Seazas

Zephia helping us made sense with her character and what she admits to Griss. She did it out of pure pettiness toward Sombron leaving them behind to die defending the shard. You're not supposed to feel sympathy for them, Citrinne puts it best in Yunaka's B Support: "there's tragedy in your tale but you earned no sympathy". Sombron's motivation also isn't really random. It's pure cheese and connects to how emblem centric the plot is. Moreso when he doesn't become evil because of the emblem, he was also just a dark dragon and a genocide survivor that created a bitter person who wants revenge.

The DLC is clearly divisive lol

I guess I'll be the one to say it. Fell Xenologue's premise is good actually, the world it takes place in is not only a first for FE storylines but it follows up what base Engage was riding the line on in many ways. All four countries keeping each other in check in a messy moral grayish manner is intriguing. Also, it'll end up adding a lot to the cast. For both contrast and if it provides anything outside of "evil for sake of evil", even the slightest of explanations would bump interest in notable ways. The immediate fan content confirms this premise's inherent appeal potential.

That's a realistic outcome and I hate it. At that point, the bracelet recruit just isn't canon at all to me if they do that. Best way to explain their lack of presence and consequence.

My personal "sweet spot" if we have to get the bracelets is post-Chapter 17. Visiting Solm makes sense before the alternate world shift. And post 17 is the only period of time in the narrative where we have a small break from chasing the emblems. The Good Hounds can still fight the Evil Hounds if recruited around that point as well if the exclusive boss convos can trigger on any map.

The bracelets, yes. A lot fail to make sense about them in the story and the way they way we meet them was one of the worst parts. To have Wave 4 contradict that and potentially bring a new way we recruit them would be nice.

It seems like Wave 4 is canon. Casual mode is in permanent effect instead of Cindered Shadows where units can die freely due to its non canon side story status. I sure hope so, it'd be nice having confirmation that Waves 1-3 are nothing more than what if scenarios and we recruit them late in the game like this.

Alcryst's reasons go beyond just feeling inadequate. He confirms to get his gloomy personality from the environment he's raised in. Brodia is obsessed with pride and strength and the nobles told Alcryst since childhood that any achievement he got: Diamant would've done it better.

They won't canonize anything, yes. But Intsys 100% has preferred and default emblem pairings. We are always seeing Marth associated with Alear, we won't see Alear using anyone else.

Personally, I don't mind set teams. I just don't want it to be like Cindered Shadows in the fact it's completely non canon. We have no proper introduction of the Bracelets in canon, I'd much prefer the earlier waves to be what if scenarios due to how hard the bracelets undermine and contradict everything. I hope that isn't the storyline. That'd be really bad and dumb if Sombron just came from another Elyos that has characters exactly like ours.

Veronica's taken from up to Book 5. Her ability confirms it and she has writing that entertains any character development she got before Book 6 sealed the deal.

There's some pretty interesting changes off the bat. Alear is significantly more pathetic with stronger reactions just from the prologue and some of the translated Chapter 1. He lives up to his in game model where it always looks like he's cringing or about to cry.

Lumera didn't need to be anything special for how little presence she gets. She works for how she is, better than being a Rhea who despite having an interesting character is so underused that it becomes a negative. Frankly, if you have to rewrite so much to make a more hateful servant work: chances are it's not worth it. Especially for such a silly idea, hating Alear for committing the crime of... being asleep and needing to be taken care of! The horror! Is kinda stupid, on a similar tier of Hana hating Corrin for getting kidnapped as a child lmao.

Nah. Lumera isn't the type of character to entrust resentful people to watch over her child, that doesn't make sense. It's not a coincidence that the ones who consistently watch over Alear are the ones so devoted that they'd spend their lives waiting and cleaning up the Somniel + Alear themselves.

"Trying" is not good enough if you fail on every possible level like Fates did. Engage in spite of its over the top nature still has better plot beats that make more sense than Fates. Our leading character and cast were treated far better as a whole than Fates and its garbage character assassinations 24/7. Engage is easily a better story when its plot doesn't involve everyone trusting Corrin enough that they'd be absolved of any mistake and they'd flat out jump off a cliff for them.

They're going to release quickly. Wave 4 already has footage and we know from the datamines that it's already completely designed and done more or less. The new characters already have their bond conversations set up and voice acting completed in not just Japanese but ENGLISH as well. That signifies that they're far more done with Wave 4 than it seems.

Nobody likes Kris, they were never getting in due to a lack of popularity. They could just use Marth to represent Archanea. Kris isn't relevant or unique enough as a standalone character to justify their existence.

Yeah and the 3 lords getting in just diminishes Shez's value. Tellius definitely ate good with Engage, I consider it a close second place to 3 Houses.

I was primarily talking about Rowan and Lianna. However for the current state of Engage, it's an unfortunate reality that Shez has nothing worth bringing with the limited emblem spots, 3 Houses is already the best represented game.

Because I have no reason not to "accept mediocrity" if Engage is open about what it aimed to do. It wasn't designed as an attempt at a step forward for FE like Fates was. Engage is confirmed as a one time gimmick, to be designed as more stupid and simplistic from the getgo. It being an anniversary one off quells any reason I have to spend too much energy on most of the writing. Any chance of it being near 3H's tier died the instant Mars came out of Alear's ring and went "It's time to Engage!"

There's multiple reasons why they didn't prioritize Warriors. Heroes is far more successful, is randomly placed as a mainline Fire Emblem game by Intsys, and none of the Warriors characters have any value. They might as well gun for Alm, Eliwood or Seliph at that point. The banana twins are the most generic of the generic. Not even Shez can compete with the popularity of Heroes and its OCs.

Mages got left behind, the other classes benefit massively from emblems that mages really didn't in comparison. Especially with physical heavy the vast majority are. It's one of the things DLC emblems have going for them. That and the unique interactions between them and the main emblems. They clearly weren't a nothingburger for Soren at least because he has an actual standout personality. His gloomier take on reality is vastly more entertaining to watch with the bubbly goofy cast. Soren's the only other case of short emblem conversations actually working for him, he was allowed to be as rude as he wanted without worry of trying to drag out a conversation that Soren clearly has no interest in.

Soren was superior. Mages needed an emblem like him and his personality is leaps and bounds more interesting for bouncing off the roster than Sothe. Sothe would've sucked in comparison especially when his dialogue and dynamic with Micaiah would be noticeably worse than Ike and Soren's.

Okay so the only reason Alcryst is harsher on Ivy is because she (unwillingly) played a hand in them failing to save Morion. Hortensia didn't get in the way so Alcryst saw an easy target for blame.