Level Units A Bit More Before Promoting
Units in Fire Emblem Echoes can be promoted once they reach a certain level – once into a middle class, and then again into their ultimate class. However, it’s a better idea to keep training these units a little more before promoting, maximizing the stats gains they can receive. As units get higher in level, they’ll start to gain experience at a slower rate, so you don’t want to go overboard with this unless you’re determined to grind and get each unit to level 2o.
Once they’ve reached that threshold for promotion though, use them a little bit more in battle and gain a couple levels before heading to the Mila Shrine. Especially as the game gets into its later segments, enemies will become much tougher, so you’ll want the strongest units possible.
Examine and Explore Towns Thoroughly
One of the big features in Echoes not found in other Fire Emblem games comes in the way of explorable towns. These areas are presented from a first person perspective, and while in a town you’ll be able to speak to its residents and examine each screen that you can access. It’s really in your best interest to search around each and every area you can. By examining spots, you can pick up useful healing items, weapons, and even stat boosting items.
Additionally, wandering around towns and castles and talking to the people within can reward you with items, small sidequests, and more. Make sure to take your time and thoroughly explore each one, as you never know what’s in store.
Always Look For New Recruits
Finding new recruits for your army is probably the most important aspect of Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. Expanding your party is only going to help you, and you can bring nearly 18 units with you into battle at one time. This is especially important, considering Echoes loves to throw literal hordes of enemies at you later in the game, easily overwhelming you if you only have a few units to your name.
Echoes is fairly liberal with giving you opportunities to find new characters, sprinkling them throughout each chapter. Unlike previous games, however, you won’t be talking to them in battle to recruit. You’ll need to explore towns, castles, and other locations, talking to characters along the way. Oftentimes battles will have you fulfill special objectives, or fight alongside allied units marked in green. Whenever you have AI allies joining the fray, make sure they survive the battle, then head to the nearest village or location and look for them. It’s easy to accidentally miss recruitable characters, so always keep an eye out and don’t be afraid to backtrack.
Complete The Dungeons, They’re Worth It
Like the original game, Fire Emblem Echoes splits off from the series by featuring fully explorable dungeons. These locations have you taking direct control of Alm or Celica, exploring damp caves, abandoned ruins, and more. Enemies also roam the ruins, however, and running into one will take you to a battle. Oftentimes the actual exploration in dungeons can be a bit tedious, but the rewards are well worth it.
Smash the barrels and pots that line the halls of dungeons, as they often contain valuable healing items, weapons, or Silver Marks you can use to upgrade weapons. Each dungeon also contains a Mila Shrine, the location you’ll need to head to in order to promote your units. At the same time, keep an eye out for the fountains scattered around dungeons. Each one will boost a specific stat on one of your units, and it can be used more than once as well. These are permanent increases, something incredibly valuable in such a stat focused game.
The dungeons of Fire Emblem Echoes may not be exceptional in their design, but the rewards they hold make everything worthwhile.
Consider Stats At All Times
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia completely does away with the well known weapon triangle featured in much of the series. Instead, combat is completely focused on stats, with damage being caused if a unit’s attack stat is higher than the defense or resistance of another unit. Because of this focus, stats are more important than ever in Fire Emblem Echoes.
You’ll want to constantly have an understanding of how stats play out, both on your side and the enemy’s. Make sure you’re thinking about this when moving units on the battlefield. Examine the strength and abilities of nearby enemies, and balance that against what your own units are capable of. Of course, occasionally you may just have to take a risk and put a unit in harm’s way.
It’s also important to consider stats when using fountains in dungeons, or boosting them with consumable items. Both of these resources are limited, so make sure to only use them on units you really plan to double down on, and not ones you’ll just leave in the dust later on.
Equip Your Characters Well
Equipment is just as important as always in Fire Emblem Echoes, although it’s a bit different this time around. Your characters can each equip one item or weapon at a time, and this includes food and recovery items. As you get further into Echoes, equipment becomes more and more important. Enemies’ stats will be higher, and you’ll need the boost from good weapons to cause any damage. You’ll also be given valuable items that can restore health each turn, or significantly boost the attack power of magic. On top of this, weapons have Combat Arts that you can unlock the more you use them. These Arts are powerful abilities you can activate in battle, and have a variety of effects like restoring HP by hitting enemies or boosting your attack power by sacrificing HP.
Make sure to have each and every unit in your army properly outfitted before going into every battle, and once again take a look at their stats to see who each item will work best on.
Keep Archers In Mind, Both Yours and the Enemy’s
If you’ve played previous Fire Emblem games, you might be a bit surprised by archers this time. They’re entirely unlike previous entries, as archers no longer have a range limit, and can attack from one or two spaces away. Additionally, as bow units level up and advance to the next class, they’ll gain abilities that increase their range more, up to five or six spaces even.
It’s critically important that you keep these ranges in mind, and always check what the enemy’s archers might be capable of. You don’t want to move one of your mages or weaker units to a spot, just to have them sniped from six spaces away by an archer. Of course, at the same time having archers of your own can give you a significant advantage, especially against magic units. Use them wisely to take out strong magic users from safety, and then have your low resistance units move in.
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