I did some frantic last-minute grinding for Quickend Pulse (that'd be so good on my Draconic Aura Michalis), but full around 5,000 points short. Honestly, I though I'd have a lot more free time this week, but things happened in real life that I needed to give priority. Oh well, at least I have another 5-star sword user.
Anyway, I finally managed to beat the post-game boss on hard, so I think it's time for me to post my Echoes impression.
Story - It wasn't the most fantastic story I've ever seen, but I hold a high bar. I was overall satisfied with it, with only a few nitpicks. If all future FE stories are at least as good as this one, then I'll be okay with that.
Characters - They ranged from good to alright. There was only one character I actually disliked (Faye), but it wasn't to the point of hatred or disgust. All the others were fine. Even Sonya, who I didn't like at first, grew on me, especially after seeing her supports with Genny. Having those "base" conversations was also great, since it made every character feel relevant while adding to their development. It's hard for me to pick my bottom five characters, since as I said, I like almost all of them, but my top five favorites have to be...
5. Forsyth
4. The Masked Knight
3. Berkut (Good villains are back!)
2. Mae
1. Boey
Classes - I was worried at how few of them there were, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised. Each class felt almost entirely unique from one another, which made using them really interesting. At the combat animations were top notch - 3D FE animations are rapidly reaching the quality of the GBA sprites.
Map Design - I like what they were going for with this in most cases, but I think that they didn't always succeed. Breaking fortress formations was a cool concept when it worked, but then you had ones like the archer fortress in Celica's route which is just tedious or annoying. Cantors themselves can be a huge hit or miss. While they succeeded at making me try to clear the maps faster, sometimes they were in such annoying spaces that that proved to be more of an annoyance than a challenge, especially when there's just so much working against you when it comes to moving quickly. And screw that first swamp map on Celica's route. The final map was the worst one of all.
Dungeons - I liked these. While they were generally very small, that was pretty much a necessity, as battles tend to take a little while. And while they rarely did anything exceptional, they did change things up just enough to make each dungeon feel distinct and memorable. The battles themselves were surprisingly fun - if you managed to hit an enemy first, it's sometimes possible to clear them in just one or two turns with a good party composition.
And finally, as for my endgame team....
1. Celica - Beloved Zofia
2. Alm - Falchion
3. Boey - Dracoshield
4. Delthea - Lady Blade
5. Mae - Mage Ring
6. Genny - Speed Ring
7. Gray - Zweihänder
8. Python - Luna
9. Clair - Gradivus
10. The Masked Knight - Romphia
All weapons were fully forged, and my boost were used on Delthea to make up for her lack of range.
Overall, I think Echoes was a good FE game. Not an undeniably amazing one, or a particularly bad one, but a unique one. I'd really like to see a lot of its concepts reintroduced in future FEs, but with more a lot more polish so that they don't fall flat like they frequently did in Echoes.
AND ON A COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE, ATARI JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THEY ARE MAKING A BRAND NEW CONSOLE!
Like, wow! First Bubsy comes back from the grave. Then Metroid finally gets a main series game. And now Atari is returning to the console market. What even is 2017 anymore? What other gaming surprises can we expect?
Holy Magikarp, that's completely insane. I don't even know what to think of this. Don't Atari mostly make mobile games these days? Are they really equipped to make a console?
I have no clue what to expect from this.
