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’m going to have to agree with the postulation I’ve seen that Engage is a confused game because it clearly is. The fanservice elements with the emblems are weirdly implemented and old school FE fans clearly weren’t going to be too hot on the upped cliché anime shenanigans. The game’s weak narrative is at odds with itself, most notable when it comes to its villains, who are mainly all cardboard cutout psychopaths who eat puppies and kick babies, but then as they lie dying they try to give them the most unearned and nonsensical sob stories imaginable that doesn’t gel at all with the personalities they had up till that point. The main cast are all paper thin and it really sank in for me how checked out I was with them when it I just started skipping support conversations, which I had never done in the previous FE games I played. The protagonist worship is also rather gag-inducing in the most insipid dime-store light novel way. It’s such an utter stark contrast to Three House’s fantastic cast and enthralling narrative despite any missteps it may have had. (I’m also kinda salty that Engage clearly got more of a budget than TH did.) The character design also sucks as they all look sameface gacha characters. The Somniel was also mainly grinding busywork that I also checked out on like midway through the game and I hate how most of the early game units are so much worse than later game units. Ultimately though, it’s still a Fire Emblem game, and the core of Fire Emblem is still a lot of fun so I did enjoy my time with Engage, but like with Shadow Dragon, I’m not really going to go to bat for it any time soon. I just really hope it’s not going to be the future of the series, because Three Houses is my favorite and there’s room for improvement there.

Finished on 8/26/2023

tl;dr its a functional game but man does it not stand out outside of having all of the other fire emblem guys here. The next game really needs to dial it back, retain some of the QoL features and have a more grounded vibe. Get a new translation team or a new writing room, maybe both. It looks more colorful than Three Houses. The best stuff is the DLC stuff but not the Fell Xenologue afaik, just the new emblem rings.

Fire Emblem…Engage!

(0. PROLOGUE:)

It's a game with so much Fire Emblem packed in, all for a game that barely feels like I'm playing Fire Emblem.
This game reminds me of so many other games, both from Fire Emblem and from other series, just by how much content is included in this game but also by how much better other games are at implementing new mechanics and evolving into this 'new generation of gaming', for better or worse. The rougher part is how much the Fire Emblem part comes from just stealing other aspects of previous titles, and only really toying around with a few aspects in ways I don't feel are as well executed here or worse, have become so memetically ingrained to how a Fire Emblem is supposed to play out that it becomes a laughing stock. Rather than remembrance of times of elation or intrigue regarding a particularly well set up chapter or an interesting character or a strong tenet of worldbuilding, I'm reminded more often of flaws privy to previous titles in the series. What Engage presents is a wonderful amalgamation of what the series has become- but doesn't provide an interesting solution as to what the series will do next. While it presents a myriad of different interactables and new features, I ended up not really wanting to toy around or mess with most of these as I figured much of it didn't actually matter. Other games do this as well obviously, including titles throughout Fire Emblem- not every part of the game has to tie back to the main story. Not every mechanic needs to be fine-tuned to be as balanced as possible, sometimes it pays to be a bit busted. However in Engage's case so much of its mechanics feel like they're... out of sync?
I never truly felt like I conquered the game, and some other FEs have made me feel similarly, but I've been interested in going back and tackling at later dates (maybe Thracia someday...). Here it just felt it was more worth it to not pay attention to certain mechanics post battle mechanics for a few battles, otherwise I'd just be wasting time in menus, management and minutiae for no reason. What's left is a main plot that feels like the weakest since...actually only since Revelations so it hasn't been too long but it left a lot to be desired.
Sometimes I dont wanna be Mr. Cynical, but on the other hand sometimes it's a lot more fun to just be a hater: I thought a lot of this game was fucking dumb and not in a fun sense. I need someone else to come in and pull in the reins on whatever writers and scenario staff is on these projects because dear god I felt embarrassed at times going through the main scenario of this. I don't know if it's a translation thing or if the original script is as bad or what but we're in dire need of some new material, Kaga help us.
The overall package might be a serviceable title, however after having played every other mainline Fire Emblem I just can’t help but feel as though most aspects of this were half baked.

(1. Engaging Mechanics)

(a. Engage!)
Firstly, the namesake of the game. Engage. It’s a neat mechanic and the primary function of this game, like 3H’s academia and Awakefates’ partnering and child minmaxing simulator (blah blah yeah FE4 had this we know). For each game in the series we have a rep, except for FE3 given its a sequel without a new MC -thought it would have been extremely brave of them to have put Kris in here. Units you deploy into battle can equip these and boost their stats and gain certain skills. After some time in battle you can ‘Engage!’ and activate certain other skills on top of take use of certain gimmicks that each ring holds.
Unfortunately some of these rings are blatantly better than others and much of how the rings’ customization either feel on one end, incredibly confusing or on the other end so vast in its customizability to the point of being overwhelming. You gain SP in battle with which you can purchase the skills off rings you have bonded with for long enough so that you can equip them when you switch to another ring. This gets to be so cumbersome I stopped bothering- this is a running trend. For certain units it got to the point where I didn’t see any actual use in switching up rings unless I got a new unit or reclaimed certain rings due to plot reasons.Some of the skills are so expensive that I decided to just keep certain rings on units where I felt they didnt need to diversify, like why should I ever not have Alcryst hold Lyn and keep all of her skills. Why shouldn’t I just keep Hector on Timerra when she just tanks literally everything with him and follows through with Sandstorm, every skill Hector has is too expensive to just let some other schmuck have it -Diamant got shafted in his growths- I have no other tank! Many of these Rings do have neat mechanics, and I WILL SAY I DID BUY THE EXPANSION PASS-

NOTE: I SHOULDA MENTIONED EARLIER I DID BUY THE EXPANSION PASS THIS FEELS PERTINENT TO THE DIFFICULTY CURVE OF THIS SRPG

But several of these rings do have neat mechanics- although its clear much of the best rings come from having bought the DLC. Several of these mechanics range from a counter from Ike’s Great Aether, having Micaiah drain her HP to 1 and heal all other allies to full HP, and having Lyn just fucking snipe from across the map. However, in the DLC you have Tiki who just gives units a second wind, Hector who tanks everything and has guaranteed follow ups, Chrobin who has a rally for all stats and Veronica from Heroes. Soren and Veronica’s inclusion in the DLC is so cool, but only because they’re like 2 of the other characters that have an attitude. It was incredibly refreshing having Soren come in and suddenly it felt like I was talking to a human, Veronica too tbh. Her mechanic is also really neat- on top of having an attacking staff like in FEH she can summon random units like in FEH from 1 of 4 colors but they vary in strength from 3 star weaklings to 5 star units based off the other rings.

(b. Divine Paralogues)

Perhaps to my disadvantage, oddly enough, I decided to tackle some of the 'divine paralogues' much earlier on. The first being Tiki’s is a map that constantly feeds you dragons and tough opponents as you get to the end. It’s a hard map but you get a pretty good ring out of it. Unfortunately for the next few maps and onward most of the game just felt a lot easier than I thought it was meant to be, as I went through more and more of these divine paralogues. I wanted to know when it was best to tackle these, and saw that people preferred them at much earlier levels, so sure enough I thought it best to do them earlier than later. What this meant was I had several rings that the game doesn't really account for.

These rings don’t break the game, necessarily, however I do feel like several maps were made much simpler or didn’t hit as hard because I had these rings at the ready. In this aspect I'm reminded of Xenoblade 2 and its handling of difficulty- I struggled here as well, due to the numerous flimsy tutorials, details not told to you and the much different combat system from XB1's. As I went through XB2 though, I grew to understand and eventually conquer most of the game's mechanics and grow my arsenal of blades (except Kos-Mos fuck that).
I also think that that game succeeds in its expansion pass by giving people a bunch of rare crystals and two of the strongest blades in game. Note that while these blades are incredibly strong I don't think they necessarily break anything- namely they just act as consistent and easy to use blades usable from the early game onward. You can continue to use, pull and customize other blades to your liking and go about the game as you please.

On the contrary, these expansion pass maps for Fire Emblem feel incredibly weird to have on top of other paralogues, giving you so much XP in the process. In something like Xenoblade I don't think anyone minds dominating enemies- sure there's a sort of elation to figuring out weird or difficult fights in rpgs but Xenoblade bosses are rarely...'cerebral?' they mostly just act around for the story and have that MMO raid type vibe, you get the idea. In Fire Emblem though, much of the appeal comes from the careful considerations regarding your team, their equipment, their skills, the map, the kinds of enemies, etc. While I feel like parts of these are present here, I think there's so many new trinkets and gimmicks that its just too easy to hit ‘optimize rings/items’ and just stick with whatever you're given. After a while, once you’ve stuck with certain rings you just don't even bother switching things up.
Sidenote: I do really wish there was a set mechanic where you can just preset certain items that you always want certain units to get so you don’t have to optimize some times and go into a map only to realize that Alcryst didnt get the longbow and got the minibow thanks IntSys.

I just think that it would have been smart for the divine paralogues to have not given EXP or taken some measures to not completely overpower you for the rest of the game, idk. Maybe only unlock at the near end of the game? Maybe not scale to the party’s level? It just feels like a sloppy way to add these guys in. Also man, some of those maps took an eternity to finish.

(c. new Units)
It feels like you're constantly getting new units that are clearly better than what you had before. That early game feels so weird in hindsight and like a completely different game because all your units were just that bad. It feels like Radiant Dawn with its Dawn Brigade levels of 'I guess these guys are my party'. Yunaka I tried getting you to work but dear god someone fucked up your numbers because a later dude just works so much better.
Perhaps this is Int Sys's way of combating earlier FE-mindset that favors keeping a consistent party meanwhile later units that are already promoted get left to the wayside? But I always figured most of these units were supposed to act as replacements in case you had a unit die, the only drawback being that it lacked as much investment? Here it feels like you're supposed to get a 'feel' for each of these waves of party members but I know my ass is not using anyone other than these royals that are clearly some of the best units. Still it was kinda nice to just switch out who i was using for a while, like using Merrin over Yunaka for a few maps but still it felt like there was a clear bias towards all the royalty units. Not helped that these royalty units have unique classes that seem like they’re supposed to stick to, and switching to any other class robs you of the class skills inherent to that royalty class, some of which are really good! But like, I wanted to have a normal Halberdier and maybe a Paladin? Nah instead I get a uh, ‘Succeseur’ and a ‘Landwurm’. Idk, party composition just didn’t feel all that satisfying this time around outside of using Lindon for whatever reason (props to the conversation between him and Veronica where she exclaims ‘she regrets the day she gets summoned by the Order of Heroes’, I actually chuckled for once in the game).
It feels like Engage has the Fates issue of having all of your sibling units be these extremely powerful units that you HAVE to use, because why wouldn’t you have Xander or Takumi. But at least even these units dont get these unique promotes and you can kinda just go wacky making Camilla a berserker or something for some reason.

II. Maps

Alright I’ll come clean and say it. I don’t know the first thing about map design, I know! I know! I’ve played all the Fire Emblems but I still don’t really understand it! What I will say is that while I don’t have the basic understandings of map design, I’ll brazenly and foolheartedly say that I think it’s generally an overvalued thing in the series in several aspects.
I dont know, I just never minded Fire Emblems with generally simpler map designs, although many of these are from much simpler times or have other aspects that I feel overtake the need for gimmicky map layouts. I like Genealogy a lot, I felt it had good maps but less from a tactical standpoint and more from a consistency and scale standpoint. Echoes: Shadow of Valentia has these horridly simple maps and gets regularly lambasted because of it but I’d much prefer these kinds of map alongside the neat little dungeon exploring action segments any day of the week over stuff like Thracia’s litany of brutal maps. Fates Conquest I think has the best medium, having a large amount of gimmicky maps but interspersing them with some simple ones to ease out the experience, it’s a wonder most people point to Chapter 10 as a highlight in the franchise.
With regards to Engage what I will say is that I think map-wise many of them do come out the better end of things, having neat things to watch out for and a lot of playthings to work with. What I don’t particularly like is how often the maps feel like they rely on throwing an absurdly large number of reinforcements down your throat upon hitting a certain threshold.
How come so many of the maps are predicated on this "What if we just summoned a bunch of dudes"? I don't often yell in frustration but I got so pissed nearing the end of Chapter 21, as you near the boss of a fairly simple map but once you reach the backroom, the map just decides to spawn like 12 units on all sides. What's frustrating is that its already a map that's just constantly sending out guys from all sides and that's it. There's no other element to the fight; it's a complete war of attrition if you don’t just beeline it to the boss. This just happened so often by the end of the game it started feeling farcical, hell it even bled into the divine paralogues. Tiki’s map is pretty rough with it but holy fucking hell Camilla your map took 2 hours just because they poured in from everywhere. Was the boss that hard? Nah, it just took fucking forever getting to her. It really sucks too because I think some of the maps had neat ideas by the end but this one aspect just kept popping up like a bad habit. I guess it’s to teach you to not split up your party? I don’t know.

Fire emblem maps can be hit or miss throughout the series but generally I don't mind when games have weaker maps if I find the overall gameplay or the story to fill in the gaps in basic or straightforward maps. Although with Engage, despite having some interesting maps it didn’t really have much of a backbone when it came to the scenario or the characters but I’ll get to that later. Thracia was a game of similar feeling when I left it- a fairly rough time with strong maps throughout- but I did come to enjoy its story and its attempt to tell this side story from Genealogy, of an ousted Prince from Leonster come to restore his family and kingdom’s honor while liberating the nation that stole it. Here, you can have a map with miasma or cannons or anything but I'm just wondering why the hell im fighting the same fucking goons over and over and over again. Also I had a REALLY hard time telling certain opponents apart- the shift to 3D comes with certain unforeseen costs. Obviously, this isn't too bad with flying units or mage or horseunits but like sometimes the Heroes really look like Warriors or Armored units or even Great Knights idk maybe im blind.

The maps overall are fine, but only up to a certain point where some of them really overstep their boundary in what just feels like wasting my time. Don’t show me the exit only to start throwing pots and pans once I’m a foot away from the door.


III. Story, Cast and Vibes

The writing is just absolutely abysmal. I know "ha ha Fire Emblem when it has a bad story!" but it was genuinely frightening when the best slice of dialogue in the entire game was from the expansion pass.

(a. I don’t like hanging out with your friends Alear)
Most of the conversations are just fine, but it reeeally depends on who you have on board. Sometimes there's winners but other times it's just this morass of skipping dialogue that these games always get into. I started thinking about Yakuza and its sidestories- once you've played a Yakuza or two you get the general idea of how it might play out. Typically on my end, this might lead to some text skimming if I don't feel as though the substory is particularly interesting and that's fine, each of these games has at least 50+ substories to go through for a series with 8 mainline entries + spinoffs. But usually there's a bunch that have intriguing premises and rewards and setups so it's always nice to take a break and see what you can get on your plate. Back in Fire Emblem it just....feels like I never left. And god do I want out. It was so lovely when three houses dropped and people at the time were just like "Man! Some of these three houses dialogues do not end amicably!" and I think that's great! Sometimes you just hang with some guy and the vibes go awry! It felt pretty refreshing to see character interactions that just felt like acquaintanceships, especially once you get to the end credits and certain units just have paired endings as friends.

Here…I’m sorry I don’t find the cast all that interesting but I’d have to get really into how fast the tone of this game starts feeling jarring. From the very get-go once Alear wakes up you’re constantly barraged by characters that compliment and suck your dick because you are the Divine Dragon. Cool! I think? Not really! I echo back to the sentiment I had with the beginning feeling jarring because so many of your starting party members just are not interesting outside of really liking that you're the Divine Dragon. After the halfway points certain characters get shown and I ended up having a few characters I liked but nothing really grabbed my attention. A lot of these guys just feel like the Awakefates “here’s my main quirk!” for several conversations and I really don’t wanna waste my time reading over what may or may not shed one layer of this character. Yeah maybe Seadall has some interesting conversations but why should I bother when he might just say something similar in another conversation with another party member, why should i bother with any of these conversations? Why should I bother with most dialogue in this game. It might be a bit harsh for me just not care about most of this dialogue but to be quite honest rarely does the game present itself in a way where it seems like something interesting could happen.

I think it’s mostly the cutscene/animations. Just something about seeing the same characters appear at the same places in the Somniel doing the same animations all the while rarely doing anything that could fire neurons or stem from usual path, I didn’t really want to take the chance and skim through several lines of dialogue for maybe. I don’t know, maybe I just got burnt out too fast and I didn’t give most of the guys a chance, I'm sure there’s interesting nuggets here and there but I didn’t really have any incentive or desire to further explore characters that seemed like milquetoast from the get. Awakening and Fates also has this issue to certain degrees although I’ll give props to Fates Conquest for having a whole cast of just weirdos. Like yeah now I’ll pay attention now that the characters in question are psychopaths and maladjusted soldiers. Here’s the most interesting unit is…idk Panette? Seadall? You’d have to put a gun to my head.


What’s rough is that it feels like this bleeds out into the Engage characters as well. Here, because each of the games' representatives is the protag or a secondary protag/character most of the interaction just feels like the same dialogue but interspersed with "hey this was the place where that really meaningful event happened..." followed by "we will now trust ourselves even more. with you by my side we will be the strongest ever heroes foreverer" I really wanna stress how boring most of the dialogue in this game is. Most of the intrigue just came from how much more interesting previous games were.

(b. Story! or actually cutscene direction- the story is so who cares i didn't feel like talking about most of it. Alear is the son of the villain big whoop, could you at least plagiarize a better fire emblem)

Earlier Fire Emblems could get away with low budget storytelling by having just the usual visual novel portrait do most of the action, and maybe having the in-game models do limited actions to supplement certain scenes or motions. Here we have the first game in the series without portraits and we get to see cutscenes flow with the characters, but unfortunately most of them just…stand there. Like the high budget stuff is fine obviously but whenever we’re out of that mode we have scenes where the characters are just standing there and reacting with generic motions. I couldn’t help but laugh every now and then as villains just stood around gloating like 10 feet from our entourage and I just wanted one of them to take the initiative and attack them. This happens all the time with media, the guy that’s clearly open to be shot but no one takes advantage- its fine. But here it just feels so weird to see the same cultist evildoers just standing around and the heroes are just kinda standing there having a casual conversation? There’s no like.. ambushed! or… surprised! stance or…’hesitant’? stance, it just seemed like our characters just shook their heads and stood in place usually as the main villains just did their piece. It feels incredibly flaccid. Also man I really don’t like the villains here, you fight them so often and it rarely feels like I want to fight them. Not because I felt sympathetic or heartfelt fighting them but because I was wondering when the fuck they’d just die. Nobody really dies in this game, or it sure doesn’t feel like it outside of one chapter. A place gets burnt in one chapter separate from that but even that didn’t feel all that dire. I felt like I was fighting Danganronpa characters rather than some re-imagining of the four fangs from Blazing Blade.

Granted, there is an impressive amount of variety in certain text, even if its only for short conversations between the rings and for certain story moments.

It's kinda odd I like a lot of the designs here and I don't think I'd mind the change to a more light hearted tone but a part of me wonders why the hell this was even put in a medieval setting to begin with? Why not just make this the first modern feeling Fire Emblem? I feel like the series could benefit from shedding away these overdone medieval locales and time period. Just make it like Final Fantasy and do some weird fusion of diesel/steam-punk with fantasy elements and weaponry. I had wished when this game first leaked that this was the fire emblem to have taken us to the modern age. I know it'd be fucky having modern day tech alongside stuff like cavalry and archers but who cares. I don't care if guns exist alongside the dude with a ring that summons some dude.

(C. Somniel)

It’s kinda weird writing this segment out because it feels like it ties into a lot of the main issues I have with all the other parts of the game. The somniel is the rest stop after each battle for you to maintain so many aspects and manage all of these things…! Don’t go here every chapter! Maybe every two!

Maybe if I delved deeper into research I could find some use for some of these things but like did my enjoyment of the game stem from having not sent a bunch of money to some country for more bond fragments? Probably not.

Also by the way where the hell is all the money in this game anyway? You get like 50,000 G at chapter 20 something and its like where the fuck was all this hiding. Like I didn’t really need gold that much anyway but where the hell is it?

Do I need to fish? Did petting Crungett (the little cat thing) mean all that much? Did I even need new non-emblem bond rings? Well alright I did like Olwen’s Dire Thunder. I wish more of these were readily available but it didn't really feel like it mattered.

I really regret spending as much time as I did early on here, I don’t even know what most of these side things are meant for. Did I really need to get all of the bright shiny spots on the map? nah.

It plays a lot like the Monastery in Three Houses or the base with Lilith in Fates but it felt so weirdly unnecessary. It’s not terrible but after the halfway point I just didn’t want to spend anymore time there except to check on skills and sp, rather than train in the arena or anything. I started thinking about Fallout 4’s settlements and before long I wanted to stop thinking about most things about this game (alright it's not that bad but I really didn’t give a shit about sorting what pets are on the farm or wyvern riding. I'm sorry, Engage).


IV. The last section

(a.) Just pettiness at this point the review is already this long fuck it, its 1am,

Ah man i didnt even talk about how fucking stupid skirmishes are. I didn’t remember or realize that there’s a difference between skirmishes and training battles

Why have rings for certain important figures in each game but then have some of those guys come back and have a second ring? Like how come the Three Houses group get a ring for each of the three house leaders but then there's a single ring that has all of them bundled together, thats a waste of three of the eight slots each game gets.

I’ll give the final boss props, matching the emblems to their respective villains that have been summoned is kinda neat but them not being named by their actual names is so stupid, like 8 of these Dark Engage rings are called like ‘Dark Dragon’ or “Fallen King’ (also like why do these evil engages have weird ass stat distributions and weapons; why does Veld’s engage ring go on a fucking bow knight he was a bishop??)

Man. I kinda wish they had remixed some new music for the divine paralogues. I don't remember the Corrin/Fates remix because I got to Camilla and I just wanted it to be a remix of Alight (Storm). Also why is it called the trial of genealogy when its the map for Leif from Thracia 776 are they fucking stupid?

No one fucks in this story. Like yeah obviously no one has nudity in these games but like you get the pact ring near the end of the game and that's what our romance is? You go through the credits of the game and there’s only two endings for each character and the second one is only based on whether or not you decided to give them the ring lmao. 3H spoiled us on interesting epilogues. Also like why the fuck is the special CG so similar looking to the one in 3H? It kinda scared me checking and wondering whether or not they just straight up reused the same ‘soft purple evening’ outlook from that game but there’s minute differences. I also like that you go into some of these endings for characters that are clearly like “we CANNOT have this kid/your sister marry you what the fuck” but instead of having the ‘pact’ ending be anything where Alear connects or supports their future going forward, the problematic choice character just fucks off and does whatever they were gonna do divorced of your epilogue. Like yeah, good choice dummy. (I chose Ivy, she’s okay) (I wish she could keep the glasses on at all times)


(b.) A discussion about fan service
The idea of 'Fan Service' is one that's been long tied to games and feels incredibly prescient over the medium as a whole (albeit not exclusive). The idea of watching a new announcement and suddenly its this ‘new project’ but what if, we had this returning character from an older game! And it crosses over into this media franchise! And so on and so forth.
It's commonplace by now but even with as jaded as I sound with this- its always fun to see what's been tied to what even if someone loosely. I started thinking about Fire Emblem X SMT, a game that was announced at the opportune time for me, having just gotten into Fire Emblem through Awakening and was playing through SMT4. To my dismay this turned out to become something much different than what 14 year old me imagined- some idol based rpg where the characters have Awakening and Shadow Dragon stands and fight with a Persona like system. I was disappointed at the revelation but so many years later I can respect that it kind of has this neat personality to it. I still haven't played it, mind you- I do own a copy but I’ll get to it probably before I die. I can harp over that game’s lack of variety in who they chose to represent the ‘stands’ or what not but 1) again i haven't played it and 2) it being relegated to mostly arachnea does lend itself to some kinda intrigue like oh shit they’re pulling deep cuts like Bord and Cord. It's placement in a separate, human universe alongside these SMT mechanics feels slightly more...real, I guess. It's adherence to themes and elements of the idol industry, while an extremely different flavor from both the general western fantasy themes and Fire Emblem (and SMT somewhat) as a whole- make for a fairly unique concept which I feel gives it some room to stand.
But with Engage I don't feel this strong connection to Fire Emblem- even with all these references and ties to other games in the series I only barely feel that energy I do with other games in the series. Hell, part of what I enjoyed about Fire Emblem games prior was that much of those callbacks were so 'museum'-like in their presence I was a lot more interested in seeing what the other FEs offered. Part of why I went and played Fire Emblem 4 was because FEH had a chapter back in 2018 that played the first few map themes during the mission.
This isn't to say that the depiction of every other game in the franchise into Engage is inherently terrible or anything but I don't get this desire or heart-swelling playing many of these maps that I figured were supposed to make me feel back to when I played all these other games. There are brief moments of pointing out certain neat details that hearken back to these games but that’s about it.
Here, while all of the fanservice is tied into the mechanics and the story of Engage, it's such a bizarre concept that I can't really immerse myself into its presence. It's one thing for a gacha game- some free mobile app where you're just able to gather all of these characters and snowball from there over the course of 6 years and build out interactions, have all these characters and alternate outfits, new storylines each year and you just put that to the side for 15 minutes a day or something. Not a particularly amazing game but I'm glad its lasted as long as it had and built out all these weird storylines.

I think my main fear is if I'm just growing out of the series- but that doesn't feel like the case, I think the overall gameplay loop and design decision behind the core of Fire Emblem is incredibly addicting and engaging. Late last year I got and played through the beginning of Tactics Ogre Reborn. A great game for what I've played, but incredibly dry, I haven't put as much into it as I'd like despite this. I just know Fire Emblem way more and I enjoy the kind of specialized unit pseudo party composition that FE brings rather than the hiring units style of other tactics games. FE just tends to have this sauce that I really like for the most part even at most of its derivative moments.

Also!! Fuck isometric viewpoints!! I’m tired of seeing them!! Sorry Devil Survivor fans!! I don't like trying to guess what direction the d-pad is gonna take me when there is no top right button!!

I really hope the next game is just mind-bendingly different. Maybe part of it is I'm growing out of the series but so much of this feels like been there, done that. I'm so tired of these support conversations with the same animations, this same kinda world, these same archetypes and plot twists and elements. This game feels more incestuous than Awakening, Fates and the entirety of the Jugdral games despite not actually having any, this might be the most surprising plot detail in Engage. I really want a game that's just able to stand out- and I felt like that's what Three Houses was doing, which I look back on a bit more fondly now despite some of the issues surrounding it. I guess I'm just thinking about how it feels like the last 'normal' feeling Fire Emblem in the series was Fates?? Echoes is great but a remake and has much of these action-adventure segments, Three Houses has this Persona/Harry Potter-esque feeling that I feel overshadows the actually tactical aspect of FE and then this which almost feels like a return to form in some ways but so many of its annoying gimmicks just hampered my enjoyment. Engage is cloyingly Fire Emblem.

For some reason I forgot to review this back in January, so my memory here is a bit hazy.

In the last couple FE games that I played, I enjoyed the flow of the battles and the many ways you could upgrade, customize, and tactfully deploy your characters. They had somewhat off-putting and meaningless moments of dialogue, but for the most part; I could deal with it. Some of it was actually interesting.

However, this game throws half the game under the bus. The dialogue is almost all meaningless and frequently downright cringeworthy. By the second half of the game, I gave up reading anything that wasn't the main plot. I skipped all dialogue. It's that bad.

That's kind of alright with me, though, because what I care about most is how a game plays. This is still a good tactical RPG. Although I wasn't particularly fond of how you interact in the "hub" - it felt very shallow. I didn't care for the way you have to go about your inventory management either. It isn't streamlined very well and relies a lot on you running from vendor to vendor trying to sort it all out. Blah. On the other hand, the core of the gameplay you would expect from FE is great. The fights were fun and everything is fluid - including the battle UI. I enjoyed the way you could pair past FE characters with your new units. It felt like a fun way to push this game slightly more in the Persona direction, which they did (in a completely different way with Three Houses). It's weird; they really want FE to be Persona but they're only half-committing.

This is especially true and even more strange because I am currently playing Persona 5 Tactica and it blows this game out of the water. It's better in every way. It really goes to show how shallow FE:E is in terms of the narrative, general writing, and especially how bland the characters are. While playing through this I did not care about any single character. The coolest part was seeing characters like Roy, Ike, and Marth in action. It's pretty reliant on fanservice (no, not that kind) (well, actually - that kind, too).

Unfortunately I don't remember all the finer aspects of the game at this point, but that just goes to show that this game is not memorable whatsoever.

Finding out that this game was developed alongside Three Houses as 1) an anniversary game, and 2) with a deliberately different vibe from 3H really explained why Engage is the way that it is.

Pros:
-Gameplay is king here. Weapon triangles are back, and the Break and Engage mechanics on both player and enemy sides adds a lot to the Fire Emblem formula (TM).
-Unit building is a giant sandbox of possibilities, thanks to the skill system and further combinations with Emblems. Make whatever broken build you want - the game encourages and rewards it.
-Both of these points lead into fun moments of Gameplay As Storytelling, pushing the player into a corner or opening up new options as they become relevant.

Cons:
-The story feels like it was ripped right out of this parody video from several years ago.
-Skirmish battles very quickly outpace what level your units are currently at, so good luck leveling units you get in later chapters without immediately losing them.
-Get ready to scroll forever in the item menu, because if it's not a weapon, it doesn't have a dedicated tab and will be added to The Pile

YMMV:
-DLC breaks the game's difficulty curve. Depending on how strongly the player feels about unit building this may turn into a pro, but it did feel strange to have (spoiler) happen and still have full access to bracelets.
-A lot of characters will have their one "quirky" trait with all dialogue and interactions written around whatever that trait happens to be. Whether those traits are annoying or endearing is up to the individual.
-Voice lines never say the main character's name, even if you pick the default name. Given that the main character in this title is very much not a silent protagonist or player self insert, it felt weird to have the characters refer to them only as "Divine Dragon" or by the pronouns of the character model I picked.
-The Somniel is largely optional, with the time micromanagement bit from the monastery in Three Houses completely absent.

Overall, this was a fun title for me. I've played Fire Emblem games on and off since Sacred Stones, so I enjoyed all the little callouts to the fanbase. I also appreciated that it put the majority of its effort into making the gameplay as polished as it can be. While the story is a bit weak, I did get attached to a good chunk of the characters. I had fun making my faves kits ridiculous before taking on the final boss to save their world. If Engage is indicative of where IS wants to take Fire Emblem going forward, then I'm in.

The worst Fire Emblem thus far. Engage has a dreadful story. Villains switch sides every two seconds to unnaturally advance the story, the dialogue is cheesy and worse than even the most unsubtle of JRPGS, and most Unit supports don't have actual character arcs, and serve more to just be filler conversations. Engage has awfully designed female characters, it's odd as Engage is the Fire Emblem that has gone the furthest in terms of having a straight-up mainstream anime design. This means there are, at tops, 3 different base faces, so the outside designs have to make up for that lack of variety. All of the female characters are incredibly overcompensated, yet I find that the male characters are mostly completely fine? Perhaps it's because the male-to-female ratio of units is about 3/7, so it becomes less likely for the designers to step on their own toes.

But, what I find most compelling about this and every other Fire Emblem, is how engaging (ha) and thoughtful the strategy part of the game is. Engage really allows you to experiment with so many approaches to each situation, and the emblems, with their unique skills and abilities, allow so much room for experimentation. By the last few chapters, I was still forming strategies. I even formed a strategy to completely cheese most bosses, which was to have Alear engage with Marth, Lodestar rush the boss so their first revive stone gets used, then use Alcrest to engage with Byleth and use his engage ability to allow all adjacent allies to move another time in the same combat turn. I then use a smash weapon with Alear, and since my Alear has such a high Avoid stat, the bosses literally could never attack since I'd dodge everything. The combination of tactics and skills that the emblems allow you to mess with really sets this one apart from the other Fire Emblem games.

My core army consisted of:
Alear, Alfred, Celine, Pandreo, Merrin, Alcryst, Diamant, Jade, Ivy, Zelkov, Kagetsu, Yunaka, Mauvier

If you saw my previous "reviews" (I don't really like calling them that since they're really just a shitpost showing disdain for the game and a overly melodramatic rant about how I thought this was the worst thing ever) then you'd rightfully assume that I simply thought Engage was terrible - irrideemable even. And yeah, I did, honestly. Kinda did for about a quarter of my recent playthrough, too. Don't get me wrong, I haven't made a total 180 on the game - there's still a few issues I have like the whole "loss of unit identity in favour of reclassing" thing and the map design falling off of the face of the Earth after chapter 12 and the story being, well, beating a dead horse here; sorta kinda not very well written. But during the endgame, something about Engage finally clicked with me.

Engage's endgame might be one of my favourites in the franchise. If you know me, I love Thracia because it's a game that really wants you to make the most of the tools at your disposaI. Engage's endgame on maddening leans into this philosophy more than any other game in the series because christ on a bike it throws so much shit at you and the only real way to deal with it to use. those. goddamn. emblems. and man it's so, so good for that. Staffs aren't infinite range but you're given micaiah back just before things start getting real and you will not believe how valuable warping up to 5 people which can include your warper, two dancers, a corrin user and your bosskiller is until you experience it for yourself. Infinite reinforcements, map gimmicks that give the enemy area denial and prevent your advance, turn limits, the works, are all employed and they're actually not frustrating because you're expected to break them in half. I'm trying to keep this mostly positive but regarding the "map design getting bad after chapter 12 thing", I totally still believe it does, at least until chapter 18. Tldr: removing the things you've been working with the whole game up to that point and limiting what you can do with reclassing, skill inherits, etc kinda sucks and the maps do not feel like they were designed around the enforced limitations. Taking 5 chapters just to get some of them back is bad enough, but giving them to enemy units is just miserable. Chapter 17 is easily a contender for one of my least favourite maps in the series but everything before and after chapters 12-17 is fantastic, honestly. One of the best earlygames in the series coupled with my personal favourite endgame.

Regarding the writing: I definitely saw glimmers of what could've been a good story through a lot of the concepts and themes at play. The big, obvious one with engage is about family and bonds. I liked fe7, 12 and 13 for this, but it doesn't feel as sincere nor is it anywhere near as poignant in Engage. Talking about why engage's narrative isn't the best though is, again, beating a dead horse. It's hard to properly articulate this, but I came up with some potential plot revisions while talking to a friend. Mainly because I just wish the story was better and that there is potential for a campier, more initially laid back fe narrative like this. Obvious spoilers: here

And uh. That's all I have to say honestly. It's not the worst thing ever like I previously thought, there's good aspects, and there's others that just could've been so much better.

I just...can't with this game. Aside from being the first 3D FE game to actually consistently look good graphically, and reassuring me that games in the franchise going forward wouldn't use this weird dubstep-orchestral mix for its music, it's just...ugh. The only thing that invokes any hope that I could possibly have for the franchise is that the FE4 remake is coming, but this just isn't it, chief. Tldr: gamesux lmao. If you didn't like anything FE related from the last decade excluding Echoes, you won't like this either. A lot of this is just me being overly cynical and critical because of the immediately apparent things about the game that annoy me.

Basically beating several dead horses here, but why do all the characters have to look like Vtubers? Why are these characters arguably the most one-note and tropey post-awakening yet? Why is the story a comically derivative flanderization of recurring plot points and themes throughout the franchise's history? It's like, if I told a toddler about the Archanea games, and asked them to tell me what happens in them. Ooh, there's a fell dragon that was slain by heroes of old that eventually came back, but instead of the story being about reclaiming one's homeland, the fear of losing comrades or war not being black and white, it's about the power of friendship, I guess. I dunno - I've been sitting on my chapter 18 file for like, a month now, and ever since starting Engage I've played through 5, going on 6 other FE games. The game just does nothing for me. I feel nothing for any of the characters except Yunaka (but I mean, everyone loves Yunaka), I hate the character designs, I hate how everyone throatgoats Alear, and I hate how totally uninteresting the story is. Get this; you're the divine dragon, and you have amnesia, everyone immediately loves you, you lose your parental figure, and you gotta find the magical emblem macguffins to save the world from a great evil that's just evil because...well, they're evil! It's trope-fucking-stew. There's no nuance, no deep character writing - nothing. Sure, a game doesn't need these things to be good, but this a series built on commentary of war, the horrors of war and what war entails. We aren't even fighting human beings for most of this one; just faceless generic zombies. Even Awakening and to some extent Fates, with their respective risen and invaders, and despite Corrin's insistence on non-lethally dispatching whole army squadrons, had some actually poignant moments where you fought and killed actual people (the end of the Plegia arc in the former game especially comes to mind). The big bad instigators of the conflict are fought for three or so chapters before it's revealed that "uh oh! the main antagonist was just manipulating the king all along!". God, I took 3H for granted. Blue Lions and Dmitri are actually cool and all of 3H's routes had commentary and themes much in line with previous games in the franchise, irrespective of the quality of the writing.

The gameplay definitely sucked though - you'd know something is wrong with me if you ever caught me saying 3H played well - and Engage took some notes; some good, some bad. There's no kind of mandatory dating sim hub world like the monastery anymore, thank the Lord. It's instead replaced with the Somniel, which still acts as a hub where you interact with other characters, but is entirely optional. Characters actually all start out in a class designed to fill a niche, but the meta still seems to just be "make everyone wyvern riders" anyway, which is an unfortunate consequence of granting complete and total control over building characters in an FE game. To reiterate from my 3H review, one of the most important things for an FE game's cast is for the majority of its playable characters to have a predefined niche. Whether it be a healer, flier, dancer, front-liner, growth unit, etc, every character has a role, and they're going to be in that role for most of the game. This isn't to say FE should be like chess, either. Ever since as early as FE1, healers and their promotions functioned as both healers, warpers, and spell casters. In FE2, they could summon illusions and various other NPC allies, and by the time FE5 rolled out, you had rescue chaining, capturing and stealing, providing support bonuses, greater control over the weapon triangle, skills, status staves, all sorts of things to make sure a unit would be doing more than just attacking. The point I'm trying to make is, once everyone is able to reclass into anything, and have any set of skills, every character becomes homogenized and not much more than a set of stats and growths. It means sacrificing unit identity and part of the franchise's identity for the sake of granting player customizability. And this also isn't to say that giving the player freedom to build their team in an SRPG is bad either! Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics pride themselves on their unit customizability. But...this isn't either of those games. This is Fire Emblem, and outside of losing too many units in the DS games, none of the units in your army are blank slate generics. These are actual characters, and that's also irrespective of how well or badly written said character is. On the topic of the DS games and reclassing, given I'm fresh off of them, I'll also say that reclassing 6 characters to wyverns isn't actually optimal at endgame thanks to their low speed caps. It's almost as if the devs took caps and classes into consideration since there are plenty of enemies with ridersbanes, armourslayers, and bows if you're playing on H1 or higher, which you should be. I remember there being very few enemies with effective weapons in Engage aside from bow users.


Oh yeah, and emblems are a thing, I guess. They're a win button, basically. Just use their ability to one round the enemy, or always survive enemy phase, or attack multiple enemies at once, or warp to any enemy from anywhere on the map, or basically a free level up. Considering half of them don't even start with weapon types they were actually known for in their respective games, it feels like it was just used as an excuse to put old characters in as fanservice. Also, isn't it just great when the game gives you emblem rings, makes a big deal about them, makes them the defining part of how you play the game, then just takes them away from you? Considering you need to raise bond levels to reclass, why take them away? Why pride your game on freedom to build units, but then severely gimp that just because the story says so? Total freedom to reclass is bad, as I've already stated, but given that the game gives the option, I'm going to want to use it. And this wouldn't be much of an issue if you got those rings back quickly, but of course you don't. You get two new ones, go three chapters without any more, and by chapter 18 you finally get two of your old emblems back, leaving you with more emblems than you had before they were taken away. It's also at this point where map design and my enjoyment of the game took a nosedive. The maps being designed around low mov works for about 10 chapters before becoming boring.

Man, just typing all this up is tiring. I don't have the energy to hone in on the story and writing and talk about how shit it is anymore. It's campy, it's corny, and it's tropey. I audibly groaned on a few occasions, and watching some of the later cutscenes early totally killed any desire I had to finish Engage. No, the story does not get better; it just makes me more embarrassed for being a fan of this series, and gives its detractors more ammunition.

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

"jfc Etie's gremlin ass should fold me like she's King from Tekken" I say with no stutter

Today is not the day I write a normal review... word y'all got to understand these character designs got what I'm inclined to call the "goofy drip" and I think it's a fantastic combo. I can just give an OP emblem to my favorite low-tier husbandos and waifus for maximum profit and my brain is tricked into thinking "Holy moly. I'm a brilliant tactician!"

Maybe I'll write normal thoughts after all, because you may be wondering... what elevates this to a 5 stars. I mean, the gameplay is great just like Fates which I consider a subpar FE. The story is worthless unlike Sacred Stones, one of my favorites FE. My number one game is Shadows of Valentia, a game whose presentation and art direction can make Engage envious. Is there no rhyme or reason!!

But ackshually I think Engage does an awesome job at compensating for any shortcoming it has. The honest to god run of the mill supports are entertaining through the excellent voice cast (very few industry big names), an excellent soundtrack y'all are sleeping on, game is also removing what made Three Houses stray too far from an optimal Fire Emblem experience in my opinion. And I dont know, I could nitpick Engage all day but my feelings stay unchanged. I thought I'd be more mad at the lack of paired endings but the fans got that covered thankfully... the lack of overall romance is one of the many traits defining this vibe of everybody just having casual fun. I'm fond of this vibe. This is the post-covid era of Fire Emblem and we're celebrating buckos.

I try to look for the right words that convey my love for Engage and what I can say is that it's endearing how most of its cast have already fulfilled their goals in life and you're seeing them at their prime with minimal issues. I know its not a word but bear with me. What I'm trying to say is seeing characters argue about stealing potatos in flashy stylish outfits basking under a bright sun sitting around a campfire on a hill with a good prospect of their future...its good. They committed to that. In fact the story was not cheesy enough. Remove the extra layer of war crimes, make it a goofy war.

Looking at the characters and listening to them talk filled me with so much bile that I couldn't play to the second map. This could be Thracia 2, Kaga could swear on his collection of erotic male-male age gap literature that this makes the game design in every other TRPG look like Wargroove, and I would not pick it back up. Anyone equating this to Conquest because they both have good gameplay and bad writing should be forced to spend eight hours a week at an art museum until they show some flickering of aesthetic sensibility. It's not even horny.

ive listened to bright sandstorm every day for the past 11 months since this game released, and i can confidently say that its my favourite FE battle theme ever.
the rest of this game's soundtrack is pretty neat, but holy shit does bright sandstorm and its variations just completely mog the shit out of everything else.

such a radiant theme to go alongside some of my favourite FE maps of recent memory (ch13's night village is so fucking good OH MY GOD)
i especially like this dual-mix - 1:26 is just PURE LUDOKINO-BUMPS: https://youtu.be/3ag9GtZI17U?si=DSXmMViAJmD1xz6c
ive listened to it so much i can literally pick out all the instruments in both calm and fiery now 😭😭😭😭

((is it just me or does FE map music hit harder on maddening/lunatic modes exclusively??? i swear, it makes me feel like a master tactician or something 😭😭))

anyways i just wanted to have a late night ramble about this game, i truly and utterly love it so much - goofy plot and all. of course, theres always things i strongly wish it did better, but i could say the same for all FE titles. i just love this series so much, man. please play this game, its the coziest feel-good experience ever.

Game is pretty mid (actual definition). Mechanically it's fun the first time around but very exhausting on repeat playthroughs. Mostly this game is way too long for what it is narrative wise and a good chunk of the endgame maps are WAAAAAAAAAAAY too long. Which sucks because I think early game the maps are really fucking good. The soundtrack is also a low point for me, because the last 2 games had some of the best soundtracks in the whole franchise, but this game just kinda uses the same motif over and over at nauseum.

I actually really like the emblem mechanic, I think a good chunk of the rings do a good job of standing out from one another and having their own unique uses. DGMW some rings like Sigurd and Michiah are insanely overpowered, but for the most part the map design is created with the rings in mind, and I think it does a good job keeping them balanced.

What I DON'T like is the trade off for having the rings being that skills take a massive back seat. And I get it right, skill emblem is it's own issue but if skills are gonna be neutered so bad like this why have them at all? I just basically put Canter and some other skill on basically all my units and called it a day. I think the rings and personals are plenty of customization already so I just think the inclusion here is lame.

The story sucks, it's a dead horse but for the sake of a fair review I should go over it anyway. Alear starts promising but becomes VERY bland VERY quickly. The lords once recruited just become Alear's cheerleaders with no actual input of their own. Veyle could have been interesting if FE didn't do the FE thing of using mind control as a substitute for actual narrative conflict. You fight the same like 4 bad guys who are just a diet Black Fang for like half the fucking game, Zephia is the worst villain in Fire Emblem history. You can't just have this woman be a pure evil bitch the whole game only to change her mind last minute out of nowhere because "muh attornment" that's not how character writing works. Sombron is kinda lame but at least he doesn't become a different character at the end, and his fight was cool.

God I wish this game was shorter, it would be so much better, since there would be less bad story and the game could be much more replayable.

The overworld is also MUCH worse, it's not as customizable or brief as My Castle but also not as in depth or narratively engaging (lol) as Garreg Mach, it's this weird middle ground where it's kinda just bad in both areas. It's a time sink that doesn't matter that much and could have just been replaced by a menu. I do like some of the characters like Hortensia, Goldmary, Alfred, and others, but I'd say a good 75% of the cast is kinda just there.

It's also weird to me how like other modern games this game has emphasis on pairing your characters and seeing all sorts of supports but unlike the last 3 games, not ONLY is pairing limited like in Three Houses, but unlike Three Houses it doesn't get the trade off of more interesting supports (because fans whined about 3H supports being too long because god forbid they're interesting) and more detailed and specific paired endings. Actually Engage doesn't HAVE paired endings outside the MC and a good chunk of said ending is just the same copy paste over and over.

Overall the game just kinda makes me sad since I think it def could have been better.

SHORT VERSION:

Fire Emblem Engage takes a lot of right steps when it comes to gameplay. A clunky UI and skill system don't stop Engage from bringing clarity and vision to the series' continued attempts to shift to a more active, player-turn driven experience as opposed to a turtling march to inevitable victory. That said, it boasts a story so genuinely poor that I am convinced I could write better in two hours with a gun pressed to the back of my head - and when your game is best enjoyed by skipping through your hours upon hours of cutscene and focussing purely on the gameplay, that is the point where I am close to calling you a failed Fire Emblem game, or perhaps a failed game as a whole.

LONG VERSION:

Wow, this gameplay is great! I wonder what the story will be like...?

This story is a genuine 1/10, and if I could give it a 0, I would.

Actually, I will.

This story is a genuine 0/10.

But before we get to that, let's talk the meat-and-bones--let's talk gameplay, because Fire Emblem: Engage brings lots of it and in ways that breathe life into a series that has long struggled with its identity and approach.

To understand what makes Engage so effective, we have to understand what made old Fire Emblem effective and what had been happening around that. Long ago in the days of the Gameboy Advance and the Gamecube, Fire Emblem's greatest units were the juggernauts--the units that could be thrown in on your turn and subsequently endure everything and kill a fair few of the baddies who'd come for their heads on the enemy's turn. This sort of turtling approach made for a slow, measured march to victory in most of these games - where a careless overreaching meant death, but a deft tactician could take measured risks and expedite the process of getting through a level. That is, until Fire Emblem: Fates sought to bring some change--with the introduction of enemies utilising powerful mechanics like Pair Up and skills that could grind down even your biggest tanks, there came a move to bringing Fire Emblem more towards a player turn oriented tactics game - where each turn presented is a puzzle to be figured out, and if you mess up, you may just see your entire team die screaming at the catastrophic results of your in-hindsight hilarious oversight.

This was considered, generally speaking, to be a good move--but I would argue it was imperfect in Fates. In Engage, that is no longer the case. Playing even on the Hard/Classic difficulty (which is by the series' own saying the 'standard' mode of play), every start of a turn is a delectable challenge to figure out. You cannot plot too far and too meticulously, because the game will keep dishing out curveballs that keep you on your tactical toes and that will ask--nay, demand--that you dig and dig deep into your bag of tricks and exhaust it all to survive, overcome and carry on through the war you're waging. It's honestly thrilling, and deeply rewarding when the chips fall your way.

There is a flipside to this.

Engage is constantly looking for new ways to prod and prickle your tactical brain, and it provides you with a litany of tools to tackle them--sometimes, perhaps, too many and in too clumsy a way. The UI has been improved a little, but the menus and the loading times you need to go through to unlock your options are honestly oppressive and sometimes block enjoyment from some of the elements just because its such a huge pain in the tail to try and get to them. For that matter, as rewarding as it is to make it through those tough player phases and on to the next challenge, so infuriating is it when a single missed roll (and you're going to have some clutch misses) or some enemy skill you overlooked among the immense army that came your way ruins your strategy. Of course, the by-now series staple Rewind feature helps mitigate this - but overreliance on the Rewind tended to take the wind out of my sails, especially since it most commonly demanded use not when my tactics proved faulty but when the random numbe generator decided to take my units for a spin and send a 96% chance to hit into the abyss.

Engage's gameplay is just what the title promises--Engaging. Despite its shortcomings in some areas, the end result is satisfying and tons of fun to play. With all that strength in gameplay, its time to talk about the reason that I give this game a mere 2/5 after all that praise.

The story, ladies and gentlemen, is not great.

In fairness, Three Houses aside, the story for Fire Emblem hasn't been great for many long years, never quite recovering from the nosedive of quality that FE11 represented - but this one truly shocks the senses. Every chapter offers a new low, every bit of the story you uncover is a new nugget of something you wish you'd never seen. Without getting into details, we have a clueless Mary Sue for a protagonist who is a literal God but totally humble and likeable about it, we dive balls-first into every poor trope that has featured in the Fire Emblem series (some of them multiple times, each worse than the last), we treat our villains so poorly that they come across like saturday-morning cartoon villains that aren't actually any fun to watch and the formulaic nature of the story repeats so often you'll have distilled it enough to write your phD thesis on "The dangers of applying formula in a story" by the time you're in Act 2.

The presentation is appalling, too. Series veterans will at this point have gotten used to the rudimentary 3D-models taking on one of five poses to give a general indication of their mood while visual-novel style textboxes fly by, but by God, Fire Emblem Engage truly takes the cake. Though the pre-rendered cutscenes are gorgeous, the game (still running on the Musou engine used for FE3H in 2019 and FE:W in bloody 2017) is ugly as sin, and this merrily extends to the visual novel scenes. Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn--none of these had pretty 3D models that could tell a story and convince you, but they knew they didn't and therefore stuck to visual novels that allowed the player's imagination to fill in the gaps.

Engage allows you not a thing.

Engage will beat you over the head with a 15-minute long scene that is comprised of 5 characters stood in a circle discussing things, followed by the entrance of the villain as if a joyless Team Rocket has just showed up, followed by... 15 more minutes now comprised of 5 characters stood across from 2 characters, all ferociously chatting waffle at each other. All of it means sweet fuck-all as your candy-sweet, wouldn't-harm-a-fly party chats at the villains who, honestly, come across as a five-year-olds attempt at a gang of evildoers. Cute, but utterly uninteresting.

I would talk more about how disappointing the 'Emblems' are--old characters from the series returning as spiritual guides in this fan-service focused anniversary title--but I will leave it here: As a 20-year veteran of the series and indeed fan, my fan is feeling a little unserviced. An utter waste of ideas. If your best throw at a villainous Emblem was not to delve into the rogue's gallery of Fire Emblem's long history of nemeses but instead Marth BUT RED, then you clearly do not understand the first thing about what people like.

This is a bumbling, amateurish, downright embarrassing piece of kids' theatre pawned off as a Triple-A experience where hours worth of your entertainment is meant to be derived from the story.

There is so bad it's good--and sometimes, this is that--but mostly, this is so bad it's horrible.

I am giving this two stars for some genuinely excellent Fire Emblem gameplay, but with a story this shit, it should be thanking its lucky stars that I give it any bloody points at all.

Fire Emblem Engage. Got really, really into Fire Emblem right before its release, playing much of the series in a feverish pitch with this game's release being the climax. Was it worth it? Sure was. One of my favorite Femblems.

Gameplay? Fantastic. The difficulty of the Maddening mode has hands-down the best difficulty pacing in the series; they really got it with this one. It's enough of a toothy challenge right off the bat that always feels hard enough, and it keeps pace with you even as you gain more and more tools to deal with its challenges. It contrasts with Three Houses Maddening, which is comically difficult in the beginning with your do-nothing scrub kids until they grow into their own and it gets much easier. Pretty great last maps, though. It also contrasts with Conquest's Lunatic difficulty, which punches your face in from the start and every mission is a fight for your life. Yeah, Conquest is pretty great, too.

The systems of simple character customization with emblem ring skills and the emblems themselves were really fun. I was worried that the game would be a juggernaut-fest of steamrolling the enemy with superpowered transforming emblem units (this can still happen but only if you really know what you're doing), but was pleasantly surprised at just how fun the emblem engaging mechanics were. The series fanservice was pretty nice, too, having the player take on some of the hardest maps from the old games.

Other production value things - great soundtrack with its dynamic battle themes, excellent animation with throwbacks to GBA battle animations, the previous peak of the series, and some really nice optimization. The game actually runs well on the switch, which is a real shocker.

What I didn't like as much is pretty much what everyone else didn't like, the story and the character designs. The story is Fine, it's a campy Marvel story that I was checked out of and kind of enjoyed the villain's motivations metaphorically as a Femblem gamer who just like me fr. It had hype moments, so what more could I ask for. Oh, I know - less text. The game had so much text and said so little with it! Man!

The character designs. Many will kvetch that they are too "anime," too "weeby," because, well, Fire Emblem has never been animesque! Anyway, Mika Pikazo's art owns, and I like some of the really exaggerated designs. Seeing Celine flip around in a giant poofy onion dress and platform shoes is the funniest and best thing. The problem is, there's no cohesion. Like, none. No one looks like they live where they're from, no one looks like they inhabit the same world, and nothing looks real. They feel like a bunch of gacha game character designs slapped together, and that's pretty much how they were made - IS asked Pikazo to just go and design 50 characters and bada-bing-bada-boom here we go. Bring us back to Echoes... or at least, Thracia...

Anyway, great strategy RPG