About Emblem introductions, I want to praise this game specifically for the Lucina one: -Chapter 11 takes inspiration on Awakening's chapter 10 a beloved chapter for many players in both games the protagonist just suffered a defeat, Alear lost the Emblems/Chrom couldn't save his sister, and they have to escape. In Engage losing your rings and having the enemies using them against you it's just magnificent integration, after a while Ivy with her retainers join and give you the rings of Lyn and Lucina. -What I love it's that with just a few phrases they capture awakening and Lucina's scent. Alear mistaking Lucina for Marth is a callback to her secret identity in the first few chapters in Awakening, also the fact that Lucina is kinda a reincarnation of Marth. Lucina being the Emblem that essentially replaces Marth is also a cool touch because Lucina as well as Alear relied on Marth. Lucina as a figure to look up to and Alear as his guide/friend. But the part that I loved the most was Lucina's words: She wants to be a light in the dark a light for those who have fallen in despair. THAT'S Lucina, if you know her story she was the princess of a fallen kingdom she lost so many people she had to fight in a despair situation and be the Leader, she knows those feelings and for that reason she's the best pick for the role of the Emblem that has to replace Marth and give hope to the protagonist, not Ike, nor Corrin nor Byleth, only Lucina could. -To finish it's the incantation: Reignite us Emblem of Awakening. Awakening save the series, it was the game that reignited the series. This is only one point in the entire game, but man I just fell the love at that moment
I personally love that moment for another reason: in your darkest hour, the emblems you get to turn it around are Lyn and Lucina. You can argue that both FE7 and Awakening "saved the series" in their own ways. FE7 was the first one released outside Japan. Engage was the first to achieve mainstream success.
The point Mekkah makes about Fire Emblem being special/unique because of the intersection of Great Strategy RPG gameplay & compelling character/story drama is so important. It's really rare that we get stuff like that. I do understand people choosing gameplay if they had to choose one, but agree we shouldn't have to sacrifice on either end.
Totally agreed. I find it frustrating when some people frame the issue as one or the other because it's a false dichotomy. The reality is that we should be getting both.
I definitely agree with that generally, though I also think Engage DOES have a good story and good characters. It's not perfect, but it's incredibly compelling for me personally
I still felt a billion times more emotions at Lumera's death than I did for Jeralt's in 3H. And I hate that. I think it's Alear's voice acting. They're one of the few Avatars allowed to actually express emotions at the plot, and I could feel the energy they put into the scene even if it was cheesy. Jeralt's death just made me go "the dad died in a Fire Emblem game again, so what?" I think what helped is Lumera's death was always an inevitability, while 3H tried to present Jeralt's as a legitimate twist even though anyone who'd played an FE game before could see it coming.
@@BigKlingy i can see your reasoning behind it but I think Lumera taking 40 minutes to die really killed it for me. Jeralt was pretty quick and I liked the hopelessness of even divine pulse not being able to prevent it. The rain was pretty cheesy but the crying and being called kid kinda made me sad
@@ramones1314 I think another part of it was my lack of investment in Byleth due to them being a silent protagonist (and yet also having an extensive history as a mercenary they're never allowed to talk about), while I ended up finding Alear surprisingly endearing. I felt similar to what you're describing with Marni later in the story, where the total lack of blood made her death look unintentionally silly.
Early spoilers: One thing I had an issue with in the story is that the whole “sombron needs sovereign blood” thing feels SO painfully arbitrary. Like if morion died before he did, would Diamant suddenly have this “Sovereign blood” that sombron needs? There’s nothing in the worldbuilding that suggests sovereigns are particularly special other than being the rulers of their respective nations. But maybe I’m forgetting something
I'm just headcanoning that Sombron really likes killing monarchs so much that he's placebo'd himself into thinking it gives him strength. No less ridiculous than anything else in Engage.
About the AI reading the RNG. Mario Party Superstars has their AI purposely try to land on spaces with hidden blocks, so I don't think it is out of the realm of possibly for Engage
The story was really hard for me to get invested in because the characters didn't feel like people and the designs made it hard to take seriously. Then there were basically no consequences and poor pacing. Fire emblem stories aren't usually incredible but the characters are and I think that's why I see most of these characters as just functions. Some stood out like diamant, kagetsu, lapis, jean, fogado, but most I just see as functions
I loved the idea that the game should be the most fun playing it the way the developers intended. I think they nailed that in this game as Maddening without DLC, online features and save scumming, has been a blast with a nice difficulty curve throughout. There were a few times I thought my army wasn't strong enough for a map, but I was able to find a way using all of the tools available which is how I prefer to play these games on my first couple playthroughs.
I don't personally agree with the take that Engage's writing tries to make the player "sympathize" with villains. Rather, I think it's them trying to emphasize the story's theme of loneliness and family. (Spoiler warning) Marnie was disowned by her mother. Anna is trying to find her family. Sombron is looking for his zero emblem. Alear, Veyle, Lumera, and Zephia all wish they had a family. The Brodian and Elusian royals have to mourn their respective fathers' passings, and Ivy in particular has to be separated from her sister after her father disowns her. I feel as though the writers really wanted to convey to the player that many of people go through tough periods of loneliness, and to do that they made many characters exhibit it, so to that end I have no issue that many villains and player characters have a loneliness arc. My issue is that it's almost all tell and no show and almost all of that exposition is exclusively given in the last four or so chapters, which comes off as a lazy patch up job to "inject" some thematic flair to an otherwise standard story.
The thing with the arrows, I never once saw it as this is what they want to do, but what they could do. It never mattered what order I put the units in range, they always had the targeting arrows
I will admit I’m in the camp of “Engage’s story isn’t very serious so don’t take it seriously” but it isn’t in the sense of making an excuse for it being bad. Moreso that my expectations were not high so I care much less that it was actually bad, so it doesn’t actively bother me Watched it through once and likely will skip it every playthrough after. Thank god for no route splits though
In spite of how straightfoward Engage's plot is, chances are people will say it's either ok at best or a complete travesty and an insult to the series at worst. Personally, I'm in the camp the plot's alright but doesn't give you much stuff to discuss about by the end. Also the beginning and lategame has some pacing issues which could've been handled better (mainly with the backstories). Character-wise Engage's very weird. It's in a weird spot where the cast is both very vanilla AND experimental at the same time, and it shows 'cause most of the cast that comes around Brodia is far more grounded and dynamic compared to your starting roster (sans one exception). Villains-wise, the Hounds being fought a lot sadly hurts their threat factor, but that didn't make them any less enjoyable to me, and I was honestly surprised by the direction the writers chose to wrap up their arc (in a good way). Still not sure how to feel about Sombron tho. Oh and Engage's gameplay is fun, and I can't wait to give Maddening a shot later down the road.
i feel like it's pretty clear the big problems with the hounds' random heel turns is it feels just unearned. you compare to stuff like Lloyd or Jaffar in FE7 for example and those are like very meaningful switches because it's done in a natural way that fits with those nuanced characters.
@@MegamanStarforce2010 The thing is, Mauvier is the only Hound who does a heel turn. Marni gets herself killed because Veyle's backstory hits her too close to home and thus no longer feels ok supporting her brainwashing, and Zephia's only good action in the game, as revealed in her last scene with Griss, is motivated out of spite against Sombron rather than of any genuine change of heart. Do not confuse villains being people with them doing a heel turn.
@@MegamanStarforce2010 .........Lloyd was just dumb though (or Linus depending on who you fight at the end). Like they aren't exactly switches lol (only Jaffar actually counts). The first brother basically goes on a "I need more info" moment and then Limstella kills them. The 2nd Brother will just go full stupid and fight us for the sake of their dead brother and the remaining original Black Fang....despite Nino doing her best to convince the 2nd brother to stop fighting them. So yeah.....the Reeds don't count as a heel turn lol. If anything they should have joined them just for the sake of getting revenge on Nergal for fucking everything up. Like them fighting us and Nino made no sense honestly XD.
One problem with the story is that they tell stuff too quick, and solve problems almost instantly, they don't give you time to think about it, and let it impact the story and characters. One problem with 3 houses (and hopes) was that some things where kept to vague, or just never made sense tho
One thing I do have to say this has over Fates, is in Fates by the end I didn‘t care about the story anymore, in Engage there are aspects I really wished had been focused on more.
I still enjoyed Birthright's story until the end, even thought that's a basic "defeat the evil dragon" story that we all know. Now... Conquest and Revelation... I could NOT take that horrible story. It was so dumb, that took me a good time to finish the game because I couldn't find myself playing it because I didn't care enough.
Engage does a lot of things better than Fates and Awakening imo. I'm glad they at least tried to give Sombron a backstory and reason to be evil instead of just making Grima #2, cause boy do I hate Grima...
@@hyperm8 I do like grima as some loftcraftian abomination. I actually disliked it, when FEH gave them daddy issues. (Though there origin story in SoV was great)
While a lot of the story left much to be desired, I do appreciate some of the throwbacks in regard to some of the emblems. Like Leif's Quadruple hit granting a chance of 1000g drop as Covert bonus (trigger luck stat) almost reminds us of the gimmick of thieves and stealing in Thracia.
As far as the Hounds go, I really liked that their backstory was dumped on you in a very organic way. Marni drops her past almost unintentionally once realizing that she wasn't even aware of Veyle's trauma, after which she realizes that she has been used by Zephia all her life. Mauvier being Veyle's knight and more loyal to her than Sombron despite worshipping the guy was foreshadowed very early on with him being very reluctant on following her orders and not calling evil Veyle by her name and stuff like that. Zephia helping Alear out of spite once Sombron abandons her also is very in character. All she wanted was a real family of her own, not realizing that the fake family she gathered around Veyle was all she ever wanted herself. I think her and Griss' death scene is my favorite moment in the game, honestly. Speaking of, Griss just wanted the hot dragon mommy to step on him. Bro waited patiently for 20 Chapters until Zephia got over her crush on Sombron, gotta love the guy.
Zephia never had a crush on Sombron tho. The only reason she ever cared about him was to make sure the guy would fulfill his 1000 year promise to give her a baby.
Just finished Engage, 75 hours in Hard-Classic, such a wonderful time. It's the best 7/10 of all time, heavily recommend it if you love the series' gameplay. There has been some discourse with Three Houses/story-centered fans, but I honestly believe this game is worth it. Engage has heavy Fates vibes, but the love they've put in this game and most of the maps' sheer quality makes it a blast to play, I just wish they've delved into the plot and lore a bit more. The only interesting fleshed-out relationship is between Elusia and Brodia: how Morion was such a good king but kept constant wars against Elusia by fearing the Fell Dragon, and made a lot of innocent Elusians suffer, to the point that they were taught to fear Brodians, and how Diamant promises to patch things up and change Brodia's ways in many supports. The Brodia and Elusia chapters are the most interesting section of the game (not only for this, but this reason helps), knowing that Hyacinth wasn't completely in the wrong (and was apparently a good king himself, in the past). In comparison, Solm and Firene lacked this interesting background, to me. There are plenty of interesting tidbits here and there, as every FE with supports has, but the story is barely more fleshed out than FE7's, which is not great, imo. Sacred Stones was consistently more interesting. Making Sombron sympathetic was an interesting move, if only it wasn't dumped at the last chapter. The most disappointing aspect of the story to me is that I, at least, never truly understood the Emblems' place in the world. Do they come from stories? Did every game actually happen in Elyos? The Emblems act as if all of them have finished their adventures, but I wished to understand more of how they fit in Elyos' lore, instead of it being pure fanservice. The game does a great job with fanservice overall, but this is the biggest gripe I have with the lore. Edit: Oh, and speaking of RN, I swear that I've missed dozens of 80% and the enemy hit a LOT of 20%. Dead serious, I know it must be biased, but come ooon, the final map was made much harder by literally every Corrupted managing to land a 20%. I can excuse missing the 80% Chain Attacks because there were a ton of them thrown around, but the lower percentage hits got on my nerves.
Some of the things i feel engage is missing from past games: Voiced level up lines Voiced and meaningful hub world dialog Unique crit animation for counter and non lethal crits Being able to merge staffs Damage forcast with the aggro lines, especially for non standard attacks Voiced npcs who have meaningful things to say Be able to wear accessories or alternate outfits into battle Clothing taking damage in battle Weapons automatically equipping when added to unit inventory Fists scaling off of one stat Berserker and swordmaster having boosted crit The wo dao having more crit than the killing edge Tonics not being usable if it has no effect Being able to see your stats when you give stat bosters Indicate the effects of support boosts during battle
Uh, engage does show the support bonuses in battle. If you look at the stats of the character, they will increase or decrease if put next to a support partner.
@@abicrystalwing1543 other game actually had an indication that supports were active. Radiant dawn showed it by having the two supporting characters have a ring effect on the map with a sound effect before combat. Awakening and fates show support bonuses over the character as combat began. Echoes has additional orange bars on the battle forcast. 3 house showed not only which characters were supporting you in the battle forcast but also highlighted adjusted stats. There is a reason that so many people were confused about how supports even worked in this game. The only way to tell if you are being supported is by pressing x and hovering over your stats or by staring at your stats as you move your character
I didn't like Engage as much as I thought I would when I finished it just due to the general lack of a story that it had. While the characters were zanny, I felt disappointed that there were not paired endings between the rank and file characters, regardless of the many pairings Alear had. The map design was generally better than 3 Houses, but I didn't feel like replaying the game when I didn't feel as connected to the characters. Only the kingdom lords were featured heavily in cutscenes, and the others fell to the wayside, storywise.
Yeah the lack of paired endings really irritated me. Especially when some characters (like Ivy and Diamont) have good chemistry and their supports make them more than just one note. I hope paired endings come back and this won’t become a trend
@@solismax65 Shipping isn't what I'm going for -- plenty of characters get A rank with people that romanticism wouldn't be a thing. Like Yunaka and Goldmary, or even Mavier and Lindon. It gives me a reason to build support with characters to see how they interact after it's all over. Call it shipping if you wish, but don't be rude about it.
while i also think the story took a major nose dive at the end, i personally think it happened with the chapter where lumera is a corrupted and not before it? the four hounds were all much stronger villains than sombron but basically the reason the bullshit they pull doesn't faze me is because it's either foreshadowed or explained? the corrupted alear was fine for me because they did say veyle could bring corrupted back with their personalities in tact the second time you fight hyacinth, and that whole chapter was like a huge act of desperation and most importantly it didn't work and it's good to have something where the protag just fails. the emblems reviving them was also foreshadowed though not enough imo so it did feel weaker. zephia's death also didn't bother me as much because whil she's given a sympathetic slant it's still like. she made her decision to stay evil, even though she really could have had it all like she cold have swapped sides and everything would have been happy power of friendships and because she didn't she is dying with the closest thing to what she's always wanted dying beside her, and it sucks but it also feels good? her magic stone she pulls out of her ass seems stupid when you get it but imo at least the game explains it pretty well after. in the past chapter she shows up and meets future-alear and she even considers a device that would let her travel to the past, but says it would kill her to make, so i also think that's saying her dying in the "present" was her committing suicide by creating that time traveling macguffin, which she knew she would do because she remembers the past. it's like a perfectly closed loop incident and is probably some of the least agregious time travel fire emblem has ever done. that's all my opinion, tho. i do want to say that i am transgender and a lot of the story of like you can choose to be a divine dragon so thats what you are did resonate with me in the trans way.
honestly, re: the whole "introducing the problem and the solution back to back", there is _always_ some sort of hint about the solution beforehand. *Late-game spoilers ahead!* For Alear's first death and revival, it's already mentioned that when Veyle makes Corrupted, they're _exactly_ like their normal self. That's established in chapter 17. For Alear's second death and revival as an Emblem, there was already a scene with the Emblems vaguing about the Miracle and whether they should use it on Lumera. For the Fell Dragon Shard stuck in the past, and Zephia's crystal… you've had the Draconic Time Crystal since almost the beginning of the game. Between chapter 23 and chapter 24, it's easy to put together that _Zephia_ made that crystal for Veyle to use. And the crystal itself is designed to resemble Zephia's eyes and headdress.
59:02 Conspiracy Theory: One reason it took so long to make Engage was because they made everyone play through every single FE game before they could begin working on the maps.
@@leargamma4912 Yes, they have. Most people who are FE devs at IS are either older sorts who have been working on the series for literal decades now, or newer blood that are here because they were literally Fire Emblem fans in the first place. If we were talking about Three Houses specifically, I could maybe believe this (since it wasn't primarily devloped by IS). But any other game, Engage included? I don't know why you think the devs *wouldn't* have played the older games...
On the topic of characters, something I'd like to say that, surprisingly enough took me waaaaay too long to notice, is Alear's name. Like... That is a Spanish word, it means "to alloy"; basically to melt two, or more, metals and forge them into one. Just like Alear if you think about it, but instead of metals, dragon's races. I guess it could be just a coincidence, but what a big coincidence that would be. And it's not like it is impossible, we already have Rosado, for instance. So it is not too much of a stretch to think that they would do the same with another character, and the protagonist at that. In the end, I'm just happy to have noticed it. If it is a coincidence, that is funny; if it is not, it is great that they chose to do it that way, from my perspective :)
I just started chapter 11, and the story so far has been laughably bad. I do like the changes to the gameplay as compared to three houses, but I think three houses did a far better job of basically leaving the overwhelming majority of comedic relief to the support conversations so that the overarching story could maintain a serious tone. So far engage is playing out like a comedy made for children and it's making for some pretty wild tone shifts when it does decide to occasionally take itself seriously.
I mostly agree with what was discussed in this video but one thing I wish was touched on was how one note characters in this game are in support and bond conversations. Obviously I haven’t seen every support but all the characters I used I maxed out the available supports. For example The Chloe/Framme and Chloe/Citrinne supports have the same premise and basically end in the same fashion.
I honestly think a lot of the twists in Engage's endgame didn't come out of thin air. Zephia bringing up the lake crystal and then immediately solving the problem was really dumb, but Alear's revivals were set up very well beforehand. Sombron's backstory wasn't really for sympathy either, the way I see it, it was just revealing his motivations to keep him from being just the bad guy that wants to take over the universe. Honestly Zephia is most of my problems with the story, and even then it's only a few moments that I don't like. I think the story is great overall. Lumera's second death scene really didn't need to happen, but after thinking about it for a while I realized it may actually be good for showing Alear's development throughout the game, how their reaction changes from the first time to the second.
every time someone was gonna die they would say a line something like "I cant wait to spend time with you soon". See: lumera, brodia king, even the emblems
I find Engages gameplay exceedingly flexible, when you are in a tricky situation the game just has so many tools available that getting out of those situations is often just a matter of weighing up your options and just mucking about.
I've been an FE fan since they started coming out in the west and, while I agree with the point that Engage's gameplay is better than Three Houses, I honestly don't think it's by *that* much. I'm a Classic/Hard player by nature and, frankly, the last few maps were such unenjoyable reinforcement slogs that, combined with my *painful* levels of apathy towards basically the entire cast (if I have to hear one more conversation about food, I might just microwave the game cartridge out of spite '-_-) meant I just zoned completely out of the experience by the end. I might try it again on Normal, see if doing a more "Derpin' around" playthrough changes my mind, but, honestly, after 70 hours, all I have to say is, "Give me Three Houses any day of the week." I can tolerate a *lot* about an RPG if I like the story and characters. I'm not asking Engage to make Dimitri and Edelgard's lightning strike twice or anything, but they could *at least* have given me someone on Eliwood's level. *Come on.*
Personally I'm okay with how basic the story was, like the actual story elements. Though I will throw in they should have like given Sombron more scenes, along with kind of space out the Hounds backstories/given us foreshadowing. Like people "CLAIM" there is foreshadowing....but there really isn't lol. They kinda just lump it all on us at the end. Don't confuse "Oh, now I get it, so this is why they're acting like this" Moments when you look back, with actual foreshadowing lol. Along with given us like....more chapters in-between or something but keep the actual story length the same....just so cutscenes wouldn't be as long XD. My god the pacing issues at the end lol. The characters themselves are fine (when we're talking supports), like I'm okay with them being a crazy cast. I don't have a literal stick up my ass where I saw Framme and Alear's C support and went "I refuse to touch every single other support in this game because I KNOW they'll be on this caliber" (seriously, people get a life XD). Because despite being zany, a majority of their supports do actually have layers to them. I'm not calling them "Deep" like 3H levels of Deep, but basically they do have character moments that show growth. (More than I can say when you compare it to Awakening and Fates supports where a lot of them were just on the tropey sides without much character growth for some....as they kept the "Growth" to their S-supports). Like I see people not wanting to touch Celine cuz all the Tea C supports she has....but like.......ya'll really missing out on her cuz when she doesn't talk about Tea....she GETS DEEP. Look at her supports with Alfred, Alear, Mauvier, & Alycrst for example. Hell, I even advocate for the Framme & Diamant support because Framme actually gets in deep with Diamant as she calls him/Brodia out for actually be the bad country compared to Elusia. Diamant tells her basically what Hortensia said was true and he's trying to change that, but Framme straight up goes "You're not and I don't believe you because you can't change something if you're too ashamed of bringing it up in the first place" (he was going over Brodia's history with her and basically was only telling her the good, when she found out all the bad stuff Brodia was doing on her own).
BUT ON THAT NOTE: I will 100% prefer to have the actual "Main story" Dialogue changed....cuz OH MAN. The line choices for them were certainly....choices. Like okay, I get that Alear isn't a good commander and WILL make mistakes because if you think about it, Alear was never in charge of anything prior. They were just a mindless soldier of Sombron. They go to sleep for 1K years, then wake up, and basically now are in charge of an army and other royalty. Its understandable they make stupid and emotional mistakes compared to someone like Hector, Eliwood, Ephraim, etc. Because those mentioned actually HAD experience in politics. So having no-brainer things told to Alear and him going "Oh, RIGHT!!" Is understandable. The thing is....he still sound like a child on a tantrum XD. "No give them back!" "I don't know who you are but get out of our way!!" "They're my mothers! They don't belong to you!!!" Dear lord I rolled my eyes way too many times when I hear ALear talk lol (along with other characters during the main story). The actual story script itself....needed A LOT more work.
As for how I would split up the later part of the story for pacing. The "Evil-Veyle" fight with Griss & Zephia, after Alear died, it should have ended the chapter with Veylve attacking us. The next chapter should of had NO ALEAR and basically make it a survival chapter (like 7 turns). After that THEN we can have the cutscene of Alear being revived as a Corrupted. TBH we could have milked the Alear being a corrupted longer (it was so short it didn't really resonate with me) and basically after retrieving the rings, instead of Alear being Thanos'd, have a report come in that the Risen have started to spread across the continent in larger numbers. Have the crew go to a random port-side village to do Risen Cleanup, while also showing their apprehension of having Corrupted Alear as their leader. (cuz tbh when Alfred apologizes for not having faith in him I was like...."Wut? You didn't have faith in him?" XD. Like I know he said like....one line....but it was super un-noticeable XD) After they do their clean up....THEN you can have Alear disappear with Veyle bringing up how them using the rings again after they were drained basically zapped Alear's life away again. THEN have the scene where Alear becomes and emblem. Like yeah, its 2 extra chapters, but its split up so its more digestable in single sittings.
I really l feel the idea that yeah its corny, but there's too much in here that is legitimately good that you feel cheated out of a good story. "Missed potential" doesn't sum it up because that implies they tried and failed. Here they didn't even try! And yet it still has so many good quotes and characterizations alongside dumb plot points and "OMG the Divine Dragon!" Like the writers were held back, and the bad hurts so much more because of the good. Personally that nugget of goodness keeps me from enjoying it in an ironic way. I kinda assume development troubles led to the story being what it is.
I actually like the story. It's not three houses or tellius, sure. But it feels like there's an actual vision to the story that it fills without hiccups *cough cough fates cough cough*
I'm about to blow your mind. Since Fate, the avatars official name has been going BACKWARDS in the alphabet. Corrin (C), Byleth (B), Alear (A). By this logic. The next avatars official name will start with a Z. This can't be a coincidence...can it?...
About Alear always looking/sounding like they are about to cry [Endgame Spoilers] I thought the payoff to that would be when you have to kill lumera again they would finally break down and cry. At the end that kind of happened but they decided to not show it, like you had one job
I have a theory. The magical helmet that they used to make veyle bad looks exactly like Zephias horns. Since she's a mage dragon, I suspect sombron used a magic helmet to make her his slave a long time ago.
it's not even her serving him, but also like every line she says that makes her look bad, but not in the good way. Like when she said "i am lonely, what should i do" and sombron answers that he has children that he does not care for. who would answer to that "yeah, family sounds awesome, i will also gather people that i can hate".
The AI can read the RNG; I got hit by a 1% crit, so I rewound and didn't use an attack that I had done before. When that enemy attacked again, they went for a completely different unit and did not crit.
Sadly, this isn't confirmation as the AI will sometimes do totally different things if you time crystal to redo the enemy phase, even if you didn't do anything different. There apparently is some randomness built in to what the AI does.
Really? I haven't noticed randomness in the AI outside of this instance. I also didn't record it, so I can imagine folks being skeptical of the situation, too. It's probably unlikely to happen again, but it should eventually.
I actually think that this story has a ton of interesting things and the main problem is that it just doesn’t give them enough time. The overarching plot doesn’t meaningfully move from like chapter 11-18, and then so many things start happening super fast. As a side note I love the bait and switch they pull with Zephia’s “redemption”. She tries to sell you that she’s doing it out of the goodness of her heart and it looks like the game is actually really trying to do this ridiculous plot point, and then immediately after she explains to Griss ‘what the fuck of course I’m not really redeemed, that would be ridiculous”
I keep telling people that her "redemption" would have been a lot better if she didn't kill Marni (Veyle or Sombron could have done it instead, and I thought they were!). That way Zephia's betrayal of Sombron actually makes sense, and it would show that she is capable of genuine care for others. The whole "Sombron didn't give me a baby" plot point was incredibly stupid, and ultimately makes everything around it worse.
@@flamegeyser9781 Zephia's entire point is that her idea of love is twisted because she had no actual reference for it beyond how Sombron treated his kids. That's also why she realizes she had the family she had been looking for all along only after it had already been shattered to pieces by herself.
@@Dakress23 This is true, but the fact that she was abusive and manipulative at the best of times could have been evidence enough that she's got serious issues. Besides, if Sombron is the only point of reference for how to treat family then why did she care for the Hounds at all? I think it would have done better to show that she has at least some semblance of humanity if she didn't personally butcher one of her own. With family being such a big theme in the game, the fact that she is hypocritically callous within just a couple of chapters of this realization stands out as a problem to me.
@@flamegeyser9781 There's room for argument she took Sombron's model and tried to improve it rather than repeat it again, which you can see in practice but was sadly not enought to salvage it in the long run. The whole thing being unhealthy IS the whole point. Also, Zephia destoying her new family willingly is mostly for the sake of irony given in her backstory she ended up unintentionally killing her own parents due to power incontinece.
@@Dakress23 I think she did take Sombron's model, but I still dislike it. The fact that she is destroying her new family for irony speaks to the underlying problem imo: Her action were determined by what works in the moment, but not long term. She is as evil as she needs to be to function as an antagonist, and then as sympathetic as she needs to be to get some modicum of redemption by the end. By comparison, Griss is just as hateable but remains consistent up until the end.
I wasn't that much of a fan of the story of Engage, it felt so generic, like the average rpg story. It missed the touch 3H had. Especially since none of the endings felt like a truly 'good' ending. There was always some bitter touch to the resolve. And i really liked that. Also, i kind of hoped they would go the path of choices further. So that your choice in key moments alters the path of the story, maybe even with drastic results on long term. Or that your actions in battle would have more influence on the story. Sadly they turned back to archetypes for the characters. None of them were really interesting or had a relatable backstory. Many 3H characters had way more depth. Gameplay-wise i also have a lot of issues: The battles in the beginning were kind of boring and after some point they just spammed reinforcements, something I consider really bad design for a strategy game. Every difficulty should come from within the map not from outside of it. I don't remember that being that much of an issue in earlier games. That lead for me basically rewinding half of the map to counter reinforcements and cost a lot of time. And one of the worst things was the return to limiting the weapon types to classes. In 3H that allowed for so many experimental builds which turned out great or not so great. Also that you could combine the class abilities that way. The emblems compensated it a bit, but it felt mostly like the power came from the emblems and not from the characters. And last, but not least, the DLC Emblems were available to early, they were balance- destroying. I acquired Tiki quite early and I used her to basically solo every map until the corrupted Lumera fight.
I love Engage's story it's straightforward, honest, and even has some themes and messages to dig into. It'd be interesting to see one of these with a super Engage positive person like Excelblem and see how they talk about the game. One thing about 3H gameplay is that the actual maps are so short that it never feels like the monastery was worth it and it ends up being 90% of the game. Engage both makes maps better and longer as well as making the Somniel shorter than the monastery.
Does he actually have some positive things to say about the game though. Because he sure as hell went out of his way to be as passive-aggressive towards 3H as much as possible.
@@theghostcreator776 It was the story that he kept nitpicking to hell and back during one of his videos. My breaking point was when he said the game never explains what the Battle of the Eagle and Lion is, even though I thought everyone and their mother knew the game states why MULTIPLE TIMES
It really feels like they had different people write each chapter and they just pass basic notes around everything feels like it happens at once especially at the end when they tried to take things seriously it works the first time but then you just write a entire charchter for side charchters and villains in 1 chaper like in end game with the ring of origins or what ever it was called that is 100% just a kaga reference I was just like was this foreshadowed or talked about at all or did they just feel like they were like crap we need to give sombron some kinda motivation I hope the dlc story does something with it but it's unlikely
Honestly they shouldn’t have made Alear a self insert. But unlike Corrin who was just a sheltered prince and Byleth who is a mute weirdly dressed mercenary at least Alear is a deity in there world so the constant worship feel more natural than it did with Byleth and Corrin.
Sorry, I didn't had the time to proof read it, I leave here my thoughts about the plot: It's a tad of a shame that Engage's plot was such a schlockfest, when you see that someone wanted to say something with all the symbolism that is thrown out right of the gate. The most obvious one is how Alear fills for the "Jesus" Archetype - God made flesh walking among mortals - with his 12 Emblem "Apostles" ,I will adress the 13th Emblem later; Jesus supposedly died and resurrected at 33, Alear has just received his 33th Stewards in Clanne and Framme - who are still in training - near his own death and resurrection. Sombron fills in for Lucifer, as a being who did fell from the sky, wanting revenge on those who expelled him (God), being able to shapeshift to a snake. Even if its hard to believe, Engage's map has a bit of symbolism through its mostly simplistic shape. First is the circular shape of the journey across it, it's an Ouroboros, the serpent eating its own tail, the Ouroboros represents life and deathmarking the journey of rebirth that Alear has to go through, - Xenoblade 3 did the exact same thing - to be succesful in his rebirth Alear has to transform and refine his self, reaching a personal “Magnum Opus”, this is done by obtaining the elements of the "Prima Materia" by "Squaring the Circle" - He will follow the Circle of the Ouroboros to reach the 4 main castles of each region, the four of them standing at opposing corners of the map - Each region and its characters hold a connection with a different element: -Firene is wind, the Firenese being more laid back and with a preference for activities out in the open, also are very knowledgeable on herbs (okay, okay, only tea). -Brodians are earth, reflected in their stoicism and the hard work they put on their training, even if he’s hunching his back, Alcryst’s stances has him with a bolt ready to be set loose and Diamant is just standing there, like a wall. -Elusia is wáter, having characters who “flow” and adjust to circumstance, changing sides, with two masters of their craft - a Swordmaster and a Thief - , someone who actually has a non conformal identity and the last one being graceful and delicate in everything she does. - Lastly, Solmians are passionate, they are Fire. Timerra’s introduction is done in front of an actual dancing fire, and her stance has her “dancing” like a flame. Also, these people are the ones who follow accompany their interests with outbursts of enthusiasm. Lythos and/or Somniel stand at the center, representing the fifth element born from the union of the other four elements, with Lythos being a place of reverence for all the other four nations. This fifth element was believed to move in circles (again, the shape of the map) by Aristotle, and some philosophers gave this element the name of Aether - The name Alear could be a reference to it -. Collecting these four elements and joining them in a fifth one was believed to be part of the alchemical process to create the fabled “Philosopher Stone”, in the game, Alear’s journey is to refine his self to reach a higher state of being. It may sound like a joke, but Alear’s personal transformation, the working of the spiritual “Prima Materia, is hinted at by the mess that is his character design and how it changes through the plot (At least, how I personally interpret it): -The obvious one: His heterochromia and silly joycon hair, it represents that he belongs to two worlds, the Divine and Fell Dragons, from the very start of the game it is established that his “red half” represents the connection he shares with the Fell Dragons. - When in the past, we meet “Evilear”, who wears black, this represents the first transmutation step, The Nigredo, as Alear has to confront his shadow self, who could he be and who he once was. -Then, follows The Albedo, represented by Alear’s white clothes. This is the most interesting parto f the process in the game as we met Alear in the beginning of the albedo process, having been cleansed of the Fell Dragon presence but is unaware of it. The Albedo refers to the union of opposites, reaching balance, and that theme is repeated over and over throughout the game. Alear gets twin retainers, male and female each, while the other regions’ rulers have two kids and the distribution of them being equal among male and female, even the retainers are distributed 50/50 in every possible permutation - Clanne(M)/Framme Bouch(M)/Etie(F) and Louis(M)/Chloé(F), Amber(M)/Jade(F) and Lapis(F)/Citrinne(F), Kagetsu(M)/Zelkov(M) and Rosado(M)/Goldmary(F), Bunet(M)/Pandreo(M) and Merrin(F)/Panette(F) -, Is by this reason that I refer to Alear as a man, it would be cool if Veyle’s gender changed according to match the Brother/Sister diad if you selected the female one. Balance also shows its face with how every region has only one ruler, with both who have balance (son/daughter) being women and those who are unbalanced (son/son or daughter/daughter) being men, who both die being fed to Sombron one way or the other. Also, the new generation of rulers is shown to be also in balance with Alfred/Diamant being the male counterpart to Ivy/Timerra. Even the emblems are distributed 6 male and 6 female and you get them in a 4 to 2 ratio that is reversed once that you lose the first 6 rings (I would count the DLC bracelets ones but, even if close, the 3 Houses and Chrom/Robin trash everything) -Citrinitas is the next step, it is hinted by the golden details in Alear’s clothes, in the game it is represented when Alear obtains his Emblem form -the “Jesus” form - When Alear becomes an Emblem that can give strenght to others instead of using Emblems to gain their strenght. He has gained his inherent light instead of just reflecting the light of others. -Lastly, its the Rubedo, following Jung’s framework, this can be observed when Alear reverts back to his joycon hair and eyes, only that this time isn’t the Fell Dragon connection roaming around, its Alear integrating his past into his present self - the one who has reached Citrinitas - and thus, achieving balance, becoming his whole and best self. Of course, symbolism is neat and all but the plot made nothing to communicate these concepts, all schlock it was.
Honestly after years of people bickering over 3H in regards to which lord was right or did the least amount of war crimes, it's honestly refreshing having a much simpler and lighter story with Engage. Sure, there's dumb moments here and there (i.e. the endings for the non Mauvier hounds), but the story at least knows what it wants to do and doesn't try to be overambitious for it's own good like 3H. It also helps that it's kind of aware of how silly it is at times, unlike Fates which similarly has dumb shit, but tries to take itself way too seriously. Also the fact that Engage is actually good gameplay wise. Like holy shit, 3H is such a slog both because of the Monastery and the fact that most of the routes are way too similar to each other. I'm not super keen on the Somniel, but I do appreciate that it's mostly optional like My Castle in Fates, whereas you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don't use the Monastery to optimize your units or recruit new characters. And thank fuck this is just a single route game as well.
Sure the plot isn't over ambitious, but it isn't really ambitious at all. They could have done alot with past lords coming back, and the plot isn't just inoffensive. It actively ruins any chance for Fire Emblem to do this type of story again. We could have gotten alot of lore for how each individual world is connected and why there each world has some similar aspects that kinda stretch across the series. I would be fine if the plot was mid, and it is until like chapter 17, but the game does a bad job at providing any sort of a satisfying conclusion. The prolouge is never explained. Like it isn't a premonition, it isn't the past so it is just left hanging there. Alear being evil is actively retconned, and 21 and beyond is just not interesting in any way. That segment of the game is just soulless and bad, aside from chapter 25, in terms of plot.
@@mrfox5117 the problem with the past Lord's was that the game was somehow both wanting to get us nostalgic, but also didn't want to spoil the series. It's very weird hearing every lord tiptoe around the plot of the game and only give vague generalisations.
To be hoenst, I feel like with 3H, many of the heated arguments came from people not even playing Edelgards route, it being unfinished and Claude, despite being more of an anti-church guy who planned to do the same thing as Edelgard herself, getting a recycled church route kind of creating a massive pro-Rhea bias, which makes people ignore her darker and more questionable sides which the DLC even tries to hammer down upon.
Honestly, aside from the ability to change Alear's name, I don't think Alear *is* an avatar or a self-insert. They're a fully fleshed-out character with an amazing character arc, and they're honestly one of my favorite main characters in the entire series.
As someone who values story more than game play, I obviously have a different opinion on where Engage lands for me, but I did want to bring up the comments about fatigue replaying 3H in comparison to Engage. Both you and Speedy expressed being fatigued by having to play the game over and over again to see all the routes, which is around 2-4 playthroughs between you both. That's comparable to playing playing Engage 2-4 times, but the difference is NOTHING changes on repeat playthroughs of Engage. Not the characters, not the cutscenes, not the maps, nothing. In many ways this is good, you get a whole new student cast with lots of new supports, cutscenes change slightly to entirely, you have some unique maps as well. Why I suspect you and Speedy (and many others) felt burnt out is because of this you don't feel like skipping any of the new stuff so a second, third, fourth playthrough feels longer and you're kept from the part of the game you like most (the battles) are further apart. It probably didn't help that you both felt inclined to rush through as many routes as possible due to being TH-camrs and your fan bases wanting that. In this sense Engage will be easier to replay because you don't need to watch the cringey story a second, third, fourth time and can relatively quickly sail through another playthrough. Personally, I can't see myself playing this game more than 3 times, which is enough to try nearly all of the cast. At least 3H I had new characters and events every playthrough and then could try each on Maddening and 1 challenge and final run. That's 10 playthroughs and I felt like I was doing something different every time. With Engage I can get most supports for my core team and after that I've seen it all before outside of trying different classes/emblem combinations which isn't enough of a draw to replay Engage another 7 times to match 3H.
Engage actually has a pretty cool theme to its story, imo? It's a game about the cycle of abuse, and how abusers are made, not born. Almost every major villain is a victim of abuse, from Ivy and Hortensia to Veyle to Zephia herself to that random evil bastard from Firene Castle who just desperately wants to get out from under Zephia's boot. Most villains have some trauma that led them to their abuser, as well. And most of the player's units _also_ have trauma, of a very similar kind to that which the villains have, which could have led them to behave in similar ways (see: Céline, Yunaka). The difference between Engage's heroes and villains isn't whether they're good people, it's who they found after they escaped their trauma or their first abuser. The protagonists found supportive families and friends, and good role models to teach them how to cope, while the villains found abusers who took advantage of their vulnerable moment to twist their minds and distort their worldviews, and did not have the benefit of good, genuine role models. *Spoilers for final chapter ahead!* Sombron, as the final boss, is also the start of the cycle of abuse. _His_ backstory does not feature any prior abuser, only trauma born of an impersonal act of cruelty, and bad circumstances. He found someone who could be a role model for him - an Emblem, and we'll get back to _that_ in a bit - but that someone could not meaningfully communicate with him, and furthermore did not know he was seen as a role model. Sombron learned many lessons from his Emblem that the Emblem never intended to teach, and these lessons being received during the vulnerable period after his trauma led him to a twisted worldview that created an abuser. Defeating Sombron represents not only stopping an abuser from hurting more people and achieving closure for Alear and Veyle, it also represents confronting the harsh truth that an abuser can be made by pure happenstance. So! Back to Emblems. The idea of Emblems as mentors/role models is hammered into our heads for the entire game, from their Invocations to their Paralogues to many of their bond conversations. The Emblems _know_ that they serve this purpose, and they do their best in that capacity, whereas a Dark Emblem cannot act to make sure you learn the right lessons from them. The use of past Fire Emblem characters to serve as the Emblems, as well, is a very deliberate choice, because as an FE player you already have a sort of reverence for these characters, so _you_ the player can feel at least a small amount of what Alear does. Trying to achieve this effect using new characters would have been very difficult indeed. Oh, also, the skill inheritance system is one giant metaphor for the process of learning from your role models in order to get through life, but I don't really wanna get into that too much. _Also_ also it turns out Sombron's Emblem, the "Emblem of Foundations" that accompanied him as a kid, is himself, but that's neither here nor there.
I echo the sentiment, about the story's theme. I would word the main theme as being family, but it was indeed mostly explored through the lens of abuse and neglect, so same difference. Engage did a pretty good job at exploring the ideas of love and family from quite a few angles, so it feels like a meaningful discussion of it rather than a cookie cutter morale. I'm very on board with it. But I do have to admit it's really really hurt by botched execution, and by how late it all comes into the picture. I don't feel like doing a full on story critique, but I want to elaborate some on what I mean by botched execution. The biggest offender for me is Zephia. Zephia on paper has so much potential. She was this close to being an actual nuanced ,slightly-sympathetic portrayal of an abusive parent, which would've been pretty ballsy and frankly impressive. Everything is litteraly planted there, so they had the right idea. She grew up lonely, and so to fill that hole she longed for childrens that would give her their "unconditional love", to quote Zephia herself. But the main reason she wants children is to get shown affection, and she feels entitled to their love. And that is how she ends up being an abusive parental figure. You have a pretty sympathetic setup organically leading her into becoming something despicable. That had the potential to be really powerful, and hit really close to home. But it came out so weirdly it's kinda hard to even realise this is her situation even as the game litteraly screams it at you. Of course, her being an homicidal maniac for the whole game doesn't help. Her setup with the four hounds is kinda similar in that the idea is there, but it comes across very weirdly. They tiptoed a bit too hard between her being an evil matriarch to them and her not actually being able to see them as her kin, I feel. There is some whiplash in her calling them their children/family the whole game through, when her biggest mistake is that she did indeed not realize they could've been family to each other. I get what they were going for, and it's really good on paper, but there really is a clarity issue that took people out of her big scene in chapter 23. Marni is another big example. The whole concept is that she has abandonment issues and constantly seeks approval, leading her to do terrible things to get such approval, because as it turns out her family consists of pretty shitty people. They managed to have her repeat that ad nauseam and still not make it all that clear, which is impressive. For most of the game, she acts like she's getting a kick out of all her misdeeds, so the "praise" part comes across less as the crux of her character and more as some random anime gimmick. The way she talks about it is also really awkward, particularly with how she only refers to it as "praise", which i just not very natural and doesn't help that clarity issue. I also really really feel like a game where the villains' main motif is parental abuse really shouldn't make such copious use of mind control. Your evil matriarch villain shouldn't be needing to resort to mind control to push kids to misdeeds, and it could've made Hortensia and Veyle so much more interesting.
@@poodlep.9719 Okay so like, re: Zephia, the scene in Chapter 5 where she offs a subordinate for failing her even a single time is a setup to prove that she really does view the Four Hounds as family. If she didn't, she wouldn't let them get away with their repeated failures. Also, Hyacinth _was_ able to get Hortensia to do horrible things without resorting to mind control. But… honestly, I found Hortensia and Veyle really interesting _despite_ the mind control aspect. Veyle especially is a really fun character, but maybe that only lands for me 'cause I'm a plural weirdo and have a bunch of friends who are also plural weirdos. Also, part of the reason I say the game's main theme is the cycle of abuse, rather than just "family", is the Emblems, the role they serve in the story and the way the game consistently hits you over the head with the idea of Emblems as role models, and the entire skill inheritance system. Having you only get SP while you at least have a bond ring equipped seems really weird and finicky, right? Like, it's an unintuitive and kinda pointless system from a pure game mechanics perspective, there's no reason to do that unless it's part of some sort of metaphor. So like… _I_ think it's a metaphor about learning life skills and healthy coping mechanisms. You need to have companionship in your life to mentally prepare you to learn from your best friends/mentors/role models. And… that companionship doesn't necessarily need to be from the person you eventually take the life lessons from, you just need to have _someone._ …I can say that from second-hand experience, because I've seen people stay in complete stasis, not improving at all, for five years, only for things to finally start getting better once they have friends to just share their interests with. Plus I already mentioned that Sombron's thematic role is that he represents the start of the cycle of abuse. An abuser created by impersonal cruelty and misfortune, rather than by a prior abuser.
For me, Engage's story is very much over-indulgent cheese, but the game feels so genuine in its sappy sentimentality that it's actually fairly endearing. Presentation I think helps as well. Stylistically this game works, and having full voice acting is just really good, even if Echoes and 3H did it better. Overall, I engage (no pun intended) with a lot of media, so it's fine to me if the storyline of my anime chess isn't the most nuanced thing in the world, so long as I'm not being taken out of the experience while I'm playing. Obviously, the story has its flaws, some major, some minor depending on what you prioritize in a story. In my mind, I guess, perfect media is not necessarily a piece of media that lacks any flaws, but rather, one that ticks off all the boxes in the checklist of "Things I value in a story." For me, Engage hits about half of that checklist.
I’ve been trying to get my hands on a genealogy English rom as well as a thracia one, anyone willing to point me in the right direction? I love fire emblem my first one was sacred stones and I fell in love with the series ever since. But the only one I’ve played that hasn’t been released in English is fe6 so I’ve been dying to rectify that.
A lot of the story issues feel like the devs thought of great map ideas and then tried to shoehorn them into the story. For example (spoilers): Chapters 24 and 25 are really cool ideas, fighting past Alear in the snow and corrupted Lumera in a dark cathedral with awesome music. But they didn’t work them into the story well. Chapters 10, 11, and 17 were the lone exceptions to this, where they were great ideas and had good story payoff. But that might just be because they were more spread out rather than bunched up in the three-chapter macguffin quest at the end of the game.
6:48 I totally disagree with this take, at least regarding New Game+ specifically. Because the developers totally intend for you to use NG+. Are you getting the same experience as a fresh playthrough? No. But saying "oh i cant get through every route because i insist on playing the dev intended way, not using NG+" is bullshit. Because literally what else is NG+ for if not to let you play through the other routes more easily? They put it in the game, dont blame the devs for your stubborn attitude. When talking about the DLC items in engage or even in 3H I do agree that those can upset the balance of the game, but also yknow. Its dlc, its problematic balance-wise anyway
I want story driven supports. I'm fine having certain supports locked due to choices I made and have characther supports play automatically, perhaps, after an event. In engage, you visit the somniel after every chapter and one thing they could have done was integrate supports to story beats. Lock specific ones after completing a specific chapter too. I don't know. Micaiah's voice was weird for me too. Im not a fan.
Engage definitely has some issues with it's story, particularly with pacing and lack of build up with certain plot points, but Speedy definitely either forgot or just wasn't paying attention to a whole lot of stuff he brought up. They had a whole fancy CG cutscene of Sombron opening the portal to other worlds and they mention said portal and him wanting to invade other worlds a whole bunch of times throughout so many scenes and dialogue yet Speedy some how missed every single one of those mentions lol. In regards to Zephia she mentioned that she was a Mage Dragon at the very beginning of the game with her introduction, and we know Magic that can manipulate time exists because of the Time Crystal the player can use (the two trinkets even look nearly the same), so her being able to make said trinket isn't completely out of nowhere. I do think they should have shown Zephia using magic items she created throughout the course of the game to lead into the plot device in a more natural way though. While Engage has it's fair share of story issues, I don't think any of it was to the level of being bafflingly stupid like so much of the writing Fates and even 3H had, a lot of it was just people like Speedy having some Alear tier amnesia for a lot of stuff.
I personally don't see how you can think engages story is worse or equal to any of the Fates games story. Ignoring the fact/not accounting that Engage doesn't take itself very seriously I don't think there was a single plot moment that inspired any positive emotion from me. On the other hand, engages has its moments despite how few and far between they are. Engages story still isn't very good though but I think it's just "edgy," for lack of a better word, to say it's worse than fates
wait he’s finished? but the thumbnail and title for the most recent video, is part 40, not “FINALE”, does that mean he just hasn’t uploaded it due to the recent cryptobro hack?
Before listening to this one, I'll just say the story exceeded my expectations and I think there is a good story in there, but it was told by poor story tellers. I feel like this will go down like the prequels where it will just become funny memes while most people skip most of the story on future playthroughs. I'll take this over Awakening and Fates, although they had the downside of just having snippets of dialogue repeated over and over vs the full voice acting that this game has.
I kinda dislike the art direction to be honest. You can see what you want about Three Houses, but the art was peak and the art design encapsulated every characters personality and what they try to represent with the way they dress and style themselves.
I put the story bellow par, but still above Fates! There is a lot of bland but there are also a LOT of very interesting ideas that you can see the potential in.
I didn't like the story myself honestly. Simple can be good older Fe games prove it but it felt so reactive based especially with altear being so cookie cutter like corrin. Story wise everything felt so bad ended where the only interesting content was the prologue. Chapter 13 and some of the final chapters but honestly veleye should have joined us much sooner in story as her interaction with us is better than most of the cast existing Though I'll give the game points for switching the cast on who we talk to in later parts but still didn't enjoy it much. Felt like a mix of awakening and fates but somehow worse an even veleye looks like a corrin azura fusion even though I actually like her character I did love the combat and plan to grind up units for fun and test out new combos with the rings especially with the back up units they are fun.
How fates writing compares to engage to me. Fates really tried but failed spectacularly while engage kind of didn't even try. Fates' writing makes me mad while engage's writing makes me bored.
I think that Fire Emblem Engage is trying to make serious points, but pretend like they aren't being serious. I don't think they'd have gone for a tragic tone quite so early if they hadn't. As an example, one of the first things that Alear did was encouraging the two children he sees to be more open about their feelings after their guardian disapproves of it. Japanese culture tends to approve of hiding one's true feelings, under many or most circumstances. So the protagonist, shortly after waking up, approves of a social faux-pas, and then the person who knows better immediately gives up on pushing back on what he feels is the protagonists' bad example. TBH, after seeing that scene, it was hard for me to watch anymore of the story, since I immediately felt like it was all going to be disguised conservative-japanese versus uncomfortable foreign influence culture-war stuff.
To say that Engage's story is "not very serious and that's okay" is just wrong. The story is genuinely very serious. The last act of the game is nothing but the game being very serious about its story and characters. It's just very clumsily written that makes it funny.
All the cuts away felt like they needed to get the 'family friendly' vibes across. Cant show blood after all or daddy Nintendo bans ur game ;) I got surprised by how nice and sometimes needed utility was in the game. I other fire ebmelsm i could unga bunga through (also cuz awakening had broken builds) but i found that im relying on Corrin/Byleth/Staves more than before. Maybe its me getting better at FE but it also felt so impactful to use. Map design shining once again
I prefer gameplay over story, and I like the game, but the game very poorly tries to tug at your heartstrings, and it hurts more with the CGs. I'd have preferred the story be either over the top or super light.
every solution in engage story was foreshadowed in the first half of the game, there was nothing in the story that just happened or convenient solution at the end
Speedy is spot on with the point at the end that Alear’s supports are wayyyyy less interesting than any two other characters supporting each other. It’s been that way since Fates too, the avatar is just a blank wall for the characters to bounce their gimmick off of. Really really hoping the next game does not have a self insert avatar
FE engage’s story isn’t that interesting, and their world building is really easy to miss, it’s not entirely nonexistent but also entirely in supports and not super in depth. That said, after playing FE3H like 8 times or something, I actually like FE engage’s story a lot more, in the sense that the game isn’t asking me to play the game 4 times for a scattering of miscellaneous information for a story that imo has forced conflict, and never really feels resolved by the end. I’m at the point that FE3H just feels like an idiot plot, like Edelgard started a war because she couldn’t think of anything else. Engage’s story is simple, but I appreciate it for being self contained, it’s worse at introducing characters, and Elyos is a less interesting world than Fodlan Though Alear is miles ahead of byleth as a protagonist, I wouldn’t even call alear a self insert, in any other sense that pact ring and alear’s minor customization are options, they actually characterize Alear. And the story does have cool moments, especially for Alear. I wish there were more villains than just the 4 evil dogs, they show up too much, and it makes the world seem pretty small. But of all the FE’s I’ve played (Awakening, all routes of Fates, Sov, FE3H, Engage obviously.) It’s second to SoV, which honestly isn’t a high bar. FE3H’s story is so frustrating to me, though it’s still third unless I’m being spiteful, awakening is a little better than fates. The last few chapters feel like filler, I felt it was padding I just didn’t mind it that much. One thing about the game is that a ton of it is actually set up, replaying the game, Lumera notices that Alear uses incantations and lectures Alear about values because of it. Also, I didn’t notice the Alear worship for the most part, a lot of the characters treat Alear like Royalty, but only a handful are really defined by it, Framme and Clanne, Ivy, Pandreo. And those characters aren’t defined by that Alear worship in their non-alear supports. I actually liked the supports a bit in this one.
honestly if your point of reference is a game that you played so much that it made you sick it's not the best comparison. someone else might play engage 8 times and say it feels like an idiot plot just as well.
@@hallowen4279 yeah but that’s unusual for stories in general, and I don’t think that’s how I’ll feel about engage’s story so it doesn’t matter to me what someone else might feel, it’s my opinion. Three houses also wasn’t my “point of reference” I just know a lot of people like to say it’s story was amazing, but I think that’s because the story leaves a good first impression and it takes a while of playing it for it to fall apart.
Engage is my 2nd favorite fire emblem game. So for fire emblem game 8.5/10 but as video game in general 7.5/10. Gameplay pretty good even though it has a lot of flaws and strange balance decision. Maps in general good although maps starting at chapter 20 onward pretty annoying in maddening. Fortunately we can warp skip except for the worst map in engage (chapter 22). Final chapter just a meh. Music is good although not as good as previous titles.
Engage's story is incredibly cheesey and that's okay. At the end of the day your enjoyment of Engage's story's comes from wether you laugh or cringe when Alear says "It's time to Fire Emblem Engage"
Gameplay wise it’s up there with the best. But the story is horrendous. I started skipping every story segment after ch 12 and it made my experience much better
By doing that, you also miss the few parts of the story, that are actually interesting, and I wish the story focused more upon. (Mostly everything, that has to do with Alear‘s past and by extension Veyle). Man, how much i wish Alear didn’t have amnesia and the story actually started telling their turn against sombron, instead of us just getting a snippet through time travel shenanigans. Imagine having actually a Lord starting out as a Villain.
@@tirex3673 i seen the story. From other TH-camrs after my run. I still could some up most of the plot points on my own. Still it’s not that interesting. I was like oh they’re pull a meliodas (7DS) villain twist which is cool, but like 90% of the story is so predictable
@@tirex3673 the only thing I skipped that I didn’t catch on at first was when alear dies and veyle makes them an emblem. Like I’m okay wirh corny stories. There’s corny stories that are a lot of fun in movies and games but me personally this wasn’t one of them.
Very surprised that it wasn't brought up you get two dragons THAT CAN'T FRICKEN TURN INTO DRAGONS!!!!! Like why even make them dragons, just an excuse for them to have long lives? Waited to the entire game to turn into one.
Is Engage a narrative tour de force? No. But I don’t understand when people act like Three Houses’ story was some kinda a masterpiece. That game’s story is an absolute mess.
I mean, the characters were for the largest part great and the character driven part of the narrative was great and delved into deep political and ideological ideas. I would argue many of the mess came from the fact, that with its many routes the game comes off as unfinished, with Azure Moon and Silver Snow being perfect as they are but Crimson Flower being too short and lacking any resolution with those who slither in the dark and Claude getting a recycling of the church route which is ironic because he seems closer to Edelgard in terms of his relationship to the church than to Dimitri, who is the one big Church simp of the group. In Three Hopes they even went on to make Rhea his personal arch enemy instead.
@@shizachan8421 To me, in addition to the sloppiness of the story getting told across multiple routes, another BIG problem is Byleth. I would argue Byleth is the worst Avatar character in the entire franchise. Trying to tell an overly ambitious story and plopping a mute plank of wood at the center of it was a terrible decision. I feel 3H would’ve benefited greatly from completely removing Byleth, and tweaking the game to just tell it’s story through the house leaders. As far as big, political stories in Fire Emblem, in my opinion Genealogy and Thracia are still the kings, with the Tellius games as a close second.
@@TIDbitRETRO Havent played those yet but I heard good things about them. When it comes to Byleth though, I think they are an essencial part to the story especially in how their connection to their chosen lord shapes them. Though I feel like this is done the most powerful with Edelgard herself, especially since it feels like Edelgard will have some romantic feelings for Byleth no matter what, which is an interesting aspect to her character. I feel like the problem with Byleth is probably that they're both a set in stone character with little customization and at the same time supposed to be a player stand in avatar character, for which they lack said customization. The gender choice is nice and should be kept as an option but I think I liked them, especially female Byleth, the most in Three Houses where they were a voiced ,regular character, where we can see that they are rather stoic, expressionless and kinda awkward as a person while having an air of charisma and mystique around them.
the world building is terrible, always when the enemys atack one castle, the queens/kings we dont see any army in each kingdom, no generals who leads the trops, (AND PUT CHILDS LEADING THE INVASION LIKE HORTENSIA WTF) they dont put effort in defend the castle, etc. This makes the player feel there is no one in the wolrd exept the people u see xD. The characters are all clowns and like 2 or 3 acts lyke actually a normal human, and every time they open the mouth is for making a silly joke related to they idiotic personality. This makes the player starting to hate the characters, i love amber desing (copy paste ares xD) BUT his personality turn around the alpacas and he falling with something. they gives u the somniel and the pet with zero context just because, the gem cristal to rewind time just because, atleast in the 3h is explained how it works with sothis and the rewind, in this game is ok take it and shut up. Finally the enemys, facing corrupted is absolute boring bc they dont have personality/ideas, just dummys to atack and dont have to put and army or contex, to facing it. I think it would be better to put a amnesic avatar somewhere and they see the world in the eyes of a normal human and actually see the people lives and the contex of each country, bc when they see alear in this game is :"OH, THE DIVINE ONE" LET ME ADORE U AND LIKE U NO MATTER WHAT. sooo boring
Also interesting we haven't really talked about art direction yet. (I mean its pretty subjective topic). With that being one of the many reasons why people refused to buy this game (as in they hate the designs compared to 3H). But imma be real here.....with the exception of a few obvious fashion victims......I prefer Engage over 3H presentation with background and characters. "But that's you opinion and its a subjective one." Yeah yeah, I know, BUT here's the thing, the reasoning being the artist.....I know. 3H had the mistake of hiring someone who was mainly famous for drawing Otome /BL bait games, and basically was in charge of the *barfs* everso famous Utapri series/games. You can tell because of how lifeless she draws her main females lol, more attention is being brought to the dudes she draws XD. Like Edelgard, Sothis, Shez, Byleth, Rhea.....they all have stank-faces in all of their official art XD. Its just "0_0"with them. Next point.....they "Sort of" fix this in the timeskip....but school uniforms are the death of creativity. I hated their school arc designs because everyone wore the same thing. Hence why I never pull story 3H banners cuz the students all wear the same outfit (seasonal banners are another story). Even then....a good number of their timeskip outfits were kinda.......plain. I'm even drawing attention to Claude's timeskip cuz.....the man is way too poofy. Like.....seeing him getting pwn'd by Nemisis in his cutscene had me rolling my eyes with how.....Dumb(?) Claude looked running up to him covered in pillows. Next point......I will say half the cast literally look like generic NPCS or straight up....real medieval people. Their hair has to be the least inspired things I've seen in FE (for part of the cast). Final Point: The colors were way too muted/dark. Like not saying everything needed to be vibrant or neon but like....holy heck.....gray, brown, black, and a few other color accents matching the same saturation was like.....the popular choice apparently. Like we can rag the V-tuber joke all we want, but compare the concept art and official art of Engage with Three Houses.......the characters straight up have more life drawn into them in Engage compared to 3H (and even the less static poses that were drawn for the character art in 3H was still "safe" as in not dynamic). This is just a food for thought moment. Like I'm not trying to purposely diss 3H, but since we are in the comparison mood, people really need to take off their rose colored glasses and actually do a non-biased comparison with like, objective standards when it comes to design. Like people should never approach talking about something like a critique, instead approach it like a Professor going over submitted work while they leave notes on the paper on areas they could improve. Like would you ever see a teacher go "I utterly hated your essay and I will not ever touch a single piece you turn into me for the rest of the semester. I didn't even bother to go past the first paragraph because I HATED it that much."
I am a long-term Fire Emblem fan and an artist/illustrator. I think the designs of engage are, for the most part, egregiously bad and indicative of anime design trends that are actively harmful and reductive to character design as a medium. When I read comments like yours, I am disheartened that people actually prefer this type of thing.
@@luislopez6260 Yeah, anyone with a lick of common sense knows nowadays whenever some wannabe hipster critic says fancy lines like: "Take off your rose-tinted glasses and look at things objectively," what they really mean is: "Your opinion is wrong because it's not MY opinion."
My issue with engage, as is per usual, is the absolute insane amount of "censorship" and/or rewriting entire characters and their supports and conversations. Even where it makes so little sense as to why do they do it? Kagetsu in a support is talking about fried chicken, but then you look at the english dub/subtitles and it's suddenly stir fried vegetables...? Which feels out of place for him to be super excited about since Kagetsu is sort of immature/childish in attitude, which veggies really don't really grasp it. Or how they changed Zelkov and Jeans support where Zelkov due to his appearance creeps Jean out when he says he's fond of Children and offers him a piece of candy. Meanwhile later in the same support he tells you his backstory and why he feels a fondness for kids. But it feels like Nintendo scrapped all of that in the english dub, because they believed the western audience is literally unable to comprehend nuances that No, he's not a child predator when he says he's got a fondness for kids, but he's a man who doesn't want kids to go through what he wants. And this happens with so many characters like Yunaka, Goldmary, Rosado, Louis etc too. I hate it when they do shit like this.
When future generations look up cringe on Wikipedia, they will see a word for word transcript of this game. I love Fe, and on gameplay and lack of irrelevant nonsense alone I give this game a 9/10. But I have never in my life witnessed a story, a series of lines, a master script of dialogue, that made me feel so physically uncomfortable. I respect that you guys are trying to show respect for IS, I have mad respect for them too, but comparing to fates the is Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" to Fates "Godfather".
@AkameGaKillfan777 I avoided fates for years because of the reputation it has, playing conquest now and it is bad, corrin is an insufferable naive twerp. And characters like peri are incredibly obnoxious. But the lack of voice acting makes it way more tolerable, and most of the characters don't fill me with hatred the way engage does. It's bad, but engage is on a completely different level.
@@johnathanera5863 Don't you come in here with the fucking "objectively" shit with your default ass J profile picture like you made an account just to try and talk shit mother fucker and then bringing up the cheesy part as if that's what I'm talking about as if you were cooking up something with this comment FUCK you. :3
I think the gameplay is genuinely the best the series has ever seen. Unfortunately everything else is some of the worst the series has seen. And for me fire emblem has always been a strategy game but with a mix of RPG elements and character interactions. And engage fails hard at the latter half. Unfortunately that's a 50/100 for me. Reminds me exactly of conquest, and I didnt much care for fates in general anyway.
Engage was fun for the first half, and then it was honestly a chore to keep playing it once you got to Solm. I think they could have handled the rings better and the story/characters are terrible so it just wasnt exciting to keep playing.
About Emblem introductions, I want to praise this game specifically for the Lucina one:
-Chapter 11 takes inspiration on Awakening's chapter 10 a beloved chapter for many players in both games the protagonist just suffered a defeat, Alear lost the Emblems/Chrom couldn't save his sister, and they have to escape. In Engage losing your rings and having the enemies using them against you it's just magnificent integration, after a while Ivy with her retainers join and give you the rings of Lyn and Lucina.
-What I love it's that with just a few phrases they capture awakening and Lucina's scent. Alear mistaking Lucina for Marth is a callback to her secret identity in the first few chapters in Awakening, also the fact that Lucina is kinda a reincarnation of Marth. Lucina being the Emblem that essentially replaces Marth is also a cool touch because Lucina as well as Alear relied on Marth. Lucina as a figure to look up to and Alear as his guide/friend. But the part that I loved the most was Lucina's words: She wants to be a light in the dark a light for those who have fallen in despair. THAT'S Lucina, if you know her story she was the princess of a fallen kingdom she lost so many people she had to fight in a despair situation and be the Leader, she knows those feelings and for that reason she's the best pick for the role of the Emblem that has to replace Marth and give hope to the protagonist, not Ike, nor Corrin nor Byleth, only Lucina could.
-To finish it's the incantation: Reignite us Emblem of Awakening. Awakening save the series, it was the game that reignited the series.
This is only one point in the entire game, but man I just fell the love at that moment
I personally love that moment for another reason: in your darkest hour, the emblems you get to turn it around are Lyn and Lucina. You can argue that both FE7 and Awakening "saved the series" in their own ways. FE7 was the first one released outside Japan. Engage was the first to achieve mainstream success.
The point Mekkah makes about Fire Emblem being special/unique because of the intersection of Great Strategy RPG gameplay & compelling character/story drama is so important. It's really rare that we get stuff like that. I do understand people choosing gameplay if they had to choose one, but agree we shouldn't have to sacrifice on either end.
Totally agreed. I find it frustrating when some people frame the issue as one or the other because it's a false dichotomy. The reality is that we should be getting both.
I definitely agree with that generally, though I also think Engage DOES have a good story and good characters. It's not perfect, but it's incredibly compelling for me personally
@@juicyjuustar121 To each their own. I legitimately did not care for it but, if you had fun, don't let anyone cramp your style.
The switch auto dimming during Lumera's death scene sums up how I felt during that cutscene, lol.
LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
It's actually so close to being a good scene too. Just needs to be shorter and needs more build up
I still felt a billion times more emotions at Lumera's death than I did for Jeralt's in 3H. And I hate that. I think it's Alear's voice acting. They're one of the few Avatars allowed to actually express emotions at the plot, and I could feel the energy they put into the scene even if it was cheesy. Jeralt's death just made me go "the dad died in a Fire Emblem game again, so what?" I think what helped is Lumera's death was always an inevitability, while 3H tried to present Jeralt's as a legitimate twist even though anyone who'd played an FE game before could see it coming.
@@BigKlingy i can see your reasoning behind it but I think Lumera taking 40 minutes to die really killed it for me. Jeralt was pretty quick and I liked the hopelessness of even divine pulse not being able to prevent it. The rain was pretty cheesy but the crying and being called kid kinda made me sad
@@ramones1314 I think another part of it was my lack of investment in Byleth due to them being a silent protagonist (and yet also having an extensive history as a mercenary they're never allowed to talk about), while I ended up finding Alear surprisingly endearing.
I felt similar to what you're describing with Marni later in the story, where the total lack of blood made her death look unintentionally silly.
Me and Speedy scrapping for the #3 spot
Early spoilers: One thing I had an issue with in the story is that the whole “sombron needs sovereign blood” thing feels SO painfully arbitrary.
Like if morion died before he did, would Diamant suddenly have this “Sovereign blood” that sombron needs? There’s nothing in the worldbuilding that suggests sovereigns are particularly special other than being the rulers of their respective nations. But maybe I’m forgetting something
I'm just headcanoning that Sombron really likes killing monarchs so much that he's placebo'd himself into thinking it gives him strength. No less ridiculous than anything else in Engage.
This isn't the first time Fire Emblem has gone down this road. See also, RD Blood Pacts. Apparently being a king has magical importance.
I like to imagine Sombron looking at a coronation ceremony like watching bread rise in an oven
This idea ironically would have worked in Three Houses
Blood Pact moment.
Thanks for having me on! Was a fun chat
About the AI reading the RNG. Mario Party Superstars has their AI purposely try to land on spaces with hidden blocks, so I don't think it is out of the realm of possibly for Engage
Takumi in Conquest Endgame attacked once on Enemy Phase only because he was able to do damage from procing Vengeance.
The story was really hard for me to get invested in because the characters didn't feel like people and the designs made it hard to take seriously. Then there were basically no consequences and poor pacing. Fire emblem stories aren't usually incredible but the characters are and I think that's why I see most of these characters as just functions. Some stood out like diamant, kagetsu, lapis, jean, fogado, but most I just see as functions
I loved the idea that the game should be the most fun playing it the way the developers intended. I think they nailed that in this game as Maddening without DLC, online features and save scumming, has been a blast with a nice difficulty curve throughout. There were a few times I thought my army wasn't strong enough for a map, but I was able to find a way using all of the tools available which is how I prefer to play these games on my first couple playthroughs.
I don't personally agree with the take that Engage's writing tries to make the player "sympathize" with villains. Rather, I think it's them trying to emphasize the story's theme of loneliness and family. (Spoiler warning) Marnie was disowned by her mother. Anna is trying to find her family. Sombron is looking for his zero emblem. Alear, Veyle, Lumera, and Zephia all wish they had a family. The Brodian and Elusian royals have to mourn their respective fathers' passings, and Ivy in particular has to be separated from her sister after her father disowns her. I feel as though the writers really wanted to convey to the player that many of people go through tough periods of loneliness, and to do that they made many characters exhibit it, so to that end I have no issue that many villains and player characters have a loneliness arc. My issue is that it's almost all tell and no show and almost all of that exposition is exclusively given in the last four or so chapters, which comes off as a lazy patch up job to "inject" some thematic flair to an otherwise standard story.
Veyle is weird as shit for thanking Zephia for “everything”. Gurl she tortured you lmao.
@@asmrtpop2676 fr like wut!?
I know it applies to at least one castle so it might apply to all of them. The castle images are drawn directly over photos of actual real castles.
I was grinding a magicarp in leafgreen and it is level 15 thanks guys
The thing with the arrows, I never once saw it as this is what they want to do, but what they could do. It never mattered what order I put the units in range, they always had the targeting arrows
I will admit I’m in the camp of “Engage’s story isn’t very serious so don’t take it seriously” but it isn’t in the sense of making an excuse for it being bad. Moreso that my expectations were not high so I care much less that it was actually bad, so it doesn’t actively bother me
Watched it through once and likely will skip it every playthrough after. Thank god for no route splits though
In spite of how straightfoward Engage's plot is, chances are people will say it's either ok at best or a complete travesty and an insult to the series at worst.
Personally, I'm in the camp the plot's alright but doesn't give you much stuff to discuss about by the end. Also the beginning and lategame has some pacing issues which could've been handled better (mainly with the backstories).
Character-wise Engage's very weird. It's in a weird spot where the cast is both very vanilla AND experimental at the same time, and it shows 'cause most of the cast that comes around Brodia is far more grounded and dynamic compared to your starting roster (sans one exception). Villains-wise, the Hounds being fought a lot sadly hurts their threat factor, but that didn't make them any less enjoyable to me, and I was honestly surprised by the direction the writers chose to wrap up their arc (in a good way). Still not sure how to feel about Sombron tho.
Oh and Engage's gameplay is fun, and I can't wait to give Maddening a shot later down the road.
i feel like it's pretty clear the big problems with the hounds' random heel turns is it feels just unearned. you compare to stuff like Lloyd or Jaffar in FE7 for example and those are like very meaningful switches because it's done in a natural way that fits with those nuanced characters.
@@MegamanStarforce2010 The thing is, Mauvier is the only Hound who does a heel turn. Marni gets herself killed because Veyle's backstory hits her too close to home and thus no longer feels ok supporting her brainwashing, and Zephia's only good action in the game, as revealed in her last scene with Griss, is motivated out of spite against Sombron rather than of any genuine change of heart.
Do not confuse villains being people with them doing a heel turn.
@@MegamanStarforce2010 .........Lloyd was just dumb though (or Linus depending on who you fight at the end). Like they aren't exactly switches lol (only Jaffar actually counts). The first brother basically goes on a "I need more info" moment and then Limstella kills them. The 2nd Brother will just go full stupid and fight us for the sake of their dead brother and the remaining original Black Fang....despite Nino doing her best to convince the 2nd brother to stop fighting them. So yeah.....the Reeds don't count as a heel turn lol. If anything they should have joined them just for the sake of getting revenge on Nergal for fucking everything up. Like them fighting us and Nino made no sense honestly XD.
One problem with the story is that they tell stuff too quick, and solve problems almost instantly, they don't give you time to think about it, and let it impact the story and characters. One problem with 3 houses (and hopes) was that some things where kept to vague, or just never made sense tho
One thing I do have to say this has over Fates, is in Fates by the end I didn‘t care about the story anymore, in Engage there are aspects I really wished had been focused on more.
I still enjoyed Birthright's story until the end, even thought that's a basic "defeat the evil dragon" story that we all know. Now... Conquest and Revelation... I could NOT take that horrible story. It was so dumb, that took me a good time to finish the game because I couldn't find myself playing it because I didn't care enough.
Engage does a lot of things better than Fates and Awakening imo. I'm glad they at least tried to give Sombron a backstory and reason to be evil instead of just making Grima #2, cause boy do I hate Grima...
@@hyperm8 I do like grima as some loftcraftian abomination. I actually disliked it, when FEH gave them daddy issues. (Though there origin story in SoV was great)
While a lot of the story left much to be desired, I do appreciate some of the throwbacks in regard to some of the emblems. Like Leif's Quadruple hit granting a chance of 1000g drop as Covert bonus (trigger luck stat) almost reminds us of the gimmick of thieves and stealing in Thracia.
As far as the Hounds go, I really liked that their backstory was dumped on you in a very organic way.
Marni drops her past almost unintentionally once realizing that she wasn't even aware of Veyle's trauma, after which she realizes that she has been used by Zephia all her life.
Mauvier being Veyle's knight and more loyal to her than Sombron despite worshipping the guy was foreshadowed very early on with him being very reluctant on following her orders and not calling evil Veyle by her name and stuff like that.
Zephia helping Alear out of spite once Sombron abandons her also is very in character. All she wanted was a real family of her own, not realizing that the fake family she gathered around Veyle was all she ever wanted herself. I think her and Griss' death scene is my favorite moment in the game, honestly.
Speaking of, Griss just wanted the hot dragon mommy to step on him. Bro waited patiently for 20 Chapters until Zephia got over her crush on Sombron, gotta love the guy.
Zephia never had a crush on Sombron tho. The only reason she ever cared about him was to make sure the guy would fulfill his 1000 year promise to give her a baby.
@@Dakress23 i don’t think OP meant a literally crush.
Just finished Engage, 75 hours in Hard-Classic, such a wonderful time. It's the best 7/10 of all time, heavily recommend it if you love the series' gameplay. There has been some discourse with Three Houses/story-centered fans, but I honestly believe this game is worth it. Engage has heavy Fates vibes, but the love they've put in this game and most of the maps' sheer quality makes it a blast to play, I just wish they've delved into the plot and lore a bit more.
The only interesting fleshed-out relationship is between Elusia and Brodia: how Morion was such a good king but kept constant wars against Elusia by fearing the Fell Dragon, and made a lot of innocent Elusians suffer, to the point that they were taught to fear Brodians, and how Diamant promises to patch things up and change Brodia's ways in many supports. The Brodia and Elusia chapters are the most interesting section of the game (not only for this, but this reason helps), knowing that Hyacinth wasn't completely in the wrong (and was apparently a good king himself, in the past). In comparison, Solm and Firene lacked this interesting background, to me. There are plenty of interesting tidbits here and there, as every FE with supports has, but the story is barely more fleshed out than FE7's, which is not great, imo. Sacred Stones was consistently more interesting. Making Sombron sympathetic was an interesting move, if only it wasn't dumped at the last chapter.
The most disappointing aspect of the story to me is that I, at least, never truly understood the Emblems' place in the world. Do they come from stories? Did every game actually happen in Elyos? The Emblems act as if all of them have finished their adventures, but I wished to understand more of how they fit in Elyos' lore, instead of it being pure fanservice. The game does a great job with fanservice overall, but this is the biggest gripe I have with the lore.
Edit: Oh, and speaking of RN, I swear that I've missed dozens of 80% and the enemy hit a LOT of 20%. Dead serious, I know it must be biased, but come ooon, the final map was made much harder by literally every Corrupted managing to land a 20%. I can excuse missing the 80% Chain Attacks because there were a ton of them thrown around, but the lower percentage hits got on my nerves.
Some of the things i feel engage is missing from past games:
Voiced level up lines
Voiced and meaningful hub world dialog
Unique crit animation for counter and non lethal crits
Being able to merge staffs
Damage forcast with the aggro lines, especially for non standard attacks
Voiced npcs who have meaningful things to say
Be able to wear accessories or alternate outfits into battle
Clothing taking damage in battle
Weapons automatically equipping when added to unit inventory
Fists scaling off of one stat
Berserker and swordmaster having boosted crit
The wo dao having more crit than the killing edge
Tonics not being usable if it has no effect
Being able to see your stats when you give stat bosters
Indicate the effects of support boosts during battle
Uh, engage does show the support bonuses in battle. If you look at the stats of the character, they will increase or decrease if put next to a support partner.
@@abicrystalwing1543 other game actually had an indication that supports were active. Radiant dawn showed it by having the two supporting characters have a ring effect on the map with a sound effect before combat. Awakening and fates show support bonuses over the character as combat began. Echoes has additional orange bars on the battle forcast. 3 house showed not only which characters were supporting you in the battle forcast but also highlighted adjusted stats. There is a reason that so many people were confused about how supports even worked in this game. The only way to tell if you are being supported is by pressing x and hovering over your stats or by staring at your stats as you move your character
I didn't like Engage as much as I thought I would when I finished it just due to the general lack of a story that it had. While the characters were zanny, I felt disappointed that there were not paired endings between the rank and file characters, regardless of the many pairings Alear had. The map design was generally better than 3 Houses, but I didn't feel like replaying the game when I didn't feel as connected to the characters. Only the kingdom lords were featured heavily in cutscenes, and the others fell to the wayside, storywise.
Yeah the lack of paired endings really irritated me. Especially when some characters (like Ivy and Diamont) have good chemistry and their supports make them more than just one note.
I hope paired endings come back and this won’t become a trend
There’s the shipping people. I’m glad that’s out of the game. Fe is better without it
@@solismax65 paired endings have been a thing since FE7. It’s a staple of the series now. More games have paired endings than not. It’s expected now
@@solismax65 Shipping isn't what I'm going for -- plenty of characters get A rank with people that romanticism wouldn't be a thing. Like Yunaka and Goldmary, or even Mavier and Lindon. It gives me a reason to build support with characters to see how they interact after it's all over.
Call it shipping if you wish, but don't be rude about it.
Micaiah doesn't just have a different voice actor. She also mispronounces Yune's name on the final chapter.
Fake ass Micaiah
Based.
How did she pronounce it? Because Yune is supposed to be pronounced like "Yoon".
Honestly by the time we get to sombreros tragic backstory I was just along for this goofy ride. You go man, tell me how much you miss the Kaga Emblem.
while i also think the story took a major nose dive at the end, i personally think it happened with the chapter where lumera is a corrupted and not before it? the four hounds were all much stronger villains than sombron but basically the reason the bullshit they pull doesn't faze me is because it's either foreshadowed or explained?
the corrupted alear was fine for me because they did say veyle could bring corrupted back with their personalities in tact the second time you fight hyacinth, and that whole chapter was like a huge act of desperation and most importantly it didn't work and it's good to have something where the protag just fails. the emblems reviving them was also foreshadowed though not enough imo so it did feel weaker.
zephia's death also didn't bother me as much because whil she's given a sympathetic slant it's still like. she made her decision to stay evil, even though she really could have had it all like she cold have swapped sides and everything would have been happy power of friendships and because she didn't she is dying with the closest thing to what she's always wanted dying beside her, and it sucks but it also feels good? her magic stone she pulls out of her ass seems stupid when you get it but imo at least the game explains it pretty well after. in the past chapter she shows up and meets future-alear and she even considers a device that would let her travel to the past, but says it would kill her to make, so i also think that's saying her dying in the "present" was her committing suicide by creating that time traveling macguffin, which she knew she would do because she remembers the past. it's like a perfectly closed loop incident and is probably some of the least agregious time travel fire emblem has ever done.
that's all my opinion, tho. i do want to say that i am transgender and a lot of the story of like you can choose to be a divine dragon so thats what you are did resonate with me in the trans way.
Female
honestly, re: the whole "introducing the problem and the solution back to back", there is _always_ some sort of hint about the solution beforehand.
*Late-game spoilers ahead!*
For Alear's first death and revival, it's already mentioned that when Veyle makes Corrupted, they're _exactly_ like their normal self. That's established in chapter 17.
For Alear's second death and revival as an Emblem, there was already a scene with the Emblems vaguing about the Miracle and whether they should use it on Lumera.
For the Fell Dragon Shard stuck in the past, and Zephia's crystal… you've had the Draconic Time Crystal since almost the beginning of the game. Between chapter 23 and chapter 24, it's easy to put together that _Zephia_ made that crystal for Veyle to use. And the crystal itself is designed to resemble Zephia's eyes and headdress.
59:02 Conspiracy Theory: One reason it took so long to make Engage was because they made everyone play through every single FE game before they could begin working on the maps.
You think the devs actually played the older games? No.
@@leargamma4912 Yes, they have. Most people who are FE devs at IS are either older sorts who have been working on the series for literal decades now, or newer blood that are here because they were literally Fire Emblem fans in the first place. If we were talking about Three Houses specifically, I could maybe believe this (since it wasn't primarily devloped by IS). But any other game, Engage included? I don't know why you think the devs *wouldn't* have played the older games...
@@Kisaru1000 I was mostly judging it by the butchered characterization of the past lords
On the topic of characters, something I'd like to say that, surprisingly enough took me waaaaay too long to notice, is Alear's name.
Like... That is a Spanish word, it means "to alloy"; basically to melt two, or more, metals and forge them into one. Just like Alear if you think about it, but instead of metals, dragon's races.
I guess it could be just a coincidence, but what a big coincidence that would be. And it's not like it is impossible, we already have Rosado, for instance. So it is not too much of a stretch to think that they would do the same with another character, and the protagonist at that.
In the end, I'm just happy to have noticed it. If it is a coincidence, that is funny; if it is not, it is great that they chose to do it that way, from my perspective :)
Yeah but rosado is trash so
I think it is possible because a a bunch of character names are based on themes. For example, every character from Brodia is named after an ore.
I thought Alear's name was well-known? I found out about "alloy" almost as soon as the very first reveal trailer came out.
I love this podcast so much, Mekkah always has interesting things to say and his guests are fun as well 🙏
I just started chapter 11, and the story so far has been laughably bad. I do like the changes to the gameplay as compared to three houses, but I think three houses did a far better job of basically leaving the overwhelming majority of comedic relief to the support conversations so that the overarching story could maintain a serious tone. So far engage is playing out like a comedy made for children and it's making for some pretty wild tone shifts when it does decide to occasionally take itself seriously.
I mostly agree with what was discussed in this video but one thing I wish was touched on was how one note characters in this game are in support and bond conversations. Obviously I haven’t seen every support but all the characters I used I maxed out the available supports. For example The Chloe/Framme and Chloe/Citrinne supports have the same premise and basically end in the same fashion.
I honestly think a lot of the twists in Engage's endgame didn't come out of thin air. Zephia bringing up the lake crystal and then immediately solving the problem was really dumb, but Alear's revivals were set up very well beforehand. Sombron's backstory wasn't really for sympathy either, the way I see it, it was just revealing his motivations to keep him from being just the bad guy that wants to take over the universe.
Honestly Zephia is most of my problems with the story, and even then it's only a few moments that I don't like. I think the story is great overall.
Lumera's second death scene really didn't need to happen, but after thinking about it for a while I realized it may actually be good for showing Alear's development throughout the game, how their reaction changes from the first time to the second.
every time someone was gonna die they would say a line something like "I cant wait to spend time with you soon".
See: lumera, brodia king, even the emblems
I find Engages gameplay exceedingly flexible, when you are in a tricky situation the game just has so many tools available that getting out of those situations is often just a matter of weighing up your options and just mucking about.
the problem with fate's story is more about the cohesion/consistency than the issue with corrin making bad choices.
I've been an FE fan since they started coming out in the west and, while I agree with the point that Engage's gameplay is better than Three Houses, I honestly don't think it's by *that* much. I'm a Classic/Hard player by nature and, frankly, the last few maps were such unenjoyable reinforcement slogs that, combined with my *painful* levels of apathy towards basically the entire cast (if I have to hear one more conversation about food, I might just microwave the game cartridge out of spite '-_-) meant I just zoned completely out of the experience by the end. I might try it again on Normal, see if doing a more "Derpin' around" playthrough changes my mind, but, honestly, after 70 hours, all I have to say is, "Give me Three Houses any day of the week." I can tolerate a *lot* about an RPG if I like the story and characters. I'm not asking Engage to make Dimitri and Edelgard's lightning strike twice or anything, but they could *at least* have given me someone on Eliwood's level. *Come on.*
Personally I'm okay with how basic the story was, like the actual story elements. Though I will throw in they should have like given Sombron more scenes, along with kind of space out the Hounds backstories/given us foreshadowing. Like people "CLAIM" there is foreshadowing....but there really isn't lol. They kinda just lump it all on us at the end. Don't confuse "Oh, now I get it, so this is why they're acting like this" Moments when you look back, with actual foreshadowing lol. Along with given us like....more chapters in-between or something but keep the actual story length the same....just so cutscenes wouldn't be as long XD. My god the pacing issues at the end lol.
The characters themselves are fine (when we're talking supports), like I'm okay with them being a crazy cast. I don't have a literal stick up my ass where I saw Framme and Alear's C support and went "I refuse to touch every single other support in this game because I KNOW they'll be on this caliber" (seriously, people get a life XD). Because despite being zany, a majority of their supports do actually have layers to them. I'm not calling them "Deep" like 3H levels of Deep, but basically they do have character moments that show growth. (More than I can say when you compare it to Awakening and Fates supports where a lot of them were just on the tropey sides without much character growth for some....as they kept the "Growth" to their S-supports). Like I see people not wanting to touch Celine cuz all the Tea C supports she has....but like.......ya'll really missing out on her cuz when she doesn't talk about Tea....she GETS DEEP. Look at her supports with Alfred, Alear, Mauvier, & Alycrst for example.
Hell, I even advocate for the Framme & Diamant support because Framme actually gets in deep with Diamant as she calls him/Brodia out for actually be the bad country compared to Elusia. Diamant tells her basically what Hortensia said was true and he's trying to change that, but Framme straight up goes "You're not and I don't believe you because you can't change something if you're too ashamed of bringing it up in the first place" (he was going over Brodia's history with her and basically was only telling her the good, when she found out all the bad stuff Brodia was doing on her own).
Those support sports in Somiel are there for a reason people, use them XD.
BUT ON THAT NOTE: I will 100% prefer to have the actual "Main story" Dialogue changed....cuz OH MAN. The line choices for them were certainly....choices. Like okay, I get that Alear isn't a good commander and WILL make mistakes because if you think about it, Alear was never in charge of anything prior. They were just a mindless soldier of Sombron. They go to sleep for 1K years, then wake up, and basically now are in charge of an army and other royalty. Its understandable they make stupid and emotional mistakes compared to someone like Hector, Eliwood, Ephraim, etc. Because those mentioned actually HAD experience in politics. So having no-brainer things told to Alear and him going "Oh, RIGHT!!" Is understandable.
The thing is....he still sound like a child on a tantrum XD. "No give them back!" "I don't know who you are but get out of our way!!" "They're my mothers! They don't belong to you!!!"
Dear lord I rolled my eyes way too many times when I hear ALear talk lol (along with other characters during the main story). The actual story script itself....needed A LOT more work.
As for how I would split up the later part of the story for pacing. The "Evil-Veyle" fight with Griss & Zephia, after Alear died, it should have ended the chapter with Veylve attacking us. The next chapter should of had NO ALEAR and basically make it a survival chapter (like 7 turns). After that THEN we can have the cutscene of Alear being revived as a Corrupted. TBH we could have milked the Alear being a corrupted longer (it was so short it didn't really resonate with me) and basically after retrieving the rings, instead of Alear being Thanos'd, have a report come in that the Risen have started to spread across the continent in larger numbers.
Have the crew go to a random port-side village to do Risen Cleanup, while also showing their apprehension of having Corrupted Alear as their leader. (cuz tbh when Alfred apologizes for not having faith in him I was like...."Wut? You didn't have faith in him?" XD. Like I know he said like....one line....but it was super un-noticeable XD) After they do their clean up....THEN you can have Alear disappear with Veyle bringing up how them using the rings again after they were drained basically zapped Alear's life away again. THEN have the scene where Alear becomes and emblem. Like yeah, its 2 extra chapters, but its split up so its more digestable in single sittings.
I really l feel the idea that yeah its corny, but there's too much in here that is legitimately good that you feel cheated out of a good story. "Missed potential" doesn't sum it up because that implies they tried and failed. Here they didn't even try! And yet it still has so many good quotes and characterizations alongside dumb plot points and "OMG the Divine Dragon!" Like the writers were held back, and the bad hurts so much more because of the good. Personally that nugget of goodness keeps me from enjoying it in an ironic way.
I kinda assume development troubles led to the story being what it is.
I actually like the story.
It's not three houses or tellius, sure. But it feels like there's an actual vision to the story that it fills without hiccups *cough cough fates cough cough*
I'm about to blow your mind.
Since Fate, the avatars official name has been going BACKWARDS in the alphabet. Corrin (C), Byleth (B), Alear (A). By this logic. The next avatars official name will start with a Z. This can't be a coincidence...can it?...
About Alear always looking/sounding like they are about to cry
[Endgame Spoilers]
I thought the payoff to that would be when you have to kill lumera again they would finally break down and cry.
At the end that kind of happened but they decided to not show it, like you had one job
I have a theory. The magical helmet that they used to make veyle bad looks exactly like Zephias horns. Since she's a mage dragon, I suspect sombron used a magic helmet to make her his slave a long time ago.
it's not even her serving him, but also like every line she says that makes her look bad, but not in the good way. Like when she said "i am lonely, what should i do" and sombron answers that he has children that he does not care for. who would answer to that "yeah, family sounds awesome, i will also gather people that i can hate".
50:35 glad u brought me off the bench for this☠️☠️
People have found several cheese ways to train units 20 levels in maddening ironman to catch up benched units in certain chapters. It's amazing tbh.
The AI can read the RNG; I got hit by a 1% crit, so I rewound and didn't use an attack that I had done before. When that enemy attacked again, they went for a completely different unit and did not crit.
Sadly, this isn't confirmation as the AI will sometimes do totally different things if you time crystal to redo the enemy phase, even if you didn't do anything different.
There apparently is some randomness built in to what the AI does.
Really? I haven't noticed randomness in the AI outside of this instance.
I also didn't record it, so I can imagine folks being skeptical of the situation, too. It's probably unlikely to happen again, but it should eventually.
You sure that unit was the only one receiving the highest amount of damage?
Micaiahs voice is absolutely ear grating to listen to in this game.
Hortensia is 50 times worse
I actually think that this story has a ton of interesting things and the main problem is that it just doesn’t give them enough time. The overarching plot doesn’t meaningfully move from like chapter 11-18, and then so many things start happening super fast.
As a side note I love the bait and switch they pull with Zephia’s “redemption”. She tries to sell you that she’s doing it out of the goodness of her heart and it looks like the game is actually really trying to do this ridiculous plot point, and then immediately after she explains to Griss ‘what the fuck of course I’m not really redeemed, that would be ridiculous”
I keep telling people that her "redemption" would have been a lot better if she didn't kill Marni (Veyle or Sombron could have done it instead, and I thought they were!). That way Zephia's betrayal of Sombron actually makes sense, and it would show that she is capable of genuine care for others. The whole "Sombron didn't give me a baby" plot point was incredibly stupid, and ultimately makes everything around it worse.
@@flamegeyser9781 Zephia's entire point is that her idea of love is twisted because she had no actual reference for it beyond how Sombron treated his kids. That's also why she realizes she had the family she had been looking for all along only after it had already been shattered to pieces by herself.
@@Dakress23 This is true, but the fact that she was abusive and manipulative at the best of times could have been evidence enough that she's got serious issues. Besides, if Sombron is the only point of reference for how to treat family then why did she care for the Hounds at all? I think it would have done better to show that she has at least some semblance of humanity if she didn't personally butcher one of her own. With family being such a big theme in the game, the fact that she is hypocritically callous within just a couple of chapters of this realization stands out as a problem to me.
@@flamegeyser9781 There's room for argument she took Sombron's model and tried to improve it rather than repeat it again, which you can see in practice but was sadly not enought to salvage it in the long run. The whole thing being unhealthy IS the whole point.
Also, Zephia destoying her new family willingly is mostly for the sake of irony given in her backstory she ended up unintentionally killing her own parents due to power incontinece.
@@Dakress23 I think she did take Sombron's model, but I still dislike it. The fact that she is destroying her new family for irony speaks to the underlying problem imo: Her action were determined by what works in the moment, but not long term. She is as evil as she needs to be to function as an antagonist, and then as sympathetic as she needs to be to get some modicum of redemption by the end.
By comparison, Griss is just as hateable but remains consistent up until the end.
I wasn't that much of a fan of the story of Engage, it felt so generic, like the average rpg story. It missed the touch 3H had. Especially since none of the endings felt like a truly 'good' ending. There was always some bitter touch to the resolve. And i really liked that. Also, i kind of hoped they would go the path of choices further. So that your choice in key moments alters the path of the story, maybe even with drastic results on long term. Or that your actions in battle would have more influence on the story.
Sadly they turned back to archetypes for the characters. None of them were really interesting or had a relatable backstory. Many 3H characters had way more depth.
Gameplay-wise i also have a lot of issues:
The battles in the beginning were kind of boring and after some point they just spammed reinforcements, something I consider really bad design for a strategy game. Every difficulty should come from within the map not from outside of it. I don't remember that being that much of an issue in earlier games. That lead for me basically rewinding half of the map to counter reinforcements and cost a lot of time.
And one of the worst things was the return to limiting the weapon types to classes. In 3H that allowed for so many experimental builds which turned out great or not so great. Also that you could combine the class abilities that way. The emblems compensated it a bit, but it felt mostly like the power came from the emblems and not from the characters.
And last, but not least, the DLC Emblems were available to early, they were balance- destroying. I acquired Tiki quite early and I used her to basically solo every map until the corrupted Lumera fight.
I love Engage's story it's straightforward, honest, and even has some themes and messages to dig into.
It'd be interesting to see one of these with a super Engage positive person like Excelblem and see how they talk about the game.
One thing about 3H gameplay is that the actual maps are so short that it never feels like the monastery was worth it and it ends up being 90% of the game. Engage both makes maps better and longer as well as making the Somniel shorter than the monastery.
Does he actually have some positive things to say about the game though. Because he sure as hell went out of his way to be as passive-aggressive towards 3H as much as possible.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 yeah he's super positive on engage bc it has a lot of the things he likes about FE unlike 3H
@@theghostcreator776 It was the story that he kept nitpicking to hell and back during one of his videos. My breaking point was when he said the game never explains what the Battle of the Eagle and Lion is, even though I thought everyone and their mother knew the game states why MULTIPLE TIMES
@@AkameGaKillfan777 he actually thinks engage story is the best in the series.. which I agree with
It really feels like they had different people write each chapter and they just pass basic notes around everything feels like it happens at once especially at the end when they tried to take things seriously it works the first time but then you just write a entire charchter for side charchters and villains in 1 chaper like in end game with the ring of origins or what ever it was called that is 100% just a kaga reference I was just like was this foreshadowed or talked about at all or did they just feel like they were like crap we need to give sombron some kinda motivation I hope the dlc story does something with it but it's unlikely
I find the video honest and informative, thank you
Honestly they shouldn’t have made Alear a self insert. But unlike Corrin who was just a sheltered prince and Byleth who is a mute weirdly dressed mercenary at least Alear is a deity in there world so the constant worship feel more natural than it did with Byleth and Corrin.
You can have an anniversary game story and still have it have SOME layers to it above the surface level
Sorry, I didn't had the time to proof read it, I leave here my thoughts about the plot:
It's a tad of a shame that Engage's plot was such a schlockfest, when you see that someone wanted to say something with all the symbolism that is thrown out right of the gate. The most obvious one is how Alear fills for the "Jesus" Archetype - God made flesh walking among mortals - with his 12 Emblem "Apostles" ,I will adress the 13th Emblem later; Jesus supposedly died and resurrected at 33, Alear has just received his 33th Stewards in Clanne and Framme - who are still in training - near his own death and resurrection. Sombron fills in for Lucifer, as a being who did fell from the sky, wanting revenge on those who expelled him (God), being able to shapeshift to a snake.
Even if its hard to believe, Engage's map has a bit of symbolism through its mostly simplistic shape. First is the circular shape of the journey across it, it's an Ouroboros, the serpent eating its own tail, the Ouroboros represents life and deathmarking the journey of rebirth that Alear has to go through, - Xenoblade 3 did the exact same thing - to be succesful in his rebirth Alear has to transform and refine his self, reaching a personal “Magnum Opus”, this is done by obtaining the elements of the "Prima Materia" by "Squaring the Circle" - He will follow the Circle of the Ouroboros to reach the 4 main castles of each region, the four of them standing at opposing corners of the map - Each region and its characters hold a connection with a different element:
-Firene is wind, the Firenese being more laid back and with a preference for activities out in the open, also are very knowledgeable on herbs (okay, okay, only tea).
-Brodians are earth, reflected in their stoicism and the hard work they put on their training, even if he’s hunching his back, Alcryst’s stances has him with a bolt ready to be set loose and Diamant is just standing there, like a wall.
-Elusia is wáter, having characters who “flow” and adjust to circumstance, changing sides, with two masters of their craft - a Swordmaster and a Thief - , someone who actually has a non conformal identity and the last one being graceful and delicate in everything she does.
- Lastly, Solmians are passionate, they are Fire. Timerra’s introduction is done in front of an actual dancing fire, and her stance has her “dancing” like a flame. Also, these people are the ones who follow accompany their interests with outbursts of enthusiasm.
Lythos and/or Somniel stand at the center, representing the fifth element born from the union of the other four elements, with Lythos being a place of reverence for all the other four nations. This fifth element was believed to move in circles (again, the shape of the map) by Aristotle, and some philosophers gave this element the name of Aether - The name Alear could be a reference to it -. Collecting these four elements and joining them in a fifth one was believed to be part of the alchemical process to create the fabled “Philosopher Stone”, in the game, Alear’s journey is to refine his self to reach a higher state of being.
It may sound like a joke, but Alear’s personal transformation, the working of the spiritual “Prima Materia, is hinted at by the mess that is his character design and how it changes through the plot (At least, how I personally interpret it):
-The obvious one: His heterochromia and silly joycon hair, it represents that he belongs to two worlds, the Divine and Fell Dragons, from the very start of the game it is established that his “red half” represents the connection he shares with the Fell Dragons.
- When in the past, we meet “Evilear”, who wears black, this represents the first transmutation step, The Nigredo, as Alear has to confront his shadow self, who could he be and who he once was.
-Then, follows The Albedo, represented by Alear’s white clothes. This is the most interesting parto f the process in the game as we met Alear in the beginning of the albedo process, having been cleansed of the Fell Dragon presence but is unaware of it. The Albedo refers to the union of opposites, reaching balance, and that theme is repeated over and over throughout the game. Alear gets twin retainers, male and female each, while the other regions’ rulers have two kids and the distribution of them being equal among male and female, even the retainers are distributed 50/50 in every possible permutation - Clanne(M)/Framme Bouch(M)/Etie(F) and Louis(M)/Chloé(F), Amber(M)/Jade(F) and Lapis(F)/Citrinne(F), Kagetsu(M)/Zelkov(M) and Rosado(M)/Goldmary(F), Bunet(M)/Pandreo(M) and Merrin(F)/Panette(F) -, Is by this reason that I refer to Alear as a man, it would be cool if Veyle’s gender changed according to match the Brother/Sister diad if you selected the female one. Balance also shows its face with how every region has only one ruler, with both who have balance (son/daughter) being women and those who are unbalanced (son/son or daughter/daughter) being men, who both die being fed to Sombron one way or the other. Also, the new generation of rulers is shown to be also in balance with Alfred/Diamant being the male counterpart to Ivy/Timerra. Even the emblems are distributed 6 male and 6 female and you get them in a 4 to 2 ratio that is reversed once that you lose the first 6 rings (I would count the DLC bracelets ones but, even if close, the 3 Houses and Chrom/Robin trash everything)
-Citrinitas is the next step, it is hinted by the golden details in Alear’s clothes, in the game it is represented when Alear obtains his Emblem form -the “Jesus” form - When Alear becomes an Emblem that can give strenght to others instead of using Emblems to gain their strenght. He has gained his inherent light instead of just reflecting the light of others.
-Lastly, its the Rubedo, following Jung’s framework, this can be observed when Alear reverts back to his joycon hair and eyes, only that this time isn’t the Fell Dragon connection roaming around, its Alear integrating his past into his present self - the one who has reached Citrinitas - and thus, achieving balance, becoming his whole and best self.
Of course, symbolism is neat and all but the plot made nothing to communicate these concepts, all schlock it was.
Honestly after years of people bickering over 3H in regards to which lord was right or did the least amount of war crimes, it's honestly refreshing having a much simpler and lighter story with Engage. Sure, there's dumb moments here and there (i.e. the endings for the non Mauvier hounds), but the story at least knows what it wants to do and doesn't try to be overambitious for it's own good like 3H. It also helps that it's kind of aware of how silly it is at times, unlike Fates which similarly has dumb shit, but tries to take itself way too seriously.
Also the fact that Engage is actually good gameplay wise. Like holy shit, 3H is such a slog both because of the Monastery and the fact that most of the routes are way too similar to each other. I'm not super keen on the Somniel, but I do appreciate that it's mostly optional like My Castle in Fates, whereas you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don't use the Monastery to optimize your units or recruit new characters. And thank fuck this is just a single route game as well.
Sure the plot isn't over ambitious, but it isn't really ambitious at all. They could have done alot with past lords coming back, and the plot isn't just inoffensive. It actively ruins any chance for Fire Emblem to do this type of story again. We could have gotten alot of lore for how each individual world is connected and why there each world has some similar aspects that kinda stretch across the series.
I would be fine if the plot was mid, and it is until like chapter 17, but the game does a bad job at providing any sort of a satisfying conclusion.
The prolouge is never explained. Like it isn't a premonition, it isn't the past so it is just left hanging there. Alear being evil is actively retconned, and 21 and beyond is just not interesting in any way. That segment of the game is just soulless and bad, aside from chapter 25, in terms of plot.
@@mrfox5117 Yeah the premonition is just pointless
@@mrfox5117 the problem with the past Lord's was that the game was somehow both wanting to get us nostalgic, but also didn't want to spoil the series. It's very weird hearing every lord tiptoe around the plot of the game and only give vague generalisations.
Amen! 👍
To be hoenst, I feel like with 3H, many of the heated arguments came from people not even playing Edelgards route, it being unfinished and Claude, despite being more of an anti-church guy who planned to do the same thing as Edelgard herself, getting a recycled church route kind of creating a massive pro-Rhea bias, which makes people ignore her darker and more questionable sides which the DLC even tries to hammer down upon.
Honestly, aside from the ability to change Alear's name, I don't think Alear *is* an avatar or a self-insert. They're a fully fleshed-out character with an amazing character arc, and they're honestly one of my favorite main characters in the entire series.
I must ask: Where is Alears arc?
@@mysterium368 The entire game? The entire story? Start to finish?
Amazing? Id say passable is a more accurate descriptor
@@leaffinite2001 You're allowed to say that, I simply disagree.
As someone who values story more than game play, I obviously have a different opinion on where Engage lands for me, but I did want to bring up the comments about fatigue replaying 3H in comparison to Engage.
Both you and Speedy expressed being fatigued by having to play the game over and over again to see all the routes, which is around 2-4 playthroughs between you both. That's comparable to playing playing Engage 2-4 times, but the difference is NOTHING changes on repeat playthroughs of Engage. Not the characters, not the cutscenes, not the maps, nothing. In many ways this is good, you get a whole new student cast with lots of new supports, cutscenes change slightly to entirely, you have some unique maps as well.
Why I suspect you and Speedy (and many others) felt burnt out is because of this you don't feel like skipping any of the new stuff so a second, third, fourth playthrough feels longer and you're kept from the part of the game you like most (the battles) are further apart. It probably didn't help that you both felt inclined to rush through as many routes as possible due to being TH-camrs and your fan bases wanting that. In this sense Engage will be easier to replay because you don't need to watch the cringey story a second, third, fourth time and can relatively quickly sail through another playthrough.
Personally, I can't see myself playing this game more than 3 times, which is enough to try nearly all of the cast. At least 3H I had new characters and events every playthrough and then could try each on Maddening and 1 challenge and final run. That's 10 playthroughs and I felt like I was doing something different every time. With Engage I can get most supports for my core team and after that I've seen it all before outside of trying different classes/emblem combinations which isn't enough of a draw to replay Engage another 7 times to match 3H.
23:00 *Excelblum has entered the chat*
To say it’s worse than Fates would be too far, Fates doesn’t even have a proper map there is no world building.
Engage actually has a pretty cool theme to its story, imo? It's a game about the cycle of abuse, and how abusers are made, not born. Almost every major villain is a victim of abuse, from Ivy and Hortensia to Veyle to Zephia herself to that random evil bastard from Firene Castle who just desperately wants to get out from under Zephia's boot. Most villains have some trauma that led them to their abuser, as well. And most of the player's units _also_ have trauma, of a very similar kind to that which the villains have, which could have led them to behave in similar ways (see: Céline, Yunaka). The difference between Engage's heroes and villains isn't whether they're good people, it's who they found after they escaped their trauma or their first abuser. The protagonists found supportive families and friends, and good role models to teach them how to cope, while the villains found abusers who took advantage of their vulnerable moment to twist their minds and distort their worldviews, and did not have the benefit of good, genuine role models.
*Spoilers for final chapter ahead!*
Sombron, as the final boss, is also the start of the cycle of abuse. _His_ backstory does not feature any prior abuser, only trauma born of an impersonal act of cruelty, and bad circumstances. He found someone who could be a role model for him - an Emblem, and we'll get back to _that_ in a bit - but that someone could not meaningfully communicate with him, and furthermore did not know he was seen as a role model. Sombron learned many lessons from his Emblem that the Emblem never intended to teach, and these lessons being received during the vulnerable period after his trauma led him to a twisted worldview that created an abuser.
Defeating Sombron represents not only stopping an abuser from hurting more people and achieving closure for Alear and Veyle, it also represents confronting the harsh truth that an abuser can be made by pure happenstance.
So! Back to Emblems. The idea of Emblems as mentors/role models is hammered into our heads for the entire game, from their Invocations to their Paralogues to many of their bond conversations. The Emblems _know_ that they serve this purpose, and they do their best in that capacity, whereas a Dark Emblem cannot act to make sure you learn the right lessons from them. The use of past Fire Emblem characters to serve as the Emblems, as well, is a very deliberate choice, because as an FE player you already have a sort of reverence for these characters, so _you_ the player can feel at least a small amount of what Alear does. Trying to achieve this effect using new characters would have been very difficult indeed.
Oh, also, the skill inheritance system is one giant metaphor for the process of learning from your role models in order to get through life, but I don't really wanna get into that too much.
_Also_ also it turns out Sombron's Emblem, the "Emblem of Foundations" that accompanied him as a kid, is himself, but that's neither here nor there.
I echo the sentiment, about the story's theme. I would word the main theme as being family, but it was indeed mostly explored through the lens of abuse and neglect, so same difference. Engage did a pretty good job at exploring the ideas of love and family from quite a few angles, so it feels like a meaningful discussion of it rather than a cookie cutter morale. I'm very on board with it. But I do have to admit it's really really hurt by botched execution, and by how late it all comes into the picture.
I don't feel like doing a full on story critique, but I want to elaborate some on what I mean by botched execution.
The biggest offender for me is Zephia. Zephia on paper has so much potential. She was this close to being an actual nuanced ,slightly-sympathetic portrayal of an abusive parent, which would've been pretty ballsy and frankly impressive. Everything is litteraly planted there, so they had the right idea. She grew up lonely, and so to fill that hole she longed for childrens that would give her their "unconditional love", to quote Zephia herself. But the main reason she wants children is to get shown affection, and she feels entitled to their love. And that is how she ends up being an abusive parental figure. You have a pretty sympathetic setup organically leading her into becoming something despicable. That had the potential to be really powerful, and hit really close to home. But it came out so weirdly it's kinda hard to even realise this is her situation even as the game litteraly screams it at you. Of course, her being an homicidal maniac for the whole game doesn't help.
Her setup with the four hounds is kinda similar in that the idea is there, but it comes across very weirdly. They tiptoed a bit too hard between her being an evil matriarch to them and her not actually being able to see them as her kin, I feel. There is some whiplash in her calling them their children/family the whole game through, when her biggest mistake is that she did indeed not realize they could've been family to each other. I get what they were going for, and it's really good on paper, but there really is a clarity issue that took people out of her big scene in chapter 23.
Marni is another big example. The whole concept is that she has abandonment issues and constantly seeks approval, leading her to do terrible things to get such approval, because as it turns out her family consists of pretty shitty people. They managed to have her repeat that ad nauseam and still not make it all that clear, which is impressive. For most of the game, she acts like she's getting a kick out of all her misdeeds, so the "praise" part comes across less as the crux of her character and more as some random anime gimmick. The way she talks about it is also really awkward, particularly with how she only refers to it as "praise", which i just not very natural and doesn't help that clarity issue.
I also really really feel like a game where the villains' main motif is parental abuse really shouldn't make such copious use of mind control. Your evil matriarch villain shouldn't be needing to resort to mind control to push kids to misdeeds, and it could've made Hortensia and Veyle so much more interesting.
@@poodlep.9719 Okay so like, re: Zephia, the scene in Chapter 5 where she offs a subordinate for failing her even a single time is a setup to prove that she really does view the Four Hounds as family. If she didn't, she wouldn't let them get away with their repeated failures.
Also, Hyacinth _was_ able to get Hortensia to do horrible things without resorting to mind control. But… honestly, I found Hortensia and Veyle really interesting _despite_ the mind control aspect. Veyle especially is a really fun character, but maybe that only lands for me 'cause I'm a plural weirdo and have a bunch of friends who are also plural weirdos.
Also, part of the reason I say the game's main theme is the cycle of abuse, rather than just "family", is the Emblems, the role they serve in the story and the way the game consistently hits you over the head with the idea of Emblems as role models, and the entire skill inheritance system.
Having you only get SP while you at least have a bond ring equipped seems really weird and finicky, right? Like, it's an unintuitive and kinda pointless system from a pure game mechanics perspective, there's no reason to do that unless it's part of some sort of metaphor. So like… _I_ think it's a metaphor about learning life skills and healthy coping mechanisms. You need to have companionship in your life to mentally prepare you to learn from your best friends/mentors/role models. And… that companionship doesn't necessarily need to be from the person you eventually take the life lessons from, you just need to have _someone._ …I can say that from second-hand experience, because I've seen people stay in complete stasis, not improving at all, for five years, only for things to finally start getting better once they have friends to just share their interests with.
Plus I already mentioned that Sombron's thematic role is that he represents the start of the cycle of abuse. An abuser created by impersonal cruelty and misfortune, rather than by a prior abuser.
For me, Engage's story is very much over-indulgent cheese, but the game feels so genuine in its sappy sentimentality that it's actually fairly endearing. Presentation I think helps as well. Stylistically this game works, and having full voice acting is just really good, even if Echoes and 3H did it better. Overall, I engage (no pun intended) with a lot of media, so it's fine to me if the storyline of my anime chess isn't the most nuanced thing in the world, so long as I'm not being taken out of the experience while I'm playing.
Obviously, the story has its flaws, some major, some minor depending on what you prioritize in a story. In my mind, I guess, perfect media is not necessarily a piece of media that lacks any flaws, but rather, one that ticks off all the boxes in the checklist of "Things I value in a story." For me, Engage hits about half of that checklist.
I’ve been trying to get my hands on a genealogy English rom as well as a thracia one, anyone willing to point me in the right direction? I love fire emblem my first one was sacred stones and I fell in love with the series ever since. But the only one I’ve played that hasn’t been released in English is fe6 so I’ve been dying to rectify that.
A lot of the story issues feel like the devs thought of great map ideas and then tried to shoehorn them into the story. For example (spoilers):
Chapters 24 and 25 are really cool ideas, fighting past Alear in the snow and corrupted Lumera in a dark cathedral with awesome music. But they didn’t work them into the story well. Chapters 10, 11, and 17 were the lone exceptions to this, where they were great ideas and had good story payoff. But that might just be because they were more spread out rather than bunched up in the three-chapter macguffin quest at the end of the game.
6:48 I totally disagree with this take, at least regarding New Game+ specifically. Because the developers totally intend for you to use NG+. Are you getting the same experience as a fresh playthrough? No. But saying "oh i cant get through every route because i insist on playing the dev intended way, not using NG+" is bullshit. Because literally what else is NG+ for if not to let you play through the other routes more easily? They put it in the game, dont blame the devs for your stubborn attitude.
When talking about the DLC items in engage or even in 3H I do agree that those can upset the balance of the game, but also yknow. Its dlc, its problematic balance-wise anyway
I want story driven supports.
I'm fine having certain supports locked due to choices I made and have characther supports play automatically, perhaps, after an event. In engage, you visit the somniel after every chapter and one thing they could have done was integrate supports to story beats. Lock specific ones after completing a specific chapter too.
I don't know.
Micaiah's voice was weird for me too.
Im not a fan.
Engage definitely has some issues with it's story, particularly with pacing and lack of build up with certain plot points, but Speedy definitely either forgot or just wasn't paying attention to a whole lot of stuff he brought up.
They had a whole fancy CG cutscene of Sombron opening the portal to other worlds and they mention said portal and him wanting to invade other worlds a whole bunch of times throughout so many scenes and dialogue yet Speedy some how missed every single one of those mentions lol.
In regards to Zephia she mentioned that she was a Mage Dragon at the very beginning of the game with her introduction, and we know Magic that can manipulate time exists because of the Time Crystal the player can use (the two trinkets even look nearly the same), so her being able to make said trinket isn't completely out of nowhere. I do think they should have shown Zephia using magic items she created throughout the course of the game to lead into the plot device in a more natural way though.
While Engage has it's fair share of story issues, I don't think any of it was to the level of being bafflingly stupid like so much of the writing Fates and even 3H had, a lot of it was just people like Speedy having some Alear tier amnesia for a lot of stuff.
Hey, I don't think I said "it doesn't make sense"
I said I'm fine with the plot points, it's the pacing and execution that make it so stupid
I personally don't see how you can think engages story is worse or equal to any of the Fates games story. Ignoring the fact/not accounting that Engage doesn't take itself very seriously I don't think there was a single plot moment that inspired any positive emotion from me. On the other hand, engages has its moments despite how few and far between they are. Engages story still isn't very good though but I think it's just "edgy," for lack of a better word, to say it's worse than fates
wait he’s finished? but the thumbnail and title for the most recent video, is part 40, not “FINALE”, does that mean he just hasn’t uploaded it due to the recent cryptobro hack?
He live-streamed the finale, you can find it in the live section
this. it should also be in the playlist.
oh, I see, Thank you, I missed the notification for it, then
More plz
Before listening to this one, I'll just say the story exceeded my expectations and I think there is a good story in there, but it was told by poor story tellers. I feel like this will go down like the prequels where it will just become funny memes while most people skip most of the story on future playthroughs. I'll take this over Awakening and Fates, although they had the downside of just having snippets of dialogue repeated over and over vs the full voice acting that this game has.
I kinda dislike the art direction to be honest. You can see what you want about Three Houses, but the art was peak and the art design encapsulated every characters personality and what they try to represent with the way they dress and style themselves.
I put the story bellow par, but still above Fates! There is a lot of bland but there are also a LOT of very interesting ideas that you can see the potential in.
I didn't like the story myself honestly. Simple can be good older Fe games prove it but it felt so reactive based especially with altear being so cookie cutter like corrin.
Story wise everything felt so bad ended where the only interesting content was the prologue. Chapter 13 and some of the final chapters but honestly veleye should have joined us much sooner in story as her interaction with us is better than most of the cast existing
Though I'll give the game points for switching the cast on who we talk to in later parts but still didn't enjoy it much. Felt like a mix of awakening and fates but somehow worse an even veleye looks like a corrin azura fusion even though I actually like her character
I did love the combat and plan to grind up units for fun and test out new combos with the rings especially with the back up units they are fun.
How fates writing compares to engage to me. Fates really tried but failed spectacularly while engage kind of didn't even try. Fates' writing makes me mad while engage's writing makes me bored.
It does try to make you feel sad and fails. It reminds me of Xenoblade 3.
In that regard Fates is still worse imo
@@AkameGaKillfan777 same
I think that Fire Emblem Engage is trying to make serious points, but pretend like they aren't being serious. I don't think they'd have gone for a tragic tone quite so early if they hadn't. As an example, one of the first things that Alear did was encouraging the two children he sees to be more open about their feelings after their guardian disapproves of it.
Japanese culture tends to approve of hiding one's true feelings, under many or most circumstances. So the protagonist, shortly after waking up, approves of a social faux-pas, and then the person who knows better immediately gives up on pushing back on what he feels is the protagonists' bad example.
TBH, after seeing that scene, it was hard for me to watch anymore of the story, since I immediately felt like it was all going to be disguised conservative-japanese versus uncomfortable foreign influence culture-war stuff.
To clarify, I've only watched a little more of the story, since. I haven't verified my assumptions about the story.
I really liked Engage. The story is pretty simple, but that doesn't mean it's bad. And I liked Alear & Veyle storyline. I just really like Veyle.
To say that Engage's story is "not very serious and that's okay" is just wrong. The story is genuinely very serious. The last act of the game is nothing but the game being very serious about its story and characters. It's just very clumsily written that makes it funny.
All the cuts away felt like they needed to get the 'family friendly' vibes across. Cant show blood after all or daddy Nintendo bans ur game ;)
I got surprised by how nice and sometimes needed utility was in the game. I other fire ebmelsm i could unga bunga through (also cuz awakening had broken builds) but i found that im relying on Corrin/Byleth/Staves more than before. Maybe its me getting better at FE but it also felt so impactful to use. Map design shining once again
Neat
I prefer gameplay over story, and I like the game, but the game very poorly tries to tug at your heartstrings, and it hurts more with the CGs. I'd have preferred the story be either over the top or super light.
every solution in engage story was foreshadowed in the first half of the game, there was nothing in the story that just happened or convenient solution at the end
Except the mage dragon time warp thing, and sombron at the very end with the ring and finding whatever
Speedy is spot on with the point at the end that Alear’s supports are wayyyyy less interesting than any two other characters supporting each other. It’s been that way since Fates too, the avatar is just a blank wall for the characters to bounce their gimmick off of.
Really really hoping the next game does not have a self insert avatar
FE engage’s story isn’t that interesting, and their world building is really easy to miss, it’s not entirely nonexistent but also entirely in supports and not super in depth.
That said, after playing FE3H like 8 times or something, I actually like FE engage’s story a lot more, in the sense that the game isn’t asking me to play the game 4 times for a scattering of miscellaneous information for a story that imo has forced conflict, and never really feels resolved by the end.
I’m at the point that FE3H just feels like an idiot plot, like Edelgard started a war because she couldn’t think of anything else.
Engage’s story is simple, but I appreciate it for being self contained, it’s worse at introducing characters, and Elyos is a less interesting world than Fodlan
Though Alear is miles ahead of byleth as a protagonist, I wouldn’t even call alear a self insert, in any other sense that pact ring and alear’s minor customization are options, they actually characterize Alear. And the story does have cool moments, especially for Alear.
I wish there were more villains than just the 4 evil dogs, they show up too much, and it makes the world seem pretty small. But of all the FE’s I’ve played (Awakening, all routes of Fates, Sov, FE3H, Engage obviously.)
It’s second to SoV, which honestly isn’t a high bar. FE3H’s story is so frustrating to me, though it’s still third unless I’m being spiteful, awakening is a little better than fates.
The last few chapters feel like filler, I felt it was padding I just didn’t mind it that much.
One thing about the game is that a ton of it is actually set up, replaying the game, Lumera notices that Alear uses incantations and lectures Alear about values because of it.
Also, I didn’t notice the Alear worship for the most part, a lot of the characters treat Alear like Royalty, but only a handful are really defined by it, Framme and Clanne, Ivy, Pandreo. And those characters aren’t defined by that Alear worship in their non-alear supports.
I actually liked the supports a bit in this one.
honestly if your point of reference is a game that you played so much that it made you sick it's not the best comparison. someone else might play engage 8 times and say it feels like an idiot plot just as well.
@@hallowen4279 yeah but that’s unusual for stories in general, and I don’t think that’s how I’ll feel about engage’s story so it doesn’t matter to me what someone else might feel, it’s my opinion.
Three houses also wasn’t my “point of reference” I just know a lot of people like to say it’s story was amazing, but I think that’s because the story leaves a good first impression and it takes a while of playing it for it to fall apart.
Engage is my 2nd favorite fire emblem game. So for fire emblem game 8.5/10 but as video game in general 7.5/10. Gameplay pretty good even though it has a lot of flaws and strange balance decision. Maps in general good although maps starting at chapter 20 onward pretty annoying in maddening. Fortunately we can warp skip except for the worst map in engage (chapter 22). Final chapter just a meh. Music is good although not as good as previous titles.
Engage's story is incredibly cheesey and that's okay. At the end of the day your enjoyment of Engage's story's comes from wether you laugh or cringe when Alear says "It's time to Fire Emblem Engage"
Gameplay wise it’s up there with the best. But the story is horrendous. I started skipping every story segment after ch 12 and it made my experience much better
I decided to watch the finale and alears stupid drawn out speech of friendship or whatever almost killed me
By doing that, you also miss the few parts of the story, that are actually interesting, and I wish the story focused more upon. (Mostly everything, that has to do with Alear‘s past and by extension Veyle).
Man, how much i wish Alear didn’t have amnesia and the story actually started telling their turn against sombron, instead of us just getting a snippet through time travel shenanigans. Imagine having actually a Lord starting out as a Villain.
@@tirex3673 i seen the story. From other TH-camrs after my run. I still could some up most of the plot points on my own. Still it’s not that interesting. I was like oh they’re pull a meliodas (7DS) villain twist which is cool, but like 90% of the story is so predictable
@@tirex3673 the only thing I skipped that I didn’t catch on at first was when alear dies and veyle makes them an emblem. Like I’m okay wirh corny stories. There’s corny stories that are a lot of fun in movies and games but me personally this wasn’t one of them.
@@solismax65 that's not what happened, lol
Very surprised that it wasn't brought up you get two dragons THAT CAN'T FRICKEN TURN INTO DRAGONS!!!!! Like why even make them dragons, just an excuse for them to have long lives? Waited to the entire game to turn into one.
the world is small because with 15 paralogues, only 2 paralogues expanded the world with Anna and Jean
Yeah, we only know there's a lot of forgotten forts around
Is Engage a narrative tour de force? No. But I don’t understand when people act like Three Houses’ story was some kinda a masterpiece. That game’s story is an absolute mess.
I mean, the characters were for the largest part great and the character driven part of the narrative was great and delved into deep political and ideological ideas. I would argue many of the mess came from the fact, that with its many routes the game comes off as unfinished, with Azure Moon and Silver Snow being perfect as they are but Crimson Flower being too short and lacking any resolution with those who slither in the dark and Claude getting a recycling of the church route which is ironic because he seems closer to Edelgard in terms of his relationship to the church than to Dimitri, who is the one big Church simp of the group. In Three Hopes they even went on to make Rhea his personal arch enemy instead.
@@shizachan8421 To me, in addition to the sloppiness of the story getting told across multiple routes, another BIG problem is Byleth. I would argue Byleth is the worst Avatar character in the entire franchise. Trying to tell an overly ambitious story and plopping a mute plank of wood at the center of it was a terrible decision. I feel 3H would’ve benefited greatly from completely removing Byleth, and tweaking the game to just tell it’s story through the house leaders. As far as big, political stories in Fire Emblem, in my opinion Genealogy and Thracia are still the kings, with the Tellius games as a close second.
@@TIDbitRETRO don’t forget Those Who Slither In The Dark. Easily the worst villain faction in Fire Emblem besides the Garon Squad
@@TIDbitRETRO Havent played those yet but I heard good things about them. When it comes to Byleth though, I think they are an essencial part to the story especially in how their connection to their chosen lord shapes them. Though I feel like this is done the most powerful with Edelgard herself, especially since it feels like Edelgard will have some romantic feelings for Byleth no matter what, which is an interesting aspect to her character.
I feel like the problem with Byleth is probably that they're both a set in stone character with little customization and at the same time supposed to be a player stand in avatar character, for which they lack said customization. The gender choice is nice and should be kept as an option but I think I liked them, especially female Byleth, the most in Three Houses where they were a voiced ,regular character, where we can see that they are rather stoic, expressionless and kinda awkward as a person while having an air of charisma and mystique around them.
@@gregster1016 💯%
the world building is terrible, always when the enemys atack one castle, the queens/kings we dont see any army in each kingdom, no generals who leads the trops, (AND PUT CHILDS LEADING THE INVASION LIKE HORTENSIA WTF) they dont put effort in defend the castle, etc. This makes the player feel there is no one in the wolrd exept the people u see xD.
The characters are all clowns and like 2 or 3 acts lyke actually a normal human, and every time they open the mouth is for making a silly joke related to they idiotic personality. This makes the player starting to hate the characters, i love amber desing (copy paste ares xD) BUT his personality turn around the alpacas and he falling with something.
they gives u the somniel and the pet with zero context just because, the gem cristal to rewind time just because, atleast in the 3h is explained how it works with sothis and the rewind, in this game is ok take it and shut up.
Finally the enemys, facing corrupted is absolute boring bc they dont have personality/ideas, just dummys to atack and dont have to put and army or contex, to facing it.
I think it would be better to put a amnesic avatar somewhere and they see the world in the eyes of a normal human and actually see the people lives and the contex of each country, bc when they see alear in this game is :"OH, THE DIVINE ONE" LET ME ADORE U AND LIKE U NO MATTER WHAT. sooo boring
When have monsters ever had a personality? That's kind of the point
Also interesting we haven't really talked about art direction yet. (I mean its pretty subjective topic). With that being one of the many reasons why people refused to buy this game (as in they hate the designs compared to 3H). But imma be real here.....with the exception of a few obvious fashion victims......I prefer Engage over 3H presentation with background and characters.
"But that's you opinion and its a subjective one."
Yeah yeah, I know, BUT here's the thing, the reasoning being the artist.....I know. 3H had the mistake of hiring someone who was mainly famous for drawing Otome /BL bait games, and basically was in charge of the *barfs* everso famous Utapri series/games. You can tell because of how lifeless she draws her main females lol, more attention is being brought to the dudes she draws XD. Like Edelgard, Sothis, Shez, Byleth, Rhea.....they all have stank-faces in all of their official art XD. Its just "0_0"with them.
Next point.....they "Sort of" fix this in the timeskip....but school uniforms are the death of creativity. I hated their school arc designs because everyone wore the same thing. Hence why I never pull story 3H banners cuz the students all wear the same outfit (seasonal banners are another story). Even then....a good number of their timeskip outfits were kinda.......plain. I'm even drawing attention to Claude's timeskip cuz.....the man is way too poofy. Like.....seeing him getting pwn'd by Nemisis in his cutscene had me rolling my eyes with how.....Dumb(?) Claude looked running up to him covered in pillows.
Next point......I will say half the cast literally look like generic NPCS or straight up....real medieval people. Their hair has to be the least inspired things I've seen in FE (for part of the cast).
Final Point: The colors were way too muted/dark. Like not saying everything needed to be vibrant or neon but like....holy heck.....gray, brown, black, and a few other color accents matching the same saturation was like.....the popular choice apparently.
Like we can rag the V-tuber joke all we want, but compare the concept art and official art of Engage with Three Houses.......the characters straight up have more life drawn into them in Engage compared to 3H (and even the less static poses that were drawn for the character art in 3H was still "safe" as in not dynamic).
This is just a food for thought moment. Like I'm not trying to purposely diss 3H, but since we are in the comparison mood, people really need to take off their rose colored glasses and actually do a non-biased comparison with like, objective standards when it comes to design. Like people should never approach talking about something like a critique, instead approach it like a Professor going over submitted work while they leave notes on the paper on areas they could improve.
Like would you ever see a teacher go "I utterly hated your essay and I will not ever touch a single piece you turn into me for the rest of the semester. I didn't even bother to go past the first paragraph because I HATED it that much."
I am a long-term Fire Emblem fan and an artist/illustrator. I think the designs of engage are, for the most part, egregiously bad and indicative of anime design trends that are actively harmful and reductive to character design as a medium. When I read comments like yours, I am disheartened that people actually prefer this type of thing.
@@luislopez6260 Yeah, anyone with a lick of common sense knows nowadays whenever some wannabe hipster critic says fancy lines like: "Take off your rose-tinted glasses and look at things objectively," what they really mean is: "Your opinion is wrong because it's not MY opinion."
My issue with engage, as is per usual, is the absolute insane amount of "censorship" and/or rewriting entire characters and their supports and conversations.
Even where it makes so little sense as to why do they do it?
Kagetsu in a support is talking about fried chicken, but then you look at the english dub/subtitles and it's suddenly stir fried vegetables...? Which feels out of place for him to be super excited about since Kagetsu is sort of immature/childish in attitude, which veggies really don't really grasp it.
Or how they changed Zelkov and Jeans support where Zelkov due to his appearance creeps Jean out when he says he's fond of Children and offers him a piece of candy. Meanwhile later in the same support he tells you his backstory and why he feels a fondness for kids. But it feels like Nintendo scrapped all of that in the english dub, because they believed the western audience is literally unable to comprehend nuances that No, he's not a child predator when he says he's got a fondness for kids, but he's a man who doesn't want kids to go through what he wants.
And this happens with so many characters like Yunaka, Goldmary, Rosado, Louis etc too. I hate it when they do shit like this.
Yeah it’s terrible. I would be even more upset about it than I am if I came in with any expectations for the story or characters but luckily I didn’t.
When future generations look up cringe on Wikipedia, they will see a word for word transcript of this game. I love Fe, and on gameplay and lack of irrelevant nonsense alone I give this game a 9/10. But I have never in my life witnessed a story, a series of lines, a master script of dialogue, that made me feel so physically uncomfortable.
I respect that you guys are trying to show respect for IS, I have mad respect for them too, but comparing to fates the is Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" to Fates "Godfather".
Don't play Conquest or Revelation then
@AkameGaKillfan777 I avoided fates for years because of the reputation it has, playing conquest now and it is bad, corrin is an insufferable naive twerp. And characters like peri are incredibly obnoxious. But the lack of voice acting makes it way more tolerable, and most of the characters don't fill me with hatred the way engage does. It's bad, but engage is on a completely different level.
The story is very cheesy. That's it.
Okay?
@@AkameGaKillfan777 Lol
The story was just uninspiring. The sillyness of it never drew me in or made me laugh or have fun just boredom.
Engage story kinda slaps actually I like what they did here
No lol. No it fucking doesnt. Its objectively bad. it being kinda intentionaly cheesy does not make it good.
What are you smoking bro?
@@AstraProc I'm smoking the "I know what good games are" kush you're just bad at the fucking game lmao
@@johnathanera5863 Don't you come in here with the fucking "objectively" shit with your default ass J profile picture like you made an account just to try and talk shit mother fucker and then bringing up the cheesy part as if that's what I'm talking about as if you were cooking up something with this comment FUCK you. :3
@@quijassajiuq900 lol. Take your meds schitzo.
I think the gameplay is genuinely the best the series has ever seen.
Unfortunately everything else is some of the worst the series has seen. And for me fire emblem has always been a strategy game but with a mix of RPG elements and character interactions. And engage fails hard at the latter half. Unfortunately that's a 50/100 for me. Reminds me exactly of conquest, and I didnt much care for fates in general anyway.
Engage was fun for the first half, and then it was honestly a chore to keep playing it once you got to Solm. I think they could have handled the rings better and the story/characters are terrible so it just wasnt exciting to keep playing.
Really dont feel like it is any different than other fe stories
Plot twist the community has labeled engage story as bad and cringe including you as well. Even tho it’s all just cliche tropes