Ayra

Hard / Classic as usual, finished chapter 13. Doing no skirmishes, I'm very happy with the difficulty level. It's at the perfect spot where I often need to think about what I'm doing and sometime use time resets without being frustrating. It feels a tiny bit harder than Conquest Hard, but with time rewinds available. I'm having a great time and I love how it's still a challenge despite having a ton of ultra-powerful skills at my disposal. The bosses actually being mobile (very mobile in some cases) is probably the biggest reason why.

Chapter 13 Hard. Best: Chloé. As per usual, I gave the Pegasus Rider some early favoritism as far as stats booster (and emblem) go, but it paid off since she's super solid right now. Disappointing: Jade. Female armor? Cool! Worse stats in basically everything compared to a lower levelled Louis? Considerably less cool. Worst: Etie. She has died more often than the rest of my entire army combined. She dies to everything. She's slow so she gets doubled by most things and she has low HP, Def and Res so she gets 1-shot by most of the slow enemies. With that said, I recently upgraded her to Warrior which helps her considerably. Lots of strength, 3 range chain attacks and sometime can actually survive something. We'll see if that'll just last a few chapters or if she's finally going to be 'okay' instead of a liability.

We did get the Elusian and Ivy piece before Timerra and Solm, but we did get Fogato and Hortensia at the same time. All the Elusian scenes we got in those trailers without Solm seemed to be from when the Elusian were enemies (or Hortensia with her dad, which seemed a very sinister scene); the ones with the Elusians as allies also had Timerra. Fogato is the lowest level out of any of the Solm and Elusian lords we've seen, and him and Timerra are in Hortensia's Elusian map, where she's also not promoted (like everyone else) with low stats. ... Kagetsu kind of ruins my whole theory though.

Firene first and Brodia second seems exceedingly likely from all we've seen, but I'm unsure about if Solm or Elusia comes next. Probably Solm, but it seems far less definitive in my opinion. Cutscene-wise, we haven't seen any Solm member in an Elusian focused setting and the inverse is also true. Map-wise, I don't recall seeing any Elusian in what would be the 'early' desert maps (we've seen plenty of Firene and Brodian members though). Fogato, Timerra, Hortensia and Ivy are all seen as high level unpromoted units in their introduction videos, with appropriate stats for their levels. So I feel it's not completely impossible that you actually get the choice to do either Solm or Elusia first? It's probably not the case since Hortensia and Ivy are slightly higher level and we see Fogato and Timerra in Hortensia's showcase so it's probably Firene > Brodia > Solm > Elusia, but... it still feels plausible that you have the option of doing Elusia first based on everything else.

My first impression was also "Hey, that confirms 40 characters", but yeah... I also think we can't really use the achievement numbers as any sort of real hint as to how many playable characters there are. I'm definitively hoping for a few more besides the confirmed ones and I'd love if we got Zephia in particular, but my hope for that is pretty darn low. An Aversa-like situation is the only way I'd see it happening, and that only happened in Awakening so it seems unlikely at best. I'd be totally in regarding Emblem Lumera though. When we originally got the collector edition art, my first thought was "Wow, that character in the top right looks simply amazing and she has an amazing design!" ... and the next thing we got is a trailer where we learned that she's Alear's mother and, as Fire Emblem parents tends to do, immediately died. RIP. My guess was that she'd be the Fire Emblem Heroes Mythic character for January. Her design is too involved for a "throw-away" character, but she'd be the perfect pick for Engage's low spoiler mythic slot. So I thought that'd be it. Emblem Lumera actually makes a ton of sense though and the idea hadn't crossed my mind at all. It sounds pretty plausible all things considered and I definitively hope that's the case.

I'd be extremely surprised if that's the case. In the Switch era, Nintendo's DLC policy seems to generally be "Season pass is the only purchasable DLC". Xenoblade Chronicles 2, 3 and Three Houses all used that system with content spread over a year of the game's release. Engage's format is identical, so I'd be shocked if there's more purchasable DLC besides the season pass. Anyway, I can't say I was ever expecting to play a Star Fox-like shooter inside of a Fire Emblem game... It's unexpected to say the least... Not really sure how I feel about all that! I don't mind them per say and it's kind of cute, but I also hope that the game is fully playable without having to dabble too long in all that stuff for when I want to do battle-focused playthrough. However, considering I have like 200 hours of Ring Fit, I'd be totally up with Ring Con integration for all those exercise minigames!

I really hadn't expected the Backup = able to chain attack thing, or Stealth having double terrain bonuses (+60 avoid bushes?). It's a nice way to give foot units some advantages to compensate for the lesser movement. We're definitively seeing more and more instances of class-changing. Berserker Lapis is definitively an unexpected one. Regarding what's next... There's obviously the rest of the characters we've seen (possibly being the full cast?) and emblems, but noticeably, there's been a near complete lack of information regarding the hub world, shops, activities, repeatable battles, etc. So I think the next trailer is going to be more focused on the hub world and what you can do in it.

From Vincent's post on the front page: The Steel Blade is also quite interesting. It cannot follow up, but when you initiate, you attack last and always trigger Smash. We saw Smash near the end of the “Engaging with Emblems” trailer. It seems to push back foes one square on the map. Hit once, attack last, smash enemy back. They'd make for a good enemy phase weapon on super slow units if the might is super high, but the Smash is more harm than good in my opinion (unless you want to get attacked by more enemies at once, I suppose).

Is that really a generic enemy thief? https://serenesforest.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/chest2.png Amongst other things, she has a bustier; that's the kind of distinctive clothing that's always been found on named characters in the past. If that's how the generic Solm (?) enemy thieves looks like, I guess they win my award of "Least generic generics". For Yunaka... She is at extremely low HP, with two stacks of poison and with coincidally two poisoned enemies right next to her, and she hasn't taken her turn yet. Is it possible that she was attacked by both enemies in Enemy phase and when counter-attacking them, she puts a poison counter on both the enemies and herself? The other possibility is that both enemies and Yunaka all had poison weapons equipped, which doesn't really seem much more likely to me. As Aggro Incarnate spotted... Yeah, that enemy density is certainly FE4-like. It's kind of terrifying since from what we've seen so far, the enemies seems to be stronger than the FE4 swarms were... although we didn't have insane AoE attacks and stuff in FE4 either, I suppose. Don't blade weapons seems really bad at first glance? Lose first strike on player phase, no double attacks, and on enemy phase, you open yourself to the opportunity to get attacked by more enemies since you open a spot.

Pretty sure Zephia is going to be the first Grand Hero Battle in FEH when Engage gets its first banner in (probably) January. Kronya took that spot for Three Houses. Most shown antagonist in prerelease trailers, obviously a villain and she has a striking design. And like Kronya, she's definitively not one of the "final villain" either, so she's perfect for a low spoilers GHB battle. And just like Kronya, I'm unfortunately expecting her to die horribly and not be a playable character in her own game... RIP. I'd much prefer having Zephia as a playable character in Engage (Aversa being basically the one single exception in the franchise where it happened, and it was on a post-release free DLC right before the final battle) but my hopes are exceedingly low on that regard. My hopes of her being playable in FEH very soon are much higher though, which I'd still gladly take.

If I'm not mistaken, we did see Timerra using Ike in a cinematic and in another there was a big zoom on her ring. So yes, he's most likely linked to Timerra. We got Alear-Marth, Diamant-Roy, Timerra-Ike, Alfred-Lucina and... yeah, Ivy with Lyn if she gets it from her dad, I suppose. Unlike all the other ones though, Ivy-Lyn feels like a complete miss from a gameplay standpoint. In FEH, Micaiah is often a flying unit and she's obviously a mage, so I feel like she'd be a much better fit? But yeah, as you just discussed, Ike gets a ton more attention and I don't think they'd want to double-up on "eras" for the main lords. Marth, Roy, Ike and Lucina all cover different eras of Fire Emblem; the main missing era is Switch with Byleth (plus Smash favoritism). Which would make a 4-1 male/female split as far as main lords default rings go... You could argue Sigurd or Leif instead of Byleth, but you'd still get the same ratio either way.

I very much doubt it means anything, but... Female Alear's engage form with Byleth (where she Aymr an axe armor) was clearly inspired by female Byleth and not male Byleth. For example, she had the medallion on her chest from female Byleth instead of the crest of flame logo from male Byleth (that was present on all the males we've seen engaged with Byleth). Does it mean that female Byleth is in? Nah, probably not. We have seen the unknown "emo skull girl" start the engage animation with male Byleth (but not the result), and it's far more likely that female character engaging with male Byleth = outfit inspired by female Byleth instead. A bit odd, but understandable. Regarding people complaining regarding Ephraim, I think it's probably Alm fans that would be most upset with Ephraim being in and not him.

I'd say it's extremely likely that it's Ephraim, and that the Eirika ring can switch back and forth mid-battle between the two. On that same Twitter post of the same map, we (barely) see Timerra equipped with Eirika. Everything else matches between the screenshots; the same characters wearing the same rings (Ike on Ettie, Roy on Chloé, etc); the only difference is that Timerra has an unknown ring instead that looks like someone like Ephraim. So mid-battle switch between Eirika and Ephraim is the most likely option in my opinion.

I believe that's the 3-13 map, home of the infamous 3-13 NPC archer that usually jumps down in melee against hordes of beasts and yet somehow holds that flank for a while by himself. It is indeed probably Micaiah's most memorable map. It is a defense chapter, but Micaiah herself cannot move from the top of the map. You fight against the Greil mercenaries, generics + the units you trained yourself in the Ike chapters. The position is flipped here though; Micaiah is where Ike would have spawned, making her the attacker in this scenario instead.

Yup, I was having the same thought. If Abby is an Elusian noble, then we get exactly two lords per kingdom. Which would also give a balanced gender ratio (with Brodia have two male and Elusia two female), making it even more likely. Actually, I'd say that two retainers (or affiliated character) per lord again also seems like a good possibility... Brodia's archer prince Alcryst has two retainers with him (Citrine and pink girl with buster sword). The clown girl has two bodyguards behind her. Céline has Chloé and Louis. Alfred has maybe Boucheron and Ettie? We haven't seen any for Diamante yet, but in a gameplay shot we've also seen a yet unfeatured female (?) lance cavalier wearing his colors so she'd be a perfect fit for that. Then the two men in the desert, etc. That's give us 8 nation lords + 16 retainers + 5 for Alear's crew... Add in a few randoms and you probably have a full cast, so I don't think we'll have that many unaffiliated characters in this one.

I agree that those are very likely going to be playable characters (plus the two retainers of the jester girl). These ones though? https://serenesforest.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/fe-engage-november-char-027.jpg I'd be utterly shocked if the two on the left joins your party. They are near-Jedah level of evil-looking. They'd easily win the "most surprising Fire Emblem ally of all time" as far as I'm concerned. I wish they'd be playable, but I think the odds of that happening is close to 0%. On the other hand, the guy on the right is likely playable (or a Camus). He doesn't have a shread of evil around him and he clearly doesn't fit along with other three.

Chloé is my favorite by a significant amount. Pegasus knights are often my favorites, and from a visual standpoint, Chloé is definitively one of the great ones as far as I'm concerned. I will also say that Vander is near the top of Jeigans for me. Similarly, I'm usually not too fond of the "kid" characters, but I do like Framme and her brother a fair bit.

I personally think we'll actually only get the 12 rings. Or if we get more than that, only a small handful more and those would still be main lords like Alm, Ephraim, Seliph, etc. I really can't see secondary characters appearing, and especially not things like 50+ rings. The thing to keep in mind is that this is a 3D game. Each ring character has their own unique model as well as transformation / engage mode and likely voice lines. We've also seen Marth in town with a dialog bubble, so possibly a good amount of dialog for each lord too. It's a lot more work to create a full unique 3d models than it is to make 4 jpg and minimally animated chibi in Heroes. We've seen that the Ring Equip menu features animated 3d models and not character art. You can't use faceless generic models here like Awakening did with its spotpass characters. And each of the rings we've seen so far feature fully unique bodies, sharing none of the "normal" class models. It's not impossible that more limited rings could exist (default class body with maybe a custom head at most, no engage transformation, no voiceline, etc) in order to prop up the amount of rings available in the game, but at the moment I feel it's pretty unlikely. I'm leaning toward 12 rings only, 20-ish at most and only lords. Which is unfortunate since the lords are basically never my favorite characters in any Fire Emblem game, but it is what it is.

If I'm understanding things well, the game is actually completed from a story and mechanics standpoint? A few years ago, I did play an early version of the game and I enjoyed it quite a bit. However, I generally don't play unfinished versions of games since I dislike replaying the same sections over and over. Engage being announced does get me back in a "must play Fire Emblem" mood, and to fill that I'd certainly be interested in playing a "finished" version of this game. If all that's missing is the new portraits and audio, I'd definitively be up to play Sanctaea again!

I'm not quite finished with the Church path, but I believe I'm close to the end. Ashe and Lorentz are the only enemy recruitable students I've seen so far, and I'd be surprised to see more at this point. Leonie and Ingrid were my only recruits; it's not impossible that they would have showed up as enemies, but it seems extremely doubtful.

Bertus looking good! Thanks for the updates. Damien not being a transporter anymore... Is the convoy moved to the lords, or removed entirely? I admit I didn't use him past his recruitment chapter, but disposable bait would have been occasionally useful (or loot-heavy chapters). Sorry for not having tried the updated chapters; I normally only play completed hacks/games because I don't like restarting. I'm really not a playtester... I tried this project because it was SRPG Studio and because it looked decent (it's actually pretty good!). I'll restart for the next wave of chapters, and I'd honestly very happily pay for the final release, but I'm not too keen to restart just for a few updated chapters (even if I know the feedback would be useful to you). Sorry!

No need to feel bad; playing what is most fun for you is the most important thing! With that said, this might be a good "safe" opportunity to try out Classic. Even in classic, you have the option to rewind turns; that should make classic less punishing and cause much fewer resets than other FE games (bar SoV). If it works like Fates, you can also drop the difficulty from Classic to Casual whenever you want, but you can't do so the other way around. So if you end up disliking Classic, you can move back to Casual instantly, but if Casual-with-rewind turns out too easy for you, you can't move back to Classic on that save file.

Well, that quote doesn't necessarily preclude characters joining at different times and for different reasons; it just means that you'll have interacted with them beforehand. Let's take Rhea for a possible example. We know you can interact with her, get relationship points, etc. She's (probably) not playable early in the game, but you still interact with her and get to know her. She might still join late-game; in that case, you still get late-joining units, but the difference is that you'll have the opportunity to interact with her a lot beforehand. A late join for someone you already know very well, instead of it being a random person you've never seen before. With very few exceptions, late joining characters tend to be very unpopular. Those that are still popular like Tibarn are the ones you spent a lot of time with beforehand. So I'm thinking that they taking this approach, but pushing it further in Three Houses. No Stephans, more Tibarns being the approach here. I think it's a good idea overall personally: I'm more likely to make space in my party for a new character I learned to like beforehand, instead of one I know nothing about when my party is already set. Not that one or two unknown late joiners is bad, though.

Sort of off topic, but I read something in the article that I believe is brand new: Esprits Perdus : En escarmouche, il existe des cases appelées Esprits Perdus, qui nous indiquent un endroit où les autres joueurs ont eu des difficultés. Réussir à survivre sur ses cases octroie des bonus supplémentaires, dus à la difficulté plus élevée. This translates to: Lost spirits: During skirmishes, there exists "spots" called "Lost Spirits", which shows locations where other players had problems. If you are able to survive on those "spots", you will receive additional bonuses due to the higher difficulty. I'm actually French, but I'm a bit confused with what they mean here. "Case" normally refers to a single square / hex / whatever you want to call it. So it's basically saying that in skirmishes, squares where a lot of other players lost characters are flagged as "lost spirits" tiles, and that you get additional bonuses for having a unit survive on it.

The amount of deployment slots is more important for me than the overall size of the cast. Fire Emblem generally having high deployment count compared to other SRPGs is one of the key reason why it is my favorite franchise. If you give me 16 deployment slots, I'll use 16 units. If there's pair-up in the game, I'll use it as little as possible since I prefer having many units over a few stronger ones. In the pre-war phase, we have only 8 students + Byleth guaranteed. If we recruit other students, can you deploy all of them in battle at the same time? Or are you stuck with just 9 deployment slots for the entirety of it? Regarding the main question, I tend to favor larger casts personally. If there's characters I don't like, I can bench them and still have enough units to fill all the deployment slots with. With that said, I think that there's going to be "enough" in Three Houses. Assuming that you can recruit all/most of the teachers and other miscellaneous characters like Flayn, that should be enough for me. The bonus compared to other FE games is that you'll already be very familiar with all those "late joiners" since you'll have already interacted multiple times before in the pre-war phase. I think it's going to make them more interesting than the majority of late joiners in previous games.