Change
Zhudanna has a mirror in the spare room that Imogen and Laudna share. And even though the mirror is usually face down on the table because Laudna doesn’t like to see her own reflection, tonight it’s upright, and Laudna is inspecting all the angles of her face. “Do I look the same?”
Imogen ponders that from her position on the bed. She has her knees pulled up to her chest and the blanket draped over them. She looks at Laudna and thinks of going over there, putting her arms around the other woman and kissing the top of her head. Imogen doesn’t of course. See, things have changed. Because she never would have thought twice about it before. “You’re just as beautiful as I remember.”
Laudna pauses then, considers Imogen in the mirror for a second, before turning to look at her in person. “I feel different, even if I look the same.”
“It’s ok to feel different. I think it’d be normal to feel different after everything that happened.”
“I don’t want anything to change between us.” And Laudna is standing, moving towards the bed, and Imogen’s outstretched hand.
Their hands clasp as they’ve done hundreds of times before, and Laudna sits close, right next to Imogen so they are facing each other. Imogen’s hands are bare, the lightning marks crawling up her arms clearly visible, and she pulls them under the blanket when she sees Laudna looking.
“Nothing has to change between us,” Imogen says, and it sounds like a lie even before the words leave her lips. Because Laudna is her favorite, no matter what Imogen might have told herself. She would do anything for Laudna, even pretend that they’re just friends, if that’s what Laudna wants.
Laudna taps her own head with a finger. “It feels empty and quiet, so strange. When you've had this voice in your head for thirty years and all of a sudden it's gone, how are you supposed to feel? It seems like something's missing, even if I never liked it in the first place. Even when she wasn’t active, wasn’t talking, she was there, in the room. And now she’s not. Is this what it’s like to truly be alone? I don’t remember this feeling.”
Imogen blinks away tears, takes a deep breath to steady herself, then opens her mind. Laudna?
Hands press against each other, gripping tight. Imogen?
It’s me. I’m here. Whatever you need.
Laudna pulls her legs into bed, curls up with her head in Imogen’s lap. I missed you so much, Imogen.
Imogen runs the fingers of her free hand up Laudna’s temple, traces the curve of an ear, and the golden tips of jewelry. Then she massages the scalp under the hair, as if gently coaxing the subdued music back out. I missed you too.
They spend many minutes there, Imogen rubbing Laudna’s head, their thoughts taken up by mundane little things. Zhudanna is looking well. She wanted to get some more fruit. The nights are getting colder. Twice, it seemed like Laudna was about to fall asleep, but both times she snorted and turned to look up at Imogen again.
Imogen dreams about leaning down and kissing her, but she holds strong. Things are not supposed to change between them. You can sleep. I’ll stay with you.
Every time I go to sleep, I’m afraid I won’t wake up again.
And Imogen’s heart breaks. I won’t let anything happen to you. I— She wipes the tears away before they can fall on Laudna. I love you.
I love you too.
Imogen nods, sniffles, continues her massage across Laudna’s scalp. Sleep. You need rest. And in a brief moment of weakness, Imogen does lean down to kiss Laudna on the forehead. It’s the barest of grazes, a simple press of lips to skin, but Laudna’s eyes close at the touch. Her breathing slows as Imogen’s fingers dance across her skull, their motions also tapering off gradually.
When Laudna’s body relaxes, Imogen lets out a long breath, looks at the soft planes of Laudna’s face. It’s getting so hard to pretend. And sometimes Imogen thinks there’s no going back, even with the fear and the doubt, and all the uncertainty of what this really is and what it means for Laudna. Sleep well, I’ll be here when you wake. And Imogen cradles the head in her lap, memorizes the shape and weight of it, the life and soul held within. She keeps her breath in time with Laudna’s much slower rhythm, and every inhalation is a revelation to her. Because the truth is, even if Imogen is in love with Laudna, that’s exactly the same as before, so nothing has to change.
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Okay, I trust you as a source for all things Fire Emblem - can you please tell me if Fire Emblem Engage is worth getting? It's a lot of money, and I've seen a real mixed reception for it. I've read reviews that call it uninspired and shallow, storywise, and that some characters are difficult to enjoy. Is it actually worth it, or am I better off just replaying Fates? I am TORN over here.
SO! Good news in brief: if you liked Fates I'm fairly certain that you've got a good chance of liking Engage. I honestly see Engage as Fates 2 with a much better focus on what it wants to be and do! In fact if I HAD to pick a previous entry for fair comparison/vibe similarities, I'd pick Fates, maybe Sacred Stones (though I've yet to finish that one).
Engage is right now my favorite entry of the series.
MORE DETAILED ANSWER UNDER THE CUT (I have only played thru once on normal + casual as of writing)
I still maintain it's a good game and worth it, but you HAVE to be open-hearted about it. It's going to be silly. It's going to be hammy and subtle as a sledgehammer. It will even say the most cringe ass shit with it's whole heart. It's just about the farthest from 3H you can get on the fire emblem scale to the point you could have it sitting next to Kingdom Hearts and I, personally, love that for it, but feel like comparing it to 3H's darker tones is the thing most negative reviewers fall prey to.
Is it simple? Yeah. Absolutely. Terribly predictable, even. Is it heartfelt? YES! ABSOLUTELY! Engage has no time for "wow that was cheesy" because it LOVES cheese and it wants you to know that LOVE IS THE MOST POWERFUL THING EVER. It knows it's running a trite and cliched story and it doesn't care about that so much as trying to hit its notes with just the right vibe- and I argue it does a majority of the time, but can concede some things are rather silly. It's full steam ahead with the power of love and friendship and it does that with about as much reverence as a Sat. A.M. cartoon. A good Sat. A.M. cartoon that you're still thinking of years down the line that was a formative childhood joy.
And it's not about romantic love, actually! Hardly at all! There's a lot more focus on familial and platonic love than romance!! There are explicit "I love you"s regarding family bonds and multiple sibling relationships that make it clear they would do everything for their family. The only romantic aspect is whoever you choose to have Alear S-Rank (the game calls it a ring rank for Reasons but its essentially an S-Rank), and everyone else's supports end at A. Even then there's room in a fair number of Alear's S-Ranks to get interpreted as Really Good Friends, as the focus is not on "I Love You" but moreso the fact Alear and the blorbo in question have a deep, deep bond (though there are S-Ranks that are romantic-tinted and some who will explicitly say they love Alear, and regardless of gender picked! wow! diversity win!). If you were looking for pairing up your sexy chess pieces and getting paired endings, though, there'll be a bit left to be desired.
Again if you like Fates, or Kingdom Hearts, or stories that are cheesy, simple, cliched, but heartfelt, you're going to like this one. The cast is wonderful, and the story has some surprisingly good emotional beats. Oh, and also some of the FUNNIEST supports I have seen. Ever.
Alear in particular has become my favorite lord of the series, just barely scooting ahead of Corrin by virtue of having a more solid characterization and arc that Fates didn't quite let Corrin have. Which, yes, you can rename Alear and give them their own birthday, but there is NO question that Alear is their own character; hats off to Laura Stahl and Brandon McInnis for bringing stellar performances that are essential to the character. Frankly hats off in general to the voice cast as a whole they really bring a charm to the game that cannot be ignored.
I will say that supports are pretty hard to grind out, though, requiring units to be adjacent, and the leveling curve leaves a lot of... wonkiness? It's VERY easy with the rate of receiving new units + leveling funk to have units fall behind, or your army to feel underleveled, if you're like me and mostly skip the side skirmishes (bad gamer, I know). I hear the skirmishes are also kind of wonky and scaled to Alear's level which. Can Be A Problem if you're trying to level or support grind weaker units. Though I will say that playing Normal + Casual playing straight through the main story, while it occasionally made me sweat, it did not make me have to completely redo a map (or, if it did, it was probably only once or twice and I've simply forgotten about the inconvenience). Just made unlocking supports irksome as units fell off and/or made it hard to keep some characters off the bench.
There's also an OBSCENE amount of freedom in what you can do with your units. Go crazy go stupid try not to die. Resource management can get tricky, there's not quite enough gold or bond points to do everything, but you can do a lot of stuff, especially if you find a favorite to focus in on. As for the Engage mechanic: very powerful, but not to the point of sapping all the challenge out of things, and fairly balanced. The Break mechanic introduced I think is a great addition to the weapon triangle mechanics and adds a nicer layer of consideration to unit placement + weapon diversity in your army than before.
Also, if you're worried Engage overly relies on it's intent as an anniversary celebration, don't! Engage still is doing its own thing, and moreso uses references to past entries as spice or flourishes of color. They add some fun easter eggs and flavoring to the story, but it doesn't rely on the emblems or any throwbacks to tell the story it's trying to tell. Are Firene and Brodia a 1:1 for Zofia and Rigel? Yeah! Probably on purpose! They literally got the guy who voices Duma in FEH to do King Morion! Do you need to know anything about Shadows of Valentia to appreciate that? Nope! Just nice to know. Corrin's ring is found in a Northern Fortress, to further help illuminate the cute nods involved.
If you're on the fence, totally get that, especially since dropping 60$ on a game in this economy- ~90$ if you wanna add DLC -is a lot of money to ask for. But I've thoroughly enjoyed what Engage has to offer, and currently am hopping along through playthrough #2 and trying to tell myself to S-Rank someone who isn't Alcryst (I will probably S-Rank Alcryst again). I'd suggest looking into the first few eps of a playthrough if you're still not quite sure, and, frankly, imo there's no shame in just purely enjoying it from a "watched a playthrough" perspective, if you have to.
and, if none of this has persuaded you, please direct your attention to Zelkov and this Honest-To-Alear real support exchange: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1_lsOLB68g
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open.
he doesn’t know how late it is, doesn’t know how long he’s been gone. all he knows is that it’s dark, it’s cold, and he’s terrified. he stumbles through the street, dripping blood along the pavement as he slowly moves. he doesn’t even know how hurt he is, not really. he’s pretty beaten up, he’s limping, his leg hurts, but some part of him is falling back into his usual processes — if he can walk, he can’t really be that hurt, can he? what he’s doing is only just enough to really be classed as walking, but the idea still stands. he wasn’t trying to walk anywhere in particular, at least not consciously, but he soon finds himself at a familiar door, a weak attempt at getting attention as his palm hits the door, leaning against it to keep himself upright. it’s only now hitting him how tired he is, how desperately he craves to just drop to the ground and go to sleep. he can’t imagine that’s a good thing.
he makes another few attempts at pounding on the door, well aware that it’s the middle of the night, some part of him trying not to wake the neighbours. “hey!” his voice is hoarse, clearly pained. he’d done a lot of screaming in the time he’d been gone, sometimes screaming for help, sometimes just having no other way to process the pain. neither did any good, not really. all it did was leave him with a dry and scratchy throat, a constant feeling of strain. “please—” whispered, practically croaked. it becomes clear just how heavily he’d been leaning on the door when it opens, body following the moving door as it moves too fast for him to keep up, quick to drop to the floor. he makes a weak attempt at catching himself with his hands, though in truth he’s already hurting enough that hitting the ground hard isn’t too horrible of a thing to deal with.
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