Topic: Fire Emblem Engage for Nintendo Switch

@Buizel maybe zoom in a bit more? I was having issues playing/telling characters until I thickened the gridlines and zoomed in some.

Trying out Anna as a high priest. I was nervous because I was so reliant on her axe swinging but she punches pretty hard and that works for me! The luck growths are paying off literally.

I need to stop doing skirmishes and focus on the main story. The last 3 sessions have been all skirmishes and paralogues lol. I think I'm 24ish hrs in and only at chapter 14? Crazy talk!

Just beat Chapter 15. Game is so freaking good, it's all I think about from the moment I wake up, all day at work... it's just like my first experience with Awakening.

I realize now what I was missing- challenge. This game does Hard Classic so gosh dang well, I feel like a crack addict who's gotta get his strategy fix.

I fear it's gonna ruin my Blue Houses playthrough though. After experiencing proper maps and strategic depth, I'm not sure anything but a Maddening Engage run or Fates Conquest/Revelation will scratch this itch now. Just sucks Fates doesn't have rewinds, which makes it much harder to deal with. Maybe... maybe it's time to do an Ironman run in Fates. There's certainly enough characters to do so, and there's a special staff that revives the last fallen unit you can get (though it only has 2 uses). And it's not the end of the world to restart if needed.

Got another 2 S-rank rings (though neither have skills). And beat Lucina's paralog. Time to knock out Lyn's and the other few I've unlocked.

@Grumblevolcano We already know what they are

@Ryu_Niiyama
Got my Anna up to Level 20, but didn't have a Master Seal so she's still in her base class, and still only has 7 Def. But on Ch 15 I made at least 2k from her. As long as she has Tiki I don't have to worry about her dying. Gave her Mentorship and Lineage to boost XP.

Hopefully the item shop will restock Master Seals after that chapter so I can get her some frickin defense.

Well... no Master seals still. Wish I'd saved one- I bought all 5 from the store and used them a couple chapters ago. Ended up using a second seal to make Anna an armored unit to get her some defense growth until a master seal comes along. Hit Lv 20 with Tiki though for that HP/Luck +10, and bought Luck +4 from Byleth which takes her up to Lck = 27 for the time being. And it doubled her defense to 16, so that's cool.

I have 4 paralogs I need to do, will probably do one more main chapter (16) until I can get a Master seal, promote Anna, then start hitting the paralogs for growths. Feel like by the time I promote her, her EXP growth will be at a crawl.

@NintendoByNature
Ha! I'm... wait for it... 60 hours in and only just now starting chapter 16 😉 And I've only done 1 paralog and 4-5 skirmishes total.

I spend so much time scrutinizing weapons and inventory and shopping upgrades- that's the addictive nature of Fire Emblem for me, always has been. I've never played a FE I didn't get 100+ hours from in a single playthrough.

Oh man, Mage Knight and the horse gets a little witches hat. Best class confirmed.

Also it turns out open shirts are just a feature of the Warrior class... For some reason, so shirtless Vander it is. Dude is shredded despite being so old.

@JaxonH holy smokes dude! Thats insane! Glad you're getting some good mileage out of it. I know I am, but now I'm looking to advance the story. I'll admit though, I only slightly take of the somnial. Most of the time, I just stock up on vulnearies, refine/engrave a weapon, do some training, and have a meal. I don't fiddle all that much with bond rings and such. I see you guys talking about that, and abilities etc. Unfortunately I've neglected a bit of that in FE Engage. Still enjoying my time and kicking ar$e though, so all is good.

@JaxonH yeah the seal rations are killing me. But I hear after Chapter 18 it gets better so hang in there! I’m still camped on chapter 9 so it will be a while before I get some which is why my focus is on resources and gold.

@Ryu_Niiyama
I started Chapter 16 about 15 min ago, and I see one of the bosses is carrying a master seal. Honestly though, I'm really digging Anna as an Armored Unit. The defense actually keeps her alive. I mean, it's half the defense of Louis as an armored unit but still. I may just keep her how she is. 27% chance of dropping gold is pretty good, especially when she can stay alive doing it for the most part. Will eventually get her to 33 Luck through Byleth's skills so ya, I think I'll park her as an armor knight. It's just how the cards fell with her rolls.

I've got so many good units, and I can't use them all. Each and every chapter is this painful process of leaving half a dozen units out that I really want to use, and it's only getting worse as more characters join. So I got this whole rotation thing going on to keep them all leveled up (about half my units I've benched though).

Just got the Erika/Ephraim ring, which is really good against wyrm monsters. I should have brought my dancer to act twice, but eh. I've never been big on dancers, and I know it's irrational because they're some of the best units in the game. I guess I just always feel like they're not special. Since they're just a "use me again" card for other units.

Using the Corrin ring on Yunaka though? Priceless. The ability to use dragon vein anywhere without any cost, even when not engaged, to create a 3x3 grid of Avoid tiles around her... hoooweeee... Just stick Yunaka out in front, create Avoid tiles, sit back and watch the enemies drop like flies.

Question. Can she steal items that aren't highlighted green? Cause I see a whole bunch of physics in the second slot of enemies here. Would be a nice money saver to swipe those.

@NintendoByNature
I haven't spent too much time with bond rings as most my fragments go toward forging and arena bonds. But what I do do is, after each map when I return to Somniel, I go to ring chamber and save the game. Then I make a set of 10 bond rings, sometimes two sets of 10 if I got it like that. If I get an S-ring I keep it. If I don't, I quickly go into settings to quit to menu, then reload the save I just made, then go about my playthrough and wait til the next map to try again. That way I'm only spending fragments on bond rings when I get an s-ring.

Don't neglect the arena though. While S-rank bond rings are good, Arena is super necessary if you want skills (and you most definitely should). Not only do you get 3 standard training sessions for XP, you can train with emblems to increase bond rank so you can buy skills from them in the ring chamber. Notable skills to grab are as follows:

• Every "Backup" unit should bond with Lucina to at least Level 5 (the threshold to start buying skills), and should inherit Dual Assist. This allows them to chain attack from their entire movement range. When you have 2-4 backup units and they all have Dual Assist, it helps a LOT
• Every unit you use should bond with Tiki to Lv 5, then buy the Lineage skill for extra 20% EXP gain. If you don't have the DLC, you can instead bond with Byleth to Lv 5 for Mentorship which is the same thing, except it also grants the boost to adjacent allies.
• All other units can go for Sigurd bond to get Canter (move 2 spaces after attack), a Tiki Lv 8 bond to get Lifesphere (using Wait command heals 20 HP and cures statuses like Poison), or whatever other skill you fancy

Just keep in mind, to buy skills after bonding, you need SP (skill points). How you earn skill points is by wearing rings in battle. When you gain XP, you get exactly as many SP as EXP if wearing an Emblem Ring. If wearing a Bond Ring you get 50% SP. If wearing no ring you get nothing. Which is why every unit should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have some ring on. Doesn't matter how trash it is, just so long as they have a ring to earn SP with.

@Ryu_Niiyama zooming helps a little but doesn't solve the problem, and tbh I much prefer a wider view of the map.

Edit: damn, Yunaka and Lyn is a killer combo. Combine Speed taker, Alacrity and Lyn's doubles...and you're decimating enemies on their own turn. It's almost unfair to my other units.

That combo cheese'd me through a lot of the game lol, especially Yunaka as a Wolf Knight, once the ball starts rolling on Lyn's abilities, I could just plonk Yunaka to the side on her own and she'd clear half the map from retaliation hits alone.

The best weapons for investing in forging, I've found:

• Iron Daggers +4 - doesn't even cost any silver, gets you to Mt = 13 and Wt = 3
• Radiant Bow +2 - this weapon is clutch, and adding a smidge more power is usually enough to one shot with Fogado
• Killer Blade +2: Giving a high crit weapon to someone like Kagetsu with a bond ring containing the skill Battlewise, so each kill adds a stacking Crit+1 turns him into a killing machine.
• All 3 Heroes weapons +3: These are good, low weight weapons which, given a nice forging upgrade can last the entire playthrough

@Buizel
Yunaka is a very good candidate for Lyn. But when you get Corrin, she's even better for Yunaka, and Lyn does just as well on Louis due to high defense doubles, and speedtaker helps him not get doubled which makes him even more of a tank.

Lyn also does well on Alear, as dragon sub-class allows for 5 doubles instead of 4, and high strength means the Engage attack with 5 arrows can do serious damage at high range.

I screwed myself. Learn a lesson from Mr Screwup and...

DONT RECLASS BASE LEVEL.

I capped out Anna in base and didn't have a Master Seal, so I figured I'd switch classes to keep gaining levels. But now I can't promote because my level isn't 10. And EXP growth has slowed to a crawl having already gained 20 levels.

So now I'm stuck with way worse growths. Ugh.

Well, not the end of the world. I'll get her to 10 eventually, but learn a lesson from me and save yourself the headache. Never, and I do mean never, reclass into base.

@JaxonH yep, I've been doing a boat load of training in the arena. Good to know about byleth and lucina. I'll check it out later tonight.

Ivy and Hortensia have some quality support conversations.

As does Framme and Kagetsu. And Framme and Clanne, and Framme and Lapis... In fact, I like pretty much all of Framme's supports. Even the lesser ones are still good.

But ya, been hitting a lot of quality supports lately. A lot are dorky skits with charm for a laugh, but there's some deeper ones sprinkled throughout, too. My favorites are the charming ones, though. The supports that show you a character's personality, though I do also enjoy the ones that tell about backstory. Ivy and Timerra's support is a good example of one that shows character, both Timerra's A-type personality and Ivy's reservedness, yet with a willingness to step out of her comfort zone.

Speaking of Framme and Timerra, those are two peas in a pod, or rather, two fashionistas on a catwalk.

I was wondering why I didn't recognize Tiki's paralogue map, turns out it's from Mystery of the Emblem which of course I haven't played because Japan exclusive.

I think the girl char looks cute. I have three hopes and 3 houses so I am planning on picking this one up pretty soon. It looks like an awesome game from what I’ve read about it.

Is there a class that combines axe and magic? I don’t think so but just checking in case I missed something.

Alright, I've put some serious work into Yunaka and have her paired with Corrin. She can do decent damage both at distance and close-range, and I also used boots on her to boost her movement. Let's see how good she really is.

@Ryu_Niiyama One of the Mage Knight variants uses axes and can also casts spells. A-rank proficiency with both.

So after 60ish hours I have finished the Engage campaign. There is an end game of sorts, but honestly I've had more than enough.

The final boss is a bit of a wet blanket, given the six or so story missions leading to them were really frustrating, with some of the most lazy difficulty design I’ve seen in a game in a minute.

However, whereas a looming ending is usually tinged with sadness, the relief of almost being at the finish line really set me free to make stupid choices with my Units, and in turn probably had some of the most fun I’d had since those early Honeymoon hours.

I know my posts in here have generally been negative, but it is always far easier for me to engage in critical discussion than it is to just layer on praise like you would mayo on a cheap chicken burger. Not much discussion can be had if all I write is ‘this game is so good!’ over and over, even if I recognise my complaints here may have grown repetitive also.

Really to me, Engage is, in summary, your atypical January game. The days are cold, the nights are long, the Holidays are over and the year’s best releases are still months away.

During a really contested period of gaming releases, would I play Engage? Maybe, maybe not. But right now, my life has got a big sad hole in it and here is Engage to climb in, curl up and plug it. Will I still be thinking about this come say the Summer when I’ve possibly now played a few of the year's tent pole releases? Most likely not. Will I even remember this as it comes to end of year wrap ups? Probably vaguely, but not really.

But right now, this game served a function and a purpose. It got me through one of the worst months of the year for me. I'd rather have had Engage than not.

Next year there’ll be a different January game to forget all about come July, but this year it was Engage.

Thanks Engage.

Well, Yunaka is better... but for whatever reason she has a really low speed stat. Second lowest of all my active units, actually. It's really hampering my ability to use her well. Her dexterity was low as well, although a drink that permanently increases dex, combined with inheriting dexterity boosts from Lucina, has helped to address that.

Meanwhile, Merrin's speed and dexterity stats are in the mid-30s, lol.