Fire Emblem Engage Review and Thoughts
Fire Emblem Engage is legitimately my comfort game I don't think any other game has helped my mental health improve as much as this game. The amount of negativity I've seen surrounding Tears of the Kingdom made my mental health and sanity deteriorate to the point where I lost a friend. Engage is the only thing keeping me somewhat sane, genuinely my favorite game of all time thanks to how impactful it has been to me. I wanted to write a piece about this game because of how much I appreciate what it has done for me.
The story is simple and not the best thing ever, but its still the most fun I've had with a story before and its serious moments really hit for me. I quite honestly do not think this game's final battle will ever be topped for me because of how much fun it had with itself, especially with that absolute masterpiece of a song. The characters also are really simple but man do they really help the story hit. I don't think I loved a cast as much as this game's because of how funny they are, especially Pandreo and Amber. Alear is an excellent protagonist as well because of their growth throughout the story. They start off extremely cowardly when they just wake up to courageous but still somewhat scared but willing to do whatever it takes for the safety of the world and its people.
The music in this game is genuinely incredible... and very cheesy (which is a great thing). Whenever I feel horrible, I listen to Emblem, Engage! and all my worries go away. The map themes are also really, really good as well such as the Solm one and Tear Streaked (Ice). This game's soundtrack absolutely lived up to the expectations set from Three Houses and Three Hopes to me.
The gameplay is definitely a vast improvement over Three Houses' which I still enjoyed. Bringing back the weapon triangle helped give the game more of a challenge and strategy. The addition of the Break mechanic also makes following the weapon triangle more important, however you can't break armored units (unless magic does that). Also bosses no longer feel like a slog to take down like they did in Three Houses. Emblems also add fun gimmicks to battles, such as Warp Ragnarok with Celica and Goddess Dance with Byleth.
Speaking of gameplay, the Somniel is fine. Its far from bad, especially after all the quality of life improvements added post-launch for free alongside the DLC updates, but it definitely gets repetitive after a while. The lack of New Game+ also hurts replayability for this game for me, but I heard that wasn't really a thing with earlier FE games so its not a big deal. Also the bonds between characters and emblems are extremely short for whatever reason, two lines for C and B bonds and four lines for A bonds.
Overall, Fire Emblem Engage is my favorite game of all time and the most important game to me. I love this game to death despite my few issues with it (because to be fair, every game ever has flaws). This game has been a massive help to my mental health and to that, I say thank you Intelligent Systems for this wonderful, silly game.
