be over very quickly if you know what you're doing. I suppose that could be negative to some, but to me figuring out how best to rout the enemy is half the fun. From what I've played, I think the longest turncount I've had on any given map has been about.. .15 Turns? There are plenty of longer maps in plenty of other games. You say that it's bad because. . .why exactly? I'm honestly a little bit confused about that. This map lasts like 6-8 turns maximum, if you're taking an active approach to the map. You're really only holding that position for one, maybe two turns with Valbar before you really start clearing them out. With Mae/Boey/Leon/Celica. You may only have one healer, but Genny is one of the strongest units in the game easily. She can pretty easily have Physic at this point, so that area is covered. You don't need every unit on full health at all times, it's sometimes perfectly fine to let a unit sit on low health for a while. What matters is that they aren't dying. Palla/Catria can kill the first Mercenary on their own, and whoever didn't take the hit takes on the next while the other is chipping with the Javelin safely. Since again, the Mercs can't move more than 1 tile, this is perfectly safe without healing. 

Also I don't know why you wouldn't go through the desert at all. Sure, you can't move as far but what does movement matter if you're headed somewhere you aren't needed? Saber can cut north to take on a Merc while Mae/Boey moves up behind to fry Mercs with Thunder. That's 3 Mercs right there, and you're only on the start of Turn 4. Dean dies the same turn he makes it to the front, and the next turn few turns can be spent cleaning up. I actually really like the desert here, where it encourages you to think long term in your choices. Although the desert does restrict movement, it's a worthwhile move since some of your characters are better off there. You're still pressing North and you end up really close to where the most of the action will happen. If you send everyone up to the grassy patch like you suggest, then of course the game slows to a crawl. That's not efficient use of your characters. 

If you're letting the Cavaliers retreat from you, that is 100% on you as the player. You're going to have to refresh me on the map you're talking about, but if it's the one that comes to mind (in act one, yes? with the Knight boss?) then it's on you to get someone across that bridge before the enemy does. Choke the point from the opposite side and suddenly it's not bad at all. Silque gets Warp early, and I'd definitely have to recommend people get that one early.

And yes, I do mean to say that the abilities you have in this game are meant to be used in tandem with the map design. To say otherwise is pretty crazy, to be honest. I wouldn't, for example, take a game with Canto or Rescue (not the staff) in the game, and judge the quality of the maps based on how it would play without those mechanics. It wouldn't make sense to do so. Yes, summoning is in the game. So you ARE expected to know how to use these abilities. When you aren't using everything the game gives you, how can you blame the game? I wouldn't, for example, refuse to use Marcus in early HHM or FE6 HM, and then blame the game for being too difficult. Both titles are both clearly designed around their "mechanic" (Marcus is a character, but the point stands), and by refusing to use this mechanic is going to have a negative effect on my overall performance.

I won't say a lot in defense of a flat 20% avoid bonus on certain castle tiles. I actually rolled my eyes at that myself. Given they went so far as to nerf Warp for balance it was kind of surprising they did nothing about that. Disregarding those tiles however, I will say that yes, if you're going to allow an enemy onto a terrain tile you'd best be sure you have a way to hit them. Again, positioning means a lot in this game, especially because fighting an enemy on unfavorable terrain can be a nuisance. It's very punishing in terms to positioning, but I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily. Supports are also in this version, which can patch those "Shakey" hitrates up to 100% depending on the Character/Support/Spell/Item. The game is 1 RN, but so were hitrates above what, 50% in Fates? 

It's interesting that the Awakening comparison was made, but understandable. These maps are a lot more engaging than anything Awakening has to offer from the time Robin gets rolling until the end of the game (DLC excluded). I don't really see how a person could argue against that, really. In fact, Awakening is literally able to be soloed by the Avatar Unit, even on higher difficulty levels. Whether you like Echoes or not I think most can agree that it's a more engaging experience to have to use multiple units as well as you can to get good results rather than to actually make your life harder by using anyone other than the My Unit of the game.

Edited by Deltre
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Just now, Deltre said:

Interesting that you feel that way about Dean's map. That leads me to another thing that I really quite like about these maps, actually. They really have a tendency to be over very quickly if you know what you're doing.

 

Ok look you made a bunch of points I'd probably touch on but this is...

These maps aren't fast. By design, they aren't. Even knowing what I'm doing (positioning, supports, terrain, skill usage, mages), maps take a while because of either movement stuff (the first desert map is absolute garbage, full stop) or more often, because units can't eat through all the hp in a timely manner. Maybe strength is middling? Maybe the enemy HP & defense is high. Maybe you can't double. Maybe the hit rates just won't land in your favor. The stat layouts and growth rates of the game make it difficult to reliably handle enemies in a timely manner. 

Then there's the wide open maps with a heal spot on the other side of it that weakened enemies (which there will always be!) retreat to. So now you have to spend additional turns chasing them down, hopefully getting them before they hit the heal spot. Alm is in Paladin hell right now and I'm specifically retreating to earlier maps so I don't have to deal with that awful huge zophia field map (the giant one with the river running through it). But even him aside, those heal tiles are in every dang map. Dean's mercs hang out near the temple so Catria & Palla missing their marks causes them to retreat and well guess I'll deal with those later. The desert map before it took even longer because the enemies i finally managed to contact with kept retreating back inside. Celica's third boat map took so many more turns because the Cantor sits on a heal tile, won't move offo it, nearly doubles everyone, has high resistence, the works. Even once you figure out his trick (he'll never attack on his own, mages can't attack if they dont have the hp for it), it still took a while to get the situation to have everyone hit their needed hits, avoid death, etc. 

Annoying. Slow. Tedious.

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2 hours ago, Deltre said:

from what I have played I do think that Celica's on the whole have been more enjoyable

I stopped reading here lol. You are clearly a masochist beyond the level of the average FE player, because I can't see how a chapter of boats, a chapter of deserts, and then a chapter of swamps can be anything but tedious and bad map design.

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1 minute ago, r_n said:

Ok look you made a bunch of points I'd probably touch on but this is...

These maps aren't fast. By design, they aren't. Even knowing what I'm doing (positioning, supports, terrain, skill usage, mages), maps take a while because of either movement stuff (the first desert map is absolute garbage, full stop) or more often, because units can't eat through all the hp in a timely manner. Maybe strength is middling? Maybe the enemy HP & defense is high. Maybe you can't double. Maybe the hit rates just won't land in your favor. The stat layouts and growth rates of the game make it difficult to reliably handle enemies in a timely manner. 

Then there's the wide open maps with a heal spot on the other side of it that weakened enemies (which there will always be!) retreat to. So now you have to spend additional turns chasing them down, hopefully getting them before they hit the heal spot. Alm is in Paladin hell right now and I'm specifically retreating to earlier maps so I don't have to deal with that awful huge zophia field map (the giant one with the river running through it). But even him aside, those heal tiles are in every dang map. Dean's mercs hang out near the temple so Catria & Palla missing their marks causes them to retreat and well guess I'll deal with those later. The desert map before it took even longer because the enemies i finally managed to contact with kept retreating back inside. Celica's third boat map took so many more turns because the Cantor sits on a heal tile, won't move offo it, nearly doubles everyone, has high resistence, the works. Even once you figure out his trick (he'll never attack on his own, mages can't attack if they dont have the hp for it), it still took a while to get the situation to have everyone hit their needed hits, avoid death, etc. 

Annoying. Slow. Tedious.

This just honestly hasn't been my experience at all. I wish I had been a closer track on how I cleared each map, because I completely disagree that they play slowly. That Cantor map did not take me nearly as long as you're describing. Doesn't he have Mire? The 10 Wt weapon with nothing to offset that? Either way, there's no way he's doubling everyone unless you flat out did not use Mae, Celica, or Saber at all. Coincidentally, Angel has 90% accuracy, and Celica gets that pretty early. He's constantly draining himself anytime he does anything at all, and Magic completely negates his avoidance. Yeah, he actually has a resistance stat but Mae and Celica can both outdamage that pretty reliably. It's actually a lot more generous than the rest of the series where you just have to deal with the mad Throne/Gate bonuses. In fact, this one is potentially one of the faster maps in the game since it actually is a Defeat Boss map.

Okay, I'll be completely honest, and I don't mean offense, but no, one weakened enemy does not "always get away." At the end of the day, you as the player let that happen. It might be annoying just like it is in every other Fire Emblem game, but it doesn't have to happen. And with your example, the game gives you the Ridersbane for free. It's not even a dungeon item. And it gives it to you on Alm's route, which has far more cavalry than Celica no less! If you're choosing not to use that, then how can that not be the player's own fault? Every character that can use it sees an immediate benefit, especially Claire and Mathilda who are typically fast enough to double and potentially one round kill any Cavalier and some Paladins too. Lukas/Forscythe/Whoever can use it too, it just takes them longer to get there. Unless of course you Warp, and there is no way Silque is not level 7 by now no matter what you do. I'm not sure why you're so frequently leaving enemies so low on Player Phase either when you know that they're going to go heal. Just like they will in most Fire Emblems, in fact. 

Everything that you have described in the second paragraph can be applied to every single Fire Emblem since the first. Missing sucks, enemies that can't be one-rounded exist. Most people get robbed by the RNG in every Fire Emblem game at least once, either by a low percent crit or missing a high accuracy attack, or whatever. I will concede that this game can be more punishing for missing at a critical moment, but not in the same way that it does in other titles. Typically, if you miss in some of the harder games, you can easily be dead, whereas here it's really more of an annoyance in a lot of cases. Even so, Arts exist, most of which boosts both your power and almost all of which boost your accuracy. Forging increases your accuracy further still. And there's plenty of things that you can forge even if you don't want to grind for marks (which I did not). Forged Steels are plenty powerful, and eventually maxing an Iron Bow (Silver is much more expensive, not worth it for one more point of Might) is probably a good idea too. And if the Paladins are still too much, then just forge the Ridersbane. Act 3 ends the second you do.

I'd really prefer to stick to talking about the maps, but I do understand that the mechanics are kind of important to the flow of these maps. If the one desert map you're referring to is the Wolf's Fort, then I definitely agree that map is pretty dull. It was one of the weakest maps in the original IMO and it definitely is here too. No argument about that one at all haha.

I did say their were some stinkers to be fair, and I'm not arguing this as if the maps are untouchable perfection. What I am arguing is that a lot of them can be surprisingly thought provoking at times, and really fun to play. Those are qualities I'd generally mean when I say a game has good map design. 

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7 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I stopped reading here lol. You are clearly a masochist beyond the level of the average FE player, because I can't see how a chapter of boats, a chapter of deserts, and then a chapter of swamps can be anything but tedious and bad map design.

Because none of them play the same and the desert terrain isn't actually at all intrusive outside the Wolf's Fort map, which as I said in my above post, actually is pretty bad. As you might gather, I didn't play Sonia's map, so I won't speak for that one. 

 

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Just now, Deltre said:

Because none of them play the same and the desert terrain isn't actually at all intrusive outside the Wolf's Fort map, which as I said in my above post, actually is pretty bad. As you might gather, I didn't play Sonia's map, so I won't speak for that one. 

The maps definitely don't play the same, but they all have the same terrible annoyance of low movement. On Deen's map, there's literally no point to the desert. Deen and a few Mercs will rush straight down the grass, but the four Mercs on the right will slowly inch their way towards you on the sand while you do the same. Literally "why". The most dangerous part of the map still reaches you in two turns, while everyone else does nothing interesting. The small chokepoint of grass also makes it so that you can only really use 2~3 units to deal with Deen, and any map that encourages/forces lowmanning is generally not well-designed.

With how the fighting doesn't start until you actually enter Grieth's Fortress, what purpose does the desert serve other than slowing you down for 2~3 turns? The Witches generally warp on the first two turns, when you're still on the grass, so the sand changes nothing. You can't really enter the range of the the Sniper and mage on the left and right flanks without getting extremely close to the fortress, so the sand just slows the encounter down once again. What usually happens is that Leon, Palla and Catria just clear off the Snipers and mages before the rest of your army even has a chance to fight. What I just said also basically sums up a large portion of Celica's Chapter 3 and 4 maps, with emphasis on Palla and Catria.

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I really like the maps because they feel natural and they look pretty. I don't care if they're "poorly designed." To me they're just fun, and as long as I enjoy them then I'm happy. :3

I wouldn't claim these maps to be the best in the series, because I know objectively there a much better maps. However, as far as personal preference goes, I find them great. :P

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Atm I feel maps are mostly fine. I feel people have some biased against Deen's map. I glad it's desert because merce and Deen will screw me pretty hard if they have the normal mov. If you stay on glass to fight them, you pretty lose the only advantage you have over them. The only map I feel bad is the desert fort of archers. It's not hard, it's just annoying the ridicule amount of archers.

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The maps are still the weakest part of the game. They're definitely a lot more tolerable now that the game isn't as slow as Gaiden was, but there's still a massive reliance on constant choke points, and in the last few acts, choke points that deliberately exist to keep to from reaching Cantors as a first priority. The sheer randomness of Cantors just turns these maps into wars of attrition that you can't really handle in completely logical or planned-out ways, which isn't great for a strategy game. 

A map like that would be fine here and there, but that's every single map with a Cantor, which is like, every other map in the late game. And the maps that don't rely on choke points have awful terrain, tons of unused and unnecessary space, are visually uninteresting, or have baffling enemy placement. 

There are a few good maps in there. I do enjoy the Delthea/Sluice map, even though it is just another choke point map that's also a spiral full of mages and bow units so they can take pot-shots at you as you wind inwards towards the boss. 

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11 minutes ago, Slumber said:

There are a few good maps in there. I do enjoy the Delthea/Sluice map, even though it is just another choke point map that's also a spiral full of mages and bow units so they can take pot-shots at you as you wind inwards towards the boss. 

I just Warped in Mathilda and Alm for that one lol.

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3 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I just Warped in Mathilda and Alm for that one lol.

I did that for most maps where it was just a game of keep-away. At least on Alm's side. Celica was SOL and had to trek through that shit herself. 

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Just now, Slumber said:

I did that for most maps where it was just a game of keep-away. At least on Alm's side. Celica was SOL and had to trek through that shit herself. 

Celica's side would be so much more tolerable if she had access to Warp, but I guess that's exactly why they didn't give it to us.

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3 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

The maps definitely don't play the same, but they all have the same terrible annoyance of low movement. On Deen's map, there's literally no point to the desert. Deen and a few Mercs will rush straight down the grass, but the four Mercs on the right will slowly inch their way towards you on the sand while you do the same. Literally "why". The most dangerous part of the map still reaches you in two turns, while everyone else does nothing interesting. The small chokepoint of grass also makes it so that you can only really use 2~3 units to deal with Deen, and any map that encourages/forces lowmanning is generally not well-designed.

With how the fighting doesn't start until you actually enter Grieth's Fortress, what purpose does the desert serve other than slowing you down for 2~3 turns? The Witches generally warp on the first two turns, when you're still on the grass, so the sand changes nothing. You can't really enter the range of the the Sniper and mage on the left and right flanks without getting extremely close to the fortress, so the sand just slows the encounter down once again. What usually happens is that Leon, Palla and Catria just clear off the Snipers and mages before the rest of your army even has a chance to fight. What I just said also basically sums up a large portion of Celica's Chapter 3 and 4 maps, with emphasis on Palla and Catria.

I can understand why 4 Move standard can turn you off a bit (I just got Celica's promotion the other night, and ugh...), but I think in a way the game does benefit from it in a large way. Now I have reason to use lower move units like Knights, since they're able to keep up when needed in the beginning. Of course, they definitely fall off late game, but still, it's nice to see a game where Knights are remotely useful IMO. Valbar was very nice on certain maps, to be sure.

I definitely disagree that this game encourages lowmanning though. I'm actually finding it to be the exact opposite, in that in order to clear a map as fast as possible everyone should take at least one meaningful action during each battle in order to reliably clear these maps quickly. I'm always bringing units just to chip, or people that might really only be good to fight one or two enemies tops for that battle. I understand that not everyone plays with any speed in mind at all, and like to take their time with each map. But from the perspective of someone who's been playing this pretty casually overall, only fighting enemies in dungeons the first visit, no other grinding (if I need to go back I avoid encounters as best I can) the majority of the maps have been incredibly engaging. 

I just played Celica's Duma's Gate Chapter for example

Spoiler

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This is how the map looked at Turn 5 right after whiffing an Expel Terrors on Turn 4 (Not pictured: Sonia, who reliably solo'd the Witches in the forest despite being way underleveled). It's basically over, at any rate. Now originally, this was going to be a 6 Turn, but I actually got a little bit lucky with a crit here, so I was able to finish the Boss with just Mae. Originally I was going do some trade shenanigans to make this work but I didn't end up having to do that because of that little bit of luck. Mae deals a ton of damage with Seraphim, at any rate, to the point that I would have been able to pick him off regardless. It took me 6 Turns anyways because I missed on the Dread Fighter in the end. That's Gaiden for you. I looked it up since, since I'm almost at the end of the game, and my Mae is a little screwed on Atk too, so that's another thing that could have made this easier. She does 16x2 with 17 Magic, which makes it possible to juuuust kill the boss before he drops the quake on you. If she could have done 18x2 (which would put her at average Atk I believe, the crit is like 10% I think so not unheard of). And I definitely had to use every unit to make that happen. Alm's route is a lot more guilty of encouraging lowmanning IMO, what with Claire and Mathilda being able to murder everything along with the occasional Gray. That's why I said I felt that Celica's were a bit better overall.

With Grieth's Fort, you're fighting things on Turn 1, and definitely fighting things on Turn 2. By Turn 3 Saber is drawing the Myrmidon from the fort on Turn 3 enemy phase, at least 2 Witches are dead and the units in the central tower are dead/dying. Echoes certainly doesn't have high enemy density compared to other games in the series, but the enemies are quite powerful on Hard Difficulty (except summoned enemies and Cavs up until at least Chapter 3, those are crap. I dunno about C4 Alm yet since I haven't finished), so the fact that you're killing 4 enemies actually means you killed about 20% of the entire map. It's not really a high enemy density game. Hell, I think Conquest is probably more dense, and the density in that game wasn't very high either.

I'm just not seeing where this game plays slowly, even from a totally casual perspective of not going ultra tryhard or anything. If anything, going slowly in this game is punished so much more than any other Fire Emblem game, what with how enemies will take chokepoints before you if you aren't careful, and Cantors in general. Other games in the series punish this play by taking items with thieves, or burning villages. This game does it by giving the enemy the advantage. It's self fulfilling really: the slower you play the more punishing the game gets. I haven't found Cantors to be all that annoying though, for the most part. They're more troublesome early on, but once you get Expel Terrors you have a pretty good shot of them becoming very little more than an annoyance, and once your mobile units and ranged fighters start to pick up steam, you can more easily kill Cantors and nullify any remaining summons. At that point it's really not that bad. Especially considering that units that are likely to snipe a Cantor have either 1) Banish or 2) use bows which is great mid-late game since most Cantors seem to love summoning Gargoyles, with a mix of Dracozombie for some flavor. If I ever replay this I'm definitely making Atlas an Archer to help with this. I haven't really had to deal with them on Alm's Route yet, but Warp/Rescue is a thing there so I'm sure it's fine. 

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16 minutes ago, Deltre said:

snip

It's not that the game encourages going slowly by design; like you said, Cantors and the sort discourage this. But despite not encouraging people to go slow, it FORCES you go slow via terrible terrain on Celica's side. With no access to Warp/Rescue and very few movement mechanics available (you can shove with an Iron Shield... Wheee...), all non-fliers have to suffer. In Chapter 4, there are multiple swamp chapters where no one except Palla and Catria (and trained Est) can do meaningful actions for about 6~7 turns, because that's how long it takes to move two tiles at a time across a swamp, while Cantors summon Gargoyles to chip at you even more. And once you do even get to the edge of the island with enemies, there are multiple Dread Fighters and Slime-wielding mages waiting for you, which means in order to safely land, you'd need Palla and Catria to thin out the enemies in the first place. Celica's maps really encourage snowballing those two units, and essentially makes it lowmanning.

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I haven't started Echoes yet, but in Gaiden Celica Part 4 is very much a Falconknight duet/trio, whereas Part 3 tends to be a team effort. I usually send Palla and Catria ahead, but they generally just knock off mages or mess up the enemy formation for when the rest of the army arrives. It's definitely slower, since your offense is weaker than in other games, but IMO that makes it even more important to have a large team.

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2 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

It's not that the game encourages going slowly by design; like you said, Cantors and the sort discourage this. But despite not encouraging people to go slow, it FORCES you go slow via terrible terrain on Celica's side. With no access to Warp/Rescue and very few movement mechanics available (you can shove with an Iron Shield... Wheee...), all non-fliers have to suffer. In Chapter 4, there are multiple swamp chapters where no one except Palla and Catria (and trained Est) can do meaningful actions for about 6~7 turns, because that's how long it takes to move two tiles at a time across a swamp, while Cantors summon Gargoyles to chip at you even more. And once you do even get to the edge of the island with enemies, there are multiple Dread Fighters and Slime-wielding mages waiting for you, which means in order to safely land, you'd need Palla and Catria to thin out the enemies in the first place. Celica's maps really encourage snowballing those two units, and essentially makes it lowmanning.

I'll give you the Mire Boneyard is bad, and that it definitely places too much emphasis on the Whitewings. Genny maybe trys for an Expel Terrors or something once but that's about it really. None of the stages that were grinding maps originally are really that great in this remake, I openly admit. The dungeon battle maps really aren't all that special either. Still fun to play, but aside from the (ironically) very earliest dungeons when you're weak the battles are almost entirely mindless even on hard mode. 

I disagree with Dead Man's Mire and Dolth Keep being bad though. Palla/Catria/Est aren't soloing either of those maps by any stretch of the imagination. I played Dead Man't Mire like garbage and I still beat it in around 9 or 10 Turns. I didn't realize I could safely draw the Dread Fighter until a few turns in and I didn't restart or anything. The Dread Fighter can actually move 3 tiles through the bog, so it doesn't take long to draw him. I didn't have one myself at this point, but if you get Deen he can definitely be one by this point, which would mean he could cross the swamp in 2 turns as well. My Saber was just short of promotion I believe, so no dice there. Even so, if you draw in the Dread Fighter to you, your non-flying units can contribute right away. Genny can Expel when the Cantor summons and when you inevitably miss a few, your Mages/the sword fighter who is not dueling the Dread Fighter can pick apart the Gargoyles while keeping forward momentum. And Leon is pretty great here as well thanks to his huge range. The bog has very clear reason to slow your units down as well since it's constantly draining your HP for a meaningful amount of damage. This in turn makes the Gargoyles summoned actually a little scary and it means the Snipers are pretty threatening by the time you cross to the other side. If you neglected to do anything about the Dread Fighter, then you're in real trouble. The swamp pressures your team greatly, especially considering that Genny is both your only Expel user and Physic user all in one. It would actually relieve all the pressure almost immediately if you could walk straight across the bogs here, and the map would be more boring for it. 

Dolth Keep is a similar situation, only a little bit more forgiving since there are plenty of little islands to travel across. I had a Dread Fighter by this point and they can zip across pretty quickly to the South. You can use your fliers to take potshots and kill certain weaker enemies, but you're still going to need to help them out a lot if you want this to be win in a reasonable amount of time. I do think that this one is weaker than Dead Man's Mire since in Dolth Keep, the Cantor's Dracozombies will be flying right at Palla/Catria/Est since they hang out near the front. In Dead Man's Mire, the monsters come from the side, making the swamp more meaningful since you'll be able to use your other units to fight if you get unlucky with the summons or with Expel. With the summons flying directly to the spot where Palla/Catria/Est are most likely to be, they tend to do the most work on this map for sure. Still, actually taking the fort is going to require more than just the three Fliers to get the job don. 

As an aside I really don't see where Palla/Catria/Est are even half as centralizing as some other Top Tier Characters. They are all incredibly mortal, for different reasons. Palla falls over to any mage that looks at her funny, Catria is really frail in the long-term, and Est takes forever to get going (even though she's still worth it to train). Banish is only +10 to monsters, and there are plenty of those who can survive a round with any of the three because Palla will never double and Catria/Est are too weak. Est in particular can't stay in range of anything until she's a Falcon Knight, since she starts with 20 whole HP at the point where 20 damage starts to be almost nothing. I do think that flight is good, and I do think that Palla, Catria, and Est benefit from this fact, but I'll ask this: Is it honestly bad that we're using our high-movement units to get to the enemy first? That's kind of what they do haha. And given that you really only ever have to bench a max of like 2 guys for any given route (and that's lategame when you have everyone), it doesn't matter as much even if you're not that great of a character. Hell, I've been bringing Boey since the beginning and he almost always finds a way to be useful even if it's just helping me recover from an unlucky miss. The only reason I didn't bring him on the last one is because Witches will actually tear him up, no lie. The Triangle Attack is nerfed too, now costing 10HP and not even being an Auto-Crit. Topping that off, something I learned just today is that 

1 hour ago, Baldrick said:

I haven't started Echoes yet, but in Gaiden Celica Part 4 is very much a Falconknight duet/trio, whereas Part 3 tends to be a team effort. I usually send Palla and Catria ahead, but they generally just knock off mages or mess up the enemy formation for when the rest of the army arrives. It's definitely slower, since your offense is weaker than in other games, but IMO that makes it even more important to have a large team.

there are more Archers/Snipers/Horsemen in Echoes than in OG Gaiden. I posted an example of that with Alm's map, but there are also times that the enemy placement was changed around a bit, usually in a way that makes that group of enemies a bit more thought provoking than in the original Gaiden. The deployment zones have also been altered a bit from what I can see. Intelligent Systems actually knew where some of the more obvious character balancing flaws were in Gaiden, and tried their best to address them. I'm actually really impressed by that to be perfectly honest. They didn't get it perfect by any means, but I feel like every character is good enough to be useful on Celica's route if you bother to use them, and I still think Sniper!Atlas might have some potential. 

 

 

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31 minutes ago, Deltre said:

snip

First off, not really your fault, but since I didn't play the English version, I actually have no idea what chapters you're talking about when you mention names like Dead Man's Mire. I'm just guessing based on memory.

I disagree that the swamp makes it more exciting, but I guess here we fundamentally disagree on what makes a good map. I consider having to move about a dozen units two tiles a turn while getting pelted by Slime, arrows and Gargoyles to be not fun and bad map design. In other words, "taking away the swamp makes the level less interesting" doesn't mean anything to me; that level should not have existed in the first place.

On the level with Saizo (the random named Dread Fighter guy, I'm not sure what his English name is), the Gargoyles aren't even scary to begin with at that point in the game, since your stronger foot units should be able to deal with them no problem; I didn't need to use Expel at all. My Palla and Catria duo (with Est as support backpack) baited Saizo out for the rest of my army to deal with, but the rest of the map, including the Snipers and the Cantor, were basically all dealt with by Palla and Catria. By abusing forges and Arts at that point in the game, even the Snipers can be swiftly dealt with without taking damage. I gave Catria an Iron Lance (mostly because I didn't know Saunion existed at the time), and Palla a Steel one, and Catria would chip the Sniper first with Hit and Run while the Avoid boost gives her a good shot at taking no damage (even if she does, she won't die, so it's fine as long as Genny heals), then Tempest Lance from Palla would take the Sniper out for good.

I actually don't remember what Dolth Keep is. Anyway, I already mentioned that only Leon is relatively relevant for a good while, since he can actually hit things that Palla and Catria are fighting.

Catria overall isn't as good as she was in Gaiden (mostly because the enemies got buffed), but her lack of physical bulk is semi-negated by the fact that the most threatening enemies on Celica side are all magical-based (the occasional Dread Fighter is best left to be handled by your own Dread Fighters and Celica). And if you want to override that completely, you can just give Catria the Saunion forged from the Javelin, and she becomes a great magekiller and chipper for Palla.

Palla is still top notch, especially now that she has that 60% Str growth, better physical bulk, and support bonuses from her sisters. She (usually) gets enough Speed to not get doubled by anything except Dread Fighters and some Bigles, and that's good enough. She can also abuse certain Arts like the one I just mentioned to trivialize certain encounters, and patch up her lower Skill since pretty much all Arts give a Hit bonus.

You'd want to use the Dread Fighters etc. that you get, of course, but I don't think there's any doubt that they're the ones that carry Celica side overall. Est won't catch up unless you grind like crazy though, so she doesn't really matter.

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I'm not convinced that Shadows of Valentia has good map design, although I haven't yet played it. I'm basing this on OG Gaiden which doesn't have good map design yet I think people who say Gaiden had the worst map design are also wrong. Gaiden had more than a couple of good maps and even the bad ones which are just open fields aren't really bad, just boring. This is because the enemies are not that high in number so the open field doesn't cause as much of a detriment as it could. It also helps that enemies aren't statistically strong. This is especially in contrast to the open fields of Awakening and Birthright which have huge numbers of enemies, all with high stats and good weapons, charging at you on an open field where you have no where to go.

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I've only being playing the game awhile, but I noticed that the maps themselves are either really spread out and it takes several turns to reach the enemy, or they're impossible to move across with units only moving one space on both sides. 

However, I do like the fact that although it can be rather tiresome, the game seems to be keeping true to older FE games with the map designs. It is a remake, after all. 

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I dont find the maps as bad as everyone says they were, but I wouldnt exactly call them great. There are still a few stupid as hell map designs, like the Cavalier maps on Alm's side that has 10 Cavs half a mile away and takes 5 rounds before your archer can even hit one, and Celica's graveyard maps get pretty annoying after a while. I just got to Part 4, and the Swamps already look annoying as hell too. Damage from environment is not my thing, and its there. An entire sea of it on the first map.

On the other hand there have been some maps that have been a lot of fun too. I found the end map for Chapter 1 to be a lot of fun, and the challenge of trying to keep Desaix there added to that. (Dragon Shield is great.) Greith's map was also fun imo. I had to put a little thought before going and charging in. The second Desaix map was fun too along with the Sluice.

On average though, I find most of the maps just OK. Nothing too bad, nothing too great either. Temple of Mila for example was just the Saber and Kamui show. Since they were both Dread Fighters already all it took was one whitewing opening that door and it fell apart from there. they just slaughtered everything in it, which made the map a little boring too me. It was too small for reclaiming a huge temple, and was really underwhelming. Both times I have fought Berkut on Alm's side have been underwhelming as well. They are just huge forest maps, which make sense for it being in the middle of a battlefield, but I would of preferred it to be some kind of keep or structure. The rest have been just, ok. The boat maps werent annoying, but werent exactly great either. A lot of Alm's maps are the same outside of the important ones.

 

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