A Nerd Dad’s Review of Fire Emblem: Engage

Ever since I stumbled upon the Nintendo game Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I’ve been completely hooked onto the Fire Emblem series. The series is quite popular in Japan, but until recently hasn’t been that well-known in the West outside a niche community. Many earlier titles were not even sold overseas. I have gone back and played a couple older titles¹ and also last year I got a copy of the latest title: Fire Emblem: Engage for Christmas.

Since I played Engage after finishing Three Houses, I was comparing it with a very high bar, and thus it had a rocky start for me. However, after completing the game, and picking up the new Japanese-language manga (more on that later), I like Engage more and more. This post is meant to be a review to celebrate its 2nd release anniversary.

If you want the short summary of “is the game worth playing?”, then the quick answer is that I am halfway through my second play-through now and definitely enjoying it.

Like every Fire Emblem game, Engage is a turn-based battle game. I like to think of it as Chess, except that :

1. You get to pick the pieces you want to put on the board
2. You can build and train your pieces in various ways
3. There is a nice narrative to go with the entire adventure
4. Your pieces interact with each other, and might even get married. ❤️

Each Fire Emblem is somewhat unique, but they all follow a similar pattern. The Engage battle system doesn’t radically differ from earlier titles, but it is significantly smoother and more polished. It’s very well done. Engage leverages the weapon-advantage triangle of earlier titles (swords vs. axes, axes vs. spears, spears vs. swords) but also introduces a new “break” mechanic which causes the disadvantaged weapon holder to temporarily lose their weapon. This is a great way to overpower another opponent and avoid unnecessary damage yourself. Of course, this works both ways. There are also spells you can obtain that simply break an opponent from a distance. Very annoying if you are on the receiving end. The battles are hard, but they are genuinely fun to engage in …. uh? uh?

The big innovation to Engage is the use of Emblem Rings. Engage seems to be a kind of a homage to the entire series, and many of the heroes of past titles make a comeback as warrior spirits bound to specific rings. Characters who bear one of these rings gain increasing stat bonuses and abilities, and also unlock short conversations with the bound Emblem warriors. The more they use the ring, the more abilities and stat bonuses they unlock. There are twelve rings total, and since your groups is far larger, you have to carefully decide who gets to train with what rings, etc.

If you didn’t play earlier Fire Emblem titles, like myself, this a great way to get acquainted with past heroes you didn’t really know about. Ike from Fire Emblem: Dawn of Radiance, and Corrin from Fire Emblem: Fates are a particularly standout examples for me. It was also great to see Byleth from Three Houses as well.

These Emblem Rings both play a core part of the story, but also are an important aspect of many of the game mechanics. I didn’t understand until my second play-through how bond rings created from the Emblem Rings let other characters get some minor boosts to stats, minor abilities, and help charge SP points when not wearing an Emblem Ring proper. This is very helpful in ensuring none of your characters fall behind in progression too much, since there is only a limited number of rings to go around. Also, inheriting skills was something I didn’t do properly in my first play-through either, causing me to really miss some important enhancements. The Emblem Ring mechanics are both complex and highly customizable, but also take time to grasp. Engage might have done more to help clarify the benefits and features.

The other challenge with the game is the story.

Compared to the complex, Machiavellian story in Three Houses, with its adult themes of war, loss, politics and so on, along with its four possible story paths, Engage doesn’t really have any of this. The story is leaner, more linear hero story, harking back to older titles. That’s not to say the story isn’t interesting. In fact, once I finished the game, I found that I liked the story. The issue, I think is pacing: some dramatic parts of the story are introduced too early, so there’s no emotional connection, others introduced pretty late. Thus, there is a long awkward slog in the middle. The official manga² actually does fix some of this so that the story aspects are smoothed out more, and long gaps in the plot are filled in.

The cast of characters too, lack some depth of Three Houses. The cuter, more cartoony style and one-dimensional personalities makes it a bit hard at times to take some of the characters seriously, as they feel like something from a mid-level anime. On the other hand, there are some great characters. The twins Clanne and Framme were simply adorable, Etie the bodybuilder lady was always a hoot (especially when she fights with Goldmary), Prince Alfred is always upbeat and positive even in the worst of times, and the brothers Prince Diamant and Alcryst had an interesting dynamic. In fact, there are actually quite a few fun or interesting characters, it’s just that others feel kind of superfluous or blatant fan-service characters.

This goes double for some of the villains. The Four Hounds were annoying to me, until the very end when their origin was revealed, but again due to the pacing, it was a bit too late. Similarly, the story between Hortensia and her big sister Ivy was actually pretty interesting, and helped flesh out the kingdom of Elusia more, but only if you progress far enough in their support conversations. By and large, the atmosphere of the game is lighter and more jovial than Three Houses, so it loses some gravity, but it does have some really nice support arcs nonetheless, and I do like the majority of the cast. The manga below really helps flesh things out and fixes some of the pacing issues, too.

The support conversations also differ from Three Houses a bit. The C and B supports tend to be shorter, but similarly follow a story arc. Some are actually quite good, some kind of bland. Then again, one can say the same in Three Houses: not every support conversation is compelling. I do really like that Engage seems to have more options for romantic supports, so if you’re a person who prefers same-sex relationships,³ you have more choices than Three Houses offered.

A few other things about Engage are worth noting.

First, the Somniel, the hub of Engage is really fun. It feels more like a vacation resort compared to the venerable Garreg Mach monastery of Three Houses. As with the Emblem Rings, there is a lot of features and quality-of-life improvements that are not found in earlier games, and easy to miss. I found myself frequently diverging from the game itself to mess around in the Somniel for lengthy periods of time.

Second, as alluded to above, the game has a lot of replay value. That’s true with many Fire Emblem games as there is more than one way to win it, but Engage excels at this. You can go very in-depth of features and customizations. It’s overwhelming and easy to miss at times, but I have found myself enjoying the game a lot more during my second play-through once I grasped the basics.

Engage gets some flak for the thinner story and character development, but I have to admit that I enjoy it more than I expected, but it did take some patience to appreciate. There is a lot in this game, and while it is rough around the edges, it also really has a lot to offer new players and past fans of the series. Even with the rough patches, I definitely recommend the game for new fans and old.

P.S. bonus post, but also timely since Sakura-con starts today. My kids and I go yearly.

¹ I was very lucky that someone at work was selling a slightly used 3DS for very cheap. Turns out there’s several good titles for the 3DS, but I picked Awakening because Chrom, Lucina and Robin all appear in Super Smash Brothers. It was nice to finally see who these people were, and appreciate the excellent storyline. Also, while writing this post, I also picked up Fire Emblem: Echoes, Shadow of Valentia for the 3DS as well. It’s a really beautiful story.

² The official manga is only available in Japanese, but I obtained copies of it last year from Amazon Japan, and have been reading through (with a dictionary, of course). I hear there are unofficial translated versions available, but I don’t know anything about this. In any case, the manga is excellent and has done much to improve my opinion of Engage. Some aspects of the game story were rewritten in more sensible ways, while the art is just amazing.

³ I am straight myself, but it’s important to acknowledge the sheer diversity of people in the world, rather than pretend it doesn’t exist.