new fire emblem fuck yeah.

[AcRv]

I don't mind that anyone can be anything, but I mind that classes don't matter. I finished the game with a few iron bows just chilling in my party being traded between people to be used when they need to finish an enemy but can't get adjacent. It made it way too easy, I preferred needing to make meaningful decisions about choosing classes.

The story and gameplay bear no resemblance to each other at all, and things that the story and lore says about Heroes Relics isn't actually reflected in how they can be used.

Also not a fan of "start with a full party and then choose party members to join you or not" as opposed to "on your adventure people slowly join you". It takes out the epic fantasy adventure feel that the earlier games had and it just feels like a medieval high school anime. Which isn't necessarily bad but when you have the epic adventures of Echoes and Awakening to suddenly become "We have high school students fighting the forces of evil and one of them will fall in love with their teacher" it just feels... odd?

The gameplay is a simplified Fire Emblem game (which is still fun) and the story is some weird slice of life/fantasy action anime hybrid (which isn't bad but also isn't really Fire Emblem).

Based on the ones I've played I would say it's probably one of the weaker ones but it's still really good. I enjoy it but like Echoes and Awakening were much better.

The DS and 3DS are the best platforms for the franchise because it allows you have a fully detailed UI about units while also showing the entire map clearly. But also Echoes just has a really easy way of calculating damage which the rest of the series doesn't and you're not relying on a slightly inconsistent red arrow indicating who enemy units will be attacking but not their damage output.

[AcRv]

and you're not relying on a slightly inconsistent red arrow indicating who enemy units will be attacking but not their damage output.

If you hover over the enemy it will show you their damage output and accuracy. It's not always accurate since things change mid-turn but it's always nice to know that two of my units are absolutely getting doubled and killed with perfect accuracy; that's probably

not

going to change short of physically removing the unit that's doing the attacking.

It does, but if you move out of the way you have no way of knowing what their damage output will be on a different unit - because the damage calculations are based on the attacked unit's defence/res/the current alignment of the stars. Echoes is straightforward, subtract your defence stat from their attack stat. Whatever the calculation is in this one I couldn't figure it out. So I know that someone will die if I don't move them, but I don't know who will survive if I move them in the way because I can't check their damage until after the unit has ended their turn - so now I know that THIS person will die instead. Or you could have a simple damage calculation method. Unless I'm just silly and am missing something really obvious.

The class system is still dubious. As far as I can tell the Master classes don't even have better stats or growths than some of the Advanced classes, but they have better movement and most of the time that matters more. Keeping the rewards for class mastery secret is incredibly dumb because it prevents the player from having the only relevant factor in making a decision to stay in an inferior class. I don't know why Mercenary/Hero exists when Thief/Assassin does; the growths aren't that different and the latter comes with 1 extra Move. I'm not sure why Mortal Savant exists.

This so much.

Hidden or confusingly-sorted information about battalions and forging and gardening and so forth isn't much better; that bit from my previous post hasn't changed. I'm still not sure if seminars and resting are ever good ideas.

I only use seminars if I'm trying to get a skill up to recruit someone and can't be bothered actually using the weapon. They also increase motivation which is good with a low professor level/if you're sick of running around the monastery giving people gifts. You can also quickly adjust the goals of the people who you want to have motivation to be what the person is lecturing in, get the motivation, and then switch their goals back before the bit that actually gives them experience. They're basically a way to continue the game if you're sick of fluffing about in the monastery. Which I was for the last quarter or so of the game.

It's not a bad game but it certainly wasn't as good as the hype makes it out to be.

[AcRv]

So in most of South America the Nintendo eShop is being closed at the end of July (Link)

Presumably this'll mean that other regions won't be far behind.

I'm mainly pointing this out because the Fates Revelation DLC is download exclusive (at least from my understanding) so like if you're keen to play Fire Emblem Fates it might be worth starting to look into finding a copy/tracking the lifespan of the 3DS eShop.