Game Mechanic analysis: Villager Loop

Origin: Fire Emblem: Gaiden.

In Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, many iconic mechanics from Fire Emblem Gaiden, the game it is based after, we kept intact. This includes what could possibly have been a glitch that was then elevated as a feature in the remake: “The Villager loop”.

To make it happen, you need a male character that is either a villager, or anywhere in the Mercenary, Myrmidon and Dread Fighter line of promotion. On that male character reaches the Dread Fighter class, he can eventually promote again to villager, essentially resetting him to being at a lower class, but keeping all of the stats gains he has gotten throughout his previous level ups. You are then left with a powerful villager that you can keep leveling up. This procures several advantages.

The first is quite easy to understand: You can potentially level up an infinite amount of times, and eventually max out your stats if you so desire. It also means that if there is a character that you really enjoy using but that gets unfortunately handicapped by poor RNG, you can still salvage them. It also implies that if you are going for perfect stats, you don’t have to reset constantly as it means that if you play enough, you’ll eventually reach your goal. You can advance through the story without worrying about messing with the RNG.

The second implication involves class-changing. By levelling up to a villager class, you essentially start your unit over from a class that can promote into every class available for that gender. That means that you can fine tune your team and change their base class, but in order to do so, you need a bit of commitment, which isn’t a bad thing. It is a long term reward for sticking with the character for a while. It removes a bit of the punishment of bad RNG. Since you are no longer are limited by a set amount of possible level ups, there is always a way to recover from simple bad luck.

This feature is quite fantastic, and it would be one of the great things to bring over to future titles. While you would need to make it a general mechanic that applies to all class lines and both genders, it would allow players to play through the games normally without worrying about stat gains as much. A bad level up would be nothing more than a setback that you can easily recover from. A terrible unit could be made good with effort. That alone allows players to go through the game without grinding too much and then, if they want to after the game is over, they can do it. It is essentially a perfect middle ground for those who like to optimize and those who want to go through the story. When the two desires conflict in one person, if can be a detriment to the experience. If one wants perfect level ups, they they will have to restart over and over again, and they will also reach certain chapters with units that are far too powerful. The villager loop is essentially an assurance. It is a tap on the shoulder that tells you “Don’t worry about it, just keep playing”.

This small glitch from the NES era has turned into quite the fun and important mechanic. I understand the appeal of playing with limited resources, but here is the advantage of the villager loop: “It is easy to ignore”. One could play through the entire game, reach max level and choose to not loop a unit back to villager if they so choose. It respects the player’s playstyle choice, no matter which one appeals to him most.