Topic: Fire Emblem Engage for Nintendo Switch

So, I just started the game, and I just have to say that I don't know how I feel about it. Gameplay is good I guess, and the graphics are alright. Story seems really generic though, and the characters so far all seem to be centered around us. The game really does take a lot from anime, down to the over excessive grunts whilst fighting. I get a feeling this'll end up more akin to Fire Emblem Fates rather than Three Houses in terms of story and character writing.

Wooops, turns out I've missed at least one character already. Look out for an Ally called Jade, she starts in one of the battles in absolute no man's land surrounded by enemies. Since the CPU controls her, the CPU just plowed her into enemies and she died. I guess because she was green, it counted as a permadeath. I only discovered afterwards she was recruitable. How you get to her before she kamikazes herself though I don't know.

Honestly in a way I'm kinda relieved, this game vollies an almost absurd volume of Units and Emblem rings at you. And I'm not levelling up or unlocking seals fast enough to give crossover units any identity, and especially now there's the triangle system back, I don't need three sword units back to back, that has no benefit to me at all. As such I'm unlocking so many Units I end up not using.

So who else cried like a baby during THAT SCENE in chapter 3?

How is the English VA? From the trailers, I thought that I was going to play the game exclusively in Japanese, but I have heard from some people that the English dub is actually pretty good. I know it’s subjective, but what are all your thoughts on it?

@StarPoint The english dub isn't bad, but the dialogue isn't great. At least from what I've played so far. I've only gotten to Chapter 2. There is a ton of anime grunting though, so the characters sound out of breath while doing the most simple attacks.

I do sometimes wish I could stomach these games in English, as there are a bunch of things that aren't given subtitles (like the comments people make in battles, or what they are saying to each other when shining the rings), but I tried a very small bit of the English dub of this and thought it was physically painful to listen to. I'm not even one of those people who hates dubs on the principle of being dubs, I just think the dub here is genuinely really terrible.

Found a comparison video here:

Hearing some of those English voices for some of the later characters I've only heard in Japanese. So cringe.

@VoidofLight Yeah, that’s about what I expected.

@Pizzamorg Hearing those side by side, there is almost no competition. The English dub feels so stiff and lifeless compared to the Japanese VA. I also don’t hate dubs just for being dubs. I think if done well, they can be great and can add more to the experience. But yeah… I think I’ll be sticking to JP for this one.

Especially Diamant, what did they do to my boy in English! It sounds like the VA didn't show up so they got the cleaner in to just read the lines out loud.

I said I wouldn't buy it yet, but I still caved so i've played up until chapter 3. The design of the battles is lovely — I especially love the free movement. It makes it feel less like a chessboard and more like real life employment of troops, if that makes sense.

As to the voice acting, in my opinion the male Alear is doing a terrific job. And as of yet no complaints for the the rest of the characters I have encountered.

I've decided to treat the story as a very camp take on JRPG staples (see Rune Factory) and that makes it somewhat entertaining so far.

@StarPoint
Honestly, I think the English voice acting is exceptional. Seriously good stuff.

I get ppl used to listen to JP for PS2 games where the English was so bad it was like nails on a chalkboard, but this? This is not even remotely that.

I'm genuinely impressed with the voice work. Chapter 3 cutscene deliverance was so freaking good it. Heck, it's all good. Every single character is a pleasure to listen to.

I find it hilarious, and kinda sad, that the bar for a "good" dub in here seems to be 'You remember in the 90s when we would get those dubs, and everything was censored and badly translated, and everyone doing the work wasn't actually an actor and just did stupid voices?' Well it isn't that, so it is a five out of five dub to me!

Like if you want to play the game dubbed, I have no issue with that, but people acting like it is actually good, come on now. It is lifeless, stiff and soulless, the English VAs strip all the personality out of the characters. It is serviceable if you refuse to play games outside of English, but there is so much text to read anyway just play it in Japanese lol.

Chapter 4 is where the game truly begins, imo. Full map, and already a different objective than just Route the Enemy.

And, for the first time since the 3DS era games, the gridlines on the map actually curve and contour to the surface! That was such an aggravation in Three Houses. It made maps feel perfectly flat. Whereas in Awakening, for example, the gridlines would bump up and down as the ground wasn't perfectly flat. The 3D effect helped enhance this

Look here. You can see at the top how the line curves down a bit- it's not perfectly straight. And the lines reflect height of the bridge over the water too. I love it!

lol

I remember doing the classic weeb thing where I acted like the english-language vocals in localized Japanese games were unlistenable.

The audio clips I've heard in English all sound fine. Not amazing, not terrible, but perfectly serviceable. I feel the same way about the Japanese track.

If I had to highlight any nitpicks, it's that everyone sounds like a standard American. I miss the range of dialects you have in series like Xenoblade Chronicles.

Yeah, I find there's an element of being a tad too cheesy which is common with American voice actors in games that can be off putting for me. It's fine with games like Mario but with more fantasy/medieval games British voices make for a better pairing.

Xenoblade using Brits to voice actors in those games came about as Nintendo Of America had no faith in Xenoblade being a success and originally decided to not localize/release the fist one for the West but Nintendo Of Europe had more faith in the game so they took it on including the dubbing and after it proved a success they have been in charge of those games ever since. It makes me wish they would take over a few more franchises like Zelda and Fire Emblem.

@Wolfleaf And the accents were consistent between different races, too. XC2 was the highlight of the series in that regard.

Too bad Rex's voice acting was so... yeah. XC3 probably has the best acting overall in the series. Harry McEntire's Noah really steals the show in certain mid-to-late game scenes. He's even better than the guy who voiced Shulk in terms of emoting and the range of his performance.

I'm on Chapter 2 right now, and this is giving me MAJOR Awakening vibes, and I mean that in the absolute best way. I love 3H, but I love how if the rumors are true, the Switch will have all game types the 3DS has - the classic single route (Awakening, Engage), the multiroute epic (Fates, Three Houses), the remake (Shadows of Valentia, possibly the Geneology remake), and the Warriors games.

Mm mmmm... so good

Now on Chapter 5, took my $10,000 military funds and got range 1-2 weapons for every character (javelins, hand axes, etc) as well as Surge tome for my mages, also just unlocked the expansion pass content, and of course got my FE Heroes bonus content already, and hopefully amiibos are now unlocked (will have to google how to use them).

Hard Mode Classic is such a great experience in this game. I have yet to play a map where I didn't lose a unit lol (I never claimed to be all that good at Fire Emblem, only that I love it 😀). But that's making me love it more. It's been a while since I felt a challenge like this. Probably partly why I enjoyed Awakening so much- being new to the genre it was pretty hard for me, though Normal has gotten easier with each passing entry. Hence the jump to Hard.

I also love how you can save mid battle on any turn. I suppose it takes the sting out of Classic a bit but, it also takes the excessive stress out as well, which imo is a good thing. Of course, now I have the time crystal and can rewind, which I absolutely did on that last chapter. You really have to come correct with your strategy if you want to survive Hard Mode. Yet at the same time it's not too overbearing, mostly due to the failsafe mechanics they've included. If there was no rewind or mid battle save, I may have been frustrated by now replaying every chapter twice.

I remember Awakening was so good, I'd have to periodically close the lid of my 3DS and just let my excitement cool off a bit. And I'm feeling the exact same way now. It's why I suspended the game to come make this post. It's just so good, I can't play more than a chapter at a time without needing to diffuse all the pent up excitement I have for it.

This game feels very similar to Path of Radiance, gameplay wise. At least in terms of movement, XP earned (which seems much more conservative in this game- they've corrected course on power creep which is good), and attacks feel much more strategic now as archers basically one-shot fliers, Pegasus knights are extremely resistant to magic, armored units are good again with resistance to physical attacks and breaks (at least in Hard Mode, I think on Normal they can be broken), the Qi-Adept and Backup unit types make Chaining a crucial mechanic to leverage, and terrain bonuses are far more impactful. Climb onto a fort and you're gonna dodge at least 50% of all attacks against you, maybe even more.

It's very uh... unexpected? The art style screams "new age mechanics" but the actual game plays like "old school mechanics". It's an interesting combination and demonstrates once again why you should never judge a book by its cover.

One more thing I noticed- just an observation really, but... you can completely ignore the Somniel and go Chapter to chapter on the world map, if you're so inclined. Now me? I love the Somniel, and have no intention of skipping it between chapters. But. Not everyone enjoys the same things, so it's nice they've integrated it in such a way you can take it or leave it.

One last thing- the world map is gorgeous. Absolutely stellar. I was not expecting the quality to be this high for the world map. Turns out it's incredibly detailed, and you can freely pan the world and see the different Kingdoms and queendoms. Very reminiscent of Awakening world map, but so much better.

Does anyone know how to use the seals to progress to a more advanced class? Am I being an idiot? Thanks in advance! ^-^

In what sense? If you go to inventory, pick the person you want to change class, the option to change class is at the bottom. I don't know if you need to get so far in the story before this unlocks.

I'm on Chapter 11 and have only seen maybe 7 of them so far? So you aren't able to make changes as freely as These Houses. It also looks like there is only one upgrade to Advanced, and then it's a different type of seal if you want to change to other Advance classes. Rather than Three Houses where you went up was it four ranks to Master?

I do think the Rings bump stats though to allow you to change Units to classes the Base may not be trained for but I have no idea what happens when you take the ring off

@Pizzamorg
Ahh sorry for not explaining it well, its my first Fire Emblem game, I've played tactics games before where you sort of progress further down that characters skill tree into more potent classes, that's what I was referring to rather than switching what weapons they can wield sort of thing.

But mostly my question was the 'how' you do it because I know I had some seals but wasn't quite sure how to make use of them, this game was quite tutorial heavy I must've missed it! But you answered everything perfectly, I understand now, thankyou!

That's useful to know, I have three houses but haven't played it yet, I opted to play this first, since I thought it would be less overwhelming.

If you wouldn't mind me bothering you I have a couple more questions.

1. Is there a max level to the starting classes and would it be optimal to reach that before advancing the class further?

2. How come characters level up at completely different rates? I've used Vander an awful lot since the start about the same as the MC but the MC is much higher, and does that affect the recommended levels of the skirmishes, I was trying to evenly level and quickly found out that it wasn't working that way.

Thanks so much in advance, I'm sorry If i seem nooby or didn't explain anything well, I really appreciate your time!