What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Samz707]

52 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

Well, if you're not a fan of map gimmicks, I get it - both Conquest and Revelation have a decent number of gimmick maps.  Flip side, other people complain Birthright is boring, because a lot of the maps are rout-fests where enemies aren't equipped with much particularly interesting weapons, and gimmicks help freshen the experience up.

That said, for a gimmick to mean something, it needs to make the player engage with it.  Fates has this whole idea of Dragon Veins changing the way battle works.  For this to feel appropriately powerful to match the plot hype, it needs to, well, mean something, which means failing or declining to engage with the gimmick should result in a tough experience, and using it properly should make you feel like a tactical badass.  They're kind of inherently linked; if you have a gimmick that doesn't matter because playing normally works, then why have the gimmick at all?  Anyway, C24's gimmick of flyers with super-range is scary, yes, but you have your own Dragon Veins on that map.  What the designer "wants" you to do is to keep aggressively moving forward and activating your own Dragon Veins to reduce flyer movement, letting you safely pick them off.  And if you don't do that, then yeah, it's gonna be backup strats time.  It's unfortunate you weren't a fan, but I also think that there was no other option here - making it cool for players who liked interacting with the gimmick as a change of pace inherently means a rough ride if you don't interact with it.

(I do agree that Conquest has some deeply unfun ideas, notably the Kitsune lair and a certain skill on the Lunatic final map.  But I personally thought C24 was cool.)

Its not just the gimmicks.

Im not a fan of Pair-Up or skills, completely hate MyCastle and stuff like Hexing Rods and lack of durability.

The gimmicky maps suck too but even "basic" maps and mechamics in Fates are worse to than in other games for me.

[Shadow Mir]

11 hours ago, Samz707 said:

After getting to chapter 24 so far.
I'm just gonna be blunt, I consider Conquest the worst Fire Emblem I've played. 

So much of the "difficulty" comes from untelegraphed high stat enemy spawns or unfun map gimmicks. (In Chapter 24 alone I had to reset after turn 1 due to the map gimmick putting me in a spot where units would die without warning.)

And the story doesn't exactly make up for it.

I'm only on Normal and the game has basically turned into just trial/error of abusing the most powerful units to get by.

I am honestly baffled people consider this game to have the best gameplay because I haven't seen it at all in my playthrough, it's honestly been the most miserable and devoid of any enjoyment game I've played in a long while.

What games have you played? 

Anyway, I can agree with you to some extent. The wind map in Conquest is fucking atrocious. I don't like the Ryoma duel map either.

5 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Im not a fan of Pair-Up

To its credit, Fates actually made an effort to balance pair up. Contrast Awakening, where it was utterly bonkers.

5 hours ago, Samz707 said:

completely hate MyCastle

Welcome to the club. 

5 hours ago, Samz707 said:

stuff like Hexing Rods

Understandable. I hate status staves because they're seldom actually useful for the player, yet are always a pain in the arse in enemy hands. Special mention to Berserk, which made the target uncontrollable and attack whatever is in range. Even allies.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[MeteorPhoenix]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

It does seem a pretty odd statement. Like, while they both have a "monastery", Three Houses' main use with it is to grind weapon ranks for skills, which is probably the most central mechanic of the game. Meanwhile Engage doesn't even have weapon ranks at all. Three Houses also obviously doesn't have Emblems which are hugely central to Engage. If you squint really hard you could say Battalions are similar to Emblems, but the only Engage Attacks similar to Three Houses are Byleth and Corrin given Battalions are all multi targeting attacks while Engage Attacks are mostly single target. And while it requires a few turns, you can endlessly use Engage attacks while you only have a set number of uses of Battalions. Battalions can also outright die mid battle.

The two games seem to have very obviously different design intentions and results. The only way they're really similar is in that all mainline Fire Emblem games involving walking up and hitting stuff.

My point isn't that they play the same. It's that for a casual player on normal, neither is that much better than the other. Engage's brilliant gameplay is irrelevant in normal and hard.

[Jotari]

14 minutes ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

My point isn't that they play the same. It's that for a casual player on normal, neither is that much better than the other. Engage's brilliant gameplay is irrelevant in normal and hard.

Well better is certainly something we can say is subjective, though I don't know if your opinion alone can be representative of the entire casual fanbase, but how similar or different they are is going to be pretty factual, and it seems pretty self evident that they are different gameplay experiences, or at least as different as any two Fire Emblem games can generally be.

[MeteorPhoenix]

10 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well better is certainly something we can say is subjective, though I don't know if your opinion alone can be representative of the entire casual fanbase, but how similar or different they are is going to be pretty factual, and it seems pretty self evident that they are different gameplay experiences, or at least as different as any two Fire Emblem games can generally be.

Yeah, I should preface, this is my strong opinion, but it's anecdotal. I know plenty of casual fans who see absolutely nothing wrong with 3H's gameplay, because they only played it once. Lots of them play on casual, normal, hard, etc. I would bet money that less than 5% of the people that bought 3H even touched Maddening.

The point I'm making is that when people say that Engage has better gameplay than 3H, that's not representative of the bulk of the population that played the games (imho). That is representative of that hardcore group of people that play Maddening. As far as most people are concerned, they're both pretty easy games that play well enough.

[Samz707]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

What games have you played? 

Anyway, I can agree with you to some extent. The wind map in Conquest is fucking atrocious. I don't like the Ryoma duel map either.

To its credit, Fates actually made an effort to balance pair up. Contrast Awakening, where it was utterly bonkers.

Welcome to the club. 

Understandable. I hate status staves because they're seldom actually useful for the player, yet are always a pain in the arse in enemy hands. Special mention to Berserk, which made the target uncontrollable and attack whatever is in range. Even allies.

Awakening/Blazing Blade/Echoes/Binding Blade/Three Houses/Sacred Stones (in order of starting them though I finished Binding after 3H and Awakening after Echoes)

To me, that kinda makes it worse since you feel even more gimped if you try to ignore it. (Part of the reason I dislike hexing rods is becauae they encourage deploying units purely as backpacks to get hit by hexing rods which is not a playstyle I enjoy.)

At least in other games, you have the restore staff.

Hexing Rod doesnt even wear off on it's own.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Samz707
Forgot SS

[Florete]

2 hours ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

My point isn't that they play the same. It's that for a casual player on normal, neither is that much better than the other. Engage's brilliant gameplay is irrelevant in normal and hard.

I didn't play normal, but I strongly disagree with the assertion that Engage's gameplay differences are irrelevant on hard mode.

I also really don't understand how they can simultaneously not play the same and neither be better than the other. There are fundamental differences in their gameplay that will be noticed by players regardless of the difficulty they play on, which will then cause players to draw comparisons and inevitably leads to a preference of one over the other. If they play different, people will feel different about them.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Awakening/Blazing Blade/Echoes/Binding Blade/Three Houses/Sacred Stones (in order of starting them though I finished Binding after 3H and Awakening after Echoes)

To me, that kinda makes it worse since you feel even more gimped if you try to ignore it. (Part of the reason I dislike hexing rods is becauae they encourage deploying units purely as backpacks to get hit by hexing rods which is not a playstyle I enjoy.)

At least in other games, you have the restore staff.

Hexing Rod doesnt even wear off on it's own.

You said you played on hard, right? It's even worse on lunatic, all the Hexing Rod Maids have staff savant, giving them infinite durability. So you can't even burn through their uses with a designated backpack unit. Meaning the only way to deal with them is to just rush forward and hope they miss. It gives the enemy a rather crazy area of control where there's just a large section of the map you simply can't enter until you're ready to rush the enemy. And, especially in the Conquest End Game, that's not easy to do even if you have cleared the area of enemies, since the maids are in range of other enemies that can probably gang up and kill the unit you've chosen to assassinate the maid.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Jotari

[Samz707]

10 minutes ago, Jotari said:

You said you played on hard, right? It's even worse on lunatic, all the Hexing Rod Maids have staff savant, giving them infinite durability. So you can't even burn through their uses with a designated backpack unit. Meaning the only way to deal with them is to just rush forward and hope they miss. It gives the enemy a rather crazy area of control where there's just a large section of the map you simply can't enter until you're ready to rush the enemy. And, especially in the Conquest End Game, that's not easy to do even if you have cleared the area of enemies, since the maids are in range of other enemies that can probably gang up and kill the unit you've chosen to assassinate the maid.

I started on Hard until Chapter 10 where I set it down to Normal, I am on classic however.

Not that normal is particularly easy, My Corrin is basically Roy-Tier and tends to get one-rounded by most foes by this point so it's just the Xander/Leo/Camilla show for the most part.  

I'm thankful Normal at least seems to make some chapters like Ryoma's 25 turns meme easier but maps like 24 are still trial/error with unforeshadowed spawns of enemies that one-round several of my units, Corrin among them. 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Samz707

[Eltosian Kadath]

7 hours ago, Samz707 said:

After getting to chapter 24 so far.
I'm just gonna be blunt, I consider Conquest the worst Fire Emblem I've played. 

So much of the "difficulty" comes from untelegraphed high stat enemy spawns or unfun map gimmicks. (In Chapter 24 alone I had to reset after turn 1 due to the map gimmick putting me in a spot where units would die without warning.)

7 hours ago, Samz707 said:

 

I'm only on Normal and the game has basically turned into just trial/error of abusing the most powerful units to get by.

I am honestly baffled people consider this game to have the best gameplay because I haven't seen it at all in my playthrough, it's honestly been the most miserable and devoid of any enjoyment game I've played in a long while.

Sorry you aren't enjoying Conquest, as once it really clicks, it can be a real blast. A lot of the fun of Conquest is in the interplay between when to be in the more defensive, but tactically restrictive and rigid pairup/Guard stance, and when to be in the more offensive, and flexible separated/Attack stance (admittedly I am more a fan of attack stance, which might be bleeding into my descriptions here). Baiting enemies in with a strong pairup, to then carefully chain together attack stances to wipe the enemy group out is a joy, especially when you get to play with the mobility added by your option to have separated units pairup within a turn, where you can do things like pairup with a closer/higher move ally to reach where you need to, switch over to them, and then transfer them over to an unpaired adjacent ally to get the attack stance hit you need for your kill, and later in the turn using another units action to transfer and separate the unit you transferred onto an ally to maintain your flexibility for next turn (or leave them as is for a more defensive option against some upcoming enemies, or perhaps you needed that unit's attack too, so you transferred and then switched to them to give them an attack as well).

Skills are also a part of the game that people have a hard time really grokking how important they can be, as you need to watch out for them on enemies (on Hard and Lunatic at least, I started with Conquest on Hard, and while it pressed my abilities as a player to their absolute limit at the time, I never really looked back at Normal), but there are a lot of way you can use them to your advantage too. Personally I love how bulky you can make your units using positional buffs, things like Elise's Lily's Poise (which reduces damage to adjacent allies by 3, and increases the damage they deal by 1), Demoiselle/Gentilholme (Male/Female allies within 2 spaces take 2 less damage), Inspiration (allies within 2 take 2 less damage and deal 2 more) Corrin's Supportive skill (allies with at least C rank support with Corrin, using Corrin as an attack stance partner, or pairup partner takes 2 less damage, deals 2 more damage, and gets +10 accuracy), etc., which all stack (although multiple instances of the same skill don't), which can make for some remarkably tanky units (or more aggressive units, many of these skills have offensive counterparts, like Camilla's Rose's Thorns to Elise's Lily's Poise) with the right positioning. The mobility skills of Lunge and Shelter are really interesting in the players hands, although finding way to defang enemy Lunge traps can be difficult. Shelter has a lot of surprising utility, the more simple uses are to protect an unpaired unit by pushing them behind the user, or in creating the space you need to get the next attack (or get the right attack stance hit you need), but you can also use it as a pseudo-dance by Sheltering someone that already acted, and then have another unit transfer and switch to that unit to give them another action. Lunge is less flashy in the players hand, but surprisingly useful, it can break up an enemy formation so you don't have to deal with their attack stances while you are attacking them, get a kill to then leave the space you attacked from open for other allies to use, move a unit you chipped closer in to give a further out ally the kill, or even cross a wall using a ranged lunge. Rallies can be vital for reaching key benchmarks, and still effect at 2 range in this game, which is nice. Breaker skills are a fun one as well, where you can do things like block off the enemy mage reinforcements on chapter 24 by Felicia/Jakob on the bridge with the Tome Breaker the got from reaching level 15 Maid/Butler, to save you from some dangerous foes, or help deal with bosses with things like Sword Breaker and Dual Club (which you given back in Chapter 10) to counter the dodgy sword blows of Ryouma, although they are all level 15 promoted skills, so tend to be for late game (I generally consider chapter 23 the earliest you are likely to see them on someone other than Felicia, Jakob, or Gunter).

I will also add that Conquest doesn't have ambush spawns, so unless you have really overcommitted to pairups, you almost always have the time to backup, and reassess how to deal with reinforcements, or simply get the jump on them yourself. Also, while it does give you some units to carry you if you are struggling in the form of units like Camilla, and Xander, you can beat it on even the highest difficulties without them, as it is a very flexible game. 

 

2 hours ago, SnowFire said:

 

That said, for a gimmick to mean something, it needs to make the player engage with it.  Fates has this whole idea of Dragon Veins changing the way battle works.  For this to feel appropriately powerful to match the plot hype, it needs to, well, mean something, which means failing or declining to engage with the gimmick should result in a tough experience, and using it properly should make you feel like a tactical badass.  They're kind of inherently linked; if you have a gimmick that doesn't matter because playing normally works, then why have the gimmick at all?  Anyway, C24's gimmick of flyers with super-range is scary, yes, but you have your own Dragon Veins on that map.  What the designer "wants" you to do is to keep aggressively moving forward and activating your own Dragon Veins to reduce flyer movement, letting you safely pick them off.  And if you don't do that, then yeah, it's gonna be backup strats time.  It's unfortunate you weren't a fan, but I also think that there was no other option here - making it cool for players who liked interacting with the gimmick as a change of pace inherently means a rough ride if you don't interact with it.

That is a rather fun gimmick, especially with how you can use it against her if you have your own flyers, using the extra move she gives you to do things like assassinate the otherwise hexing Azama without leaving a unit in staff range, or simply ferrying a unit over to the next DV you need with the now more mobile flyer you have, to then counter her use of it. Leapfrogging from DV to DV is a lot of fun on that map, with how it pushes you onward with it. 

 

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

You said you played on hard, right? It's even worse on lunatic, all the Hexing Rod Maids have staff savant, giving them infinite durability. So you can't even burn through their uses with a designated backpack unit. Meaning the only way to deal with them is to just rush forward and hope they miss. It gives the enemy a rather crazy area of control where there's just a large section of the map you simply can't enter until you're ready to rush the enemy. And, especially in the Conquest End Game, that's not easy to do even if you have cleared the area of enemies, since the maids are in range of other enemies that can probably gang up and kill the unit you've chosen to assassinate the maid.

First off, earlier in the thread they said they were playing normal mode, secondly, there are only three units in the entire game that have that (and with how Iago works, he probably shouldn't count), and all of them are after the chapter 24.

 

7 hours ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

Three Houses gameplay is indistinguishable from Engage's in the modes that matter; normal and hard. I know there's long essays on how Maddening Engage is a perfect game, but as sales have shown, the vast majority of us don't touch Maddening. The people that have kept Fire Emblem selling at Awakening levels and not Gaiden levels are casuals, and for most casuals, 3H gameplay is not that different from Engage's.

This take reminds me of how my mom would call every videogame console a Nintendo.

 

[Saint Rubenio]

19 hours ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

Three Houses gameplay is indistinguishable from Engage's in the modes that matter; normal and hard. I know there's long essays on how Maddening Engage is a perfect game, but as sales have shown, the vast majority of us don't touch Maddening. The people that have kept Fire Emblem selling at Awakening levels and not Gaiden levels are casuals, and for most casuals, 3H gameplay is not that different from Engage's.

7 hours ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

The point I'm making is that when people say that Engage has better gameplay than 3H, that's not representative of the bulk of the population that played the games (imho). That is representative of that hardcore group of people that play Maddening. As far as most people are concerned, they're both pretty easy games that play well enough.

By that logic, fast food is the best type of food, because a lot of people eat fast food more often than the alternatives. Go up to a chef and tell them their elaborate dishes are indistinguishable from a McDonald's burger, see how they react to that.

See, part of your point is correct. The bulk of people buying these games obviously doesn't give a flying fig about gameplay. That's why Houses has sold better than Engage, alongside a bunch of other factors like having better marketing, being more mainstream-friendly due to being less "anime" for lack of a better word, flamewars over which side committed more war crimes sparking more discussion around it, etc. More people care more about story in these games, that is a fact.

What I don't understand is how that equates to Three Houses having gameplay that's as good as Engage. It doesn't, it's just that most people don't care about gameplay, or care more about a good story than they do good gameplay. Like how most people buy fast food because it's cheaper, quicker and can be eaten on the go, not because it's better than gourmet dishes.

[MeteorPhoenix]

9 hours ago, Florete said:

I didn't play normal, but I strongly disagree with the assertion that Engage's gameplay differences are irrelevant on hard mode.

I also really don't understand how they can simultaneously not play the same and neither be better than the other. There are fundamental differences in their gameplay that will be noticed by players regardless of the difficulty they play on, which will then cause players to draw comparisons and inevitably leads to a preference of one over the other. If they play different, people will feel different about them.

Yeah, they'll feel mildly different about them and mildly prefer one over the other, why not. They'll remember them mostly the same. Go ask a casual normal player what the gameplay differences are between 3H and Engage. I bet they'll tell you something like one was anime Hogwarts and the other one had ghosts.

These differences are memorable to the these forums, the subreddit and discords, and few other people. Because those differences are at their starkest in Maddening, or on repeat playthroughs.

[Florete]

5 hours ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

Yeah, they'll feel mildly different about them and mildly prefer one over the other, why not. They'll remember them mostly the same. Go ask a casual normal player what the gameplay differences are between 3H and Engage. I bet they'll tell you something like one was anime Hogwarts and the other one had ghosts.

These differences are memorable to the these forums, the subreddit and discords, and few other people. Because those differences are at their starkest in Maddening, or on repeat playthroughs.

I think they'll remember a few more things, like:

• That Three Houses puts a much greater emphasis on things that happen out of combat.
• That Three Houses makes a big deal out of building your characters up, vs Engage encouraging you to swap out old units for newer ones.
• That anyone can use virtually any weapon in Three Houses, vs units being stuck to specific weapons in Engage.
• That Break pushed them to think about what weapon they had equipped, even if they didn't take much advantage of it on their own turn.
• They'll definitely remember Engaging with Emblems and getting super attacks in Engage, combat arts being the closest equivalent in TH but noticeably different.
• If they used said combat arts, they'll likely remember how durability impacted things in TH, vs not existing in Engage.
• If they played the same difficulty on both games, they likely found Engage harder. If they jumped into Engage hard mode because they played TH on normal and thought that meant they were prepared, they likely found Engage a lot harder.

You don't have to go into the nitty-gritty of what stat boosts each Emblem gives, or the best skill builds, or how monster mechanics work to notice obvious differences in the games and how they play. Maybe if you're talking about 12-year-olds they'll have more difficulty remembering differences, but this isn't Pokemon.

I definitely noticed stark gameplay differences the first time I played Engage, on hard mode.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I'm no casual, but it's the surface level similarities to Three Houses that repelled me from picking up Engage. The big Monastery full of homework between maps? No thanks, I've had my fill of "optional" gameplay systems that play several crucial roles in terms of balance and resource economy. And also your Emblems get taken away at some point? So there's a time limit on getting the most out of those things - like Three Houses calendar system forcing you to engage with Monastery on a regular basis or else lose out on that opportunity altogether.

You could try to convince me Engage does the Monastery "better" for this or that reason. But it wouldn't make a difference to me because I feel like I shouldn't have to spend half my play time on the between-mission grind in the first place. That was a key part of the appeal of Fire Emblem among SRPGs, no expectations for the player to grind.

[Samz707]

13 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I'm no casual, but it's the surface level similarities to Three Houses that repelled me from picking up Engage. The big Monastery full of homework between maps? No thanks, I've had my fill of "optional" gameplay systems that play several crucial roles in terms of balance and resource economy. And also your Emblems get taken away at some point? So there's a time limit on getting the most out of those things - like Three Houses calendar system forcing you to engage with Monastery on a regular basis or else lose out on that opportunity altogether.

You could try to convince me Engage does the Monastery "better" for this or that reason. But it wouldn't make a difference to me because I feel like I shouldn't have to spend half my play time on the between-mission grind in the first place. That was a key part of the appeal of Fire Emblem among SRPGs, no expectations for the player to grind.

Ironically I'm the opposite lmao.

Most of the praise from Engage for me sounds like it came from people who hated 3H so that put me off it entirely. (As well as the story rivaling Fates.)

Also it has chain attacks and I've seen what "extra attacks" like Attack Stance due to Fire Emblem's gameplay and I don't like it. 

Also I just finished Fates CQ's final map and I just want to double down it on it being the worst game, it's always "good" when a Fire Emblem game basically completely boils down to sacrifice strats. (at this point I'm convinced Phoenix mode was never an accessbility feature but a band-aid for this.) 

[Shadow Mir]

17 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Awakening/Blazing Blade/Echoes/Binding Blade/Three Houses/Sacred Stones (in order of starting them though I finished Binding after 3H and Awakening after Echoes)

Ok.

11 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Also I just finished Fates CQ's final map and I just want to double down it on it being the worst game, it's always "good" when a Fire Emblem game basically completely boils down to sacrifice strats. (at this point I'm convinced Phoenix mode was never an accessbility feature but a band-aid for this.) 

You ain't gonna like the DS games then. The highest difficulties in both pretty much mandate sacrifice strats.

[Samz707]

10 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Ok.

You ain't gonna like the DS games then. The highest difficulties in both pretty much mandate sacrifice strats.

I already dont play 3H maddening because I dont like STRs/Skills emblem, Im ok with playing on lower difficulties.

 

 

[Florete]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

And also your Emblems get taken away at some point? So there's a time limit on getting the most out of those things - like Three Houses calendar system forcing you to engage with Monastery on a regular basis or else lose out on that opportunity altogether.

There is really no comparison to the calendar in Three Houses here. Most of what you get out of the Emblems is from equipping them, so there's nothing to make sure you do before they're taken. There are skills you can inherit from them, but unless you're playing on maddening and/or really know what you're doing this just isn't important, especially since most of the game's best units come after that point anyway.

Somniel is not as bad as monastery but still kinda blows.

[MeteorPhoenix]

2 hours ago, Florete said:

I think they'll remember a few more things, like:

• That Three Houses puts a much greater emphasis on things that happen out of combat.
• That Three Houses makes a big deal out of building your characters up, vs Engage encouraging you to swap out old units for newer ones.
• That anyone can use virtually any weapon in Three Houses, vs units being stuck to specific weapons in Engage.
• That Break pushed them to think about what weapon they had equipped, even if they didn't take much advantage of it on their own turn.
• They'll definitely remember Engaging with Emblems and getting super attacks in Engage, combat arts being the closest equivalent in TH but noticeably different.
• If they used said combat arts, they'll likely remember how durability impacted things in TH, vs not existing in Engage.
• If they played the same difficulty on both games, they likely found Engage harder. If they jumped into Engage hard mode because they played TH on normal and thought that meant they were prepared, they likely found Engage a lot harder.

You don't have to go into the nitty-gritty of what stat boosts each Emblem gives, or the best skill builds, or how monster mechanics work to notice obvious differences in the games and how they play. Maybe if you're talking about 12-year-olds they'll have more difficulty remembering differences, but this isn't Pokemon.

I definitely noticed stark gameplay differences the first time I played Engage, on hard mode.

Yes, but those are not better or worse. A casual player isn't likely to come off thinking "wow, Engage is clearly the gameplay Fire Emblem", as is popularly understood in this community. My original point is that this idea that Engage is far and away superior to 3H in gameplay in a sentiment that exists exclusively in Fire Emblem hardcore communities. The quality of the gameplay, I'd you're on normal (and honestly, casual) is the same.

[SnowFire]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

You could try to convince me Engage does the Monastery "better" for this or that reason. But it wouldn't make a difference to me because I feel like I shouldn't have to spend half my play time on the between-mission grind in the first place. That was a key part of the appeal of Fire Emblem among SRPGs, no expectations for the player to grind.

While normally I wouldn't try to convince other people, if this is your worry, then maybe you should give Engage a try after all?  The thing that the Engage Somniel does better than Garreg Mach is precisely cut down the time spent.  You can do Somniel runs very, very quickly, especially if you don't count shopping / forging (which is something you'd just do from a menu anyway with the Merlinus equivalnet in a hypothetical Somniel-less version of the game).  Most of the minigame nonsense just doesn't matter, so no worries skipping it.  (Okay, the one minor exception: Arena Emblem battles take too long.  Which is not actually that long individually, but you can potentially do a lot of them since the game throws Bond Points at you willy nilly, and if you feel obligated to spend them you can waste some time here.  But, well, just don't do that then.  And even if you do do them, they're still faster than many 3H activities.)

Engage is also much more about not having a between-mission grind.  You are expected to go from story mission to story mission, without tons of dialogue in the middle.  On Maddening, they don't even really offer you very many skirmishes, and they're not helpful if you do them.  So...  honestly, given your worries, it sounds like Engage goes in the exact direction you wanted from Three Houses.  (Although doing optional Paralogues are rather potent and maybe count as "grind"?  But they're also skippable, so eh, do as many as you enjoy.)  

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I'm no casual, but it's the surface level similarities to Three Houses that repelled me from picking up Engage. The big Monastery full of homework between maps? No thanks, I've had my fill of "optional" gameplay systems that play several crucial roles in terms of balance and resource economy. And also your Emblems get taken away at some point? So there's a time limit on getting the most out of those things - like Three Houses calendar system forcing you to engage with Monastery on a regular basis or else lose out on that opportunity altogether.

You could try to convince me Engage does the Monastery "better" for this or that reason. But it wouldn't make a difference to me because I feel like I shouldn't have to spend half my play time on the between-mission grind in the first place. That was a key part of the appeal of Fire Emblem among SRPGs, no expectations for the player to grind.

Honestly, aside from it being the menu where skill inheritance is, you can completely ignore the Monastery stuff in Engage. It's very much optional content, which I have ignored aside from trying it out once each mini game, and not even that for fishing. Only thing I occasionally use is cooking for stat boosts if I'm struggling. I'd even go as far as to say it can be more easily ignored than Fates' My Castle.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

 It's very much optional content

Mfers still saying "ItS oPtIoNaL" in 2023. 

1 hour ago, Florete said:

Somniel is not as bad as monastery but still kinda blows.

I wasn't expecting otherwise. You gotta troll pretty hard to do it worse than Three Houses. I was Out when I saw it in the trailer. And the Post-Release discourse that I've overheard here wasn't enticing either. Everybody that likes the game prefaces it with either "I like it ironically" or "Well it didn't bother me" handwaving of issues. Fates all over again. I'm okay with a divisive game like Engage existing, but I won't be burned on another 40+ hour game that plays exactly as dull as it looked. At least Three Houses took a risk on a new story with all new mechanics. Engage is selling us "Marth From Smash Bros" as if there aren't already half a dozen low effort crossover titles in this series already. Safe. Boring. 

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

While normally I wouldn't try to convince other people, if this is your worry, then maybe you should give Engage a try after all? 

Interesting points all, but rule #1 of Fire Emblem is Build an Army. Rule #2 is Trust Nobody. Fire Emblem for the Game Boy Advance. 

[Acacia Sgt]

This reminds me...

For how it gets brought up, I suppose it'd be unpopular to say I kinda think the reverse? I was more invested with Engage's story over TH's, but I had more fun fooling around with the Monastery, building up my units, etc. Don't know if it played a factor, but I did played TH after Engage, for its worth.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Mfers still saying "ItS oPtIoNaL" in 2023. 

I'm not sure what mfers is meant to be, but, like, it is. The Sominel stuff is not pushed. It's just there.

[Dark Holy Elf]

22 hours ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

Yes, but those are not better or worse. A casual player isn't likely to come off thinking "wow, Engage is clearly the gameplay Fire Emblem", as is popularly understood in this community. My original point is that this idea that Engage is far and away superior to 3H in gameplay in a sentiment that exists exclusively in Fire Emblem hardcore communities. The quality of the gameplay, I'd you're on normal (and honestly, casual) is the same.

I think this is correct... and I think the opinion you cite might not be as widespread as some assume even within hardcore communities.

I dunno if this counts as an unpopular opinion, but I'd say that 3H and Engage are pretty close in overall gameplay worth. They're relatively different so it's reasonable for people to prefer Engage, but I also think it's reasonable for someone to prefer 3H. I consider the two of them pretty close, with my bullet points for their gameplay pros/cons being:

Engage advantages:

• no same-turn reinforcements (only affects Maddening, of course)
• overall better map design, on average
• the backup / mystic / qi adept / armored tags mean every class type has a niche instead of "infantry bad"

3H advantages:

• unit building is more interesting; going through classes to pick up skills is more fun than just pressing a button to inherit skills after burning time in the arena
• on a related note, five skill slots instead of two leads to a lot more customization (Awakening/Fates share this advantage)
• individual units are more interesting, due to having unique spells / combat arts / talent lists

There's a lot more I could add to both lists (I could talk about how emblems are more interesting than battalions, but bond rings are far worse and for a large part of the game over half your cast is stuck with those instead), but the point is there are significant points for both and I don't come away thinking there's a clear winner. Engage's first playthrough was a better gameplay experience than 3H's for me, but I doubt I'll play Engage as much as I've played 3H, and I think there's a reason that 3H generated more gameplay discussion even in hardcore communities (including here).