The Divisiveness Over Alear and Fire Emblem Engage's Art and Story Direction
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2022
- An opinion piece about the reception towards Alear's character design and Fire Emblem Engage's art and story direction. I wanted to share my own thoughts on how the game looks so far. Here I talk about my own thoughts on Alear, talk about the history of the series's artistic changes leading to divisiveness and my concerns for the game outside of the visuals.
---
Subscribe: goo.gl/1xHJzR
Patreon: / ghastpatreon
Twitter: / ghaaast
Instagram: / kdmey776
---
Fan art used: / 1
In a war against the Fell Dragon, four kingdoms worked together with heroes from other worlds to seal away this great evil. One-thousand years later, this seal has weakened and the Fell Dragon is about to reawaken. As a Divine Dragon, use rich strategies and robust customization to meet your destiny-to collect Emblem Rings and bring peace back to the Continent of Elyos.
Team up with iconic heroes from past Fire Emblem games
Summon valiant heroes like Marth and Celica with the power of Emblem Rings and add their power to yours in this brand-new Fire Emblem story. Aside from merging appearances, Engaging lets you inherit weapons, skills, and more from these battle-tested legends. The turn-based, tactical battle system returns with a fresh cast of characters you can customize and Engage to carefully craft your strategy.
---
#FireEmblemEngage, #fireemblem, #FE17 - เกม
Hi viewer! Thanks for stopping by and clicking on my video! If you enjoyed my take on things, as lukewarm as they may be, please leave a like! Question for the crowd:
Do you like Alear's/the game's artistic direction so far? Why or why not?
If you're new here, please consider subscribing! TIl next time :)
Personally, I hate Alear’s design, I think it looks way too silly to be taken seriously, but the rest of the characters we’ve seen so far are all okay, some of them are even pretty good imo like Vander or Celine
I am not surprised with the art direction. I'm personally curious about the red and blue hairs implication, as hair colors are often used as signs of bloodline in the fire emblem series. Who specifically are they related to, I wonder.
I'm pretty excited for the gameplay and story, but not a fan of the color pallet. Reminds me of marie sue o.c's... heterochromia, the whole amnesia thing doesn't really make that better. If you take the main char/lords and line them up Alear kinda seems a bit too hard to take seriously. Oh well, I'm sure once I play none of that will really matter lmao.
Its actually grown on me, the more and more I see clips of this game, the more confidant I get that its gonna be good.
Also people forgot that the fe4 remake is still on its way and still being worked on. So many people are taking their anger out on this game
Female Alear is so beautiful.
I personally think art direction is the least of my worries. I chose to look at both their heterochromia and hair as visual theming of duality, just uh, very in your face and not subtle. Like you said, I just hope the game is good, story nuanced, and characters well developed.
It will not be nuanced
The best i can see is the new Red Emperor being like Rudolph, or at very least, we have more empathetic villains like in Sacred Stones
I think that a way to make the story more interesting would be making the New Red Emperor be a worshiper from the Fell Dragon that regardless of what the Dragon says, he will do whatever to please his god, and while some of his subordinates disagree with it, they can't say a thing or they would get executed
In the end, the game would make you feel bad for killing those people because in the end, they are all people that are afraid of an agenda, from a guy that lost his own humanity so he could blindly believe in his god (and i think that making a background relating to his fanatism would be nice too)
The Fell Dragon itself can be just your generic evil god tho
@@Zerorenren4761 a classic story could still be nuance (the Red Emperor could have reasons, the evil cult could just follow a different moral/sense of justice,...).
@@evanpereira3555 Yeah
Basically: Take Nohr/ King Garon's idea but without possession and fuse with Rudolph/Rigel
I just want to have fun. If that happenes I can look past a lot of things.
Why do I have the feeling that this game will have vibes like the first FE Warriors + FE Fates level of storytelling?
I'd prefer Fire Emblem's art style to be "serious anime" like the characters are fashionable and anime, but still carries degrees of realism and historical weight. Therefore, in terms of character design, my favorite game is Three Houses. The characters in 3H is anime, but they have that medieval touch, and they still look fashionable (probably because of said persona influence). 3H strikes the perfect balance imo its character design becomes a measuring standard for upcoming games, well at least for me :P
For me is Radiant Dawn. Their art is just unghhhhhhhh *Chef Kiss*.
Three houses ient bad with its art style. Its more of a social persona 5 light grab that i go in social school activitirs for 90 % of th3 game and actually play fire emblem ( unbalanced as well and homogenized) for 10 %
Hearing that Three house character design is "realistic" after looking at female Byleth design... Im sorry, I just can't take this opinion seriously.
@@davekorus I never say TH character design is realistic. What I say is "anime but with some degrees of realism." Two different things.
I prefer charach design from fates or heroes, just superior charach design, the colors and style of engage are clearly here to attract people from heroes (good or bad idea from nintendo ?) but where is the charach designer from heroes ?
I would take 100x a "spin off" real FE game of heroes than this in term of art direction
The main thing that bothers me about Alears hair is the vibrancy of it. It just feels the red is too overpowering and contrasts the blue too much. The heterochromia doesn't bother me, I like it. Although I think female Alear is a bigger offender to me because she has longer hair and her bigger eyes with the heterochromia doesn't look as nice. The only other kinda worry I have is; in the trailer when Alear wakes up and is greeted by those two characters, I think their faces look weird. I can't really explain how but it shocked me when I first saw them. I've liked all the art styles and how they evolved and changed, keeps the series fresh.
My BIGGEST worry is the whole calling old heroes. This has been a mechanic in a few games (although it definitely is more integrated to the story this time) but I can't help but feel jaded by it at this point. I'm a huge fan of the old games and I love so many old characters but I don't need to see them in every other game.
Really? I think the female one looks better 😅
Female definitely better
Well that's your opinion. So thank you for sharing it, i guess?
Female Alear looks strikingly pretty to me.
I love the design. Perhaps there will be in-game reason for the eyes and hair, but I take it that that's just part and package of who she is, no pretentions.
It's not like she wears mismatched shoes or gloves, clothings that are different from the left and the right side, that kind look is pretentious to me, i hate that.
But it case of Alear ? Well.. what's to pretend? That's just the way she is created / born with.
And she's pretty.
My biggest issue with Alear’s design is just how blinding the hair is compared to the rest of the design. My eyes aren’t just drawn to the hair, it’s like a black hole that brings a lot of attention to the colour. If it wasn’t as saturated, or had the back side of the hair be one colour and the inside of the hair be another then I likely wouldn’t have minded it as much.
As for the artstyle, I know the entire series has an anime artstyle, it always has, but this game sort of feels like a game based off of an anime, not a game that happens to look very much like an anime. It’s not inherently bad, but it just feels a little bit off for fire emblem which while having that anime like artstyle the past decade never full on took the plunge into making the artstyle full on anime, you don’t see this big ol anime eyes that take up a third of a characters face, it still tried to stay down to earth in a way.
Not helping the matter for me is the eyes and faces on the female characters models all look really similar, like uncannily so, and I feel like the artstyle of big anime eyes kind of pinholes them into having that face design.
Yeah but I like games with cartoony art style like OverWatch does a nice job with them art style as a bit of a Pixar feel same with Fortnite and it's silly skins and all that stuff
Agreed so hard on the collor part. Looking at the hair with the white armor straight up makes my eyes hurt. Imo it would've been much better if they kept the heterocromia but made the hair some other collor to not make the collors clash so much
Engage imo to me looks too generic jrpg and has lost its fire emblem touch. As to what specifically it idk but I can see three houses to fe1 all being the same series. But this just jumps at me as not having that fe touch.
@@tbc1880 Exactly since three houses what is the best in the series I have a better story than previous games only for three hopes to 182 yet another generic jrpg story aside from azure gleam after engage it’s gonna be my last game since yes had a switch lite just to play three houses but now I’m only gonna use it for overwatch 2 and fortnite
I agree with everything but the Three Houses part. I really liked that art style for that game but kind of do hate everything about engage so far...
I've played FEH since release, so for like 5 years now... to see a hero summoning mechanic in a mainline game is a little concerning tbh.
And then I couldn't agree more with the person that said Alear's design literally makes their eyes hurt. Not even trying to be mean, but Alear looks like something a kid would draw.
Honestly the only real issue I have with the game for now is that literally all the female characters so far looks extremely similar. Like it seems to be going in that specific direction where all the male characters have a decent variety of designs while the female characters have a same-face syndrome and just all look like cute little girls, even the ones that are supposed to look more mature. While I have my preferences regarding the art style of previous entries, they at least all had some sort of variety, even in the early game/ trailers
Female avatars gets more attention as the males, except for Robin which is the opposite
The art style does seem to be affecting the male characters as well to a much lesser extent vander Is meant to be an old ass man but he looks really young with an old man beard
Yes. I don’t even hate the design, but their faces…
Every girl looks like they come from Atelier.
I don’t even know why they went with that style. Every time they brought this style to FEH, it was met with backlash by a large part of the community. Elincia, Lucina, Lachesis.
Fire Emblem has always been mildly silly about female designs, but this definitely feels a bit more egregious than usual.
@Brie's World 🧀 Atelier girls never looks same-y tbh. Rorona and Ryza have different design philosophies. And there's always child coded characters, but there are female characters with different face shapes and eys shapes.
Girls in Engage all have baby fat on their faces despite lots of them NOT being a kid.
I honestly think the character design artist is good, but the faces for girls and every female characters wearing form fitting armor kinda make me weary why is that IS goes with this direction of infantilization.
Glad to see i'm not the only one with those thoughts on Alear's design. Their outfit by itself, Below the neck as you put it i'm perfectly fine with, it looks solid, seems fitting for a supposed regal character and seems well put together. I do kind of wish they'd blended the hair a bit better, but i feel as if it's a bit early to talk about the overall art direction so i'm avoiding making any decisions in that regard until we've seen more, changes can always occur after all... If something changes it probably wouldn't be the first time. Even if a game is "Finished" things can still change after all.
That's fair. I feel like I can ignore Alear's hair more than fByleth's... Entire outfit. I can't change that thing fast enough when I start a new game lol
@@xraeynex Honestly agreed completely. I usually play the male protags first then female after but i really hated Female byleths outfit... something just felt offputting about it. I don't like Alears hair and know it could be better, but at least the hair i can just not focus on compared to everything about female byleth just feeling... Off. I can deal with anime hair, i've played the majority of the mainline series (Only ones i haven't played off the top of my head are 4 and 5, so i'm excited if FE4 remake is true) and plenty of RPG's in my time with oddly coloured hair so i find it far more tolerable, though being used to it isn't an excuse.
The outfit could also use some color work too, the gauntlets really hurt me imo.
Well its not changing I imagine with all the box art etc.
@@tbc1880 i kind of agree, while i can respect them going from a dark palette (byleth) to a white one, it really just adds to the eyestrain with the hair since all the colors are at their extremes- full saturation and on the opposite spectrums.
I think a big problem with Alear's design, besides the lack of blending in the hair, is the lack of a third color to help balance things out. Just compare Alear to Mika's Sei Shonagon, for example; Sei works much better because her hair also has a bit of black in it, making it so that it still pops while not being eye searing.
Same here. I think her design would have grown so much better on me if she had, for example, black hair with blue and red streaks or so.
blending is never necessary, especially with blue and red. contrast is the only thing that matters and they handled it perfectly
good point, i think the character designer is very talented and alear looks certainly interesting in her illustrations, but as a game character who will move and always be in your face, it's a bit much. with sei's black hair you can also make sense of the red and blue as coloring or extensions so it's not that wild (hell even limbo's hair looks bizarre but it suits the character design just as well)
i guess a better comparison for alear is also fe:fate's peri, who i think gets overlooked a lot because she just doesn't look like she fits into fire emblem, but it is much more easier on the eyes and shes not on the screen very often and the colors are pastel to avoid that eye strain.
20+ year series vet here!
I largely agree on the aesthetics part. I recall series veterans being labeled as gatekeeping elitists for not liking Awakening's designs at first, only for people who came in during Awakening to now rehash these decade old arguments for (Three Houses, but people seem to forget that this happened with it as well) Engage? I do get that we've never had a design QUITE as extreme as Alear's, but this series has had stylistic changes so many times that people really ought to be better prepared for it.
They're allowed to have a preference for styles, of course. RD, Jugdral, and 3H are my favorite "styles" for FE visuals as far as character designs go but I'm always open to the fact that this series likes to shake things up between entries.
As for the Emblem Rings themselves, I want the characters to have some supports and dialogue and ways of expressing themselves while possessing an overall minimal impact on the story. I want the story and drama to be driven by the characters of this setting first and foremost, and that's coming from a series vet. Thankfully, thus far, it seems like only Marth has anything remotely approaching a major role? But its obviously too soon to say.
“My [insert old game] is better than your [insert new game]”
This is a very toxic mindset from people over the years at each gaming generation. Even xenoblade fans are now dealing with the same fate conflict that FE fans felt a decade ago.
@@therealjaystone2344 Its just funny because they all tried to say it was basically just a mindset of the old, back in 2011-2012, decade+ series vets.
But now I've honestly seen more hate for Engage's aesthetics and Emblem Rings from people who admit to jumpin in between Awakening and 3H
@@therealjaystone2344 For me it's more just a preference. Honestly think the game well probably have great gameplay which matters to me the most. However that doesn't change the fact I dislike the art direction and character designs. Hopefully even with these choices the characters and/or narrative will be nuanced and interesting, even I feel like I'm just looking at blob with different hair color between them all. This is basically an FE Fates situation again.
@@therealjaystone2344 yep honestly I thought the old head vet mindset slot of them had had dissipated after 3Hs
@@therealjaystone2344 Wait, really? I haven't seen that, Xenoblade 2 fans consider 3 better, and Xenoblade 1 fans Say that 3 is just as good if not better than 1
Honestly, going from 3 houses to Engage, feels like the switch from Twilight Princess to Skyward Sword for Zelda.
I really like the art direction so far. FE always followed current anime trends since the first game, so it looking like this is kinda excpected.
This reminds me more of Majora's Mask leading into Wind Waker honestly, and Wind Waker is my favorite Zelda game. I know that shouldn't mean anything but that honestly makes me just a little bit more excited.
Wouldn't it be more a windwaker reaction? Considering the artstyle complaint and expectation of something more serious looking.
Comparing TP to fe16 feels just wrong
@@marcoasturias8520 Why?
Ah yes, I remembered how people hated the Toon Link’s design before Wind Waker released
Switch console looking haircut
Colgate and Pepsi sponsored characters.
And have the voice of chamber from valorant the male one and the female one is voiced by the one and only Ashly Burch I think
Someone made a joke that the color changes depending on the color of your joycons, like in pokemon.
I want it to be real
@@fernandod4046 same especially because i got the odyssey controllers so it will be all red
Nice try but Colgate will not be beaten
I feel like the male Alear's hair looks so much better than female Alear's. When I saw the leak for the game and saw her hair I was hoping it was fake, but the only real issue I have with male Alear's hair is the little streaks, it really wouldn't change my opinion that much if they did, because it feels like a lot is going on in his overall design, but when I look at it, it just looks... generic? like you could remove everything that makes it special and i'd feel exactly the same about it. But I like the other characters' designs well enough so far.
I feel the opposite... I always play male but this time female is looking more appealing to me...
Male Alear's bangs bother me so much, why do they split but then end of crossing?? Just so odd looking.
Female Alear just looks incredibly generic outside of the duel colors tbh, she's cute but like... that's really it?
I wonder it they'll be a custom character like Robin or Corrin? Or maybe they 'll be like Byleth or Shez so they can have voice acting?
@@chadachi3970 To you, I think she looks cool and he looks ok, cool too maybe?
@@Mysticgamer We saw them talk in the trailer. It's going to be like Byleth and Shez over Robin and Corrin.
My thoughts on Alear's hair and eyes leave at a bit of a personal theory. I would like to believe it is because of the emblems and merging mechanic that has been revealed, due to most lords in previous titles having blue hair ie: Marth, Sigurd, or Ike while others had red hair ie: Roy and Eliwood. When I think about it this way I kind of like it a bit more
i hadn't thought of that but if that's the case then it'll be kinda cool
@@silentwarrior500 well, in the trailer, we see a lot of blue haired heroes coming back, and in the tapissery, there are red haired heroes too.
My problem with Alear is not the hair in essence, but how it clashes with their outfit, all of it together feels just too much.
His outfit is nice, and the hair looks weird, but i'm getting used to it
While i get the complaints towards Alear's desing, i still don't get people hating on Vander, he looks like a normal Jagen
I agree. I think the hair would be better if the outfit was more plain colored
The outfit doesn't even register with me due to how loud the hair colour is and how it clashes with itself. I actually agree with Ghast with how it looks regal on its own, but the way the two tones are handled just clash.
Ive realized this too. They DID show some outfit changing so… maybe you can change it?
I definitely agree! I can't see this design growing on me if I have to stare at it for hours on end. It's just so fatiguing and doesn't let your eyes focus or settle on one part.
My top 3 modern FE art direction/style are:
- FE Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
- FE Awakening
- FE Three Houses
These games have tremendously helped FE transition into the modern era in terms of artistic direction
And my top 3 classic FE art direction/style are:
- FE Blazing Blade
- FE Path of Radiance + Radiant Dawn
- FE New Mystery of the Emblem
These are what I consider embodies the quintessential art direction of the FE series
The art direction for Echoes was incredible. The color palette and designs were on point!
not ganna lie, i always thought the armor design in awakening looked like complete garbage, besides that I like the actual character designs themselves though.
I haven't played any of those modern games except like 10 minutes of Valentia, but I 100% agree with your classic choices.
I just can't swallow the "quirky and more cutesy style". Overdesigned is a word that comes to mind for the new characters, especially Alear
Couldn't agree more. I was a fan of the more grounded aesthetic of the previous and this cutesy style is repelling me hard. The models look janky in a way that reminds me of Vtuber models and I just can't get used to them. The very basic story preview also isn't getting my hopes up. I'll wait for people to review it and maybe then I'll give it a chance, but if my overall impression doesn't change I'll probably pass on this one.
The design reminds me of Mary Sue from old school fan fiction tbh. Like how fan fic authors and artists thought multi colored hair and heterochromia was "cool" or edgy and thus made their OC have that stuff. It feels very meh and over designed for the sake of just being such.
Look up some of the artists work on vtubers from kaguya Luna and pinky pop Hepburn to bae in hololive. Some of them look good and others take a while to grow on you. Personally I’m not keen on the design but I also wasn’t a big three houses fan with art design either at the beginning but some of the designs grew on me
@@b.h.4249 the artist does indeed have VTubers out there. A big one being Hakos Baelz of Hololive EN. You DEFINITELY see their, Mika Picazo, style front and center. The artist does have some beautiful work out there, I would give it a google if you're interested.
@@cylith5627 Oh yeah, I was already aware of that, but thank you for the info nonetheless. I'll check her out when I have the time. It's definitely just my personal taste, but the Vtuber designs simply look too jarring for me in a Fire Emblem setting. Maybe I'll warm up to it, but I'm doubtful. But thanks for the tip, I appreciate it!
I don't mind the art Style, It's just the character design for me.
The hair could have worked but the specific tones they picked clash in game, it works in the concept art but when textured and applied to the model it looks cartoonish. As for the heterochromia, as someone with heterochromia I love seeing characters with it. It's always a small joy when a character creator in a game let's me reflect my eyes in my character.
The 3D graphical rendering is definitely a killer for Alear's design. There's a ton of fan edits people have made to try and "fix" Alear, and honestly a lot of the reason that they succeed is because they're controlled 2D images. Similarly, the promotional and concept art of Alear looks good because the entire composition of the illustration is tailored to mesh.
You may have heterochromia in real life, but you don't have the same unrealistic eye colors as this avatar. I think there's a huge difference between real life heterochromic eyes (like blue and hazel, or green and brown) vs this main character having eye color specifically to match their weird 2 toned hair style. It's obvious that the eyes are unrealistic here to match the equally unrealistic hair. They're not doing it to be realistic or have representation for real world heterochromatic people. So I think it's understandable for fans to dislike the art style.
I don't have much of a problem with the art direction - Every game has a different art direction as you mentioned. I am however concerned about the summoning past heroes mechanic. I feel it will take away too much from the new heroes and unless they are introduced and their pasts and characters are explained (which will take time away from the new characters) well they will not have much characterisation and not really work for those who did not play their original games.
As a HUGE number of people played 3 Houses as their first game this is a major concern.
I'll retract my comments about this video talking bad about the design, it's not and I clearly doesn't watch the full video before commenting. But that said, I'm still sad to see many people hates on the main character design just because it's different. but then again people HATES changes most of the times, and looking at all the comment agreeing that the new character looks bad, I couldn't help to feel bad for it all. Wish everyone could look a different thing as something exciting, something to learn and something that will feel refreshing instead of the same repetitive art. Though maybe having contrasting heterochromia and the same contrasting dual hair color is a bit much, but it's new and it's fun to see, as the whole gaming world right now is very medieval and subtle and no one really made anything super stylistic than Nintendo for now. Perhaps this is the answer of Nintendo for the other competitors trying to have photorealistic games too
@@DumbestDumbFool it's different and bad, sometimes different means good, that is not such a case here
The biggest worry at this point is that the old lords really undercut the story from standing on its own. Multiverse stuff is so boring to me. I'd prefer a world/premise/characters that stand on their own without having to reference old things. I feel like it limits what they can do with their original story since these are just blatant fan service references.
It would be much more interesting if they were original "legendary hero" characters. The game could explore learning about the past through these spirits in order to overcome the conflict in the present day. I think people like it when the story takes itself seriously. Goofy fanservice and outlandish character designs really harm that.
agreed , they should focus on a indepedant thing, add the other is ok as long as it ins't for them in the story like them by dlc , amibbo or secret unlock post game ( like lyon in sacred stone and co)
That's my thing to. I'm sitting here looking at the ability to summon old lords, and i'm like... you did that before, in the first warriors game. And you did it again, in a spin off idol/persona/fire emblem game(which literally has the same premise as engage, apparently). Neither of those games I particularly enjoyed, by the way.
I'd much rather play a game where the heroes we summon are heroes from that worlds past(like with three houses and the ten elites). Or if they really wanna lean into summoning old lords, utlize the OCs from the Heroes mobile game and make an AU of that.
I suppose I understand that it was supposed to be a 30 year anniversary thing for Fire Emblem, but at that point, why not just push the release date back, insert some original heroes of the continent instead of past lords, and there. Problem solved.
This is more or less what I was thinking as well. The character designs are... certainly a choice, but not a deal breaker on their own.
I worry that the financial success of FEH may have taught them that the way forward is building future games around nostalgia for past ones, rather than letting them stand on their own. I'd rather not see the games devolve into a weird morass of self-referential lore like that.
I groaned the moment I saw Marth appear because this is exactly what I thought. Halfway through this trailer I honestly thought it was going to be a sequel to the first Warrios game. What gets me excited over new Fire Emblem games is getting to know new characters in new lands. With so many famous heroes appearing, while not impossible, it will be hard to pull that off.
This
It’s the hair and heterochromatic eyes that leave it a bit of a distaste in my mouth. Peri is another example of well blended hair fade (while she is a aesthetic nightmare contrasting Nohr’s overall look). I think you’re on the mark when pointing out Lilith’s hair: if Alear’s hair wasn’t separated by strand and was faded, I think it would cosmetically be more appealing. Some of the character design is a bit rough. I get a bit of a mobile game design from the art style. I’m worried it will be an echo to the first FEW where is a bit of fan-service. Vander and the unknown Pegasus Knight are the two character designs that sit well with me.
Actually I like Peri's design but deeply dislike the protagonist. Like Peri's isn't too far off either her armor and such but with the hair you can tell something is off compared to the rest of nohr's cast. But this... the protagonist and main characters we've seen so far look too blatantly like you could pick them out of a crowd and know they are important aside from gramps. Heck I'm not even sure what is so off about the designs it's just in general isn't fe to me. Doesn't remind me of the gba games, thracia, tellius, awakening or fates or three houses. Idk what but they all have something that brings them together in my mind even if fates and three houses are a bit apart they still read fe to me. Like seeing the trailers for three houses I didn't go like this is fe? Same with fates.
Imo there is so many overly saturated colors in the palette for this game that I find it, for a lack of a better word, an eyesore, but I'm sure a lot of people will like this Artstyle in particular. Ig its hard to transition from 3H's muted colors to this very different palette.
I absolutely hated 3Hs colour pallete. By far the ugliest environments in FE history imo. Engage looks gorgeous.
@@MA-go7ee I've started off with the GBA games so I've always liked FE with a brighter color palette, and I remember just HATING everything in 3H's environments. Just grew ugly rocks and forts and dull green grass and trees. The maps in Engage have such nice colors and lighting its actually enjoyable to look at.
I don't think it's wrong to dismiss reductive and poorly articulated criticisms of "it looks too anime" with "it's always been anime". If you know anything about anime, you'd know that it changed throughout time and a respective FE game would reflect the art style. The 90s had big poofy hair while the early 2000s toned that down, while both had a tendency towards muted color palettes. Over the 2000s and 2010s you'd see a tendency of anime using more vibrant color palettes with the 2010s especially looking more like this when compared to older works...and once again, the FE games of those era are reflective of this trend.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
That's a great point.
You're definitely not wrong, but I do agree with Ghast in him saying that, just because FE has indeed always been reflective of the era's current Anime trends, it doesn't mean that people aren't allowed to dislike or at the very least not prefer this artstyle compared to previous ones (and I personally think Kurahana's 3H art style was a great blend of "modern Anime" while keeping it more grounded and keeping the series' core identity, but that's just my personal opinion).
But as Ghast also said, this has been a recurring discussion since Binding Blade, and especially during the Awakening days.
I think it just confuses me when people emphasize the ridiculousness of the hair and eye colours as if Fire Emblem has always been grounded. Like .... most of the 3DS games have some _really wild designs_ too. Makes me wonder if people would hate Alear so much if they were as relevant as Peri.
@@princeapoopoo5787 I think if Peri were the main lord, people would be very upset with her design.
as another long time fire emblem fan, all your videos on engage have been super refreshing amid all the discourse. it's nice to see someone else feeling both positive (but tentatively so, considering how little we still know after just the one trailer) and pointing out how previous modern fire emblems had just about identical fan reactions when initially announced/released. three houses also ended up being one of my favourite in the series, and i agree that, while i'm excited to see what it has in store, engage has big shoes to fill! thank you so much for sharing your thoughts
Yeah, it's pretty refreshing how level headed Ghast usually is compared to the usual negativity the fandom tends to have.
Yeah, the cycle has happened in pretty much every game since awakening (I remember the early days of GBA fire emblem forums people being pretty jazzed about it, critiques didn't really take off till later).
Thing is, pretty much everything that people have had visceral reactions to and been cautious of have been true. Awakening with the more dating pair up focus and the how broken and silly pair up looked... that stuff was true. Fates my castle, face petting, dating sim, doubling down on the My unit main character, and the purchasable split routes... all very true. 3H with the persona-fication of FE with the monastery and calendar system, timewheel returning and My unit main character again... all true again (granted i know people like this one tho personally i think its pretty bad).
So yea, its fair to point out that the pre release critique cycle has been a constant. But, considering how the past number of entries have gone I think its pretty fair. Also, the level and degree of visceral reactions this time is certainly on a different level than any of the others.
@@soulofalbedo you bring up a lot of good points here! truthfully, i was personally thinking less of the more rational concerns that came later on and more the immediate visceral reactions in response to the initial announcements (for fates case, i remember it being a lot of hate on the premise, even though it was something fairly original/ambitious for the franchise (granted, i ended up not liking fates' execution personally, but i was frustrated by everyone being so quick to judge it based off just one trailer) while for three houses it was a lot of hate on the school setting (and then a total turnaround once we found out about the time-skip)).
i don't think criticisms of these games are entirely unwarranted (again, i really didn't end up liking fates' direction in the end, despite defending it at the start lol), but it does get tiring seeing a game be so hated when we have so little information. and of course, there's always the matter of different things working for different fans - even though i personally didn't care for fates, i know it helped bring in more of a western audience. even between you and me, both long-time fans, though you didn't care for three houses, it ended up being one of my personal favourites! i guess i just wish there was a little more nuance in discussing why certain games might not work for some people, but work for others, and a little more patience when it came to judging these games from the start. i really appreciate your perspective though! thank you for taking the time to reply to me
Alear definitely hit me like a truck at first, especially with the shock of the leaks being real, but I'll be darned if the amount of fanart and stuff hasn't made them grow on me like crazy, even with the hair. Still not sold on all the character designs, but honestly I'm pretty hopeful for the rest of the game, giving me GBA vibes with the animations and colors and that's great in my book. Not expecting much from the story personally but I don't imagine it'll be like, dissapointing if I'm just expecting something like FE Warriors but much more fleshed out. Overall, good vibes in my book
It's not just the design of Alear or the overall characters designs, I'm also concerned about the story of the game. It's not just basic it resemble fanfiction, that's ok for me in a spinoff but not for mainline game. Now FE engage might be really good, who knows, but from what we've been shown I have concerns that it will be a great game
Exactly, it feels more in the spirit of the first fire emblem warriors (really fan service-y) rather than a follow up to a game like three houses. It’s giving spin off not main line.
We only know the verymost surface level premise so you can't say that. We have no way of knowing anything about what the actual story will be like beyond the foundations.
Considering the mention of FE4 in the leak for Engage, i think it being simpler and lighthearted might be the entire point. Three houses is a game balanced between both lighthearted and serious/dark story types, Engage is the lighthearted and simpler entry while the possible FE4 remake takes the role of the fully serious game.
@@TheKabuto90 your point is irrelevant as any fanfiction have , bad or not a story.... however fusion character to others lords is something that is pure fan service, something that is more like a spin off or even a mobile fan game. i don't mind the art style however but the chara design is an heavily no for me as it is WAY to gashinimpact anime.
Yeah, spin-off or mobile vibes for me. I don’t want fan-service on a main FE line. I want great story.
Three Houses was easily the best story since POR/RD. Whereas this concept seems gimmicky, like they’re relying on past success to drive sales for a lower quality product.
It would take a VERY creative story to be able to weave together how this all makes sense.
FE Awakening may have saved the franchise but it’s becoming clear to me that it might also have ruined it. As the emphasis now seems to have moved from the roots of an intriguing story with strong character development to more customization and a generic story.
I sort of wish they will do away with the “chosen one” main character concept and just give us a Hero’s journey with a complex world build and feels like a books that I’m interacting with and guiding along.
The bright, popping colors everywhere, the lack of character portraits, and the UI all feel very far-removed from the rest of the series, but they compliment each other just fine. I'm personally not a big fan of it, and I hope the series doesn't continue in this direction, but the game itself certainly doesn't look bad. Being a good-looking game is much more important than being a good-looking FE game.
Congratulations on 100,000 Subscribers, Ghast! You so deserve it!
Engage's general art so far is looking gorgeous and very lively. I'm still on the fence about the character design though, so I'll wait up until more dudes are revealed before making up my mind on it. Same goes for the gameplay I guess.
Plot wise? I think the game will be fine. It's clearly not trying to be stupid ambitious like Three Houses or Fates, but like you said, they can go a multitude of directions with such a vanilla premise. It will all boil down to how's all executed.
I find it looks like plastic
"Stupid ambitious like Fates"? If Fates really was an ambitious attempt that makes it an even bigger failure than I realized. I always took it as there being no effort whatsoever put into Fates's story.
@@sunkeyavad6528 No idea if you were there back in Fates' pre-release phase, but one of the reasons the story is seen as a massive dissapointment by the fanbase is because it was hyped like you have no idea as a huge improvement over Awakening's, even more so as this was IS' first big attempt at doing branching narratives.
@@sunkeyavad6528 Ambitious is not the same as bad. Ambitious means they bit off more than they could chew, and failed. They tried to write 4 stories in the time it takes to make 1 game. Obviously it didn't go well and then they did the same thing for Three Houses to largely the same effect.
When Alear and Marth shout “emblem, engage!!!” I die a little on the inside
Early congrats on 100k! Been passively watching for a while now and it's great to see you finally make it to your goal!
I feel you. It was more shock than dislike when seeing the trailer. I had to watch it probably like 10 times just to digest what was happening. It's def growing on me as several things look great, and a few things that are ok, but nothing is necessarily bad. But Engage has some big boots to fill after Three Houses. It seemed like the only things holding fe3h back from being a masterpiece was a larger budget, and more time to flesh out a few things. I will say, I am sad to see gambits missing, that was such a great addition to the combat.
Alear’s design is great but as others say, the hair and eye color is a lot. The male is my preferred design because the outfit is more cohesive and also, less hair. There’s one image of him that actually looks really good.
I wonder if both Aeler’s will be a thing in the story. Almost separating since the design of their colors flipped makes me wonder if it’s gonna be the case
Anyways I remember people made fun of Byleth and now people love them, then Shez was made fun of now people love them
People just don’t like new things tossed in front of them in full, their feelings are gonna be really extreme one way or another
I like your point about both Alear's potentially existing. I also wondered, why would they flip the design like that, if they weren't two separate characters? It could just as easily be a nonsensical design choice, but it also seems like it could very well be intentional for a reason. Maybe they're both two halves of two different people? Something like that?
i really hope they dont do the male and females both existing thing again, once in Fire Emblem Warriors was enough imo, plus it looks like that isn't the case since they both share the same name where as if they both existed they would have separate names like Rowan and Leanna.
@@LtSMASH324 i mean this is an anniversary title that just got delayed so it's probably an anniversary thing but also could lead deeper into was the op said aswell.
I was one of the people who made fun of Byleth and I still don't like her tbh the lace leggings look ugly to me. I tolerated it though since I liked the game and I could switch to the alternate outfit. I feel like it's just that the people who disliked the designs mostly moved on/got tired of complaining.
This time around I actually like the girl's design more. If it weren't for the colors she'd look great. Ignoring the colors, I thought male Alear's design looked kinda uninteresting but ok until I saw the goofy looking puffy pants lol. Would've looked better if they were more fitted.
@@OpheliaTerat yea the lace leggings still look weird to me too, i ean she is supposed to be a mercenary and then a teacher so that just doesn't fit at all, i also just end up using the officers academy uniform since that fits pre time skip and after the time skip i will probably choose something else for her.
as for Alear i like the female better this time around too although i am fine with the hair colour, not to keen on the armour being white though.
2:02 based on this pic, I wonder why the colors were reversed, and if it is connected to the story itself. M!Alear has blue hair with red eyes on his right side while F!Alear has this on her left side. Maybe it's just to make them apart? Also I just noticed F!Alear has a metal hairband, more bangs of each color on each side and a blue X on her collar while M!Alear doesn't, so it's probably just a stylistic choice?
Hey Ghast! Congrats on reaching 100k! Ive been watching your work since the summary videos
100 K SUBS !! CONGRATS ! :D
Alear's duel hair color could be better, but I love the theming of it with her being half dragon.
What concerns me is the potential villain may be another generic shadowy evil dragon like Grima. I've been hoping to see a return of the Manakate Kingdoms like the Dolhr Empire combine with emphasizes on story/lore 3 houses built. FE needs to have a large manakete faction once again to give them a human face and culture once again; rather than the dead gods we usually get.
Watch the face of the female characters, it's the same, such a downgrade from the past games even from the mobile game with its own original characters...
I’m fine with people disliking the art style but I don’t like when people try to act like bright colors are new to fire emblem. Like have y’all seen the gba games?
I personally like how fire emblems style is always changing, it keeps things fresh for me
In relation to your comment about heroes being characters instead of just a mechanic: from the trailer in the section with the MC walking around the home base, it appears that Marth is standing around with a dialogue bubble, implying you can interact with him (hopefully in a meaningful way). Watching other people's reactions and deep dives, I didn't see anyone else mention it, but it gives me hope however inconclusive it is........
I really like Alear's design. He/She looks very vibrant and fits with the theme of Engage, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Fire Emblem. The art design and graphics looks beautiful. The recent gameplay clips on twitter shows how good and clean the combat looks with the new UI and character animations.
Honestly I'm in love with the vibe of this game, not going to lie. I adore the lighter tone we're seeing so far, both in color and tone. It gives a lot of Elibe vibes in that regard to me.
Plus Mika Pikazo's art is just an absolute trip every time I see it, lol.
Honestly... I love Three Houses but after both that and Fates (and even Shadows of Valencia to an extent) I would personally welcome something a bit lighter with open arms.
Wooooo 200 more subs and you'll hit a milestone !!!
100K!!!!!! Congratulations 🎉
All good points Faerghast and holy shit congrats on the 100K you bloody deserve it!
I honestly like alear’s color design. It’s a break from the usual subtle blend of colors from previous characters. It’s just out there and I like it.
I personally like a few of the character designs from what we've seen of Engage, I also think the art direction is really nice too. I'll admit that I'm not entirely sold on Alear's design, but at the same time, I wasn't sold on Byleth's at first either, I think it'll just take some time for me and a few others to warm up to it.
Astute observation! Thank you for sharing!
Seeing this when you have already hit 100k. Congratulations, dude. I've been watching you for years now and I'm so happy you've reached this milestone
I like Alear's design. My main problem with it is just how saturated the hair colors are. I think they could have worked a lot better if they were just a little less bright. Besides that, I'm really excited for the game!
I just really like the presentation. It looks so clean and everything is animated so well
100K! Let’s go!
Congrats on the 100K subs!!! 🎉
I think the biggest question is whether the art style serves the narrative and gameplay purposes well. Awakening, for example, had a very clean and futuristic style to its motifs and UI which fits because it is Altea in the future. It was a reboot of the series in a lot of ways. The art style can't really stand alone without narrative to go with it.
I've been a fan of this artist for so long (that I honestly don't remember how I discovered 'em), so I was just pleased to know that they would lead this new FE's art direction.
Personally, the Switch hair isn't too big of an issue for me; it seems outlandish, but the character is supposed to be more outlandish in comparison, regardless. While I may somewhat mind it, I've been able to generally overlook it because Alear's face(s) still look nice. His eyes are really pretty to me, hers are nice and the style + how they're modeled & rendered so far seems both true to the artwork AND really nice and polished looking.
If anything, I'm more concerned over how the plot and game will be handled.
Congrats on 100k
100k!!! Lets goooooo!!
I personally really like the art style, it reminds me of game boy advanced era games, especially the moments of the maps that we've seen so far. although I do want to see more before i make a final verdict.
I really like Alear's design, and I love the artstyle. I actually love the hair and eyes, I think it's amazing
Great choice on the ending song of the video
we are so fucking close to 100k. gonna be keeping an eye
true as of 530 pm est woooo
I like how “out there” the design is. It definitely caught my interest when I saw the trailer. I’m mainly hoping the game overall will be good. So far I find their design the most interesting (in a good way) out of the “avatar” characters.
I really like the Artstyle and characters it has. I would get it when it'll be out. When i can. Hope it'll be fun though.
I'm loving the character designs so much!
The 2 Issues I see with Alear's design in my opinion:
1: The duel color doesn't work as well on the Male versions short hair as it looks on the Females long Hair
2: just like the other recent entries It looks great in the 2D artwork but not anywhere near as good as a 3D model
I'm honestly of the oppsoite opinion. male alear makes the hair work a lot better than female alear.
As for 2d, this is why you need to have portraits in the game, which they seemed to have done away with. This might have looked fine on paper, but translating it into 3d is what killed it.
@@AmyoftheFlowerField I agree with you. I dislike both of them but the male one is more tolerable.
I'm much more worried about the Emblems turning the game into a mainline version of FEH than the MC's design. The aesthetics are secondary really when the gameplay and story are on the line. There is really too little information right now to give a meaningful opinion though. Trying not to get too caught up in wild speculation.
People need to Give FE's story direction more credit. they've been pretty consistent with their aesthetic theming They've just barely begun to Mix Magic and Science as of 3H. With those laser space nukes.
I feel like within the next two main titles we're going to an evolution into that direction much like Final Fantasy.
They hired an artist with exactly this style, so they knew what they wanted. It’s probably very closely linked with the tone of the writing.
I’m calling this ‘Awakening 3’, but I guess Awakening had a good ambitious overall story, and Fates mostly fixed one-note character writing, so I have maybe some hope left.
I actually really like Alear's design. I'm all for whacky and memorable FE character designs, and Alear fits perfectly!
I also love how each FE era is so visually distinct from the others. It makes each era feel extra fresh and unique.
I really like the character designs and how the game looks so far. The animations in combat are 10000 times better than 3 houses. Specially the backgrounds and the 3d models. I think the divisiveness comes out of spite towards mobile games and free to play games, since this game heavily looks like genshin impact.
However, I do am very skeptical about this game only because of the rings and emblems systems… i think it will very tough to pull it out correctly without been lackluster or just a hd version of heroes with no narrative whatsoever… we will have to wait, but I’m definitely getting this game day one
I think the art direction is really fun and interesting especially since the series is always testing new styles. I’m also really happy with their selection of main lords a nice even split of male and female lords to from across the games really shows how awesome the games are
For Awekening, fates and heroes, it's the same charach designer so it's false since thz re popularization of the franchise with awakening
Search about yusuke kozaki
@@Alex254561 okay and? Just cause two main line games and an offshoot have the same artist doesn’t mean that the rest of the series hasn’t tried different art styles? So it’s kinda confusing and rude for you to say my statement/opinion is false like chill dude
I absolutely love the design of both the hair and the outfit!
I never thought about the art direction too much... But now looking at Dates - a game I've never played - I LOVE that style.
I am one for a more gritty look. I was one of those teen boys who raged at the internet when Wind Waker was revealed lol
What scares me is not the character design. What I don't like is having heroes from the past. I cannot imagine a way of doing it that I would like.
I'm kinda neutral as well about Alear design, and i do not mind the new map and world design either ! i'm really interested in the story tho, as you said, Three Houses did an amazing job with its worldbuilding, so i really hope that Engage will do the same ! Very excited for this new game, and thank you for your amazing content ❤
Alear's design has very much grown on me and from what we've seen of the general art direction I'm a fan, especially in combat with the hits and misses feeling like they have a lot more weight to them like in GBA era games.
i for one love Alear's design. as someone who only really got into FE in Awakening (though i have since dabbled in other games and am an avid player of FEH) to me their design is very different from the main oc's i've seen so far. tho i liked being able to customize my own character like in Awakening and Fates (i also personally enjoyed Fates overall) i like the stark difference between, say, Byleth and Alear. and as for the whole anime argument, it's an artistic style, nothing more. it won't be for everyone. but please leave the people who enjoy it alone. excellent video as always Faerghast!
oh and thnx for showing some footage from Book 3 in FEH. Alfonse and Lif are two of my fave characters in that game x3 Lif most of all! do you plan on doing a FEH video sometime on the plot or some of the characters?
I'm fully honest when saying this, outside Japan this sole protag design will probably cost them thousands upon thousands of sales just because how wierd it initially looks to most people.
The wierd thing is that if they'd gone for a black and white hair split that would have looked so much more congruent to the rest of the design.
I love the overall aesthetic of Engage but when it comes specifically to Alear’s design the only part I don’t like is how his hair crosses in front of his face. It’s a little bit better with the female version. So I’m probably going to play as her when it comes out.
I absolutely love how vibrant the colours are in this game in general
LOL when I heard "This may be, the last video on the channel-" I was like WHAT. "-before we surpass 100k subs" lolll. congrats Ghast! You deserve it!
Honestly, Alear's design grew on me pretty quickly. It looks ridiculous when taken in a vacuum, but something about the way the gameplay and cutscenes present it make it seem a lot less silly. I do have some other qualms with other designs, but we don't know their names yet so I won't go into it. Those aside, however, the game looks pretty great.
I also heavily agree with your sentiment about how the stories are paced and presented making up for sometimes "unoriginal" plotlines. In my opinion, if I had to choose between a story with 100 new ideas trying to cram them all in onto one single sticky note or a single, classic story that's given room to be explored and just plain told well, I'd take the latter in a heartbeat.
I don't mind the designs, I think it'll grow on me and the game looks colorful. My gripes lie with the 'engage' system. Leave the crossover ghost rubbish to the spinoff games, and not a mainline Fire Emblem.
Fates also had something like It and Awakening too
I don't think that It will be like heroes where it is basically everything
I love the art direction imo
Its has a anime or fairytale feel to it that i surprisingly like
Hello, I been enjoying your videos for quite awhile now and I love your in-depth Analysises.
But I must wonder what you mean by “Many rings to wear?” Do you mean S-rank?
As for your questions
I don’t mean the design because it really doesn’t seem that different.
My concerns are like you said: I don’t the summoner characters to be just a mechanic but their own characters.
Furthermore I do hope there will be S-rank as it was my favorite aspect about the games.
I loved the dialogue and the whole love and war aspect of that.
OK is my overall view on everything so far. The designs are fine. They do look way better in art compared to the models (no 2d art in gameplay so far). Not gonna say anything about the story since we don't know more than the basic premise. It could be happy jolly or go dark and gritty.
Edit: Unit appearance customisation. Hell yeah! Gonna kill the evil dragon with a whole team of clowns
The problem with Alear's hair is that it seems to stand out like a sore thumb compared to literally every other character we've seen so far. They all have a single color in their hair and are often natural colors or are muted. Obviously Marth's blue hair isn't natural but it was fine back in the day and is familiar now. Being blue and red straight down the middle (with a stupid/weird anime trope of having two strands cross over on the forehead) just looks cartoonish among a sea of normal haircuts. They look like a create-a-character from something like Saints Row or Dark Souls.
In regards to the rest of the art style being anime, I think it's fine. It feels a little more lively and energetic compared to the toned down 3H. I really think they are pushing the FEH angle by making the game look very pleasing and simple, with a more generally appealing style. In a way it's kind of like this game is the Genshin Impact of FE, sort of in the vein that a lot of games these days tend to follow the Fortnite trend of everyone being a smooth, plastic person with very little definition as it seems to appeal well to kids (the widest audience).
With all that said though, Alear's design is starting to grow on me just a little, as I think I'm getting used to it and it's no longer as surprising/disappointing as it initially was. However I constantly keep thinking that they could have been a mono color (maybe with heterochromia) and it would have looked far better, but someone wanted a stark 50:50 split.
Hopefully theres a story reason and we see some kind of design change as the plot advances. Kind of like an inverse Byleth, where their hairstyle improves as opposed to turning a shitty anemic pea color.
I'm Just hype for a new Fire Emblem game
You just got your 100k sub bro
I feel as if this is the game they created to specifically try and bridge the gap between the older and newer games and their fans. There's quite a lot to love about this direction and it seems to be adding the best elements of the older and newer games. I do find it interesting that of the lords previewed in the gameplay they chose celica, marth, and sigurd. The first two have games that have been given remakes...is this implying that Sigurd is also getting a remake or am I looking way too into it?
As for Alear's design art does not a character make. This said I think the design is kind of meh. It's not bad but it's not good. It's middle of the road. Average. Or at least that's what I would have said if it were not for the leaks showing off the character months earlier. If Intelligent Systems decided to purposely leak toothpaste-chan knowing the divisiveness of the design then that was a hugely beneficial play on their end. The leaks desensitized me to the ridiculousness of the design and the memes have actually caused me to become rather affectionate towards toothpaste-chan more than I would have been normally.
Honestly, as someone who's been playing Fire Emblem since late 2016/early 2017, you hit the nail in the head as far as my general thoughts, although despite the presentation, I vastly prefered the artstyle of Three Houses over most of the 3DS games TBH.
My top 3 modern FE art direction/style are:
- FE Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
- FE Awakening
- FE Three Houses
These games have tremendously helped FE transition into the modern era in terms of artistic direction
And my top 3 classic FE art direction/style are:
- FE Blazing Blade
- FE Path of Radiance + Radiant Dawn
- FE New Mystery of the Emblem
These are what I consider embodies the quintessential art direction of the FE series
I personally don’t mind Alear’s design, but some of the other characters just don’t tickle my fancy as much, but that’s okay! I’m sure I’ll come around to it.
Overall, I’m excited and very curious about this game. I feel like I wouldn’t want the Emblem heroes to play too big a role in this game, as I fear it’ll take away from the new characters.
Since I’ve learned this FE was originally going to be the 30th celebration of the franchise, I’ve come around to this game a lot. I figured it would be a huge step down from 3H, but if this is a sort of celebration of the franchise, it makes sense they return to some older mechanics and storytelling tactics. As long as FE18 will improve on what made 3H good I’m happy lol.
I want to wait for more informations and in game visuals but so far I really like the ones that are shown. It’s definitely different but I don’t think it’s bad, though I’m a bit on the fence about including characters from older games
I'm concerned that the reliance on past fire emblem characters will weaken this game's ability to be stand-alone. And that new characters won't get developed as well with attention getting pulled towards past characters instead
Super on board with the art direction and character designs. Alear's hair being exactly half of both i think is the main issue but its growing on me. Really like how "cool" he looks in his pre-battle stance on the battle preview screen!
Very excited for Engage!
I mostly worry about the game revolving around bringing these heroes of old back, I'm highly skeptical about this as I feel it could very easily be mishandled. Either they won't be given their personalities or agency or much opportunity to show it or engage with the events of the story and will mostly just amount to a power boost as a result, or they'll be too much of a presence in the story and all but completely overshadow the original cast of the game, aside from like 3 main characters. I just have difficulty seeing how this idea will work out for the better.
I'm a fan of Mika Pikazo so I'm all for this.
Honestly I don't understand the problem with the art style. I've played Fire Emblem since the GBA Era and I just see it as styles and interpretation growing over time. My only concern about the game is the hope for the emblem characters to be full characters rather than just spirits that hang around. I would love to see characters from different games interact and develop supports with each other.
When Three houses was first revealed I knew that eventually, once a new game would come out, it would get compared to three houses, just like three houses got compared to past games.
Remember when people said it looked ugly, too anime, or had mobile game graphics? All of these are being said again. Now we have to see if Engage will convert people to it's side like Three Houses did.
I completely agree. I'm just happy a new mainline fire emblem game is coming out. Been too long. I've never cared about the aesthetic or look. I just love fire emblem bc it's well. Fire Emblem. Thank you Faerghast. Nice to see a video that is and can be viewed in a positive light. Keep it up my dude
Guess I'm a bit of an oddity as I'm fine with Alear's face and hair, it's the outfit that's taking me longer to warm up to. Maybe it's just because I liked the style of Byleth, Corrin, and Robin's outfits, all very striking and dynamic in their own way. Hopefully it'll grow on me like their face has (or there'll be some better outfits, including potentially the inevitable character specific class upgrade).
The vibrant art style of Engage is something about it I actually love. I love vibrant color, especially when it comes to fantasy stories. Personally something about the brightness of the art style just feels, I don't know, next gen. Like it really is something new and different from Three Houses. Speaking of Three Houses, as much as I liked it, Engage DOES NOT have to try to ride its coattails, namely in regards to morality and antagonists. It had some charms but TH was...lacking in several points. You can have a normal good vs. evil story and make it enjoyable.
So far, the gameplay's looking solid. I'm not a fan of the weapons triangle coming back but I can work with it. I'm really interested to see how the Engage function works in both gameplay and story. I do agree that there might be some villains who'll have some...reservations about working for or under another; I've got a theory that the "dark" Emblem rings may either be corruptive for the characters they're summoning or potentially have some suppressive effect. Basically, they turn the "dark" heroes into slaves to the owners' will (which may fit with the corruption theme that the, well, corrupted enemies are potentially signaling).
If there was one thing I'd say I'm concerned about, it's the treatment of dragons. I'm not holding my breath but I REALLY want more focus on this games' dragons and tribes. The Nabateans of Three Houses was a golden opportunity that was missed and will forever be one of my criticisms against the Fodlan Saga. It's my wish that Engage will do better, especially since a dragonic prince/ess is the main focus.