If you’ve been listening to the Games for Thought podcast for awhile then you may already know that I haven’t been too interested in Fire Emblem Engage since it was first announced in a Nintendo Direct back in September of last year. While I’m not the biggest Fire Emblem fan, having only gotten into the series with Fire Emblem Awakening back on the 3DS I have played most of the games that have released in the series since then, and I have enjoyed them quite a bit! In particular though, I really enjoyed Fire Emblem Three Houses, something that shouldn’t be too surprising since a lot of people did. Three Houses managed to dethrone Awakening as the best selling game in the franchise after all. So taking all that into consideration it might be surprising to hear that I wasn’t really looking forward to Engage when it was announced and I even skipped out on it when it was released this January. I’ll explain why that was the case in a moment as it does feed into how I felt about the game overall, because during this current drought of new game releases I decided to finally pick up Engage! And I can say now, having played through the whole thing, that the game does some great things and some bad things too.

The main reason I decided to wait so long to finally pick up Engage all comes down to the game’s presentation and it’s characters. While Fire Emblem as a series has had some odd looking characters and designs, it’s two toned lead still manages to stand out as an odd choice.

Their design combined with the designs for the rest of the cast shown in the trailers is really what turned me off from the game. Like I said before, weird designs aren’t that, well, weird for Fire Emblem but comparing Engage‘s characters to Three Houses‘s really makes them look that much more odd. And I think this stark contrast between these two games in particular, that only starts with the designs, is what led to Engage not having as much of an impact despite strong sales early on. Because when Three Houses first came out, it almost felt like an event. Being on the Switch, and given how extremely popular the Switch is, it’s fair to assume it was the first Fire Emblem game a lot of people experienced. I still remember the boom of fan art and all the jokes and memes people were making about the game. But Engage didn’t really get that and it’s kind of plain to see why.

Engage does a lot of good for the series but it also reverts back to somethings that, while very much in line with previous Fire Emblem games, I didn’t want to go back to. And that mainly comes in the form of the story Engage tells and how it compares to Three Houses.

Every Fire Emblem game centers around war. After all it’s a strategy game where you are directing an army and it’s kind of hard to do that without a war happening! However it rarely feels like a war a lot of the time, at least when it comes to the games in the series I’ve played. This is mainly because there is always a good and evil side. In the case of Engage you play as the Divine Dragon who is off to stop the forces of the Fell Dragon before he destroys the world. The Fell Dragon is evil and the Divine Dragon is good. There is no questioning this, this is just how the world is. You don’t need to look any deeper, that’s all the justification you need and all you will get. There are a few plot elements thrown in here and there that threaten to change that up but they are always thrown aside mere moments after being introduced. So the Divine Dragon equals good and everyone who helps them is good and the Fell Dragon equals bad and everyone who helps them is bad besides the few good ones who join the Divine Dragon anyways. That is the whole story. And that’s just upsetting…

Now if you’ve played Fire Emblem before you might be saying that I’m criticizing Fire Emblem for being Fire Emblem since I basically described most of the games’ stories just now, and you are totally right! However that doesn’t excuse Engage having a similar story to the rest of the series. And that’s because it came after Three Houses.

When it comes to the story especially, Three Houses really changed up a lot. The biggest difference being that the story actually makes you feel like you’re in a war. Three Houses has two phases to the game and story, the academy phase and the war phase. For those who don’t know, the main premise of the game is that the main character, Byleth, is a mercenary turned teacher at what is basically a religious military school. So for the beginning of the game you are teaching students, helping them grow, getting to know them and taking them out on missions. After the tutorial teaching you how to play, you have to pick between one of three houses that you want to teach with each house having one of the future leaders of one of the three nations that make up the world attending. This choice not only affects the direction of the story drastically but it also selects your students. But very importantly, you will still interact with the other houses and students in them throughout the game. And why this is so important is because of the war phase. I won’t go too in depth about it, but war breaks out and all of the houses go back to the nations they came from and your role as teacher has now changed to that of a general basically, teaching soldiers instead of students and directing them on the field. It’s a pretty cool and seamless change all things considered! But what really makes this feel like a war is what comes next. Since, as you may have guessed, this is a war between the three nations, which means the soldiers you’ll be up against are all those students from the other classes that you knew and bonded with…

This right here is what really sets Three Houses apart! Wars aren’t always against evil monsters or dark forces. More often than not, you could find yourself fighting against someone you considered a friend. Not only that, there isn’t really a good or evil side in Three Houses. The game is far more about what people think is right and how they go about setting the world in that way. No one in the game is completely good or completely evil. And that’s the harsh reality of war. It’s never really black and white. And that extends to the characters of Three Houses too. While not all of them are going to be super deep or complex, a lot of them are! And it makes getting invested in them much easier and much more enjoyable! There were only like one or two characters in Engage that I really wanted to know more about. In Three Houses? I wanted to know about almost every character! Which is great as it helped motivate me to do multiple playthroughs. And while I am playing through Engage for a second time right now, I can tell you without a doubt it’s not because of the characters.

Despite the fact that Engage‘s story is very much in line with the rest of the series, it is a massive step back from what we got in Three Houses. And that just baffles me. Especially since I don’t think it was a secret that people loved the story and characters in that game. So taking all that into consideration, it makes me honestly wonder if Engage‘s story was something of an after thought or maybe was intentionally made not to be like Three Houses out of fear they might not be able to write something that lived up to that. Because the thing is, Engage did have a lot of work put into it. But none of it went toward the story and characters. Instead, it all went into the game play which might honestly be the best in the series!

While all the Fire Emblem games play pretty similarly, all being turn based strategy games, each one does offer new additions and changes. And the ones that Engage introduce are probably the best yet!

The biggest new addition that Engage brings to the table has to be the Emblem Rings. These are rings that hold the spirits of main characters from past games in the series. So characters like Marth, Roy, Corrin, and Byleth. And equipping these rings can drastically change things! Not only do each provide their own stat boosts, they also provide certain Skills to their wearer. For example Roy has the skill Hold Out which lets the unit survive with one point of health instead of being killed by a powerful attack. Another example is Sigurd, another Emblem Ring, and the skill Canter which allows a unit to move again after attacking. Very useful abilities that can really change up how a unit is played! Some Rings go even beyond that and allow units to use things like Staves for healing when their selected class wouldn’t normally allow for that. Letting you turn a Thief into a healer as well for example, something that should very much not be possible. But on top of all that, the Rings allow something even more important! They allow the units equipped with them to Engage.

When a unit Engages with an Emblem Ring, their appearance changes and they gain certain attacks, abilities, and weapons depending on the Emblem Ring they are using. For example, if a unit has Marth equipped they can use a rapier and they are able to use the special attack Lodestar Rush! Every Emblem Ring works like this but obviously with very different attacks, abilities, and weapons. The Emblem Ring Micaiah for example doesn’t give the unit equipped with her a special attack, instead they are given the healing ability Great Sacrifice which allows them to heal every allied unit to full health at the cost of them dropping to one point of health. Something that you can imagine is a pretty powerful ability! And that’s exactly what I love about the Emblem Rings and what they provide.

Awhile back I did a review of the game Bravely Default 2 where I talked about how it’s a broken and unbalanced mess of a game and that’s what makes it perfect. I love when games give you some insane abilities or options instead of trying to pull them back and make them a bit more fair and balanced. I’ve never really found that all too fun. I think it makes way more sense to make other things more unfair to match the player’s abilities to be overpowered! Because if everyone is overpowered, no one is. And while Fire Emblem Engage sadly doesn’t take things that far, it does get close! A lot of the abilities that the Emblem Rings provide do feel a little unfair most of the time but they never go too far, after all there’s a turn limit for how long you stay Engaged for before reverting back to normal and having to charge it again. And the enemy never really gets anything that is equally unfair, sadly. Even when they themselves have Emblem Rings. Which honestly is probably how it should be for a game like Fire Emblem that involves much more planning than the battles of Bravely Default 2. But attacks like Ike’s Great Aether, an attack that is only preformed after the enemies’ turn where the unit using said attack hits every enemy around them for massive damage assuming said unit can survive the enemy turn without being killed, is such a great high risk high reward move and I absolutely love it. And it’s things like this that Three Houses is lacking with it’s combat. Not to say that Three Houses has bad combat, but after playing Engage it’s clear that it’s combat is a step above Three Houses‘s.

As I said earlier, I’m currently replaying Engage but I’m not doing it for the story or characters. As you probably guessed, I’m doing it for the game play, which has been even more fun the second time around as I really understand what I’m doing! But this second playthrough has also shown me just how bad the story of Engage truly is because I have been skipping every cutscene and story moment this time and it really is a massive improvement! And while I’m sure most people who play through any game a second time will skip the cutscenes, I doubt most will notice such an improvement to their experience by doing that. I certainly hadn’t before this! And that’s why Engage ends up feeling like such a step back while also a step forward. The story is passable to annoying while the combat is amazing all around! If they managed to pull off a detailed and thoughtful story like they had with Three Houses people might be calling it the next best game in the series! That being said, in the end, Engage is far from a bad game. It’s not one I’d recommend over Three Houses or even probably Awakening, but it’s not a bad game. It’s a fine game that is pretty great at times. But coming out after the biggest most popular game in the series? It’s not a good look for Fire Emblem as a whole. Here’s hoping they manage to really step it up for the next game in the series and learn from Engage though!

But those are just my thoughts! What are some of yours? Are you a fan of Fire Emblem? If so, what’s your favorite game in the series? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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