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If you like this, maybe check out Lingo. Not the same lore depth, but it has my favorite puzzles from any game with great "simple" mechanics (150+ hours logged)

The idea to attract FE Heroes players to Engage was not a bad idea since Heroes has being lucrative for them, but the problem is that it wasn't done well

I finished the game last night, so al i have left is lore and crystal hunting.. I know there’s other events you can trigger with who you play.. I dunno if I’m ready to continue after that gauntlet to beat the game 😭

The worst part is how deep the rabbit hole goes

fire emblem has so many dead parents yet only like two actually live long enough to leave an impressian, or well 3 but I don't count sigurd because he also got to be protagonist for half the game, greil and jeralt weren't even playable and managed to make an impressian

So I was writing a comment but then the worthless trash site that is youtube randomly crashed so now I have to start over, thanks youtube forbeing such a good video site that isn't only alive today because it has grown too big to fail Anyways to be fair fire emblem hasn't had the best presentation in general, three houses suffers a near identical issue with the majority of its cutscenes, the reason the older games never suffered from this is because they let your brain fill in the blanks, they could puf two portraits on a generic background, have a static still image or just have a scripted cutscene using the ingame map and battle engine and despite it being a little cheap it still had the desired effect, if you look at something like path of radiance while there are a couple animated cutscenes the majority of them still follow one of these three tropes, I think you can really see how effective this approach is with shadows of valentia, while some cutscenes are just two portraits on the bottom and top screen the portraits are good to were despite it objectively being cheaper looking then a game were every cutscene is hand animated it still accomplishes what it needs to

As an example there are people who think sonic and the black knight has better cutscenes then a lot of modern sonic games, despite the fact that the artstyle is obviously cheaper it does often result in more memorable shots and cinematography instead of the usual sonic is just kinda standing around While it would be nice to always have fully animated cutscenes like in hyrule warriors age of calamity sometimes making compromis actually makes it better then trying your best to create those fully animated cutscenes, the fell xenologue did it and if you can briefly look past your likely ptsd from the difficulty there are several scenes wich actually look better due to them being still frames

​@@pandabanaan9208 That's funny. I made two comments today and for some reason when I hit reply, neither of them went though, weird. Anyway, what you said is completely fair. It's hard to summarize my thoughts on this in a couple of sentences but for reference. I went back and played Awakening as of recently and I looked at those cutscenes and compare them to Engages and asked myself "What the hell happened?" There was so much emotion, energy and weight behind Awakenings cutscenes. The fight sequences are the best in the series, the twists and emotional moments are amazing! For some reason ever since then, the impact the cutscenes have had has gotten worse and worse over time. With Engage, there's a couple of different factors that make it bad. Yes, the writing is definitely something that is universally hated, but the number one thing I felt weighted all of Engages cutscenes down is it's use of motion capture. As someone who has lived and experienced Mars Meets Moms, I can tell you first hand I am not a fan of the practice, especially when your anime game that should PROBABLY be in 2D is instead animated and captured by real people. Chapter 10 has the worse examples of Engages motion capture as characters, specifically Alcryst, move in a way that does not match the tone or weight to the scene. Since Engage uses ONLY motion capture, it makes creating fight scenes extremely low effort or nearly impossible and if there is a fight scene at all, they cut corners. The fight scene between Chrom and Lucina was very clearly planned out and choreographed before hand. Engages fight scenes could not be as extravagant or as epic as the fight scenes in Awakening because, uh yeah, real people can't fight in expressive ways the way anime characters can. As such, the majority of the characters stand around and do nothing. As much as I love Diamant, his introduction is literally him standing on a flight of stairs when he could be doing something more active like, idk, walking down the stairs, shake Alear's hand, do a kick ass pose with his sword, something, anything! But they can't because it would be too hard and IS rushed this game out the door expecting fans to flock to it right out of the gate. Crap, this is getting long. I just want to mention one last things about this. I seriously feel bad for the voice actors who have to try their best to match words with this games horrible, HORRIBLE motion capture. Again, chapter 10 is a good example of this. When Diamant yells bastard, it is very clear that the VA had to prolong the word just so it matched Diamant's mouth movements as close as possible and even then it's not flawless. Since the mouth movements of the characters were also motion captured, this is the main reason why none, and I mean NONE of the VA's dubs ever match with the characters mouth movements. Some of them come off as good enough, most...do not. What I'm trying to say is the VA's shouldn't be blamed when the material that they have to work with both cutscene wise and writing wise is complete and utter garbage. There's more but that's all I really have to say to this for now. Hopefully my comment goes through.

@@binxthebinx6575 yeah I've had that to but for me youtube went full black screen and closed itself, maybe if they focused more on user experience then ads their site would work correctly, god this is nearly turning into a youtube rant but I really do have so many frustrations with the site I think motion capture works decently enough specifically for griss since his constant small movements fit his character type and actually make more sense then him standing perfectly still, awakening had pretty good cutscenes I think and even then it still proves my point, mustafa didn't get a full on cgi cutscene yet he still resinated with people, really this feels sorta similar to pokemon were the quality isn't keeping up with what the platform is capable of, age of calamity is a bit of an outlier as well there are very few games wich take the let's hand animate every cutscene approach but usually you can find ways to make something look good without consuming too many resources I like pretty much all of the vas I think they did a pretty good job and it helps bring some characters to life, I probably wouldn't like griss that much if jamison boaz didn't do such a good job with his performance, personally I'm a little used to bad lip syncing because I watched an anime in the dutch dub and the vas are actually really good there but if you look for it the lip syncing is pretty bad, though I can see why it bothers people

@@pandabanaan9208 And then they spend money to hire Yuri for Marth only to bench his ass for over half of the game. What a complete waste...

Ah, we meet again! Fancy seeing you here :) Though I agree with most of the videos points, I do disagree on two things. The first is gameplay. Even though the ring mechanic is addictive and fun, it's not perfect. Many of the emblems fall off later or are pretty much useless (Roy and Leaf) or you get the goods ones back so late in the game that investing in them is not worth it. Also, gameplay aspects such as gaining sp/gold, the horrible arena system, terrible menus and god awful grinding is never touched upon here. He really only talks about the ring mechanic and nothing else when there are many, many other flaws with the gameplay that bring Engage down. Why can't I level up Yunaka (who is level ten) when one of my units dies and I now want to invest in her. Oh wait, I know why! It's because all skirmishes scale to Alear's level. So if Alear is a level 10 advanced class and you want to level up your level 10 base class Yunaka, your fucked, but that's just the gist, and yes. No new game plus is what REALLY killed this game. No one is getting hold out+++ without hours among hours of grinding. You do not want to grind in this game. After a single skirmish, you will be so done with that bullshit it's not worth it, especially with how little rewards you get from it. The other thing I disagree with is his take that Engage will satisfy both new and old FE fans...when that is clearly not the case. Take one look on metacritic and you will find that Engage is the most divisive game in the series. In trying to appease new players (which they so clearly do with the "your first fire emblem" tag line on the eshop) they essentially pleased no one in the end. Their focus was targeting new players and ONLY new players and because of that, so many staples of the FE series that people loved were lost. The best way to describe it is that Engage babified Fire Emblem. Hard mode in this game is not hard, it's normal mode and even Maddening in this game was easier than the majority of the series. It also doesn't help that the game developer for Engage has no idea what the fuck he's doing. Talking about that interview would be an essay in itself but essentially, story was not the priority and when it was, he had everything backwards! This was a man that believed heroic and brave characters cannot be relatable and instead made a cowardly one. In fact, Alear was SO cowardly at first that Nintendo had to stop the director from doing it, and to top of this shitty sundae, the polls are out! So while Alear admittedly is the first most popular character in the game (the cowardly one) the second and third most popular characters in the game are Diamant and Ivy who are both heroic and brave characters that have complex and relatable backstories. This is just something I feel he should have looked into a tad more. Like I said, Engage is a very divisive game and I felt like he only touched a fraction of it here.

⁠@@binxthebinx6575 nice to see you lol. Fun fact and a bit of sad ironically In fire emblem heroes poll. Yunaka and ivy almost got 1 and 2nd but lost to bernedetta and female robin. In the male category they did even worse funny enough alear was NOT the highest rank male it was acutely diamant 5th (which proves he should’ve been the main characther and his brother was next in line in 7th) alear ranked 9 in male and 5in females. The funny thing is diamant ivy and yunaka is almost unanimously considered the best characters in engage. And who one this time were a 2 3H characthers an awakening characther and the mobile game hero. Engage didn’t make the list which is a big oof yunaka and ivy were close though but in men only diamant and his brother seem to have the best chance and funny enough they are from the same region Back on topic I agree with you. Engage is water downed to much for an anniversary game. Being simple isn’t bad since past fire emblem games had that the problem with engage it’s way too simple and BLAND story wise. It’s hard for people to continue playing the game unless something encourages them to continue. Heck I think the only reason I continued playing was because Diamant ivy and fogado were interesting but even then they are not the main characters and they don’t join til halfway. By that point I’m already done with this game and want to finish it. Engage was such a chore to play and it’s awkward to recommend because for newcomers the cast and story won’t keep them interesting especially since they drag too long and for veterans while the strategy and gameplay is entertaining they probably will get annoyed with the story and characters the thing fire emblem is known for

@Yoshixandir I saw. You can add that to the tally of reasons why FEH causes nothing but misery to me. I haven't touched that dumb ass game since it released and I only was paying attention to the polls now because Diamant had a chance to get a new outfit and I thought he deserved it (along with Ivy) I was so confident that Diamant would win because I felt there wasn't much competition...and then this ALFRONSE BITCH, a God damn gotcha game character took first and Felix a character I feel is hard to like took second. The fire emblem community failed me on this day. I even wanted Ivy to win. I won't speak much on Bernedetta but I believe Ivy is leagues above female Robin since, you know, we already have a new outfit for male Robin. The avatar character taking up two slots is so fucking dumb. At least I can get some solace knowing that Diamant is more popular than male and female Alear (The FEH wiki said both Alears were the first and second most popular character. Now I'm questioning how true that is due to this poll existing...)

@Yoshixandir I saw. You can add that to the tally of reasons why FEH causes nothing but misery to me. I haven't played that dumb ass game since it's release and I feel that FEH existing has been a real stain on the legacy of Fire Emblem. I only was paying attention to the poll this time around because I felt that Diamant deserved to win (along with Ivy.) I was so confident that Diamant would win since I felt there wasn't a lot of competition...but then this ALFRONSE BITCH, a god damn gotcha game character took 1st and Felix a character that is hard to like took 2nd. The fire emblem community failed me on this day. I felt even Ivy deserved to win over any other of the female characters. I won't speak too much on Bernadette because I do know she's popular, but Ivy should have been able to beat female robin so god damn easy. It is also bullshit that the avatar character gets two slots (male/female) instead of one. Robbing a character that probably deserved it more since male robin already got the alt and are, in every way, the same character. At least I can have some solace knowing that Diamant is the most popular male character (and maybe the most popular character in general) in Engage, especially over Alear (On the FEH wiki, I do now have to question how legitimate those midterm polls are since it says Male and Female Alear are the 1st and 2nd most popular characters in Engage...)

@@binxthebinx6575 wow someone who doesn't like engage actually making good points I can agree on, like christ the first engage hater I encountered litterally had no better argument then genshin impact artstyle = soulless corporate products, I have some small critisisms though, first off all I am actually glad they pulled back the difficulty because after 3h and awakening maddening and then fell xenologue I genuinely have no faith in them designing an extreme difficulty that is well designed, while engage is the most divisive game in the series I'm not completely sure it deserves that, like really this game is more controversial at the moment then feh, finally while I get your point for me personally I like myself a protagonist whose flawed, while I don't think nocturne is as bad as everyone says it is I can't lie I think trevor was a more memorable protagonist then richter simply because trevor was such an unconventional hero Also I'm genuinely surprised that with how many people I've heard say the engage cast is boring that any of them made choose your legends at all, bernadetta finally got her spot after just barely not making it for several years in a row wich was kinda funny in a way, I'm glad my fav panette(from engage specifically I have other favos) managed to make the top twenty even if just barely but it honestly does feel wrong that robin can get two spots

This is a fair take. I think it’s all about balance. While yeah Engage really goes for the all offense to the point that it does make certain units OP paired with some rings I do think it provides a lot more experimentation to players. And it helps with “I wish this one character had this one specific trait” too. And they did buff bosses so of course strategy was still involved. I do wonder how intelligent systems will move on from this especially since Three Houses sold more than Engage. I don’t think the reception to Engage was bad (except on the writing front) and generally players enjoyed the gameplay. But I get your point about how they made the not as grounded as previous entries. I guess that’s also why I couldn’t necessarily take some of the stuff in Engage seriously especially since the big evil was on the brink of total destruction of everything and the characters are just like chilling cleaning the emblem rings lol

@@SuperThisWay Yes yeah I definitely think strategy is still involved. Or at least, it’s not as though you don’t have to think to win or anything like that. Just that it’s not trying to put you in the position of anything tactical; you’re just playing a video game (which granted some people liked a lot for what it provided on an individual level outside of expectations of its genre), not getting in the head of a strategist as you’re doing it. That’s just something I think a lot of people want out of this genre, and Fire Emblem has uniquely represented that while combining it with the anime style for a while until now. I think this is still ultimately tied to the uninspired story/characters and world part of the game; it’s hard to conceptualize gameplay that represents, compliments and tells of the world and characters and story as a result, and that’s exactly why those things are so important to a genre like this to me

What are you on about? Engage is one of the most strategical games in the series, only behind Conquest.

@@oof5992 Requiring thought on complex gameplay mechanics isn't the same as being tactical, strategy roleplaying.

​​​@@EXchoco could you explain what to you is the game that does this the best? As in what is it that makes a fire emblem game feel tactical

Yes! The presentation was on point! Really great looking art style and sick animations

Nah the game is good and I recommend people should play it but just skip the cutscenes lol

I mean... That can be a fair take. People value different things and while Engages gameplay IS great, the story and characters (at least IMO) aren't just mediocre, but extraordinarily bad. Its a cringy mess with low stakes, unhinged characters and stilted dialogue absolutely riddled with plot convenience and bad guys who are defeated just... walking off screen while no one attempts to stop them. FE has never been pure gameplay, the series has always had named characters who have relationships with one another who go on a journey and endure hardships and trials. That story is part of why a lot of people love the series and don't just stick to more 'pure strategy' games like XCOM. I genuinely loved Engages gameplay (never ending reinforcements aside) but I found it a complete slog to finish because the plot and the characters were so one note that by the end I just really didn't care about any of it.

3H was a right direction, More involved story with some non linearity in it. Hub where you can interact with your units and other characters. Because in classic FE outside of few support scenes your units just does not exist. @@richardlee3679

@@richardlee3679I also hated how support were meaningless. Ironically enough without the shipping there’s no point in trying to get to know the characters because they all have the same ending unless they are paired up with alear and even then many are generic. What also frustrating is many of the supports are so boring or bad first impressions that it feels like an ice breaker or they spend too much time showing off a one trait. The biggest offender to me was Celine she has a really good backstory….in her A support-_- before you get to know the backstory you have to endure her tea addiction which by the time I get to her tragic backstory I’m already over her. Or Alfred who is obsessed with muscles but you never knew he has an illness since it’s never brought up in the main story despite him being a main character

"Absolutely fantastic" is overselling it. The gameplay is good. There are better options out there, though.

Oh interesting! I didn’t mind the new systems as it was pretty straightforward but I get it being overwhelmed. I think that’s why I hated doing the hub world filled stuff bc Engage made it seem like it mattered but most of the stuff really didn’t. There was a lot going on and a lot of it didn’t really improve your stats that much for it to be worth it. If it just focused on the rings and bonds then I think it would work better. I will say that I really didn’t pay that much attention to SP until like chapter 20 so then I was like wait you can buy new skills and had saved up a bunch so even those skills didn’t matter too much in the core gameplay (maybe some stuff was more difficult than it should’ve been for me)

@@SuperThisWayone thing I hated was the squirmish battles. They are supposed to help your unit but they butchered it. Normally I was expecting to be like fates and awakening where the enemies are gonna be in diffrent levels that way the weaker ones would be a good way to train units have fell behind. In engage however they level up with you. So if alear is too high a level your unit you want to train become essentially dead weight

It's unfortunate about how few people even among veteren fans have played Echoes

This was my bad. Echoes was one I skipped but mostly it got released after the Switch. I got to rectify that. Would you recommend it?

​@@SuperThisWayGameplay can be a bit tedious, but the game is very different from other titles in the series so I'd recommend that you try it. Also the art, music and dubbing are all excellent in my opinion

Thats what you get for releasing your games on obscure consoles.

three cancers lol, based

I think a minor issue is there were too many characters to care about. It makes sense to have a big roster for a branching storyline like three houses but when it’s only one path the roster could have been cut in half for sure

@@SuperThisWayI think what also butcher it the retainers and royals. Unless the character is a royal the retainers are just tossed aside and rarely have a chance to show off their personality for example kagetsu has probably my least favorite introduction he join in a chapter(despite him being a great unit) when you get him you already have 3 sword users most likely, the chapter he joins only requires alear to exit the map and the next few chapters is desert. Not to mention within the short dialogue he has to make an impression all he does is compliment a ring and helps out ivy and that’s it. Fates I think did retainers better because usually they allow the retainers to be by themselves separated from the royals (laslow peri Odin and Niles join a lot earlier compare to their retainer so you get a chance to get to know them. And the ones who join you with the royals (Selena beruka Arthur and Effie) all get a chance to show off their personalities within their few screentime and are in a chapter where they can shine (beruka and Selena being good defense unit in a chapter where you need to defend and Elise Arthur and Effie join way early on as your starters)

Ugh it was so engaging lol. But yeah I felt the story was just meh and dragged the overall game down. But when it let me play, oh it was fun af

Hopefully more people will play (and enjoy) it! We must spread the gospel of Void Stranger

Hell yea keep on trucking through the void!

Yeah this is basically my thoughts about why it’s hard to recommend this game to people. Like I legit love it and is one of my favorite games ever but it’s also hard to tell friends with a straight face that they will enjoy a game like this. You have to play 250+ levels several times? And then again on a hard mode? And another set of hard puzzles to “beat” the game? Lmao my wife will never play this game and enjoy it haha

I can understand this complaint, but getting all the way through the game multiple times WITHOUT finding the sword and wings is not the intended way to play, imo. The wings especially make almost all of the base 250 levels a breeze to get through

Oooooh I hope you enjoy it!

Thank you my dude! I really appreciate it and I hope you like the rest of my videos!

lol I’m glad it did that and yeah I appreciate the feedback. Just really enjoyed the game and yeah that original re4 was a big part of my childhood lol

Thank you! Means a lot to me

lol right!? They’re like such great characters and they didn’t get the spotlight they should’ve gotten

Fair tho it is behind the major spoilers section so if someone was watching and saw that I guess they’d be upset the brands were censored lol

Oooh yeah if you like esoteric games void stranger is the one! I got a video on it too that goes over more of my feelings. It’s got spoiler visuals but I did put gates in there for heads up

@@SuperThisWay okay, just finished my first playthrough, and watched your video about it (which was great, loved your videos!). the end of my run gave me shivers, but now im kinda lost of where to go. i heard you said you wanna talk about the game with people in your video, so if you're willing to, i would like to talk about it and, ofc, receive some spoiler-free tips as well for me to keep going with the story! what do u think?

@@hugobryan399 Yeah for sure! I'm glad you been enjoying it so far! I guess one question is did you complete the run voided or unvoided? Also as for like guides or if you need a hint about what to do next, definitely check out the steam community or the subreddit for void stranger. I'm on the subreddit so I'll probably see a post there about what to do next for sure.

Yeah there so much to this game and how many layers and themes it has. Really enjoyed it and how gripping it was to explore it

I’ll have to see if Slay the Spire is my jam. And yeah I really wanted to like inscryption and I was but I just got tired of always losing lol. I had like 10 runs before I finally got to act 2 and then i lost and I was like yeah I’m done lol