Topic: Fire Emblem Engage for Nintendo Switch

@JaxonH This series has needed the option to restart battles for a long time, so I'm glad to hear it's finally a thing. Ridiculous that you would need to reset the entire game when you used to lose a character.

Doesn't this entry have its own equivalent of the Mila's Turnwheel/Divine Pulse mechanic, though?

As for Conquest Hard Mode, a big part of what that so brutal was the intricate map design and various mission objectives. I'd love it if the same was true here.

Ahhh, I wish I was able to play this right now! I'm out of town though so I won't be able to open up my Divine Edition until I get back on Sunday. Oh well, it's only a couple of days out.

Best buy doesn't open until 10 and I'm trying to coordinate my work day around picking this up 😅. I guess on the way home it is, then..

Just a short question here from a non Fire Emblem player.
Why do people play it on classic mode in the first place, if you are going to restart the game when losing a unit? Wouldn't it save time just to play on casual? You can still try to not lose a unit anyway?

@Budda well that isn't in the spirit of things as that would be like changing your date to get to xmas or whenever in Animal Crossing.

The goal is to complete the level without your units dying in the battle rather than having the unit in the next level as they still would have died if you played it on casual.

Considering that I would just restart in order to avoid losing any units, the spirit of the permadeath mechanic would be lost on me anyway, though I have been tempted to try it should I replay any past game, but it annoys me that the "death" of certain key characters doesn't seem to exclude them from cutscenes, which completely destroys immersion for me by diminishing its novelty.

@Budda You're going to play differently if your units are on the line. Casual mode makes your units disposable, and that'll dramatically alter one's tactical approach. In my experience, the games are balanced around the idea that player can't just throw their soldiers into a meatgrinder willy-nilly.

Both styles can be fine. This developer's other tactics series, Advance Wars, is built around the idea that units are disposable, which allows you to plan strategies that make planned sacrifices part of the equation.

I do usually end up losing a few units in my Fire Emblem classic mode playthroughs, often late enough that resetting doesn't make sense. Their sacrifices are tragic, though, or sometimes necessary to save the larger squad. This becomes even more palpable at the end of one of these games, which typically give little bios about how your characters spent the rest of their lives.

@gcunit I'm currently at work, but I should have mine in about 6 hours or so. If it's anything like the 30th Anniversary Edition, it'll be folded in half. The deluxe edition for Fire Emblem Warriors was folded in fourths as well. I don't remember if Metroid Dread included a poster.

On a side note, I'm still heartbroken that about half of mine got lost in Hurricane Ida. Does anyone know if they've dropped in price on the second-hand market?

@NintendoByNature the struggle is real, man. But it'll feel so good after! Plus it's the weekend!

I play on casual, permadeath is a mechanic that has never appealed to me in any title, but I appreciate why it is engaging for others.

I do recommend though for people to play this on Hard, or higher, to begin with and see how you get on with it. The first couple of battles during the opening felt surprisingly tough even on normal, but then the difficulty has absolutely fallen off a cliff ever since. As a tactics game this might deliver that final third spike so many of them seem to offer, but at least if you start on Hard you can turn it down, I am on normal and I am stuck with it, the game doesn't let me change it. A bit annoying, because I feel like I am just absolutely steamrolling through encounters. I want to engage in all the various systems, but I already feel so ridiculously strong I can pretty mindlessly send my units forwards and clear everything with little thought.

That said, I am about 5ish hours in and am enjoying myself. I noticed no performance hit from trying it docked, the visuals don't hold up quite as well when stretched out onto my TV, but I'd still argue it is one of the nicer looking Switch games out there.

While some may miss the social calendar stuff, I actually quite like the streamlined rhythm this offers as you battle, return to the Somniel and do a series of activities which all feed directly into the next battle. I am already at a point where when I get back to base, I already have a mental checklist of all the places I need to visit, and in what order, to get me set up to go back out again. Maybe this will become tiresome as the game wears on, a complaint I have seen in some reviews, but for now it is fine.

The Emblem Ring system is definitely kind of overwhelming though, and sorta weirdly becomes more overwhelming the more you learn, because the more you learn the more you realise you don't really know anything. Best I can understand it is the Engage system basically lets you swap Units to a different class, so there is a weigh up between picking like minded units and Emblems so the passive bonuses you get when not Engaged have a direct impact on the Unit all the time, versus picking an Emblem which may not benefit the unit in the moment to moment, but have them effectively dual class and cover two roles between their standard class and their Engage class. I've left the first two on the Units I started them on, but I've unlocked two more Emblems since and have been experimenting bouncing them around different units and seeing what happens.

Oh and I absolutely love the quality of life change that now doors and chests no longer need keys, you can break down doors and open chests just by standing on them. If anyone has played Three Houses, I can't quite articulate enough how much of a game changer this is.

@Ralizah
I'm aware of that. But if you go in with the "classic" mentality but with casual mode on, you don't have to restart the game if you are going to do that anyway.
In my opinion, if you think you didn't earn that victory because you were to careless, you can still restart the game.
It's like Nuzlockes in Pokemon games. If you have the right mentality, you don't need the game do it for you. If you know what I mean.

@Budda Classic mode provides real consequences for failure, though. The difference is that Fire Emblem doesn't lock you into casual mode, so you don't have to play pretend to try and eke some enjoyment out of it. Many of us want to be able to fully exploit the mechanics of the game. I've tried nuzlockes before, but at some point I just feel like I'm making my own fun, since the game design doesn't actually support that style of play natively.

Besides, the Fire Emblem fanbase already does its own equivalent of Nuzlocke runs anyway: Iron Man challenges, where you play through in classic mode and don't reset or rewind time when characters die. Crucially, the game fully supports this style of play. You don't have to lock characters in a box or something and pretend they're not there. My only complaint in this regard is that the newer games should give you the option to disable the divine pulse mechanic.

@ElRoberico I'll be playing all weekend for sure!

Apparently everybody of age is a possible love interest regardless of gender? That makes me very happy. The same gender choices for male Byleth were disappointing.

@Suicune we stan this level of inclusivity 🏳️‍🌈

@Ralizah
You don't have it yet in that early chapter.

In previous games there was always a secret shortcut to reset the game to the main menu. L + R + Start. It worked in Three Houses, and may still work in Engage as an easter egg, even though the Retry option basically dates it.

@Budda
I don't think casual is a good option for that. It incentives carelessness, knowing deaths are meaningless. Whereas Classic forces use of the turnwheel or resetting to go back and correct your mistakes, which helps you learn from them and overcome the obstacles yourself. Most people don't have the willpower to rewind or restart in casual, even if that is their intent initially. The allure of "eh, they'll come back next chapter, I could redo if I wanted but I just don't wanna" is usually too much to ignore. And that leads to sloppy, "1st attempt goes" gameplay. Classic allows the pressure of knowing there are serious repercussions, which trust me, it ups the tension considerably which in turn makes the experience more engaging. Meanwhile the turnwheel is a good counter balance where you don't have to redo the entire map, but do still have to redo a few turns and those uses are limited (at least in Hard Mode, which is why I chose it).

@gcunit
I have. Funnily enough one of mine did have a bit of a fold from being stuffed in the box wrong. But the other was fine, and in all my years of buying FE special editions I've never before had that happen. So I really do think it's pretty rare.

Oh and BTW, the Divine Edition is glorious. That steelbook and hardcover art book? Man oh man... it even has holographic art cards similar to the original FE Warriors Special Edition.

One thing I do wonder in this casual/classic debate, is what are your thoughts on Warp Ragnarok? I thought this ability was absurdly OP, as many encounters require only the boss encounter to be taken down to clear, even if you don't take down a single other unit, so you can just teleport to the boss on the opening turn and go straight after them. I've cleared some encounters in two turns this way, lol. I guess this is less OP on classic though, as you are effectively kamikazeing this unit, and if things go sideways they are so dead because all your units are miles away.

@JaxonH the art book alone is worth the price of it imo. Everything else feels extra. I do wish the cards were in a slightly studier case. Mine isn't holding well at the moment.

I'm also pleasantly surprised that they included the steelbook plus the normal gamecase. The Metroid Dread one just had the steelbook.

Oh, and the art on the packing insert was the chef's kiss.

My copy arrived this morning, I love the box art, only put in a couple hours so far but enjoying it, graphics are great on my Lite, one of the best looking Switch games so far imo

Got only 30 minutes in before I had to leave. I'll try to get some more time in later tn.

@NintendoByNature same. My day caught up with me, and I passed out on the second skirmish.