Fire Emblem™ Engage - Nintendo Switch

I only recently started the game and have just finished Chapter 7. So far it is a great game! However, I wish the exploration portion of the game, where you move around the players base, was closer to Three Houses and Three Hopes, where all of the players allies had dialogue regarding what happened in the last chapter, such as how the feel and think about the previous chapters events and revelations.Engage however, has them, so far, repeating random dialogue that doesn't relate to what just happened in the previous chapter at all. For example, Chapter 7 has a battle take place on a bridge. After the battle is over, one of the characters rambles about how she likes exercise, which has nothing to do with the battle. Sometimes even post-battle dialogue is random, like Anna mentioning that some leaves are the same color as her hair, or Framme gushing that she felt empowered when the player character looked at her, something Framme does all the time.This lack of unique dialogue makes the characters sort of generic and bland. Like Louis the Armored Spear Knight. You could replace him with any other Knight from the franchise, like Gilliam from Sacred Stones, and his lines would still be random, as the only unique thing about his (Louis) personality his he likes observing people.Although, this could be justified, as the Chapters of Three Houses/Three Hopes took place over the course of weeks or months, giving you enough time to explore, where as the chapters of Engage take place, more or less, directly after each other.Sorry if that went on for to long.Update: Fire Emblem Engage is certainly harder than the other games of the series I have played. The Skirmishes especially. The enemies blitzkrieg you right from the start, and depending on the level of your units, you may be facing promoted troops with high-level weapons. Also, you do not get much in the way of Gold to buy new stuff.2nd Update: In addition to not getting enough gold, you need Iron, Steel, and Silver Ingots to forge and upgrade weapons. You find these by exploring battlefields after the battle is over, and the number you find increases with the Donation Level, or how much gold you donate to the region the battle took place in. These donations require large sums of gold, gold that, again, you do not get much of. Anyway, like I said, the Ingots are used to forge and upgrade your weapons. This is all well and good, but when you need over 300 hundred Iron Ingots and X number of Steel and Silver Ingots to upgrade a Silver Sword for example, in addition to say 10,000 Gold, its just ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous, you even need Iron, Steel, and Silver Ingots to upgrade the magic tomes that Mages use. Really, you need metal ingots to upgrade a book? What sense does that make? You even buy cloths from the boutique with Iron, Steel, and Silver Ingots!

-I will start with the negative...The story is really, really bad and a huge step down from Three Houses. The supports are a large step back as well and feel one note and shallow. You could say Three Houses characters could be one note as well, and I would agree, but they had paralogues that would expand their character further outside of supports. Both these aspects feels more in line with Fates and makes me feel like they are going to unsuccessfully attempt to sell me creepy figures in the next few months.-The positive is this may be mechanically the most solid Fire Emblem game in a long time.Once I pushed through the creep and the game opened up and expanded it is very solid and the customization which seems limited at first with only 3 skills quickly expands out of control with your JoJo stands. Stepping the class system back to be more rigid like older entries, but combined with your Emblem Stands to either diversify/expand what the class can do, or quadruple down on what it does already but better is one of the most interesting aspects to the system that encourages tinkering and experimenting.As much as I loved what Three Houses did right (particularly story wise) it always felt like a tactical Persona that was retreading some things from FE4 which I really did enjoy. This is a huge let down in the story department, but what it does right is put what makes previous entry Fire Emblem mechanically as a series front and center, expands on it, and makes it dare I say... Engaging.

I have beaten the game and I know the entire story. The game's trailers may give the impression that the story is of a similar quality to Fire Emblem: Fates (a previous game criticized for it's story). I felt this way as well before I actually played the game, but I now know that this is incorrect.The early game presents the player with information about the world and the quest they are on. On my first playthrough this seemed quite generic. However, I started a second playthrough and I now know that 50% of the dialogue in the opening 4 chapters is very skillful setup of fairly intense payoffs that occur much later in the story.On my first playthrough, I noticed that the quality of the main plot improved linearly and is quite excellent late in the game. Now I know that most of the early game is spent foreshadowing the dramatic moments that happen later, and the writing quality is actually more consistent than I thought.This review is with regard to the main string-of-pearls plot, the story of the world and the main character's quest, along with the relationship the main character has with a certain plot-critical character (if you play the game you know who I am talking about). The main character has a sleeper good backstory.Many people criticize the writing in this game. I suspect that the writers who main the main plot were excellent at their jobs and this is one of best main plots in the Fire Emblem series. Only Tellius plots are better, I think. It has dramatic moments, including several very brutal low points for the main character. It has some deeply disturbing scenes later in the game.Some of the tools employed by the writers may include tropes from Anime, but they are executed well and I don't hold anything against the main plot writers. Tropes from other Fire Emblem games, such as enemies escaping and reappearing later, also occur in this game, which is par for the course.The side characters, support conversations, and general banter in the army have significantly less quality. This writing is somewhat formulaic and even cringe at times. I was so enthralled by the main plot (and that plot-critical character mentioned above) that I can't hold it against this game that the auxiliary writing is sub-par.As for gameplay, it is the best in the series. The new Emblem Rings perfectly capture the gameplay style of various characters throughout the series. For example, the character Ike from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn had a play style that involved being very tanking and suddenly healing to full HP using the Aether ability. This gameplay quirk is captured perfectly in Fire Emblem Engage. It is interesting to see how the playstyles of different characters from past games can interact with each other. These interactions are very deep, and I don't see myself going back to older Fire Emblem games after having been spoiled by this one.