#alear reminds me a lot of the way i've strived to write corrin

[didsomeonesayventus]

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

#katie rambles #fe engage #fe17 #in short: I like this game and I think if you liked fates you'll probably like it too!!! #I didn't get into spoilers because idk how spoiler free u wish to be #but there is a link to part of a support (missing context + no plot mentions) #but I think engage does a very good job of being what it is #a simple romp to go kill the problems dragon and collect the emblems and save the day #but with a lot of heart and solid gameplay as usual for a fired emblem #alear reminds me a lot of the way i've strived to write corrin #and i think the plot absolutely benefits from the focus of a single campaign that allows it to hit good vibes #does it cover everything in super detail? not entirely. #does it completely avoid being silly? NOPE #are there missed opportunities? sure always are #but this game has reignited a lot of my joy and interest and creative energy #and it's going on month 3 of loving this world and what it offers #no doubt to still last as I have a fic or two still in the works and the Fell Xenologue DLC has me like MASSIVE EYE EMOJIS #but i do totally get that 60$ USD for the base game is. a lot of money #I think its worth saving up for tho! and if it's hard I won't fault you for just checking out a playthrough #but I really. really like this entry and i think if you come in with an open heart you will too