Intelligent systems, is this a bit?

As soon as it was announced Engage is a game that was raising a bunch of red flags. Nostalgia baiting, the awful focus on a myunit, gimmicky new mechanics and fucking GACHA? The whole thing really looked like intelligent systems giving into the worst tendancies of post-awakening Fire Emblem.

And y'know, if that was it, i'd probably be at least fine with that. Fates, even revelations, one of the dumbest fucking things i've ever played, are all still at the very least, compelling. I have like 100 hours in Fates, embarassing as that is, because the Fire Emblem formula is still pretty great, conquest has like 5 good maps and the bad stuff is mostly ignorable. I have played fucking Gaiden to completion even after Echoes was out just to see what was up.

With engage ive got 15 hours in it and I can barely stomach a moment more. I want to keep going because I love FE. But I absolutely cannot stand this game.

Yes, like Fates, Engage is a game that falls prey to IS' stupid tendancies. But the real sin with Engage is that what has been cribbed about just does not gel together at all.

Main issue is bloat, on a gameplay level. Part of the genius of Fire Emblem is how really quite simple it all is, and how limited the resources and options really all are. The best section of the entire franchise, and it's not even close, is Thracia 776's Munster arc, a section which truly relies on you making the most of an incredibly limited toolset and pushing it as far as you can against overwhelming odds. Of course, over the years the complexity inevitably increased, to mixed but often positive results. Engage firmly goes too far though.

The big problem is the mixing of the social sim stuff from 3 houses whilst also incorporating its new stuff with the engage system and so on. Being able to boost stats and stuff in a hub was questionable but mosty worked in 3H, a game structured around it. In Engage all the stat boosting, friendship boosting, animal handling(why), minigames (WHY) are mindnumbing roadblocks to the fun strategy. These sorts of things have never really sat right in FE, where the ways damage formulas and speed formulas in particular work make tiny stat boosts often have huge implications, but this goes way too far in a game system very unsuited to it. It essentially stretches the preperations stage, already too long in most FEs, to being the majority of the game. It's unnaceptable.

And it's a real shame as a lot of the changes in the gameplay department are actually really good. Map design is probably the best it's been since radiant dawn, unit balance doesnt seem so overfocused on a small amount of strong units, bosses actually move about and honestly the engage system, regardless of it being insulting to the original characters and whatever, is a pretty neat gimmick honestly. It's a way more balanced version of pair up that gives effectively more burst damage and interesting techniques, which combined with enemies being generally stronger than previous games makes for an interesing loop. Obviously, its in this game so the execution is flubbed - the rings being limited in number kinda undoes the balance improvements on its own, and the skill inheritance, bonding, and gacha ring stuff is yet more pointless fluff to waste your damn time.

If the game just had the engage system over lets say, Radiance series levels of prep and other stuff going on, the gameplay could have been great, probably the best the series had seen in over a decade. But there's way too much going on to waste your time and it does not gel together.

The story and characters are so bafflingly bad I don't know who it's even for. As ludicrously bad as fates' are, at least it's very easy to pinpoint what's going for - the sheer power trip of being infalliable corrin, the stupid golden route both sides-ing and being able to have children with your big booba wyvern riding sister. Engage's is less bad in the "IS is down bad" regard, but it's worse in that it just completely forgets to have anything at all. It's completely hookless, the world and characters feel like they've got nothing going on at all, and it all feels very rote. The mystical/dragon elements feel tappen onto a pretty normal fire emblem plot and all they do is make the MC less personable and relatable. FE has only really had a good story in like 4 games, but it's structure as a series has always made it very easy to connect to characters and it has never dropped the ball this hard, and it's not like it's even trying something.

The whole game is just a confused mess, and doesnt even seem to be sure of who it's appeal is for. It's nostalgia bait to an extreme whilst barely resembling the simple, down to earth nature of those games. It goes for a simpler structure, dropping choice and most of the social sim elements (which people quite liked even if they're not entirely my bag), but keeps just enough of them to be really annoying. Characters are less of a focus for some reason? Romance is less of a thing? I can't even tell who this game is for because it feels like it consciously does something to alienate a fan of every game in the series, and it certaintly isnt for new players. Even as a "we needed 20 more characters to eventually put in heroes" joint it's a complete failure.

I hesitate to say this is the worst FE - Revelations is truly awful - but even Fates had like, an idea of what it was going for, as bad as what that is and as bad as it's execution is. Engage is aimless and awful and for the first time ever, it's easy for me to put an FE down.

Do you like Genshin? Do you like Vtubers? Do you like FEH? Here’s all of that!

So this is the supposedly latest "mainline" game in this franchise. I know Engage is allegedly a game celebrating
the 30th anniversary of FE, but that's even worse. Bold move celebrating the 30th anniversary of FE with a game that doesn't look like FE at all.

FE always looked like anime and followed the latest trends in artstyle etc, but all character designs still had a coherent theme. The medieval europe aesthetic was always a big influence. Even in a horny game like Fates (even the Hoshido desgins were coherent for the aesthetics of the nation). Ignoring the fanservice most designs looked decent (though there were some stinkers like Peri).

But Engage looks like it has no theme at all. It's just "fantasy" and goofy. The character designs are all over the place like they're all from different fantasy gacha games.
These designs seem like a perfect blend of every currrent day anime design trope and it just looks soulless as a result.
This artstyle is by far the worst the series has ever seen, and it makes me appreciate Three Houses, SoV, Path of Radiance etc. all the more. You know what actually bothers me the most, more than just disliking the aesthetics of the designs? All the women I see look like goddamn kids and suffer from same face syndrome. And my god, the 3D models in general look absolutely atrocious. Even the past lords look like shit in this game's style. Engage is certainly more colorful, but that's honestly it. The textures in Engage are another problem, they're mostly not there. The textures on everything are so flat. Everything looks so artificial because of it. FE3H was not a good looking game but I expected more from a game that released nearly 4 years later.

This game looks like a dollar store genshin that collabs with FE, but at least the Genshin characters look coherent for the themes and aesthetics of the nation they come from.
Colgate and friends look like a travelling circus. I remember when some pictures of this game leaked some time ago and people were 100% convinced that this was a chinese bootleg FE gacha, because of course they would.

Well, let's talk about the gameplay. It's FE so the gameplay was bound to be fun. People say that Engage is going back to its roots because the game "focuses more on the
tactical gameplay than the story, lore and characters". While it's true that Engage offers more variety in the tactical side of things, it still falls flat since the game is lacking some kind of balance. Thanks to the rings units are broken from the start. The problem is, to balance against this, you’d need to have absurdly difficult enemy units, who would invalidate all non-ring using characters and they didn't do that. Though, there are units/classes that are broken in general, so clearing maps wasn't really challenging. Engage offers average FE gameplay with some neat battle animation updates. There are some improvements, but also some step backs. But hey, at least we got weapon triangle back, right?
This is by far one of the easiest FE game I've played. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is fun but it's not "more challenging" than the past games in that regard. Also, Engage got new game modes and mechanics that are straight up from FEH and I'm not a fan.

The story...exists. Most FE stories aren't really all that unique but can still be enjoyed as political dramas on surface level for most of the time (I greatly enjoyed PoR, Thracia and 3H)
Engage's plot is the most vanilla, over the top anime story in this franchise and I mean this in a bad way. Yeah, it's even more "anime" than Fates. The story simply does not live up to previous installments in the series writing-wise.
Oh and Emblem heroes don't factor much into the plot at all, even Marth.

Also, I hate the "but FE was always anime!!!" argument. Yeah, no shit. Anime can have different genres, artstyle and a difference in tone and groundedness. Not every modern anime has to look like a generic moe harem isekai. Because you know, even "anime" can be serious. And it's not like the series cannot try to do that these days - see SoV and 3H. Now, I'm not against lighthearted plots in this franchise, but Engage's plot is just a joke that overstays its welcome way too long. It's been a while since I cringed so many times while playing a game.

The cast is also the most forgettable one. None of the characters felt unique or interesting in any way. Everyone here is meant to either be a laugh, a bland stereotype, or combination of the two. So, tiresome one-note gimmicks whose character profile never left the draft drawer but was put into the game anyway. Supports heavily focus on the character's gimmicks, which got annoying very fast. The supports are not engaging in any way. It's quantity over quality. All of them are very short, but I appreciate that they fully voiced all of them.

Honestly, the only reason I played this game is because I love Fire Emblem and wanted to give this game a chance. I enjoy FE gameplay, but even good gameplay can get tedious and boring if I don't care about the rest of the game. After finishing a map, I got rewarded with more over the top anime crap and meh characters. I was just not invested enough because of that and hated my time with it as a result. See, I love plenty of gameplay-focused games. The issue is that Engage isn't structured like a gameplay-focused game, it's structured like a game with a shit story featuring shitty characters. Does it give you a rough outline of a story to then let you play freely with no distraction? No. It's not a dungeon crawler, it's not XCOM, it's a very classic FE game with tons of character introductions and interactions that are wasting your time, they're just bad. I can't just admit the game's writing is so shit that it's better to skip every cutscene and call that "gameplay-focused", it's clearly a failure and not the intended experience. That was the worst experience I had with a FE game.

The only interesting thing about Engage are the past lords but if I want to see them I just play their games, where they look decent and not like...this. They're also not even able to
interact with each other or are all that relevant in the story, so whats the point of this "celebration"? That you'll point at your favorite lords and clap? That's what FEH is for. This game that shoves in generic anime designs, gags, lines, acting, same baby face women, and non fitting outfits and other elements is for me the worst FE game. I hope the next one will be better, because this was very disappointing after FE3H's big success. I understand that Engage is supposed to be a goofy and lighthearted "celebration" of this franchise, but why is it mainline? And why is it done so bad? There are many other and better ways to celebrate this franchise that I came to really love. But not like this. It's nothing more than a soulless cashgrab.

(The game leaked a few days ago, so I had the chance to play it early.)

This game is actually amazing. Story wasn't anything special, but it I like some of the story beats and how it incorporated its story into gameplay quite a few times. Definitely a lot of great moments present, and it is unfortunate that people will write it off.

There were plenty of times where you are powerless in the story, and then on the same map the game exactly makes you feel the same way. Something we have been missing in Fire Emblem since arguably Thracia?

The game goes back to the GBA days and make supports very quick and simple, meaning after a map you don't have to spend a long time reading all of the supports. Not to say the characters are hot garbage, there are definitely good ones even with the change of length in them.

I played the game on Maddening and the gameplay itself is REALLY player phase heavy, which is awesome because that means you spend time more strategizing which is very welcomed for a strategy game. Generally the maps have a very consistently alright to good quality (with some really cool ones). Paralogues are definitely the maps with the lowest quality, but I'd argue you could blame the respective games for its quality. (on Maddening they are NEAR identical to the source material)

I had fun, only issue are the hit rate getting pretty shake late game and it gets kinda annoying when using the turnwheel doesn't even reset RN. It takes the FE12 H3 endgame approach where you want to fucking finish every late game map as fast as possible and the Thracia approach of using your entire arsenal to deal with every problem. Which I think is a fine thing at least, but a kinda annoying while dealing with hit rates.

My other complaint is that the UI has been a downgrade compared to its predecessors, a lot of design choices baffles me and it shouldn't be this hard just to look at a might of a weapon.

An insane amount of tools that the game gives you, story that works with the game, pretty good fanservice for older fans, amazing animations, beautiful looking world. A lot of steps forward, I am very content with this game. Definitely a favorite in the series for me.

     'The one thing I always wanted... staring me in the face all the while.'

Four years after Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019), Fire Emblem Engage set itself the task of being an anniversary game, one that would pay tribute to the entire franchise. A Herculean task, if ever there was one, and the title opted to simplify its development cycle by not retaining the core features of Three Houses. With a streamlined story, the team led by Tsutomu Tei and Kenta Nakanishi sought to emphasise the gameplay, while the visuals were designed to appeal to a younger audience, either completely new to the series or having only experienced it after Fire Emblem Awakening (2012).

     Overwhelming sub-systems and activities: a pacing issue

The player assumes the role of Alear, whose mission is to save the world from the threat of the dragon Sombron after a thousand years of slumber. As usual, the protagonist travels the continent and recruits companions as the adventure progresses. The big addition is the Emblem Rings, which allow a character to be linked to a past hero from the series. The game piles up its characters very quickly, to the point where it becomes difficult to keep up with the pace. In terms of gameplay, this is perhaps both the strength and the weakness of Engage. The title offers so many options for creating one's team that it can be overwhelming. With a generally harder difficulty, players are encouraged to take an active interest in pairing up Rings, thinking about the skills they want each character to inherit, and doing as many of the various activities on Somniel as possible.

Cold_Comfort pointed out that the stat boosts from meals or training sessions – which force the player to undertake a mini-game that becomes tiresome the second time around – give a significant advantage in combat, therefore compelling the player to complete them, at least in the early stages of the game. Only when one has reached the mid-game with enough Rings and characters unlocked can this phase be skipped. Certain combinations – at least in Hard mode – allow players to get through the dense waves of enemies without any major problems. Yunaka makes a perfect AVO tank, especially with the fog that Corrin can summon; in the second half of my playthrough, she was responsible for almost half the kills on every map.

If the player makes use of all the systems available in the game to customise their characters, it is possible to create teams capable of withstanding adversity in a wide range of situations. The game is less demanding on long-term planning, as it is possible to change classes without penalty – the experience curve remains the same. However, it compensates for this ease of management by making it extremely difficult to obtain money, the key to upgrading weapons. In my case, I felt compelled to take special care of Anna to make her very viable and to use her passive to accumulate gold. Similarly, the flexibility offered by the Rings is very enjoyable, but in a twist borrowed from Fire Emblem Heroes (2017), the Bond Rings have to be pulled in a gacha system. As a result, the game is constantly torn between conflicting choices that are sometimes sympathetic to the player, sometimes irritating, and sometimes tedious. Although most of the problems become less critical in the second half of the game, the early game is extremely unpleasant, as the player spends as much time on the Somniel doing insipid activities as fighting. For a title that was supposed to be all about tactics, this pacing is indicative of a serious deficiency.

     A strong combat system

In terms of actual tactics, Engage is a perfectly enjoyable experience. The difficulty has been increased compared to Three Houses, and the map design tries to take advantage of the Emblem Rings, pushing the player to Engage to compensate for their numerical disadvantage. The title encourages one to be aggressive in order to take out enemies quickly, especially with the Break mechanic. This brings the Weapon Triangle back into focus, allowing characters with the wrong weapon to take on duels that would normally be avoided in previous games. The result of these features is that Engage is a much more player phase-focused experience, which proves to be very enjoyable. Some maps really shine with this design, requiring precision as the player progresses: Chapter 17, with a heavy atmosphere and a very open and dangerous terrain for the player to navigate, is arguably one of the best maps. In general, Engage requires a more conscientious approach to character positioning, and rewards creative ideas with the staves or, towards the end of the game, Byleth's Goddess Dance.

     The form of the game: a abysmal writing

Enjoyable in combat, generally lacklustre during the Somniel downtime, the game is characterised by its highly variable technical quality and its abysmal writing. Most of the backgrounds are a simple image with a few camera movements as a cover: if Three Houses suffered from underwhelming performances, Engage doesn't even try to hide its shortcomings. Admittedly, some might point to the sumptuous combat animations and the fact that each map is fully modelled, so that the player can explore them after each chapter: this hardly makes up for the poorly staged dialogues and the fact that the explorable locations are largely uninteresting – the player can and should collect resources there, but it is more often a thankless task than a sequence suited to contemplation.

As for the writing, the game starts off surprisingly poorly and takes about ten chapters to gather momentum. The sheer number of characters means that some of them have to be dismissed very quickly, and their supporting dialogue doesn't help to give them depth. This is obviously a chronic issue in the Fire Emblem series, but Engage feels like every character has been built around one or two personality traits, and all dialogue has to revolve around them, in a very linear fashion from C-rank to A-rank. Some characters are more believable and coherent, but they can be counted on one hand – Ivy, Diamant, Citrinne or Yunaka, for example. The title never manages to find the right tone: it sometimes attempts flights of gravitas that immediately fall flat, as the world is so under-explored and uninteresting. The latest chapters have a few interesting moments, especially those involving Zephia, but otherwise Engage goes nowhere, following the same tired clichés of Japanese animation.

     For whom is this game?

If incestuous themes do not seem to be present – I did not notice any in my playthrough – the sexualisation of young characters along Japanese idol model and the latent paedophilia surrounding the character of Anna are cause for concern: some dialogues have been modified in the Western localisation, but at its core the game is embedded in a cultural aesthetic that contributes to the banalisation of behaviours and representations. The title is obsessed with the question of motherhood, echoing the recent wave of games inspired by post-Abe family policies. All these choices correspond to a Japanese vision that is still shaped by the JK business and the idol industry; one would like to agree with Masafumi Monden's words: 'Emphasizing sweetness, demureness and femininity without hinting at sexual allure or seeking the objectifying male gaze serves to repudiate the stereotyped representation of femininity as passive, compliant and powerless against the sexual objectification of women' [1], but the swimwear and the characters waking Alear up without their consent do not help in this regard. As a result, characters such as Rosado and Etie appear as stand-ins to fill the gender nonconformity quota. It is impossible to take the game seriously, and it is hard to ignore these elements when the player is forced to spend hours on the Somniel.

What remains after sixty hours of Fire Emblem Engage? Some very creative maps that are genuinely satisfying to solve; hours of frustrating preparation between missions; a desire to get through the dialogue as quickly as possible; and, inevitably, a game whose maximalist approach requires too much effort and time to be truly accessible to newer players. Fates (2015) and Three Houses had divided players, old and new, over game design choices. The idea of having different routes or the activities of Garreg Mach were not to everyone's taste: this is the common lot of concepts that radically change the formula of a series. Engage also has its own innovations and twists, but they seem shrouded in a heavy cynicism: was the title designed to provide Heroes with new characters to populate the banners? Everything feels disjointed, as if Tsutomu Tei and Kenta Nakanishi had no desire to craft a coherent experience from start to finish. As long as one considers gameplay to be the primary purpose of a Fire Emblem game, it is possible to find value in it; however, it seems to me that Engage is a step in a creatively dubious direction and one that prompts me to abandon the adventure that this series represented.

__________
[1] Masafumi Monden, ‘Being Alice in Japan: performing a cute, ‘girlish’ revolt’, in Japan Forum, vol. 26, no. 2, 2012, p. 282.

Before Engage was revealed, my biggest hope for a new Fire Emblem game was for it to not just be a carbon copy of Three Houses and be a return to form. Be careful what you wish for.

Fire Emblem Engage is shaping up to be one of the most polarizing games in a series where every game is polarizing on some level. I fall into the camp that does not care for it and I’m putting my extended thoughts on it here just to have them somewhere. This is not meant to demean anyone who enjoys it but rather to explain why I feel the way I do.

I actually do see why a lot of people in the FE spaces I frequent really enjoy this one. Breaking is one of the best mechanics to get added to Fire Emblem in a while, as it gives a nice flow to player phases and makes you have to put more thought into playing around enemy phases. Rounds of combat look absolutely stunning with quite possibly the best 3D animations in the series (Kagetsu’s crit animation gives me life) and other neat touches like the cool subtle effect for hitting someone with bonus damage. Ring abilities can just be incredibly fun to utilize, whether it’s busted stuff like Celica’s warp and Sigurd’s massive movement boost or more situational but still fun to use stuff like Lyn’s copies and Ike’s risk vs reward attack. And there’s plenty of maps that stand as some of the best designed in the series, with chapter 11 being the obvious standout, 17 being a tough but fair gauntlet of six strong boss fights, and 19 having a ridiculous surprise that feels like something from a rom hack but in the best way possible.

Based purely on gameplay, I have more positive things than negative things to say about Engage. But that’s not to say that those negative things don’t exist. There are some parts of the game where the map design falters. The earlygame maps essentially being scripted tutorials is a drag, the Solm arc has a desert rout map, a fog of war map with a dumb gimmick of having to break crates with the Ike ring, and a map with the Corrin ring that feels Rev inspired (derogatory), and there’s plenty of otherwise good chapters that suffer from excessive reinforcements that end up slowing down an already fairly slow game.

I also dislike how units feel in this one. The earlygame units are actively unfun to use and are ridiculously outclassed by any mid to late game unit with the same class. Furthermore, I’m not a fan of the effect rings have on unit feel. Plenty of aspects behind units such as skills and weapon proficiency are locked behind bonds with certain rings so it makes units feel less like actually unique entities and more so just vessels for rings.

Lastly, this may just be my personal preference but I’ve never liked the rewind mechanics that have been in every game since FE15’s turnwheel and they’re arguably at their worst now that you can save mid-battle and effectively give yourself infinite rewind uses. I get why these mechanics are there but they feel redundant with the existence of casual mode and really just take me out of the experience as they remove a lot of the interesting dynamics that permadeath creates. And this is before the assholish design choices that they tend to inspire.

So overall, from a gameplay perspective, Engage is a flawed but fun experience. Base Fire Emblem gameplay activates my neurons on a level that I can’t explain so not fucking it up too much is enough to make me happy. I might even go as far to say that a good chunk of my gameplay issues won’t be as much of a problem when a fair bit of time passes and the meta gets easier to understand. But my main source of issues with Engage is not so much its gameplay as it is its story.

I’m seeing a lot of takes from Engage enjoyers along the lines of “people only hate the story because it’s not as serious.” However, I wouldn’t mind a less serious Fire Emblem story if done well. I genuinely love the cheesy 4kids/saturday morning style English opening and I would look forward to Fire Emblem’s G Gundam equivalent: a weird outlier in the series’ history with the primary appeal of being really stupid in a fun way. Sadly though, Engage fails to capture scenes of true peak fiction like having Holland use a windmill mech or having the protagonist get detained in post apocalyptic Italy and interrogated by having his head shoved into a pizza.
The story just overall feels dry and uninteresting. Alear has the personality of cardboard and the four “lords” that join him don’t get much screen time after their respective arcs so none of them have any chemistry amongst themselves or with Alear in the main story. I’m sure that they have interesting dynamics with each other in the supports but if I shouldn’t have to go out of my way to find character dynamics that should have been there in the first place.

Beyond that, the plot is your standard Fire Emblem fare and almost everything that happens in it is something that has happened several times in the series, whether it’s a possessed ruler who’s the pawn of the main villain, a wyvern riding character who starts out on the villain’s side but defects to your army, or the main villain being a generic purple dragon whose main “Fell Dragon” title is the same as another game in the series’ generic purple dragon. For fuck’s sake, the game’s central theme of “going against what you’re fated to be” and the plot twist associated with said theme were both already done before and better in Awakening. It’s hard for me to enjoy this as a less serious game in the series when it just ends up being the same shit as before but with the most superficial layer of “irony”.

The sad thing is that there’s a handful of times where the less serious tone pays off. Yunaka is a fun twist on the bubbly personalities you see in the series by having a character whose bubbly personality is actually just a way of hiding her criminal past and her introduction chapter where she tries to hide the fact that she stole the ring is a fun dynamic. Alcryst is an entertaining parody of angsty characters like Takumi and his introduction scene cracks me up. Fogado is incredibly charismatic and you can tell that his VA had the time of his life recording for him. But these redeeming qualities are the exception, not the norm.

There’s also several moments where the game tries and fails to do serious emotional beats and its villains are the worst example of this. The game arbitrarily makes villains sympathetic with little build up, presumably because of the perceived notion that sympathetic villains are inherently better. It tries and fails to make you feel bad for the side villain who beats up children multiple times and the other side villain who looks like a DeviantArt user’s edgy Fairy Tail OC and whose primary personality trait is being a sadomasochist. Even worse is that the game waits until the very final chapter to give the main antagonist a backstory and then proceeds to treat their death as a sad moment in a way that feels completely unwarranted.

Finally, I’m not a fan of the way the emblem rings were implemented into the narrative. They don’t feel like the actual characters they were in their home series (although calling Byleth a character is a stretch tbh) but rather feel more like generic collectibles that have the faces of past protagonists attached to them as a marketing gimmick. In the main story, they’ll get a little bit of screen time in their join chapter and then get reduced to doing nothing but giving off exposition for the rest of the game. In the game’s side content, their supports are only two to four lines of dialogue so there’s not much they can add beyond generic advice or “remember this thing from the past game” dialogue.

Now because Engage has spawned gameplay vs story discourse, I’ll just say this: I can enjoy games with bad stories and there’s plenty of FE games that fall into that camp. I’m even in the camp that enjoys Fates: Conquest for its gameplay even if I do understand why some might not be able to. But the way I see it, the more time a story takes up, the more of an impact that said story has on my opinion of a game. Cutscenes are lengthy, even more so than Conquest’s, and the game is becoming notorious for how dragged on death scenes in particular feel. These cutscenes take up a lot of the game’s time so I would prefer for the time spent on them to have good writing. And no, being able to skip cutscenes doesn’t make the issues go away. That excuse doesn’t hold up for games I like (like the aforementioned Fates: Conquest) and it doesn’t hold up here either.

Minor tangent but the victim complex a small but vocal portion of the FE fanbase has for any criticism of this game is pathetic. I totally get it if you enjoy games primarily for gameplay and there’s plenty of cases where I do just that but you have to understand why some people aren’t able to do so. If you get genuinely mad at someone for not liking/being interested in a game primarily because of its story, you are part of the reason why video games aren’t treated as seriously as other forms of art.

I guess to explain my apprehensiveness towards Engage overall in spite of liking the gameplay for the most part is that there’s a feeling of soullessness to it, at least to me. It doesn’t exist to do anything new or interesting and primarily exists to reference pre-existing games. There’s been a fairly common take that Engage has a worse story than Fates. Suffice it to say that I don’t agree with this take. Fates’ story is a level of poorly constructed that is the lowest of low bars to clear and that’s before the mountains of gross shit in it.

However, I can see where this take is coming from, even if I find it disagreeable, to say the least. Fates’ concept of a choice between your birth family or your adopted family was a novel idea, at least at the time. Conquest in particular had an interesting idea of focusing on the flaws of implementing change within the system. Both of these ideas were squandered though, in such a way that resulted in some of the worst writing I’ve ever seen. But while Fates had the issue of trying and failing unbelievably hard, Engage had the issue of not trying at all.

And one last thing that I couldn’t fit in here: Fuck Nintendo/Intelligent Systems for putting in pedophilic romance options and fuck Backloggd for deleting my friend’s review because he told pedophiles to do something to themselves that would make the world a better place.
FREE BATTLEHUNTZ

Long story short I recently spent a few days in the hospital which has made for a pretty poor start to the year, but the timing of this release really could not of been better in that regard. I binged this game hard and it helped me through a lot of the pain (everything is okay now) and for that I'll always remember this fondly. Even typing this I'm getting ready to start a second playthrough. I was worried about this game from all the pre release information but the moment the opening started playing all that doubt washed away. The story is a bit of a misstep but it looks and plays so wonderfully and the cast is as fun and colorful as everything else. Not quite what I was hoping for, but just what I needed

Absolutely slaughters the entire series with the sheer amount of options you have gameplay wise; and the fact that the game expects you to use them.

A return to GBA supports so now I don't need every support to be a tonal wreck between either being way too serious and being took for a joke or a joke and took serious.

Decent story for fire emblem standards.

Ivy is peak.
They made maps fun again. They haven't figured it out for so long. Thanks engage. I love you.

This would be a 8 but it gets extra 2 points for not being three houses
To edit in a actual review
Neat story with raw moments nothing rly offensive in it the real draw is the gameplay, played on maddening and a had a well, engaging time this is just the best series has ever balanced the hardest difficulty
the music is fire both original tracks and remixes, the supports are all mostly fun to read, the cast is likeable this is something that will grow on me as time goes as i replay it not because i need 325235 playthroughs to get a full picture but because i actually want to play this,
3rd edit: changed my mind this is the best game ever

For better or worse, Fire Emblem is a formative part of who I am. The works we choose to Engage™ with in our youth tends to form a basis of our media literacy and in which initial appreciation for art stems. The ideas and themes we are first exposed to are inherently novel after all. With little else to compare with, these stories are earnestly received as they are indulged in. We have yet to form the necessary experiences to be critical, let alone know of contempt. And so, we view these early works that we are exposed to undeservedly favourably. This insidious phenomenon that retroactively becomes seen as nostalgia is something I must overcome! I like to think I have grown much since my youth. I can do it now! I am strong enough! It is time for me to condemn the naive joys of my past and see them as what they truly are so that I may live solely in the present. I will not shy away at the edge of dawn. It is time to destroy Fire Emblem, this puppy love of mine. This latest entry shall serve as a perfect target of my ire.

However, before I can get to condemning Engage™, there is necessary context that must be considered. It is not just a standalone iterative sequel after all. It is the celebratory title! It would seek to present itself as the ultimate culmination of an anthology. A statement of the series in its whole. The final destination of a long journey. If it dares to lay claim to such lofty dominion, then it elicits proper scrutiny. We will not just judge Fire Emblem Engage™ by what it is, but also, on what it isn’t. What it could have been. What it SHOULD have been!

Fire Emblem history, to me, is comprised of three distinct eras. The ‘Kaga Saga’, the first of which, having a particularly distinctive creative direction. Serving as the foundational ethos for all the future games to come, these early games were experimental in nature. More willing than most to utilise the unique qualities of videogames as a medium to tell its stories. Most infamously, Fire Emblem sought to embed a real sense of loss into its players by having characters permanently die should they fall during gameplay. That these characters with unique face, motivations and statistical significance would live and die through your hand was meant to instill a personal connection with Fire Emblem’s world. Such means of connection being only feasible through this uniquely dynamic aspect of video games.

And so, Fire Emblem was initially conceived to be a series about using games as a means of storytelling. A cohesive blend of gameplay with a narrative it wished to convey.

I have not played any of those games from that era. I am a fake fan, a poser, a revisionist. There is much to discuss of these entries that I have not the capacity or experience to do so. Instead, the games that I will elaborate upon comprise the second of these three Fire Emblem eras. That which I shall dub as the era of ‘Sanitation’. You see, that previous visionary ethos of character death was too successful. Most players were found unwilling to see the characters in which they are made to feel responsible for die, and instead of Engaging™ with this creative vision, would simply reset chapters until everyone survived. Creative intent clashed with the reality of a player’s actions. As these games had the ultimate purpose of seeking commercial success over making artistic statements, concessions were made to make the design of these games more tailored for the preferences of its general audience.

Yet even after the sanitation that ensued, alternative creative avenues were still sought to be explored, and though dulled, much remained of the original design philosophies post transition. Permadeath was kept, but instead of being a vestigial idea that players ignored, was retained explicitly because it was expected players would seek to circumvent it. If players were unwilling to let these previously expendable characters die, then why not encourage this behaviour? And so, these side characters became more integral and more significant within their stories. Fire Emblem was revised and recontextualized to be a series about the bonds we cultivate. This change of perspective inspired the most formative feature of this second generation, the support system.

Young me was enamoured by this concept! This method of storytelling I indulged in with earnestly, novel to me then as it was. Each character no matter how seemingly humble or insignificant would be given unique characterization through multiple conversations with others among the cast, conversations that had to be sought out by an invested player. Each of these conversations would in turn give you a tidbit of nuance of their character and the circumstances in which they exist. As you weave together these microstories you would unravel the nature of entire worlds. An understanding of why characters are the way they are, the rationale behind their actions, the material circumstances in which conflict is born. From this understanding you would find these simplistic stories are not as straightforward as they initially appear. The unique traits of videogames as a medium were still being utilized to tell stories. This time though through the ability to obfuscate details and dispense them piecemeal as a prize for the curious to seek.

Fire Emblem had adapted to its audience. It had become a series about story telling as a puzzle. It sought to exploit a player’s desire for discovery and willingness to Engage™ with character analysis and interpretation. Whilst deliberately echoing and iterating on past tropes and story beats from previous entries in which to contrast and compare against.

However no one, not even curious children with little responsibility, have the time to seek out all these support conversations individually. Instead, this support system deliberately or not, encouraged a certain type of Engagement™. Rather than spending 100s of hours repeating playthroughs just to see a few additional lines of text, these support conversations would be found much more readily accessible online in compilations on dedicated fan-sites. This centralization of resources became a hub of traffic. Communities formed around them, and so Fire Emblem had become more than just a series of games, it had become a culture in of itself.

Fire Emblem was now more than just the media it was sold as. It had become an outlet for discussion and critique. A way in which we can Engage™ with others who shared a passion for a niche media franchise. It had developed to become a cult, otherwise known as a fandom. An avenue of endless pontification about its characters, the ways it should be played and our individual experiences.

This second era of Fire Emblem would also not produce the requisite quota of milk deemed satisfactory to its masters. And so, the series was called away to be culled. Rather than go out quietly however, it was given one final mercy. A swansong game in which the series could be laid neatly to rest. And so, we entered the final and ongoing era of Fire Emblem: “Purpose (Id)”.

At the time I had wished Fire Emblem Awakening would have been the end of the series. It was so antithetical to what I was used to. A corrupted and revenant corpse of something I once loved. Tight deliberate mechanical design and maps were discarded in favour of a game that encouraged you to simply grind out your characters to become unkillable juggernauts. A cast of realistic and considered characters that defined the nature of the world they lived in had been replaced by one-note caricatures. Romantic pairings, which were once reserved for those with unique chemistry were now omnipresent for every and any male and female combination. All this just to enable the kids of these pairings to join your army in a mockery of one of the most incredible narrative twists of a previous entry of the series (that I hadn’t played).

Nostalgia is an insidious phenomenon. The very same spell that had captivated my younger self I was now resentful of others experiencing. My love after all was targeted towards something tangible, real, meaningful while that of these new fans was not. I would not have the Revelation™ for quite some time that this love was derived from the same source. That willingness to see the best qualities of something without a frame of reference in which to compare.

Seemingly equally confused by the financial success of Awakening as I, it’s producers immediately sought to ascertain as to the reason why through a curious application of market research. The next game in the series was released as a set of two, appealing to the separate expectations of newer fans as well as that of the ostracised veterans. It was a reactionary bid seeking to retain as much audience as it could. A final third game in the set would seek to reconcile the rift between these two audiences.

It was enough to temper me. Although it was apparent the prose and tone of Fire Emblem had been irrevocably changed forever there was something here that I could still latch onto. Fire Emblem may no longer have the capacity anymore to tell grounded or even coherent tales but as a mechanical object this iteration was unsurpassed. These embedded gameplay systems in which I was intimate with still persisted. I was content. Ready to move on and accept maybe what I saw in Fire Emblem wasn’t real. Just a naïve interpretation of the past. But then a beautiful tragedy occurred.

Three Houses. What a miserable chore to play! The antithesis of Fates: Conquest. Any vision it had for its gameplay either as artistic statement or as mechanical toy failed to manifest in a satisfactory way. And yet this game would leave me elated. It was perfect in a way that truly mattered. For it contained that aspect of Fire Emblem which I had thought was lost forever. What this lacked as a tactile game experience it more than made up through its quality of its narrative and its method of delivery. Yes, experiencing it all is a nightmare. Important details are scattered across four separate playthroughs and hundreds of optional and slowly dispensed dialogue events that no one with respect to their time is going to see all of it. But this was exactly how it should be! This was the Fire Emblem of my youth that I remembered. The antiquated method of storytelling from my nostalgia. Story as puzzle dispensed piecemeal. It was perhaps even better than it was in the past as there was no primary perspective of its story to cling to as ‘correct’. These different perspectives and the audience’s preconceptions would lead to extrapolating different interpretations from its details. Pictures that would be incompatible with those assembled by others. This lack of consensus on whose was ‘correct’ would facilitate endless debate, inspiring discussion and ultimately critical engagement with its story characters and themes. The tragedy of three houses is that it seemingly vindicated my nostalgia. That nostalgia I am now resolved to kill.

This preamble does not end on Hope™. There is one final game to discuss. The most integral and influential game to the future of the series. Fire Emblem makes money now. Lots of it. It is now a covetous cash cow. One of its games alone has surpassed the revenue of the rest of the series combined. That game is Fire Emblem Heroes and it is a drain upon all the goodwill of the series. Decades of character discussion, interpretations, fan translations of the many games that were never released internationally, are commodified, and then consumed by this beast. Three Houses was not made in-house and it shows. It was an outsourced project to keep the fanbase Engaged™ as the next direction of Fire Emblem was developed. The existence of Heroes means all future characters in the series are now designed for you to imprint upon so that they may be resold back to you in the most exploitatory way that is somehow still legal. That is the preconception for Fire Emblem Engage.

Fire Emblem that I had once viewed as a benevolent deity of storytelling had degenerated into a fell dragon needing to be slain. The fandom cultivated out of a shared love and passion was being used and preyed upon by that which it sought to enshrine. Was this always the series’ ultimate intention? The end goal of any corporate ip? It matters not, I have gathered all the necessary context needed. It is time to slay a degenerative dragon. I am ready to let go of the past. I am ready to kill this nostalgia within myself. I need to let go.

Resolution burning bright I would find little to dissuade this righteous fury within the opening acts. The world of Lythos is contrived to hell, deliberately so. There is no ambition here nor desire to tell a story that reflects upon or contrasts against a living world. Every creature here is an automaton, a faux imitation only resembling life. Vtuber avatars frolic about a story where conflict is abhorred, yet its root cause is never sought. A mandate of heaven is seen as absolute and unchallenged, as the cast indulge in a luxury resort above the clouds above an uninvolved populace. A zodiac of Fire Emblems past have their status cemented as commodities. Trinkets to flaunt and collect serving to establish the authority of a supposedly divine deity. The irony of how these emblems parallel a recurring theme of the series involving twelve ‘dead lords’ is not lost upon me.

Yet as the chapters go by, I find my resolve wavering. When your expectations start at the bottom of a ravine, it leaves the only direction left to climb. These caricatures clearly made to serve as an asset pack for a gacha game, slowly wear me down through a consistent message that concludes many of their story arcs. That we should not allow one’s past to define one’s future. I listen to this message because deep down it is something I want to hear. I am made to believe there is something salvageable and sincere beneath an ugly veneer. That I am wrong to judge Engage on what the series used to be. I should accept it on what it is and seeks to become.

I disengage. Yes, these characters do not compare as the ones in the gilded memories of the past or even that of the prior game, but there are aspects to like here. Templates in which I can extrapolate depth and nuance. Details to discover in which I can discuss and share with others. I can fix them! Both through gameplay and narratively. I am even provided the tools to do so. The game facilitating the means to combine traits taken of previous games to these characters. I can take ownership. Ascribe to them my own meaning. Is this not the culmination of what Fire Emblem is about? That ultimately we the audience are the arbiters of its story?

And so at journey’s end I hesitate. I find that I cannot will myself to kill this creature after all. There is a part of me still contained within. A part I still love. A sword wavers with conviction shattered. All I need is any reason, and I’ll let you go. Give me nothing even, be unrepentant and we can still live in peace. Arcadia can exist. Humans can live at peace with dragons.

The creature looks deep into my eyes. It sees shattered resolve, an extended hand. It sees only sovereign delusion. It rejects me thus, “I did it for Zero Emblem” uttered defiantly with no shame or remorse. This phrase is pure nonsense. A meaningless string of words that not even its speaker can decipher. It is not intended to be satisfactory nor received well. Even the most earnest of readings would find these words ring hollow. It is a proclamation of intent. A dismissal of peace. The game is telling me that I am wrong about it. That I am seeing something that was never there. That this was always a completely unserious farce and that I am foolish for seeing otherwise. A dagger reached for to provoke my reaction.

I can only oblige and stab it through the heart. We both always knew this was the only way this could possibly end. The beast is slain and I am free to move on. Thankyou for letting me go.

Fire Emblem is a series about the myriad ways in which we Engage™ with media. It has grown and adapted in response to how it has been perceived. It is a series that only still exists and thrives in the present because of the community that has formed around it. It would have us believe that it owns us because it sired that which we love. But we owe it nothing. This love is ours to shape and ours to reclaim.

I hate that I love these games so much.

“A world riven by pride, Repaired at last. And now its makers can be at rest, Our vision come to pass.”

(I recommend Engage to only Fire Emblem’s biggest fans. I recommend it to Its biggest haters. I recommend it to no one in between. It has absolutely succeeded in being the culmination of the series. As a mechanical object it is best in class. As a thesis statement of the series as a whole, it is a perfect tragedy. There is some genuine care here buried underneath a shallow exterior. Yet there is no way to save it. The game’s premise and the purpose on which it came to exist is antithetical to love. But there is closure to be had in laying it to rest)

I am eternally destined to like games that are divisive because people are too joyless to appreciate em, and Fire Emblem Engage is absolutely no exception.

Don't get me wrong - my first impression of this game was far from stellar too. I had half a mind to avoid using Alear entirely because I hated their design so much.
But with every bit of gameplay features we got to see, I got more and more excited for this game - and man, I'm so glad I did. It is such a ridiculously fun game.

We haven't had such a heavy focus on player-phase combat in the series since FE12, which was already my favorite FE gameplay-wise - but this game just goes above and beyond. The Break system took me a while to get used to, but when it finally clicked it was so ridiculously satisfying.
The low deployment slots and gigantic amount of Emblem Ring combinations you could pull off means it's gonna be great fun to replay too, and I can't wait to give that a shot.

The story definitely takes a while to get going, and I don't blame anyone for losing interest relatively quickly, but I'm glad it picks up as well as it does.
Didn't think I'd ever say this about Fire Emblem but the ludonarrative harmony is what especially fascinated me about this game - there's some really impactful moments where you're supposed to feel powerless and it shows SO goddamn well through the gameplay that follows. It's incredible.

Despite the story being pretty basic at first, the characters are still as enjoyable as always - and although it takes more of a GBA FE approach of having some quick and simple supports, there's still plenty of meaningful and enjoyable ones. Ivy was a really stand-out character to me, because she's one of the few that tackles issues that are very specific to the game's setting. I think you could've taken any other character in a different setting and they'd still work - which doesn't bother me too much, honestly - but she's definitely the most layered character I've seen in the supports in my playthrough. Pleasantly surprised about that!

All in all, I'm really happy with this game. It's not perfect by any means, but I think any long-time fan should really be able to appreciate what this game's going for. Tons of subtle nods to older games and tons of direct fanservice with the Emblem Rings and how they play.
Couldn't think of a better (regrettably delayed) anniversary celebration!

Really excited for Fire Emblem's future after playing this game. Fantastic gameplay, a story that works more than well enough for what the game's supposed to be, great fanservice, incredible animations and hell - the game looks gorgeous in general, honestly.
With so much going well for it, I can't wait to see what's next!

I'll admit first and foremost, I saw the leaks before release, I saw the trailers for this game, and I thought it looked like absolute dogshit! I was terrified to see where Fire Emblem was headed with this, and lord knows I wasn't anywhere close to interested in those avatar designs. I thought it looked like complete and utter ridiculousness, but... time went on, and it grew on me. As wheatie does, the game released and I saw a few clips of it floating around on different platforms. It looked ridiculous. Almost... intentionally so?

The story is terrible, yeah, of course, I think that's been made abundantly clear by everybody, but I can't help but smile at it still. Everything about Fire Emblem Engage is silly, from its writing, to its character designs, to just its whole damn premise, it's absurd! And yet, they seem to know that! So instead of desperately trying to claw its way into a dark and brooding story, it almost felt like they were more leaning into the absurdity of what they had. This isn't a game you're supposed to take seriously, and I fuckin' love it.

Looking past that, though, as a Fire Emblem in gameplay, it does a stellar job. I don't feel the need to go over what everyone else already has countless times before, general consensus seems to be shockingly positive regarding the map design and the gameplay, but I also really enjoyed some of the paralogues, getting to revisit maps from the older games and even getting to walk around them somewhat freely after the fight's over. That's something I'd also like to talk about, because good god this game is so fucking pretty! Maybe I'm just surprised after having played Three Houses for so long and staring at its boring and repetitive maps so many times, but even besides that, the hub worlds like the Somniel or the post-battle, fully modeled maps, I was absolutely astounded by just how beautiful Engage was to look at. Could very well be the prettiest game on the Switch, helped by its already vibrant and colorful/flashy design everywhere else.

Now combine those beautiful atmospheres with a just as beautiful soundtrack, pure bliss. I spent so much time in the Somniel just spacing out and wandering the area, listening to whichever song fit the time, and at this point I think it's going to stay with me for the next while. The serenity that comes with these tracks is something I find scarcely matched in other media. Shit, I'm listening to them even now, writing this review, thanks to this cool little compilation I found of all of 'em. That's not to say the other tracks aren't amazing as well. Being as obsessed with this series as I have been for the last eight years or so, it was more than exhilarating listening to the throwbacks they whipped up for all of the Emblem Trial paralogues, or the slow and gratifying buildup of Last Engage at the end, to be followed shortly after by a lovely vocal track for the credits roll, among god knows how many others.

Engage was a stunning, whimsical, and just overall fun experience, in every sense of the word. I regret being so doubtful of this game at first, and I especially regret taking 14 entire months to finish it (oops). It's, as I said, absurd and ridiculous the whole way through, and I've learned to appreciate that sort of thing so much more over the years. I can't call it my favorite Fire Emblem, Sacred Stones has that nostalgia (and GBA) bias over me, but this was still a marvelous love letter to one of my favorite franchises ever, even despite some of its more prominent shortcomings.

"camp" as the kids say

those mfers made sigurd of all people say justice is an illusion lol, memes become real
have they even played genealogy

i'm done
f u maeda
f u nami komuro
f u intelligent systems

now if you excuse me i'll be afk becoming the joker after this

Finally pushed through and finished this one after months of putting it off. Engage is a great game, don't get me wrong. This game had a chokehold on me for the first half of it but as it went on, the story got way too unnecessarily ambitious. There were way too many twists and turns that it turned into something I didn't care to be invested in by the end. That being said, the ending was absolutely beautiful and specifically the cutscene with all the emblems right before the final battle. (shoutout to my boyfriend for pulling up the cutscene on youtube when I accidently skipped it). It got me excited for a fight the first time in awhile.
The gameplay was great for the most part. I loved the engage feature, it made fights more fun, finding new and creative ways to take down enemies. The maps were very fun, with terrain effects and gimmicks that made the game not as repetitive.
The characters were enjoyable but compared to the close-knit groups in three houses, they fell short. This game made it a lot harder to achieve A-Support with units that by the end, I was disappointed with the amount of content I wasn't able to see. I can see it being easier if you grind support with a few select characters but me being me, I like to give everyone a chance to participate and Somniel activities and battle (Except Saphir and Lindon, screw them. Literally had to just look up their names, that's how much I don't care about them). A few of these characters became very dear to me, my favorite being Zelkov. Honorable mentions include Pandreo, Amber, Alcryst, Rosado, and Merrin.
As far as units go, this game has some broken characters. I can literally send Merrin off on her own to take out a large group of enemies and she is fine. No one even comes close to even hitting her. A few characters who also are very close to that level of broken are Panette, Kagetsu, Diamont, Yunaka and Timerra. Most of these units can be pretty self-sufficient and were a consistent staple in my army.
I found the game overall enjoyable. It wasn't perfect by any means but it wasn't bad at all. I thought the running sibling theme really worked for a game like this. Maybe it was because I didn't get supports up all the way up but some of the characters didn't even feel like they were close to the characters who were written to be close with other characters. EX: Diamont/Amber, Merrin/Timerra. To me, that just takes away from the close-knit feeling that games like three houses gave me. So perhaps that's why I wasnt as emotionally invested in this story. Some of these characters who are saving the world together felt like absolute strangers. Overall, I'm glad I got to play this game and I'm glad I got to know some of these characters from the franchise that I didn't know about before. For a long time fire emblem fan, I can see this being a great crossover game and a solid stand-alone game with its own story. I usually can tell by the end of a game if its something I'll ever go back to. For this one, I can't tell. Mainly because 'New Game+" isn't an option. If it were, I might be tempted to get support conversations that I wasn't able to get in my first playthrough. But since its not, going back to it feels pointless and starting a new game would feel like a chore. So for now, I'm done with it. It was fun for what it was :)

Remember when Fire Emblem was about, like, war and politics. It even had commentary on human suffering and religion and discrimination and so on and so forth. Fire Emblem used to be good. It used to mean something.

(For a more serious review:

I'm not totally opposed to the idea of a trashy fanservice game that only exists as an anniversary title, but if that was the goal of this game then why waste their time with the brand new world and characters that no one seems to care about. Why not make it a series-wide crossover and include several characters from each game instead of only 1 character. I've seen a couple people say that maybe this game was only made so that they could sell more swimsuit alts in the gacha game and honestly that idea makes me a bit depressed. The idea of a series like Fire Emblem going the route of pokemon where new games are primarily made to sell merchandise is pretty disheartening. I'm not actually that pessimistic about the future of FE though. We know an FE4 remake is coming and I'm currently praying that the team that made 3H is working on that.)

Ok, I think this game is very easy to critizise just by the stuff we saw in trailers and the first couple of hours, I understand it is definately not what most people were expecting and I don't think being disappointed by it is unfair, but in my experience I disagree with a couple of the complaints made to this point, and I have to comment on some.

But first, starting with positives, the gameplay is very fun and even tho I still don't know if there will be ways to abuse it or make it feel like a joke, is very fair and balanced. It is definately not what I was expecting, becuase seeing the rings and their effects in the showcases, me and almost everyone would've thought they were inmensly overpowered, but they fit nicely into the gameplay and the maps and enemy locations are prepared with the rings in mind.

It is very difficult to balance a fire emblem game, and sometimes it's even fun to play unbalanced fire emblem games, but this one is still highly enjoyable even on higher difficulties, I don't feel as many bullshit as with three houses and the maps for now are one of my favorites in the series and I haven't finished the game.

Talking about difficulties, "Hard" actually poses a challenge, as opposed to, again, Three Houses which was a joke except on the "maddening" difficulty, which often used same-turn reinforcements and bullshit mechanics to keep it hard (infamous Reunion at Dawn). I still haven't touched maddening in this game, but hard does impose a bit of challenge and I am hopeful it will be as sweet in the highest difficulty, will update my review based on that.

Now, addressing the art-style, it is really different from the rest of the games so far, and I agree that the fact that this series changes it's style frecuently wouldn't be an excuse for badly designed characters and environments. So yes, Alear is not a compelling design, and I found a couple that weren't too great either, but the rest of them aren't bad at all.

You could complain that that are too separated from each other and they don't look like they are from the same game sometimes, I don't agree but even if it was the case, I like having a diverse cast and they fit in their own kingdoms and follow a trend in each one as if they had a different culture. They are mostly nice designs and I like the fact that they made them distinctive according to their region of origin, which they didn't do in past FE games with some exceptions.

Now, the graphics on the other hand, look gorgeous, even if you think they are generic, the bright colors and textures are very nice to the eyes and I found myself really digging the art style thanks to the backgrounds in battle, I really don't understand people that call this ugly because I don't see it at all.

Also, this game has top tier animations, for the attacks and dodges, it's one of the first games where I don't see myself pressing the skip button or turning animations off becuase they take too long, at least since the GBA games. There is one where, if the character has a high level, instead of just dodging an arrow he will break it with his sword mid-air and it's unnecessary, but it's still there and it's hilarious, things like that give this game more charm than any of the pokémon games on switch.

Now, talking about characters and story, maybe the story isn't anything special, that's definately true, it's not like Fire Emblem has any game with an incredible story, far from it, but this one follows generic story beats of old games. It's not horrendous, there aren't any stupid decisions or questionable plot points as in other games, but it isn't great.

On the other hand, I find myself also liking most of the characters in the game, maybe they aren't as focused and three dimensional as in three houses, but almost all of them have something interesting and the supports rarely feel annoying.

Alear is a step up for the avatar character, not as great as Shez I think, but it improves upon Byleth, feels more similar to something like Robin. Of course he isn't complex or anything, and I don't personally like avatars and would be happier if they stopped using them, but he is decent enough. Only thing I do have to mention is that the characters are jerking him off most of the time, and that is something that wasn't present with Byleth (that much) and does bother me, but it isn't a problem with Alear himself.

So, to keep things simple, Engage is a game that improves in gameplay significantly sacrificing a bit of the story significance that was in the previous entry, but that doesn't make it worse, just a very different experience that is focused on another group of people which are here for the strategy and want to have a good time with it. I think It succeeds in that regard and I couldn't be happier with how fun I'm having with the maps until now, even with the average story, I am still picking characters depending on how much I like them, and I am enjoying building them more than in the most recent entries at least.

Complaining about the tropes and art style is definately fair, but some of the critiques miss the point completely and makes it seem like Fire Emblem wasn't always about a game where you have to build your own army and strategic resource management. Three Houses is to blame for setting expectations to new players into other directions, (not that I'm mad with 3H or anything, I also adore that game, but the reasons are completely different, and I don't expect to find myself enjoying the same aspects, becuase shaking things up once in a while is what makes the series feel fresh with every new entry).

My last point, is a bit more of rant, and it's not from my experience of the game, but a response to some complaints I have heard that make little to no sense to me, I'll try to not extend myself too much.

First, the fact that this game is the 30th anniversary celebration title is false, people said it becuase of the leaks that came out which turned out to be true, but blindly trusting leaks isn't a good source of information, as a couple other things, like the fact that Gust was involved with the game, turned out to be false. Expecting it to be a celebration and being disappointed becuase of the ring mechanics, doesn't justify the fact that it is still a normal mainline Fire Emblem game, and it doesn't need to prove itself worthy or more special than any other title. Maybe it doesn't have to be the best in every department and it's focused on being a different experience and attracting different people (that's why it is so different to Three Houses despite coming on the same console).

If you are worried about the direction of the series and don't like this game, don't whine online about how this is "ruining" the series, the next entry will be completely different again, and maybe it will take a while but a new game may fit you taste as time passes, if not, you have more than 17 old games with infinite replayability that may please you.

This game is not going to damage the series and turn it into anything that it isn't just becuase you don't like the artstyle and story, it is still an excellent Fire Emblem game at its core, and many people such as me are enjoying it and will enjoy the next entries as much as this one becuase I simply can't find myself hating a game that looks and plays great (at least it's how I feel) as I'm sure the next games will too.

Not mad at people who don't like the game, but some came with the expectation of hating it just for the first trailer and ended up doing it becuase that's obviously what's going to happen if you have that attitude. Sad that a great part of the fanbase aren't enjoying it as much as I am tho, but again, you don't have to light up all the alarms, it is not a big deal.

Luckily a Genealogy Remake is coming next, hope that game satysfies the fans that enjoy FR stories becuase that is easily the best one of the bunch, very hyped for that game too.

This review of Fire Emblem Engage is going to be a bit unorthodox compared to how I usually structure my reviews. Particularly, because I don’t want to make this review longer than intended. I’ll dive into the main criticisms I have for the game then head into what the game does well.

For starters, the game does not have a lot of room to experiment with classes. And by this I mean there is a high cost at 2.5k to buy a master and second seals, to change into other classes. However, if you buy the DLC then. These seals among other items and armory items are 30% off. I find the high cost to experiment more with classes to be a detriment. There are A LOT of classes to choose from and I would’ve liked the ease to switch between any of them. The cost for either is simply too high. At 2.5k each the game simply doesn’t throw enough money at you to buy seals at your leisure. Granted the game does give you free seals sometimes when you open chests or finish a chapter, but you cannot count on either of these instances when both options are not available upon completing a chapter. Sure you can get bonus money from receiving military funds from each nation. But using them on donations seems a far better investment. By donating to a country you can see a higher gold yield in fighting skirmishes there. So your return on investment is pretty good. Although, this isn't balanced well, because you can be out of money to buy other materials you may need to upgrade weapons, buy items, healing items like vulnaries or staves first. And then what are you left with in the end? Zero money.

This leads me to another point. If the high cost is an issue then surely the game has a solution or band-aid for it right? You’re right. Except you need to pay the expansion pass for the first wave in granting you a silver card which reduces all prices in item and armory shops by 30%. Which comes out to 1750 seal price each. Which is better than having to pay 2.5k. But, the fact you have to buy the DLC to access the silver card is not a band-aid solution. It enforces a policy of buying into the expansion pass to reduce the shop prices by 30% and granting you other emblems, stat boosting items, and more. And sure some might see it as a worthy investment since you get more than you wanted as a whole package with DLC waves too. Be that as it may, it still doesn’t excuse the fact the silver card is an item exclusive to the DLC. And as far as I know you cannot obtain a silver card in the base game.

My suggestions to tweak this would be to lower seals to 1750 or lower and increase gold rewards. Whether by completing in-game story chapters or skirmishes to give a flat rate. Sure you can go up against skirmishes that drop gold. But what about normal skirmishes? In my playthrough, I had to rely on a certain character due to her skill granting me a chance for bonus gold. An increase in gold rewards and a decrease in pricing for seals would be nice. Perhaps in a patch? Well let's wait and see. Moving on.

Inheriting sp skills are too expensive for some skills. It takes 1-3k skill points to build enough for one unit and even then you may only get to inherit 1 skill right at the endgame. Sure you could pay a small amount of sp for skills below 1000 or below 3000. However, other skills can cost 4-5k. Yes, there are ways to increase sp points by using emblem skills like Great Sacrifice, and other skills. Yet, the cost in higher tier skills is simply too much. How can I experiment with my classes when the skills I want cost too much? An easy way to remedy this could’ve been lowering sp skills and increasing sp gain to offset this weird imbalance between heavily priced sp skills and a low gain to increase sp points.

The story is subpar and has a lot of lows. When I mean the story is subpar and has a lot of lows I mean it. The game primarily holds the player into a fantasy world too entrenched in the nostalgia-bait nature of previous titles in the series from FE1->FE3H. Sure it's a new world with new characters and with their history. With stakes and consequences that do occur in the game. Nonetheless, The story relies too heavily on the divine dragon to solve every single problem throughout Elyos. I found the formula and other structures which I won’t go into too much detail about due to spoilers. Copy and paste throughout. And this is repeated again and again as you travel to each new area until you make a full circle back to your starting location once again in Elyos.

Granted there are moments I’ll give the story where I was surprised and didn’t expect, but having silly solutions you can see a mile away from teasing you early on, simply doesn’t work. When I look at a plot, especially in an early game, there will come a point where too many cards are shown where the next plot device such as villains/antagonists and revelations nearly becomes transparent to the naked eye. And while some may favor this approach like I do. The execution here leaves much to be desired.

As if I'm being held by the hand. Or fed breadcrumbs to a door where I can see what will happen next. I’m not all-knowing however, and I can’t predict everything, but I kid you not when you have a mysterious hooded person + another unknown character in the next following scene that doesn’t show a great amount of subtlety(And this is displayed pretty early on). There are also I would say two points during the endgame where I was shaking my head by introducing a trope I love, but poorly executed in a vain attempt to come back to the roots of where we started. And another issue where the problem could not be resolved without the divine dragon once again coming to save the day or figure out the solution to said problem/s.

Some suggested improvements I could think of off the top of my head I'll say later on the review.

World-building is too simple. And doesn’t engage the player enough. Overworld map structure is indicative of this. When I mean world-building is too simple. I mean how the world of Elyos when looking at the map is just lazy writing in general. It's constructed as a circle and we get an early exposition of how the world came to be and the emblems. Another game that had a different shape was "Triangle strategy." For you guessed it triangle in the overworld map. Which upon looking at the overworld also conforms under a triangle. I had the same critique for that game but for different reasons. But that’s a story for another day. Back to Engage, we don’t get enough on the world’s politics if any. We don’t get much character background or relationship between each nation’s leaders and their current agenda beyond the early exposition again. When a leader is mentioned they are quickly forgotten for the sake of the plot and of course the main character's party to move on. I wanted to know more about Brodia’s lifestyle. Uh, any information on Firene’s king? Or another nation’s leader’s missing spouse or wife? Why aren’t pets used more in the lore? You just adopt then that's it? History of the emblems and more is given in the game, but what about any instances of emblem usage in the past? Like, show me past battles where so-so nations fought for an emblem. There is always discussion or mention of events a thousand years ago. What about flashbacks and more? Like seeing how Brodia attacks Elusia. Or Solm and Firene’s relationship? No deities? No unnatural events upsetting gods? Oh wait, never mind we need to worship the divine dragon. Who cares about all that other stuff? Let us pray to the divine dragon.

The game plays way too safe with copy-paste formulas. Not going to say exactly what they are in case of spoilers. But there is a rinse-and-repeat formula as you delve deeper into chapters. And I already said what I needed to say earlier in the story section. Honestly, the game would have benefited a lot more with more risks to the story and sequence of events that follow. As I continued on to each new nation, it quickly became apparent what will happen next. In a rinse-and-repeat fashion.

Recruits you come across throughout the game. Don’t test the main character enough. Due to their divinity. Should’ve deconstructed the divinity aspect. Made them have more flaws. Make them struggle and keep them from being so perfect. This ties back to the divine dragon solving everyone’s problems. I can remember moments in the game where the main character will falter, but guys don’t worry the power of friendship will make them overcome their failings so they can give us ideas and we just follow him/her. Don’t question it. He/she is the divine dragon! He/she can do it! We just need to follow them! We’ll beat everyone with him by our side! OH MY GOD, IT'S THE DIVINE DRAGON! FORGIVE MY CANDOR PLEASE. Oh, divine dragon? Please help us. Good lord, there is too much of this reverence and worship of the very ground he/she walks. This isn’t exactly what is said in the game, merely paraphrased.

Honestly, the game would have benefited a lot more if we didn’t worship the guy/lady and focused more on each character’s flaws. Give me someone who hates the divine dragon in our party, who will constantly butt heads. Heck, a rival or other divine dragon that is too casual and selfish and everything, not the main character. To be a foil. Make our new allies test the main character constantly. Leave our party, gather support against his idea to go with their idea. Give me moments when our divine dragon isn’t so divine. Despair in these scenes. Show the consequences of his flaws more. Make party members desert them or anything to make the divine dragon more than a goody-two-shoes out to save every nation and recruit everyone to their cause. I could list more, but I think you all get the picture. It’s like the developers stuck everything positive and can do no wrong with the main character, gave very slight flaws that could be easily overcome and BAM he/she can do it and solve your problem.

This is where the story, plot, and more start to fall apart and where the crevices become even larger to see the shallowness. All of the above tied together demonstrate a game where the main character is interconnected and used in such a way where they will solve numerous issues as you progress through the story. Again and again, we come upon a new solution from the one and only holy divine dragon!!! And sure I get the game is geared to be less so serious and more lighthearted compared to their predecessors. But its repetitive and overused. And honestly fails to capture my interest. Since I already know what will happen next. And because of my suspension of disbelief, being blasted into space.

Less incentive to see more support conversations. In part due to a lack of options in the hub. One meal? Come on… There are so many support conversations. And very little activities to create more bonding moments with my allies to unlock a new support rank. Sure I could grind endless skirmishes to get support conversations easily by auto-battling, but that’s not as efficient as manual control on every unit. And sure I could get quick supports with my main character and everyone else using gifts I could buy and find. But what about support conversations from one of my units to another? There is no quick way to see that. This could’ve been easily remedied if meal times were more than one time activities, every time you visited the Somniel after a battle. The fact you can only do one meal with two other units in your army is crazy. You have a lot of support logs for each unit.

I want to see what everyone has to offer. If the developers were worried about stat buffs you get from 1 meal, then make every consecutive meal after that give no bonuses. Heck, give me meal tickets based on how I do after each battle to spend in the cafe. That way I don’t use precious meat/vegetable ingredients if you want. Meal tickets for wiping every unit. Meal tickets for grabbing all chests, meal tickets for not losing any unit while on a map, meal tickets for recruiting all units possible on a map, etc. I could list at the top of my head. The real meat of the game is in the supports and I dearly loved watching the ones I wanted to see. So it’s a shame you can’t spend more time with your fellow allies with one meal. Arena doesn’t even help matters since it's randomized and you can only do 3 battles. And here’s the kicker: sometimes the selected unit you want to train with will select a unit to train against where they have no support conversations with. Good lord...

Spoilers abound for past FE characters from their respective games in paralogues. Some spoil more than others. I did not appreciate a big spoiler drop without any warning after ch 3 story battle, in my honest opinion. There is a point, especially in a post-chapter 3 battle where a character from an earlier titles spoils something from their respective game. I haven’t personally played that Fire Emblem entry. So I was incredibly frustrated. Since I was already careful, not playing the mobile game, I actively avoided reading in the wiki, and the internet on spoilers of past games. Only for the newest game to blurt it out. Unforgivable. Especially in a story cutscene. I was looking forward to playing that specific game in the near future in a blind playthrough. So my feelings were soured by this.

Some paralogues spoil some events from their respective games. Via dialogue. Since I haven’t even played every title in the series it’s unreasonable to assume every newcomer will play every game. Especially since some old games can only be played via fan translations and the rest via emulation or buying in their respective digital stores. To be transparent. I have not played FE4, FE5, Marth games, Fates, or Valentia. The rest I have played.

For the paralogues I think that are safe they are FE7 and FE3H.

Paralogues somewhat spoilery? I feel this can depend on the person if they don’t mind or do mind certain aspects. But the paralogues are FE6 & FE8.

For paralogues that do spoil some important elements from their games, they are FE Awakening and FE9 - FE10.

I understand Engage has main characters from past titles and will utilize them to some degree within the game. However I did not expect huge spoiler bombs. All I ask is a simple indicator or warning on the screen to let me know about information related to their respective games and if they have anything concerning their plot, character, or more. And prepare myself to avoid those important pertinent details. Fire Emblem Engage gives no warnings about this. For titles I haven’t played, I did not play their respective paralogues in fear of something spoiling me of their plots, story, important details in regards to their character, etc. I’d rather find out what happens in their respective games.

Granted some do not mind spoilers. This is fine. On the other hand, some are more sensitive to that type of information. Like me. Case in point, Players who like to dive into games completely blind and semi-blind players who do not mind certain aspects of a game to know.

OST for music isn’t a high bar here. The music in the game isn’t all that memorable outside of perhaps a handful of tracks. There are too many melodies or tunes that I find didn’t mesh well with the scenes or tried too hard to be epic and moving with the orchestral instruments. But it fails to capture me in the spirit during the game.

2 early game characters did not endear me at all. Why? Fan-club and their devotion to the divine dragon. They were watching the main character wake up and talk to him/her is a red flag. The fact you get these two characters right at the beginning of the game did not help matters at all. I didn’t want to label them as fanboy and fangirl of the divine dragon since I didn’t see their supports yet… But when I did and granted, I didn’t see all the support logs and I’m sure they have other qualities outside of a fan club for the divine dragon. But seeing these conversations where they’re trying to garner more fans for the Divine Dragon fan club shows how there is a weird devoted fan aspect to the main character. This also extends to mostly every character I've met/recruited in the game so far to worship them to varying degrees.

Which is kinda disturbing to a degree. These matters don’t help at all when the game includes wake-up events when you sleep at the Somniel where characters will go into your room where the main character sleeps and talk your ear off. It's more divine dragon worship, sometimes it's about prayers, sometimes it's about them and sometimes conversations will continue on and on back to how to serve the divine dragon. As if the man/woman is something to be gawked at with conversations in an art museum. I found this aspect of the game creepy and honestly the game could’ve done without it. This is also me watching as many as I could to find any redeeming factors and I can only say it's better here by a small margin than in FE3H tea events. Since they can talk about their lives. And you learn more about the character a bit. But the fact they talk to him/her and pray while they're sleeping only to wake up to no one's surprise why. Each time is frankly weird and again not right. Let them sleep for goodness sake, man. I wouldn’t want someone to talk my ear off when I’m trying to sleep…

Don’t like how the DLC/NSO seems geared to incentivize consumers to pay for membership/DLC. For the DLC if you buy it now you get stat items, 30% off in item/ armor shops, emblem rings and more in the coming waves along with story content. NSO online features two modes you cannot play without going online, seeing deployment rankings, and other stuff you couldn’t use without being online. And while this can be remedied using a 7 day free trial of NSO. What if you already did use the 7-day free trial on an earlier game?

This ties back into the classes. But this time I’ll focus on NSO. Since you had to pay or use a limited 7-day free trial to access online components like coop with another partner and challenge maps in relay trials, Battle against other players on edited maps in outrealm trials, profile cards you can’t send unless you’re online and deployment rankings, so if you want to access these features. You better cough up the money to Nintendo. Certainly, they have a right to manage how they price their downloadable content and pricing their online functionality. It just grinds my gears to see content that could’ve been available for others, being withheld until you cough up money for the company. Especially for online features. Can you imagine if Nintendo only allowed you to use your amiibos for a game. Only if you are currently an NSO subscriber? I love Nintendo, but sometimes some of their decisions leave me shaking my head at times. Anyway, moving on

Villains are flat garnering weak sympathy to think of them as human when they’re not. To expand on this, some scenes showcase the villains and demonstrate their power to a decent degree. However, without going into too specific detail. The execution of their villainous ways leaves much to be desired. I could not help but feel their actions in some maps can be terrifying. But on other maps leave me puzzled since they can do this extent using their power, so why don’t they do it again? This ties back into the plot and how the divine dragon will overcome everything if we listen to them.

I also did not like one villain who kept being a broken record saying the first letter “F” with the last letter “Y” in nearly all the scenes when they would come up. Come on man, don’t guilt trip me with that word. It does not work at all. And it is incredibly repetitive to continue using that word as if the player will miraculously forgive every single one of your atrocities. Granted not all villains fit this mold and I found some more than others who rise above this occasion. However, it does not excuse the fact the villains could’ve been more compelling. I get the point the developers were trying to make with the characters, but it just seems short. Give us scenes making them more human. Give me scenes showing the struggle and demonstrate their villainous ways without remorse. That's all I have to say for my critique of the game. Now let's move onto what the game does well to offset the boatload of criticism i've talked about so far.

The game is a wonderful return to classic Fire Emblem revitalizing the weapon triangle with a "break" system in place. Making enemies feel challenging even on normal. The overworld is gorgeous and I had fun using the free camera to inspect the whole world and see what nooks and crannies our main party could potentially travel to.

A large number of recruits even towards the endgame are fleshed out with full support conversation logs you can see. Out of my whole playthrough, I only completed 1 character support conversation. The rest I was only to get a small-decent chunk for my army alone.

Love the no durability of weapons. So I can keep on using them without fear of them breaking down on me. Except for staves of course, those you will need to buy again.

The voice acting is pretty good. A good majority of the cast has a decent amount of range throughout the game and I didn’t find any bad voice acting at all.

The emblems are really powerful and I love using them throughout my playthrough. Never gets old attaching a lord or not lord on a unit and letting them go attack a decent army against them. Only for my unit to emerge wounded, but still okay. There are various powers in each emblem and I used each of them to their fullest effect throughout my playthrough.

I had fun splitting my armies and designating whichever unit needs an emblem more. And a lot of maps give you the option to split your armies two ways or three ways. The combat is enjoyable to try out different strategies. Thankfully there’s quite a bit of good map design here to give players much freedom to do what they want. Especially when you have resources on that map that could turn the tide of battles like cannons or ballista. Some maps have interesting gimmicks, so those were pretty cool to play in.

I am impressed at the level of polish here, not just in animations and support conversation scenes. But the cutscenes, stills, artwork and opening. The background and colors used throughout the game are vivid and varied. And I have no complaints in seeing every color of the rainbow here. I also had no slowdown, bugs, glitches, or crashes throughout my playthrough and pretty much every battle and more were smooth.

For what it’s worth. I did enjoy some good story beats as I progressed through the game, and there were a couple of surprises I didn’t expect. Some paralogues, at least the ones I finished, were a very nice touch in seeing my old favorites come back to life(in Emblem form) and fighting on their maps from their respective games filled my nostalgia with great joy.

I feel the game is worthy of playing, if you’re still hungry for more Fire Emblem. And despite my long critique of the game above.

I hope my review still gets you to buy the game. My intention is never to gatekeep it. But merely to inform others what I feel could’ve been done better, with evidence, and move on from there. And while Fire Emblem Engage is an all right experience for me. Other’s out there rate the game higher than me and that's fine. That's their experience of what the game means to them and that’s fair. I have loved the series since starting with Awakening, and while I haven’t played the rest in the franchise, it is still a favorite of mine in the turn-based genre. I’m just disappointed at the potential this game could’ve been and held solid throughout. And while I still have those feelings, it does not discourage me from telling every soul I can to buy games in the franchise to keep it afloat. And I encourage anyone who has bought Fire Emblem Engage, to play to the end(if you can). Make your own voice heard on what your experience is for Engage. And type out your thoughts. Doesn’t even have to be as long as this. Short impressions are perfectly acceptable.

Anyway, that’s enough for me. This review got too long for my liking. But I feel I needed to type out what I wanted to say.

7/10

Edited: Due to 1.2 version adding more recreational activities. Thereby allowing you to boost supports between units. So I did a strikethrough on those sections in my review.