Taho

You're my evil twin, then! (or maybe I'm your evil twin... 🙄 whatever works for you 🤩)

That's very true. You think so? I'd love to hear your arguments on this, because I found Engage's story to be lacklustre at best, and downright terrible at times (the pinky promise comes to mind as a particularly cringy moment, but several others had me rolling my eyes). It is linear and extremely basic. And I don't think that "It's just as good as the story of FE1 or FE 3" is a particularly valid argument; we should rather consider Engage's story as it stands, on its own two feet, in terms of storytelling and complexity, and that is where I consider it, in my opinion, vastly inferior to TH's story, which is more nuanced, more subtle and less manichean, with lots of different layers and subplots at work that you can keep digging into long after you've finished the game.

Of course, agreed, 100%. My opening post was also just an opinion, and nothing else (reading through it again, I'm not sure it came out that way... apologies if I offended anyone 😇). I'm glad people are enjoying Engage: the better press this game gets, the better chances we have of getting more awesome fire emblem games in the future. I enjoyed my playthrough of Engage because of the gameplay (I don't really care about graphics and animation to be honest, although I understand if some people rate it high in their list of priorities), but I guess gameplay alone doesn't justify multiple playthroughs if I don't enjoy the story, world and characters.

Hi all, After finishing Engage, I started a second run to play with different characters. But around chapter 17, I realised I'd lost interest. In the meantime, Three Houses was growing again on my mind, so I closed Engage, opened up Three Houses and started a new hard/classic Noble & Commoner run (no reclassing) with the Golden Deer this time (I've already made a Crimson flower Noble & Commoner run a while ago). I kind of knew it, but this made me realise how superior Three Houses is to Engage. I've finished the game 7 times already (every route in Hard/Classic, 2 Maddening runs and 1 Noble & Commoner run), and I keep getting drawn back to it, because the world building and characters, the subtlety of the story and the writing are just so much stronger than in Engage, where I cringed so often and felt so relieved in my second playthrough when I could just skip all the character interaction and story content. So I was wondering, did that happen to anyone else? Did Engage make you fall in love with Three Houses all over again? And if it did, what kind of run are you experimenting with?

Here are the features that stand out to me: - BREAK: I had fun with that, and I'd be happy seeing it again. It made for a nice change of pace and forced you to rething your tanking on enemy phase, and your placement on player phase. I did find it a little OP though, and sometimes (most of the time) you can play without getting hit once, like you could with the monsters in 3H, and that's a bit too easy. - SMASH: bloody useless... I barely used any smash weapons and I really couldn't see the point of them considering the drawbacks. Attacking second + no doubling was way too much IMO. They should have picked 1. And on enemy phase, how often have you seen the hulking berserker coming at you, and getting double crit-0RKO before they can even take a shot... That's bad game design. - Emblems: I agree with everybody else, nice one-time feature, but please don't bring them back. - Engaged attacks: they're fun and impressive, but I believe I enjoyed 3H's weapon arts better. However, because weapon durability was made moot in 3H because of your infinite resources, I'd like the price for weapon arts to be a little higher (maybe a simple cool down would do it) - Reclassing: I loved 3H's reclassing system (even though the classes themselves were treated rather poorly in terms of balance). I'm not a fan of the reclassing system in Engage, which is indeed very close to Awakening. TBH, I was very happy with a more restricted system, like you get in RD, that worked fine to me. Let the mage be a mage, it's fine... - Donations: decent idea, but completely underused, I felt - Mini games: I can see why they do it, but honestly, I played each mini game once and then stopped altogether so I could play the actual game. They're not Triple triad or Blitzball by a loooooong shot (I could play Blitzball till my eyes bled). I guess there are others... I might make another post later. 😉

With 500+ hours on TH, I don't think Engage's going to keep me going that long. Or even half as much. I've just cleared the game in Hard/Classic (about 82hours), and I'm going to do a second run to try the characters I haven't tried, then I might go for a maddening run and that's probably going to be it. But I know TH still has possibilities I'd like to try (a second Noble/Commoner run with another house, for instance), whereas Engage really doesn't. At least, now that I've cleared it once, I can just skip-spam chapter convos and have fun on my second playthrough by focusing on the gameplay- which is top tier, no argument there. Whe, I cleared the game, I spent the 120k they gave me to max out Brodia, and bring all others to lv 4, but I'm probably never going to open that save again, except to compare endgame teams. The lack of NG+ didn't bother me so much.

I don't understand how you can make Alear NOT work. Mine's just strolling through maps (and in the late game, like after a certain story event, it becomes almost funny to watch). The only danger is a chain attack band wagon on certain maps. Their damage input early game isn't great, but a forged +5 Libération +Sigurd engraving really solves that. Strap them with +10 avoid, alacrity and let their insane speed do the rest: they just maul through anything without getting hit.

Digging this topic back up (11 days old, not a necropost 😉 ) I'm thinking about my 2nd playthrough with 100% new units, and I'm thinking of using Jean as my Thief, as soon as I get a second seal so I can bench Yunaka (sob). Anyone's done that in Maddening or Hard?

Reached chapter 23 on Hard/Classic and I've reached lv 20 on promoted classes with most of my guys, so here's my experience on this: Best units: Timerra: Oh My God, Sandstorm is so busted. She averages 30+crit rate + 30+% chance to set off Sandstorm, and since she's got like 40+def with the Ike ring, she can tank anything and one-shot counter everyone on enemy phase, doing three figure damage (she did 217 max, I think). Watching her solo a whole squadron with great ether is a pleasure to watch as well. Anna: she's basically a mini Lysithea. She started off as a warrior with the Radiant bow, and already she did great, but when she maxed her Mag at 21, I reclassed her to mage knight, and she's now capping all her stats and just doubles everyone. Bit of a glass cannon, but very reliable as a damage dealer. Also, her personal skil is priceless (pun intended) Disappointing units: Chloé: I know this is going to be unpopular, but I guess she just got RNG screwed. Her strength was really low and she didn't dodge as much as I would have liked her to. She did really great as a gryffin knight around lv1-5, but then everyone kind of left her in the dirt, and Rosado took over her spot on the team. Lapis: I really liked her design, but ended up benching her to keep my earlier units. Later on, I picked her up as a replacement for Diamant and trianed her, but around lv 5 Hero, I stopped bothering, because to reach Diamant's level (and he's definitely not my best unit), she would have needed 100% Str, Spd and Def growth for ten levels... And she doesn't, so Diamant got back on the team. I might give her a shot in a second playthrough. Jean: benched around lv 7. His level-ups just weren't worth all the babying it took to level him up, and very soon, deployment slots just meant he had to go. Nice surprises: Framme & Clanne: the loli stewards stayed on my team for a very long time. Framme still is, as a martial master, she can quad for a pretty high damage input and break annoying knife users. Clanne got benched to make room for Ivy, but he was a very decent sage, and his Mag wasn't as bad as it could have been. On my second playthrough, I plan on picking up a whole new team, with only units I haven't used on my first playthrough. Should allow me to write a second post here in a couple of months.

Byleth's Goddess dance also works. If you dance for four units, you get a significant amount of XP, especially if you combine it with the aforementioned Mentorship. Then you can go to a blue circle thing, recharge, and do it again, while your buffed up units hold the fort. Not sure it works as well as with Micaiah, but worth a try.

Here 's a reclassing and promoting thread. I haven't seen one anywhere. You can tell us who you've promoted, when, and whether you waited for lv 20 or not. You can also discuss reclassing options and how you went about it. Personally, I'm on chapter 10, with lv 12-13 units, but I'm doing what I've always done in FE, waiting for lv 20 to promote. I've arena-spammed Leif to get a lot of proficiencies so my characters have a lot of reclassing options, but I don't know yet if I'm going to go for it. I'm starting to picture Jean as a sword user, to promote into a mage knight later on... Just an idea I'm toying with. What are your plans, or what did you try, and did it work out or not?

I've played two skirmishes and two paralogues... I try to limit my skirmishes so I don't get too OP on purpose. So far, it hasn't worked. The last skirmish I did was a little more interesting than chapters 8 and 9, but I wouldn't call it challenging... And with the truckload of emblems I picked up, it's just getting easier, because it just gives you so many options to choose from. I find myself not engaging for 90% of the map and then going all out on the boss, only to realise I have too much fire power and warp ragnarok/Lodestar rush the last troops still hanging back, just because I can...

Just beat chapters 8 and 9, and I'm getting a bit unhappy with the lack of challenge in Hard mode... Both chapters felt like I just had to move forward and destroy everything in my path, then bait Ivy and go to town on her in 1 turn. But I don't know if I want to start again in Maddening, cause some of my units turned out really great... Dilemma, dilemma, dilemma.

Here's a toughie if anyone's interested, filed with Entrap/Fracture monks 2HVKJ97

Tried to follow up on it but a bug occured while I was watching the replay, just before I could play my turns... Sucks.

Cool ! I love Reunion at dawn (the Maddening blue lion version was particularly interesting, especially with a benched Ashe). Chapter 8 is coming up soon, I'll be looking forward to it!

I really enjoyed Three Houses Maddening. I did Golden Deer and Blue Lions and thought it was great fun. Are you referring to the ambush spawn? They can be quite furstrating. I hear Engage doesn't have them.

Relay trials give no EXP on Hard mode, so I would expect it to be the same in Maddening.

Seconded. The game showed me this on a loading screen, I think, but I didn't compute it to see what portion of Str and Mag goes into the total attack number.

Hey! You did, I watched you play. That is a bizarre experience! Watching a fellow forum user pick up where you left off. It's pretty cool! I only played a little last night and didn't even get any fighting done, I just checked the other players of my relay battle, did the Arena, push-ups and a meal... I think I'm gonna spend a lot of time in the Somniel between battles... I'll be launching another relay battle tonight or tomorrow, I'll piost the code then. @kosutasuI think there simply are too many players joining and not enough tickets to go around. The open relay battles must be gone in the blink of an eye, and only a fraction of all players actually get to take part, making us feel like they're not happening at all, if that makes sense.

Hurray for difficulty spikes! Can't wait to play it.

I'm on chapter 7 now, and the game is starting to feel increasingly easy in Hard/Classic. I hope difficulty will spike when I face enemy bosses with emblem rings.

Hi all! Didn't see a forum to share our relay battle friend codes, so here's one. I've opened a battle last night (CET) and played through my two rounds. I've opened 2 extra spawn points. Here's the code 4LBFW2J

Very good question, if... ! I've put 5K in Firene early game, just to see what it did, but I'm wary of spending more considering that most reviewers said money was tight. So far, I've been hoarding my cash and spending as little as possible. Spirits on battlefields shower you with items you can sold, and paralogues give you some cash, but I'm still only on chapter 7, I don't now if it'll be enough to spend tens of thaousands in the different countries. If anyone's further in the game and wants to share their thoughts on that, I'm also interested.

Hard classic for my first playthrough. I might scale up to Maddening on a second playthrough, if I can be bothered watching that opening one more time... The power rangers music really made me cringe... 😬 I'm finding Hard/classic to be a fair challenge once you get into real battles.