Fire Emblem Engage is a game about the cyclical nature of war and familial bonds, although the story is extremely lacklustre until the final arc.
The gameplay is immaculate. I was at first weary incase they were an addiction to the series that didn’t vibe with me, but they feel so natural, although I can’t help, but feel they pidgeon hole other aspects of the design, such as win conditions. Most bosses in kill boss maps (And most other maps) have at least 1 revive stone which revives them once they hit 0 hp. While I understand this is to prevent one good Engaged attack from killing the boss, it leads to waiting around the boss, but unlike in other games at least you have nuke buttons. They you may ask “What about other win conditions like reach area?” and that is a good question, however other win conditions suffer similar fates. If getting Alear to a certain area was the win condition, Sigurd’s movement or Celica’s warp ragnarok would make swift work of that and as such maps often feel bigger then they need to be to facilitate the absurdity of some Emblems. One small thing that bugged me we the removal of the option to have your turn start on the lord of the last tile as each player phase starts on Alear, the option I would have preferred to not use.
I have strong feelings towards the Somniel. On one hand it made me appreciate earlier entries in the series, on the other hand that’s because they don’t have the Somniel, however I don’t think the Somniel is unsalvageable. Yes it’s bigger then it needs to be, yes it takes way too long and distracts from the core experience too much in my opinion, yes having two of the most important aspects of the hub behind a load zone is dumb and you’ve got to question why you are running around picking up potatoes when you already have 100. I’m Irish and even I don’t know what to do with 100 potatoes. I honestly think Fates had the perfect post battle prep hub. It adds more life then just being a menu/prep screen/world map and most importantly to go from place A to B in the hub is quick and snappy. I swear getting anywhere in the Fates hub is faster then the 4 shops in Engage that are right next to each other in a circle and speaking of the shops let’s talk about the economy.
The economy of resources is mostly fine, even if as mentioned earlier ingredients are ridiculously common having enough ingredients is a non issue and the bond spirit economy seems extremely fair (Even if the gacha rings feel useless once you have enough emblems for everyone and aren’t worth investing in once you get enough bond levels etc… to start building the skills you want, but the gold economy is atrocious. You rarely have enough money for anything without grinding (Which I didn’t do once) as your money can be used for weapons, forging weapons, fashion and donating to the nations. Money simply is too rare for how flexible it is. While the forging/fashion materials fall a little into this pit, at least all the outfits are garbage and while I’m not fond of the forging, it does feel like Fates’ system perfected. The final resources that I haven’t talked about are all tied to the online trials, which I did not engage with at all so I can’t comment on them.
While a good chunk of the characters probably should not be trusted around weaponry, I really like most of the characters and the supports are for the most part really fun. The “I’m not saying they are gay, but I’m not saying they are straight either” writing is such a treat and fits the game well.
Fire Emblem Engage is weird and sometimes I wonder if it has that Fire Emblem-ness I’ve grown to love, but it’s definitely up there on the games I want to replay already which I’ll definitely do around when the final dlc drops and hopefully that’s as fun as the first time, if not more.
Fell Xenologue:
While weirdly balanced as your units are mostly preset, but a few things are not preset, this was tight af and worked quite well. Will absolutely be my go to example for a well designed gimmick map and while the final boss was a pain in the ass, it was a tough, but fair pain. Story didn’t really stick the landing though, but it started pretty good.
The gameplay is immaculate. I was at first weary incase they were an addiction to the series that didn’t vibe with me, but they feel so natural, although I can’t help, but feel they pidgeon hole other aspects of the design, such as win conditions. Most bosses in kill boss maps (And most other maps) have at least 1 revive stone which revives them once they hit 0 hp. While I understand this is to prevent one good Engaged attack from killing the boss, it leads to waiting around the boss, but unlike in other games at least you have nuke buttons. They you may ask “What about other win conditions like reach area?” and that is a good question, however other win conditions suffer similar fates. If getting Alear to a certain area was the win condition, Sigurd’s movement or Celica’s warp ragnarok would make swift work of that and as such maps often feel bigger then they need to be to facilitate the absurdity of some Emblems. One small thing that bugged me we the removal of the option to have your turn start on the lord of the last tile as each player phase starts on Alear, the option I would have preferred to not use.
I have strong feelings towards the Somniel. On one hand it made me appreciate earlier entries in the series, on the other hand that’s because they don’t have the Somniel, however I don’t think the Somniel is unsalvageable. Yes it’s bigger then it needs to be, yes it takes way too long and distracts from the core experience too much in my opinion, yes having two of the most important aspects of the hub behind a load zone is dumb and you’ve got to question why you are running around picking up potatoes when you already have 100. I’m Irish and even I don’t know what to do with 100 potatoes. I honestly think Fates had the perfect post battle prep hub. It adds more life then just being a menu/prep screen/world map and most importantly to go from place A to B in the hub is quick and snappy. I swear getting anywhere in the Fates hub is faster then the 4 shops in Engage that are right next to each other in a circle and speaking of the shops let’s talk about the economy.
The economy of resources is mostly fine, even if as mentioned earlier ingredients are ridiculously common having enough ingredients is a non issue and the bond spirit economy seems extremely fair (Even if the gacha rings feel useless once you have enough emblems for everyone and aren’t worth investing in once you get enough bond levels etc… to start building the skills you want, but the gold economy is atrocious. You rarely have enough money for anything without grinding (Which I didn’t do once) as your money can be used for weapons, forging weapons, fashion and donating to the nations. Money simply is too rare for how flexible it is. While the forging/fashion materials fall a little into this pit, at least all the outfits are garbage and while I’m not fond of the forging, it does feel like Fates’ system perfected. The final resources that I haven’t talked about are all tied to the online trials, which I did not engage with at all so I can’t comment on them.
While a good chunk of the characters probably should not be trusted around weaponry, I really like most of the characters and the supports are for the most part really fun. The “I’m not saying they are gay, but I’m not saying they are straight either” writing is such a treat and fits the game well.
Fire Emblem Engage is weird and sometimes I wonder if it has that Fire Emblem-ness I’ve grown to love, but it’s definitely up there on the games I want to replay already which I’ll definitely do around when the final dlc drops and hopefully that’s as fun as the first time, if not more.
Fell Xenologue:
While weirdly balanced as your units are mostly preset, but a few things are not preset, this was tight af and worked quite well. Will absolutely be my go to example for a well designed gimmick map and while the final boss was a pain in the ass, it was a tough, but fair pain. Story didn’t really stick the landing though, but it started pretty good.