Fire Emblem Discussion

[Kong Wen]

So last week in Heroes, I ranked up twice in the Arena tiers. This week I'm competing in Rank 17, and the competition is pretty rough! I finally managed to finish a run with only one death, which only cost me about 60 points. My final score was 4750. AND THAT PUTS ME IN THE BOTTOM GROUPING! My rank is something like 7000/9000 and I'm set for demotion! I bet even if I won all 7 in a row with no deaths, I wouldn't be high enough for promotion.

Either way, fine by me. I think Rank 16 will be my sweet spot where I can sustain my ranking from week to week.

[Kong Wen]

So last week in Heroes, I ranked up twice in the Arena tiers. This week I'm competing in Rank 17, and the competition is pretty rough! I finally managed to finish a run with only one death, which only cost me about 60 points. My final score was 4750. AND THAT PUTS ME IN THE BOTTOM GROUPING! My rank is something like 7000/9000 and I'm set for demotion! I bet even if I won all 7 in a row with no deaths, I wouldn't be high enough for promotion.

Either way, fine by me. I think Rank 16 will be my sweet spot where I can sustain my ranking from week to week.

About an hour before the Arena closed, I actually managed to get a flawless run. It was only 59 more points, but it did put me in the very bottom of the group that maintained at Tier 17. Phew! This is with Xander, Olivia, Cherche, and Effie, all 5*, all with some degree of skill inheritance, but none with merges.

Tracking says I should be getting Echoes today, so that'll be a nice change of pace. And I won't have to feel bad about putting Conquest away unfinished.

[The Shoemaker]

So last week in Heroes, I ranked up twice in the Arena tiers. This week I'm competing in Rank 17, and the competition is pretty rough! I finally managed to finish a run with only one death, which only cost me about 60 points. My final score was 4750. AND THAT PUTS ME IN THE BOTTOM GROUPING! My rank is something like 7000/9000 and I'm set for demotion! I bet even if I won all 7 in a row with no deaths, I wouldn't be high enough for promotion.

Either way, fine by me. I think Rank 16 will be my sweet spot where I can sustain my ranking from week to week.

About an hour before the Arena closed, I actually managed to get a flawless run. It was only 59 more points, but it did put me in the very bottom of the group that maintained at Tier 17. Phew! This is with Xander, Olivia, Cherche, and Effie, all 5*, all with some degree of skill inheritance, but none with merges.

Tracking says I should be getting Echoes today, so that'll be a nice change of pace. And I won't have to feel bad about putting Conquest away unfinished.

Did you have the special edition of Fate's too?

I'm really enjoying Echoes. The writing, story and character work is a lot better all around. The presentation overall is great, makes me excited for Fire Emblem Switch.

The gameplay you can tell is a bit dated in terms of map design and class variety, but Gaiden had enough one off gameplay mechanics that it still feels new in some ways.

This game also convinced me that a world map can work well and might even be the better way to play Fire Emblem. Having the enemy encounters on the map means you don't necessarily need new story information every time you enter a battle, which ends up making the story feel more focused and less meandering.

[Kong Wen]

No, no special edition here, although I wouldn't feel bad if I did. Special editions are solely for resale value.

I agree with you on the world map and its ability to prevent or mitigate meandering story. I think my main problem so far was that the story took a long time to get going: lots of voice-acted jibber-jabber. I get that they're trying to establish the oh-so-deep connection between Alm and Celica, but yaawwwn. At least that aspect tapers off once you get going.

[The Shoemaker]

No, no special edition here, although I wouldn't feel bad if I did. Special editions are solely for resale value.

I agree with you on the world map and its ability to prevent or mitigate meandering story. I think my main problem so far was that the story took a long time to get going: lots of voice-acted jibber-jabber. I get that they're trying to establish the oh-so-deep connection between Alm and Celica, but yaawwwn. At least that aspect tapers off once you get going.

I liked the set up of Alm and Mycen's relationship and the small village vibe, but it was a bit chatty for sure, especially since now I wait to hear the voice acting rather than skip right through

I definitely regret not promoting Gray and Tobin into mercenaries, as Alm's team is severely lacking sword users (he's the only one I have) and I have tons of swords that could be used. Gray turned out alright as an archer, but Tobin is a bit middling as a cavalier. Kliff worked out fantastic as a mage - it just took him a few levels to do so.

I do really like the whole two armies approach, reminds me a lot of Radiant Dawn but done in a better way. Gives you a fair number of units to work with, but it also means you are able to focus on each unit as they are split between armies. 20 hours in and I'm still using every character they give me. I imagine this game more than others would become difficult if you lost a unit as there aren't that many to spare.

[The Shoemaker]

I have a new phone now so I decided to download Heroes again. Since I'm playing Shadows of Valentia right now I figured I would play the paralogue featuring this game. Forgot how cool it is that they take the battle music from the respective games for those sections. Cool to see the characters I'm using now reimagined here.

I also tried to grab a few characters from Valentia but only managed to get Est, who is pretty close to being the least used character in my Valentia army

[Kong Wen]

Fire Emblem Warriors info is starting to trickle out. There are two new characters, as well as a bunch of Awakening and Fates characters. It's a shame the newer games are the focus, because they're not... the... best... games in the series?

I'd be surprised if we don't get pretty much everyone who's already in Smash, considering how widespread their mainstream popularity is. Marth and Chrom are confirmed. I imagine Alm and Celica will be in it, to capitalize on the recent release of Echoes. Of course, it would be absolutely insane for Ike not to be included, although they could be devious and save him for DLC.

[The Shoemaker]

Fire Emblem Warriors info is starting to trickle out. There are two new characters, as well as a bunch of Awakening and Fates characters. It's a shame the newer games are the focus, because they're not... the... best... games in the series?

I'd be surprised if we don't get pretty much everyone who's already in Smash, considering how widespread their mainstream popularity is. Marth and Chrom are confirmed. I imagine Alm and Celica will be in it, to capitalize on the recent release of Echoes. Of course, it would be absolutely insane for Ike not to be included, although they could be devious and save him for DLC.

I kind of think it will depend on the story like Hyrule Warriors. They said the focus is mostly on Shadow Dragon, Awakening and fates, so I'm guessing those "worlds" will be the focus of the story, and other games will be featured through DLC.

Still, I hope they manage basic series representation within the base game.

Also in the preview I saw a retro styled top down fire emblem map, I imagine it will work similar to Hyrule Warriors adventure mode.

[Kong Wen]

"Tempest Trial" is a new mode that's coming to FE Heroes for the next few weeks. It sounds pretty crazy. Basically, you have access to 3 or 4 teams, and you have to run a gauntlet of consecutive matches (5-7 depending on difficulty). Any units that die during that run stay dead, and all damage is maintained between rounds.

The whole thing is scored, so you get bonus points if your whole team survives, if you include a bonus hero in one of your teams (there are some that give 1.4x points and some that give 1.2x points), etc. and of course there are great rewards for the higher tiers. It looks like at least one of the reward tiers is cumulative (maybe they all are?), so as long as you play a bunch, you should be able to get a 5-star copy of mysterious masked "Marth".

[Jordan]

The Tempest Trials are really grindy AND difficult. I'm struggling through them massively. My difficulties may be the consequence of not having played the game, rolled or trained units in a long time. Regardless, I imagine I am not the only one finding these to be a challenge.

I've beaten the final trial twice but on both occasions I lost a team first. The final round is what always gets me. It is really hard to deal with 5 units, especially when one of them is a souped up Veronica.

Between this and the June quests,, I have a lot to catch up on. It's probably too much for me, to be honest. I'll probably go hardcore focusing on the trials just so I can get the 5* masked Lucina. I doubt I will go past that.