80 hours of pure unadulterated bliss.
Fire Emblem Engage is no exaggeration one of my favourite games I’ve ever played. Yeah I’m fully aware of just how polarising this title has been for a bunch of people but they are absolutely wrong, don’t even listen to them. This game bangs SO hard & it’s better than I ever could’ve expected.
Now I’m saying this as someone who has only played Fire Emblem Three Houses & Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, the latter I still haven’t finished so honestly I’m pretty late to the party when it comes to FE as a series…but if Engage is anything to go by then the future of this franchise is in very good hands.
My entire experience with this game I never wasn’t having a good time with it. While the story itself is nothing to write home about as it is very basic & simplistic… honestly that’s mainly why it works so well. It’s not trying to be deep & meaningful. This is a game which doesn’t try to confuse you with multiple routes & completely different perspectives like 3H did. It’s straight forward but most importantly, easy to digest & take in. It’s a story about war but it doesn’t try to be overly serious about it constantly & that’s something a lot of games forget nowadays. Games are meant to be fun. Fire Emblem Engage is fun. It knows when to take itself seriously & when to not. And the experience that it gave me is something I absolutely do not get from a lot of games these days.
I really enjoyed the emblems mechanic. It’s sort of like the battalions in 3H where you can break through an enemies defences or give your allies a major buff in support skills. The emblems are sort of like that only way more busted especially on certain characters. The abilities that they in turn give you can be inherited even without the emblems which I thought was really neat. The maps are also incredibly fun for the most part. There’s a bunch more variety to them & they don’t feel like they’re copy pasted unlike 3H. In terms of the strategy gameplay itself, it’s rock solid. I admit I did play on normal/classic which is what I always do for a first run through of games but it never felt too ridiculously easy or too much of an unfair challenge. Definitely gonna do my second playthrough on hard though as I did with 3H.
One gripe I’ve heard a lot of people complain about with Engage is a lack of compelling characters…again, they’re absolutely wrong. Yes not all of them are hits, in fact I found myself majorly indifferent to a number of them. But characters like Yunaka & Ivy are just absolutely peak & have so much depth to them. The base of the Somniel is also much better than the monastery in 3H & I just think in general there’s so much less tedium as a whole. Oh & the supports in this game are always entertaining. Especially when everyone acts weird around poor Alear & she just stands there all confused, it’s pretty great. Speaking of Alear, I think she’s a really good protagonist. She may look like colgate toothpaste but as the game goes along I found myself majorly warming up to her. And the voice performance by Laura Stahl is absolutely stellar especially in the final act of the game.
Fire Emblem Engage isn’t perfect by any means but in terms of strategy RPGs I really don’t think you can go wrong. There’s just so much content & I found myself so invested I couldn’t put the game down. And it honestly makes me want to check out the other Fire Emblem games that came before this one because as a celebration of this series as a whole, I was pleasantly surprised by Engage. It’s so ridiculously fun & I absolutely adore it. What an incredible way to kick off 2023 for gaming!
Fire Emblem Engage is no exaggeration one of my favourite games I’ve ever played. Yeah I’m fully aware of just how polarising this title has been for a bunch of people but they are absolutely wrong, don’t even listen to them. This game bangs SO hard & it’s better than I ever could’ve expected.
Now I’m saying this as someone who has only played Fire Emblem Three Houses & Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, the latter I still haven’t finished so honestly I’m pretty late to the party when it comes to FE as a series…but if Engage is anything to go by then the future of this franchise is in very good hands.
My entire experience with this game I never wasn’t having a good time with it. While the story itself is nothing to write home about as it is very basic & simplistic… honestly that’s mainly why it works so well. It’s not trying to be deep & meaningful. This is a game which doesn’t try to confuse you with multiple routes & completely different perspectives like 3H did. It’s straight forward but most importantly, easy to digest & take in. It’s a story about war but it doesn’t try to be overly serious about it constantly & that’s something a lot of games forget nowadays. Games are meant to be fun. Fire Emblem Engage is fun. It knows when to take itself seriously & when to not. And the experience that it gave me is something I absolutely do not get from a lot of games these days.
I really enjoyed the emblems mechanic. It’s sort of like the battalions in 3H where you can break through an enemies defences or give your allies a major buff in support skills. The emblems are sort of like that only way more busted especially on certain characters. The abilities that they in turn give you can be inherited even without the emblems which I thought was really neat. The maps are also incredibly fun for the most part. There’s a bunch more variety to them & they don’t feel like they’re copy pasted unlike 3H. In terms of the strategy gameplay itself, it’s rock solid. I admit I did play on normal/classic which is what I always do for a first run through of games but it never felt too ridiculously easy or too much of an unfair challenge. Definitely gonna do my second playthrough on hard though as I did with 3H.
One gripe I’ve heard a lot of people complain about with Engage is a lack of compelling characters…again, they’re absolutely wrong. Yes not all of them are hits, in fact I found myself majorly indifferent to a number of them. But characters like Yunaka & Ivy are just absolutely peak & have so much depth to them. The base of the Somniel is also much better than the monastery in 3H & I just think in general there’s so much less tedium as a whole. Oh & the supports in this game are always entertaining. Especially when everyone acts weird around poor Alear & she just stands there all confused, it’s pretty great. Speaking of Alear, I think she’s a really good protagonist. She may look like colgate toothpaste but as the game goes along I found myself majorly warming up to her. And the voice performance by Laura Stahl is absolutely stellar especially in the final act of the game.
Fire Emblem Engage isn’t perfect by any means but in terms of strategy RPGs I really don’t think you can go wrong. There’s just so much content & I found myself so invested I couldn’t put the game down. And it honestly makes me want to check out the other Fire Emblem games that came before this one because as a celebration of this series as a whole, I was pleasantly surprised by Engage. It’s so ridiculously fun & I absolutely adore it. What an incredible way to kick off 2023 for gaming!