Fire Emblem Engage - Review
Fire Emblem Engage is the latest entry in the long running series and has taken improvements from the last few entries, attempting to bring the series back to its origins. With a far more authentic Fire Emblem experience than we have had for a while, does it make for a truly engaging game?
Fire Emblem Engage is our return entry to the Fire Emblem series. The second mainline game to release on the Switch, people will find a wildly different game in Engage than they have previously experienced with the previous title Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Fire Emblem Engage is a far more traditional feeling Fire Emblem experience that has done away with the multi pathway, choice-driven storylines that we have come to expect after Fire Emblem Fates, which consisted of 3 games, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which had four different pathways through the game depending on your choices. Fire Emblem Engage has made the decision here to actively go back to the more clean-cut, single path story experience with a much heavier focus on the actual meat and potatoes gameplay, rather than a padded experience with same-same but different story focused narratives of the last couple games.
This distinction is important. If you haven’t previously played a Fire Emblem game before Three Houses, you may find that Engage is a far more dry, and less enthralling experience. Like the Emblems themselves that feature throughout the game, Engage is essentially another Hero-King story, in the same vein as Marth, Roy and Ike before them. Engage is far more focused on keeping you in the game, rather than taking away from the tactics combat. With randomly appearing skirmishes, a huge range of paralogue (side) missions, and 26-27 main story encounters, there is close to thirty hours’ worth of tactics combat gameplay alone to keep you occupied. Though it does feature a generally light if not somewhat predictable story, padded out by relationship building between characters. A generally complete playthrough which includes all side content and some of the skirmishes, you’re looking at a forty hour experience. For those who are looking for a decently chunky tactics game with solid combat fundamentals, Fire Emblem Engage is a great entry point.
The fundamental addition to Fire Emblem Engage, is the Engage mechanic itself. Throughout the game you will unlock ‘Emblems’ which are locked inside different rings. The Emblems themselves are iconic character’s from previous entries in the series. These include, Marth, Lucina, Ike, Roy, Leif and even Corrin and Byleth from the last few entries into the Fire Emblem series. Using the star power of previous entrants into the series, you can equip the rings onto your characters when going in to battle. Each ‘Emblem’ has a series of unique abilities, which range from simple things like an Endure style ability, or a multi-shot ranged attack, to more complex abilities that allow you to create different environmental hazards depending on the character, or a unique super powered weapon that changes depending on which character you play.
The Engage mechanic is a fresh feeling addition to the tried and true gameplay of the Fire Emblem series. Whilst for the most part, it is more so a stat addition or an ability to quickly take down boss type enemies with multiple health bars. It can however make difficult encounters on higher difficulty settings feel much more approachable and less daunting. It is enjoyable and momentarily nostalgic inducing seeing these character’s from previous games, it is unfortunate that there almost feels a need to use the nostalgia effect to distract from the somewhat lacklustre cast of characters in Fire Emblem Engage. You’ll find some Engage abilities far more useful than others, and whilst you’ll have up to twelve available in an encounter towards the end of the game, you’re unlikely to use more than a few of them regularly. More so using them as a safety net to protect a unit that may be in a dangerous situation otherwise.
A somewhat unique feature of Fire Emblem Engage is the location based combat screens. Rather than going into a unique fight screen for the fighting, Fire Emblem Engage uses the map based location as the fighting location. Shifting from a top-down isometric style view into the more traditional 3D face to face battle screen; if you have a unit that would have to bash down a small fence, they will actively interact and knock down the fence when attacking. This will also result in the top-down view showing the fence now missing in that section. Whilst this seems like a small thing, it goes a long way to making the battlefields feel connected to the combat, which is something that previous titles did not actively attempt to achieve. The battle screens typically just using the map location as a backdrop, but seemingly happening independently of the world.
The biggest issue most people will face with Fire Emblem Engage is the cast of characters. As is the case normally, most characters’ personalities are fleshed out through the support conversations, more so than in the main story. For the first time, we’ve got a main protagonist character with a voice, allowing for deeper interaction with the story and the rest of the cast. The big problem here is the main protagonist has about as much emotional depth as wet cardboard and interacts with people who are nothing but obsessive over who is essentially their deity. Everyone is overtly nice and kind to the protagonist because they are the ‘Divine Dragon’, and there is very little development beyond that. Even in the support conversations, there are few characters that have much divergence from this behaviour and it makes for an incredibly bland experience. Further to this, a majority of the cast feel like carbon copies of characters from previous titles, which on top of the nostalgia inducing of the ‘Emblems’ creates a cast of characters that are easily the most forgettable of the series.
Thankfully, whilst they are generally forgettable as characters, individually they are all pretty solid units in battle. It takes just over half of the game to fully unlock the complete roster of characters, typically with two to three being added to your team at a time. The time rewind feature makes a return from Three Houses, which means you’re very unlikely to permanently lose any characters as you go forward. Even with the rewinds being limited, you’ll likely never be in a particularly dangerous position of losing a character. This does detract a little bit from the perma-death danger and sort of goes against the more traditional style of Fire Emblem Engage. Once you’ve found your preferred units you’ll be able to pump experience into them with skirmish encounters on the world map that refresh every few fights, as well as with training that is available in the Somniel, which serves as the hub that you can return to between encounters. Unfortunately the Somniel doesn’t feel at all as enjoyable as The Academy did in Three Houses, and mainly serves as a minigame hub for small battle benefits and a location for the stores and blacksmith to exist.
Fire Emblem Engage is a solid overall game. It is a decent Fire Emblem game, but after the last couple entries having such expansive and unique stories, with multiple choices and options, it feels strange going back to a far more traditional feeling Fire Emblem game. A cast that lacks their own identities and personalities and the Engage mechanic that feels half explored. Some Emblems are far more useful than others and mitigates the overall idea of them as a super ability when some do not feel at all useful. The story is serviceable if not predictable, but the bulk of the game is made up with the actual combat encounters; sticking more to the idea of older Fire Emblem games that were focused on the fighting, more so than their somewhat anime-esque fantasy stories.
The Score
7.5
Review code provided by Nintendo
The Pros
+Giving the protagonist a voice allows more interaction
+Plenty of gameplay available with enjoyable combat
+Location based combat screens
The Cons
-Engage mechanic feels half-baked
-Nostalgia popping overshadows a lacklustre cast
-Single story path feels like a step backwards
-Rewind feature negates too much of the strategic gameplay
