Played on Hard difficulty, no DLC

I actually enjoyed the writing here, I liked the general theme of familial love and loss and thought it was executed decently enough even if it doesn't explore it in the depth I would've liked

I don't think Lumera's death is poorly written either necessarily because the game treats it as "Oh, it's so unfair I didn't get to know you" unlike Fates where Corrin's mom dying makes her go super saiyan.
The biggest issues I had with the writing were the midgame where that theming wasn't really there, or the sudden backstories for both Marni and Sombrom which do connect to the theming but aren't built to that cheapens them.

Also found the general mechanics pretty fun, although a lot of the maps I'm not sure how memorable they are. Certainly not the worst maps, just kinda middle-of-the-road. Some of them though were fun like a lot of the early game is pretty solid at teaching certain things, and particular shoutouts to the Pact Ring map that can get pretty intense with the advancing enemies.

Overall I enjoyed Engage quite a bit.