Which features from Engage do you want to come back (and not)?

[lenticular]

7 minutes ago, Galap said:

Yeah, I think that a good compromise that would work well would be if you could only rewind to the start of the current turn. That way you can fix misclics or simple processing errors, but strategically you still need to do things the first time.

I wouldn't be a fan of that, because I think it would encourage me to rewind more than I do otherwise. Sometimes, I find myself getting into a little bit of trouble, but I like to try to ride it out and see if I can still find a way to victory anyway. If I couldn't rewind by more than a single turn, then that would encourage me to immediately rewind any sort of mishap unless I was completely certain that I was going to be able to fix things.

I think that my favourite compromise solution that I've seen suggestedf is just to turn it into a difficulty setting. Get rid of all the storyline justification (which tends to create problems of its own) and just make the start of the game have you choose whether you want rewinds on or off.

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

The Ike paralogue is probably the example that sticks out the most to me though; it's possible to survive most of the map and treat it like a defend map before the gotcha moment happens. I ended up canning my first attempt and doing it later because I had no good way of dealing with Ike and surviving the rest, and it effectively wasted at least thirty minutes of my time. The one saving grace is that it doesn't affect future playthroughs; so it's only painful the first time and doesn't stick out if there's enough replay value.

The Ike paralogue kinda reminds me of the Conquest defend map in the port. You can happily sit there and defend choke points, right up until the game decides to change the rules on you and the choke points aren't there any more. And then it's largely down to luck (where your units are at the time, etc.) whether you can survive without losses/at all.

[samthedigital]

19 minutes ago, lenticular said:

The Ike paralogue kinda reminds me of the Conquest defend map in the port. You can happily sit there and defend choke points, right up until the game decides to change the rules on you and the choke points aren't there any more. And then it's largely down to luck (where your units are at the time, etc.) whether you can survive without losses/at all.

I can see the comparison, yeah. I do like the map in Conquest significantly more past the first going though since the map evolves with the player's skill level. I don't really find that to be the case with the paralogues in this game; the path of least resistance is just to cheese most of them to avoid annoying gimmicks.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Yeah fog is kinda inherently unfair. For what it's worth I don't think Engage tended to be as ridiculous with fog unfairness as numerous previous Fire Emblems (certainly including 3H, where the common Archer can attack from outside your base sight range), thanks to numerous well-placed torches giving you strong indications of what's coming (like even those wyverns you mentioned are visible flying through the torchlit areas, so you have some idea they're coming, though obviously you may not know where one is at a given time and still need to rewind once you learn the hard way - I certainly did).

One thing I don't like about Engages fog of war is that you can't actively move beyond your sight range. If a square is fogged then that's as far as you go. In previous games, if you were confident, brave, or had already reset a few times and know where the enemies are, you can charge into the darkness and accidentally bump into an enemy. I think the reason they went with this change is because they decided fog of war is going back to Thracia basics and hiding terrain too, which, yeah, okay, that's a thing, but it slows down your momentum a lot not be able to move through the darkness. Particularly when your army has been split up and there's a unit lagging behind that can't get closer to the rest of your units because there's a few spaces of fog cutting them off.

I've always been of the opinion that fog of war should work in stages. Where you can see everything up close, the presence of enemies but not their class or stats just outside of your sight range. Not able to detect enemies at all a tile beyond that, and finally not being able to see terrain at its greatest extent.

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

I think that my favourite compromise solution that I've seen suggestedf is just to turn it into a difficulty setting. Get rid of all the storyline justification (which tends to create problems of its own) and just make the start of the game have you choose whether you want rewinds on or off.

Rather than just having it be a binary on or off, I think letting you choose how many rewinds you want to have as a file setting. I could do with a few rewinds for when I inevitably make some mistakes, but giving me 10 whole chances to redo things just puts me in bad habits.

Edited March 12, 2023 by Jotari

[Dark Holy Elf]

7 hours ago, samthedigital said:

Most of the paralogues can be trivialized because the win condition is to kill the boss. I think that it's fair to assume that the last one is similar to the rest.

In all other paralogues the boss starts toward the furthest end of the map from your starting point, the game encouraging you to engage with most of the rest of the map before beating the boss (or in Marth's case, there being treasure as a reward for doing so). Yes, you can use shenanigans involving Entrap/Warp/etc. to skip parts of the map, but that's still a form of effort.

In the Pact Ring paralogue the boss starts in your range turn 1, with a whole bunch of enemies scattered around the edges of the map which would not be relevant if the listed win condition were true. That certainly made me extremely suspicious. It's not impossible that such a map might exist (Dwyer's or Midori's paralogues in Fates did something similar), so I can see not being suspicious, I suppose. Maybe I'd have fallen for it if not for Chapter 22, I dunno.

5 hours ago, Galap said:

Yeah, I think that a good compromise that would work well would be if you could only rewind to the start of the current turn. That way you can fix misclics or simple processing errors, but strategically you still need to do things the first time.

As long as it's the start of the previous turn, too, I suppose that'd be fair. I've definitely had to rewind just due to flat-up not noticing a certain enemy (or that I walked into Entrap range, or something).

I think the most important thing is that (a) the game respects my time. I don't want to redo an entire map especially if the maps are gonna be long, as Engage's often are, and (b) that the game maintains a correct level of tension for decisions mattering. It's a pretty tough balance to strike, and on the whole I think it's better to err on the side of not having the player redo a map, so I understand how we ended up with more, unrestricted rewinds.

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

One thing I don't like about Engages fog of war is that you can't actively move beyond your sight range.

Yeah, definitely agree, especially because it becomes yet another way enemies aren't affected by fog that you are. The absolute worst I ran into was in Chapter 20, at one point I had a a unit I wanted to move from one lit area to another, but there was one (1) dark tile in the way, so they couldn't.

I like your idea for fog in stages. Maybe even add some hazy red in further in the distance to show where enemies are, particularly if they move (since you'd be able to hear them, then).

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Rather than just having it be a binary on or off, I think letting you choose how many rewinds you want to have as a file setting. I could do with a few rewinds for when I inevitably make some mistakes, but giving me 10 whole chances to redo things just puts me in bad habits.

Agreed - just give us the options about numbers.

Though I will say I'm always skeptical about the idea that rewinds create bad habits. I'm watching a friend who is bad at strategy RPGs play through the series, and it's clear they're learning more from rewinds than they did from loading battle saves and/or the times they forgot to make one and restarted the map. Rewinding makes you think directly about what caused the unit death as you take steps to avoid that happening again, in a way that restarting the map or soldering on don't.

Edited March 12, 2023 by Dark Holy Elf

[lenticular]

15 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

In the Pact Ring paralogue the boss starts in your range turn 1, with a whole bunch of enemies scattered around the edges of the map which would not be relevant if the listed win condition were true. That certainly made me extremely suspicious. It's not impossible that such a map might exist (Dwyer's or Midori's paralogues in Fates did something similar), so I can see not being suspicious, I suppose. Maybe I'd have fallen for it if not for Chapter 22, I dunno.

I think that there can be quite a difference between knowing (or suspecting) that something is going to happen and knowing what is going to happen. Without knowing the details, it's hard to guess what you need to do to avoid falling into the unspecified trap. For instance: do you need to go fast, or do you need to play cautiously? In this case, Ithe risk was in going too fast and being overextended when the victory condition changed. But hypothetically, it could have been the case that something bad happens at the end of every turn, and it was being too cautious that would land you in hot water.

[samthedigital]

40 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

In all other paralogues the boss starts toward the furthest end of the map from your starting point, the game encouraging you to engage with most of the rest of the map before beating the boss (or in Marth's case, there being treasure as a reward for doing so). Yes, you can use shenanigans involving Entrap/Warp/etc. to skip parts of the map, but that's still a form of effort.

You don't need to do staff shenanigans in a lot of cases; baiting the boss to start moving is enough. If the incentive you're referring to is gold and experience that's the same as every other kill boss map. That's not compelling enough to me if I can avoid having to deal with a surprise near the end of the chapter.

[Dark Holy Elf]

56 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

You don't need to do staff shenanigans in a lot of cases; baiting the boss to start moving is enough. If the incentive you're referring to is gold and experience that's the same as every other kill boss map. That's not compelling enough to me if I can avoid having to deal with a surprise near the end of the chapter.

Of course you can bait the boss, but the point is they're somewhere in the back. To a certain extent, other enemies will be on your way to the boss (the only major exception is the Marth paralogue, which has a significant chunk of the map not between you and the boss, but there are four treasure chests in the out-of-the-way area) . You don't have to defeat all enemies, of course, and you can certainly avoid a fair number of them depending on your strategy, but they're still something you have to consider.

Pact Ring boss is sitting in your range in turn 1, no staff use needed, with many other enemies further away from you. Those enemies are completely meaningless aside from sources of exp if the victory condition is truthful. I don't find the situation comparable.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

I think that there can be quite a difference between knowing (or suspecting) that something is going to happen and knowing what is going to happen. Without knowing the details, it's hard to guess what you need to do to avoid falling into the unspecified trap. For instance: do you need to go fast, or do you need to play cautiously? In this case, Ithe risk was in going too fast and being overextended when the victory condition changed. But hypothetically, it could have been the case that something bad happens at the end of every turn, and it was being too cautious that would land you in hot water.

Agreed. Though there are ways to play which take into account both possibilities; in my case I froze the boss in place while going around killing other enemies, so hopefully I was ready to either kill the boss quickly if loads of reinforcements showed up, but also I was thinning out enemies in case killing the boss did not end the map. I just think the situation is such that you should at least suspect some sort of trap there. Of course, I'm also arguing for rewinds in general, and I agree in this case that the option of rewinding here is good because while I do think there are reasons to suspect a trap, I don't think you should be punished by resetting the map if you don't.

[samthedigital]

16 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Of course you can bait the boss, but the point is they're somewhere in the back.

Depending on the paralogue and your definition of in the back, sure, but a handful of bosses can be baited to approaching on the first turn without using staves (and in two cases without relying on Astra Storm from what I remember), and they all have exactly the same objective, so it's still fair to assume that the objective isn't a lie.

Quote

Those enemies are completely meaningless aside from sources of exp if the victory condition is truthful. I don't find the situation comparable.

Even if we assume that the objective is a lie the game still spawns a lot of enemy reinforcements that the player may or may not be able to deal with even if they can deal with the initial enemies; it's impossible to tell without any prior knowledge.

[Florete]

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

In the Pact Ring paralogue the boss starts in your range turn 1, with a whole bunch of enemies scattered around the edges of the map which would not be relevant if the listed win condition were true. That certainly made me extremely suspicious. It's not impossible that such a map might exist (Dwyer's or Midori's paralogues in Fates did something similar), so I can see not being suspicious, I suppose. Maybe I'd have fallen for it if not for Chapter 22, I dunno.

The Pact Ring boss is much closer than other paralogue bosses, but I wouldn't say he's "in your range." No one can reach him with their natural move (or if they can, just barely), and you certainly can't deplete all his life bars with natural move. Less skilled players might not think of using proper dance/warp combinations to kill the boss on turn 1, and unlike the Emblem paralogues, this boss runs away from you, making it a chase objective for players who don't finish it on that first turn. All of this is why I, at least, was surprised - and rather annoyed, tbh - by the objective change when I did gun him down on turn 1.

Another thing to note is that the game doesn't seem to actually expect you to beat the boss so quickly. You say the other enemies around at the start wouldn't be relevant if the listed objective is true, I think they're there because they expect players to have to chase the boss and thus interact with those enemies before meeting the initial objective. If you do kill the boss on turn 1, you end up in a really rough situation surrounded on all fronts, especially if you didn't move some of your units on that first turn, who might now be facing down multiple enemies and looking at certain doom, despite getting a new player phase. If you kill the boss closer to where he tries to escape, you've taken out most or all of the initial enemies and are at the top of the map where it's much easier to defend your position. It's also up here where all the engage meter recharges are, further suggesting that this is where players are expected to be.

It kind of pisses me off that the player is arguably punished for managing to clear the stated objective so fast rather than rewarded. If you do it right when it opens it's still a pretty challenging map.

[Dark Holy Elf]

28 minutes ago, Florete said:

The Pact Ring boss is much closer than other paralogue bosses, but I wouldn't say he's "in your range." No one can reach him with their natural move (or if they can, just barely)

First off, to be clear, I agree with you that (a) lying about the objective is inherently bad design and (b) it's weird to punish players for completing objectives more quickly. It's possible you're right that you're intended to "chase" the boss for all that I find the very idea a bit weird; if you're not able to reach the boss turn 1 and you let him move, you won't be any closer on turn 2! (Well, your mounted units and Sigurd-user will be slightly closer, but that's it.) At least assuming he moves as far as he can; I certainly never gave him the opportunity to find out. Dreadful Aura OP.

Having said that: Mage Knights, Bow Knights, and Ivy/Hortensia/Fogado (if in their default classes) can reach with natural move, and of course your Sigurd-user will be able to reach as well. Seadall can get another in range, and Byleth can enable several more. Getting at least six units who can average half the boss's HP each (especially if the first lands Draconic Hex) is not especially tough; certainly no staves are required. Compared to the shenanigans needed to one-turn most other bosses in the game this is far more simple; basically all it takes is thoughtful positioning of your units on turn 1. I think it would be inarguably the easiest paralogue if the listed victory condition were true, which is odd since it's the final one.

4 hours ago, samthedigital said:

Depending on the paralogue and your definition of in the back, sure, but a handful of bosses can be baited to approaching on the first turn without using staves (and in two cases without relying on Astra Storm from what I remember), and they all have exactly the same objective, so it's still fair to assume that the objective isn't a lie.

Even if we assume that the objective is a lie the game still spawns a lot of enemy reinforcements that the player may or may not be able to deal with even if they can deal with the initial enemies; it's impossible to tell without any prior knowledge.

The pact ring paralogue boss starts 9 squares away from your nearest four units. I don't recall any other bosses being anywhere near the same ballpark (Marth, for instance, is 16 squares away for the nearest unit, 18 squares from the next closest, and there's a locked door in the middle too). I think there's a very obvious difference here. I agree with your second paragraph, though.

[Florete]

21 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

First off, to be clear, I agree with you that (a) lying about the objective is inherently bad design and (b) it's weird to punish players for completing objectives more quickly. It's possible you're right that you're intended to "chase" the boss for all that I find the very idea a bit weird; if you're not able to reach the boss turn 1 and you let him move, you won't be any closer on turn 2! (Well, your mounted units and Sigurd-user will be slightly closer, but that's it.) At least assuming he moves as far as he can; I certainly never gave him the opportunity to find out. Dreadful Aura OP.

He only has 4 move. As your units should all have at least 5 move at this point (barring any Generals), you will be catching up with him. He also doesn't initiate combat, so if you can ever manage to get someone in front of him, you can safely delay him a bit.

22 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Having said that: Mage Knights, Bow Knights, and Ivy/Hortensia/Fogado (if in their default classes) can reach with natural move, and of course your Sigurd-user will be able to reach as well. Seadall can get another in range, and Byleth can enable several more. Getting at least six units who can average half the boss's HP each (especially if the first lands Draconic Hex) is not especially tough; certainly no staves are required. Compared to the shenanigans needed to one-turn most other bosses in the game this is far more simple; basically all it takes is thoughtful positioning of your units on turn 1. I think it would be inarguably the easiest paralogue if the listed victory condition were true, which is odd since it's the final one.

This is why I mentioned "less-skilled players." I know how to take him out on turn 1; I mentioned having done it myself. But for players whom this might be their first FE, or maybe they've played a couple others but only once each, the way to do this may not be as apparent. And not only do you have to know how to do it, you need to have the units who actually can pull it off. Getting at least six units who can average half the boss's HP bar to the boss on turn 1 may not sound hard to you or me, but it will to others.

This potentially making it the easiest paralogue I think would be fine considering your reward is something past games have always just handed the player for free. I was surprised I had to do a paralogue for it at all. It would be nice, especially on future playthroughs, to be able to just go in and grab it quickly if I want to. And while it may in a sense be the "final" paralogue, Marth's is unlocked at the same time.

[samthedigital]

25 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The pact ring paralogue boss starts 9 squares away from your nearest four units. I don't recall any other bosses being anywhere near the same ballpark (Marth, for instance, is 16 squares away for the nearest unit, 18 squares from the next closest, and there's a locked door in the middle too). I think there's a very obvious difference here. I agree with your second paragraph, though.

I was thinking of Lucina and Celica in particular when I mentioned the bosses that can be baited into attacking on turn two. Celica requires Sigurd (or a staff) I think, but Lucina doesn't require anything special. It might be possible to swarm Corrin with fliers also, but I don't remember the map well enough at the moment to say for sure. If you extend it to Astra Storm you can also do things like baiting Ike on the first turn to face him on turn 3 or getting Leaf to run across the map to face the player at the start of the map. I don't know if a flier is necessary or if it's possible to get a covert to reach Leif though, so that might take a few turns to set up.

Whether most players will think of this sort of thing on their first playthrough is debatable; it's more reasonable to assume that the average player is going to play most of them honestly, so they're going to come to expect some kind of trick. I'm not convinced that it's clear that we should expect the specific one they decided to use for the final paralogue though.

[Skyteppelin]

Things Id like to see return: 

Emblems in some form: Iv seen a lot of people say they don't want this back and while I get it I do think they where a good addition for the direction IS wants Fire emblem to go. Having what is basically a subclass for your units opens up a lot of cool builds and stuff that can help fix the problem certain class or characters have as well as just being visually cool. And as someone else here mentioned they are basically the best form of laguz we have had or even more accurately they are like how dragons work in FE3 which is really neat. They don't need to come back as characters again per say but just something cool like maybe legendary dragons or crusaders like FE4.

Break: I think this is a really interesting way to make the triangle feel more relevant overall, it has some kinks to mainly in that avoid tanks still don't care about it. But on the player side its a neat idea to make use of all 4 wep types especially when enemy's are so strong. It lets weaker units fight things they normally would die from with a counter. 

Things I don't want to see return:

Reclassing: I really do not like reclassing like its neat in theory but when you can just do it all the time it makes unit traits outside of there personal skill really feel very homogeneous across the board and its really lame imo. Like Chloe, Lapis, Kagetsu are basically the same unit with reclassing in mind cause there growths and very similar and so are there stat lines outside of very fast runs like LTCs they basically will turn out the same no matter which one you use. This really goes for almost all the mages as well. It was cool back in old FE where a units class was part of who they where how if you used a worse class that was a choice you where making and wanted to see how you could make it work. It made everything feel like its own piece rather then just a face.  At the very least they need to limit it some how, like SD or NM where you can only reclass into so many units. Or better yet sort of like a FE8 thing where each unit has there own reclass that are unique, like for example Lapis and Kagetsu are both swordmaster bases but Kagetsu can reclass into say wyv and warrior, while Lapis can do Griffen knight and Halberdier. I think that would make each unit more intersting to use and also making discussing them a lot more interesting.

On top of that emblems now slot into the purpose of fixing otherwise bad or medicore units and still keep the coolness of builds into the game. At an actual cost to your other units.

[ChaosStar0]

Things I'd like to see return:

Break

It's a pretty cool and neat change to the weapon triangle.

Forging

Yes, let us upgrade those heavy as fuck Axes to become lighter so the Fighters can actually double.

Class Types

Good way to not make Cavalry OP

Knives

I love Yunaka and this is one of the reasons why, besides being an unhittable dodge tank.

 

Things I don't want to see return:

Reclassing

I hate Reclassing with a passion. Three Houses is the only game to make me like it because it did it right. I do like giving players options for promotions, but outright changing the kind of unit they are is dumb.

Emblems

Good for this game as an Anniversary game, but I don't think it would work otherwise. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by ChaosStar0

[67chrome]

Man, there's a lot of stuff in this game to talk about.

Here what I've got:

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Plot stuff:

 

Avatar Unit: -2/5

Would like FE to go back to Lyn+Hector+Eliwood. Give me proper main-characters to follow.

Did like Alear being a proper character this time, but "Alear" never being spoken outload is awful.

Naming the MC is something that shouldn't come back. It's a cute touch in ~silent games like the OG Pokemon, but when you're hiring professional and very capable voice-actors for a game, naming the protag takes away more than it adds.

After spending 2+ hours having a ton of fun in character creation in various other games only to get stumped by the final "name" field, seeing a gender selection and then "name" also feels pretty awful.

 

Retainers: 5/5

Cool to see the return of this, like the dynamic. Organizes characters into memorable social groups. Would be neat if they started with some support bonus, but it's a good system nevertheless.

 

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General Gameplay stuff:

 

The Engage Mechanic: 4/5

Seen some comments on this being the best Laguz transformation system we've gotten.

I agree with that.

Cool 1-time use ability, thematic stat-bonuses, new transformed weapons, all around pretty cool.

Certainly needs to be tweaked for future entries, but it's a solid foundation I'd like to see return in some form or fashion.

The outfit change based on Backup/Covert/Dragon/w/e could also be mapped to Dragon/Tiger/Lion/Demon or w/e in future entries, and has a lot of fun baseline stuff going on.

 

Smash, Break: 3/5

I'd like to see these 2 return in some form.

One of my issues with Fire Emblem is x2 > x1 in pretty much every scinario, so there's not much a heavy-weapon like a great-sword or great axe brings to the table, and it drags down ~strong but slow classes.

Break feels good and Smash feels like it's on the right track here. Both need a little tweaking, but have some potential.

 

I do want the GBA weapon-triangle back though. Break for WT is an interesting mechanic that rewards good play without RNG messing it up, but it's also lacks any points of adhesion for skills/abilities to interact with. Or something like S tier weapons being boosted to +20% WTA bonuses from +15%, which could have helped Swordmasters/Berserkers/Snipers/Halberdiers, along with making everyone's innate weapon talent a little spicier.

 

Auto-Hit (Surge), no follow-up (Thunder). 5/5

Solid boons and banes of weapons that I'd like to see continue. Weird that Long-Bow can double and Tomohawk and Spear don't have any meaningful drawbacks though, kind of preferred Fates system there were those are like, good ~25% of the time rather than ~80% of the time.

 

Class roles: 5+/5.

Would be real sad if these didn't come back in some capacity.

They add a much-needed reason to run with infantry classes instead of the more mobile alternatives.

Also adds some interesting flair to classes like Sniper with the Engage Mechanics that would otherwise be worse warrior 10/10 times. +20 Astra-Storm range is pretty Neat.

 

Fel-Dragon tag: 0/5.

Hope this goes the way of the Dodo. Why are Wyrm enemies immune to Wyrm-slayer damage? Fel-Dragon being a special tag makes sense in Awakening or Echoes were it's reserved for Grima, but on generic enemies it's so overwhelmingly bad and unintuitive I hope to never see it again.

 

Re-Class System: 1/5.

Engage's re-class system is largely saved by class roles adding a ton of balance to the classes, but the core system isn't great.

Fates was a lot better.

Also Sacred Stones, which locked everyone into a set class-line and allowed supports to talk about unit's jobs and how they got to this particular soldiering profession over being oops just the character quirk. When the axe-fighters are lumberjacks making the best of the situation rather than a horney mage trying to pick up fighter skills, adds more texture to the unspoken story-elements playing in the background.

 

WPN rank based on classes: 2.5/5

Pretty nice to upgrade to Warrior and not be stuck for ~7 chapters training Garcia's Bow rank, or spamming staff ranks on Lute, or just being stuck perpetually in the Bronze age in Fates.

Still; some tiers like D and S never really matter in Engage as a weapon rank, and ~50% of Engage's meaningful weapon options being locked to the Engage mechanic and agnostic of Weapon Rank doesn't leave much for this system to interact with.

Pretty much everything worthwhile is Engage or C as well, which means classes like Swordmaster get nothing from a mono-S, were Warrior's C rank Bows may as well be S.

Not sure how I feel about this one. 

Could use more fine-tuning.

With infinite durability, I also get the sense that class (prf) weapons would be better, like GBA's Wo-Dao being Myrm/Swordmaster/Lord only, Fate's Nosferatu being Dark Mage/Sorcerer only, Rapier usually being lord-only, Long-Bow is Sniper-only, etc.

 

Forging: -1/5.

Feels ok to interact with and is the main thing I check in Somniel, but it casts an ugly shadow over a ton of aspects in any FE game.

Renders a lot of Engage weapons obsolete, limits correct options to 1~2 weapons, kills a lot of weapon variety, favors spoiling a small handful of good units over raising a large team, makes new loot less interesting, makes new shop options less appealing, etc.

Honestly hope the next FE doesn't have a forge system at all, it's core effect is reducing meaningful options.

 

Engravings: 4/5.

Cool system, getting a ton of Hit% or Avoid% or Ddg% on a weapon is fun.

Kinda hope this takes the place of equipable ~rings (or Delphi shield or Hoplin Guard type stuff) in a future entry over having to fiddle with an offshot of the forge system though.

Or have good bonuses tethered to interesting weapons, Sunrise Katana is pretty dope with +20% Avoid and is one of my favorite weapons there, and Fates playing around with weapon bonuses like Avoid, Dodge, Def, Res, and Spd is one of the main reasons it's my favorite set of weapons.

 

Time Crystal: 4/5.

Pretty cool.

10 Charges feels super excessive though.

Kinda wish this was a staff, like Tear Ring Saga's Save State staff, which I find very amusing.

Or just like, 3~5 charges.

 

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Map stuff:

 

Cannons/Ballistae: 2/5

Good visual indicators for what enemies are going to do, but these are never especially satisfying to fight against, and often not that satisfying to use either. They have too many uses on enemies and too great of range, and for the player the range is so comically short of doing anything worthwhile it's difficult to get 2 uses out of these.

I Prefer Bolting/Meteor (or Astra Storm) just being a reliable every-map tool TBH, and kinda wish Ballistae were just an A~S rank bow Snipers got, with maybe some added visual flair so it's not awful when an enemy busts out the big guns.

 

Skirmishes: 0/5

I get the appeal, but the best incarnation this has ever had is the Tower of Valni paired with other post-game content (beach, ruins), were everyone benched can easily be raised in their own C-team training-arc.

The auto-leveling+ aspect of these makes them a challenge-booster for anyone trying to "just be a higher level" then the story chapters, and their constant spawning and re-spawning makes them a nuisance every time the overworld map is loaded for anyone who just doesn't want to bother with them at all.

Seeing the colors of each nation's troops from Firene to Brodia and Solm training battles is the best thing these have going for them, but that could be implemented better.

 

Story Chapters 4/5:

Really wish we saw a return to the Chpt 10 + Chpt 10x form of the GBA games, or more 2-part maps without the Somniel option like when running away from Veyle after the forced ring re-set.

For one: a Somniel or menu-sequence is always going to eat up a fair bit of time, and it'd be nice if the game spent a little more time being a game.

Also just awkward with all the paralogue maps in here.

Same flavor of a lot of Final Fantasy playthroughs. The apex of the story happens and...oh hey the airship and every relevant side-quest is now available, you should do all of those at your leisure and forget what the main story was.

Most of the maps themselves are pretty ok to quite good though, save that one Timerra Fog of War one that makes Timerra and Panette look awful.

 

Miasma, various terrain: 3/5:

Limiting most terrain to just Avoid is an interesting change of pace. I don't love it, I don't hate it.

Miasma is all around interesting, and screw Avoid, +20 Dmg, -20 Dmg taken is pretty hard to ignore.

Do wish Fire Emblem finally went all Tear-Ring-Saga and actually listed every classes noteworthy interactions with each terrain type though. It's the most needlessly obscure class information in every single Fire Emblem game, and learning stuff like Nine-Tails treat Lava Tiles as a 1 move tile like forests were everyone else has their forest-tile interactions ~7 years after the fact is such a weird mood.

 

Doors/Chests: 5/5

Being opened by anyone is a welcome change.

As cool as Locktouch/thief utility is for making the rogue or urchin archetype do anything meaningful, in most games it's just a "put the cube through the square-hole" kind of puzzle.

Especially in the GBA era, and kind of falls to pieces compared to something like the Pirate or Berserker.

on one hand there's a unit that interacts with ~5 specific pre-set tiles every-other map in the blandest way possible. Doors, Chests, Traps, Desert, ~2 steal-item side quests.

On the other: there's a unit with interesting and dynamic interactions with a lot of tiles different tiles that consistently appear in ~90% of the maps, it's fun to play around those tiles for long-term strategies that change the way a map is approached, they're fun to adapt to on the fly, and overall they increase player agency and give a ton of options.

Thief utility in FE has never been particularly interesting or engaging, most the time it's annoying and tailor-made to have the Thief stop ~2 tiles off from a door or chest that's also going to stagger their movement, and as a side-objective it also tends to take various units out of the fight for ~3 turns in Engage anyways.

 

Fog of War: 1/5

I like the on-map torches, I like how most of these maps open, I don't hate that Fog restricts movement.

Torches and especially the Illume staff are just butts for dealing with this though, and overall the player options for dealing with fog just seem really underwhelming. Or Underwhelming 9/10 times, they let me find Griss on turn 1, which felt good. Torch + Thief eyesight or Illume staff felt uniquely bad relative to GBA Thief+Torch or Torch Staff combos though.

Compared to games like Starcraft II, League of Legends, DotA, or Warcraft III, among a variety of other RTS and strategy games: I also have to wonder how Fire Emblem keeps getting this so wrong.

Turn-based obviously has it's own unique draw-backs vs. real-time, and real-time fog exploration is certainly more satisfying, but still.

Making use of Fog-of-War walls like tall brush or steam vents to create various sight barriers while allowing for comfortable sight beyond that, doing stuff like (!) marks with ~nearby enemies in Fog of War that reveal enemy locations but no other information, having a feather effect with fog were it's not a binary see everything/see nothing, having footprints or visual breath ques...

When Fog of War comes back in future entries, I'd like a lot more attention spent on making it not suck.

ATM it's peak water-level or sewer-level were the dramatic shift in becoming functionally a different game isn't given the respect of functionally becoming a different game.

 

~Monsters: 1/5.

They get 1 for the animation team knocking it out of the pack with fun poses.

Really can't stand jobber monsters that exist as Exp bags and have no art direction besides "generic bad guy" though. Like, Goblins and Skeletons have a lot of personality if nothing else. These are pretty forgettable.

Sacred Stones had the right idea of making a ton of visually distinct monsters with their own monster-weapons while not just retaining the clear strengths and weaknesses of all the standard classes, but cranking that up to further extremes.

Here I can't really tell a Paladin or Royal Guard or Great Knight apart on the mini-map. Gotta mouse over them to see their distinct portrait pose and read the class name, which is annoying.

Outside of the (again, pretty solid animation/poses), these are some Sonic Unleashed tier generic shadow-monsters.

 

........... ........... ........... ........... ........... 

........... ........... ........... ........... ........... 

 

Somniel Stuff:

 

The Somniel: 4/5:

I like the Spyro the Dragon aesthetic, like the general size and look of it, like that most of the relevant stuff is in the central courtyard and it's basically a 3D menu (at least in Hard were I can ignore a lot of the stuff), like the shinny objects to collect, like that a lot of the stuff can be easily ignored at negligible expense.

Some of the paths are a little obnoxious (the spot were Nuts spawn overlooking the orchard is particularly annoying to loop back too), and wish I could interact with the chairs or lean on the fences/bridge. I don't need Wakfu levels of animations were it's like ~8 unique animations for each style of sitting (would be dope), just any interactivity with the world over walking/running and pressing A would be nice.

Also comparing this to Spyro does reveal the movement and exploration in Engage is much worse and less fluid, as is the collectables acquisition quests.

Collecting shiny objects in Spyro is like, the most satisfying thing in the world with how movement, sound-effects, Sparkx zooming towards them when they feel just out of reach, the visual chimes, and numbers going up happens together.

In Engage, Somniel exploration kind of has a...undergrad A- Unity project feel? It's not terrible, but it's also not especially polished or refined, and no Jump button is weird.

 

Sommie/Dogos: 3/5

Let me pet them anywhere rather than having to go to some out-of-the-way nook Gosh Darn it!

I want to give him little head-pats when I hear the funny little noise of him walking after me 😧

(6/5 if this is implemented. Also the animation for backing out of the head-pats mini-game shouldn't take 10 seconds).

 

Donations, Fishing, Cooking, Flea Market, Strength Training, Bond Ring Gacha: 1/5

These all suck.

If I want to waste my time with silly little mini-games, I'm going to Newgrounds and seeing what passion-projects someone's managed to cram into a ~30 minute experience. I'm not spending ~$60 on an AAA title for half-baked tech demos.

Like: Come on IS. commission a specialized team to make fun mini-games or don't have these.

The 3D models for the food are weirdly impressive though, I do wonder how many of the food items correspond to a unique model.

And if that time would have been better spent doing something like modeling, let's say, better B~A rank bows for the Sniper to use? Better default outfits for the Warrior/Griffin Knight/Hero so they didn't look like butts? Giving abbs on the desert-themed outfits for Etie? Making any of the purchasable outfits a tempting option over being near unilaterally worse and less appealing than everyone's much better default Somniel outfits?

Some of that food does look tasty though.

 

Arena: 1/5

Rather than modeling 100+ unique food dishes, why not modal some wooden swords for a good training-arc?

Weird seeing allies go at-it with their most lethal options.

I like the core idea behind this (and Tellius's Bexp, or 3-Houses classroom WPN Exp); just... really would be nice to have a satisfying way to help units out during down-time. If only IS put any effort into it being satisfying to interact with in a meaningful capacity over let's have 1,000 unique models for food.

Also no SP if a unit had an Emblem ring is needlessly tedious to work around. 

 

Support Activities (Orchard, Horses, Swimming), and the Photo-Shoot Post-Card stuff: 4/5.

Accomplishes what it set out to do. Wouldn't mind seeing this stuff again, it's pretty harmless, doesn't chew through time, and is easy to ignore if I want to jump into another map.

 

Wishing Well: 5/5

I love satisfying ways to get rid of clutter.

Neat mechanic, would like to see something like this come back.

[Viberum]

Out of everything, I would love to keep the class-based innate weapon proficiencies they're so much better than having to train a unit in a particular weapon for the entire game. (Fates+Awakening).

[mjolnir_420]

\

Edited March 21, 2023 by mjolnir_420

[Anterrilvraskannothdervos]

The Somniel was interesting to explore at first but like the Academy from Three House it quickly becomes tiresome for me

I've seen a similar sentiment echoed regarding the mini games and resource collection.

My interest in playing fire emblem is the maps and character interactions, I don't need more mini games or pets to manage.

(I have gacha games for that)

I also wish resources generated would be collectible with button press either from the menu or talking to one npc

(Heck just have a menu pop up at the end of the map to say the Somniel gather xyz resources from xyz generator)

It's aesthetically cute to have all these choices of animals on the farm but I found it tedious after a few times having to pick up everything individually.

Special shout out to the merchants that only let you buy one thing at a time.

I THANK YOU, YOU'RE ALL SET

_________________

The free DLC where we got the three locations to build extra support points was nice a nice feature, I like to see character conversations that are new with characters I'm not necessarily playing with if it strikes my fancy( a minor grumble at best since theres always youtube but i digress)

Playing with the emblems just made me miss transformation units.(laguze, fox, wolf, taguels, manakete etc)

I also veered away from most of the emblem paralogues, I get that its fan service to a certain degree but we can only have two skills total inherited so making us jump through a bunch of hoops and ladders to get one or two skills accessible feels incredibly silly when most of the skills at bond lvl 10 or lower are quite serviceable)

(My opinion might change on this if I play Maddening but I probably won't since higher difficulties are usually just a convergence of extra enemies/stats)

Summoning bond rings felt like end game grind kinda of thing that I didn't have any interest in pursuing especially when the currency for that I'd rather spend on skills I wanted and anything beyond that I felt was unsustainable to acquire.

(I have not and probably will not rack up 300+ hours with this game like I did with Three Houses, I have around 60 hours at best and thats being gracious)

I didn't like not being able to preview what a character looked like in a different class, sure I could have google it but the game could have just have easily shown it.

The new way to gain weapon proficiency threw me off for a little bit(foolishly class Alear into a armor knight to get armor profiency with a second seal lololol)

I appreciated the flexibility they offered in allowing a class to use any weapon they were skilled in that class instead of locking them out based on a class restriction.

I didn't pay much attention to any ones personal skills probably because Ive only played on hard.

When building a team for a playthrough im amazed at how quickly later recruits can replace earlier character despite investment in them.

(your still the best archer in my heart Etie)

Donations

Really the only thing I was interested in was the extra costumes but even those were kinda of a letdown to me.

The well is a nice feature but I'm someone who'd rather sell something I don't need than gamble on something but this is a nice feature for a lot of players.

I don't remember which stat it was but when on a map it wouldn't let you look at certain feature of a weapon with some crazy menu juggling.

I didn't quite grasp BUILD initially I wasn't sure how much it affected the doubling calculation if I had a weapon heavier than a character build.

Smash feels really niche but could be a really interesting mechanic if they hit better.

Infinite hit weapon were also nice to see.

I hate not seeing what I'm going to forge a weapon into if I exceed a threshold, I feel like I shouldnt have to google "BEST FORGING STRAS" on the internet if the game would just let me know what my weapon is going to evolve into especially when my resources are limited upgrading, especially if i don't know I need a dog farm.

I don't like how they hid the internal level of a character, I need to know if I'm wasting my time in a base class or if I need to soak up every single level possible in the class I start in before promote someone.

Antitoxin... WOW healing and curing poison!? WOW 10/10 item I'm not a person who uses a bunch of staffs normally but I really appreciate this quality of life change, vulnernies healing 15, elixirs healing 30(sure they got nerfed but we have more ways to heal than just spending a turn chugging an elixir)

Staff users have more important jobs to get done than JUST healing poison(so many options!)

I felt like a lot of S Rank weapons I got later in the game didn't compare to forged weapons I was already using and just kinda took up space in my convoy mocking me.

(I'm kinda of a boring player that would rather have a generic stat buff that a interesting ability if I feel the gameplay is too slow but there are always exceptions I find)

Engravings are a neat idea and a way to expanding the blacksmith beyond refing +X

I feel like this game didn't have to ration advanced class seals like it did so early on I had quite a few active characters that could have been promoted instead of waiting around to promote them and thats without grinding anything which is frustrating in a game that wants you promote ASAP

 

The sub types for classes were neat that kinda fleshed out their roles, people that can back you up in a assault, were better alone in terrain, could hit you through terrain etc.

I was glad to see movement shenanigan's somewhat toned down compared to three houses.(stride wyvern lord yolo)

I didn't mind resurrection  stones, I felt like it helped bosses not be trivialized by incredible 1 shot kill damage

I hope to see a more in depth world building in the next entry on the level of three houses but more mechanics from engage.

Ah before I forget in the free update letting us inherit skills from the arena is nice but they could go further, let me spend the fragments I want for the skill in a menu and immediately go into that bond conversation(if necessary this could have been a optional things with have trivial most of the two line exchanges are) without having to navigate extra menus, or do a fight that doesn't have any consequence on the end result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Use the Falchion]

Casual clothing for characters. While I oscillate between amused and annoyed at the anachronistic style of clothing, I can't deny that I love the drip each character has. It makes me sad that Fates doesn't really have this when I go back to play it, partially due to the similarities between the two games. Honestly, in a Fates remake, this is the one realistic change I'd like to see made.*

 

 

*Other changes I'd like to see but probably won't happen: 

Change in story so that in Revelation, ALL previously recruitable characters can be recruited and live. 

Layla is now playable and not just a weird NPC. Just make it like Heroes where Dancers can't dance one another. 

No more Corrinsexual characters. 

Cut the Deeprealms and just make it time travel or something similar. The deeprealms create more character problems than they solve IMO. 

DLC characters like Lucina, Ike, and others can be romanced. (With the exception of Marth since he's married.)

Fates remake sold in a two-for-one pack with an Awakening remake, and whichever game you choose first gives you the chance to get bonuses on the second game.