Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - Undaunted Heroes Pack (Nintendo 3DS) Review

By Rudy Lavaux 02.06.2017

Review for Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - Undaunted Heroes Pack on Nintendo 3DS

After just one week on the market, along comes the second wave of downloadable content for Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. Released May 25th 2017, the second pack of content finally reached us in the form of one more additional dungeon and two more maps, just like the first DLC pack released on launch day. It is touted as being more of the same, only harder, but since we don't have to just take Nintendo's word for it, it is worth checking out just to let every Cubed3 reader out there be aware of what exactly they should be expecting from these three pieces of DLC, purchasable separately or as one bundle from the Nintendo eShop, before they take the plunge. Continue reading for full disclosure.

Like the Fledgling Warriors Pack released before it, the Undaunted Heroes Pack comes in the form of one dungeon called the Inner Sanctum, and two additional maps that can be played over and over. One of those two is tailored to allow the easier grinding of money, called Wealth before Health, while the other one is geared towards earning lots of experience points and levels, called Lords of the Grave.

The Inner Sanctum is a mostly empty dungeon, just like the Astral Temple before it, roamed by bandits and within which breakable jars can be found that contain weapons and other prices of equipment, as well as food items. Enemies within this dungeon are now quite a few levels higher than in the first DLC dungeon and are also more varied, including even tough as nails dragons that should be nigh impossible to tackle for a party of unpromoted heroes. The rewards, however, are decidedly much higher, with items to be found within much more interesting than the first time around.

This dungeon starts off, strangely, 100% exactly like the previous one, being advertised as a temple built to the Manakete, with the exact same lines of text playing out, and there is still a hermit at the entrance encouraging the player to seek astral shards within for an unspecified reward. Shards do seem to appear more frequently inside the Inner Sanctum than they did in the Astral Temple, making this one tougher for sure, but definitely more worthwhile, also.

Wealth before Health, just like Wretches and Riches before it, is a castle map populated by an army of enemies, most of them carrying satchels of Marks for the player to collect upon defeating them. In terms of difficulty, it is definitely a lot harder than the previous one, but still somewhat approachable even without having beaten the game yet, which should reassure players looking to upgrade their equipment before the last stages of the main plot. It basically offers more of what the previous similar DLC map offered, but at the cost of a more difficult band of enemies to fight against.

What it does offer that the previous one did not, however, is Gold Marks. These are a necessary currency to upgrade the best weapons of the game to their maximum potency and are therefore tremendously valuable. To have a map where these have a sure chance to turn up, no matter the difficulty, is a very useful thing to have for every completionist out there.

Screenshot for Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - Undaunted Heroes Pack on Nintendo 3DS

Last but not least, Lords of the Grave is a map where a constant flaw of the most powerful Terrors in the game keep spawning ceaselessly, each rewarding the player with a large amount of experience points upon defeating them, but also each having a devastating power capable of wiping out the unprepared hero that would dare venture within. It is up to this point the hardest of the DLC maps on offer, as should be expected since it would otherwise have the potential of quickly rising the level of the weakest of units, bringing them up to scratch. Every player has a different strategy, but it does seem that this map in particular is rather meant to be played after beating the main story, as a mean to help the player's party to achieve their maximum level for completion's sake only. And it does succeed very well at that indeed, so there's not really any complaint to level towards it in that respect, so long as potential buyers keep in mind the difficulty.

The content on offer within this second pack, either taken separately or as a whole, does make for a more interesting bunch simply because of the rarity of what they offer, but also the sheer usefulness of those. Gold marks are indeed rare enough within the game yet still a necessity in order to upgrade every piece of equipment to their maximum potential. As for experience points, they become harder and harder to collect the higher a character is, so having a readily available place where to grind them in greater quantity proves truly convenient.

As for the dungeons, even if it still isn't very interesting for its setting and design, because of the value of what it allows the player to collect, it's a more interesting offering than the Astral Temple. This pack and each of its pieces of content come at a slightly higher price point than the previous wave, but it's easy to perceive more potential usefulness herein than the first time around and thus more value for the more seasoned player seeking to perfect his or her experience with the game through some more power levelling, giving Undaunted Heroes the slight edge over its predecessor, Fledgling Warriors.

Screenshot for Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - Undaunted Heroes Pack on Nintendo 3DS

Cubed3 Rating

7/10
Rated 7 out of 10

Very Good - Bronze Award

Rated 7 out of 10

This second DLC pack is, just like the first, just a tool to help players grind and farm for things a little easier than the first one allowed. However, whereas the previous pack only made marginally easier the things that could already be done in the base game, this one really does help things out by a lot for players looking to maximise the potential of their party, especially post-ending. While the Inner Sanctum is still easily doable mid-game, the other two maps that are part of this second round of DLC really should only be tackled last to earn the last few levels of experience before maximising a character, or to finish upgrading every important weapon or pieces of equipment in the case of the map that lets players grind money.

Developer

Intelligent Systems

Publisher

Nintendo

Genre

Strategy

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10 (1 Votes)

European release date None   North America release date None   Japan release date None   Australian release date None   

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