I’ve always kind of been in a weird spot with the Fire Emblem series. It’s a series I’ve pretty much always been interested in getting, but I have a hard time getting to a point where I can consistently finish them. I purchased Fire Emblem for the GBA back in the day but never finished it. I did eventually finish Sacred Stones. Then I bought (and after a loooong delay) finished Awakening. I got Fates but never finished it and then the same with Three Houses.
Fire Emblem Engage provides the player with tools to mitigate the things that have provided me with decision anxiety regarding the series games in the past.
Fire Emblem Engage was released in January of 2023 with also 4 DLC waves that were released in relative quick succession with the last one being released the first week of April. At first I was weary about picking this game up: I never ended up getting through even half of one story route of Three Houses so I was concerned that the same would end up happening with this game. Needless to say, I was able to get through and beat Engage.
From beating the game on normal, it definitely feels like the default difficulty for this game is supposed to be hard, I felt myself cruising through the game without much hardship save for the DLC campaign chapters for Fell Xenologue. However easy the normal mode felt, Engage came with some QOL improvements that made my time with the game less stressful and prone to decision anxiety.
The Engage mechanic is the flagship mechanic of this game and its a wonderful system that adds a layer of strategy to each fight. Each Engage lasts 3 turns (with some skills or bond levels raising the number of turns a unit can stay engaged for) and for each Engage, the unit gets a special attack that can pretty much erase a unit off the battlefield. Your opponents frequently also have access to this power which leads to some crafty strategies needing to be formed to kill some units (especially bosses). The gameplay of this new system is spectacular,
I particularly am not a fan of how most Fire Emblem games have weapon degradation, so them doing away with it for Engage is always a welcome change in my eyes. The characters are also great. Most of the dialogue is that anime level of cringe sometimes where you can’t believe that this is the script that made it through production.
The character designs and some dialogue is charming, and I like the characters’ personalities. However the overarching story is complete nonsense. To be honest, I know not many people go to Fire Emblem for the story so this is not really any kind of a dealbreaker for me in any way, it’s just the typical Fire Emblem nonsense plot people expect. I just feel like this installment has an extra level of nonsense with its clearly “More of a Mary Sue then ever” main character, which the series constantly feels like it’s trying to one up itself with.
Overall Engage is a fun game and the DLC also provides enough content with all of the waves out for it to be a worthwhile and enjoyable Strategy RPG experience even for those who are not masters of the series.
This review is cross posted from The Fig Tree website. You can find the original article here:
https://figleafgamingnetwork.wordpress.com/2023/04/17/fire-emblem-engage-review/
Fire Emblem Engage provides the player with tools to mitigate the things that have provided me with decision anxiety regarding the series games in the past.
Fire Emblem Engage was released in January of 2023 with also 4 DLC waves that were released in relative quick succession with the last one being released the first week of April. At first I was weary about picking this game up: I never ended up getting through even half of one story route of Three Houses so I was concerned that the same would end up happening with this game. Needless to say, I was able to get through and beat Engage.
From beating the game on normal, it definitely feels like the default difficulty for this game is supposed to be hard, I felt myself cruising through the game without much hardship save for the DLC campaign chapters for Fell Xenologue. However easy the normal mode felt, Engage came with some QOL improvements that made my time with the game less stressful and prone to decision anxiety.
The Engage mechanic is the flagship mechanic of this game and its a wonderful system that adds a layer of strategy to each fight. Each Engage lasts 3 turns (with some skills or bond levels raising the number of turns a unit can stay engaged for) and for each Engage, the unit gets a special attack that can pretty much erase a unit off the battlefield. Your opponents frequently also have access to this power which leads to some crafty strategies needing to be formed to kill some units (especially bosses). The gameplay of this new system is spectacular,
I particularly am not a fan of how most Fire Emblem games have weapon degradation, so them doing away with it for Engage is always a welcome change in my eyes. The characters are also great. Most of the dialogue is that anime level of cringe sometimes where you can’t believe that this is the script that made it through production.
The character designs and some dialogue is charming, and I like the characters’ personalities. However the overarching story is complete nonsense. To be honest, I know not many people go to Fire Emblem for the story so this is not really any kind of a dealbreaker for me in any way, it’s just the typical Fire Emblem nonsense plot people expect. I just feel like this installment has an extra level of nonsense with its clearly “More of a Mary Sue then ever” main character, which the series constantly feels like it’s trying to one up itself with.
Overall Engage is a fun game and the DLC also provides enough content with all of the waves out for it to be a worthwhile and enjoyable Strategy RPG experience even for those who are not masters of the series.
This review is cross posted from The Fig Tree website. You can find the original article here:
https://figleafgamingnetwork.wordpress.com/2023/04/17/fire-emblem-engage-review/