Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia amiibo Usage Guide

Fire Emblem amiibo of the past, present and future are all compatible with the amiibo functions of the recently released Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia on 3DS. There’s a few cool things you can do with your amiibo in the game, but it’s not immediately obvious how to do some of them. So let’s break down each of these functions, and which types of amiibo can be used with them…

Illusory Heroes

Once you’ve gotten access to Mila’s Turnwheel in the game, access it from the menu on the map screen or at a Mila shrine. Select the amiibo option and scan an amiibo to unlock the ability to scan amiibo during battle.

Alm and Celica will gain access to the amiibo Battle Art, which allows them to spend 10 HP in exchange for summoning an Illusory Hero for a single turn. The stats of these units vary depending on the type of unit that has been summoned and the stats of the character that has summoned them. These units will be treated as Allies, and as such can’t be directly controlled. They will instead be controlled by the AI in the Ally Phase after the player and enemy teams have taken their turn.

Smash Bros. series amiibo of Fire Emblem characters will summon a phantom of that particular character onto the battlefield. They’ll possess a class and weapon that you’d expect (e.g. Lucina is a Lord wielding the Parallel Falchion) and in battle scenes they have cool ghostly effects and their own theme music.

Ike

Lucina

Marth

Robin

Roy

There’s also two Fire Emblem characters with Smash Bros. series amiibo yet to release – a male Corrin and a female Corrin, both of which have their own Illusory Hero that can be summoned.

If you don’t have any amiibo of Fire Emblem characters then don’t fret, because you can scan any other amiibo to summon generic units. It would appear that each amiibo has two possible summons attached to it – one that activates if this amiibo was the first one used in a battle, one that activates if it is not. Some of these are powerful, while others are… very much not. Some amiibo will even summon multiple illusions, it’s all in the luck of the draw! A list of which amiibo summons what is being assembled in this document, and some images of units I’ve managed to summon can be found below.

Each amiibo can only be scanned once per battle, but so long as Alm/Celica have the HP required to activate the amiibo Battle Art you can summon as many Illusory Heroes during a single battle as you have amiibo.

The 10HP cost to summon an amiibo, and the summon only lasting a single turn, might seem like a turn-off but these illusory units are actually quite useful. They’re expendable, so you don’t need to worry about them getting into danger, and enemies seem to prioritise attacking them over anything else, so you can use them to take the heat off your weaker units or to soften up groups of enemies for your other units. A fun strategy to try is using the Warp spell to move your Illusory Heroes across the map and luring enemies where you want them to go.

Saving and Loading Stats

Alm and Celica’s amiibo can also be used to summon Illusory Heroes, but the process is a bit different. First, access Mila’s turnwheel from the map or a shrine and select the amiibo option. Tapping the Alm or Celica amiibo will unlock new options in the amiibo menu. Selecting Write will allow you to save your character’s loadout to the amiibo.

Hold the Alm or Celica amiibo on the screen or your NFC reader (and keep it there, the UI prompts aren’t great but you’ll need to do so) and you will be prompted to create Shadows of Valentia data for it. When that process is done, you can then save your character’s in-game stats to the amiibo (Alm to the Alm amiibo and Celica to the Celica amiibo, no Superior Spider-Man body switching allowed). Then when you use the amiibo Art in a battle, you can tap their amiibo to summon them into the game, with all their stats, equipment and abilities intact.

Alm

Celica

An amiibo with saved data can also summon a clone of Alm or Celica in another save file in Echoes, so you can start a new game and summon powerful end-game units or lend an amiibo to a friend to help them out in their copy of the game.

Bonus Dungeons

The Alm and Celica amiibo have additional functionality that will unlock two bonus dungeons for you to explore, with some exclusive rewards. Alm will unlock Duma’s Ordeals while Celica will unlock Mila’s Ordeals. Select the Dungeon option from the amiibo menu in Mila’s Turnwheel, and you will be prompted to select which dungeon to explore. Tapping the matching amiibo will then take you into their respective dungeon. You’ll need to re-tap the amiibo each time you want to visit the dungeon.

Each dungeon is a series of five fights, with segments of lore inscribed on stone tablets in between. The boss of each fight will drop a piece of equipment, and clearing the entire dungeon will give you a few more items as a bonus. Note that these drops only occur the first time you clear the dungeon. Don’t be afraid to try these dungeons out right away because the game will prevent you from progressing further in them if it detects your party isn’t strong enough.

Duma’s Ordeals (Alm amiibo)

In Duma’s Ordeals you’ll move deeper and deeper into the dungeon with each fight. Completing the dungeon will get you a big purse of Silver and a helm you can give to Alm or Celica to have them wear it in a dungeon. It’s just an aesthetic change, no gameplay bonuses.

Battles

Battle 1

• Soldier Lv 4 x2
• Cavalier Lv 2
• Archer Lv 2
• Archer Lv 3
• Knight Lv 2 (Boss) – drops Iron Shield

Battle 2

• Mercenary Lv 5 x 2
• Myrmidon Lv 3 x2
• Cavalier Lv 5
• Cavalier Lv 3
• Paladin Lv 3 (Boss) – drops Javelin

Battle 3

• Witch Lv 6 x2
• Arcanist Lv 6 x3
• Dread Fighter Lv4 (Boss) – drops Brave Sword

Battle 4

• Mogall Lv 5 x2
• Arcanist Lv 7
• Fiend Lv9 (Boss) – drops Silver Lance

Battle 5

• Dread Fighter Lv 6
• Sage Lv 6
• Baron Lv 6
• Gold Knight Lv 6
• Necrodragon Lv 10 x2
• Duma’s Apostle Lv 15 (Boss) – Drops Duma’s Shield (equipment that boosts Attack and has the Pavise Combat Art which halves physical damage)

Mila’s Ordeals (Celica amiibo)

In Mila’s Ordeals you have four rooms you can choose from, each with a different lore passage and battle inside. Once each of these four rooms is cleared, another room will open up with one final fight. Clearing the dungeon will earn you two unique items – Mila’s Ring and Mila’s Bow. Mila’s Ring has abilities that, when unlocked, will protect you from critical hits and heal you at the start of each turn. Mila’s Bow is strong against flying enemies, can heal you each turn, heals you when you deal damage to enemies, and also possesses the Earth’s Boon Combat Art.

Battles

Southwest Room

• Revenant Lv 2 x2
• Bonewalker Lv 2 x2
• Bonewalker Lv4 (Boss) – drops Iron Sword

Northwest Room

• Witch Lv 4 x3
• Myrmidon Lv 4
• Sniper – Lv 4
• Witch Lv 8 (Boss) – drops Grimoire Ring

Northeast Room

• Revenant Lv 24 x2
• Mogall Lv 5 x2
• Necrodragon Lv 5 x4
• Mogall Lv 7 (Boss) – drops Gold Mark

Southeast Room

• Bonewalker Lv 3 x2
• Gargoyle Lv 5 x2
• Deathgoyle Lv 3 (Boss) – drops Soma

North Room (Final Battle)

• Bonewalker Lv 15 x3
• Arcanist Lv 8
• Priestess Lv 6
• Pegasus Knight Lv 6 x2
• Fiend Lv 6
• Deathgoyle Lv 6 x2
• Mila’s Servant Lv 15 (Boss) – drops Mila’s Diadem (cosmetic item that Alm and Celica can wear)

Of the two, I much prefer the dungeon that comes with Celica’s amiibo. The presentation is much nicer than Alm’s dungeon, which is so linear that it’s actually just a straight line, and you get some more unique rewards from clearing it.

The Alm, Celica, Marth, Lucina, Roy, Robin and Ike amiibo are available for purchase now, while the two Corrin amiibo will be launching on July 21st alongside the Cloud and Bayonetta amiibo. Nintendo have also announced Chrom and Tiki amiibo though these aren’t currently confirmed to be compatible with Echoes.