Alright let's finally talk about that opening segment

[Jotari]

So you play Engage for the first time and you get a scene pretty much identical to Awakening's opening where we're in the midst of the context. Everyone knows what's going on except the audience. You kill the bad guy, hooray, but then you wake up in bed. Initially it seems like that was the final moments of the battle a thousand years ago, but then characters from the opening appear in the main time. So your mind jumps to the conclusion you already half suspected, that just like Awakening it's a premonition for a later point in the game...Only...that...never happens. The opening segment never becomes relevant again. When you do fight Sombron again it's in an entirely different location and entirely different circumstances. So...uh...what? Seriously what was that opening meant to be? Was it meant to be Alear's dreams/memories of a thousand years ago and they're just substituting people they fought with back then with the people visiting them unconscious now? Well, no, probably not, as the Elysian royals never visit them, Alear doesn't have red hair and the battle ends with you just killing Sombron and not the mutual kill we see in a later flash back. Is it a parallel world like the Fell Xenologue that we're...just...randomly shown? Even if there is some perfect theory to explain what the opening is meant to be, the game certainly doesn't make it obvious. My leading idea is that the developers...just forgot about it. Like, originally you were meant to beat Sombron at a castle, but they changed it to the void and then just never bothered to fix the opening to match that. That's literally the only thing that makes sense to me.

[Acacia Sgt]

It's likely the prologue segment wasn't meant to have any deep meaning other than serving as an introductory stuff to us, the players. So an extension of the intro FMV before the title screen.

Alternatively, assuming it is indeed what Alear was dreaming just before waking up... well, it doesn't have to align with reality. It's a dream, after all. It being an amalgamation of past, future, and even made-up events... well, it makes as much sense as it being a single coherent sequence of events. Heck, the mixed-up nature could be considered a subtle foreshadowing to Alear's true nature during the game...

Edited June 20, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Sunwoo]

It's hilarious that you posted this because I actually started playing Engage two days ago and have a word document of my thoughts as I play through it.

For that segment specifically, this is what I wrote:

Wtf is the context of the prologue anyway? Dream? Memory? Shitty out-of-place scene that has no relation to the rest of the story? It’s like they decided to rip off Awakening’s prologue without understanding how it worked.

So, to me it felt like Engage wanted to rip off the general feeling of Awakening's prologue as a "call back" of sorts to a very successful game many FE players had already experienced, but it has zero context and doesn't make any sense with the rest of the story.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

It's likely the prologue segment wasn't meant to have any deep meaning other than serving as an introductory stuff to us, the players. So an extension of the intro FMV before the title screen.

Alternatively, assuming it is indeed what Alear was dreaming just before waking up... well, it doesn't have to align with reality. It's a dream, after all. It being an amalgamation of past, future, and even made-up events... well, it makes as much sense as it being a single coherent sequence of events. Heck, the mixed-up nature could be considered a subtle foreshadowing to Alear's true nature during the game...

Even if that were the intention, we don't actually see any suggestion of it. Like when Alear meets Alphonse and the subsequent heirs there is no flicker if recognition.

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Even if that were the intention, we don't actually see any suggestion of it. Like when Alear meets Alphonse and the subsequent heirs there is no flicker if recognition.

How often can you recall your dreams? Some do it better than others.

[Sunwoo]

26 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Even if that were the intention, we don't actually see any suggestion of it. Like when Alear meets Alphonse and the subsequent heirs there is no flicker if recognition.

Do you mean Alfred

It's also possible that the four royals weren't actually in his dreams even if Marth was. They're just there for the audience's convenience.

[Randoman]

Yeah, I've also really been curious about the prologue chapter, and where it's supposed to fit in to the story/timeline. The prologue chapter just really doesn't fit into the story or the continuity of Engage at all.

My best guess is that the prologue chapter is an event that technically does happen, but Sombron uses the Draconic Time Crystal to rewind the event and undo that defeat. However, Alear as a dragon somehow remembers that timeline, due to him being a dragon and the Draconic Time Crystal being a dragon artifact.

...I feel like that theory has a lot of holes in it, though.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

How often can you recall your dreams? Some do it better than others.

Yeah, but what's the narrative point? If they don't remember it then why is it even there? And this is in the context of a character who actually does have dreams several times in the plot that they do remember and are plot relevant.

39 minutes ago, Randoman said:

Yeah, I've also really been curious about the prologue chapter, and where it's supposed to fit in to the story/timeline. The prologue chapter just really doesn't fit into the story or the continuity of Engage at all.

My best guess is that the prologue chapter is an event that technically does happen, but Sombron uses the Draconic Time Crystal to rewind the event and undo that defeat. However, Alear as a dragon somehow remembers that timeline, due to him being a dragon and the Draconic Time Crystal being a dragon artifact.

...I feel like that theory has a lot of holes in it, though.

The thing is, Alear doesn't seem to remember the events of the prologue.

2 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

Do you mean Alfred

Curse you Heroes!

2 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

It's also possible that the four royals weren't actually in his dreams even if Marth was. They're just there for the audience's convenience.

The four royals aren't much of a convenience for the player imo. In fact, showing Ivy there is kind of a spoiler. For someone such as myself who wasn't paying attention to prerelease info, such as myself, her status as a playable character wasn't s given (granted I also forgot her presence in the intro until later too).

The fmv might be the explanation though. As obviously they have to comission it. And once it's done it can't exactly be changed. So maybe they made it too early and then changed things later and decided what the hell we've already paid for the intro fmv, might as well keep it even if it doesn't make any sense.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, but what's the narrative point? If they don't remember it then why is it even there? And this is in the context of a character who actually does have dreams several times in the plot that they do remember and are plot relevant.

For us. It exists for us. We the audience/player are as much part of the equation, so some things will be aimed at us specifically. And the prologue is pretty much telling us what to expect: The nations of Elyos joining forces, using the Emblems, all so the Divine Dragon, aka the Avatar, can defeat the main villain.

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

The four royals aren't much of a convenience for the player imo. In fact, showing Ivy there is kind of a spoiler. For someone such as myself who wasn't paying attention to prerelease info, such as myself, her status as a playable character wasn't s given (granted I also forgot her presence in the intro until later too).

Well, think of it as convenience if you missed the pre-release info. It's revealed to us ahead of time for a reason. So stuff like Ivy joining us is not meant to be a spoiler. How she does it, on the other hand...

7 minutes ago, Jotari said:

The fmv might be the explanation though. As obviously they have to comission it. And once it's done it can't exactly be changed. So maybe they made it too early and then changed things later and decided what the hell we've already paid for the intro fmv, might as well keep it even if it doesn't make any sense.

Despite spending months to years shelved, there's certainly still signs of things changed mid-development. Ivy's intro FMV is a clear sign of that.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

15 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Despite spending months to years shelved, there's certainly still signs of things changed mid-development. Ivy's intro FMV is a clear sign of that.

In Brodia? How so? I remember it being oddly scripted how she was arriving alone yet somehow with people at the same time to justify here getting into the castle and also having people to fight with her.

16 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

For us. It exists for us. We the audience/player are as much part of the equation, so some things will be aimed at us specifically. And the prologue is pretty much telling us what to expect: The nations of Elyos joining forces, using the Emblems, all so the Divine Dragon, aka the Avatar, can defeat the main villain.

At best, that is extremely clunky storytelling. A narrator telling us that at the start would be better (and cheaper).

[Acacia Sgt]

57 minutes ago, Jotari said:

In Brodia? How so? I remember it being oddly scripted how she was arriving alone yet somehow with people at the same time to justify here getting into the castle and also having people to fight with her.

Precisely. Even if it costed money, it's still too much time to not do something about the discrepancy. It's possible that the events got changed, but it was too late to replace the FMV. Since a battle is already happening during it, but before and after... nothing.

But yeah, it's just a conjecture.

57 minutes ago, Jotari said:

At best, that is extremely clunky storytelling. A narrator telling us that at the start would be better (and cheaper).

I mean, we already got their own word that they didn't focused too much on things like the Story, at least compared to the Gameplay.

Well, sometimes it's just for the coolness factor.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

Precisely. Even if it costed money, it's still too much time to not do something about the discrepancy. It's possible that the events got changed, but it was too late to replace the FMV.

I find that more of an issue with the script than the fmv. Fmv scenes like that are almost always single character focused. Because crowds are expensive. Like, logically all, or almost all, of the royal intro fmvs in Fates should likewise have soldiers flanking them. Though I guess they did give Takumi some soldiers.

[Dark Holy Elf]

As others have observed, Ivy's personality is also pretty different in that early video appearance compared to later. Though you can certainly argue she's just putting up an ultra-confident front right before a battle, which wouldn't be unreasonable.

5 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

So, to me it felt like Engage wanted to rip off the general feeling of Awakening's prologue as a "call back" of sorts to a very successful game many FE players had already experienced, but it has zero context and doesn't make any sense with the rest of the story.

This is my feeling too. The devs obviously really like Awakening's opening; both Fates and Shadows of Valentia got somewhat similar events, for that matter.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

The fmv might be the explanation though. As obviously they have to comission it. And once it's done it can't exactly be changed. So maybe they made it too early and then changed things later and decided what the hell we've already paid for the intro fmv, might as well keep it even if it doesn't make any sense.

This is also likely. Videos are often commissioned pretty early, and this has come up in previous Fire Emblems too. See Shahid using a sword in his video appearance despite using an axe in the game (since wyvern riders presumably became pure axe-users at some point in development).

[SnowFire]

Yeah, the video was clearly made early in the game's development, and things didn't quite go the way they thought at the time.  For an even crazier example, check out Final Fantasy XIII...  there's a character who dies, but appears in an FMV after he's already dead alive again, then promptly re-dies.  I guess they figured we have this cutscene, so we're gonna use it?

One of my big what-ifs that could have improved Fire Emblem Engage...  personally, I feel that C17 / C19 / C20 are tonally jarring with the rest of Engage.  Most of the game is pretty light, with the only named people dying up until that point being Lumera, Morion, Hyacinth, and I guess some random Elusian bosses who don't matter like the C5 boss who gets ganked by his own team for Reasons.  Yes, objectively speaking, there are bodies on the floor among the masses or among anyone else in the way of the Elusian army, but it's up to you to decide how bad that all was.  But these chapters crazily raise the stakes, having Definitely Dying People Canonically Everywhere and Sombron apparently depopulating (one city and one palace?  some?  most?) of Elusia to eat them.  I don't think this matches the tone Engage is going for.  It also makes a mess of Mauvier & Marni's plot, as we clearly are supposed to think that these are Normal Human Beings in some sense, but mass devouring your own worshippers is...  pushing it.

I feel a way to simultaneously make the video make sense, "raise the stakes" with some explicit death & destruction, and also keep the main mood of the timeline heroic and bright, would have been to expand C23 to cover most of the back half of the game.  Find some excuse for Our Heroes to have to go back in time to the Big War 1,000 Years Ago.  We're told Sombron had lots of kids; prove it!  That sounds like an excuse for lots of boss fights to me!  And lots of justified anger from dad after we kill his kids one-by-one!  Additionally, there's a solid  excuse now to include Dark Emblems of rings we already have, so we can fight against enemies with Emblem Rings without having to also take them from the player team.  You can go nuts and kill as many people off as you like, since Gradlon is gonna sink and everyone there is gonna die anyway, while keeping the main timeline pretty happy.  This would also authentically set up the opening video as a premonition - you WOULD be able to take your team, including the four main royals, into some mission just before facing Sombron where you can re-do the duel, Ike vs. the Black Knight style.

--

While we're at it, in the opening video on boot (i.e. "Rise from a thousand years") hints at Alear's nature by showing a red-haired person with a shit-eating grin.  I'm not saying that the version we got is terrible, but this would have been interesting if Alear's "bad" nature was ever seriously explored.  C23 Alear is more resigned to their fate than evil, though.  The game seemingly didn't want to potentially taint Dragon Mommy with morally questionable actions like Three Houses might have...   I had definitely thought that it's possible that Lumera defeated Alear in battle or something (maybe they were sent to kill her?) and then was magically mind-controlling Alear.  Or even just "purifying" them.  Kidnap yourself a child?  Ah well, we never do get to see the possible "Gleeful evil Alear" or consider the possibility of that being our "original" but bad self.

Edited June 21, 2023 by SnowFire

[DefyingFates]

From a Doylist perspective that definitely seems to be something that would have been explored later but got dropped. From a Watsonian perspective I think it could be how Alear remembers the battle with Sombron and the four Royals are Identical Ancestors who fought alongside him? Lucina says her Ring used to be with Firene 1000 years ago (and "Alfred" uses it) to support this idea, and we conveniently don't hear any of their names during that scene.

Who knows, maybe Alear became really bloodthirsty when they realized they were so close to finally killing Sombron and Lumera's power (intentionally or not) censored that part of their memory? I quite like the idea personally, but it is dumb that we have to theorize about it ourselves. It's telling that the manga only keeps the bit where Marth tells Alear to remember the Emblems.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

That opening segment actively aggravates me because I was waiting and waiting for it to happen and it just didn't. That was incredibly lame. I hated that.

[vanguard333]

I just began playing FE Engage for the first time fairly recently and I knew almost immediately that the prologue segment was completely meaningless from a story standpoint and wasn't really anything. I've been enjoying the game so far, but for the story... while Fates' story is probably still the worst one, I don't think any Fire Emblem game's story has made me miss Path of Radiance's story as much as this one has, and I would definitely point to the opening segment as proof of that.

It does nothing: it introduces characters who have far better introductions in the other chapters of the game, it's not a memory, a dream, a vision of the future, or anything really; it only makes sense as just a tutorial. Compare it to Path of Radiance: immediately, we're efficiently introduced to Ike, Greil, Mist and Boyd in ways that do a lot to establish their characters and Ike's main journey of growing into the role currently filled by his father, all while also setting up the Galdr of Release and the mysteries surrounding Ike's mother. If the prologue of Path of Radiance were removed and the game started at chapter 1, it would be a worse story. If the prologue of Engage were removed, nothing would be lost from a storytelling standpoint, and if anything it would be better as the story wouldn't spoil that the Elusian royalty sides with Alear.

Incidentally, the other two chapters so far that have made me miss the writing in Path of Radiance are chapters 3 and 10:

Spoiler

For chapter 3, the reason is simply this: both games have a parent who have secrets that are revealed far later in the game, and the protagonist has to fill in the shoes of this parent after said parent is suddenly killed by a mysterious villain. Here's the difference: in Path of Radiance, we had 8 chapters to get to see and understand Greil as a character: from the prologue to his death at the end of chapter 7, and the game uses that time well to show him as a father, a leader and a person. In Engage, Lumera is introduced at the end of chapter 1, spends all of chapters 2 and 3 either giving foreshadowing about Alear's origins or making statements that make it obvious she's going to die soon, and then she dies at the end of chapter 3.

I sat through her death scene in chapter 3 thinking, "This would be a really heartbreaking moment... in chapter 7; not chapter 3".

Spoiler

For chapter 10, the reason is more indirect. In chapter 10, the rings are stolen by Evil-Veyle, Sombron is fully revived and eats the Elusian King, and the Four Hounds show up. The heroes are trapped in a building and surrounded on both sides by elite named villains including the final boss and they've just had their artifacts of power stolen by said villains. How do they escape? Does Ivy or someone else show up and create an opening? Does Alear transform? Nope; the game has no answer; instead, it immediately cuts to the heroes already outside the building and fleeing while being pursued by Evil-Veyle. The game gives no explanation for how the heroes weren't immediately cut down where they stood. When I saw that, I wondered if I had accidentally skipped part of the scene, but I hadn't; it just has the heroes somehow leave the building off-screen.

I couldn't help but think about how, in Path of Radiance, the Greil Mercenaries had to flee a lot, and there were often moments where they were completely cornered by enemies and seemingly about to die; chapters 7 and 8 being good examples, and every single time, the way in which the heroes survive makes complete sense and is shown on-screen.