Is it just me or are the supports in this game pretty lackluster?

[Speedy]

4 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Thanks! Setting your teammates on fire to make them bond faster is... so sadistic. Is that what the Fiery Bonds from the ending song are about?

You are right, it is kinda hilarious:

"Damn, this fire really starts to hurt."

" I feel you, man. But it does make you look kinda hot."

"Oh, you charmer. Didn't know you had that kind of fire in you."

😄

[DefyingFates]

12 minutes ago, Speedy said:

You are right, it is kinda hilarious:

"Damn, this fire really starts to hurt."

" I feel you, man. But it does make you look kinda hot."

"Oh, you charmer. Didn't know you had that kind of fire in you."

😄

I didn't know there were dads in Engage (though I guess there are two people in the cast that would make good dads).

Anyway, thanks again for the advice! I've currently got Corrin on my Alear to farm their Bond so I think I'll be able to do this for a while myself, followed by any other units who can use the Fire Vein effect (Mysticals, right?) Best of luck to everyone opting for this!

[ckc22]

I hated almost every single thing about Three Houses down to its very core as well as its unearned reverence. 

 

[Armchair General]

10 hours ago, Scaramuccia said:

I agree that she isn't that dramatic compared to others, but it tells a lot about 3h that an alcoholic with deep sexuality problems is considered as an example of "that's fine".

Well, I think that it's kind of relatable to have someone who's trying to overcome their vices as opposed to listening to Ferdinand Von Aegir reminding the cast that he's Ferdinand Von Aegir or Hubert scaring someone into compliance.

7 hours ago, Scaramuccia said:

Does anyone else found Louis supports problematic? I am OK with him looking at other people, but hints about him making sexual fantasies involving people he watched (Ivy C, Clanne B) are troublesome.

Considering how we had Sylvain making moves on everyone, this is essentially nothing, at this point. At least Louis has some standards, it doesn't really put him in the right, though.

[EliWitch]

8 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

I think the supports are shorter than Three Houses, but that's because everyone gets Bond Conversations with all the Emblems instead and I assume it was just a question of how much of their (IS and the VA's) time and resources they wanted to allocate where.

Bond conversations shouldn’t even count as a support because the unit and emblem say one sentence and then it’s over. Since there are 12 rings and over a dozen playable units, so a whole lot of one-liners saves time. And let’s be honest, all of Marth’s C bond lines are pretty much the same.

[traineroflegend]

I would say it’s a popular opinion. 3H’s supports made the characters feel like real people and they usually had something of substance to offer. Most of Sylvain’s supports, for example, rebuff his womanizing attitude and serve as a way for the player to understand why he is how he is and how he’s trying to change.

For Engage, it’s basically about taking the character’s two quirks and repeating them ad nauseum. Take Ivy, my favorite character:

Spoiler

You’d expect her supports To show her grieving the loss of his father, to show how his death and the fact that her entire country is being taken over by evil forces affects her. I haven’t seen any of that in her supports yet. But I’ve gotten to learn that she hates ghosts! Many times over.

I do think some characters in Engage are interesting but I highly doubt they’ll be mainstays of conventions like Three Houses was.

[Mikethemaster2018]

Yes and no. Yes, because the some supports are meh to ugh, and no because some support are good.  This time around for what ever reason, the game developers amd planner thought it be good to get rid of mini games to increase support level and the support people been using for 10 years now.(Awakening to Three Houses) I know it an anniversary game but it didn't have to super hard on the anniversary part with the supports

Edited February 1, 2023 by Mikethemaster2018

[Etrurian emperor]

4 hours ago, traineroflegend said:

For Engage, it’s basically about taking the character’s two quirks and repeating them ad nauseum.

For the most part. But there are also exceptions. Celine once drops the tea obsessed to reveal she's consistently haunted by nightmares, and some supports imply she's more ruthless than she lets on. And Citrine's gimmick of being obliviously privileged isn't much of a factor in her supports compared to her self doubt. 

4 hours ago, traineroflegend said:

I do think some characters in Engage are interesting but I highly doubt they’ll be mainstays of conventions like Three Houses was.

True. I don't think they'll end up having the staying power of the Three Houses cast, and I actually doubt we'll see them sweep CYL next year. 

[Jotari]

I honestly thing the Bond conversations are quite good. Yeah, there super duper short, but they manage to convey a decent amount of personality in that brief word count. No doubt helps that I'm already intimately familiar with all the Emblems though. If that was literally all knew about them I'd probably be disappointed.

[AspectVQ]

19 hours ago, Alexmender said:

I've seen so many people say Celine is just "I like tea" but from some supports (Fogato and Alcryst come to mind) I see there's more to her than just tea. On the other hand her support with Louis is mostly about tea from C to A-rank with only a sprinkle of Celine not liking people getting in harms way to get her stuff she likes. 

I've not really talked to other people besides close friends about how I feel about the characters. But I am always a big Celine defender. I especially liked the Alear/Celine B and A conversations. How she has to harden herself to take on roles others might not feel that are fit for a Princess to protect the peace of Firene. Yeah, it started with tea and the caravans she protected were shipping tea, but the conversation wasn't about tea.

[RobinLucinaFan]

I think this has been harped on elsewhere, but another thing I notice about the supports is that they appear to cut the romantic elements of the S supports to a bare minimum. Not every S support has to be romantic mind you, but I don't think a single S support uses the words "I love you" at any point (I think Ivy uses the L word, but only during her B support and in a different context). Some of them allude to romantic love (i.e. Chloe and her desire for a fairy tale relationship), but it's mostly assurances of being "allies forever" or "close companions." Then again, maybe I'm just annoyed that Etie put my Alear in the permanent "jogging buddy" friendzone.🤣

Edited February 2, 2023 by RobinLucinaFan

[Jotari]

Whoops. Posted on the wrong thread.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Jotari

[MiaMain]

The big thing that has bothered me with supports in recent games is how they all come up at once. Like supports in older games were staggered more so you weren't slogging through 20 minutes of boring dialogue. This also helped make them more memorable because you weren't going through a half dozen support convos back to back. 

[know_naim]

13 hours ago, traineroflegend said:

For Engage, it’s basically about taking the character’s two quirks and repeating them ad nauseum.

Isn't that basically the shtick of most Fire Emblem games? Exaggerating certain traits to make the characters stand out and then going from there to add a little bit more depth. I honestly fail to see a big difference between Linhard's napping or Bernie being a scaredy cat all the time and Celine's tea focus. And as someone mentioned before, Celine is a great character if you take in more then just a few early few C supports. 

I obviously haven't seen all the support convos in FEE but in my opinion they neatly fall in line with the above concept. For example Yunaka's conversations with Citrinne shine some light on her backstory .

 

[Speedy]

3 minutes ago, know_naim said:

Isn't that basically the shtick of most Fire Emblem games?

 

There is a difference between gimmick/quirk and characters behavior, even when it sounds rather similar. In earlier FE games, there were few characters with gimmicks which made them stand out from others and thats what made then interesting, while others had some personal story which connected them to the other character that their supports was based on. In recent FE titles almost every character has a gimmick and when everyone has one, its can make the entire group's appearance rather bland. I guess developers thought: "You know people like these gimmicky characters, lets give everyone a gimmick."

Also it's nice when character's gimmick is subtle rather than "in your face". But this game entire storytelling and foreshadowing is "in your face" so I guess they just stick to this game formula.

[Seazas]

8 hours ago, Speedy said:

There is a difference between gimmick/quirk and characters behavior, even when it sounds rather similar. In earlier FE games, there were few characters with gimmicks which made them stand out from others and thats what made then interesting, while others had some personal story which connected them to the other character that their supports was based on. In recent FE titles almost every character has a gimmick and when everyone has one, its can make the entire group's appearance rather bland. I guess developers thought: "You know people like these gimmicky characters, lets give everyone a gimmick."

Also it's nice when character's gimmick is subtle rather than "in your face". But this game entire storytelling and foreshadowing is "in your face" so I guess they just stick to this game formula.

Not true. Every character had a gimmick and a trait that aligned with them more. Some games were just better at masking it because the supports were far more limited on average. The average GBA character have about as much traits and personality as an Awakening era onward. The real issue is just that sometimes, the character just won't do it for people. Even the "insufferable psycho killer character that threatens our own allies" shtick was done before with Karel.

17 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

For the most part. But there are also exceptions. Celine once drops the tea obsessed to reveal she's consistently haunted by nightmares, and some supports imply she's more ruthless than she lets on. And Citrine's gimmick of being obliviously privileged isn't much of a factor in her supports compared to her self doubt. 

True. I don't think they'll end up having the staying power of the Three Houses cast, and I actually doubt we'll see them sweep CYL next year. 

I heavily disagree. It won't dominate multiple times in a row like 3H has. But the competition's died down drastically. If Gullveig can sneak a win then Engage has enough to dominate for 1 year. Yunaka and Ivy are hits and already developed front loaded campaigns to win CYL.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Seazas

[DefyingFates]

3 hours ago, Seazas said:

I heavily disagree. It won't dominate multiple times in a row like 3H has. But the competition's died down drastically. If Gullveig can sneak a win then Engage has enough to dominate for 1 year. Yunaka and Ivy are hits and already developed front loaded campaigns to win CYL.

I'm of a similar opinion. I think CYL 8 at the very least will be a full or near-Engage sweep, with other characters coming back for CYL 9. I don't know if Engage's cast is fleshed out enough to get a full banner, but I didn't expect CYL 4 to be a full 3H banner either...

[Seazas]

3 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

I'm of a similar opinion. I think CYL 8 at the very least will be a full or near-Engage sweep, with other characters coming back for CYL 9. I don't know if Engage's cast is fleshed out enough to get a full banner, but I didn't expect CYL 4 to be a full 3H banner either...

Recency bias in a voting event where the fanbase finds a lot of the current options staler and staler goes crazy. Especially when most of the top Engage contenders are plot relevant, likable, and/or have massive memes (Yunaka).

[Sidereal Wraith]

Hello my son, welcome to the machine. And yes, you’re 100% correct.