Topic: Fire Emblem Engage for Nintendo Switch

I actually love dialogue trees, branching narrative, choices etc and I think Three Houses was certainly ambitious, but the idea you had to play a 40 to 50ish hour (rushed on the easiest difficulty) game three times to get a complete understanding of the story is sorta bizarre to me. And I'm sure some people will argue playing one branch will be enough, and I guess in a sense it will be because you don't know what you are missing outside of the branch you chose, but you are still missing huge chunks of stuff or coming to incorrect conclusions on events based soley on the biased voices of one playthrough.

@SothisPocus Three Houses was an epic in every sense. I love that about the game, and wouldn't change it. But (as much as it pains me to say this) I do think the Fates approach where the three routes end up feeling like three entirely different campaigns would have been preferable.

@Pizzamorg The critical thing for me is that the first half of the game is almost identical between routes. Not a great choice for those of us who just wanted the new story content.

Also, while I'd badmouthing my favorite Fire Emblem game, I'll say this: giving you the option to recruit students from other houses was a mistake. It removes a lot of the flavor of each individual playthrough when you can just easily snatch up all of the students you're interested in.

@Ralizah
Agreed on that last point.

I specifically restrained myself from recruiting other house members on all my playthroughs. I want to experience them in their own story path and not spoil it by getting greedy. Besides, every recruit is one less spot for the default party members, and I want to experience each full party as intended.

While it may have been a mistep, the fact you can simply choose to not do so makes it a complete non-issue for me.

@SothisPocus I'm hoping the Geneology remake includes Thracia, even if I know it probably won't happen.

@Pizzamorg I agree that it shouldn't take that long to even get to what makes them really unique. The worst part is that there kind of can't be a "shortcut" to immediately get you to the point where you'd be locking in your route. That's one thing I will say that Fates did really well.

@Ralizah I agree about recruiting the students. I did the Black Eagles my first time, and while I love so many of them, part of the game should be having to deal with them instead of having an insane number of units.

@JaxonH the last thing you said is the biggest thing imo. What's the point of replaying the game for different story paths if you're just focusing on your favorites from the previous ones?

Unless you can do it in New Game Plus. I can't remember if they have it in 3H.

@JaxonH At some point, I'm going to do an ultimate set of Three Houses playthroughs.

Play a given route in Three Houses without recruiting any outside students, and then, once it's finished, immediately persist with a complete playthrough of that same House's route in Three Hopes.

I appreciate all the input!

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Nah, that's fine. You're actually backing up some non spoiler advice I've found through web crawling lol.

@Ralizah I'll also consider Golden Deer. It would probably be my second pick in all honesty, but we shall see.

@JaxonH Ah, so no Revelation-esque route then. Good to know, though I skipped that one anyway since it was DLC only. That's one compliment I can give to FE:TH out the gate: all the important stuff comes in the main package.

On emulation: I'm personally fine with it in cases where it's 1. A retro game, especially if it's not easily accessible, 2. Not localized and likely won't be for some time, and/or 3. Patching a game to make one's own experience better (This does NOT extend to online or multiplayer cheating since more than one's own experience is impacted at that point, unless all involved parties OKed it in advance). I certainly do not condone piracy and trying to illegally profit off of it, especially when it comes to modern games. I more or less agree with your stance. I personally don't dive much into emulation right now since I have more than enough legal purchases to keep me busy for some time. XD

@Ralizah @JaxonH As y'all know I am storming through 3 houses (finished Silver Snow, Cindered Shadows, Blue Lions and working on Golden Deer) to prepare for engage and I think that the recruitment is needed however. the supports aren't restricted by house (which makes sense given the political overlap and upheaval that is rampant in this game) and I feel like it helps give a bit more insight to how fodlan works (even in comparison to other realms like Bridgid, Duscar and Dagda). It also allows for more unit class diversity as you manage the different growth rates. Some characters from my Silver Snow playthough have gone in different routes as I focus on their growths and less about having a limited unit selection. It is funny seeing the battle of Eagle and Lion with just the Lords and their retainers though. It also gives a sense of agency to the characters as not all of them are there because they want to be or agree with the politics of their country so it feels like they have some slight say in their futures. I will say I'm really starting to grasp the "warp in the west" type scenario they have going on as Byleth is the lynchpin/monkey wrench that keeps these kids from murdering each or in the Flame Emperor's case keeps her burning Fodlan to the ground (seriously what she does in the Blue Lion's route highlights my major issue with her carrying the idiot/well intentioned but blind extremist ball). I just wish they would have leaned more in the foil aspect for the Flame emperor. You see in a what would have happened if Byleth does guide/inspire them in hints of each route and I am sad that this will likely be the last time they do such a thing for a while.

All that said, I just want to get Lyn's ring in Engage ASAP and kill a bunch of pixels.

@Tyranexx Same with the emulation aspect. I think the only thing that would drive me to Dolphin on my laptop is Path of Radiance, especially since so many people have recently talked about how amazing it is. I hope the Switch successor gets a remake/remaster of that game with Radiant Dawn as well.

EDIT: When did Radiant Dawn hit over $100 on the secondary market!?

I can't wait to get my hands on Engage and experience the game for myself. I'm strongly convinced the game is about on par with Awakening. Even from the 15 min of gameplay I've watched and from the trailers I've seen, the characters seem just as endearing and story seems equally entertaining as anything Awakening had to offer. I highly suspect the reason this game wasn't received quite as well is due to all the Three Houses babies who judge it solely by what it lacks compared to that one specific game, rather than for what it offers. I highly suspect that bias skews perception. In fact I know it does. If Awakening were releasing today for the first time ever instead of Engage, I truly believe it would be received about the same as Engage. Did the game actually get worse over time? Or were there different people analyzing based on different personal expectations and desires in a post-TH world?

It's crazy to me Fates can sit at an 88 and Engage at an 82 (not saying Fates is bad by any means- I was just talking about how much I adore that game). But it feels like the two should be reversed, though of course I won't be able to definitively confirm that until after completing Engage. It seems the community will have the final say on the matter, and it almost certainly won't align with the "Skill Ups" of the world who claim they "don't like the combat".

Given Awakening is pretty widely regarded among fans as being up there with Three Houses (some like it more, some a bit less, some about the same) I strongly suspect Engage will likewise be regarded on a similar level- one of the best. After all, Fates had a downright horrible story and actual bad characters, and yet it's still beloved by many for its immaculate gameplay. How much more then for a game seen as now having the best combat in the entire series, but without a downright bad story or downright bad characters? Even if it were true they weren't great, being serviceable is a far cry from actually being a detriment like with Fates.

It really makes me lose faith in the media even more, and I'm already pretty critical of gaming media at large. At least sites like NintendoLife (and many other Nintendo focused sites who are more likely to have played older entries) seem to offer a nuanced take and enjoyed the game about as much as I'd expext for a new FE on par with Awakening. Thats an opinion I can trust, knowing they actually love the gameplay like I do, and knowing they have the perspective of having played Awakening, Fates and Echoes, not just Three Houses.

@Ryu_Niiyama
That's actually a fair point and probably the best justification for it I've heard yet. So perhaps they did make the right call. After all, I can still choose to play without doing so if I want, so everyone wins in the end. I do think getting those supports would be best saved for a final playthrough though, since there's only so many supports you can grind in one playthrough and, at least to me, experiencing the ones designed for that route seem preferable to ones not. But if that's how someone wants to play the game, I suppose it's good the option is there.

@JaxonH I think another reason that Fates is as well received as it is partially because of the character designs as well. While they definitely aren't the best and there are too many parallels in how they're presented, there's definitely something to be said about how they are so unique and follow similar visual patterns. There were almost too many people judging it based on the characters alone before anything else had become available.

I also don't think the gaming media helps matters because there are so many sites that are essentially doing constant PR or being incredibly reactionary YouTubers saying "THING DIFFERENT THING BAD." The nuanced takes are few and far between, which I think really kind of hurts gaming as an artform.

@ElRoberico I do hope both Tellius games get the port treatment at some point. The prices of both secondhand would definitely push me to use Dolphin, especially for Path of Radiance. Besides its insane price, I'd also need to track down a GameCube or find a Wii with those capabilities.

@Ryu_Niiyama The feature being there for NG+ support grinding definitely makes sense. That game must be an absolute nightmare for the completionists of the world who can't rest easy until they've maxed out everything in the game. Especially since, if I recall correctly, there are somewhat different support convos for male and female byleths.

@JaxonH Fire Emblem Echoes is sitting at an 81, so it's in good company, at least. Guess some people really didn't like those swamp maps, lol.

Been interesting to see some pretty common complaints about the map design in this game. I swear there were previews ages ago that said that this would be a step up from Three Houses, and offer different kinds of terrain on maps which have different effects on the battles within those tiles. I guess that was just speculation or rumour? I'm kinda scared I dreamed that, but I swear I remember people talking about that on here ages ago.

Also maybe it is just because I am watching stuff on YouTube and it's aggressive compression, but am I the only one that doesn't like the visual effects during the battles? I feel like I can't actually see the attack animations, because it is buried under so many different effects even with just like a simple sword swing. I wonder if you can turn that stuff down or off. I don't remember it being this much in Three Houses.

@ElRoberico
Fates did have some killer character designs. I love the artist who drew for Awakening, Fates and Heroes. His style is so good!

@JaxonH Same! It made me really sad there wasn’t a standard art book for Fates the way there’s one for Awakening.

Per someone who's playing the game early:

The game is actually pretty hard. I'm playing in hard-classic settings, and as someone who beat 3H maddening in all routes, I've already lost chapter 3 and 5 a couple of times. You can't preview how much damage an enemy will deal to you in next turn like you could in 3H, and exp feels pretty limited. So far, I actually needed those 10 rewinds, and honestly they feel good, they just make the game less frustrating.

@ElRoberico
Well, there was the hardcover Fates art book included with the special edition. There's also the JP-only Fire Emblem If Visual Works...

Nintendo posted a beginner's guide to Fire Emblem Engage video on their channel.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika I'll just take your word for it. No spoilers are appreciated.

@Ralizah So Glad I am not one of those people. I'm very much ok with getting the ending/supports I wanna root for and leaving it at that. Granted I do grind the heck out of my units though. So I do try to unlock the normal supports, but the S ranks? Nope. Byleth is either single or with Sothis in my playthroughs (which annoys me that she is so fractured that she looks like a large child. Seriously the ingame model for Sothis is tall. She must have been at least six feet before she died.) I did like the feature that after you merge she becomes the opposite sexed Byleth..as if she loses herself so much that she can only be a "Byleth" but can't even get the biology right. She is a distorted reflection at that point. It's a meta touch that makes the whole Nabatean/Sothis back story have a little more gut punch.

@JaxonH Options are great and that's why much of the complaints I see about 3 houses make me laugh, because either someone button mashed and missed half the story and then says the story sucks or they didn't use all the automation/shortcut options and then say its too long. I think IS tried their best to accommodate both the impatient gamer and the lore gamer. Granted I'm the lore gamer so perhaps I am biased. But seriously there is a LOT going on in fodlan...I feel like the other realms are like "WTH is going on over there?"