Opinions of SoV Postgame (Unmarked spoilers)

[Punished Dayni]

Considering there's no recent topic on this, I decided I'd weigh in after finally clearing the hidden (relatively speaking) boss. Spoilers for SoV postgame obviously.

From a story perspective, it's honestly simplistic. Every part leading up to Thabes is an excuse plot to get there; once again, the people giving missions not having much character is a shame, they had the chance for a cameo or they could have done something more (imagine Athena just sitting there asking for a lift back). As for the story within the labyrinth, while it's not a bad origin for Grima and the Risen, the power we see from the Risen prototypes just makes the Risen in Awakening even weaker. We also finally get an idea of how Thabes was as a society through what happened with Forneus, making this the first time I actually was interested in Thabes, somehow an easy feat after playing three games that it was in. Of course, getting the conversation between Duma and Mila gave us some nice context for the events before the main game (as well as being a bookend for the story as it shows the beginning (of the divide at least) at the end) and we got some idea of what Duma once looked like. might have been nice to get some more, but I'm not mad at what we got.

As for the gameplay, the absence of Mila shrines makes the dungeon more tense for obvious reasons, making the real challenge keeping as many of those precious turns as possible for the boss maps. Even with 12 turns, you can find yourself running low quite early on, especially if you wish to grind the dungeon for certain items (screams in ancient weapons). It's still a dungeon in this game, so there's nothing too surprising once you've seen an opponent before: there's not going to be a massive difference in experience each time you go into the dungeon. The layout can throw you off, but it can be memorised as well to make less of a concern.

The difficulty is also quite a barrier for Hard Mode, but it is doable without the (Paid) DLC (alright, I can say the Taurus Shard, pitchforks and the boots helped with this massively: Clive is so much better with even one loop!). The stats on enemies are quite likely to be on par with your units early on once you first arrive, but the deeper you go, the more noticeable the stat inflation gets and the more it tries to drain you before the end. Brigands and Villagers on the 6th floor are quite likely powerful enough to floor you when you first arrive (And the enemies don't get easier from there), any non-terror dragons are terrifying opponents and the final map is up there for difficulty in this game because of the reinforcing grunts (which are very powerful in their own right) and of course Grima itself being a tricky boss as is. I'll just stick my experience of the final boss here:

Spoiler

So, I was paranoid of the boss when I decided to take a crack at it: I made the somewhat poor choice of only running units with the highest stats for it, which left me somewhat lopsided as I had both lords, 3 cavaliers, 2 offensive mages, 1 Bow Knight and 2 Dread Fighters. After finally arriving at Grima, I was not doing too badly for turnwheel uses, but Grima is pretty crazy as a boss. I ended up somehow only killing Grima with some well panicked attacks, having most of the party attack at once, with a crit or two to help bring Grima down. Of course, the way things were, I had to use pretty much everything I had: whatever skills worked, the best attacks I could muster and I only scraped by on a Scendscale finisher.

So, I recommend using a Saint or two at least, if you have Bow Knights with high stats they're a great asset and I recommend prioritising your units who have more speed for the final fight.

If anyone wants to expand on this, feel free to bring up what you want to bring up.

[Captain Karnage]

I mean, it's not too hard to sneak around the enemies, you just need to know when to run and be sure you always get the first strike so you can use retreat.

I found that using the illusions to distract Grima was the best way to take care of him

overall I find it a lot easier than what most people say

[Slumber]

I think the concept was nice, but the execution and implementation was rather... bad.

The early floors of Thabes are very easy if you've managed to beat the game, but it QUICKLY becomes unreasonable if you don't do a fuckton of grinding. Which means they either expected you to be massively overleveled when you go in, making the first floors even more of a joke, or they expected you to grind IN Thabes, which is laughable.

It didn't seem like they really tested it.

[Thane]

Probably the worst time I've ever had with a Fire Emblem game. The best way to handle it is abusing the horrible AI, and you'd better hope a strong enemy doesn't reach Celica, or it's right back to the beginning. The lore it offered was interesting, but the lack of actual plot made it barely impactful. So yes, it offered almost nothing of value.

[Jedi]

An interesting concept that wasn't properly done to its full potential. 

Still better than the entirety of Revelation though.

[Ertrick36]

Literally just lore with high-stat enemies tacked on (that I just avoided anyway) and a final boss that's kind of really annoying to fight due to the fact that if you mess up, you have to start back all the way from the top.

Feels like less thought was put into how it was designed than Revelation.  Though maybe it's just because the AI is better in Fates.

18 hours ago, Captain Karnage said:

I found that using the illusions to distract Grima was the best way to take care of him

Spamming illusions is the easy solution to pretty much every possible problem in Echoes.

It's how I dealt with Grieth.

Illusions are kinda broken in this game...

[Punished Dayni]

When it comes to the postgame, I get the criticisms. Especially the balance. Then again, it seems like they weren't too worried about that. Maybe the intention was to encourage purchase of the DLC?

I think part of my optimism about the postgame was linked to actually managing to beat The Creation without the grinding DLC or overclasses. It makes sense the criticisms didn't sink in when I first posted. I still think it's the best postgame for the 3DS era (which is up against Awakening throwing (imo) non-canonical paralogues and Fates not having one, not much of a feat)

[King Marth 64]

I do wish the developers add more stuff in the Post-Game Content like some new events that can be unlocked after completing Act 5, new side quests that can't be used anywhere before Act 6, probably make new maps for fighting, more new locations besides Archanea Seaway, Furia, and Thabes, a fourth base conversation that one of the characters can explain their lives after Duma's defeat, and add more story lines since this is kinda too short and plus, this is kinda shorter than the Pokemon game's Post-Game Content. But, I do like they added Grima and the Risens to the game's post game content since we know why who created them and their origins since this wasn't explained in Awakening nor Fates as well.

Edited December 8, 2017 by King Marth 64

[BrightBow]

The boat maps were really fun. I'm really glad they exist. Thabes... not so much. The dungeon almost completely linear with almost no room to explore and corridors that are recycled over and over and over again. And the non-random battles aren't all that interesting either. And since there are no checkpoints, it involves a lot of backtracking. Having to run through 10 floors just to get a single shot at the boss is just a massive pain in the rear. And you are hardly gonna feel like trying out interesting strategies when you know you have to do this all over again if things don't work out.

In terms of story... well just to get this out of the way, the idea that the Emperor of Riegel would play bodyguard for some trader is completely ridiculous. But whatever, that's not important. The thing is that the game promises a journey to Akaneia, yet we end up in a completely new location that was never mentioned before nor has it any connection to anything else in Akaneia besides of an offhand mention of Divine Dragon blood. They didn't even do some fun little stuff like having the Akaneian blacksmith show up or something. It's a huge letdown.

The weird thing is that this part doesn't even add anything to Awakening either. All we learn is that Grima was artificially created by some random mad scientist.But that alone doesn't add anything to Grima as a character. He may as well have been wished into existence by a genie or something, it's just a random piece of trivia. And it's not even interesting trivia because it has only the faintest of connections to existing lore.

Edited December 9, 2017 by BrightBow

[Armagon]

4 hours ago, BrightBow said:

yet we end up in a completely new location that was never mentioned before nor has it any connection to anything else in Akaneia besides of an offhand mention of Divine Dragon blood.

Quote

Seeking the lightsphere, Marth and his friends headed for the Tower of Thabes. Thabes is an ancient city buried under the sands, along with many treasures. The legend of Thabes, the city of illusion, lured many adventurous men to the desert. However, in the end, not one of them ever returned. As the sages once said… stay clear of Mamorthod, the Desert of Death, as there lies a cursed Dark City...”
—Opening Narration, New Mystery Ch.11

Don't know where you're getting the idea that the Thabes Labyrinth was never mentioned nor has any connection to anything in Archanea because New Mystery's description of Thabes lines up perfectly with how the Thabes Labyrinth is portrayed.

[CeruleanCyclone]

I don't particularly care for the story of the postgame so I will keep this focused on gameplay.

The boat maps are a hint of things to come, overly bulky enemies with the typical poor map design that pollutes the game. Things don't seem out of the ordinary until the last boat map, Archanea Seaway 6 is one of the worst maps in the game and the series as a whole. You are totally surrounded by enemies on a small boat as reinforcements pile in (Cantors do not appear in this map, so manner in which reinforcements spawn is unique to this map for no reason), and have to deal with the disgustingly bulky and hard hitting water dragons. It's very likely that you will have to use the revival shrines after clearing this map, just to get it over with.

The dungeon itself lacks any Mila Shrines, however, there's a trick to use bookmarks on the digital version of the game to save your progress without the shrines. The first half of the dungeon isn't very special, generic music and layouts just like the rest of the dungeons in the game. The second half is where things take a turn for the worse. For starters, enemy stats are inflated to some of the highest in the series on Hard Mode. One rounding enemies without the use of Double Lions, Hunter's Volley or other forms of effective damage or high crit is just about impossible. It's pointless to try and fight enemies at this point, avoiding them is for the best, but good luck doing that with the terrible controls in dungeons.

Lastly, we have Grima, who retains Dragonskin from FE13, but with no way to bypass it this time. Falchion does nothing to negate it, not even partially. Grima's high range and extreme damage output capable of 2HKO'ing even units with capped defenses and HP combined with his bulk and constant reinforcements make this battle a complete and total slog. Fitting way to describe the gameplay of this game as a whole, but I digress.

Overall, I hated the postgame. It was incredibly unfun, dull, sluggish and a complete waste of time. I only played it once and I plan to keep it that way.

Edited December 11, 2017 by CeruleanCyclone

[Slumber]

On 12/9/2017 at 4:07 PM, BrightBow said:

The weird thing is that this part doesn't even add anything to Awakening either. All we learn is that Grima was artificially created by some random mad scientist.But that alone doesn't add anything to Grima as a character. He may as well have been wished into existence by a genie or something, it's just a random piece of trivia. And it's not even interesting trivia because it has only the faintest of connections to existing lore.

I partially disagree.

It finally gives some sort of explanation to Walhart's philosophy. It finally makes sense that Walhart, being the emperor of Alm's continent 2000 years later, would know about Grima(Or the vague threat he knew about), and was preparing for it. Beyond just explanations of "Oh, some clairvoyant psychic wizard told him."

That said, a post-game's implications should a lot bigger than just filling holes in a game that came out 2 entries and 5 years ago.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Slumber

[Aut]

Gameplay wise - bleh. I was able to play through it no grinding (and I defeated all the Floor 9 enemies just to prove to myself that I could’ve beaten the earlier floors) and it just wasn’t fun. To be fair a large part of echoes gameplay is like this but it drags on so much (10 floors is way too long). Grima himself optimally speaking is just a statcheck on your Bow Knight - 45 HP and 16 speed IIRC with a killer bow and Grima get wrecked. The boat maps were more interesting but at the same time they weren’t exactly challenging. I dislike that you only get 10 units, you have a huge amount of units, and before then it was seemingly unlimited, but then they cut it down to 20. Just disapointing. 

Story wise I feel like fleshing out Grima’s backstory was cool, he was rather generic in awakening but now he is less generic. I thought it was fine