I have to admit, Fire Emblem Engage might be one of my favourite games in the series. The concept of collecting Emblem Rings and utilising the power of main Lords from across the franchise is fun concept, and the gameplay is easy to understand as well, and increasing the bonds of those allies is fun too, as it gives a unit useful abilities. However, the story can be a bit... confusing at points, as some points may not make sense at points, with characters like Veyle, though I'm excited to use her as a playable character. Aside from that, I give this game a high recommendation, for new or diehard fans.
3 Reviews
Amazing, but frustrating plot
heroofourtimechrom7 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Fire Emblem: Engage is a really good game, however has a frustrating plot. First, the main character, Alear, collects six of the Emblem rings, only for them to be lost to Sombron, the antagonist of the game. Later in the game, a character that the protagonists thought was a traitor, was actually being mind-controlled, and being manipulated to hinder Alear's progress. Even later in the game, Alear obtains all 12 of the Emblem rings, including the ones stolen earlier, only for all of them to be taken AGAIN, and Alear is killed in the process of protecting another character. However, the Emblems decide to revive Alear with their power. Truly, this is an amazing game, and is one of my favorite Fire Emblem games (losing to Three Houses and Awakening), but the plot is not very forgiving. But the attachments to the characters, both old and new, made it all worth buying the game. I would recommend this game to fans of the series.
Overhyped and Underwhelming
liammarklh15 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I know people are going to probably get on my case for this, but while I personally think that the game is not bad, it does not deserve the high praise that it gets in my honest view.
For a new entry in the FE series and following up the critically acclaimed Three Houses, I will admit it had to live up to some big shoes as that game had the best writing in any modern FE game. Engage in my eyes did not meet my expectations and it felt very lackluster in that regard, no matter how many people say it's much like the older titles. I fully believe that in a series like this where each title is standalone, it should be able to stand on its own two feet without relying on nostalgia or previous goodwill from past entries.
If you like this game, that's good and I won't take that away from you. This game did not work for me, and here are my reasons why.
The only positives for this game are the gameplay, art style, music and the voice acting. The gameplay is traditional FE, nothing too complex if you are already familiar with it and newcomers will be able to get into it easily. My only gripe with the combat is the break weapon mechanic which becomes super annoying, very quickly.
The art style is very bright, vivid and standout, the voice actors seemed to be having a fun time and I love that for them. What I dislike is how some of the male models look weirdly proportioned, some muscular men like Vander look fine, but characters like Boucheron, stick out like a sore thumb with his pretty boy face and disproportioned body that looks too wide for his head.
The female character models have the least diversity in terms of look, most of them seemingly have the same faces and body type but with varying differences. I do like certain designs such as Ivy and Timerra, but when half the girls suffer from same face syndrome, as if they are custom made characters in an RPG or have chests bigger than their waistline, it seems very clear to me that the character designer was seriously down bad, which is not shocking since they got a V-tuber artist to design the character models. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan of most of it, even if I do like the bright colors and scenery.
Now onto the negatives, as if I haven't stated some already. My biggest issue with this game is the frustrating story, the forgettable or annoying characters, the pacing and the one note villains who have little to no character development until the tail end, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The story's biggest offense is the awful pacing, the criminal editing and the terrible dialogue. Whoever wrote and edited this script needs to get a refund for their writing degree, because never in my life, have I heard so much monologuing and unnecessary run on sentences when the conversation could have ended like five days ago.
Characters will go on long winded speeches, will complain about bad guys killing a person or setting a village on fire in front of them, but will then proceed to prolong their grandstanding monologues for the better part of ten minutes or so. I'm not kidding, you cannot tell me with a straight face that you liked the pacing of this game. If they had just cut out all the superfluous bits of extra dialogue from select scenes, it would be less immersion breaking. How am I supposed to take a scene seriously when the characters are standing six feet apart from each other talking about their day, when they could be fighting the bad guys instead.
Speaking of, this is probably the most mediocre cast of characters I've ever seen in a Fire Emblem game. I do like some of them such as Ivy, Diamant, Alcryst, Fogado and Yunaka to name a few, but in all honesty, barely any of them get any screentime in the story outside of their hangout events, which feels like a chore to get through half the time. The tonal whiplash of certain events with what's going on in the story really kill the tone for me.
Main story wise, the side characters have literally nothing to do in the story and are pretty much absent from every major scene. If they're not Alear, the royals or the villains, they are pretty much a footnote in the story and the game might as well have not included them in the game to begin with, they're that expendable.
With the other members, they are infuriating to the highest degree.
Alear is the naivest, obnoxious and densest protagonist I've seen in a good while. I understand they awoke from a thousand-year coma and don't remember anything, but you cannot convince me that they are the next best thing since sliced bread when all I see from them is sheer incompetence, being baffled by a villain doing evil things and acting as the world's most inefficient leader ever who whines when someone they just met betrays them. They are a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Everyone loves them to the point of absurdity, they act as if you can do no wrong, when in reality, Alear would whine if they so much as stubbed their toe.
Also, you're better off playing as female Alear. The male's voice acting is so phoned in it's like he's reading off the script with barely any enthusiasm.
The royals of each kingdom are very hit or miss, you either love them or hate their guts. The worst offenders are the Solm royals, oh my god these people are so inept. I wouldn't trust them to make me breakfast in the morning without burning down the house. Solm's queen is a clueless moron, her heirs are fully aware of the threat attacking other nations, but they don't feel the need to warn them of the danger. Seriously how can anyone trust them if they let such an obvious world ending threat slide and never think to warn their neighboring allies, what a pathetic queendom. Brodia was my favorite with the conflict rising in the story. Elusia is where the bad stuff really comes full circle and while I dislike the King, the two princesses are charming enough to where they more than made up for it. Firene is so forgettable you could blink and miss it.
The villains, aside from the main bad guy, are the only saving grace of this badly written story. The Four Hounds are pretty much the only real threat in this game, the actual big bad is such a one note villain that he barely shows up for a good part of the story and when he appears, he's so underwhelming and non-threatening. The attempt at giving him a pseudo sympathetic motive is eye roll worthy.
Can we just have some old-fashioned bad guys without trying to ham fist in some generic sympathetic backstory for them? Is that so hard to ask? Literally two of the main baddies are dying from stab wounds, but they go on this almost thirty-minute monologue as they are dying on the ground near an active volcano. I'm sorry but, how am I supposed to take them seriously as antagonists when you cram in this terribly written reason for making us feel pity for them after they murdered multiple lives without remorse, one of them even taking pleasure in violence, so yeah not a good look.
I forgot to mention the Emblems, the key selling point of this game. I will admit that I have not played any game before Awakening, but like I said, these games are meant to be standalones, and if I need to read, watch or play supplemental content to understand the story or care about previous characters, then that just shows the game's poor writing. I get that having exposition for these Emblem heroes would bog down the pacing even more, but how do you expect a newcomer to invest their time into these characters when the whole gimmick is to have nostalgia for them in the first place? Why not implement little notes in the game's option menu to help people catch up on these characters lives?
The problem here is that this game expects you to know who they are, which makes it even more frustrating when you realize that they make up the entirety of the plot's conflict and motivation. It also doesn't help that because of their implementation, they take spotlight away from the new cast of characters. It's a double-edged sword in my opinion and I did the hangout events, and I found the cast's chemistry to be very lacking in comparison to Three houses or even Awakening for that matter.
I would say it's on par with Fates, which is a given since the localization was done by the same people. You can tell they cut out a lot of content or altered it for this game. They improved upon the gay relationships unlike in three houses, but still managed to botch it somehow. They treat them how teachers would talk about historical figures who are hinted to not be straight, as if they were best friends or close roommates. I get that some relationships would be off-putting to some, especially with Jean, Clanne, Framme and Anna, but when it comes to the others, it's fair game since most of them are adults. I know it's a Nintendo game, but if the Japanese version had it, it beats me why Western localizers would make such idiotic changes.
Side note, it really bugs me when people openly dismiss critiques of this game, because they view those who loved three houses more as having expected too much from the series. I'm sorry if that game had a much better written plot than this generic fantasy slop which feels like a modern Marvel writer got ahold of the script. You're not really defending this game with that argument, if anything you're just proving that Engage's weak story and characters could never match up to Three Houses' quality.
Don't shame people for liking a steakhouse more than a McDonalds. Why would you want such mediocrity when you could be demanding something much better? Again, that's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree with me, but do not tell me that this game is perfect when there are a lot of glaring flaws in its foundation.
That is my critical view of the game, have a good day y'all.
For a new entry in the FE series and following up the critically acclaimed Three Houses, I will admit it had to live up to some big shoes as that game had the best writing in any modern FE game. Engage in my eyes did not meet my expectations and it felt very lackluster in that regard, no matter how many people say it's much like the older titles. I fully believe that in a series like this where each title is standalone, it should be able to stand on its own two feet without relying on nostalgia or previous goodwill from past entries.
If you like this game, that's good and I won't take that away from you. This game did not work for me, and here are my reasons why.
The only positives for this game are the gameplay, art style, music and the voice acting. The gameplay is traditional FE, nothing too complex if you are already familiar with it and newcomers will be able to get into it easily. My only gripe with the combat is the break weapon mechanic which becomes super annoying, very quickly.
The art style is very bright, vivid and standout, the voice actors seemed to be having a fun time and I love that for them. What I dislike is how some of the male models look weirdly proportioned, some muscular men like Vander look fine, but characters like Boucheron, stick out like a sore thumb with his pretty boy face and disproportioned body that looks too wide for his head.
The female character models have the least diversity in terms of look, most of them seemingly have the same faces and body type but with varying differences. I do like certain designs such as Ivy and Timerra, but when half the girls suffer from same face syndrome, as if they are custom made characters in an RPG or have chests bigger than their waistline, it seems very clear to me that the character designer was seriously down bad, which is not shocking since they got a V-tuber artist to design the character models. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan of most of it, even if I do like the bright colors and scenery.
Now onto the negatives, as if I haven't stated some already. My biggest issue with this game is the frustrating story, the forgettable or annoying characters, the pacing and the one note villains who have little to no character development until the tail end, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The story's biggest offense is the awful pacing, the criminal editing and the terrible dialogue. Whoever wrote and edited this script needs to get a refund for their writing degree, because never in my life, have I heard so much monologuing and unnecessary run on sentences when the conversation could have ended like five days ago.
Characters will go on long winded speeches, will complain about bad guys killing a person or setting a village on fire in front of them, but will then proceed to prolong their grandstanding monologues for the better part of ten minutes or so. I'm not kidding, you cannot tell me with a straight face that you liked the pacing of this game. If they had just cut out all the superfluous bits of extra dialogue from select scenes, it would be less immersion breaking. How am I supposed to take a scene seriously when the characters are standing six feet apart from each other talking about their day, when they could be fighting the bad guys instead.
Speaking of, this is probably the most mediocre cast of characters I've ever seen in a Fire Emblem game. I do like some of them such as Ivy, Diamant, Alcryst, Fogado and Yunaka to name a few, but in all honesty, barely any of them get any screentime in the story outside of their hangout events, which feels like a chore to get through half the time. The tonal whiplash of certain events with what's going on in the story really kill the tone for me.
Main story wise, the side characters have literally nothing to do in the story and are pretty much absent from every major scene. If they're not Alear, the royals or the villains, they are pretty much a footnote in the story and the game might as well have not included them in the game to begin with, they're that expendable.
With the other members, they are infuriating to the highest degree.
Alear is the naivest, obnoxious and densest protagonist I've seen in a good while. I understand they awoke from a thousand-year coma and don't remember anything, but you cannot convince me that they are the next best thing since sliced bread when all I see from them is sheer incompetence, being baffled by a villain doing evil things and acting as the world's most inefficient leader ever who whines when someone they just met betrays them. They are a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Everyone loves them to the point of absurdity, they act as if you can do no wrong, when in reality, Alear would whine if they so much as stubbed their toe.
Also, you're better off playing as female Alear. The male's voice acting is so phoned in it's like he's reading off the script with barely any enthusiasm.
The royals of each kingdom are very hit or miss, you either love them or hate their guts. The worst offenders are the Solm royals, oh my god these people are so inept. I wouldn't trust them to make me breakfast in the morning without burning down the house. Solm's queen is a clueless moron, her heirs are fully aware of the threat attacking other nations, but they don't feel the need to warn them of the danger. Seriously how can anyone trust them if they let such an obvious world ending threat slide and never think to warn their neighboring allies, what a pathetic queendom. Brodia was my favorite with the conflict rising in the story. Elusia is where the bad stuff really comes full circle and while I dislike the King, the two princesses are charming enough to where they more than made up for it. Firene is so forgettable you could blink and miss it.
The villains, aside from the main bad guy, are the only saving grace of this badly written story. The Four Hounds are pretty much the only real threat in this game, the actual big bad is such a one note villain that he barely shows up for a good part of the story and when he appears, he's so underwhelming and non-threatening. The attempt at giving him a pseudo sympathetic motive is eye roll worthy.
Can we just have some old-fashioned bad guys without trying to ham fist in some generic sympathetic backstory for them? Is that so hard to ask? Literally two of the main baddies are dying from stab wounds, but they go on this almost thirty-minute monologue as they are dying on the ground near an active volcano. I'm sorry but, how am I supposed to take them seriously as antagonists when you cram in this terribly written reason for making us feel pity for them after they murdered multiple lives without remorse, one of them even taking pleasure in violence, so yeah not a good look.
I forgot to mention the Emblems, the key selling point of this game. I will admit that I have not played any game before Awakening, but like I said, these games are meant to be standalones, and if I need to read, watch or play supplemental content to understand the story or care about previous characters, then that just shows the game's poor writing. I get that having exposition for these Emblem heroes would bog down the pacing even more, but how do you expect a newcomer to invest their time into these characters when the whole gimmick is to have nostalgia for them in the first place? Why not implement little notes in the game's option menu to help people catch up on these characters lives?
The problem here is that this game expects you to know who they are, which makes it even more frustrating when you realize that they make up the entirety of the plot's conflict and motivation. It also doesn't help that because of their implementation, they take spotlight away from the new cast of characters. It's a double-edged sword in my opinion and I did the hangout events, and I found the cast's chemistry to be very lacking in comparison to Three houses or even Awakening for that matter.
I would say it's on par with Fates, which is a given since the localization was done by the same people. You can tell they cut out a lot of content or altered it for this game. They improved upon the gay relationships unlike in three houses, but still managed to botch it somehow. They treat them how teachers would talk about historical figures who are hinted to not be straight, as if they were best friends or close roommates. I get that some relationships would be off-putting to some, especially with Jean, Clanne, Framme and Anna, but when it comes to the others, it's fair game since most of them are adults. I know it's a Nintendo game, but if the Japanese version had it, it beats me why Western localizers would make such idiotic changes.
Side note, it really bugs me when people openly dismiss critiques of this game, because they view those who loved three houses more as having expected too much from the series. I'm sorry if that game had a much better written plot than this generic fantasy slop which feels like a modern Marvel writer got ahold of the script. You're not really defending this game with that argument, if anything you're just proving that Engage's weak story and characters could never match up to Three Houses' quality.
Don't shame people for liking a steakhouse more than a McDonalds. Why would you want such mediocrity when you could be demanding something much better? Again, that's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree with me, but do not tell me that this game is perfect when there are a lot of glaring flaws in its foundation.
That is my critical view of the game, have a good day y'all.
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