So what were your overall opinions about Engage?

[Sentinel07]

Not a fan of it at all. Story is mind-numbingly boring at best and a travesty at work. Art style is way too overly gaudy for my taste, and this is honestly the first time that I wasn't impressed with a FE OST.

And to be honest, even the gameplay isn't that great to me. I'm not a fan of the switch to a hyper offensive style of play and subsequent weaking of enemy phase play. Was also not a big fan of the constant enemy reinforcement spam, especially on later maps.

Also didn't like how much more difficult it was compared to most of the previous games. It's the only FE game I still haven't beaten because of how unfairly difficult the late maps are, even on Normal.

The game's economy with how money and materials are handled is lousy, unit balancing is out the window with just how badly early game units are outclassed, and I prefer the old style of the weapon triangle compared to the break mechanic.

So yeah, almost every change was a downgrade in my opinion.

[Metal Flash]

Having now played more of hard mode, the enemy reinforcements are getting on my nerves. Once they first show up on a map,, they are constant.

[Hrothgar777]

Okay, so I have FINALLY beaten this game as of tonight. Now I can give my full opinion looking back on it.

 

I can understand who this game was meant to appeal to: the kinds of people who love battling. Each game builds upon the battle mechanics of the last and makes improvements, and Engage was no exception. It did made four considerable improvements: first, the fact that it brought back daggers while keeping gauntlets/martial arts. My "successor to Three Houses" FE game fanfic predicted this much, but that was low-hanging fruit since it made no sense why 3H excluded dagger type weapons to begin with. Second, they brought back the weapons triangle, which was also low-hanging fruit in terms of things people could predict was going to happen. Third, the chain guard is a tactically useful ability that bosses on certain maps knew how to utilize well, and with Framme in my party I could occasionally use it myself. And fourth, having the full-body sprite of both combatants on-screen was just cool. It was also kind of ergonomic in that there was no accidentally mistaking who you were about to target.

(But oh my word "Break" was annoying. So, soooooooooo annoying. I wish they hadn't included that because it almost never worked to my advantage.)

Obviously, though, the selling point was the emblems. This gave my party an endless slew of abilities, items, and special moves, both when synced and when not synced. Though the next game certainly won't have magic glowy people from another dimension, my guess is it'll have something that works largely the same in fact. From start to finish the whole experience would've been a wet dream for a certain kind of player, and I respect this fact. Whatever my misgivings, I have to admire the work and forethought that went into programming this title.

 

I haven't changed my mind about the difficulty. The raw disconnect between its kid-friendly exterior and its "one step removed from Thracia difficulty" interior was jarring, to say the least. I can understand why, of course: the game handed you an unprecedented number of tools with which to pimp out your units, so it felt the need to compensate. But at the same time, doing so effectively takes a lot of planning that the casual player might not manage well, resulting in the kind of experience I had.

To clarify, I don't think I really struggled at all with the chapter battles. I even cleared Chapter 25 in one night. It was the skirmishes and paralogues (Alear's was a special kind of nightmare) that screwed me over. I did eventually clear them all, though, and now I can really appreciate the fact that some maps are "defensive". Pretty much every time I pulled through an impossibly tough match, it was because of favorable terrain with insurpassable walls which kept the enemy from swarming me on all sides, giving my healers time to do their stuff.

 

But...

 

All that having been said, I am not a battle guy. Granted, I probably wouldn't have purchased a Fire Emblem game that had zero battling in it, but the favorable "battling to non-battling" ratio for me skews very different than for, say, most people on this forum. I am, rather, the exact target demographic for which Three Houses was made. I like good stories, good worldbuilding, and good dialogue. I like good music and good visuals.

Engage had good music (not 3H, at risk of sounding like a broken record, but still) and great visuals. The Chapters 10, 25, and 26 OSTs stood out as being exceptional. I enjoyed the Firene battle theme and the Firene Somniel theme. Seriously; A Tea Party in Firene is an underrated piece of art. Amazingly I never grew tired of it. If I were forced to play one song on repeat for eternity, it'd probably have to be that.

Graphics-wise I'm not sure if this could be compared to Tears of the Kingdom (haven't paid much attention to it), but it's certain that a Fire Emblem installment has never looked so good, which makes me sort of excited for what the next FE game for the Switch's successor is going to look like. The post-battle sandboxes and the Somniel were eye candy, and the all-3D character sprites were executed well enough that 95% of the time it didn't detract from the experience at all. Granted, the excessive number of "cut scenes" that were nearly indistinguishable from regular dialogue could be a drag, but still.

 

Which is to say it had genuine redeeming qualities from the vantage point of players like me. But this is outweighed by what the game does wrong.

It can't be missed that Engage ripped off Fates (and yes, I know the guy who wrote it wrote Fates too, but he had no excuse for telling the same story twice). The Emblems are more vanilla than the most vanilla harem anime protagonist, and I never felt like there was an authentic, not forced-for-plot-reasons friendship between Marth and Alear. Even by the end of the game, I wasn't actually sad to see the emblems disappear: after 26 chapters I'd been given no good reason to be.

The setting is completely two-dimensional. Brodia conducts violent raids on Elusia for...reasons. King Morion was an apparently good king who continued the raids for...reasons. Elusia is an entire country that worships the Fell Dragon (they're basically fantasy world satanists) for...reasons, despite indisputable historical evidence that Sombron was a bad guy. Sombron needs to consume royal blood for...reasons. Most people worship the Divine Dragon Lumera but we have no evidence that she used her influence to make the world a better place. There's little indication of how these societies are organized except that they're monarchies.

Why should we care about these countries? How would the story have been any different had it just been Noshido vs. Hohr? Why should we care about the Four Hounds? Why was the Big Bad uninteresting until the very last chapter of the game?

 

I really have nothing good to say about the writing. Most of the support conversations were silly nonsense that didn't even succeed at being funny. A few gems sprinkled in here and there, but you had to slog through a lot of metaphorical feces to find them. There were inevitably a couple of individual characters I liked but they could've been into a game with a much better scenario and script than what we got.

The writing sucked booty and I'm the sort of person who considers this a cardinal sin of entertainment. In all fairness I knew before I even bought the game it was probably going to be like this. Three Houses earned my loyalty to the Fire Emblem brand, so I was going to play it regardless. What I'm hoping now is that FE18, either the elusive Genealogy remake or the next big thing in another 3-4 years, will shift the pendulum back toward players like me. But it doesn't hurt to play something different every now and then, and Engage was certainly that.

 

I'm not going to even try to give it a rating, because I don't know how to do that competently. What I will say is that I don't regret the time sunk into it overall, but also that I wish I didn't have to add the qualifier "overall" to this sentence.

 

Some miscellaneous comments:

-I wanted to give the Pact Ring to Ivy or Framme, but instead I gave it to Alfred (having selected male Alear, no less) upon hearing that otherwise his postwar life story would have him die young. I guess I can look up the other S-Supports on YouTube.

-But of all the characters, Sommie won me over the most. Let it be known that, over the course of my playthrough, I didn't waver in giving this ancient and terrible god his due offering: fish, milk, eggs, fruit, and head pats. And he deserved all of it, just for existing and for rocking those snazzy shades.

-One pet peeve is that the game had characters like Ivy or Hortensia, who were pigeonholed by circumstance (boss's orders or literal brainwashing) into a villainous role for 2 or 3 chapters midgame and then they spent the rest of the playthrough making comments like "I must atone".

-They made a literal class of unit called "Fell Dragon", with it being hereditary, but being one apparently has no effect on one's personality. Even Sombron seemed as much a product of nurture as nature. Which kind of begs the question: what even is a Fell Dragon? What's the real difference between them and Divine Dragons?

-I feel like the Brodia-Elusia arc could've been fixed just by doubling down on the premise. One of my favorite TV series is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where the initial villains were a people called the Cardassians. They were bad guys from the start, but right when they shrugged off their military dictatorship and embraced democracy they were attacked by their warrior neighbors (the Klingons) and driven almost to the point of becoming a conquered people. In desperation they made a deal with the true big bad of the series, the Dominion. This is the direction I think Engage should've gone in, with Elusia cutting a deal with Sombron as a last resort to defend themselves from Brodian aggression. Instead of changing much of the game to make this work, all they'd have to do is expand upon what's already there. Add more conversations explaining why King Hyacinth did what he did, how King Morion's foreign policy contributed to this, the role of Brodian aggression in shaping Elusian religion, etc. Finally, the long-term consequences of Elusia's faustian bargian could've been explored. For example, after Hortensia left there could've been a local puppet regent who reluctantly answered to Sombron and sent Elusian soldiers into battle against the good guys until the very last chapter. Elusian civilians being rounded up and turned into Corrupted to fight in Sombron's army. Stuff like that.

-On that note, I actually liked the way necromancy was handled in this game. An off-kilter facsimile of the original personality, but with vestiges of him or her still there, ranging from Morion's one line before he disappeared to the full restoration of Lumera herself as she lay dying a second time. They stumbled upon a good idea and they could've done more with it. I don't know what, but they could've done something. The number of potential scenarios that this concept opened up is vast.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Hrothgar777

[Jotari]

17 minutes ago, Hrothgar777 said:

, which makes me sort of excited for what the next FE game for the Switch's successor is going to look like. 

 

Really I hope we see another Fire Emblem on Switch and not the successor. Fire Emblem games are, mechanically, not hard to make. The engine is there and this game has been finished for like two years, so there really is small excuse not to see another title next year.

[Sidereal Wraith]

The main villain Sombron: “I’m a strong independent dragon who don’t need no bonds!”.

Also Sombron when it comes the Zero Emblem: “Notice me senpai!”.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Sidereal Wraith

[Metal Flash]

Another thought that came to me recently, I cannot for the life of me remember many Engage tracks off the top of my head. Aside from the opening theme and the Solm map theme, the rest is a wash. It feels weird to say, cause FE games usually have great music, but this OST is utterly forgettable to me.

[Use the Falchion]

I liked it but I don't love it. The DLC really soured me on the potential of future playthroughs, as it seems like we'll have to replay it each playthrough to get the characters. Add into that the backpedaling for grinding supports and Engage is a game that doesn't favor what I like. That being said, the game was going for gameplay, and I think for the most part that's where it succeeds. It stinks that I don't like it as much as I want to though. When Awakening and Three Houses came out, I played each of those roughly every day for nearly a year, if not more. Even Fates, which I didn't play as much, got a lot of playtime after release when I only had that and Awakening to play at points in my life. (I mean, I had Echoes and Pokemon Sun/Moon, but I'm not the largest fan of the former and once I beat the latter I didn't care to do more.)

Honestly, there was a time a few weeks back when I forgot that Engage actually came out! It became forgettable, and that's a real shame. 

Early on I and others in my life (and on the internet from what I've seen) compared Engage to a Saturday morning cartoon. I think that still stands. But like Saturday morning cartoons, this game isn't something you want to revisit too often, as it may not hold up as well as the first time. (In terms of shipping, while I do think M!Alear/Nel is more "canon" than others due to the DLC, I think I still like M!Alear/Yunaka better.)

[traineroflegend]

I’ve played Tellius and the games after it. Engage had some really fun character designs and the best combat of the series, allowing me to customize my team a lot more than previous games. Unfortunately the poor narrative knocked it all the way to the bottom of my list.

[kremelover]

I think Engage's strongest quality is its characters!  In my opinion, they are well designed!

Edited June 18, 2023 by kremelover
punctuation

[TheHBK]

Enjoyed it quite a bit. Replaying it now, trying some weird stuff.

 

Trying to do a round-up:

Story is trash (characters are ok though).

Battles are great.

Visuals are amazing. I love the look of the game.

Music is very much FE-tier, good but nothing omgwtfbbq-amazing. Some tracks are a banger. Some are meh-to-bleh.

It’s all the gameplay that’s around the battles which is so weird…

 

Somniel is both a nice and enjoyable place yet many of the progression and boost mechanics feel superfluous.

Some complexity can be good but here it feels like they tried to combine theme-park mini-games with party optimization mechanics and it’s just a chore all things considered. It’s really too bad because on paper why not but in practice it’s just a big mess of UI/UX issues in service of dubious mechanics.

Oh well, skipping cutscenes and skipping most of those mechanics make for a fun game with some added « self-imposed » difficulty.

 

Won’t comment on DLC because lol Fell Xenologue lol

[Sidereal Wraith]

On 6/7/2023 at 7:19 AM, Sentinel07 said:

Not a fan of it at all. Story is mind-numbingly boring at best and a travesty at work. Art style is way too overly gaudy for my taste, and this is honestly the first time that I wasn't impressed with a FE OST.

And to be honest, even the gameplay isn't that great to me. I'm not a fan of the switch to a hyper offensive style of play and subsequent weaking of enemy phase play. Was also not a big fan of the constant enemy reinforcement spam, especially on later maps.

Also didn't like how much more difficult it was compared to most of the previous games. It's the only FE game I still haven't beaten because of how unfairly difficult the late maps are, even on Normal.

The game's economy with how money and materials are handled is lousy, unit balancing is out the window with just how badly early game units are outclassed, and I prefer the old style of the weapon triangle compared to the break mechanic.

So yeah, almost every change was a downgrade in my opinion.

In all honesty the more I think about the story, especially chapters 11 and 24, it becomes more apparent to me how the writers needed to lean on the crutch of the villains being rock stupid in order for the plot to happen. And even with this most charitable of interpretations the story still falls in on itself like a house of cards.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Sidereal Wraith

[vanguard333]

I just started playing and I just completed chapter 8, so this is going to be more of a first-impressions than an overall opinion.

The gameplay is a lot of fun so far. I don't really have much to say about it. That said, I am getting a bit tired of always returning to a base that's stuffed full of mini-games that I have to do because they provide useful benefits. I enjoyed it for the most part in Three Houses because that game was going for the duality of being both a teacher and a tactician; this game is far more singular in its focus, so stuff like the exercise minigame doesn't fit.

The story has a lot of potential, and so far has largely squandered a fair bit of that potential. Take Lumera's death: we get introduced to her character at the end of chapter 1, she spends most of her screen time either giving foreshadowing about Alear or saying things that only a character doomed to die soon in a story normally says, and then dies in chapter 3. I sat through her death scene and thought, "This would be a really heartbreaking scene... in chapter 7, not chapter 3." The simple fact of the matter is that we weren't given enough time with Lumera as a character for her death to be impactful; there's a reason that Greil was killed off at the end of chapter 7 of Path of Radiance after being introduced at the start of the prologue chapter; it meant that we were given time to see what the status-quo of Greil being alive and in charge of the Greil Mercenaries looks like before that status-quo is suddenly broken and Ike has to fill Greil's shoes.

Another example gets into parts of the story I haven't reached yet but have been spoiled on, and is a bit of a waste in both story and gameplay: I have long criticized the lack of a dragon form for Alear in the game itself. I am far enough that I have seen Alear's dragonstone in Veyle's possession, and it's pure red; indicating that it's still a fell stone despite the divine dragon essence that Alear was infused with, and the most common defense I've seen is that it would've made the big twist too obvious too soon. My response to that is this: then why not use Alear's dragon form for the big reveal? Have it that Alear gets the stone back, uses it to transform, and everyone can see that there's something wrong. The parts of the game that I've played so far would appear to be building up to that idea, with the king of Brodia wanting to spar with Alear while Alear's in dragon form and Alear can't remember if they can transform or how, but I know that's not how the twist happens. But of course, I'm sure IS was probably thinking, "Why put an actual dragon in the base game when we can put dragons behind a DLC paywall in the form of Emblem Tiki, Nel and Nil?"

Of course, a number of FE games have had fairly lackluster stories; it's usually the characters where the writing shines, and the characters in Engage so far don't disappoint.

[Anomalocaris]

It is... okay.

The gameplay is good; the map design, while not as interesting or varied as Conquest, is still a decent step up from Three Houses, and the combat is honestly some of the best it's been in a long time; the break mechanics make the weapon triangle more meaningful (and indirectly buff armored units by exempting them from its downsides), daggers' debuffs are now way more intuitive and simple than Fates' varying stat changes, and the Emblems add a great deal of complexity without being overwhelming. Having every weapon type in a single game could have been overwhelming, but it actually manages to be surprisingly balanced in that regard, with bows, tomes, daggers, and arts all serving different-but-important niches without stepping on each other's toes.

The Somniel is an improvement over the Monastery in some regards; it's not nearly as cool, of course, and the lack of chapter-specific dialogue does reduce characterization opportunities, but it's concise enough to let you do your "chores" quickly and get on to the next chapter, which I appreciate, especially once I realized I don't have to exercise, fish, and wyvern ride every single break. It's still not a perfect system (the fact that I called them "chores" should make that obvious), but I didn't grow tired of it the way I did the Monastery on repeat playthroughs.

But now the bad stuff.

Character designs are really hit-or-miss. The environments may be gorgeous and a big step up from Three Houses, but I don't know why they hired Mika Pikazo as the lead artist here. I love her art but its (intentionally) overdesigned nature is not a good fit for Fire Emblem at all, as seen with characters like Timerra and Hortensia who just have way too much going on and look bad in motion.

The script, plot, and characters are bleh. I will admit I was expecting a total trainwreck like Fates, and mercifully the plot was closer to Awakening instead, which is... adequate. There were even a couple twists that genuinely surprised and engaged (heh) me, like Chapters 11 and 22. But compared to Three Houses it's about as shallow as a puddle. The four nations feel like generic Super Mario Bros. worlds instead of functioning countries with different sociopolitical situations like Fodlan. The characters are really shallow and cartoonish. I wound up only really liking maybe three or four of them, and even then only with heavy qualification. Freakin' Raphael had more personality and nuance in his left bicep than half of Engage's cast combined. Compared to Three Houses, Engage just feels... dumbed down in every way except the gameplay, and it's weird. I don't like it.

This is all compounded further by Engage having one of the worst localizations I've seen in a while. It's seriously bad. I don't know how many people here bother comparing the original Japanese version to the localized version, but it's almost as bad as Fates' localization in terms of randomly rewriting entire characters and censoring stuff that didn't need to be censored (I'm not even talking about the S-supports). Perhaps it's getting less attention because it didn't remove an entire gameplay feature like Fates did, but it's still not good at all. The only consolation is, like Fates itself, at least it's a mediocre script getting butchered by Treehouse instead of a good one.

6/10. I normally value gameplay over writing/story, but with RPGs I value both, and Engage really underdelivers hard on the latter. I'm honestly glad that it sold less than a third of Three Houses' sales, hopefully that sends a message to IS/Nintendo of how future titles should be.

[DefyingFates]

On 6/28/2023 at 4:44 AM, Anomalocaris said:

I'm honestly glad that it sold less than a third of Three Houses' sales, hopefully that sends a message to IS/Nintendo of how future titles should be.

I think that's a bit extreme...

Heck, if there's one thing I've learned from how companies respond to feedback, they're likely to throw out everything Engage did instead of just the stuff people actually disliked, which is going to be a huge shame considering how complex and fun the maps are compared to Three Houses. On the narrative side, to reiterate what I said earlier, I didn't mind the plot. Sure it's simple and cheesy, but I think the fandom as a whole would start complaining if every story was as bleak as Three Houses (also there are some moments that genuinely put a huge grin on my face that wouldn't ever exist in a Fodlan-style game). Focusing on a single route and a simpler premise also means there aren't as many glaring cut corners as in Three Houses and... well, 3H proved that the fandom isn't mature enough to handle gray morality characters so there's that too.

Now worldbuilding, that's something I agree with everyone on. Every nation only has one or two details going for it and everyone's gone back to only having one name apiece. While it's not as bad as Fateslandia, I hope more fleshed out worlds become a staple going forward. Heck, even Three Houses didn't do too much if you think about it, but it helped make Fodlan feel just that bit more tangible of a setting, if that makes sense.

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

13 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

Heck, if there's one thing I've learned from how companies respond to feedback, they're likely to throw out everything Engage did instead of just the stuff people actually disliked, which is going to be a huge shame considering how complex and fun the maps are compared to Three Houses.

I wouldn't be too worried. Well, kinda. You have to keep in mind that Engage is made by the same gameplay folks as made Fates, while 3H was made by Koei Tecmo. You can see the map design iterations in Awakening -> Fates -> Engage and it's reasonable to assume that the next time this team does a game, it'll be similar. I'd only suggest you should be worried if it turns out KT is doing the next Fire Emblem.

13 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

Focusing on a single route and a simpler premise also means there aren't as many glaring cut corners as in Three Houses and... well, 3H proved that the fandom isn't mature enough to handle gray morality characters so there's that too.

I'm a bit confused by what the second half of this even means? The fandom as a whole loved 3H characters, and largely took to the morally grey ones the most of all.

I also don't think the single route and simpler premise helped anything, given that I thought Engage's story was both far weaker and more full of holes than 3H (see the thread on Engage's opening for an obvious example) and I suspect this is a pretty common view.

[DefyingFates]

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'm a bit confused by what the second half of this even means?

I'm referring to all the fan wars over whether Edelgard and Rhea were perfectly flawless or complete monsters, whether Dimitri or Edelgard are good people or war criminals and so on. Heck, even here it's way too easy for people to see Edelgard mentioned in a topic and derail it into an argument about her.

While I know there are some out there who appreciated the moral nuance, if IS looked at the community's reactions and saw all the vitriol going around I don't blame them for backtracking in that aspect.

Edited June 30, 2023 by DefyingFates

[Jotari]

33 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

I'm referring to all the fan wars over whether Edelgard and Rhea were perfectly justified or complete monsters, whether Dimitri or Edelgard are good people and so on. Heck, even here it's way too easy for people to see Edelgard mentioned in a topic and derail it into an argument about her.

While I know there are some out there who appreciated the moral nuance, if IS looked at the community's reactions and saw all the vitriol going around I don't blame them for backtracking there.

Unless vitriol was precisely what they were going for. It seems almost tailored for it.

[Etrurian emperor]

On 6/28/2023 at 5:44 AM, Anomalocaris said:

The four nations feel like generic Super Mario Bros. worlds instead of functioning countries with different sociopolitical situations like Fodlan.

I think the Mushroom Kingdom is a very apt comparison for the Engage Countries. Particularly the part where the villains can take over royal castle with incredible ease. The Four Hounds taking over Solm and Firene, or Ivy instantly warping herself and an army to Brodia castle brought to mind Bowser's frequent invasions of Peach castle. In Eleyos all a villain seems required to do to take over a castle, is just walk towards that castle. 

Quote

While I know there are some out there who appreciated the moral nuance, if IS looked at the community's reactions and saw all the vitriol going around I don't blame them for backtracking in that aspect.

I'm not sure about that actually. Partially because I actually doubt IS spends much time tracking Internet discourse. But also because the volume of discussions about it implies they did a good job. People seem interested in the conflict they wrote rather than consider it adequate, dull or an embarrassment. 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Etrurian emperor

[Dark Holy Elf]

4 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

I'm referring to all the fan wars over whether Edelgard and Rhea were perfectly flawless or complete monsters, whether Dimitri or Edelgard are good people or war criminals and so on.

You can call them fan wars, but I would call them discussions (that sometimes get heated, because they touch on important real-life topics). Either way, they're a good thing! They show fan engagement with the characters and the story. If nobody is debating your morally grey characters, you've probably failed in some way: either at actually making them morally grey, or at getting players to care about your cast.

I also second @Etrurian emperor's thoughts. I'm sure Intsys is pleased, not disappointed, at the volume of discussion the game generated.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Partially because I actually doubt IS spends much time tracking Internet discourse. But also because the volume of discussions about it implies they did a good job. People seem interested in the conflict they wrote rather than consider it adequate, dull or an embarrassment. 

I expect they actually spend a lot of time tracking Internet Discourse. If they have any sense at least then they need to know what fan reactions are to the game. Not to give us too big a head and make us feel important though, as by far their biggest concern is sales numbers which our opinions don't necessarily reflect; but my overall point is that these games are made by companies that put a tonne of effort into market research to know what will be the most appealing product to release. Tracking internet discourse is definitely going to make up a part of that.

[Lux Aeterna]

In terms of story, I'm with most people in that it wasn't particularly gripping, but for the most part I got the impression that it wasn't really trying to be. This also made it feel tonally confused at times, though. The death scene that vanguard333 mentioned was a great example of that, especially since Alear mentioned not having much attachment to her shortly before that due to their amnesia, and yet there they were, crying their eyes out with the rest of the characters. It was like the story wanted to get straight to as many gut punches as possible without working to make the payoff worthwhile. Not every story has to be as grave as 3H, so if the game was going for a lighter touch, I just wish it stayed that way instead of lurching awkwardly in a more serious direction at times.

That's fine, though, because the gameplay was among my favorite in the series. Engage was the first game where I started with Maddening, because I thought back to my experience with 3H on Hard and how the gameplay there felt like more of a formality on that difficulty. I wanted to struggle a bit this time, and I struggled plenty. The emblems are probably my favorite singular addition to the series because of how powerful they made me feel. I liked the idea that you were obliged to choose carefully when to Engage, because when the proper moment was chosen, it always felt like you were either setting the tide of battle or turning it back in your favor. Corrin was the MVP for me, because her terrain-generating powers were handy in some way in pretty much every situation paired with Alear. I also enjoyed silly shenanigans like warping my entire team in a single turn with Micaiah or sending my allegedly immobile general halfway across the map with Sigurd.

One thing I found funny about Maddening difficulty was how the "smarter" AI sometimes was abusable. What springs to mind is how if an enemy has no chance of damaging a unit, they'll avoid combat with that unit--even if that person is their only way through. It makes me remember how in Ike's paralogue I sat Louis on one chokepoint and Zelkov in constant fog in another. The enemies saw no way to damage the only units they could reach, so I was free to pick the ones even further back with longer ranged combatants. But, if this was Hard, where the enemies would have suicided and the sages would have been able to get through and ignore Zelkov's terrain bonuses, I would have been doomed. Also, Lyn's clones were a godsend. I'm glad that for whatever reason, the enemy considers those to be more valuable targets than my actual units just because they can be killed.

There were a lot of turtling situations like that, because I'm not fussed about LTCing, and it's probably why the chapters I found the most aggravating were the ones where that wasn't possible. There was the chapter with a turn limit where you had to dispatch the boss while being hit by avalanches and being swarmed by enemies, and I had to get through that by attacking the boss from the other side of the map and making him come to me. There was also the final chapter where the endless swarms of reinforcements had me resorting to just only halfway dealing with the gimmick of the map and then muscling my way through.

I suppose that's the reason I haven't felt a strong urge to replay it since it came out in January. It felt like I had "solved" each of the maps, unlike in other entries in the franchise where I felt free to explore other characters and strategies on another playthrough, and there didn't seem like much of a point of going through the same motions. As many have raised, going through the Somniel also dulls the urge, because that was a slog even the first time through, and I'm not sure if I would have made it through if I skipped everything. That said, it was the first game where I went for the "big boy" mode and stuck with it, so maybe fans with more exposure to that level of difficulty can attest to the way forward being similarly limited in other entries. At any rate, I played before any of the patches and without any DLC, so maybe with enough time, that'll present enough of a fresh experience that I'll want to return.

Finally, although I don't remember most of the music, the first battle preparation track has to be my favorite of its kind in the series. The energetic violin/synth combo really hyped me up each time to get ready to tackle another challenge--one that would require clever thinking, but was always surmountable.

[Jotari]

Wht I think could have been a really cool move for Lumeria would be to have her dead at the very start of the game. As in she has just died hours before Alear woke up (because she used the last of her energy to revive him). This would have Alear wake up into a world that is mourning for her, where everyone expects them to be chief mourner yet they have no idea who she was beyond what other people say about her. There would be a palpable sense of loss, not just because she's dead, but because now he will never have an opportunity to know her. It'd be less cry cry tragedy and more numb helplessness tragedy. And then the mantle of Divine Dragon put on Alear would have more weight because it is tied directly to their awakening and Lumeria's death, and not because she randomly died hours after Alear woke up by, more or less, coincidence. Eh, it's a thought I had when playing.

[Lux Aeterna]

You've really got me thinking now, because that could also be more impactful on Alear in retrospect. If the story spent more time demonstrating how great she was posthumously--simple things, like visiting to help with harvesting season in Firene, or moderating the tension between Brodia and Elusia--then they could gain an appreciation for her and their priority might shift from carrying on her legacy for obligation's sake to honoring her memory the best way they could.

It also might serve to make a scene later in the game more poignant, and despite this being a thread that's a game retrospective, I'll spoiler mark it just in case since it's pretty deep in there:

Spoiler

When you have to fight Lumiera's spirit and this time she and Alear truly part ways. It would sting far more--after all she had done for them and the world, the only time they get to meet in the present is for Alear to take her down and for the parting words right after.

If nothing else, the premise you raised means her original death scene wouldn't be there, which still jumps out to me as the most at odds with the rest of the story's tone.

[Etrurian emperor]

What strikes me about the Engage story is that the events from the backstory are actually far more interesting then the events of the main game. Alear having to struggle with the always present possibility of being branded a defect and getting destroyed, a genocidal war between two dragon clans and eventually Alear and Lumera adopting each other seems far more interesting than ''Gather the mighty Mcguffins and beat the evil dragon''. Alear growing from a robot into the meek teenager from the main game would also be an interesting character development. 

 

[vanguard333]

This game is clearly meant to be a celebration of Fire Emblem, not unlike Awakening in that regard; the emblems are proof enough of that. Looking at it in that light, the game is a bit odd in regards to referencing the past games: it'll often quote lines from past FE games word-for-word in places where it would make perfect sense for the emblem making the quote to do so, such as Corrin quoting the sparring advice Xander gave in Fates' prologue when fought in Corrin's paralogue. But then, at the same time, it will do odd stuff like referencing something that only existed in Smash Bros. and not in FE itself (Emblem Ike's Great Aether), giving Ike his Radiant Dawn appearance when he's supposed to be representing Path of Radiance, or in some cases get important lore details from past games completely wrong.

Take Corrin's paralogue as an example: the map choice is fitting and most of the lore referenced is accurate, but then Corrin, when asked about the Yato, describes it as, "a divine blade, forged to bring peace to the world". Had Corrin said, "A sword that chose me to bring peace to the world", that might've been accurate, but anyone who has completed Revelations would know that the sword was not forged for bringing peace; just the opposite: it was forged so the Rainbow Sage could use humans as cannon fodder in the War of the First Dragons; the "great sin" that the Rainbow Sage refers to whenever he says, "I who forged the sacred blade; I who committed the great sin". It was one of only three bits of actual worldbuilding in all of Fates, so I remember it well.