Topic: Fire Emblem Engage for Nintendo Switch

@Polvasti Especially the last three chapters. They're the most well-written on a line-by-line basis, even if the plot goes out of left field.

Nice

They've done such a great job patching in QOL features fans complained about. Just little irritations here and there. Now we don't need to go back to the Ring Chamber to inherit skills.

Fell Xenologue is looking sick

And it's just 2 weeks away!

https://serenesforest.net/2023/03/22/fire-emblem-engage-fell-...

Now that I have finished it: Its one of the best Fire emblems I played so far (I started with Awakening) and definitely better then Three houses (I know, I am in the minority). The game is much more challenging and has more stages too. For example, both games took me around 80 hours, but in Three houses lots of that time is spend on grinding, while in Engage I only did skirmishes once or twice. The rest is all chapters and paralogues, as far as the battling goes. I also love the colorful and very polished graphics. I know the anime style is not to everybody's taste (some very weird clothes), but Fire emblem has never been this polished.

The game also explains things better (though I probably never will understand everything), they brought the weapon triangle back, chain-attacks, your characters all have a certain purpose instead of turning them all into mages, breaking mechanics are a good new feature. I didn't use the emblem rings often, but they are useful sometimes (like goddess dance, instruct or dragon vein).

Though I have to admit I am never a fan of school-settings, so that's also why I prefer engage.

Three houses has a more serious look, while Engage is over the top anime (and man, does it get talky and melodramatic in the last bunch of chapters). The story does get more interesting then you initially expect, but as I said pretty melodramatic. The bonding-dialogues probably aren't that deep, but they are still funny and show the different characteristics of the characters pretty well.

Definitely gonna buy the dlc for the extra story. I will save that for the future as a nice last morsel, just as with the Three houses dlc (I also play that in the future).

Something Fire Emblem fans may appreciate...

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes OST and Fire Emblem Three Houses OST just arrived from Play-Asia. Since I already had Fire Emblem Warriors OST, as well as Awakening, Fates, Echoes, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, I felt these were a must since I like the soundtrack to these games most out of the entire series.

Just started this and the first thing that’s jumped out at me is how difficult it is, at least compared to Three Houses. Is it just me?

@Leon_Kennedy nope it’s not just you. I jumped from three houses straight to Engage myself. Every route I did in Houses was Hard/Classic. Did the same thing for my first run on Engage and I got absolutely obliterated. Two of my characters, one being Framme was dead by chapter 13 and the skirmishes/paralogues got so damn hard at a certian point it was absolutely brutal. 15 griffin knights surrounding you by the start of turn 2. It was far too much to handle. Made it to chapter 16 on hard on my second run and by that point, I had to switch it back to normal. Three houses has a much different difficulty scale.

@TheBigBlue Yeah I’ve played a couple of fire emblems and loads of similar games and I’m struggling, died in both the missions after the tutorial. I think I am on hard/classic as well so might need to tone it down

The bizarro world approach of Fell Xenologue is hilarious. Amusingly enough, I feel like it's going to make several of the characters far more palatable. No more endless gabbing about tea, songs about meat, insane rants about loving pain, or Alcryst's endless self-deprecation.

@Leon_Kennedy Also played on Hard/Classic. I think the difficulty balances out well as the game goes on and you gain access to new characters and emblems. Normal is a little too easy, from what I hear.

Definitely better than in Three Houses, where even Hard mode was too easy, and then Maddening was ridiculously difficult.

@Ralizah hard mode up to around chapter 11 wasn’t a hassle. Using emblems to grind exp is quite easy with Marth’s Mercurius and Micaiah’s Great Sacrifice for example. Using those on the likes of Anna and Jean to boost levels. But when everything gets taken in chapter 11, and you have only two emblems with no prior bond support, things get much trickier. I couldn’t make it that far myself past Chapter 11. I bowed out during my first blind playthrough in Chapter 13 cause my characters kept dying en masse. Got farther in my second Hard run, but I eventually switch to Normal before the start of Chapter 16.

@TheBigBlue Funny. My biggest struggles were in the game's first five chapters. There's still some challenge to be had after that (especially immediately after ch. 11), but I found it easier to keep everyone alive after that.

I'm actually considering doing another run at some point on Lunatic difficulty, which I hear is much more approachable in this game than in Three Houses.

SP grinding in this game is really tough. The new scroll items help, but not that much. Some measly abilities like DEF +2 are locked behind a 2000 sp wall. It’s quite a pain just to get the better abilities like mentorship and vantage+++.

Fell Xenologue drops tomorrow, right? For some reason I thought it was today and was wondering why there was no download available.

@TheBigBlue
There's definitely a varying degree of value per skill based on price. Some are really expensive for what you get, while others are extremely cheap for what you get. I find part of the fun is analyzing which skills are the best bang-for-buck and prioritizing those.

It's out now.

It's very difficult. I like that. Because the Fell Xenologue has no permadeath, I was worried that would ruin the game balance. But no. They tuned the expansion around the fact there's no permadeath, making it harder to account for the fact units can die.

It's the ol' "Maddening Casual" approach. Not how I usually play, but... that's why I like it. It allows for completely different strategy than just "nobody can die, rewind if someone dies".

Just finished the DLC. Somebody at IS needs therapy. I really need them to step away from the incest plots.

@Ryu_Niiyama I've not played it yet, I'm finishing off Mario + Rabbids 2 before starting Fire Emblem but it is strange just how much incest has become mainstream in the last few years. I blame Back to the Future and Star Wars for starting it!

@Ryu_Niiyama Yikes. Haven't played the DLC and probably won't, but that's been a problem with Fire Emblem for a while now.

@Ryu_Niiyama the tradition of avoiding FE DLC continues! Seriously though, wth.

The first few FE dlcs were more fanservicy with swimsuits, bringing back older characters (Marth can’t catch a break these days) and a new storyline usually. I was originally just not going to buy the Engage dlc because the dlc rings are absolutely overpowered and would suck the experience and desperation feel out of Chapter 11 and such. But this is a whole new level of unreal

I will say if you are in it for the battles the DLC has some fun ideas (except the last battle. Somebody tell that designer they aren’t funny).

I’ve just got around to playing this and it’s probably the most fun I’ve had in the series for awhile. Less waifu anime silliness, more tough as fudge battles. One thing that is really annoying me though is the skirmishes are on such a high level, I wanted to use them to level up my less used characters. It’s a really odd decision to have them be on higher levels than the story mode.