Fire Emblem Engage has been Announced!

[Zapp Branniglenn]

My initial reaction was double checking if it was a Switch game. Is it releasing on mobile at the same time? Maybe I, too, am being distracted by the N-Gage connection. The aesthetics don't feel up to the standards set by Three Houses. The battle animations cut from the over the shoulder view of your unit to the Classic FE side shot, then cuts to another dynamic shot after impact. This is uncomfortable to look at, and we haven't even seen a full battle scene yet (no enemy does a retaliatory strike in the trailer). And more crossovers, do we really need another? 3DS era, TMS, Heroes, Warriors, when can we put this to rest for a few years? Three Houses was everything I feared it would be based on trailers, but at least it's a fully original game with a unique identity that eventually won me over with its Maddening Mode update.

All I'm trying to say is: Am I the weirdo for liking Strategy RPGs? Does there have to be something more than just dragging and dropping units that takes up half the play time? Maybe it's a failure of my own sense of humor at the moment, but Equipping a Marth Persona does not sound like the incredible gameplay hook that will keep things interesting.

[scigeek101]

I'm of the same mind. The main gameplay hook of equipping the spirits of over game heroes seems like a pointless gimmick. Might not be the worst game ever if the rest is up to snuff but that trailer doesn't give me any excitement for or desire to play it. 

It just seems like a super generic modern Fire Emblem of the Awakening vein. I'm not sure how the past hero spirit thing is going to work beyond just being a fancy stat boost equip system or a weird variation of the pair up system where instead of pair up = win they've just given you a bunch of ghost characters to pair up with. But if it's just a gimmick then meh, every game seems to need a gimmick. 

I think I liked three houses a lot because the whole academy student gimmick worked well with the black slate make your own units customized however you want gameplay. It's not as tight as past games because of it but it's more fun than anything else they've made since Wii. 

I don't get why they don't do a more involved gimmick like, branching story trees. I'd be down for a game where each map gives you two differing objectives where you can only choose one and it changes the story completely via branching paths. Would probably require a lot of development time but I'd be happier I think with a short 10 chapter campaign if there were enough permutations of the route and unique maps to hit the same quantity of a full game vs a normalish 40 chapter campaign or so. That's my preference though. I think most of the players these days are in it for the social elements which I don't really get. I know Three Houses got praised for the Tea Parties but I have no clue why. They were like the most boring and pointless mini game I've ever seen. 

[joevar]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Some thoughts on the trailer (all time stamps are approximate). Going to put this under a spoiler because it got long.
 

  Hide contents

 

0:54 -- yeah, the two-colour hair and eyes are a bit much, but I do quite like the military officer style design for the outfit here.

1:10 -- woman with dark brown skin in flamboyantly coloured clothes doing cool kicky moves spinning around a planted staff? Um, yes please! Tentatively preparing for her to be my favourite character.

1:13 -- She is reading from a book though, which might imply that tome items are back for magic, maybe?

1:27 -- I don't really like Engage as a title. It mostly makes me think of Star Trek: The Next Generation. "Lock in a course for Archanea, warp factor 5. Engage." I'm sure I'll get used to it in time, though.

1:39 -- However: "Lvl 4, Mov 4". I really hope that doesn't mean we'll be stuck with move 4 characters until level 20.

1:53 -- this is the equivalent of gauntlets. Not loving "Iron-body art" as the name of the weapon, but do like that there's a woman brawler now.

1:55 -- anyone have any idea what "Break!" means in this context, because I have no clue.

2:01 -- (so probably no battalions?)

2:35 -- the reposition after combat thing is interesting.

 

 

 

Spoiler

• duality seems part of the game theme or at least the avatar. white and black dragon, rings, also seem connected why Alear looks like that. child of good&evil dragon maybe?
• i hope that confirm pole dancer as class
• it seems tome is really back. look at the part where a girl fusion with celica, and look at her inventory list. theres Ragnarok as a tome and another tome beside staff
•  "engagement ring". im sure thats one part of the title meaning. like a wordplay of engage with ring and engage the enemy (with ring)  
• why not low Mov? so many SRPG has low Mov but still work. if everyone has low Mov with many smaller, tighter maps, and none of open field i dont see it being a big problem. also if we're going to have Fe4 remake next from the leak, then we will have our High Mov FE
• maybe its not just about fist attack?
• break seems like interrupting enemy counter. see the difference between 1:43 and 2:05. the former get pushed one step when receive dmg while the latter the enemy are knocked down despite having 16 HP left.
• no battalion? thank god
• iirc art with repositioning already present since echoes

 

[Humanoid]

I keep reverting to thinking it's called Endure, the N-Gage thing is probably a good mnemonic to get that straight. Some scattered thoughts:

- In principle, ditching the hand-drawn anime cutscenes should have allowed for the possibility of in-engine cutscenes which in turn would allow for the use of a customisable player character. Alas, they probably figured the current engine doesn't have the requisite fidelity to pull that off just yet, and don't want to use the 3DS-style framing to avoid showing the character in those scenes. So it looks like we're stuck with this garish look for the most part, but I remember seeing an outfit change for a character in the trailer - maybe they'll have hats we can wear? At any rate, it's not a deal-breaker, but the game definitely started on the wrong foot for me, and it'll make the story harder to take seriously.

- That concern might be partially alleviated if, as has been mentioned, the game is largely intended as an anniversary celebration of the series - a greatest hits type of fan service instead of a truly standalone title. I certainly don't care about any narrative that FEH might try to present and have reflexively hit the Skip button for years now. If there's a self-awareness on the developer's part that their story is just a fig leaf - an excuse to bring back the lords from all the previous titles - then perhaps it can be treated the same way without losing anything of value.

- My Switch has been largely collecting dust for well over a year now, with its only purpose being the very occasional round of Mario Kart, and checking out the increasingly rare occasions where they add new games to the NES/SNES online service. I have this hot take that at this point in the Switch's lifecycle, the Wii U has still been the better console overall for me. Really need something to turn it around.

- I hope they've learned how rivers work in the time since they drew the Fodlan map.

[Metal Flash]

Now that I`ve taken a moment to get my thoughts in order, and recover from the terrible puns above, I can share my thoughts on Engage so far:

I am pretty neutral on the artstyle, I don`t mind the bright colors.

Mixed on the character designs. Alear looks ridiculous and the evil sorcerer looks generic, but everyone looks alright in my opinion.

Happy to see them going back to more traditional FE style, aside from the hub world. Weapon triangle being back is particularly good.

Since Marth helps Alear open a door, this makes me wonder if the "emblems" will have some kind of story signifigance.

Overall, I will need another trailer before passing proper judgement.

[DefyingFates]

Two trailer analyses from Phoenixmaster1and Sacred Spear respectively, to go with SF's own.

[kratoscar2008]

>Fell Dragon.

>Evil 3 eyes dude has a headpiece that resembles Grima's horn.

Calling it, its a prequel of awakening where you must stop human grima from fusing with Serpent Grima.

Anyways is interesting but worried of no S supports as the japanese rating haa no romance apparently.

[know_naim]

I see a lot of potential in the concept. If done right, this may be the "best of Fire Emblem" game that Awakening was supposed to be, merging mechanics from previous games into one big, delicious hotpot. Seems like the classic FE characters will be used to customize and build-up your party, which is exciting, given how much I liked messing with inherited skill in Aw/Fates.

It would only be consequent if this motif extends also to the map design. Just imagine the possibilities: a Fates continent with Dragon Veins, 3H continent with Demonic Beasts and battalions or stuff like unlocking the Time Wheel in the SoV part of the game. 

Furthermore, there is no indication that the social sim part (if there even is any) will play as big of a role as in 3H, which for my tastes is a welcome change of pace. 

Story and character design I don't care so much about, so I'm not super disappointed. Making the colours pop, the new characters super gaudy and the animations even more flashy I see as a means to distinguish the main cast from the Emblem heroes and as playing the strengths of the Switch OLED display.   

Edited September 14, 2022 by know_naim

[Cysx]

Man, I don't even know what to think of this. Though I do wish the leaks didn't happen, made the reveal considerably less exciting.

I'm fine with artstyle, it's clean and colorful. I'm less okay with character designs though, they tend to range from relatively boring to overtuned with little in-between.

The world map and story definitely don't seem very inspired at the moment. In fact this might be the worst world map we've ever gotten; what they ultimately make of it though, is what matters.

The interface is very good! And the maps seem visually well balanced too.

Mechanically speaking, well Engage sure sounds a lot like pairup to me, which is... scary. It looks like an interesting system on paper, but as usual if you give your players the opportunity to buff their better units to invincibility and break the game, that's exactly what they'll do. But there definitely is a lot of potential there regardless.

I'd like to do a stat analysis but I don't know that we've got the material at the moment. Or don't we...?

... yeah we're good actually. Note that the first stat image from Alear is from a level 5, but it does give us Marth's stat bonuses at Bond 6, which are +2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Spd.

And then we see these exact same modifications on a level 4 Alear on Ph Atk and Spd, with the same Def, Res and Bond, on the same map for shots 2 and 3. I'll just jump the gun here.

For Hit, we don't get the weapon but the assumption that it's a multiple of 5 is fair as always. Thus to reach 107 and for a boost of 2 Dex to push it to 111, the formula can be guessed to be:

(Dex *2) + (Lck *0.5). In this case, (7 Dex *2) + (6 Lck *0.5) = 17 and (9 Dex *2) + (6 Lck *0.5) = 21

Assuming the lord's weapon has an accuracy of 90, which is definitely plausible, yeah this isn't too complex. Takeaway is, Skill/Dex is relevant again, and hit rates will get pretty high here.

The only caveat being that we don't see the level 4 version of Alear's Luck stat. If it's at 5 instead of 6, well this could change things. Imma assume it's not though, since his Avo matches perfectly with the displayed changes in speed. Speaking of which:

Avo is the exact same at (2x Spd) + (0.5 Lck). Or rather, AS instead of Spd. It remains to be seen how Build will affect AS this time around. This one is fairly definitive to be honest, since there's no weapon accuracy to guess. Just for the sake of it, we have (12*2) + (6*0.5) = 27 in the first shot, and (9*2) + (6*0.5) = 21 on the second one.

... this is pretty high as well, but at least it's the same as Hit.

Crt seems to be a mere 0.5 x Dex again. That's fine.
Ddg seems like 1x Lck. Also fine.

Additionally, we can guesswork the lord's weapon as 6 Mt 90 Hit 0 Crit <= 4 Weight. Very average, which is also fine.

Now for stat matchups:

Main takeaway is about the weapon triangle. Neither character gets a modification on their damage, nor does the enemy get an increase in hit. The only thing that might happen is a -5 Hit penalty on Alear, which would still keep him above 100%.
This is unlikely to be the extent of it. Rather, there's a solid chance the weapon triangle is evolutive again (like in Awakening and Fates), and this is an E rank lance user with a low weapon triangle advantage.
By the way, our main dude is already at B swords as a level 5. That's kind of a lot.

Other things include our obvious new Jeigan killing a dude in what is likely one of the very first chapters (note, he has only 6 move as a Paladin, Hallelujah), and an archer sniping a peg. Then the return of brawling, nice, etc.

Chloé's damage of 42 with a Slim Lance is... surprising, to say the least. She doesn't even seem to have a pairup, I mean Engage, either. 21 crit, too. Even if she's promoted, when's the last time you've seen 42 damage from a 24 HP character with a Slim lance...? That's after enemy Def, too, and of course the enemy has 0 in every combat parameter. Something's up.

I'll jump to Céline warping to seemingly any 2 spaces surrounding enemies on the map and then cannot get countered, which seems... obviously broken, we'll see.

So overall, considering it took like two months to figure out how stats work in Three Houses (and actually Charisma took the game releasing to really confirm things), things are definitely a lot simpler this time around.

 

Hm, back to impressions, now that's structure!

Seeing Marth pop up has gotten impressively mundane, which, something tells me, wasn't the intended effect. With that being said, most of the other lords showing up is really exciting. I'm partial to Roy, but Sigurd, Micaiah, and Leif in particular also just make me happy. Lucina, Lyn and Celica a bit less so since they've been in crossovers before and Hector would have been cool, because, as expected, that's a lot of swords (though Lucina uses bows it seems). The rest is fine.

Overall while the concept has been covered by Heroes obviously, it's nice that the whole series is getting a nod instead of specific games. That's how it should be.

Also, the release date ! We're four months away and compared to 3H's pre-release, this is definitely more final material, everything looks refined and all. Confirms that this game could have been shown off a while ago, but they probably wanted Three Hopes in the spotlight first. Makes sense.

Combat arts may be out, as are battalions most likely. The turnwheel I'm not particularly worried about, our main lad is a Divine dragon, enough said. But they do seem to have dialed things back, perhaps in order to make room for Engage.

Monastery is basically back, seems a bit less spacious which we'll probably all rejoice about for now. But probably no other towns once again, unfortunate. And fishing's in, joyous day.

That'll be all for now. Vincent has delivered as usual so there's not much for me to crunch 'cept numbers:p

... Oh, and the Break thing! No idea. Have a nice day!

Edited September 14, 2022 by Cysx

[Yexin]

ok so, quick opinions on what i care/noticed about the game

 

game title: they REALLY wanted to name it "Fire Emblem: The Lord of the Rings" or "The Rings of Power" but clearly couldn't, anyway it sucks that it's called "Engage" both in japanese and english, i hoped the japanese subtitle was a little bit cooler and more inspired, like 3H's

fist weapons/martial artist class: this alone almost sold me the game

weapon triangle is back: finally, i missed it so much, and i hope the trinity of magic comes back as well, or at least that magic has a system on its own and isn't just "ahah armor knight go boom"

Heroes fanservice for home consoles: i'd take a game like this over "you choose you own path, and also your avatar is silent" any second of my life

old lords redesigns: they're cool, especially sigurd. don't know why they wanted to make Heroes alts canon with ike and lucina, i guess it's just for game balancing (you could've done it too, FEW)

new character designs: almost make me throw up, most of them look like they came from "random z-tier asian fantasy gacha game #739". the paladin and the pegasus knight are cool though, and fake dimitri is decent-looking. mika pikazo's artstyle is very unique and peculiar, i like it a lot, especially the bright colors, but i don't think it really fits the Fire Emblem series

graphics and aesthetics: it doesn't make my eyes bleed like 3H at least

gameplay hopes: the Emblems mechanic seems interesting, it's basically the Duo thing from awakening except you do it by equipping a ring (which is better than "two different units now occupy only one tile" imho), and at least to me it looks like the more similar the character equipping the ring and the character related to the ring are, the more bonuses and/or skills the former gets, and it appears like you can also get more stuff by making them bond. also, apparently Embems can wield different weapons, as we see with Sigurd wielding a lance first and then attacking with Tyrfing. don't know, sounds kinda fun to me

Garreg Mach yet again: skip

writing, narrative, story and worldbuilding hopes: non-existent

Edited September 14, 2022 by Yexin

[scigeek101]

27 minutes ago, Cysx said:

In fact this might be the worst world map we've ever gotten; what they ultimately make of it though, is what matters.

Definitely, but it's a big ring in a game about rings. The symbolism is a bit heavy handed. 

I'm pretty partial on weird shaped world maps if they've got some good world building going on, like this might be fun on a flat earth type situation where you got islands in the middle, ocean around that, land on the rim for some cool fantasy backgrounds with the edge of the world and whatnot. But I doubt they'll do something so interesting. 

Hopefully the campaign isn't something like, go around in a big circle. Would kind of kill political intrigue or war stories. Might work as an hero's journey anime plot which is what they seem to be going for i think. Got massive shonen vibes from this looks like they lifted the worldmap from One Piece or something. 

 

 

[IonicAmalgam]

Pretty sure this title will work with a new Switch Pro then, seeing as how the 3D graphics are such a step up, unless these were all pre-renders in the trailer.
----
That said, can the game's UI be any more bland? Thought they would have learned from Three Hopes, but seems like a return to FEW aesthetics

---
Gameplay seems a return to Fates/Awakening with Pair Up, Weapon Triangle, heroes from the past, etc.

---

Likely lack of a good story/worldbuilding leads me to think I'll pass on this in favor of Diofield chronicles. Even if DioFIELD had terrible writing, it at least had innovative combat.

Edited September 14, 2022 by IonicAmalgam

[zuibangde]

1 hour ago, kratoscar2008 said:

Anyways is interesting but worried of no S supports as the japanese rating haa no romance apparently.

Is there an official rating of the game revealed? It would be surprising to see the most fanservicey mainline game to exclude a major fanservice component.

That being said, I think I remember the leak showing

part of the support list of a male character and the support level only goes up to A with the avatar. I thought it was because the avatar was male back then but knowing what the avatars look like now, I'm pretty sure the pixel art in the leak was for female Alear.

Edited September 14, 2022 by zuibangde

[Alastor15243]

Best case scenario here is the new Fates. Awesome gameplay, delightfully roastable story. I cannot see this unironically having a good story.

[Use the Falchion]

Copy-pasting my thoughts from the other thread last night. I'd love to add more thoughts, but I won't have time until the weekend. 

I certainly need to see the trailer again, but I'm pretty happy with Engage. One of my texts to my friends was "this looks so stupid and I love it!" and that's sort of how I feel, but not exclusively. (One of my friends who wasn't into Three Houses but has been playing FE since Blazing Sword said he's really excited for this game. The other one in that category isn't excited for this game at all, but is excited about a potential FE4 remake.)

 

Awakening is one of my favorite games, and how this game harkens back to Awakening is both heartwarming to me as we know how far the series has come since Awakening, and it's also intriguing - is this game the future of Ylisse? (I doubt it, but it's fun to imagine for now.)

The designs definitely work in-world as compared to the relative vacuum that the leaks had, and the characters look unique and fun. The "Engage" part of the gameplay looks interesting, as it seems like the previous FE characters are a mix of Persona, Carnage Spirits from TMS, or Stands, and then Digimon when the two combine. They seem to offer unique gameplay abilities, and I'm curious to see where this goes. 

The story seems lighter in tone than Three Houses and Three Hopes but just as detailed in terms of lore and myth, and I'm here for that. I can't say for how that will all play out in-game, but I'm fine with the change of tone. It might be a nice change of pace if FE 4 remakes are around the corner. 

Speaking of remakes, it looks like Emily Rogers and Nate the Hate were right on the money with this Direct, which means there's a solid chance that they're right about FE4 Remake being the next thing. Sadly, it doesn't look like that game will be a 2023 release...although, if Pokemon can release two major games in one year, so can Fire Emblem! Never lose hope! Still, I do hope we get some nice Three Hopes DLC before the end of the year and all eyes turn towards Engage. 

Overall, I'm very happy with this announcement, and 2023 is shaping up to be one of the best years for entertainment for me ever! (January is stacked with two Brandon Sanderson projects followed by FE Engage, and then Forspoken the next week.)

[DefyingFates]

17 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said:

if Pokemon can release two major games in one year, so can Fire Emblem!

But Pokemon is a media juggernaut that will sell millions even if the next cartridge cost $70 and just had a gif of the Game Freak CEO laughing at the camera, so I don't think that's an apt comparison. But releasing this in 2023 and an FE4 remake the year after could work (depending on how long both projects have been in development, of course).

[Fabulously Olivier]

This style could have worked if they had more detailed clothing textures with less saturated color choices. To that end, it isn't a bad foundation for future games, but I think this'll be a case of growing pains.

 

There are certainly things that I like seeing from a gameplay and RPG perspective (oh my God, an actual defense map in 2023!?), so I'm fairly optimistic that I'll enjoy actually playing it. But in every regard other than gameplay, I foresee myself laughing at it, not with it.

[SearchingForGryphons]

I for one am hyped about this game. Looks like silly fun and I'm ok with that.

I do wonder how the totally-not-mirages will be handle story wise, will they have supports and the like? If they do, I think the possibly smaller roster size would be forgivable.

I don't mind how Alear looks, it's bold but it fits the feel this game is giving me. I love the bright cartoony nature of the game so far, much more than a muddy realistic style.

[Alastor15243]

Oh hey, was there any sign of the turnwheel anywhere in the trailer?

[DefyingFates]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh hey, was there any sign of the turnwheel anywhere in the trailer?

Nope, which surprised me too. I really thought it'd be a mainstay going forward. Maybe it's unlocked later on?

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Nope, which surprised me too. I really thought it'd be a mainstay going forward. Maybe it's unlocked later on?

Or hopefully it's a difficulty setting like casual/classic. I'd love it if they went back to designing games so they're enjoyable by people who don't use it again.

[vanguard333]

I'm curious as to why they decided to make the game like this. The last time IS made an FE game that referenced the past games this much and had a fairly straightforward plot about fighting a fel dragon, it was Awakening, and Awakening was made that way because it was essentially supposed to be a "Fire Emblem Greatest Hits" in case it ended up being the last game in the series. Unless something is happening internally at IS that we don't know about, I don't see the series as in danger of ending anytime soon, as Three Houses was a truly massive success.

In any case, I guess it just feels a bit weird for the next game to seemingly go right back to the old FE story formula after Three Houses was in many ways a deconstruction of that formula. Deconstructions are not supposed to become the new formula, but the way to bring back the old formula after a deconstruction is not by just bringing back the old formula; it's by making a thoughtful reconstruction. I do hope this game will be a reconstruction.

I will say that the protagonist being a divine dragon that's been asleep for 1,000 years sounds really cool. The FE protagonist being a dragon is an idea that Fates teased by having Corrin be part-dragon and able to shapeshift, but it went really underutilized in the gameplay and especially the story, with Corrin being able to shapeshift being relevant for all of one chapter and then never brought up again. I hope this game doesn't do that; I hope it fully utilizes the idea of the protagonist being a dragon.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Just now, vanguard333 said:

I'm curious as to why they decided to make the game like this. The last time IS made an FE game that referenced the past games this much and had a fairly straightforward plot about fighting a fel dragon, it was Awakening, and Awakening was made that way because it was essentially supposed to be a "Fire Emblem Greatest Hits" in case it ended up being the last game in the series. Unless something is happening internally at IS that we don't know about, I don't see the series as in danger of ending anytime soon, as Three Houses was a truly massive success.

Or it was made this way precisely because of the enduring popularity of Awakening. They could also be trying to gauge the popularity of characters with mainline audiences for prospective remakes. 

[Humanoid]

There's no particular reason to contextualise an undo ability in-universe really, it'd get increasingly weird in each successive game having to come up with a new excuse for the ability to exist and giving it a unique name. Just have it be a regular UI feature with zero fanfare.

[Acacia Sgt]

2 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

I'm curious as to why they decided to make the game like this. The last time IS made an FE game that referenced the past games this much and had a fairly straightforward plot about fighting a fel dragon, it was Awakening, and Awakening was made that way because it was essentially supposed to be a "Fire Emblem Greatest Hits" in case it ended up being the last game in the series. Unless something is happening internally at IS that we don't know about, I don't see the series as in danger of ending anytime soon, as Three Houses was a truly massive success.

1 minute ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Or it was made this way precisely because of the enduring popularity of Awakening. They could also be trying to gauge the popularity of characters with mainline audiences for prospective remakes. 

Supposedly it was originally meant to be an anniversary game, celebrating the 30th year of the franchise. Or so it was claimed some time ago, around the time of the leaks or a report or something like that. As such no surprising if they were doing the "past heroes of the series" gimmick again.