So as of yesterday, I have now started Arc 3 of Fire Emblem Echoes and am about to face that Paladin boss on Alm route and Grieth on Celica´s route, and I thought I´d give my impressions of the game so far.
Its good. The maps are the absolute worst part and I seriously have to wonder why IS thought it would be a good idea to recreate the Gaiden maps 1:1-that was the worst decision they ever made aside from creating Revelation.
The cast of characters are enjoyable. I wouldn´t exactly call them good as many of them aren´t developed enough-this is possibly a side effect of supports being neutered and the base convos (although good) not as thorough as the Tellius games. However, the cast does feel very realistic and organic (if a bit cliche), which is a huge plus-good examples of this are Kliff and Leon.
Part of my gripe with Fates/Awakening characters was that they had quirks instead of traits, the Echoes characters feel a lot more distinct, but as I said earlier they need a bit more depth and development in order to be fully realized and human. Its a good start though as I always felt Fire Emblem needed more human characters. Its never going to be Ryukishi quality but I still want it to be better.
The storytelling is competent. Nothing that would win awards but its still rather well written. However, I feel like Echoes´ storytelling is brought down by the amount of jrpg cliches that plague its writing. Its leaps and bounds better than Awakening and Fates, but in order for Echoes´ grand story to fully be realized, it needs to drop those cliches and be a bit more ambitious as well as build up certain scenes a lot better as the execution can be a bit on the weak side at times. The scene where Alm and Celica fight is a good example of this as Celicaś ideals aren´t explored enough in the second arc-or at the very least, its a poor introduction to what she believes in.
Overall I´m having a good time playing Echoes.