Topic: Fire Emblem Engage for Nintendo Switch

@Dom_31 pretty much every FE amiibo got a re-release for this game. Unless you live in the States, then it was only Corrin P2 and Marth.

No, I'm not still salty about that. Why would you ask?

I haven't quite finished the game yet, am somewhere in Chapter 20 now, but this is probably my least favorite Fire Emblem game since Awakening (i haven't played a FE game before that), sharing its spot with Fates for me.
The Story really doesn't grip me at all, granted it never had been anything mindblowing before, but at least i felt that at least some characters used to have a bit more depth than their tropes before. I guess that is just me, after reading some of the comments, but i really can't bring myself to feel emotionally attached to the Characters, especially if they are letting out one cringe comment after another in every cutscene. I am used to some Characters being like that, but i can't even build up meaningful relationships between them and roleplay my own headcanon together because the game watered the system down to A levels at max with discussions that are unbelievably short and pretty much amount to shallow chit chat. Maybe that was the case before as well and i am just salty that i couldn't create any couples... but if i can't do that, then i do expect a step up in the writing direction for characters to see them develop a certain way.
The other minigames are also really tedious in my opinion and start devolving into more of a chore after doing them more than twice. The big fun thing to do next to the main gameplay was building relationships and maybe some stats, i just cannot understand why they would remove that feature. Or, if they remove the feature, at least create better characters with a predetermined path to make up for that gameplay feature...

Sorry, this is just my little rant over here, but i found fate at least fun, because you could go so far with the relationships there, even though the story wasn't quite that profound. The gameplay was also solid enough.
In Engage the gameplay is far better and prettier, but pretty much everything else falls short and as such makes the game a lot more boring to me, since there is nothing fun to do for me except battling more and that quickly burns me out...
I still enjoy and probably will enjoy the rest of the game to a certain extent due to the main gameplay and the presentation of the music and style.

@Solaine That's kind of how I'm feeling too. The pure combat side of things is great. It's fun, strategic, and looks great. But nearly everything outside of that just feels repetitive and superfluous. And I have also really been struggling to enjoy the story. It's just incredibly predictable and boring and I have hardly any interest in any of the characters. I put the game down a couple of weeks ago and have had no desire to return to it, unfortunately. Maybe I'll pick it up and finish it eventually, though.

Last chapter tonight and I'll have finished the game. Looking forward to closing it out.

Edit: Annnnnd I rolled the credits tonight. Rock solid game, and I absolutely loved the graphics/style. Loved the engage ability, and some of the characters.

Overall, great 8/10 for me. I can't put my finger on why, but I'd still say awakening and 3h are more enjoyable for me.

This weekend im planning on playing Fire Emblem Engage. Havent played a Fire Emblem game since Shadows of Valentia and Awakening for my Nintendo 3DS a couple of years ago.

so I dont know whats new for gameplay for the Nintendo Switch Fire Emblem games anyway but I mostly bought Engage for the story basically

Finished it the other day. Overall, better than 3H, but still too much filler/repetitive stuff. Enjoyed the engage features and references to past games.

@XandertheWise You really bought Fire Emblem engage for the story? That is something else, but i hope you enjoy the game nonetheless

@Solaine yes i did. Same reason why i bought Fire Emblem Echoes and Awakening years ago. I bought them for the story in the game.

You do know what a game's story is dont you? I dont get my rocks off over new updated gameplay mechanics or whatever they have these days

@XandertheWise ...Wow. Quite the reply there.

Also, Engage's story is absolutely not the strong point. I'd say it's probably the worst aspect of the game. If you're going into it hoping for a good story, you're probably going to be disappointed, unfortunately.

Admittedly, the story was what I primarily appreciated in Echoes and Three Houses.

All I needed this to do was not to actively distract me with how bad its story was, and... it doesn't. The story is fine, as far as that goes.

I'm guessing it was weirdly rude for no reason, right?

@Ralizah You nailed it lol

@XandertheWise I didn't want to talk down on you for enjoying the story of a game, i just meant to imply that the story might not be Fire Emblem Engages main selling point, at least not for me. I also enjoyed the story of awakening and especially echoes quite a bit and would argueably even trade most of the gameplay changes for a better story.
And it doesn't even have to be that complex, mostly i enjoy the fire emblem stories for having a few empires fighting each other seriously and i dunno, kinda feeling the characters and their motivations.
Doesn't have to be a Nier Automata or something profound

Okay, so I'm hoping to put a serious dent in finishing this tonight (I think I'm on Chapter 23? It's somewhere between 22-24.), and I really do love this game. It's not perfect, and I think the characters are part of that. There's an inconsistency between a lot of the interactions between them. Sometimes, it's these really great, heartfelt conversations. I adore Hortensia and Alcryst together. Sometimes, it's just the most bizarre thing ever, like with Hortensia and Celine. I think 3H had the character consistency that Engage lacks, and that's why there are many who prefer those characters.

Wave 3 DLC next week. They really gave us the content quick. I like that!

I hate waiting a year getting little doses of content that in and of themselves aren't enough to draw me back into a game.

I still haven't come back to this because ya, plus Metroid Prime Remastered dropped, and I've not been in a huge gaming mood lately.

But with Wave 3 and all the bracelet paralogs available, it may soon be time to wrap up these last 8 chapters. Then again, if you could all 11 paralogs I still have yet to do, and the 5 additional DLC paralogs, that's 24 more maps. And I'm already like 70 hrs in.

I finally make a proper start on the game over the weekend and, yeah... I'm guessing that Three Houses is going to go down as the outlier where Fire Emblem tried to grow up and tell a more nuanced story, because Engage isn't exactly trying hard.

Ah well, it's a fine game mechanically at least. I'll reserve judgement as to where it fits into the overall series ranking but I'll definitely be playing it to a finish.

@Matt_Barber The story will become a bit more nuanced as it goes on, it's not quite as clichéd fantasy stuff as the beginning would suggest... But yeah, you shouldn't expect Three Houses levels of political detail and shades of gray, this one has a way more traditional plot.

@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).