Fire Emblem Echoes ‘Will Not Babysit You’ says Nintendo

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is the latest from Nintendo’s huge and very popular series of turn-based strategy games. We’ve seen so far that it will be a very different experience from the previous titles on 3DS, featuring 3D action dungeons that look and feel totally new. The game is also a remake of sorts, taking the second game in the series, which was never released in the West, and rethinking it in new and interesting ways. Nintendo has laid out a lot of this in a new blog post which strongly states that Fire Emblem Echoes “really stands apart” from its predecessors.

“Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is not like Fire Emblem Awakening or Fire Emblem Fates and really stands apart from all the other offerings in the franchise,” reads the post from Nintendo Treehouse’s Lindsey N. “Its combat system is back to the brutal basics, with no space pairing and no weapons triangle; rather, it favors a classic (i.e. merciless) battle style mixed with modern UI.”

According to Lindsey, Echoes takes a lot of its inspiration from that original release for NES. Fire Emblem Gaiden was always a unique entry in the franchise. “Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is a reimagining of Fire Emblem Gaiden with gameplay and combat that remain true to those classic roots. It has the bones of Fire Emblem Gaiden at its core and all the dungeon crawling cream-center goodness that made its predecessor stand out from other games in the franchise.”

There are too many differences between this and the previous games to list, including the new ways that classes work. However, that classic FE gameplay is still there, including the challenge. According to the post, Fire Emblem Echoes “will not babysit you”. “In this case, ‘back to the basics’ doesn’t mean easy, and the game will not babysit you,” explained Lindsey. You’ll have to learn its mechanics and intricacies if you truly want to succeed, especially if you leave perma-death on.

Check out the entire post linked above for more, and get ready for Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia to hit 3DS on May 19th.