Xander

You know what's funny, I edited my post and it came off as saying they had no business giving their opinion on it when the point I meant to get across was players who actually played the games more, for longer, competitively, and under different circumstances should hold more weight. Fair enough for getting defensive over it, since I figured certain people would, and I failed the edit.

It's not close at all and it's interesting to me how this conversation seems to be between the newer generation of FE fans who didn't even live through playing the games until over a decade after they were released, and haven't even played through each game (or probably either game) 10 times (Three Houses and Engage are both great games as well but, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, if you started with those then you probably have no business giving your opinion on Tellius games). All I ask is that if you're going to do this at least show respect to the games by comparing them without trying to prop one game up while tearing the other one down with ridiculous criticisms.

None of the things you listed in the OP could cause a soft lock.

An Engage fan? Nice to see!

Radiant Dawn has a reputation for being among the most difficult? I'm gonna have to stop you there. This game is literally impossible to be "soft locked" (especially on Normal Mode if you're considering that) on unless you are literally the worst player in the world, considering you have multiple Godlike Laguz Kings and Gems handed to you in the final part of the game. If anything, the difficulty is in the learning curve on Hard Mode as your experience is halved and the weapon triangle is axed.

Good on you, hope you have fun here.

This is a recommendation thread, so I'm not going to sit here and argue with you (I knew one of you would reply to me, there is always one whenever this is brought up). Whether you want to argue or not, the fact is I listed the strengths and weaknesses of the game I recommended he play (the majority of people who enjoy Engage state the gameplay as a strength, which despite your attempt to defame it, is true) while the story is frequently cited as a weakness. If you disagree with either of those points it's obvious you're just being disingenuous.

Why not play Engage? The game is great. Is it just the newer generation of FE Heroes & Three Houses fans that don't actually know that the core of fire emblem games (God forbid you read an actual book if you want a good story) is the gameplay that have spammed bad reviews while being as vocal as possible? If you actually started with Three Houses and you expect an enthralling story in a Fire Emblem game you should probably play Tellius next.

Can I ask where you got all of the money to fully donate to all countries on maddening?

The one you and I live in.

You can solo Maniac with Titania. Why is the "optimal strategy" benching her?

Probably been discussed to death already but since I just got the game and finished less than a month ago, have we discussed ideas on how to fix (or at least salvage) the story? I considered: what if Queen Lumera and Sombron's motivations were switched and Lumera was the game's final boss? Lumera fakes her death in the early game and her entire motivation was to revive her trueborn only child who died in the war? However in this version of the story the Emblem Rings were lost in the war or never relinquished by the Fell Dragon's followers instead of hidden. Having this twist gives a level of emotional impact completely lacking from the main story as is, and I think a nice plot twist would at least add a level of uniqueness to an otherwise uninspired story where we get no answers and ideas are left half finished.

Does anyone feel like Griss is a fantastic character surrounded by a mediocre story? His story is incredibly tragic, as we find out in the DLC his entire personality in the main game is a front so as not to appear weak so the "family" that he loves won't abandon him. There are a few characters in the game that go beyond surface level and I find extremely interesting as it's obvious the writers put a lot of effort into them, so why is it all anyone can talk about in this game is how much they hate the story?

I love Engage and I wish more people appreciated it for what it is.

Incorrect. I speak from experience when I say as a veteran player I nearly skipped out on purchasing Engage after reading the sea of negative reviews online (go to youtube and type in Engage review, see if you can find one positive review where there isn't a war in the comment section). You're a Three Houses fan and that's perfectly respectable, but if anything, from what I've seen the majority of people criticizing the game are from Three Houses (which is the newest, largest, loudest subsection of the fire emblem fandom these days). Engage was clearly made to give a bit back to the day 1 fans and put out a serviceable story with great game design and gameplay, some of the best in the series (barring the final couple of chapters of course). It did its job.