Topic: Fire Emblem Engage for Nintendo Switch

@JaxonH Anna as a Warrior is hilariously effective once you get her stat growths going. Mine is stronger than Alear right now. I have maxed and reset her( trying to get her luck to 50 if i can. It’s 37 with Tiki currently.). But I am still triggering her skill fairly often. I’m gonna max and reset her one more time then move on with the game. (Still on chapter 9). The rest I am just trying to max SP to get starsphere and then bench to move them to their advanced class. I won’t be able to do this after chapter 11 so I am just getting the first half of my army where I want them. Even if I bench some for the story I can use them in the tempest trials and emblem paralogues. Granted I’m nervous about using Yunaka because she is so suspicious. So I hope she doesn’t leave at some point. She isn’t as reliable for money as Anna but she helps.

@Ralizah I know, right? Despite me trying to give everyone a shot, there are some units I've used no more than once or twice, and I frequently find myself looking at the roster and going "who are you again?"

I'm actually growing to like some of the characters from their (limited) dialogue (although the dialogue isn't as deep in this as in Three Houses, I do appreciate the sheer breadth of interactions available), but there are also so many to keep track of.

Add the vast array of characters to the number of classes, battle styles, weapons, bond/emblem rings and associated skills...there's just so many layers to this game that it can be quite intimidating, tbh, especially to someone like me who's a bit more of a casual fan. Still, I feel it makes the game immensely replayable so I'm sure the core Fire Emblem fans will be enjoying this for years to come.

Honestly, there's just so much here that I find myself wanting to come back to Engage more than 3H in the future, even though I know exactly what's going to happen.

Ya, the older entries like Awakening always gave you a massive roster, which in truth was a vestige of an era where killed units needed replacement, but with many new players doing casual and even long time players resetting (and now rewinding), the roster just increases massively.

This is good though, as it gives you an abundant number of units as options, and provides legitimate replayability on harder difficulties as you can use an entirely different group of units.

I suppose I could work to keep them all leveled but I fear that would be so time consuming I'd get bored. So I just plan to keep my top 15 and bench the rest. That's enough for two completely separate groups of 8 (assuming Alear is mandatory), which is more than enough.

If I ever do Maddening, I'll be sure to use the benched units as much as possible.

Yeah the way I'm doing it isn't for everybody. But it gives me that dopamine hit. I suspect most would find it boring since the skirmishes function on real time. But I don't have a ton free time so it is like the perfect gameplay loop for me. Especially since I don't plan on doing a second run any time soon. The linear FEs don't really call me to play again. Also Anna has amazing offensive magic stat growth so I may make her into a distance mini nuke.

@Buizel I feel like people kind of naturally gravitate toward the lords as well, but some of the characters you recruit alongside them are awesome. Merrin is increasingly looking to be a permanent addition to my away team, for example.

Yeah Merrin whips. I find myslef using the lords' assistants more than the lords proper.

@Ralizah Merrin is one of the characters I forgot about Dx. I honestly couldn't tell you anything about her.

I actually tend to avoid the lords in pursuit of a more "well-rounded" team. But if anything, I think I end up prioritising my earlier units for the familiarity.

@Ralizah
I much prefer the retainers.

Alfred and Diamont are benched. Ivy and Timerra I'm using though.

But Merrin, absolute unit like Yunaka. Bunet, Kagetsu, Louis, Chloe... units. I need to get Celine and Citrinne back in rotation but always feel others are needed more, now that Clanne and Ivy are promoted and Clanne has Excalibur with that bond ring 20% dmg bonus.

Just realized though, using Clanne and Ivy as mages leaves me with no Mystical units, which can ignore enemy terrain bonuses. Dang... now I really need to pick a Mystical and level them up.

Maybe after I finish Chapter 14 I'll do the Lv 19 paralog for Lyn, then do some skirmishes to level up Anna, Celine and Citrinne.

Always gotta have 2 backup units though for chain attacks. And Lyn's emblem engage attack is so clutch. In this map I had to chase thieves on far left and right corners of map. I chose right side and barely caught the thief after they robbed the chests. But the one on the left, there was no way to catch them. But with Alear moving toward left side on bottom, I was able to use that 5 arrow attack all the way across the map and catch the thief one turn before they exited- the range of the arrows barely caught them on the final tile.

I'm about to go full gangster in the boss room. Got Timerra with Ike, and Alear with Lyn to produce Illusory doubles, and Framme with Tiki gave Timerra a life stone... gonna bait everyone close with the doubles and then Final Smash the whole familia.

I know it seems like I am absolutely ***** on everything lol but the roster is way too damn big as far as I am concerned. Especially as after giving me clumps of Units for like a dozen or so chapters, it then just suddenly... stops? Why not spread this out better at least?

I also have to wonder if all the Support/Bond conversations are so weak is because they have so many characters to manage and this why characters are lumped into the same four or so archetypes over and over. Like you have the ones that just talk about food. The ones who just talk about fitness. The ones who talk about projecting a façade etc etc

I guess part of this is done as if you are playing I guess the "intended" way you are going to be losing Units, so these keep you topped up, and I couldn't imagine how unbelievably frustrating and impossibly challenging this would be without this, if playing in a way where death is permanent.

But for me playing on Casual it is just complete overkill. So many Units I have used for maybe one mission and then never again. There is no way to level them up the ones that fall behind either, as we discussed, so they basically just took up UI real estate and offer me nothing else.

I would have much preferred a game with a smaller cast of characters, who were all better written, that I could actually care about, personally, but I recognise the necessary evil of this. Or at least assume that.

@Pizzamorg I agree. I've been given so many characters at this point that it's impossible for me to keep them all leveled similarly. I understand this decision being made for Classic mode, but I'm also playing on Casual and it feels like complete overkill. I think TH had a good balance with this, you were given a limited number of characters to start out with, which kept Casual mode from feeling too overwhelming. But if your units died in Classic, you could just recruit more from the other classes.

Plus, the somewhat limited cast of TH really helped with developing characters and feeling more connected to them. Having like 30 characters in Engage who are obsessed with tea and are ridiculously polite to one another is not an effective way of having a memorable cast.

@JaxonH I'm still using several of the lords (although I've shelved Alfred; there might be a way to make him good, but I don't want to waste any more resources or exp on trying to improve him), but I try to always mix them up with other, stronger units. I was initially keeping weaklings in my party to try and level them up, but there's too much choice now to bother with that. Admittedly, I haven't had much use for Yunaka so far, and have instead adopted Etie as my token covert unit. I'll experiment more with Yunaka and a few others I've benched once I get the rings back and have expanded my tactical options.

@Pizzamorg @StarPoint Three Houses actually has more playable characters than Engage when you count the DLC expansion, lol.

https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_characters_in_Fire...

https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_characters_in_Fire...

The way these characters are written has nothing to do with the size of the cast. Different people worked on the two games pretty much across the board, so the tone and style of the characterizations is just different.

@Ralizah Yeah I’m not saying the difference is due to the number of characters, especially considering that both games have a pretty similar size. Rather, it’s being able to focus on around 10-15 at a time instead of being thrown into every character’s story and support conversations at once. While there is certainly a difference in the quality of characters between the two games, I think part of it also boils down to the player being able to focus on a smaller portion of those characters at a time.

But, people have different viewpoints and opinions on the characters, and I respect that. I just personally preferred the smaller, more focused cast per story playthrough in Three Houses, even though both games do end up having a similar number of characters overall.

Just got the Fire Emblem If Visual Works art book from Amazon Japan.

Thought I'd share a few images from its pages. It's a super nice art book if you're a fan of Yusuke Kozaki's work

@Ralizah
Oooohoho... dude, Yunaka is one of the best units in the game. For real. Don't sleep on her. Give her Iron Daggers +4 for Mt = 13 and Wt = 3 and park her in an Avoid +30 tile and watch half their army get wrecked.

I just watched a video that ranks all characters based on stat growths, and Etie was dead last- 36/36 on the ranking scale. Of course, stat growths are randomized so it's completely possible to have the worst growth unit dominating, and have one of the best growth units sucking. But as soon as I saw that I was like yup, that explains it. It's why I switched to Alcryst and even he falls in the bottom 25% growths-wise. I eventually switched him for Fogado in ch. 13 which turns out is in the top 25% for growths. He hasn't done that great so far, but certainly a bit better than Etie and Alcryst were.

Merrin is one of the best too, btw. Jean is the 2nd best in the game. Kagetsu is 3rd, Anna is 4th (which has now fully convinced me to commit to building Anna up). Won't spoil #1 since neither of us have them yet.

But ya, Yunaka is a beast. Even better than Merrin. At least, my Yunaka is. Not by much, and they may even be toe to toe now that I crafted an Iron Dagger +4 for Merrin to match Yunaka. But, ya. If you love Merrin, Yunaka is basically like her. Can let her stay a thief for best growths (thieves can level up to 40 without class change- that's what I'm doing, saves a seal too), or promote to Wolf Knight for almost just as good growths as Thief.

I was shocked to see Celine is one of the top units for growths, and Alfred is above average as well. Meanwhile Citrinne is one of the worst 😞 Turns out Ivy and Clanne are also in bottom tier, but I don't care. My Ivy is good and my Clanne is one of THE best units on my team. Guess I just got lucky level ups.

Lucina Emblem on Merrin.

Think about it.

Lucina Emblem grants the ability to chain attack even if unit isn't in the "Backup" sub-class, so it's best to give to a non-Backup unit to maximize gains (check).

Secondly, wolf knight has cavalier range, which means more range for chain attacking (since the Emblem also allows Chain Attacks on any enemy within movement range), so it's best to give to a unit with high movement (also check).

Thirdly, Merrin uses daggers, and daggers inflict poison, and poison increases damage from subsequent attacks. And guess what, using daggers in a chain attack also applies the poison status, so it's best to give to a unit with daggers (aaaand that's a check).

Lucina and Merrin. That's the post.

Whenever there is a skirmish in an area that has avoid terrain I just take my main three and cash out. Especially now that I second sealed anna and the difficulty dropped but not her stats lmao. I’m just like “fear this 11 year old!” Anna is wrecking folks like the gross sisters from Proud Family. Hands up, cash out!

@Ryu_Niiyama
I'm so leveling Anna up starting tomorrow (Friday evenings I'm too tired to game). Going full skirmish with Tiki ring, and Divine Blessing every time.

Besides, I needed a good Warrior axe user that's a Backup sub-class. Jade is a good armored axe user, and Bunet is a good calvary Great Knight axe/sword user. But with Chain Attacks playing such a crucial role in dealing damage, I need more than just Kagetsu and Timerra (and Merrin with the Lucina ring). Throw Anna in the mix, with a dual assist proc 35% of the time for each unit, and that's basically a guarantee for at least one proc each turn, probably 2-3 in many cases. Especially if able to get them Dual Assist+ for 70% proc.

If I'd known Anna was the best unit in the game I would have never slept on her. It ain't even about the money at this point (although it's a nice benefit also).

I think this is even evidenced by the game itself, Yunaka has to be one of the most memorable characters in the entire game and she is one of the few characters in the entire game who is introduced on her own. It seems no coincidence that all the characters that are introduced in clumps of threes are far less memorable than she ever is.

Fair enough, was just trying to give the benefit of the doubt lol given the reputation I have here, but fine, whatever. The large cast isn't an excuse, the writing in Engage is just flat bad then.

Three Houses gave you a choice, which I think matters. You could play with just the "canon" roster of core characters to the route you were on if you wanted, or you could go out and bloat your roster with recruits if you wanted, but then that became your problem to manage, rather than forcing that problem on the player.

And you are right, it is one thing that every character in this game is just built around a single hyper fixation and never gets any deeper than that, but another thing entirely when you have half a dozen characters who all have the same hyper fixation as well, so they couldn't even make that part memorable, either. Just really poor, lazy, writing as far as I am concerned.

@JaxonH That's why I put Lucina on Merrin as soon as I had the opportunity. She can literally chain attack halfway across the map with Dual Assist+, lmao. And it triggers 70%+ of the time now.