Fire Emblem Engage is the 17th or 13th or 14th or 18th or 20th game in the Fire Emblem series. The franchise has been a favorite of mine since the very first English release. Since then I have played every Fire Emblem Game and loved a good chunk of them. I played on Hard/Classic and cleared the first two waves of DLC before writing this review. The first beat will be a quick review TDLR style with everything under the read more being a bigger break down of what I liked, didn't like, and where I think it holds up with the series.
Fire Emblem Engage is a really fun game, it's got a fun cast of goofy characters with a few touching moments mostly touching on fairly common human experiences that most people would get sad about. The map design has improved from the last several entries in the series with much more fun maps even if objectives remain basically kill the boss on every single map. The game's lessened focus on deeper characters and on romance both feel like serious step backs from the direction they were moving and the localization is at times terrible making extremally odd choices to try and remove romantic context. The voice cast is preformed very well and the game is a visual treat to look at being the best looking game in the series with animations that rival the GBAs amazing work.
The games story is lacking in depth and in politics, it doesn't have an ambition to really get into the weeds of the things going on, even things that exist in the plot are more a driving excuse rather then something explored in deep conversations. Some characters are really one gimmick with one character talking about tea in basically every support. While gimmicky Fire Emblem characters are nothing new this game has such a weird mix of characters who have their supports mostly be one thing and characters who have a bit more going on. This game has some of the most meh characters in the series and some of my favorite.
Overall the game is a really good experience but doesn't reach the heights of the series best games in terms of narrative or character. It does however have some of the best gameplay in the series. While a lot of the gameplay innovations come from a gimmick I don't want to see repeated, I do want these mechanics to carry on into future titles. There is flaws in the mechanics but for the most part the engage mechanic is fucking amazing and so is basically everything they did. Like two colored hair this game can often contradict itself with things that are great and things that are mid. Overall it's a great title and probably one of my favorite video games.
The stories not very good at all, it's consistent in it's badness, in that it's lack of depth or engagement of it's world remains at the same level so it isn't super noticeable. The personal journey for Alear and Vayle is compelling but it's not a game about 2 people breaking away from their abusive dad, it's a war game that gives you soooo much of the plot on the back end.
It is not in depth as something like Three Houses/Hopes or Path Of Radiance/Radiant Dawn. Hell, it isn't even really more in depth then something like New Mystery Of The Fire Emblem. However, judging it on it's own terms it still fails it's own potential narratively. They decide that the 4 heirs to the thrown can't die but they aren't used by the plot outside of their intro arcs other then to say a few lines. Then there we see clear favoritism.
The plot twist of Alear being a fell dragon is super predicable, the four hounds being constant villains on maps lowers their feeling of threat given you've kicked their ass so many times before you seal the deal, Sombron's motivations aren't revealed until the very last chapter. it's just not very good. The story probably would have been better if they let Zephia be the main villain using Sombron as a puppet, in truth long dead and unable to return. Zephia is the driving force of narrative conflict for the vast majority of the game as it stands. Instead she is in the long line of evil Fire Emblem women who just wanted the main baddy man to love them.
By the end I did like All the Four Hounds, I did like Lumera, I did want more of the other queens, I want more but that more isn't there even as fun bonus content. Unlike Awakening, we don't have fun free post game content that lets you learn a bit more about the baddies and dead characters. Instead, we probably simply will not get more content of them given it seems the wave 4 DLC story is set in an alternative universe. That isn't so bad if not for the fact I didn't care to know more about a ton of the roster of this game. Most the characters are fairly lack luster. There is some of the best characters in the series like Yunaka, Timerra and Merrin who I really like. Yet, it also has a lot of the most broing ones
The lack of paired endings also really lessens the games overall impact, there is no shipping element which reduces a lot of the fun of Fire Emblem but it also really locks every character into 1 predestined fate. Including several endings that are like "They marry some random NPC". If the game didn't want character chosen romance they could have chosen to have canon relationships between characters, sexualities explored in depth, characters with romantic histories, desires, and how those might come in conflict with their roles. Despite deromancing everything the game still needs to leave everything ready for the player character, for us to be able to marry anyone we want. Now no longer homophobic but also the game censors and dulls a lot of the romances from the Japanese end which only makes it weirder.
The lack of shipping mechanics truly is a regression of the series and a regression of the plot. I am totally pro people having canon sexualities and having limited relationships but I am also pro being able to pair up anyone with anyone. However, this game only took steps backwards outside of the wish filaments fantasy of being able to give that pact ring to anyone. Which for people playing in English is still a let down with the lack of I Love Yous and other clear signs of romance, in fact several characters using terms that actively throw away the idea of romance in that.
This too could have been done better, if the intention was for a bunch of platonic relationships, which I think is a bad choice, it's still lacking. The supports instead very often lead to the A rank having the people declare they are friends. Even people who knew each other for a long time before this are declaring friendship at A rank. As if like, they weren't already friends. It often makes these supports feel like C rank supports in other games. C rank is when a bound of friendship that is important should be forming not A rank. A rank doesn't need to be romantic but it should mean this person is irreplaceable like a best friend. Instead some A ranks are like "I guess I don't hate you totally" and that is just, not compelling as a reward for going through so much together.
Then we have the Somniel which without voice acting feels a lot more lifeless despite the ability to see characters in a bunch of settings and in different outfits. It's extremally lack luster and everything in the somniel could have been better.
The minigames are mostly annoying or pointless, the Fishing game at it's highest rank feels impossible, the wyvern game is my favoirte, it's fun but it has 3 stages it's nothing, petting somni feels weird, and the training mini game is a rhythm game with no rhythm. if they had cut any of these features to further develop the other features it would be a massive improvement.
Then there is cooking, which lacks the vast array of voice acted special lines between characters and feels far less personal and far less desirable if not for the low amount of support gained it would be a feature that mostly just exists to maybe give minor stat buffs but could also tank your stats.
The core features you want to access the Area and The Ring Chamber are behind loading screens and have no menu access making them take an extremally long time to go between and making them fairly annoying to access especially for someone trying to optimize their characters. The ring chamber is mostly full of pointless features, there is only a handful of decent bound rings, polishing is nothing, buff the weapons of emblem rings requires you to grind a very slow bonus mode or online. The Arena is mostly hurt by not just little you do things instantly they need to load you into a mock battle that then can be skipped only after both characters have done a voice line and then if your raising emblem ring levels the support has to load then you can hit skip then return. It's very inefficient.
Then there is character customization, what should be one of the best features of the game is utterly pointless. There is no mechanical benefit which is not needed but there is also no real cosmetic benefit. The Sominel RNGs characters so you may not see your favorite in the cute outfits you pick for them and no outfit can be worn into battle a feature that massively reduces the fun of dress up, they don't even show up in supports. It is just a hole to waste precious smithing resources into. Dress up is one of my favorite things in games but eventually I just stopped caring at all because it was just done so poorly.
The Emblem Rings are a great addition to the game but also feel lacking in their features. Gender locked avatar characters is one annoyance but due to how few lines they get in their pact supports you don't get a great sense of character. instead they mostly are just a mechanical tool and narrative McGuffins. Sometimes their supports are great mini jokes or whatever and good like Soren's but it fails to give the level of attachment the characters in the game feel to the emblems which makes many scenes in the game far less impactful.
The way they work mechanically is great, they feel amazing, powerful, useful, and fun. They really make the moment to moment gameplay a lot better and they bring some really fun flashy shit to the table that is just an utter blast to see. They for sure make most the characters feel legendary with the exception of like Leif who sucks.
The map design is fairly solid, while the game forgoes any form of diverse map objective, every stage being defeat the boss it uses mechanics on each stage to make it feel more like the objectives they are emulating and make each chase to defeat the boss more exciting. It's not as fun as the wildly diverse objectives of pre-awakening games but it is the best map design since New Mystery.
Skirmishes are functionally useless for grinding leveling up old pals and SP gain is slow making it really easy to fuck up builds and just have to live with it. Then it is just so easy to become over leveled on accident anyway but the game feels fun when your stomping it so it's not that big of a deal but it feels like a little flawed in several ways. Sp books should have been obtainable through normally non online gameplay.
Overall, I really like the game, I think the game is utterly full of flaws but like there is a lot of steps forward here i want to see followed. I am not going into full detail about every system but in general the gameplay is just so good that it carries it through most the flaws. However, if these flaws aren't addressed in future games the gameplay can't do the heavy lifting. I leave the game feeling disappointed but having fun. My hope is the DLC waves ignite some kind of massive fire in me of "wow this is a master piece" but I doubt the ability of some multiverse story to do that. I just hope whatever it is we see added to the game will add more to it in an exciting way.
I think this is a game that will be highly highly loved at it's time and slowly but surely fade from relevance as a game people remember faintly like "Oh ya, I did like that game didn't I" unlike a lot of the other huge memorable bangers which invoke a strong feeling of hate or love from people. Let's hope IS takes lessons from this game for future titles and makes something that can easily be the best game in the series for now, it's above average for a Fire Emblem Game.
7/10 Good but not great, not amazing, not perfect. It will probably be one of my favorite switch games of all time cuz I am a long term fan and there is enough fan service but the lack of post game, NG+, romance, etc simply means I don't feel driven to play it again and again like I felt with Awakening, Three Houses, PoR, RD, etc.
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