Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Since people have begun datamining Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, I'm creating this thread so people can discuss spoilers without bombarding the main Fire Emblem thread with unwanted spoilers.

Can't wait to fight Grima again!

Fantastic Supreme Überkaiser Emperor Folt of The Infinity and Beyond" ... "The First"!

Duma's sprite looks nice.

Better not be locked behind a damn ambio.

edited 4th Apr '17 12:43:06 PM by Mizerous

Mileena Madness

I've been getting some conflicting messages over the Chapter 6 dungeon. I've heard someone say it's the bonus dungeon unlocked by amiibos, while others have said it's a postgame dungeon.

....Wuh? Grima's back?

It's a postgame dungeon. The two Amiibo dungeons are different.

Positive Impressions:

• The new art style. They should definitely bring Hidari (I think that's the new artist) back for future titles.
• The soundtrack. Does an excellent job of building of the original's strong melodies.

Negative Impressions:

• Supports: I'm glad they're including them, but it seems like most character's other than Celica and Alm can only support with two or three other characters, and the conversations themselves seem rather short and simplistic compared to previous titles. I guess I'll have to wait until it comes out to pass judgement on the latter aspect.
• Map design. I've never played Gaiden, but I've heard that the map design was... not always superlative, and it seems like the remake isn't making that many major changes. Again, I'll have to wait until it comes out.

Unsure:

• Full voice acting. It's going to be strange hearing every line in a Fire Emblem game voice acted. Not sure how well it'll work until it comes out.

Overall, I'm very much looking forward to it.

♭What.

Yep. It even goes into his origins.

This song needs more love.

x4 From what I understand, Alm and Celica end up exploring a dungeon where a mad alchemist known as Forneus had been carrying out experiments, creating the Risen in the process. Forneus's magnum opus apparently involved injecting Divine Dragon blood into a dracozombie, creating the abomination that will eventually be known as Grima.

Definitely looking forward to that dungeon. Here's hoping they go full-blown horror game for it, or at the very least, make it something like the Hall of Darkness from Etrian Odyssey IV which also features a manmade entity gone completely wrong.

Seen Grima's pre-transformation sprite

Needless to say, did not expect that

edited 4th Apr '17 1:08:51 PM by AlphaVII

Warrior to the very end! My tumblr, dood!

Next Fire Emblem game will be...

Fire Emblem: Resident Evil VIII

Mileena Madness

It's the same sprite as a regular dracozombie. Oh what wonders a bit of Divine Dragon blood can do, eh?

Fun fact about Grima: according to Serenes Forest, the Fell Dragon is classified as a "God" in the same way Duma is.

This isn't really a spoiler, but I'm really glad that Duma's definitely more draconic-looking in this game. Always liked the whole "dragons are divinity" bit of Fire Emblem. Now all we need is a reveal that Ashunera is actually a dragon; not a dragon laguz, but a Divine Dragon.

edited 4th Apr '17 1:20:11 PM by dragonfire5000

The dialogue apparently says Grima isn't a zombie, but the mad Alchemist grew Grima from a thumb sized dragon. As for the backstory given, its an ok backstory I guess, its an amiibo extra so it could've been worse. I definitely get the impression they didn't think of any backstory for him until the Amiibo DLC.

On a sidenote, when will Mad Scientists learn Evil Is Not a Toy, eh?

edited 4th Apr '17 2:57:05 PM by Monsund

Not sure why we're tagging spoilers in a dedicated spoiler thread, but w/e.

Why did scientist guy create Grima? For Science! or to Take Over the World?

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

Just for the record, Chapter 6 is not an amiibo dungeon. We've seen both of them in trailers and neither of them are it.

edited 4th Apr '17 2:59:01 PM by LordVatek

This song needs more love.

I think the Mad Scientist created Grima both For Science! and To Take Over the World. He also created Risen, which are apparently Puppeteer Parasite bugs that crawl into human corpses. He comes across as a Plot Device and definitely Too Dumb to Live from the info so far.

edited 4th Apr '17 3:17:23 PM by Monsund

According to some of the translations of datamined stuff, Forneus was attempting to research soldiers that could never truly die and "perfect life." The Risen were attempts to create the former, Grima was probably the latter. Basically, this is the Fire Emblem equivalent of "Hey, let's see what happens when we clone Mew!"

I've seen some people theorizing that the draco zombie used to make Grima might've been an Earth Dragon, hence the whole "Grima may have descended from Earth Dragons" bit from the artbook. At the very least, it seems to be part Divine Dragon, if only because Divine Dragon blood was heavily implied to have been injected into the zombie.

Oh, and according to the Serenes Forest page detailing Skills from Echoes, Grima not only possesses the same God quality as Duma, but it also has Dragonskin again, and seems to be the only thing in the game to possess Dragonskin.

Dracozombies resemble a Fire Dragon if anything, and its unlikely that a Earth Dragon corpse would just be lying around particularly when all but Medeus and Loptyr were sealed. Grima having Duma's skills might be re-used assets, we saw similar in Awakening, we'll have to wait and see.

My guess is Grima being an Earth Dragon was dropped and perhaps an artifact from an earlier build.

My understanding is the alchemist injected Grima with Divine Dragon essence, but I don't think Grima is a Divine Dragon otherwise.

edited 4th Apr '17 3:45:13 PM by Monsund

Again, the whole "the draco zombie used to create Grima was an Earth Dragon" bit is just WMG. Considering that the sprite is that of a generic draco zombie, it probably isn't.

Personally, I think it looks more like a dinosaur, but that's just me.

If it was an Earth Dragon corpse, it could very well have been an Earth Dragon that died before it could be sealed away, assuming that the Earth Dragons sealed away do not include every single Earth Dragon that has ever lived and died. I doubt it though.

As for the God skill that both Grima and Duma have, Serenes Forest lists its description as "User belongs to the God family." Interestingly enough, there is a separate Dragon Skill that states "User belongs to the Dragon family," but Grima doesn't seem to have it. Fascinating implications, to say the least.

Don't think they've actually stated what attacks it has. It'll probably have Expiration. Oh, and it apparently uses Monstrosity as its battle theme.

edited 4th Apr '17 3:58:33 PM by dragonfire5000

Keep in mind Earth Dragons have innate Resurrective Immortality and revive in most instances of death, I find it unlikely it'd be Earth.

Possible but it could also be to make the fight tougher and there's no "special Dragon class" type like in many other games, like how Medeus is his own dragon type.

Monstrosity, alright. I checked, Id ~ Hope is apparently the theme for the Robin Amiibo, so that's probably why it's not Grima's.

FYI, the Amiibo themes are:

Robin: Id ~ Hope
Corrin: Destiny by Blood
Ike: The Devoted
Roy: Binding Blade Ally Attack theme
Marth: Path of the Hero King
Lucina: Rival

edited 4th Apr '17 3:59:32 PM by asterism

Song of the Sirens

I liked that theme in Awakening but it was in a pretty fast battle. :P

Mileena Madness

From what has been found so far, it doesn't seem like the God or Dragon Skills actually do anything other than serve as classification. Will probably wait to see if anything else turns up, but again, interesting that Grima would have the same classification as Duma.

On another subject, dataminers have also found several character portraits. Got to say, I really like the human forms of Duma and Mila.

A little disappointed with the Draco Zombie pictures though. Then again, I've been playing a lot of Dragon's Dogma lately, and damn, are the undead dragons in that game certainly a sight for the eyes.

edited 4th Apr '17 4:07:03 PM by dragonfire5000

I prefer the Tearring Saga◊ and Sacred Stones designs◊ for zombified Dragons.

I still wonder what Duma and Mila are, the best guess I have is dragon-like gods. Their powers are pretty unique and bizarre. I also heard a theory tossed once that they were half Divine/Earth Dragons, which is interesting, but probably not the case.

edited 4th Apr '17 4:55:01 PM by Monsund

Maybe they're both gods and dragons? After all, Japanese mythology has entities like Ryuujin, who counts as both god and dragon.