Hey and hi. I played Shadows of Valentia blind and shared my thoughts as I went. Feel free to follow along! Retroactively!
I beat the game! Yeah! In the Awakening ending, there was too much for me to talk about for me to make a focused writeup, but for this game I want to give it the ol' college try. Below you can find an archive of the episodes, for those foolish enough to brave the horror. After that, thoughts! I don't know why I didn't think of reusing the structure I was using every episode already for the Awakening finale. Maybe I'm dumb?
Before that, I'm including a list of the episodes. I also am including some quick tier lists I made after my second playthrough. Note that because this is after the second playthrough, the list may not perfectly reflect my mindset when playing through blind. The wall o' text at the bottom, however, is all logged the day I beat the game the first time.
All that aside, thank you for following this series, if you did! Thanks for just stopping by, if you did not! I knew this would attract a more modest audience that the Awakening series, since SoV is just not as popular, but I'm not exactly a karma farmer. Most discussion on forums like ours tends to be between people who have replayed and dissected the games at length, and I believe that seeing how the games present themselves divorced of that context is an interesting perspective to see. And, of course, we were all bored waiting for Three Houses news. Now we have some, so please go pay attention to that and get as hype as you like. I hope I managed to keep you occupied in the interim.
And yeah, I know I wasn't grouchy or whiny enough to suit everyone's taste, but I think I just can't work up the same curmudgeonly attitude I used to. Maybe I'm jaded. And to be fair I named the series before I played the game, which is one of the classic blunders.
Feel free to ask me whatever you like. I'll try to get back to you sometime today - I can't guarantee promptness, I'm typing this up before work and I can't spend my whole dang day slacking off, but I'll get to everyone eventually. If I ignore you, maybe I just hate you, I dunno.
| Episode Table | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1: We've Got Movie Sign | 12: Cuba Libre | 23: The Battleship Potemkin | 34: At the Mountains of Madness |
| 2: Tiny Toon Adventures | 13: Zombie (er, the cocktail) | 24: Jarhead | 35: Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues |
| 3: Sesame Street | 14: Call of the Mild | 25: Sol Blade | 36: Opulent and Imperial |
| 4: Thunder Wool | 15: Thy Dungeonman | 26: Walk Without Rhythm | 37: The Horror of Party Beach |
| 5: Amulet of Yendor | 16: Mojito | 27: It Belongs in a Museum | 38: Elvira, Mistress of the Dark |
| 6: The French Champagne | 17: The Road Not Taken | 28: Patriot Circle | 39: The Towering Inferno |
| 7: The Scarlet Pimpernel | 18: Split Ends | 29: The Battle of Hoover Dam | 40: 50 First Dates |
| 8: The Aristocrats | 19: Cyrysaor | 30: Tortoise and Hare | 41: Oedipus Rex |
| 9: Dance Dance Revolution | 20: Treehuggers | 31: Jean-Claude Van | 42: Danse Macabre |
| 10: To A Nunnery Go | 21: The Mispelled Cemetary | 32: +1 Land Leader Shock | 43: Cartilage Head |
| 11: Dark and Stormy | 22: Three-to-One Marny | 33: Dagobah System |
Story
I guess I have a lot of points to make. I won't go in any particular order.
Shadows of Valentia nails aesthetic and music. Nails it, nails it, nails it. The game's biggest strengths are that it's gorgeous and that it sounds great. That alone is enough to make it a joy to play. The portraits for each character look amazing, and the artstyle is rarely overstated or exaggerated, with the unfortunate example of the Duma Faithful, and it maintains the dignity of the setting and characters. Compare, as an example, Rudolf's outfit with Walhart's.
The art does have some minor issues - for example, it only allots one pose to each character with changes only in expression, which puts Palla in the unfortunate circumstance of perpetually pushing her hair back, and has Clive thoughtfully stroking his chin even in times where it's seriously inappropriate. But in general the aesthetic is knocked out of the park to the point that these are a minor bother at worst.
The only time the music checked out as an actual dud was during Duma Temple. If you leave animations on the battle music (and the interruptions of the map music) quickly becomes tiresome, but that's on you if you decide to leave animations on, like some sort of masochist. But I guess this stopped being Story at some point, no?
SoV has inconsistency in theme. The two major themes, regarding commoners/nobility and regarding relying on people's own strength instead of relying on gods, are both ultimately underdeveloped. The former ends up being mostly dropped. The four main characters carrying the commoner/nobility plotline, Alm, Clive, Fernand, and Berkut, all stop really bothering with it by the end of part 3. Alm and Clive work through their disagreements, Fernand just drops off the map and his plotline goes unresolved before his death, and Berkut drops the idea entirely. Many minor characters stand for the themes set here and it really felt like one of the main points of the story. But part 4 and the ending all disregard it, when those parts should be the points where they drive the point home. It's also shot in the foot by Alm and Celica being royal chosen ones of prophecy - how can we say the idea of people earning through merit was done justice if the world was saved through the Divine Right of Kings? It's a strong theme that I wish really was the focus of the game, but it just isn't.
On the flipside, the theme Part 4 and the ending wants to establish is that you shouldn't rely on the power of the gods, more or less. This has the reverse problem of the last thing - this idea was never really mentioned or thought about until Part 4, and the main characters really only care about it at the very last minute in Duma Temple. Celica, for example, should have the gods on her mind, but she is sent on sidequest after sidequest through parts 2 and 3 so she doesn't have time to think about it. Rudolf is the most important character in this plotline, and we get zero hints as to his goals until the end of Part 4. Jedah ought to be a conduit for this plot point to come through, but Jedah is bungled and is useless for this task. Celica does a good job on this front by exemplifying its exact opposite, while Alm's declaration of "you know, fuck those gods, they still owe me three fiddy" comes across as pretty sudden - where was this before, Alm? And the theme of humanity working through their problems on their own is once again undercut by Alm and Celica being royal chosen ones of prophecy - how does it show mankind's agency if destiny was behind it the whole time? The character that exemplifies this theme the best is, surprisingly, Desaix, but it goes nowhere because Desaix was only meant to be a speedbump.
Regarding the gods, the game doesn't do a good enough job of exploring them on a personal level. Gods succumbing to madness is a really intriguing idea that the game doesn't really focus on. Mila is only once shown in a remotely negative light, and even then you can say she was right to be annoyed. Duma is only shown in a remotely positive light once, and that's on his deathbed. The opening tries to establish that Mila was doing as much damage as Duma, but this isn't what we really see during the course of the game. A flashback showing Duma and Mila when they were sane, to serve as a contrast to how they are acting now that they aren't, is a critical omission. Not only would it show us what the gods stand for, it would also quickly show us just how badly their madness is affecting them, which we can't really tell from what we see of them in-game. Many people call Duma a mad god, but nobody says "Duma is Mad now, where he wasn't before, because his behavior changed in such and such a way". If the game wants to suggest that the pair aren't a straightforward evil god/good god pair, they need to work to show that, and the effort just wasn't put in.
I think that Mila could have made a better villain for this game than Duma did, to be honest. Duma's philosophy of seeking out personal strength is more attuned to the theme of mankind finding its own power independent of the gods than Mila's coddling. It would be a twist, sure, but I think a very strong one. A major idea of this game is Valentia "growing up" and standing on its own two feet - what better opponent to that than the overprotective mother who refuses to let them leave the nest? I think this idea is partially from my desperate hope to see Duma presented as a complex character that didn't really come to fruition - the dynamic between the two gods is frustratingly straighforward. The strongest point against this idea is that you'd have to toss out Heritors of Arcadia, which is a damn good song and makes a strong case for Mila as a character.
Even if I don't agree with a lot of the structure, the game does a very good job of selling its story, thanks in large part to its incredibly strong voice acting. When the game calls for drama, the character's feelings are made more than obvious. I wouldn't buy into Alm suddenly being interested in his family after killing Rudolf if Alm didn't sound so absolutely broken by it. Berkut's voice acting is super passionate, if a bit hammy, and his whole story arc lives and dies by his vocals.
Characters
Like I mentioned above, the game does a really great job with voice acting, and that's enough to make all of its characters likeable on some level. There's no playable character I don't like, which is as shocking for me to type as it probably is for you to read. There are some characters I wish were done a little differently, but I just can't bring myself to be mad at them. Even Conrad managed to win me over to neutral thanks to his earnest voice-acting despite me hating Mystery Mask.
Part of it is one basic idea - there are no joke characters in this game. There are no gimmick characters in this game. Shadows of Valentia's playable cast is made up of people. Every character that seems to be swinging too far in one direction has enough restraint to prevent them from going overboard. Consider Python, for instance - in another game he'd be the lazy napping constant-sarcasm comic relief guy, but the game never lets him go too far, he has viewpoints and opinions beyond that role, and he's treated with respect. As another example, Luthier has strong reasons for being the way he is and motivations that drive him, he isn't just Big-Bang-Theory-Sheldon-lol.
Supports are a hot-button issue I'd guess, and I'd agree that SoV probably has too few supports. Some characters really needed to have more interactions available, such as Genny, Luthier, Silque... I could go on, actually. We get a chance to get to know everyone since most of the cast has multiple base conversations (thank god for base conversations), but interactions between them are something different and special. As above, given the choice between too many and too few, I'd pick too few, but that doesn't mean both options don't have room for improvement.
Some individual things that bug me about specific characters. For one, Clair/Gray is just not my thing. I don't believe in love at first sight, which is Gray's whole motive (if you don't agree that Gray decided to pursue Clair before he even met her and would have gone after any girl if she was in that call). I agree with basically everything Clair said in the B support about Gray. I don't like that Gray's character, which was very strong personality when introduced, ends up revolving around Clair in all aspects. I appreciate that Clair makes it clear that she's not using Gray as a backup, just that she's willing to play the field and Gray's welcome to compete, but the sour taste is still there. And mostly I really like the chemistry between Alm and Clair. They made it such a wonderful friendship that it's a letdown to see her ending up with Gray, who she has complete anti-chemistry with. Seriously, these character's personalities do not work well with one another. I wish both characters didn't waste valuable support slots on one another.
Jesse's Mercenary Kingdom comes completely out of left field and kinda fucks with the story's One Kingdom ending. Uh, there are clearly two if Jesse's thing exists? Maybe this is a translation problem and Jesse just founded a mercenary company or something. Not to mention the Jesse I met (I admit I didn't see his supports through) doesn't seem to have the right headspace to found anything - he spends his time taking on pro-bono heroics jobs and getting captured. If this really is a mercenary kingdom, this makes Jesse an actual King which is just bizarre.
Regarding the heroes, I think it's worth stating that many in the FE community have a habit of treating character flaws and mistakes as reducing the quality of a character. I'm not exempt from this - I remember thinking very poorly of Chrom initially, but all the pants-on-head stupid stuff he does is in character, and twisting character strengths into flaws is good writing, not bad. Alm and Celica both have major character flaws that are very important to their arcs, and that's a good thing.
Alm's is pretty simple, because he's a pretty simple guy. He's not one to hesitate or introspect too hard, and the way he's able to gather momentum and push things forward is what makes him good in his role in leading the Deliverance. That's flipped on its head when facts present themselves to him that do require a lot of time to digest and come to terms with. It's much faster and easier for him to just ignore it and hope it goes away. He is much more comfortable confronting physical danger than he is confronting emotional danger. His almost superhuman levels of denial does get pretty wearing by the end - he doesn't really accept not being Mycen's grandson until Rudolf forces him, despite being outright told as much by that one old guy and by Desaix. This is probably most evident with the Royal Sword, where he basically refuses to ponder the implications there at all. The main emotional dilemma he faces being, well, not facing emotional dilemmas does make this a bit weaker than Celica's arc.
Celica is a kind person who always thinks of other people first, and she's an introspective and thoughtful person who has been keeping secrets for most of her life. No surprise that her character flaws end up being her overeagerness to sacrifice herself for the good of others, and having issues with sharing her feelings with others and trusting ("burdening") people with sensitive information. Her major flaw in terms of writing is that, well, Jedah is a terrible character. Her bargain is reasonable - extremely reasonable, really - on paper, but in practice she's striking it with an obviously evil frog person, so it seems beyond stupid. I don't really want to blame Celica for this so much as Jedah, though. That aside, her emotional dilemmas are more relatable and interesting to me and I enjoyed her.
One thing that ties most of the major characters together is seeing how each reacts to and deals with harsh truths. Alm denies and ignores, Celica hides it from people, Clive broods and worries, Berkut rages and melts down, etc. It's interesting to see when you know to look for it.
Maps/Gameplay
So, to be clear: I haven't played gaiden. I probably never will. I am not knowledgeable of nor interested in what elements SoV adapted entirely and which mechanics or maps were tweaked or added. This is its own game, and it can and should be judged on its own.
The elephant in the room is that they just didn't try very hard on the maps. Dungeon maps are lucky to have one major piece of terrain on a blank canvas, and they repeat that same map for the whole dungeon, potentially a dozen fights in a row of the same map. How many maps took place on the awful map of "empty field bisected by a completely straight river"? How many identical boat maps did we play? It's not to say that there weren't interesting maps, but on average they were the exception rather than the rule. We see times when they did attempt some new ideas and it's baffling to me why they didn't keep doing that. I think Conquest's approach of ensuring that each every map has a unique and distinctive gimmick is going too far in the opposite direction, but Echoes needed to put more effort into making maps with unique and interesting challenges, at least enough so they appear occasionally.
The game tries to make up for reusing maps by focusing its attention on enemy composition and the rock-paper-scissor dynamics at play between different classes. Do I think this works particularly well? I'm not sure. I never feel outright bored, but how much of that is because maps are quick to play and digestible?
It also has an issue of repeating map ideas for whole sections of the game. Celica's route has this especially bad - it's a string of boat maps, a string of desert maps, a brief pause, then a string of swamp maps. Boat maps, desert maps, and swamp maps all have their place, but they wear out their welcome pretty quickly when used all in a row. Alm's route has lacks any of these - why not give him some to spice up his route, while Celica gets something different to do from time to time?
The class system: SoV cuts out all the fluff and includes only the absolute most basic roles, and even then cuts some staples like dancers and thieves. Lord, footie, mount, flier, mage, staffbot, bowguy, armor, that's it, and only one of each. The only playable class I would say repeats a role that's already taken (aside from the lords) would be Priestess. The monster classes repeat some of these roles, but also introduce some new stuff like with mogalls. I can respect this limited system, and at least prefer it to class saturation that you get in Awakefates. I still think the sweetspot in terms of class diversity is still FE6 or maybe FE7, but SoV at least moves in an interesting direction. The very limited class pool allows for the game to make sure that every class plays very differently and has their space, which is very commendable, at least philosophically.
Does it work in practice? Well, mostly. Every class does play differently and has a unique role. But that doesn't translate into each class having an important role. The balance is off. Dread Fighter is supposed to be the best at raw combat, but is arguably too good at fighting and monopolizes most hard fights. Mages struggle with movement problems that arguably don't need to exist - giving them 5 move would cause basically zero issues and make everyone's lives easier, just go for it. Knights are useless in almost every regard after the earlygame, because enemies just don't hit too hard physically, so mercs and paladins can tank most things reliably already. And even if knights were super strong against certain enemies, their shitty movement kneecaps them from actually fighting them. Outside of dungeons you never have to bench the knights, but even with them fielded they got nearly zero kills in part 4 between the three of them. I think it's too much to ask for total class balance, but having a class that is completely useless is just not acceptable.
Units
I could type up a billion things here and just drone on and on, but I'm really not in the mood. I might come back to this later? [Editor's Note: Still don't feel like it.]
Submitted April 30, 2019 at 02:53PM by Fermule http://bit.ly/2WgYJ9J
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