Fire Emblem: Engage - Part Fifteen
So, first and foremost, after doing the Somniel rounds, I had a ring to give someone. Honestly, there weren't that many characters in the running for it and some of the ones I really liked would have been kinda... ick to give it to. So, I gave it to my favourite character, Panette. The support scene that followed was dorky and sweet, but didn't hit as hard as Three House's S-supports. Not that it was a mile off or anything either. I do wish I had done the ring as soon as I could though, because what Engage does that I really liked was make up for that lack of impact a bit by letting the characters exist as a couple (or partnership I assume for the non-romantic options) for a little while. I really liked those small touches in the changes with how Panette and Alear would greet each other/interact around the Somniel and the little hair ornament of hers that sits on top of the memento drawer of Alear's room after. Sometimes, it's the little things.
After that, it was serious story time. It was, in fact, a crazy corrupted Lumera guarding the last shard. Veyle snuck off from the group to try and fight her alone to protect Alear from the emotional trauma of having to kill a twisted zombie version of his own mother, but was far too weak to defeat Corrupted Lumera on her own. Luckily, Alear and co. broke in and intervened before Veyle got turned into a little pile of ash. That was when the fight really began. Two teams had to approach Corrupted Lumera from each side of the map. On one side, it was Alear, Panette, Framme, Ivy, Alcryst, Timerra and Veyle. On the other, Diamant, Celine, Alfred, Fogado, Mauvier, Jean and Louis. As with the previous shard battles, a positional mechanic was in place for this one which, again, I really liked as an addition. In this one, Lumera was shooting long ranged energy blasts in lines across the map. Party members had to either move out of range or hide behind pillars to avoid getting obliterated. In the end it was Alear, Framme, Panette, Loius, Celine, Alcryst, Jean and Diamant who reached Lumera and took out her bodyguards and corrupted wyrms while Veyle, Ivy, Fogado, Mauvier, Alfred and Timerra acted as rear guards, taking out Lumera's reinforcement waves.
Mechanically, this was a really fun fight. Narratively it was solid on the part of Veyle and Alear's relationship but, all the Lumera stuff in this game really does not hit that hard because we didn't get enough time with her to come to care about her before she died. This would have carried a lot more narrative weight if Lumera had been with us longer, we'd been conditioned to like her and care about her and then the evil Veyle had taken her out eventually leading to this. But oh well, solid enough.
From there, it was a brief trip to the Somniel to grab a couple of last A-rank supports. Then, it was time to raise the Somniel up into the space between dimensions to face Sombron. There, we learned of Sombron's own tragic histroy. Originally from another world with its own emblems, he was driven to Elyos when his side were defeated bringing only one Emblem with him... and emblem that then abandoned him. He was driven by a desire to prove himself as a lone individual and would burn things down and kill people before they could hurt him the way his Emblem did. Or something like that. Honestly, the thematics here got a bit murky and Sombron over all felt a bit lacklustre as a villain. I think there was good ideas behind him that were not executed the best. We got some cool scenes with Alear, his allies and the emblems though. They were cheesy as psyduck but they did make my brain do the happy chemicals regardless.
The fight against Sombron itself was really cool though. The first phase wasn't anything too crazy. Sombron just had to be defeated in his humanoid form with minimal reinforcements. The second phase was where the map was reset and he trandformed into evil snake-face-dragon-mode was where muk got interesting.
Sombron was protected by a barrier. To break it, you had to clear the map of his dark emblems which apparently were parallels to the main enemies fought in the games of each Emblem. There was a mechanic in place where Emblems would have buffs against Dark Emblems from their worlds. Which I'm sure was very cool for the people who had the information to figure out who was who but meant nothing to me at all. Still, the mechanic of killing them to break Sombron's barrier and get attacks off against him was cool. Especially because it combined this with Sombron also having a positional beam attack like the Lumera fight and some psyduckery that ended Engage mode early and made you have to charge it back up. In the end though, Sombron was felled by team play from Diamant, Louis, Veyle, Framme, Panette and Alear. Everyone played their part during the battle though, taking out Dark Emblems and Corrupted and running support and interferences for each other.
The battle was won and Elyos was saved. The Emblems - save for Alear - were expended and had to say goodbye, but the heroes and Emblems parted ways with smiles on their faces and a brighter future for Elyos ahead. It was epilogue time, so here are a few of the endings I thought were particularly noteworthy.
Alear returned to Lythos with Panette at his side and was coronated the Divine Dragon King.
Vander continued on his steward duties until eventually retiring and passing the job on two Clanne and Framme who then eventually hand picked the next steward(s) who would follow them.
Alfred took the throne of Firenne and was a well-loved king until he died young. Oof.
Celine, I assume, took over from him after that and was noted for being tough but fair and doing a lot of tea-related stuff. Honestly, the Firene royals got pretty crap epilogues but they were there through the whole war so they get a mention.
Loius retired as a knight eventually and instead served the Firenese royals as a butler. This honestly sounds like heaven for him.
Diamant became Brodia's king and reformed it into a much more peaceful nation.
Alcryst took on clerical duties and served as a diplomat between Brodia and Elusia. He also became famed as a master strategist.
Lapis roamed the world, teaching villages ruined by the war how to defend themselves, rebuild and farm.
Ivy rebuilt Elusia from the ground up and opened its borders.
Zelkov opened an orphanage.
Hortensia returned to the academy and graduated with top marks. She then became a diplomat between Elusia and Brodia, likely doing a lot of work with Alcryst.
Timerra went on to become Solm's most beloved queen ever, largely in part because she never stopped spending time moving among her people.
Fogado travelled aimlessly for while until settling in to be his sister's advisor.
Anna found her family again and got super rich off of her connection to Alear.
Jean became a world-renowned doctor.
Veyle turned Gradlon into a lush, vibrant and happy place that was reborn as a true nation of Elyos. She later became its reluctant queen because her people peer pressured her.
Mauvier spent the rest of his days wandering around helping anyone who needed it before one day disappearing to never be seen again.
My final combat party of 14 was Alear, Framme, Alfred, Celine, Louis, Jean, Diamont, Alcryst, Ivy, Timerra, Panette. Fogado, Veyle and Mauvier. In order, the top 5 combat MVPs were:
1. Alear
2. Panette
3. Framme
4. Loius
5. Celine
So, my thoughts. Story-wise, Engage was solid. The story was simple but (heh) engaging and while it started weak it did get much stronger as the story went on. There were a lot of characters in this game and while I don't have any I really disliked, most I didn't have overly strong feelings for either way. That being said, there were definitely some characters who I liked a lot. Whether they were characters who I knew I would like from the moment I met them like the stewards or the Brodian princes or characters that I was surprised by how much I liked them like the Elusian princesses, Veyle and Panette. I think rather than having any particularly bad characters, the biggest shame about the character writing in Engage is that the interactions between characters feel a lot less meaningful with supports often not being overly interesting or the ones that were later being done dirty in the epilogues with pretty much everyone just going their separate ways. Don't get me wrong, there were some fantastic character arcs and supports too, but they weren't the majority. The paralogues were a let down too. They were fun battles and had useful mechanical benefits sure, but aside from Alear's earning the bond ring and Anna and Jean being recruited via paralogues, the paralogues were mostly a wasted opportunity to explore the characters and world more. I have tried very hard to judge this game on its own and not by the very high standards of Three Houses, but Three Houses is much better written with deeper character interactions, a tighter and more complex narrative and a much more vibrant and fleshed out world. That isn't to say I disliked Engage, but it definitely doesn't meet the standard of its predecessor when it comes to writing.
Mechanically, the combats were all really good and there was some fun twists in a few of them. I really enjoyed the battle after the Emblems were captured and Alear's party had to flee Elusia fighting off the evil versions of their Emblem friends over and over as they tried to get away. The positional mechanics introduced by the final few battles were also really fun. Admittedly, three of them were basically slightly altered versions of the same thing, but they were still fun and added a cool element to the combat. The levelling and reclassing mechanics I was much less impressed with. Somehow, they managed to come up with a convoluted system that was simultaneously much more complex and bloated than the one used by Three Houses while also giving you much less flexibility with how you handled classing and weapon choice. The functionality of the emblems was a nice touch and I enjoyed that mechanically a lot, but the element of having to inherit proficiencies from them was unnecessarily restrictive. I did like the inheriting as a concept though as far as additional stat buffs and passive abilities went.
The visuals in the game were solid. Mostly it was just building a little on what Three Houses gave us and arguably the cut scenes were actually less dynamic, but every now and then we'd get really stunning environmental stills that were glorious to look at. The art in the credits was great too and in general I liked the character designs a lot in Engage - arguably more than in Three Houses. Beyond that though, I don't have much to say about this.
The voice acting didn't blow my mind or anything for the most part, but I can't think of anyone who did a bad job either. Everyone was good and sold their characters well. Musically, I think the game was consistently good with a few standout songs like the one from the battle between Brodia and Elusia and the various incarnations of the main theme.
So, overall, Fire Emblem: Engage is good. It's a solid game. Does it have some fairly notable flaws? Yes. Did it blow me away in the same way that Three Houses did? Definitely not. But there's a lot to like about it too and I will definitely play it again.
Writing: 6/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Visuals: 6/10
Sound: 7/10
Total: 28/40