Going into this -- by which I mean, a few chapters after I started -- I feared this was going to be atrocious. Fortunately that turned out not to be the case.
Let's start with the bad: the story is not great. It was like, "What if we made Revelation again, but took out the incestuous subtext?" Which, yes, that is a plus, but Revelation is a weak story regardless and this was not much better. I also saw every plot twist coming a mile away and figured out one of the major reveals two chapters in, which just made it way less fun for me as a journey. I really just got to a point where I stopped caring and just wanted it to end. A shame.
The characters. Obviously this being a Fire Emblem game you've got more units than you can conceivably use in a single playthrough without abusing the arena/skirmishes (which I didn't do because I never do), so it's tough to get to know most of them decently enough to form an opinion. But just through the little snippets you do get, I really just found most of them eye-rollingly annoying. I came away with a few that I liked, and I genuinely liked some of the support chains I did get. But overall I just did not vibe with this cast.
The maps and combat mechanics are awesome. I found the Engage mechanic itself in-battle a little bit underwhelming -- fun and cool-looking but not as much of a difference-maker as I might've liked. But using the Emblems as a means to mess with skills was great, and I enjoyed playing around with that. I do wish the map objectives had been more varied, I am pretty sure they were nearly all "kill boss" with one or two "escape" maps thrown in, but there were enough intra-map objectives and hazards that nothing really got too samey.
After how grating I found Three Houses, I almost didn't play this game at all -- I just happened to have a free week between finishing Tales of Arise and the release of Super Mario Bros. Wonder where I thought I could squeeze a game in, so I picked this one. I'm not unhappy I did so, and I genuinely think it's an improvement on both Fates and Three Houses. But I still find it emblematic (HA!) of the issues I have with where the series has gone in the last decade. That's probably a "me" problem and I should accept that what this series gave me in the past isn't coming back. So for now I'm leaving this one unrated. But I'll wrap up by saying that as a longtime fan of the franchise, this one still hit the spot even if it can't live up to the old favorites.
Let's start with the bad: the story is not great. It was like, "What if we made Revelation again, but took out the incestuous subtext?" Which, yes, that is a plus, but Revelation is a weak story regardless and this was not much better. I also saw every plot twist coming a mile away and figured out one of the major reveals two chapters in, which just made it way less fun for me as a journey. I really just got to a point where I stopped caring and just wanted it to end. A shame.
The characters. Obviously this being a Fire Emblem game you've got more units than you can conceivably use in a single playthrough without abusing the arena/skirmishes (which I didn't do because I never do), so it's tough to get to know most of them decently enough to form an opinion. But just through the little snippets you do get, I really just found most of them eye-rollingly annoying. I came away with a few that I liked, and I genuinely liked some of the support chains I did get. But overall I just did not vibe with this cast.
The maps and combat mechanics are awesome. I found the Engage mechanic itself in-battle a little bit underwhelming -- fun and cool-looking but not as much of a difference-maker as I might've liked. But using the Emblems as a means to mess with skills was great, and I enjoyed playing around with that. I do wish the map objectives had been more varied, I am pretty sure they were nearly all "kill boss" with one or two "escape" maps thrown in, but there were enough intra-map objectives and hazards that nothing really got too samey.
After how grating I found Three Houses, I almost didn't play this game at all -- I just happened to have a free week between finishing Tales of Arise and the release of Super Mario Bros. Wonder where I thought I could squeeze a game in, so I picked this one. I'm not unhappy I did so, and I genuinely think it's an improvement on both Fates and Three Houses. But I still find it emblematic (HA!) of the issues I have with where the series has gone in the last decade. That's probably a "me" problem and I should accept that what this series gave me in the past isn't coming back. So for now I'm leaving this one unrated. But I'll wrap up by saying that as a longtime fan of the franchise, this one still hit the spot even if it can't live up to the old favorites.