imo Arlo, FE has always been mid story-wise before 3 Houses. Characters are pinnacle of trope-y too. I don't even think the gameplay of the GBA games is all that special unless you can force yourself into challenges (esp. low turn clear, but not unit loss since the reset function exists). So not being a fan of Engage because of its lack of depth is a take that makes sense. Hope IS can find a better balance between character-writing and gameplay, which they have been struggling with for so long.
Ultimately the argument I'm seeing drawn in this comment section is either "Gameplay isnt everything and we have the right to criticize a lack of story..." or "I dont really care about the stories in FE to begin with and I like the gameplay a lot so who cares." This dichotomy is prevelant through pretty much all game discussions in some form, and it literally never stops. Thats why, no matter what, I will always be happier when series make games to please BOTH audiences. Even if an entry or two doesnt suit my tastes as a result, I shake it off and pray the next one does. Because in the end, no game will ever please everyone who plays it or every fan of the series, so making entries meant to bring in newer fans is only ever helpful to the cause.
So for anyone who's wondering 3 Houses and Engage have 2 different development teams which is why the games focus on different things ie story and lore vs gameplay. Unless the 2 teams figure out a way to merge we're going to keep seeing the pendulum swing of every other game focusing on one over the other.
@@Melkac It's pretty well known that 3H was developed mostly by a Koei Techmo team with some oversight from Intelligent systems, there was a developers interview around the time of the Cindered Shadows DLC drop I believe. Then when the data mine for Engage dropped people compared the developer names from 3h and there is almost no overlap at all.
@@Melkac if you check out Spirit of Sanada, you'll see there's some social parts very reminiscent of what eventually are the monastery segments of 3 houses
@@ChicCanyon I mean it would be nice if we could have a game that had both but yea, I enjoy both to different degrees so I guess I'll enjoy all of them
I’ll be honest, if the team who knows how to write a story and the one that knows how to do the gameplay worked together we would have goty material here, i have high hopes for the next fire emblem, see you all in 5 years i guess
I mean I'm pretty sure that's what awakening was. Post awakening the team had a fracture in where they thought they should take the series into the future and now we have two teams.
Next game is APPARENTLY going to be an FE4 remake so nobody has any idea what's going to happen and how they'll handle it, so see you in 3 years I guess
@@TheCoolerDrilis I mean Manfroy is still an asshole for getting Julius and Deirdre together even if they’re not closely related and he just somehow knew that she had minor Loptous blood
Weapon triangle has worked a little differently depending on the game. The break mechanic is new to Engage, previously it is usually things like boosted accuracy and evasion.
@@hornetsilksong True. It was often negligible. That's why I like the break mechanic. It has some actual risk/reward even at high level. Though if the character is tanky enough, it can be ignored.
@@mistake1197 it also allows squishy characters to get hits in that they normally wouldn't. I'm playing early game maddening rn and a handaxe throw can 1 shot my mages. But if I break the handaxe user then use my mage I can unleash some devastating combos that kill the units while leaving my Squishies unharmed
A few hours in, I love the style and flow of combat. That all feels greatly fleshed out. It's when a character opens their mouth that I'm unsure about my life choices.
I'm just so tired of voice acting in just about anything. Just let me turn it off. I get that lots of people hate reading, but if someone heard me playing this on a plane, I'd have to jump out.
@@WarningStrangerDanger you could turn it to Japanese and it might help you tune it out. Idk I thought the voice acting for 3H was all around great and reeled back, but it feels like they're trying to hard or being real extra in this one, and the writing isn't helping.
Thing with Three Houses and Engage is that they both have different writing teams, or at least different writing directors. The one that worked on Engage was also the one that wrote Fates, and generally people don't like how Fates was written or how their characters were.
I was getting the impression it was similar game to fates from the review, I happen to really enjoy Fates, mostly because the gameplay is really solid and I skip all of the story.
@@nevets2371 I would say so yeah. But for me personally, the cast of Engage was a lot more unbearable than the one from Fates. Fates had it's stinkers, but it also had quite a few characters I really digged. And at least Fates story tried (if failed horrendously.)
@@Alex254561 I don't think they should be fired necessarily. It's very obvious by the reception of these two games that there are people who derive enjoyment from the characters in these games. And really I don't know whether I'm just not part of the demographic for these games or if there is the need for genuine improvement.
Talking to characters after every chapter in Three Houses is what made the cast memorable to me, even the ones I didn't use. So the lack of unique voiced character dialogue during exploration is actually devastating. Edit: A few people mention that they found the exploration elements in Three Houses long or tedious, and say they're glad what I'm talking about has been removed. But, I would argue that is irrelevant since Engage makes exploration more optional. It wouldn't have affected how you play the game if you didn't like it.
Meh. It was cool but it took too long imo. I hated the monestary because of how time consuming it was, and I’m happy things are much more streamlined and focused on the actual gameplay in Engage.
Path of radiance is definitely the fire emblem game for you to check out. The story, characters, and worldbuilding are great, the stuff between battles isn't very time consuming, and I wouldn't say it's hurting much from qol issues. (There are a few recruitable characters that have really obscure requirements to get that you'd need to look up though)
maybe its because i dont have any nostalgia for the game but it definitely has qol issues. i got stuck a few chapters in because it was too frustrating
I'm with you! Path of Radiance is my favorite too, I feel like I was spoiled because no other FE game I've played after has a story I like as much as this one. I love how Ike starts as an underdog, and has to gain reputation and respect to move forward (in my case, I dislike the "main character is so special, everyone loves them" trope); the downside is it has some very long enemy phases, but for me the story is worth all the sacrifice.
Glad I'm not the only one that wasn't super into the characters or the story. Whenever I pick this up after about 15 minutes later it makes me want to pick up Three Houses again.
@@Xaphino bad and boring. Engage is a dissapointment and embarrassment to the series lol. Fire emblem has ALWAYS put heavy emphasis on characters and character relationships. This isn't XCOM. It's not just about the gameplay
@@darkstalker696 nah its just bad. the characters look like bunch of clown. plot is bad. bonding scene is just pointless and boring. gameplay is good but thats just about it.
"Like pop stars playing soldiers in a play" The lead character artist designed Vtubers before this job. So Arlo is surprisingly on the nose with that comment.
While Mika Pikazo has designed a vtuber, her wheelhouse is more on characters and character design as a whole. Her signature is more or less the fact that she vomits out a rainbow since she almost exclusively uses bright, saturated colors these days, which explains why the cast is so...colorful.
I need you fuckers to please stop trying to use this as a crutch. The designer has NOT “mainly designed vtubers”. Not to mention creating a character for hololive is HUGE. It’s not the drag you think it is.
@@PyraXadon Honestly the bright colors don't bother me. The blatant "PURPLE AND BLACK AND RED MEANS BAD GUY" does, but that is a FE staple so I'm not surprised by it. I've only ever heard "Vomits a Rainbow" in relation to Lisa Frank's art before, so that got a hearty laugh out of me when I read it.
The only good things about Engage imo is deffo the visuals, music, Claude lite (Fogado) and the gameplay. Everything else makes me want to Ferdinand Von Dier
6:17 Every NG+ playthrough of three houses gives you bonuses so that you can speed up or ignore the academy stuff. You really only have to do it your first playthrough and even then it’s not mandatory.
Exactly, I don’t understand why people act like you have to do the academy so much because you absolutely don’t, especially if you’re playing on Normal or even Hard. As long as your characters get their skills high enough to spec into their next class, that’s all you need. Everything else (getting different skills from maxing other classes, namely) are optional. You could easily go through this game with a tight team of 12 that you level up in battle, maybe do the academy once in awhile to get their skills over the finish line so you can reclass and you’re good to go. It’s only on Maddening when min/maxing is even relevant to the discussion and even then Failure Emblem has done multiple Maddening runs putting units in their worst possible class (War Master Linhardt was a total beast) so really you can fast forward through all that if you don’t want to do it as long as your characters are gaining skill experience in battle. At least it was there for those of us who did want to do it AND the battles were fun AND the story and characters were amazing.
@@takeyourheart1 supports exist which really requires doing meals still and doing 10 meals takes forever. and people don't like spending 2 minutes just doing a seminar before the next map it all adds up
@@matthewsimon6170 still tedious and annoying. And kinda requires going to monastery and that only covers byleth supports that does nothing for supports between students which still makes meals the best way to build those supports espicially with three houses limited unit slots. You do realize that this game has supports with characters not named byleth.
I'd like to see Arlo's take on Fire Emblem: Awakening. That game is the reason we even have modern Fire Emblem, and is often cited as having saved the series.
@black bird I went to type a novel in response to you, but decided that based on your rude and condescending reply, it probably wasn't worth the effort. You seem like the type that likes to argue for the sake of it.
@@blackbird7781 1. I don't think you were really being rude. It's just weird that you brought up a completely unrelated point that seems to be contrarian even if it is true (and I do agree it is true). It's also weird the way you framed your initial comment, so it's hard to gauge your intent, since your second point was completely unrelated. 2. Other guy also wasn't being rude. It does seem like you might be the type to argue for the sake of it. He definitely read too deep into it though.
@@Adalon- I can understand if you don’t mind the writing, that’s fine, but there is nothing great about the writing. It’s just a generic story with generic writing. The combat is the star of this game though.
Three Houses writing wasn't even good, but at least it took itself seriously. Engage's writing/ethos/atmosphere etc actively insults you for playing it.
I'm genuinely curious to what Arlo's thought would be on the series if he went back to try some of the earlier entries like the GBA & DS games. Especially with the knowledge of the fanbases' own divided feelings on some of the past entries & their direction. It'd be interesting to see what he likes and thinks about each game.
@@nahte123456 I like PoR because its sequel does so many good things, but without PoR many plotpoints dont hit as hard. I view them like one big game. On its own it isnt nearly as good.
@@DocDoak I've replayed Radiant Dawn so many times, I love it. I've tried an all girls run, all laguz run, runs with just the typical "bad" characters, etc. It's the reason I still have my Wii 😂 I still love the older ones too tho, more than the modern games. Lyn's game, Roy's game, Sacred Stones, all great.
@@orangeslash1667 Vestaria*, not Vertaria. Just wanted to mention this, in case someone looks for it on Steam. And yes, both the gameplay and story are amazing. Some of the best Shouzou Kaga has ever made. Just be aware that the visuals are reeeeeeeally rough due to an almost non-existent budget.
14:57 To contest this point Alear being the "only" avatar protagonist in the series that speaks, Robin and Corrin speak almost all the time in the story and in support conversations, mores Corrin since how big they are in Fates.
@@lnsflare1 the avatars are Kris, Robin, Corrin, Byleth, Shez, and Alear (the ones with customization/gender options). protags from the other games don't count
I know it was rumored that a remake of FE4 was being worked on at the same time as Engage was being developed, so my theory is that all of Intelligent System's competent writers were on that team. Which would kind of make sense -- for those not familiar with it, FE4 is often considered to have one of the best stories in the series, so nailing that is very important to any attempt at a remake. Also the writing in the FE2 remake was very well done, so it would make sense for it to be the same writers doing the FE4 remake.
I sure hope so. And i also hope they get Hidari back to do the art for the FE4 remake. Her style fits the old games so well. I'd love to see her make consistent appearances directing the art for all the remakes, which are more or less guaranteed to be good writing and gameplay wise. Edit: Hidari is a girl mb
Is that Genealogy of the Holy War? I got the Cliff's Notes on that one not that long ago and _holy shit,_ it's so clear how much inspiration 3H's story took from it. I'd kill for a modern remake.
@@Dudeman23rd it is. Or collectively called the Jugdral series, named after the continent it takes place in. The titles are Genealogy of a Holy War and Thracia 776.
Do the old FE games build on one another? I've played since FE fates but I want to get into the older games and based on what you said FE4 sounds like a great place to start unless I'm better off playing the older ones first
I went to a friend's house a few weeks ago and he got me to try out a few minutes of three houses, when I told him I would try a fire emblem he told me I had the choice of three houses or engage, I'm glad I picked three houses.
Thank youuuu I feel the same way! Something about it did not “engage”’with me like the other fire emblems did 🤔. Maybe it’s how vapid it seems like.. I can’t pin point it
@@cutejustice I wonder if that vapid feeling kinda has to do with how quickly it was announced and released? Like, it was announced back in September (which is crazy to me haha, it doesn't feel that long ago), but up until maybe a month or two ago it feels like it kinda disappeared off the map a bit? In comparison to Three Houses, which had something more distinct to differentiate it and demonstrate what the game was about to new players alongside what I thought was a pretty interesting series of trailers etc. (Disclaimer, I'm not an FE fan - this is just from the perspective of someone who loves JRPGs and is curious about the series, so I haven't been following the lead-up to this game a whole lot haha. I do wanna give Three Houses a shot sometime this year!)
@@cutejustice To me it feels like "Whelp, I guess we need to put out a new Fire Emblem. Just make the old characters, but change it so it looks like you're own work."
Weapon Triangle back during PoR and RD era provided a small bonus/penalty to damage and hit rate. It wasn't like you were hard countered by going against it, but it did tip the scales in meaningful ways.
That's pretty much how it was until they just got rid of it in 3 houses. The numbers were adjusted from game to game, but it always amounted to a small numerical bonus to damage and/or accuracy that could easily be compensated for by level different. The break mechanic in Engage is completely new and really redefines how you play the game. It's easily one of the biggest wins for this game.
Many of the older Fire Emblems were very grounded, even mature, strategy games with historical themes, this feels to me a little like they leaned into the over the top characters/anime elements that brought in new players post 3DS
Fire emblem has always been anime, even in the very first game. Marth had a fucking anime ova lmao. Fe fans are really going through there xenoblade phase rn
@@slobertooth1358 old fire emblem is not comparable to new FE in terms of the approach on style. Now it’s like weird woke feminist BS compared to to what it was. It’s blatantly obvious
You can definitely find a clear divide in the fandom over this game: If you value the gameplay of FE, you love it. If you value the story and characters in FE, you hate it. For me personally I’ve always expected the story and characters to be lighthearted so I don’t mind that they’re all simple. I’m enjoying them for what it is. The gameplay and maps are fantastic, and that’s something it clearly has over Three Houses.
Yeah same, I went in expecting a cheesy tropy story and have honestly had a blast the gameplay is just perfect. I even enjoy the characters a lot, don't get me wrong their not three houses level or anything but FE with that kinda writing is the exception most of the time not the norm. I think it really depends on the mindset going in on if someone will enjoy engage.
I went in expecting a fun, cheesy story with "twists" that basically combines Awakening, Fates, and Tokyo Mirage Sessions. I was correct, and I love it. The gameplay is fun, though I got to admit, I'm playing on normal Casual, and I love sending everyone but Anna to one side of the map, then having General Anna with Tiki to the other side. It's not the most Strategic, but it's hilarious
honestly FE stories were always kinda weak since FE1, the characters hard carried the narrative of the game, how many FE games can be described as blue haired lord saves everyone from an evil dragon/corrupt king or sometimes both lol
i really wonder how Arlo would feel about Shadows of Valentia, i feel like it does a great job at being a good game as well as a unique fire emblem game. i enjoy the cast of characters, the voice acting, and the story. i believe most importantly, there’s no avatar. seeing Alm and Celica having their own personalities is a lot more interesting than the kind of “blank” avatars
Unpopular opinion: Shadows of Valentia's story was a mess and the gameplay was somewhat haphazard in terms of what was kept the same and what was updated. Alm may have had his own personality, but he was also a blatant Gary Stu that unnaturally distorted the plot around himself in a game that was supposed to be about duality.
SoV is a excelent example of a Fire Emblem story thats super simple but amazingly well executed. I think It has The worst gameplay in The franchise but I cant help clearing It again and again
@@victorrabello4115 Eh; Shadows of Valentia's story had a lot of neat ideas and concepts, but it undermines itself in execution. If you want a Fire Emblem story that's both simple and amazingly well executed, Path of Radiance is the game to play.
@@orangeslash1667 Oh, yay; Fire Emblem 7 is available to rent via an overpriced subscription service. If it were available to purchase, I'd probably buy it and try it since Path of Radiance (FE9) was my first FE game.
Dang, Shez in Three hopes made me very optimistic about the future for player avatars in FE, voiced with dialogue options, the options didn't shape the story really but at least let me choose when I wanted Shez to be sad, happy, angry or just silly. They were less of a "perfect" avatar, nobody loved them for simply having been blessed being born the avatar and had to work for their plot relevance. Idk maybe I just prefer underdogs that beats the odds rather than being told how amazing they were for being born a demi god 😅
I agree. I know he doesn’t have dialogue options and isn’t an avatar but the reason I love Ike so much is because he isn’t some noble or divine dragon everyone just happens to love or the plot bends around - he’s just a normal guy who is a hero. No special powers etc. Even in this game I found he stuck out amongst the emblems for this reason.
They really need to either have a "proper" avatar (closer to Kris, Tactician, or Robin), because these attempts at a self-insert are pathetic. Either have the player actually be put in a tactician role (player is literally commanding the army and handling the strategizing, so the role of tactician works), or just have the protagonist not be self insert.
Byleth as a character is wasted potential for me there's a lore reason that Byleth is emotionless at the start, which makes the perfect blank slate for people to control Byleth. The more time they spend with the students the more emotions they show, which is both adorable and a genius way to explain how they go from a blank slate to whatever personality the player has given Byleth. But no they have to be completely silent, only saying a few sentences here and there. Then again I guess it's a good thing because I'm pretty sure everyone would want to kill Byleth if I was genuinely controlling his personality
I was expecting a turn when you started off so positive in a video about trying so hard to enjoy Engage, but wow that turn was sharp, haha. Glad to know we always get your honest opinion though
I think when Awakening finally roped me into the series it was the interesting character drama that took me into the game like no other. They turned all the qualities of a great leader in other FE games: positivity, courage, persistence, and devotion to the people; and punished him for it. It was such an awesome build up into that world with some cool twists along the way testing the lovable characters in interesting ways. Whether a character lived or died felt earned and devastating. That was not what I got out of the follow up title Fire Emblem Fates lol. And since then I've played quite a few titles, it just seems like the strengths and weaknesses of each game change. Whether you like the current game or not is based on what you think Fire Emblem is: a character drama, a strategy challenge, an epic narrative, a waifu dating sim lol. The focus will ebb and flow until it hits enough of your preferences that it feels "Fire Emblem" again and then you can expect to skip the next one since the focus will be on the opposite of what you liked next time.
Yeah im skipping this one. The way Arlo is feeling is exactly how i fear i would feel. Im a big character and story driven person. I know myself. I know ill just play it once and the never touch it. Then im gonna feel like i wasted 60$ for nothing.
@@BARALover96 Same boat. I see the FE games of the past and the ones I carry through to the end is always the one with the story that most engages me, this doesn't seem like the one to do that. If it tied in the old lords so that I learned about their history I might go for it, since I haven't played a lot of the older titles and I'm curious. But alas from what I've heard it really doesn't do much of that either.
I appreciate arlo saying that Engage needs more than just good gameplay. I feel like there’s too many people that act like the story and characters in this RPG aren’t important despite that being arguably the most important part of an rpg. I mean this is the same situation as Fates and people hate on that game all the time, so why shouldn’t Engage also get critiqued for it
I agree story is very important for an RPG no doubt, but gameplay is the most important part of a game regardless of genre, it doesn't matter that a game has a phenomenal story if it has trash gameplay then I'll watch the cutscenes in youtube, like why bother with a game if it's not fun?
The thing is FE is an SRPG, the S standing for Strategy and a lot of people(me included) play FE for the Strategy aspect and that hss been very much lacking in the last 2 entries which focued much more on Story and Characters with very big open and bland map design. Also the characters and story Start to pick up after chapter 10.
As someone who’s been playing these games since I was like 15 (26 now), a good story is most definitely not what I’m looking for in a fire emblem game 💀 and if it were I would be disappointed 80% of the time. Yes, gameplay is most important.
I agree with most of this review, although I don't like Somniel. It feels more like they stripped most of the interesting stuff from the Monastery, left most of the tedious busywork, then allowed you to ignore most of it. The Monastery could have used improvement, but I feel they made it worse-but-optional. I'd prefer that they scrapped Somniel, and moved the necessary stuff to that post battle exploration.
The usual weapon triangle was typically do one more damage and get 15 more accuracy when you have the advantage while the opponent loses that much damage and accuracy. It was something that typically was a big deal early on then lost relevance. The break mechanic makes the weapon triangle much more important in this game than it's been before.
It kinda also loses relevance when you have enough speed to double attack an enemy or enough avoidance to not care about their attacks. At some point I started using breaks simply to allow weaker units to cash in some of the exp from a defenseless enemy.
I feel the EXACT same way. The gameplay is so fun but I completely checked out of the story. It’s definitely a shame, but for me, the gameplay is fun enough that I wanna keep going just to see what new powers I unlock and how much stronger my units can get
The strangest thing about Engage's reception to me is that while from the outside the visuals look like they should appeal to more of the newer "casual" sort of FE fans that have come in from the recent games, ones where character driven stories took center stage, from what I've seen the appreciation Engage gets is actually from the more gameplay focused "veterans" of the FE community, leading to this weird sort of reverse spectrum where the majority older fans like the gameplay and strategy, and the newer fans aren't fond of the dialing back of the character and worldbuilding. Personally its hard for me to pick either 3H or Engage, but after finishing Engage and having about 250 hours in Fodlan I feel like Engage is a breath of fresh air, and its possibly the only FE game where I was willing to try to do Maddening on my second run, right after finishing the first.
It's a very strange discourse to see play out, for me personally I couldn't get into 3H at all; the monastery was overwhelming and story wasn't clicking with me after 5 hours or so. Meanwhile with Engage, I love the combat, art style and while the story isn't anything to write home about, it does enough to keep me going while also being unintentionally hilarious. I think this game really shows the difference a player's personality can make on their enjoyment of the game
As someone who has played further into the game, I'll say that the story does get better. It's definitely more focused on telling a very simple story, but it's overall functional and it winds up a little more later. I'll say there's a moment in the game that is such a perfect blend of gameplay and its story component that I would beg people to try getting to if they are struggling to play more. It's pretty obvious when it occurs, and it's not too far down the road. I'll also say that they picked a really bad starting cast for the first 5 or so chapters. They definitely intrigue me less than future characters and feel more tropey than some in the future. The writing outside of supports for individual characters is honestly terrible, and I think it really feeds into the perception that these characters are really based around a single trope. The supports are actually pretty alright and flesh characters out a lot more. It develops characters in an exceptionally different way from Three Houses though, so it's understandable if it's not your cup of tea. Unfortunately, one of this game's greatest weaknesses is that building supports is ABSURDLY slow. They really scaled down how much you can build support in battle, and that's going to make it real hard to get invested in characters.
I agree, I came in with no expectations and the story is alright, but the supports were meh at the beginning even tho I thought they were gonna be great based on how supports usually are (since even Fates had good supports) so I was worried but as I kept going they got so much better and even funny, I also like the fact Alear speaks and actually has his/her consistent personality so it doesn't feel the other characters are monologuing to the avatar like in 3H. But yeah the worst thing they did was throw 2 annoying kids to us at the start, especially Framme with her shrill voice.
@@OArchivesX Of course a story can only be so good to someone if they go in with those type of expectations. Plenty of animated stories can have qualities that make it work even if it's overall goofy or light. The tone is set from opening in the game and just because you don't care for it doesn't mean the writing is inherently terrible for keeping up with it. If you don't want to bother liking it, just don't. The gameplay is fantastic
honestly, im on chapter 21 and its just... still meh. there's hints of interesting things in alear, but the only thing keeping me playing is a friend who is also playing it and the fact that sigurd is there as an emblem.
@@astrid6130 That's totally fair! I said the story gets better which I still hold to, but it's still not particularly great. I'd call it generically alright pretty consistent with a few really great high points. I understand that it won't really fulfill a lot of players though. I just urge people to give it more of a chance and have fun with it cause the game can be pretty funny sometimes
God, the first 3 chapters of the game are terrible, TERRIBLE! And yes, it did make me question my life choices haha. For starters, like you said. I did not like the characters you start with at all. Flamme is literally everything wrong with fire emblem right now, and as soon as I got another healer, I dropped her immediately. Clanne, while REALLY dumb like his twin. I did warm up to overtime. Also, his voice actor is the same one who voices pit from kid icarus uprising, so I didn't want to be TOO mean because I know those are the type of characters he likes to play. And Vander is literally Fredrick 2.0 down to his and the avatars support. The problem that I have is just the pure predictableness of the game. Seriously, as soon as I saw the mother I was like "I give her about 10 chapters to live" and I was being generous! Like, holy shit this stupid game! It does get a little better once you get characters that you like to play as. But the main problem I have is that Engage is trying so hard to be another awakening but completely misses the reasons why that game is so good. Engage relys heavily on past story elements, tropes and cliches to get by. It's like intelligent systems only knows how to write one story (with the exception of 3 houses) and never deviates from it ever. That's what really blows for me because there starting to all feel the same. Also, as a Ike stan. I did not appreciate the idea that Solm left his ring in a drawer for hundreds of years. Yes, game. He is my favorite. You may spit on me now.
So I will say this. Engage is intended almost exclusively to be a celebration of the franchise as it is the 30 anniversary of the Fire Emblem series. Typically these games either don't leave Japan or they don't have serious stories.
I understand that, but they've already done this premise twice before, with Heroes and Warriors. Both are spin-offs, I know, but it's still a pretty tired idea.
Seems like a pretty insulting "celebration" of a series where 90% of its entries aren't officially provided. It's no excuse for the game to look, sound and feel so lazy and derivative of non-FE media.
@@Alex254561 Like, say what you will about the visuals of 3H, it felt like there was a grit to it befitting of a game about strategic war. Engage looks too clean, in comparison. Too polished. Fells weird to complain about the graphics being too good, but there you go.
You are not alone. I kept putting this game down and turning off my switch in the middle of cut scenes. How they manage to be both so bland and use so many words at the same time to do it is worthy of study. It was so hard to stay invested when there was so much clear plot armor dictating what happened at any moment. The combat is admittedly good. Good enough to get me to try maddening mode for once. That was fun until it wasn't.
“It is written: ‘Arlo shall not live on gameplay alone, but on every word of good dialogue that comes from the mouth of a character.’” - Book of Arlo 4:4
Which is quite weird, given him like pikmin with almost no dialogue, and the story being gather materials to escape world. Arlo review is also very disappointing.
@@Kronos777Lusos Pikmin games may not have story as a strength but they're very atmospheric, immersive games. That's probably why Arlo likes pikmin and three houses - he can get immersed in the game's world.
@@dinar8749 FE Engage can also be very atmospheric when chilling out in Somniel, a village in a floating island up there in the sky. And regarding dialogue and story, it gets better after chapter 10. Nitpicking the game (to outright stop playing the game) because of the hair colour or characters choices of boutique, or how animesque the game presents itself is just borderline stupid in my book. From my side I played 3h, engage and older FEs (including my personal best: Genealogy of the Holy War) and I enjoyed all of them equally.
@@Kronos777Lusos There may not be much story but the writing in Pikmin 1 was genuinely great. It communicates the spirit of an overworked Japanese businessman with deftness and humour.
@@Kronos777Lusos What's a "nitpick" for you with the game's story and tone, is a deal breaker for us. I want good dark fantasy games in general, and I was hoping fire emblem would deliver with its next game. Clearly it didn't, so I've gone with Elden Ring and it's a lot better. At least Fromsoft has the balls to make a dark fantasy game these days when nintendo doesn't.
I think it'll be the next FE game that sees the consequences of 3H's success. 3H and Engage were developed in tandem by two separate divisions and they were meant to release roughly around the same time for the FE anniversary. Due to Covid though, Engage was pushed back and polished, making it feel more like a sequel than a parallel, celebratory anniversary game. I could be wrong, but I suspect the next non-remake FE game will be the one where IS recognises that people play FE for gameplay AND story and not one or the other. Also, this game was actually designed for kids. That's not a slight, it's the devs honest opinions. In an interview they said they chose Mika Pikazo to lead art direction because her art style appeals to a younger audience and EVERYTHING from the silly characters to the Saturday morning cartoon plot to the' Emblem ENGAGE!' Power Rangers call supports that. Its why so many fans have issue with the presentation of the game - we're literally not the target audience.
I can understand why they went the rout they did, trying to attract new younger fans isn't a bad thing, but you can have a game that appeals to kids and still has an interesting deep story/characters/world for the older fans. Having a simplistic story with hidden depths is actually more interesting in my opinion.
yeah, its just tonally completely different. EVEN to the gba games or fates, which are the ones they are most compared to - and you can see that as soon as the intro comes on.
i like toketsu so i don’t really mind it, that stuff does appeal to kids but that doesn’t have to be a negative or mean adults cant enjoy it. also this story isn’t really that kid friendly, its not even particularly light hearted.
@@demifolk8940 No no no, you don’t understand. If something feels like it’s appealing to kids, then I, as an adult, am physically incapable of enjoying it! /s
@@windbrush yea honestly the same mentality that people use to hate on nintendo games like pokemon, zelda, mario, etc. like all ages ≠ kid stuff. All ages just means something everyone can enjoy, “kid stuff” is like cocomelon and dora and shit lmao
I personally think for what was originally the Anniversary Game that was suppose to release back in 2020 but Covid happened thus why we have a more laid back yet traditional FE story of good vs evil (hero vs dragon) esque story, which honestly I'm completely fine with, its celebrating the roots of the games origins. The leak that originally showed Engage will likely point us to a Genealogy of the Holy War remake, so if you want a more story driven FE, that one will likely be what you want. Personally I'm enjoying this a lot, I like both story driven or gameplay focused FE games
If that was the issue, I don’t see the issue with it simply being a late anniversary thing with the teaser being put in place of an anniversary release
I want a remake of that game so bad, but as a remake. I wonder if they would actually go through with "certain story elements" in that game or change it to be a happier ending. Fire emblem already has a major problem with killing off characters on screen. I just wonder if the team will have the balls to show it. You know...without the censorship of course...
@Vanja Galović omg I noticed that too! Like actually wtf??? If it's rumored that they are making a remake of holy war. They just ruined the BIGGEST plot point for everyone. Great job, intelligent systems. Great job.
If Mario had this grand of a story, you'd think it would be the coolest thing since the mini fridge. But reminder that tropes aren't inherently bad, it's all on execution and the concept as a whole.
Год назад+10
Anyone notice how Louis almost always has his eyes closed, but he always says stuff like "that was eye opening" and "I love looking at people"
Arlo would have loved the Fire Emblem Path of Radiance + Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn combo. One of the best gaming experiences in my entire life. But then again, who wouldn't? NOPE, DON'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION.
I really loved Path of Radiance, but I just couldn't get into Radiant Dawn. I hated the Dawn Brigade, and not being able to play Ike until part 3(?) soured me on it even more. I never finished it.
Radiant Dawn is outstanding. Music is godly, story is full of twists, the characters are fantastic. Really hope we get a duo pack of those games someday.
@@Jaekization frankly, i really didn't like the Tellius setting or story. Ike and Micaiah arent all that engaging as characters and the setting itself has so many blind spots that its insane.
To be fair, Fire Emblem has always had pretty mid writing. Like literally every game is about a big bad dragon. It's like expecting a Pokemon game to be any different than the last nowadays The character depth not being very good is unfortunate though, usually the characters do shine through the most
Honestly kind of feel like I'm alone in my enjoyment for the game. Initial I went in with no expectations because of reviews, but so far it's been a fun experience. I really like the characters. I'll just say that I think I'll be replaying this game a lot more than Three houses because the flow of gameplay is just better.
I agree! I know exactly how you feel. I’ve been replaying the 3DS games recently instead of 3H because it feels so hard get through, but I think this game might change that.
You aren't alone. I am loving it. Gameplay was kinda bland in Three Houses so it's nice to have the tighter system in place. Engages characters are also good imo.
I honestly like the characters more than the ones in 3H, because the game knows how to reign in the dialogue. A lot of the 3H character just talk way too much, and it got annoying for me.
Fun fact : in the game's imternal data this game is coded as "iron 19" ( every FE game is intrrnally coded as iron ) while 3 Houses was coded as "iron 17" meaning that a game was supposed to release before this one , and judging by the constant rumors and Sigurd being the 2nd most important emblem story wise , it probably was the FE4 remake fans been begging for for ages
Sorry for bringing up this question on your comment 4 months later, since FE3H is considered FE16 in public but iron17 internally, was there a missing entry somewhere? Or was Fates split up into two internal version numbers?
Honestly, I was worried about this the first time I saw the trailers for the game. The main selling point they pushed was how you can relive your nostalgia with all these old Fire Emblem heroes from previous games. "Team up with Marth, Roy, Lyn, Ike, Lucina, etc." I thought if their biggest draw to their new game was how you can use all their old characters, it didn't bode well for the new characters if they didn't warrant a mention in the trailers. And your video seems to confirm it. If I want to play with the old characters, I could play Awakening. Or, you know, the older games that these characters came from. If I'm getting a new Fire Emblem game, I want to meet and enjoy a bunch of new characters. Not gonna lie, hearing this disappoints me, especially after how awesomely the Three Houses characters were written and realized. Hell, even the writing in Three Hopes, a Dynasty Warriors/Fire Emblem spin-off game based on Three Houses, is pretty damn well written! Anyway, thanks for the video man, I think I'm gonna hold off on getting this one for a while. If you do manage to beat it, I would love to see a review video, but if you can't bring yourself to finish it, I totally understand. As a side note, breaking the opponent's stance with a weapon attack that has advantage is new to this game. In the past, advantage in the weapon triangle simply increased your chance to hit as well as granted bonus damage.
I disagree that the somniel is less of a time consumer than the monastery. The somniel gives me series fomo about getting the hundreds to thousand band crystals available after every skirmish, most tied up behind minigames, while the monastery I had a little round to make at the first of each month, and any following trips that month was just focused on a specific goal of either fish, meals, or trainings that went quick.
You got me dead on. I remember multiple times having a tough time in some battles or feeling a little fatigue while playing FE3H. Every time without fail I didn’t push through because the game play was great. It was because I was invested with my students. I wanted to see every one of them succeed . I’m only on chapter 8 of engage and can’t bring myself to play. I have no connection w a single character and it feels so bad 😢
this is probably the worst game to go from after three houses I see those two games as polar opposites, all of three houses weak points are engages strong points and all of engage's weak points are three houses strong points
The problem is that Three Houses kind of half-screwed the newcomers who started with it. That game is so God-forsaken different from the whole series that it probably makes going to ANY game in the series hard due to the false expectations it unintentionally gave.
@@duskblooms Honestly, the gameplay transition isnt the issue, the style of it was, so im glad you ended up finding your love of the 3ds games, which themselves admittedly have differences too but not as severe.
If you want a Fire Emblem experience that plays accesibly to modern fans, while also having a top tier story, Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn got you covered. Now getting your hands on them legally would be quite the ordeal xD Also, the TWO storylines you missed in Three Houses? How presumptive ;)
Yeah; Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are easily two of the best FE games; Path of Radiance, to this day, is still my favourite video game of all time. Well, Silver Snow and Verdant Wind are basically the same story (right down to Verdant Wind having cutscenes and dialogue that only make sense in the context of Silver Snow), so 'two stories that Arlo missed' is kind-of correct.
While I disagree on the Academy vs. Somniel, I 100% agree on pretty much everything else you said. I loved Three Houses, Awakening, and Sacred Stones for their stories and characters, but in Engage they're just... ugh. I did multiple playthroughs of the other games because I wanted to learn more about the characters and the worlds they lived in. In Engage I talk to the characters because the game says I have to. I'll probably treat Engage like Fates, one playthrough and then never touch the game again. Three Houses is like hanging out with your best friend, you never want it to end and keep coming back for more. Engage is like spending time with your weird cousin because your parents said so.
Leading up to this game I was despising it, but having gotten to play it I actually find a lot of enjoyment out of it, despite being a more classic fan. It's not at all the game I would point people to in order to show them why I love Fire Emblem, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying the game
The one thing I hate is the focus on past characters for nostalgia bait. It's a lack of any creativity or thought in making a decent story and cast. IS could do it in the past with Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance. I am on the fence of getting this game simply because of the bait with the ring emblem mechanic. Also I hear the characters are worse than Fates' characters. Makes the ones from awakening look like Tolkien's work.
Really good video! One thing I thought I would mention as you said you were a Three Houses fan, (but said the visuals weren't that great and maybe that was a budget thing), is that a lot of the game's budget I believe went into a feature many players don't even realize is there. If you press + while in combat on any map, it zooms in very close, and you can navigate the map in third person POV with your characters. The maps are incredibly detailed and the visuals on those maps, at least on the newer switch, are really high quality! They didn't include this in Engage thankfully though. While I thought it was amazing, it also felt unnecessary, and it was harder to play the game in 3rd person POV. It was more immersive, and I tried to play a playthrough completely in this zoomed in POV, but I got a headache fast as there was so much to look at on a colorful fantasy battlefield. Anyways, you may have known about the POV and still thought the game's visuals weren't that great, and that is totally fine! I thought the visuals weren't great in the monastery, but when you were in the actual zoomed in battles the game got unexpectedly polished, and it is a shame that many players missed that feature. I may not have battled much in the zoomed POV, but I always loved flying around the maps in this POV looking at the incredible detail of the maps.
They basically turned the ground level POV into the explore sections! They made the maps super detailed just like in Three Houses, and used them a whole lot better this time! It seems like there was a deliberate decision not to include the POV since the maps were already made for that kinda thing. I'm glad they didn't add it personally, it was pretty pointless, and iirc the zoom in button instead became the really useful engage shortcut button so that's great
It's so true that even just a few interesting characters or ideas would've made a huge difference. I don't think Fire Emblem Awakening's story will rock anyone's world, and some of the paint-by-numbers plot elements from Engage are straight up lifted from Awakening. But its Big Idea was the time travel, and Lucina's story was the hook that made me a hundred times more motivated to play it despite the fact that its map design and gameplay are (imo) worse than Engage. It also managed to make some of the same basic plot elements more interesting by injecting a bit more flavour and depth - e.g. Robin as the amnesiac protagonist with a forgotten dark past had a more grounded and distinct personality than Alear, and their bond with Chrom gave me something to invest in. It's funny to look back at how some people used to complain about Awakening being 'too anime' or its characters too one dimensional when Engage's cast makes them look very deep by comparison.
The "life sim" aspects are mostly the same, but no more constant changes to dialogue, full voice acting and no more teaching. There are also no more route splits, like in 3 Houses
This game does a great job at making me want to go through another run of 3h with a separate house. Something I said I'd never do because it takes too much time. Now that run will be my replacement for engage. 10/10 combat. Story and characters? 2/10. 3 if I'm being generous
I picked my favorite characters(ones that seemed normal and didn’t worship the Divine Dragon) and I’ve been loving it ever since! It only took 10 hours to get enough for a full team, but it’s worth it.
Yeah ya def have to pick the characters that dont worship and respect you or in merrin's case worships how rare of a creature your character is. Those thst dont worship them seem to also often be 2 dimensional rather than 1 dimensional
Honestly, starting with Three Houses must be the most difficult starting point for any fan I've seen. There's starting with Awakening and Fates or even Echoes, which themselves are very much the modern games they were built to be, and then theres how different Three Houses is. Its like starting players with Gaiden before Echoes ever came out, its just super experimental and not representative of the franchise proper. I worry how many fans wont like the series proper due to the whiplash there is. I dont hate 3H, I love the game, but goodness...what a game to start on for people. Hopefully I'm just overthinking things lol EDIT: To be clear, my main concern is *style and gameplay* more than actual difficulty. Three Houses has its own flair, its own flavor, I'm sure fans can understand the mostly simpler gameplay fo other games, its just the style that worries me.
honestly if they cleared 3 Houses as their first game i think they'll be able to adapt somewhat, although only *if.* I watched my sister play 3 Houses and the amount of times she was confused on the menus or what something did, let alone the insane amount of stuff the game throws at you (especially at the start) would definitely make it a hard starting point, because it was.
For me it always helped that I recognized FE writing and gameplay can be so malleable. Want a basic story? Play the Archanean games. Play Birthright and Valentia. Want a deep and rich story? Play 3H and FE4 (or wait for the remake that I know is next) or the Radiant games. Wanna play a game with great gameplay? Well that's most FE games, but the really good stuff is Conquest and FE3 and 12. Idk. For me as long as the characters are fantastic and the story is coherent enough, I'm good. I think I know what I'm getting into with Engage and I like it so far...I'm still really mad at the absolutely absurd changes to most of the S Supports. I cant romance Rosaldo but I can in the JPN version. One job localizers. You had one job.
@@chickennugget6684 Honestly, its not like going from three houses to traditional fire emblem is a difficult thing in terms of, well, difficulty. I'll add an edit here for clarity, but my main concern is *style and gameplay* more than actual difficulty. Three Houses has its own flair, its own flavor, I'm sure fans can understand the mostly simpler gameplay fo other games, its just the style that worries me.
Sacred Stones was my introduction to Fire Emblem. Some of the best sprite art i had ever seen, but permadeath was just brutal. I loved it but in the same way you learned to love Crash Bandicoot after accepting defeat. If you want to try some of the more modern titles, try the 3ds titles, especially awakening and echoes. A lot of people swear by the ones on switch and gamecube as well.
Ironically I really liked this entry over three houses. The battles feel more fun and interesting, with the customization of the exact units being super fun to tinker around and try out new combinations with. It’s interesting to see the divide between the people who really like the life-sim/interaction aspects of this modern fire emblem design and those who play it for the tactics gameplay. (I should say, I still really enjoyed Three Houses, only gripe with it was the 2 hours of conversation and monastery management after each battle got a bit exhausting)
I love three houses allows you to Get more into the characters. but my god, there is so much conversation that you have to do in order to get everything out of the game. In engaged, You get right to the combat but the fact that the main character just openly trusts and not questioning everyone that walks up to her (or him) is annoying like "oh this random girl that was a missing sister and has now showed up in 2 different places where I am and has SHACKLES ON HER FEET. She seems really nice, no reason to question this or investigate"
People who like Three Houses don't always like it for the "social/ life sim" element. I like it because it has good characters, lore, worldbuilding and music. Plus it's fun gameplay wise. You don't need social stuff to have good characters. That's just how Three Houses chose to do it.
im honestly having a much better time in engage then i did 3 houses. the lore and world building in 3 houses was amazing and had me invested in all the characters, but the monastary takes way too long and had me not wanting to return (still have yet to actually finish it.) where it commonly took me 2-3 hours of running around talking to people before i felt like i could procced in the game. engage tho, i constantly have the urge to play it. it feels like the difficulty of the old fire emblems while keeping the QOL of the new ones.(i am playing on madding. so while id say my own mistakes are just as punishing as i would expect, i can admit it feels extremely annoying to consistently have to restart a stage due to multiple 3% crits.) aswell as im not spending long periods of time in the somiel meaning that i can get right back to the story or the combat. MY one major complaint (outside of the earlier crit mention, fates suffered from the same low % crit issue, so its not fair to think its just this game.) is that the time turner does not actually tell you how many uses it has left in this. i know that in normal its infinite use, but i kinda wish that for madding it would show how many charges are left incase i lose count. (wich is a lot with how long some of these stages can go for...... looking at you tiki!) 3 houses and echoes kept track of this, so maybe its just a minor nickpick.
@@megasora4 There actually is a usage amount tracker for the time crystal in the bottom left hand corner. It's hard to see and they never point it out so I don't blame you if you missed it.
Chain attack is gamechanger for me. My top 3 favorite mechanics in order, 1.chain atk 2.break 3. Returning weapon triangle. Bonus, the 3 turn engage(because im a sucker for transforming mechanics)
I'm almost half through the game and the two brightest spot so far is the music (haven't heard all the tracks but liking what I heard so far but it aint as good as 3 houses yet) and the dog Sommie. It's asleep animation is adorable
This may sound kind of weird, but I quickly learned that I could only play this game after I came home from the gym. I had to play it like that because my adrenaline is still pumping. If I don't I literally find myself falling asleep during the game. That is not a good sign. That never happened for me with Three Houses. I put in over 300 hours into Three Houses and the only time I would get sleepy was about after 200 hours during the battle phases. Three Houses kept me going because I wanted to get all 3 endings. But Engage has me working overtime in the real world just to help me stay awake both for the story and gameplay.
I feel like the quality of the writing is very weirdly paced. Having finished the game recently, spent a whole bunch of hours with the writing living down to my worst fears of the game (When I saw the art style and character crossover aspect, was pretty much immediately pessimistic), but then it suddenly gets way better after a while. Supports start opening up to reveal more interesting relationships and nuances with quite a lot of the characters, and the plot beats and character interactions in the story suddenly have a noticeable uptick in quality and impact. The conclusion is very predictable, but, there's some genuinely good stuff that happens on the way to get there. But, that said, being extremely disappointed with the writing during early impressions of the game is 100% valid, and I would've said pretty much exactly all of the same things that our good blue fuzzy fellow was saying here early on as well.
I agree that some elements of the story and character interactions get kinda interesting, but every potential decent moment is just murdered by the dialog. Any interesting interaction is ruined by the characters talking like they were children roleplaying.
He probably just shouldn’t have made a first impressions after 10 hours bc the characters and story really do grow on you. It was cringe at first for me but then at about 15 hours it all started to gel.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 you a 3H fan? maybe a persona fan? I am. Anyways, imagine an actual critic judging those games after 10 hours for 100k+ thousand to see. Now, does that sound like a disservice to you?
Everyone online and the one person I know irl has all said this is closer to FE Awakening which I can see myself enjoying. I’ve been playing since the gba days so it’d be nice if every game was differing levels of seriousness.
@@-lord1754 I guess it's a matter of taste, but as a long-time fan who started with GBA and has fond memories of it, nothing I've seen about Engage appeals to me.
One of my favorite FE games is Awakening. It was the first to introduce some of the quality of life changes present in modern games and there are a lot of interesting characters, good 3D, and a world map. It was a bit on the easy side compared to later games though, a lot of broken mechanics that got balanced later, but I honestly liked that too.
@@thew00dsman79 yeah. A world map was not the "quality of life changes" I was talking about. Casual mode, rewind turns, an explorable home base, reclassing into completely different classes, customising skills, stuff like that. (I know awakening didn't have all those, but it started some of them). The "interesting characters, good 3D, and a world map" comment was things it had in addition to modern features. I do really like sacred stones though, and its world map is a big part of the reason why.
Plot really started to pick up for me around chapter 8, got pretty solid in chapter 10 But I definitely, DEFINITELY understand where you're coming from, haha. OH and Awakening or Echoes: Shadows of Valentia for 3DS are the games I recommend playing, if you're looking for still having that quality of life alongside good gameplay alongside a solid story, etc But that's just me
I rather enjoyed the middle of the game, but the plot and the map design really started to fall off hard in the last arc. The plot got so bad, it was like total whiplash from one new arbitrary plot point to another with no rhyme or reason. The maps, also got a bit boring, where you had to flight the same bosses over and over again. There were a couple of decent levels tossed in there but overall the story was such garbage it's a real chore to get through at the end. The gaiden chapters will amazing though.
The dialogue definitely improves as you move forward. It’s still not ~good.~ but it’s a major improvement from the beginning of the game. Path of radiance for the game cube and radiant dawn- it’s direct sequel for the wii, might be more up your ally. Or maybe you’d like awakening for the 3DS. Go with those games if you want to back track.
As a big fire emblem fan, I was really worried about the characters, I just couldn't enjoy any of them. With the sheer amount of characters they give you throughout the story I found a cast I really liked by about chapter 8. They're not the most original but just fun enough to get me to look over it and focus on the top notch gameplay
I think exactly as you OMG. Not able to finish the game because character and story suck. I have been thinking to go back and finish it but I just can't. Then I hear there's censorship in localization and I know it's time to quit. Many say Engage is much better than 3H but for me 3H is miles ahead. The characters themselves make me finish multiple playthroughs in 3H while Engage can't even motivate me to touch it.
The ONLY thing I’ll give engage doing better is gameplay it’s really fun. However it’s uninteresting because you don’t care about anything like the story and characters since they are so boring and way to tropeish (characters falling into tropes is normal but engage does it in a annoying way where it’s like their definitive trait and don’t do anything with it. Not to mention they crank it up to 11 when it comes with the tropes)
A lot of people speculated that this game was made to be commemorative game for the 30th anniversary, but ended up getting delayed as a result of the last few years. With that being the case I can see why the writing takes a hit, unfortunately, because it's trying to just be tongue and cheek and means of getting the gang together. I also started FE with 3H and feel the same way as you about this game. I'm hopeful that the story/characters in the next mainline game will be at the same caliber as 3H was. 🤞🏻
Honestly I felt the exact same way about 3H, I loved it and was ready to dive into a 2nd playthrough, but it was a slog to keep doing all of the schools stuff again. I really feel like there should have been an option to just start at the time skip.
I wouldn't want to start at the time skip. But just some way to make exploring the monastery less tedious. Maybe just add a button to grab all the items.
What really sucks is that the terrible dialog and cutscenes have to be individually skipped. I literally spam the start button and jump from one black screen to the next because there are just so many cut scenes and moments of dialog.
Fire Emblem Engage had this issue. How am I supposed to be hyped about Sigurd if I can't even play the game in English? How am I supposed to be hyped about Ike if I can't play the game without a scalper milking it? How am I supposed to be hyped about Lucina and Celica if you literally just shut down the 3ds shop? I can't be hyped about a big love letter to the fire emblem games across t he series when I have no way of knowing who the freak any of them are.
@Meku I regularly sail the high seas, but for a company that despises it so much, Nintendo doesn't seem to be interested in preventing it via accessibility.
Reminds me of how at one of the end of Excelblem's videos he mocked each of the Emblems disappearing by saying they're telling you to buy their games, all of which except for 3 Houses aren't officially for sale. Great job advertising there, Nintendo. Happy fucking anniversary 🙄
I’m loving the game so far. Very reminiscent of Awakening, fantastic gameplay. I put about 500 hours into Awakening and 280 into three houses so I like both types of Fire Emblems and I think I’ll put quite a few hours into this one as well.
I think Engage has a better gameplay overall, both are similar, but Maddening is much better than Lunatic+, and while I like Pair Up, I think Fates did it much better, so Awakening's Pair Up is ehhhhh. Engage is a really cool mechanic too.
@@TheBrownLamb it’s far more fun than Awakening at the very least. Awakening had some terrible maps, unbalanced mechanics, and got real stale really quick. Gameplay-wise, Engage is up there with Conquest imo
@@TheBrownLamb nah, argue on the story and characters being subjective, fine the gameplay is better, the maps are better, and maddening feels balanced unlike lunatic awakening's "chrobin emblem"
Definitely dig up some old fire emblem games. Fire emblem awakening on the 3ds is one of my favorite games. Absolutely lovable characters and a really engaging story (pun intended). Also it's not hundreds of hours like three houses.
I think it's very commendable that FE can go from over the top designs to more down to earth design than back to the over the top design. Truthfully, I love both types of designs. And hey, if you don't like the design of the new one. You can always go back to the last one or wait for the next one. That will have a style change again.
Exactly. That can really be said about the game in general. If you don't like it... wait for the next one. It's not like a Zelda where youre gonna be waiting 7 years.
I tried so hard to like it, I really do. However the story and character is so boring it makes my brain rots. People keep gushing about gameplay, bruh its a fire emblem game, you move your character in a map, I've done it hundred times before, I'll do it hundred times more. At least 3H tries to be different in some way. I want more to my game than just gameplay.
So far I love it! Back to basics for Fire Emblem. I was never a big fan of the dating sim aspects of Fire Emblem, but I can see why people who have only played Three House may have challenges getting into Engage.
Yeah it's all about perspective if you go in expecting deep characters and complex politics like FE4 or FE3H then I'd look elsewhere but if want a goofy by-the-books fantasy with some of the best gameplay in the series then engage for sure.
I get why some people, especially those who really enjoyed Three Houses, might not like engage. But to someone like me who really values gameplay, this return to tradition is exactly what I wanted, I love it.
Really interested in your take on some other games in that case. Awakening, Binding Blade, Path of Radiance. All having such different balances on story/characters and gameplay. Fire Emblem is a very 'fluid' series, almost no games really feel alike outside of maybe the GBA trio. Even Path of Radiance and it's sequel don't really feel alike.
I would say start with path of radiance, but that would require buying the cd and the GameCube which would be worth hundreds of dollars. If he really wanted to. Emulate it. Since the 3ds shop is down. You know, forever. Getting his hands on awakening or fates might become difficult now since there is no way to emulate 3ds games (I think) at the moment.
@joao neto oh that's good. I didn't know that. I'm unsure what can be emulated now and what can't. I know that dolphin is a super new thing for emulating GameCube games, but that's as far as my understanding goes with that. With motion controls. I'm assuming emulating wii games is either extremely hard, tricky to program, or is just impossible haha.
@@ThisIslandDoesNotExist Dolphin is actually a double one for Gamecube and Wii. 3DS has Citra and some pretty fun mods for the games aside from Echoes (which i don´t know if it ever managed to run well). Some stuff like personal weapons for the other princesses in Fates, game overhauls (Project Thabes and Silent waves, i haven´t tested Silent waves.), a Re localization for Fates, Voice mods that have characters speak when selected like in Echoes onwards. Some fun stuff.
"it's making me dream of a bigger, more consistent connected fire emblem world" i have good news arlo, the alear design leak also mentioned that a remake of genealogy of holy war is in the works and genealogy had humonguous maps with most of the continent being mapped out just by chapter maps!
Checked out some art from the character designer, and it honestly looks amazing. The over-the-top colorful style works for splash art and vtubers but man they really toned it down for Fire Emblem and it leaves it in this awkward spot where it isn't committing to the crazy colors of her style but it looks way too colorful and overdesigned for a medieval fantasy setting.
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sus
Time traveler obviously
Ya they are charging full price, so a bigger better world definitely should be in the budget
imo Arlo, FE has always been mid story-wise before 3 Houses. Characters are pinnacle of trope-y too.
I don't even think the gameplay of the GBA games is all that special unless you can force yourself into challenges (esp. low turn clear, but not unit loss since the reset function exists).
So not being a fan of Engage because of its lack of depth is a take that makes sense. Hope IS can find a better balance between character-writing and gameplay, which they have been struggling with for so long.
I'd be interested if you considered trying Tactics Ogre Reborn.
It's uncanny how good Engage is at the things 3H was bad at, and how bad Engage is at the things 3H was good at.
when comes to series, this pretty much its nut shell, they make good one, then mess up the next
I would argue one of these things is more important.
almost completely different dev teams will do that
@@kyotheman69 I wouldn’t really call engage a mess up as a whole but this isn’t exactly wrong
Ultimately the argument I'm seeing drawn in this comment section is either "Gameplay isnt everything and we have the right to criticize a lack of story..."
or
"I dont really care about the stories in FE to begin with and I like the gameplay a lot so who cares."
This dichotomy is prevelant through pretty much all game discussions in some form, and it literally never stops. Thats why, no matter what, I will always be happier when series make games to please BOTH audiences. Even if an entry or two doesnt suit my tastes as a result, I shake it off and pray the next one does. Because in the end, no game will ever please everyone who plays it or every fan of the series, so making entries meant to bring in newer fans is only ever helpful to the cause.
So for anyone who's wondering 3 Houses and Engage have 2 different development teams which is why the games focus on different things ie story and lore vs gameplay. Unless the 2 teams figure out a way to merge we're going to keep seeing the pendulum swing of every other game focusing on one over the other.
Where did you get this information?
@@Melkac It's pretty well known that 3H was developed mostly by a Koei Techmo team with some oversight from Intelligent systems, there was a developers interview around the time of the Cindered Shadows DLC drop I believe. Then when the data mine for Engage dropped people compared the developer names from 3h and there is almost no overlap at all.
@@Melkac if you check out Spirit of Sanada, you'll see there's some social parts very reminiscent of what eventually are the monastery segments of 3 houses
Considering there's two camps in the FE fandom this is a good thing
@@ChicCanyon I mean it would be nice if we could have a game that had both but yea, I enjoy both to different degrees so I guess I'll enjoy all of them
I’ll be honest, if the team who knows how to write a story and the one that knows how to do the gameplay worked together we would have goty material here, i have high hopes for the next fire emblem, see you all in 5 years i guess
I mean I'm pretty sure that's what awakening was. Post awakening the team had a fracture in where they thought they should take the series into the future and now we have two teams.
Can we bring back the team that didn't have Avatar characters...?
Next game is APPARENTLY going to be an FE4 remake so nobody has any idea what's going to happen and how they'll handle it, so see you in 3 years I guess
@@lagspike7763 I'm sure they'll try to cut out the whole incest thing. Despite that, you know, being a major part of the villains' plans.
@@TheCoolerDrilis I mean Manfroy is still an asshole for getting Julius and Deirdre together even if they’re not closely related and he just somehow knew that she had minor Loptous blood
Weapon triangle has worked a little differently depending on the game. The break mechanic is new to Engage, previously it is usually things like boosted accuracy and evasion.
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Yeah this is definitely the best the triangle has ever been. It has to be considered all the time now
@@hornetsilksong True. It was often negligible. That's why I like the break mechanic. It has some actual risk/reward even at high level. Though if the character is tanky enough, it can be ignored.
The break mechanic actually rewards aggressive play even when you aren't eliminating the enemy unit that turn which is definitely a plus.
@@mistake1197 it also allows squishy characters to get hits in that they normally wouldn't. I'm playing early game maddening rn and a handaxe throw can 1 shot my mages. But if I break the handaxe user then use my mage I can unleash some devastating combos that kill the units while leaving my Squishies unharmed
A few hours in, I love the style and flow of combat. That all feels greatly fleshed out. It's when a character opens their mouth that I'm unsure about my life choices.
HAHAHAHHA true
I'm just so tired of voice acting in just about anything. Just let me turn it off. I get that lots of people hate reading, but if someone heard me playing this on a plane, I'd have to jump out.
@@WarningStrangerDanger opposite of pokemon lol
@@WarningStrangerDanger you could turn it to Japanese and it might help you tune it out. Idk I thought the voice acting for 3H was all around great and reeled back, but it feels like they're trying to hard or being real extra in this one, and the writing isn't helping.
@@WarningStrangerDanger can't you turn the voice audio all the way down? I'm hard of hearing so I had to turn it up
Thing with Three Houses and Engage is that they both have different writing teams, or at least different writing directors. The one that worked on Engage was also the one that wrote Fates, and generally people don't like how Fates was written or how their characters were.
I was getting the impression it was similar game to fates from the review, I happen to really enjoy Fates, mostly because the gameplay is really solid and I skip all of the story.
@@nevets2371 I would say so yeah. But for me personally, the cast of Engage was a lot more unbearable than the one from Fates. Fates had it's stinkers, but it also had quite a few characters I really digged. And at least Fates story tried (if failed horrendously.)
fates/engage writers must be fired (but rehire the charach designer of fates pls)
@@Alex254561 I don't think they should be fired necessarily. It's very obvious by the reception of these two games that there are people who derive enjoyment from the characters in these games. And really I don't know whether I'm just not part of the demographic for these games or if there is the need for genuine improvement.
@@Laurmachi engage was selling pretty good at the beginning but with word of mouth the selling number dropped very quick
Talking to characters after every chapter in Three Houses is what made the cast memorable to me, even the ones I didn't use. So the lack of unique voiced character dialogue during exploration is actually devastating.
Edit: A few people mention that they found the exploration elements in Three Houses long or tedious, and say they're glad what I'm talking about has been removed. But, I would argue that is irrelevant since Engage makes exploration more optional. It wouldn't have affected how you play the game if you didn't like it.
Absolutely. Some of these characters have no extra dialogue after their very first appearance. Thats all you get.
@@tlk777 Yunaka :(
@@bhume7535 yep. She seemed pretty interesting but uh yeah no dialogue to speak of
@@bhume7535 literally one of the only characters I liked.
Meh. It was cool but it took too long imo. I hated the monestary because of how time consuming it was, and I’m happy things are much more streamlined and focused on the actual gameplay in Engage.
Path of radiance is definitely the fire emblem game for you to check out. The story, characters, and worldbuilding are great, the stuff between battles isn't very time consuming, and I wouldn't say it's hurting much from qol issues. (There are a few recruitable characters that have really obscure requirements to get that you'd need to look up though)
*Insert hour long, unskippable enemy phase here* (unless you're emulating with speedup).
maybe its because i dont have any nostalgia for the game but it definitely has qol issues. i got stuck a few chapters in because it was too frustrating
I'm with you! Path of Radiance is my favorite too, I feel like I was spoiled because no other FE game I've played after has a story I like as much as this one. I love how Ike starts as an underdog, and has to gain reputation and respect to move forward (in my case, I dislike the "main character is so special, everyone loves them" trope); the downside is it has some very long enemy phases, but for me the story is worth all the sacrifice.
@@edelgarddidnothingwrong7994 I personally never found the enemy phase to be annoying, but yeah an emulator can help with that
Were there global ranges in that game?
Glad I'm not the only one that wasn't super into the characters or the story. Whenever I pick this up after about 15 minutes later it makes me want to pick up Three Houses again.
I hated 3H. I couldn’t finish it. Im 50 in engage. Its everything a real fire emblem is supposed to be
@@Xaphino bad and boring. Engage is a dissapointment and embarrassment to the series lol. Fire emblem has ALWAYS put heavy emphasis on characters and character relationships. This isn't XCOM. It's not just about the gameplay
@Johnathan Era now that's really dramatic calm down engage is superior to 3h in nearly everything besides the roster.
@@darkstalker696 nah its just bad. the characters look like bunch of clown. plot is bad. bonding scene is just pointless and boring. gameplay is good but thats just about it.
@elbanana8274 sorry but no I like engage I think people are just over exaggerating
"Like pop stars playing soldiers in a play"
The lead character artist designed Vtubers before this job. So Arlo is surprisingly on the nose with that comment.
That explains why they all look terribly overdesigned
While Mika Pikazo has designed a vtuber, her wheelhouse is more on characters and character design as a whole. Her signature is more or less the fact that she vomits out a rainbow since she almost exclusively uses bright, saturated colors these days, which explains why the cast is so...colorful.
wait they actually did?
well goodness that explains a lot about the character designs..
I need you fuckers to please stop trying to use this as a crutch. The designer has NOT “mainly designed vtubers”.
Not to mention creating a character for hololive is HUGE. It’s not the drag you think it is.
@@PyraXadon Honestly the bright colors don't bother me.
The blatant "PURPLE AND BLACK AND RED MEANS BAD GUY" does, but that is a FE staple so I'm not surprised by it.
I've only ever heard "Vomits a Rainbow" in relation to Lisa Frank's art before, so that got a hearty laugh out of me when I read it.
Let me settle this for everyone.
The real reason Engage isn't as good as 3H is because it doesn't have FERDINAND VON AEGIR.
Spot on
Well that and so many other issues. Like how underwhelming everything is but the gameplay
The 🐐
R.I.P
The only good things about Engage imo is deffo the visuals, music, Claude lite (Fogado) and the gameplay.
Everything else makes me want to Ferdinand Von Dier
6:17 Every NG+ playthrough of three houses gives you bonuses so that you can speed up or ignore the academy stuff. You really only have to do it your first playthrough and even then it’s not mandatory.
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Exactly, I don’t understand why people act like you have to do the academy so much because you absolutely don’t, especially if you’re playing on Normal or even Hard. As long as your characters get their skills high enough to spec into their next class, that’s all you need. Everything else (getting different skills from maxing other classes, namely) are optional. You could easily go through this game with a tight team of 12 that you level up in battle, maybe do the academy once in awhile to get their skills over the finish line so you can reclass and you’re good to go.
It’s only on Maddening when min/maxing is even relevant to the discussion and even then Failure Emblem has done multiple Maddening runs putting units in their worst possible class (War Master Linhardt was a total beast) so really you can fast forward through all that if you don’t want to do it as long as your characters are gaining skill experience in battle. At least it was there for those of us who did want to do it AND the battles were fun AND the story and characters were amazing.
@@takeyourheart1 supports exist which really requires doing meals still and doing 10 meals takes forever. and people don't like spending 2 minutes just doing a seminar before the next map it all adds up
@@hibiki8473 buy gift, give gift, unlock supports.
@@matthewsimon6170 still tedious and annoying. And kinda requires going to monastery and that only covers byleth supports that does nothing for supports between students which still makes meals the best way to build those supports espicially with three houses limited unit slots. You do realize that this game has supports with characters not named byleth.
I'd like to see Arlo's take on Fire Emblem: Awakening. That game is the reason we even have modern Fire Emblem, and is often cited as having saved the series.
1. It did save the series
2. Lots of issues it had that you see in modern FE can actually be traced to before awakening.
@black bird I went to type a novel in response to you, but decided that based on your rude and condescending reply, it probably wasn't worth the effort. You seem like the type that likes to argue for the sake of it.
@@kitl5486 you... think I was being rude? The only one being rude here is you. I was being frank and hell, didnt put much emotion into it
@@blackbird7781 1. I don't think you were really being rude. It's just weird that you brought up a completely unrelated point that seems to be contrarian even if it is true (and I do agree it is true). It's also weird the way you framed your initial comment, so it's hard to gauge your intent, since your second point was completely unrelated.
2. Other guy also wasn't being rude. It does seem like you might be the type to argue for the sake of it. He definitely read too deep into it though.
@@kitl5486 i apologize for how I may have come off
Just imagine these graphics and gameplay with three houses level writing… I’m crying for the game that could have been… 😭
Mooood
Nah. It's great.
@@Adalon- I can understand if you don’t mind the writing, that’s fine, but there is nothing great about the writing. It’s just a generic story with generic writing. The combat is the star of this game though.
Three houses level writing is shit
Three Houses writing wasn't even good, but at least it took itself seriously. Engage's writing/ethos/atmosphere etc actively insults you for playing it.
I miss how unique the characters in 3H were gameplay wise outside of their growth rates thanks to their combat arts and personal spell list.
Characters are more unique in engage combat wise though.
My favorite part of this game was when toothpaste beat the dragon and said “Fire emblem is indeed engaged”
One of the fire emblems of all time
@@Dairunt1 that kinda actually happens and I hate it
Dunkey is it you? 😂
I love the part where he said its engaging time and he absolutely engaged everyone
That's basically what they do in the Prologue too. Thank God for the gameplay because this series with its stories just isn't it a lot of the time.
I'm genuinely curious to what Arlo's thought would be on the series if he went back to try some of the earlier entries like the GBA & DS games. Especially with the knowledge of the fanbases' own divided feelings on some of the past entries & their direction. It'd be interesting to see what he likes and thinks about each game.
I've played pretty much every game, and yeah trying to play Binding Blade and Path of Radiance would be very interesting from his takes.
@@nahte123456 radiant Dawn and path of radiance are the peak of the FE Series to me
@@nahte123456 I like PoR because its sequel does so many good things, but without PoR many plotpoints dont hit as hard. I view them like one big game. On its own it isnt nearly as good.
@@DocDoak I've replayed Radiant Dawn so many times, I love it. I've tried an all girls run, all laguz run, runs with just the typical "bad" characters, etc. It's the reason I still have my Wii 😂
I still love the older ones too tho, more than the modern games. Lyn's game, Roy's game, Sacred Stones, all great.
@@DocDoak Same. Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are epic adventure that's my favorite in all gaming. I also loved Echoes and Three Houses.
Note: there was like 1 writer for Engage. 3H had like 4
And it shows...
Generally, the less writers the better. Apparently, not so much in this case
granted there was 4 seperate routes for 3 houses so that might be the reason
@@ThisIslandDoesNotExist Good news, Shouzou Kaga the creator of Fire Emblem made a RPG on Steam called Vertaria Saga 2.
@@orangeslash1667 Vestaria*, not Vertaria.
Just wanted to mention this, in case someone looks for it on Steam.
And yes, both the gameplay and story are amazing. Some of the best Shouzou Kaga has ever made.
Just be aware that the visuals are reeeeeeeally rough due to an almost non-existent budget.
14:57
To contest this point Alear being the "only" avatar protagonist in the series that speaks, Robin and Corrin speak almost all the time in the story and in support conversations, mores Corrin since how big they are in Fates.
Ike spoke a decent amount too, IIRC.
Kris also spoke throughout supports and the story, though the latter was infrequent, since it was mostly during stuff added in the remake
@@lnsflare1Ike isn’t an avatar
@@lnsflare1 the avatars are Kris, Robin, Corrin, Byleth, Shez, and Alear (the ones with customization/gender options). protags from the other games don't count
Also Robin was interesting
I know it was rumored that a remake of FE4 was being worked on at the same time as Engage was being developed, so my theory is that all of Intelligent System's competent writers were on that team. Which would kind of make sense -- for those not familiar with it, FE4 is often considered to have one of the best stories in the series, so nailing that is very important to any attempt at a remake. Also the writing in the FE2 remake was very well done, so it would make sense for it to be the same writers doing the FE4 remake.
I sure hope so. And i also hope they get Hidari back to do the art for the FE4 remake. Her style fits the old games so well. I'd love to see her make consistent appearances directing the art for all the remakes, which are more or less guaranteed to be good writing and gameplay wise.
Edit: Hidari is a girl mb
Is that Genealogy of the Holy War? I got the Cliff's Notes on that one not that long ago and _holy shit,_ it's so clear how much inspiration 3H's story took from it. I'd kill for a modern remake.
I've played Geneology before, it's a melodramatic mess, albeit in a fun way. If they are trying to "improve" that I'll be laughing.
@@Dudeman23rd it is. Or collectively called the Jugdral series, named after the continent it takes place in. The titles are Genealogy of a Holy War and Thracia 776.
Do the old FE games build on one another? I've played since FE fates but I want to get into the older games and based on what you said FE4 sounds like a great place to start unless I'm better off playing the older ones first
I went to a friend's house a few weeks ago and he got me to try out a few minutes of three houses, when I told him I would try a fire emblem he told me I had the choice of three houses or engage, I'm glad I picked three houses.
Just want to say, love how you used a clip from Next Generations of Picard saying "Engage" whenever the word is brought up
Same.
"Let me love you" has been my sentiment towards this game since it was announced. Unfortunately, nothing about it has really got me "Engaged."
*ba-dum tsssss*
Thank youuuu I feel the same way! Something about it did not “engage”’with me like the other fire emblems did 🤔. Maybe it’s how vapid it seems like.. I can’t pin point it
Lol
@@cutejustice I wonder if that vapid feeling kinda has to do with how quickly it was announced and released? Like, it was announced back in September (which is crazy to me haha, it doesn't feel that long ago), but up until maybe a month or two ago it feels like it kinda disappeared off the map a bit? In comparison to Three Houses, which had something more distinct to differentiate it and demonstrate what the game was about to new players alongside what I thought was a pretty interesting series of trailers etc.
(Disclaimer, I'm not an FE fan - this is just from the perspective of someone who loves JRPGs and is curious about the series, so I haven't been following the lead-up to this game a whole lot haha. I do wanna give Three Houses a shot sometime this year!)
@@cutejustice To me it feels like "Whelp, I guess we need to put out a new Fire Emblem. Just make the old characters, but change it so it looks like you're own work."
Weapon Triangle back during PoR and RD era provided a small bonus/penalty to damage and hit rate. It wasn't like you were hard countered by going against it, but it did tip the scales in meaningful ways.
That's pretty much how it was until they just got rid of it in 3 houses. The numbers were adjusted from game to game, but it always amounted to a small numerical bonus to damage and/or accuracy that could easily be compensated for by level different. The break mechanic in Engage is completely new and really redefines how you play the game. It's easily one of the biggest wins for this game.
Many of the older Fire Emblems were very grounded, even mature, strategy games with historical themes, this feels to me a little like they leaned into the over the top characters/anime elements that brought in new players post 3DS
Post 3ds??? Nah the closest to engage was FE Fates
That's been the problem with the franchise for years and I hate it. Wish they'd get back to the earlier games' feel, but anime girls sell...
Ever play any of the fate trio?
Fire emblem has always been anime, even in the very first game. Marth had a fucking anime ova lmao. Fe fans are really going through there xenoblade phase rn
@@slobertooth1358 old fire emblem is not comparable to new FE in terms of the approach on style. Now it’s like weird woke feminist BS compared to to what it was. It’s blatantly obvious
You can definitely find a clear divide in the fandom over this game: If you value the gameplay of FE, you love it. If you value the story and characters in FE, you hate it.
For me personally I’ve always expected the story and characters to be lighthearted so I don’t mind that they’re all simple. I’m enjoying them for what it is. The gameplay and maps are fantastic, and that’s something it clearly has over Three Houses.
Yeah same, I went in expecting a cheesy tropy story and have honestly had a blast the gameplay is just perfect. I even enjoy the characters a lot, don't get me wrong their not three houses level or anything but FE with that kinda writing is the exception most of the time not the norm. I think it really depends on the mindset going in on if someone will enjoy engage.
I value both and i like it, but because i dont mind a game not being like 3H and being more light, only having a serviceable story
@@dig1taltoaster yes I completely agree!
I went in expecting a fun, cheesy story with "twists" that basically combines Awakening, Fates, and Tokyo Mirage Sessions. I was correct, and I love it. The gameplay is fun, though I got to admit, I'm playing on normal Casual, and I love sending everyone but Anna to one side of the map, then having General Anna with Tiki to the other side. It's not the most Strategic, but it's hilarious
honestly FE stories were always kinda weak since FE1, the characters hard carried the narrative of the game, how many FE games can be described as blue haired lord saves everyone from an evil dragon/corrupt king or sometimes both lol
i really wonder how Arlo would feel about Shadows of Valentia, i feel like it does a great job at being a good game as well as a unique fire emblem game. i enjoy the cast of characters, the voice acting, and the story. i believe most importantly, there’s no avatar. seeing Alm and Celica having their own personalities is a lot more interesting than the kind of “blank” avatars
Unpopular opinion: Shadows of Valentia's story was a mess and the gameplay was somewhat haphazard in terms of what was kept the same and what was updated. Alm may have had his own personality, but he was also a blatant Gary Stu that unnaturally distorted the plot around himself in a game that was supposed to be about duality.
@@matthewmuir8884 The good news is that Fire Emblem 7 is available on Nintendo Online, which has a good story and pretty good level design.
SoV is a excelent example of a Fire Emblem story thats super simple but amazingly well executed. I think It has The worst gameplay in The franchise but I cant help clearing It again and again
@@victorrabello4115 Eh; Shadows of Valentia's story had a lot of neat ideas and concepts, but it undermines itself in execution. If you want a Fire Emblem story that's both simple and amazingly well executed, Path of Radiance is the game to play.
@@orangeslash1667 Oh, yay; Fire Emblem 7 is available to rent via an overpriced subscription service. If it were available to purchase, I'd probably buy it and try it since Path of Radiance (FE9) was my first FE game.
Gotta love the commitment to the 'Engage' joke
Yet the content for getting engaged (married) is nowhere to be found. My disappointment is little, and GameDay is good.
Fire Emblem Sacred Stones has a lot of those QoL changes, the weapon triangle and the grounded characters.
Dang, Shez in Three hopes made me very optimistic about the future for player avatars in FE, voiced with dialogue options, the options didn't shape the story really but at least let me choose when I wanted Shez to be sad, happy, angry or just silly.
They were less of a "perfect" avatar, nobody loved them for simply having been blessed being born the avatar and had to work for their plot relevance.
Idk maybe I just prefer underdogs that beats the odds rather than being told how amazing they were for being born a demi god 😅
I agree. I know he doesn’t have dialogue options and isn’t an avatar but the reason I love Ike so much is because he isn’t some noble or divine dragon everyone just happens to love or the plot bends around - he’s just a normal guy who is a hero. No special powers etc. Even in this game I found he stuck out amongst the emblems for this reason.
They really need to either have a "proper" avatar (closer to Kris, Tactician, or Robin), because these attempts at a self-insert are pathetic. Either have the player actually be put in a tactician role (player is literally commanding the army and handling the strategizing, so the role of tactician works), or just have the protagonist not be self insert.
Byleth as a character is wasted potential for me there's a lore reason that Byleth is emotionless at the start, which makes the perfect blank slate for people to control Byleth.
The more time they spend with the students the more emotions they show, which is both adorable and a genius way to explain how they go from a blank slate to whatever personality the player has given Byleth.
But no they have to be completely silent, only saying a few sentences here and there.
Then again I guess it's a good thing because I'm pretty sure everyone would want to kill Byleth if I was genuinely controlling his personality
It really dose feel like a lot of these so called “avatar characters” aren’t really avatars. They are just subpar main characters.
The "engage" gag is charming, i hope you do more of these things
I was expecting a turn when you started off so positive in a video about trying so hard to enjoy Engage, but wow that turn was sharp, haha. Glad to know we always get your honest opinion though
I think when Awakening finally roped me into the series it was the interesting character drama that took me into the game like no other. They turned all the qualities of a great leader in other FE games: positivity, courage, persistence, and devotion to the people; and punished him for it. It was such an awesome build up into that world with some cool twists along the way testing the lovable characters in interesting ways. Whether a character lived or died felt earned and devastating. That was not what I got out of the follow up title Fire Emblem Fates lol. And since then I've played quite a few titles, it just seems like the strengths and weaknesses of each game change. Whether you like the current game or not is based on what you think Fire Emblem is: a character drama, a strategy challenge, an epic narrative, a waifu dating sim lol. The focus will ebb and flow until it hits enough of your preferences that it feels "Fire Emblem" again and then you can expect to skip the next one since the focus will be on the opposite of what you liked next time.
Yeah im skipping this one. The way Arlo is feeling is exactly how i fear i would feel. Im a big character and story driven person. I know myself. I know ill just play it once and the never touch it. Then im gonna feel like i wasted 60$ for nothing.
@@BARALover96 Same boat. I see the FE games of the past and the ones I carry through to the end is always the one with the story that most engages me, this doesn't seem like the one to do that. If it tied in the old lords so that I learned about their history I might go for it, since I haven't played a lot of the older titles and I'm curious. But alas from what I've heard it really doesn't do much of that either.
I appreciate arlo saying that Engage needs more than just good gameplay. I feel like there’s too many people that act like the story and characters in this RPG aren’t important despite that being arguably the most important part of an rpg. I mean this is the same situation as Fates and people hate on that game all the time, so why shouldn’t Engage also get critiqued for it
This ^^^^^^^
I agree story is very important for an RPG no doubt, but gameplay is the most important part of a game regardless of genre, it doesn't matter that a game has a phenomenal story if it has trash gameplay then I'll watch the cutscenes in youtube, like why bother with a game if it's not fun?
The thing is FE is an SRPG, the S standing for Strategy and a lot of people(me included) play FE for the Strategy aspect and that hss been very much lacking in the last 2 entries which focued much more on Story and Characters with very big open and bland map design. Also the characters and story Start to pick up after chapter 10.
To be fair, Fate story felt more... Insulting I guess? So that's probably why it's getting less backlash.
As someone who’s been playing these games since I was like 15 (26 now), a good story is most definitely not what I’m looking for in a fire emblem game 💀 and if it were I would be disappointed 80% of the time.
Yes, gameplay is most important.
I laughed every single time picard appeared. GG Arlo
That meme will never get old.
I usually dislike cut ins because creators on YT these days [or their editors] over edit their content. These were delightful each time.
I agree with most of this review, although I don't like Somniel. It feels more like they stripped most of the interesting stuff from the Monastery, left most of the tedious busywork, then allowed you to ignore most of it. The Monastery could have used improvement, but I feel they made it worse-but-optional. I'd prefer that they scrapped Somniel, and moved the necessary stuff to that post battle exploration.
The usual weapon triangle was typically do one more damage and get 15 more accuracy when you have the advantage while the opponent loses that much damage and accuracy. It was something that typically was a big deal early on then lost relevance. The break mechanic makes the weapon triangle much more important in this game than it's been before.
It kinda also loses relevance when you have enough speed to double attack an enemy or enough avoidance to not care about their attacks. At some point I started using breaks simply to allow weaker units to cash in some of the exp from a defenseless enemy.
I feel the EXACT same way. The gameplay is so fun but I completely checked out of the story. It’s definitely a shame, but for me, the gameplay is fun enough that I wanna keep going just to see what new powers I unlock and how much stronger my units can get
Understandable but I will say that I felt the same in three houses when I first played it, but then part two happened
Fire emblem 3 house is a different series. This is real fire emblem
@@XaphinoCan we have the other series back please?
@@XaphinoI rather have the other one back then. Cause boy was this boring.
The strangest thing about Engage's reception to me is that while from the outside the visuals look like they should appeal to more of the newer "casual" sort of FE fans that have come in from the recent games, ones where character driven stories took center stage, from what I've seen the appreciation Engage gets is actually from the more gameplay focused "veterans" of the FE community, leading to this weird sort of reverse spectrum where the majority older fans like the gameplay and strategy, and the newer fans aren't fond of the dialing back of the character and worldbuilding. Personally its hard for me to pick either 3H or Engage, but after finishing Engage and having about 250 hours in Fodlan I feel like Engage is a breath of fresh air, and its possibly the only FE game where I was willing to try to do Maddening on my second run, right after finishing the first.
It's a very strange discourse to see play out, for me personally I couldn't get into 3H at all; the monastery was overwhelming and story wasn't clicking with me after 5 hours or so. Meanwhile with Engage, I love the combat, art style and while the story isn't anything to write home about, it does enough to keep me going while also being unintentionally hilarious. I think this game really shows the difference a player's personality can make on their enjoyment of the game
@@diabeticman2194 three houses definitely has a slow burn story but it’s infinitely more interesting than engages very basic story when it gets there.
As someone who has played further into the game, I'll say that the story does get better. It's definitely more focused on telling a very simple story, but it's overall functional and it winds up a little more later. I'll say there's a moment in the game that is such a perfect blend of gameplay and its story component that I would beg people to try getting to if they are struggling to play more. It's pretty obvious when it occurs, and it's not too far down the road.
I'll also say that they picked a really bad starting cast for the first 5 or so chapters. They definitely intrigue me less than future characters and feel more tropey than some in the future. The writing outside of supports for individual characters is honestly terrible, and I think it really feeds into the perception that these characters are really based around a single trope. The supports are actually pretty alright and flesh characters out a lot more. It develops characters in an exceptionally different way from Three Houses though, so it's understandable if it's not your cup of tea. Unfortunately, one of this game's greatest weaknesses is that building supports is ABSURDLY slow. They really scaled down how much you can build support in battle, and that's going to make it real hard to get invested in characters.
I agree, I came in with no expectations and the story is alright, but the supports were meh at the beginning even tho I thought they were gonna be great based on how supports usually are (since even Fates had good supports) so I was worried but as I kept going they got so much better and even funny, I also like the fact Alear speaks and actually has his/her consistent personality so it doesn't feel the other characters are monologuing to the avatar like in 3H. But yeah the worst thing they did was throw 2 annoying kids to us at the start, especially Framme with her shrill voice.
@@OArchivesX Of course a story can only be so good to someone if they go in with those type of expectations. Plenty of animated stories can have qualities that make it work even if it's overall goofy or light. The tone is set from opening in the game and just because you don't care for it doesn't mean the writing is inherently terrible for keeping up with it.
If you don't want to bother liking it, just don't. The gameplay is fantastic
honestly, im on chapter 21 and its just... still meh. there's hints of interesting things in alear, but the only thing keeping me playing is a friend who is also playing it and the fact that sigurd is there as an emblem.
@@astrid6130 That's totally fair! I said the story gets better which I still hold to, but it's still not particularly great. I'd call it generically alright pretty consistent with a few really great high points. I understand that it won't really fulfill a lot of players though. I just urge people to give it more of a chance and have fun with it cause the game can be pretty funny sometimes
God, the first 3 chapters of the game are terrible, TERRIBLE! And yes, it did make me question my life choices haha. For starters, like you said. I did not like the characters you start with at all. Flamme is literally everything wrong with fire emblem right now, and as soon as I got another healer, I dropped her immediately. Clanne, while REALLY dumb like his twin. I did warm up to overtime. Also, his voice actor is the same one who voices pit from kid icarus uprising, so I didn't want to be TOO mean because I know those are the type of characters he likes to play. And Vander is literally Fredrick 2.0 down to his and the avatars support.
The problem that I have is just the pure predictableness of the game. Seriously, as soon as I saw the mother I was like "I give her about 10 chapters to live" and I was being generous! Like, holy shit this stupid game!
It does get a little better once you get characters that you like to play as. But the main problem I have is that Engage is trying so hard to be another awakening but completely misses the reasons why that game is so good. Engage relys heavily on past story elements, tropes and cliches to get by. It's like intelligent systems only knows how to write one story (with the exception of 3 houses) and never deviates from it ever. That's what really blows for me because there starting to all feel the same.
Also, as a Ike stan. I did not appreciate the idea that Solm left his ring in a drawer for hundreds of years. Yes, game. He is my favorite. You may spit on me now.
So I will say this. Engage is intended almost exclusively to be a celebration of the franchise as it is the 30 anniversary of the Fire Emblem series. Typically these games either don't leave Japan or they don't have serious stories.
I wish I knew that before I bought it :( I was on the high of the last few Gamez
@@robertterrell7057 yeah. I won't ever preorder a fire emblem game again
I understand that, but they've already done this premise twice before, with Heroes and Warriors. Both are spin-offs, I know, but it's still a pretty tired idea.
Seems like a pretty insulting "celebration" of a series where 90% of its entries aren't officially provided.
It's no excuse for the game to look, sound and feel so lazy and derivative of non-FE media.
@@buddylord3020 I recommend Unicorn Overlord, its strategy RPG published by Sega.
Engage is a perfect example of how graphics and gameplay by themselves are not enough to make a video game great.
I hate so much the art direction i prefer the 3DS models lol
@@Alex254561 Like, say what you will about the visuals of 3H, it felt like there was a grit to it befitting of a game about strategic war.
Engage looks too clean, in comparison. Too polished. Fells weird to complain about the graphics being too good, but there you go.
@@FlyingFocsbro by that logic mario sucks bc it lacks grit and shadow hedgehog is incredible as both involve violence too lol. Gtfoh
@@jdee0i dont think u understand the logic.
@@bigmelonboy4618 I don’t think you do
You are not alone. I kept putting this game down and turning off my switch in the middle of cut scenes. How they manage to be both so bland and use so many words at the same time to do it is worthy of study.
It was so hard to stay invested when there was so much clear plot armor dictating what happened at any moment.
The combat is admittedly good. Good enough to get me to try maddening mode for once. That was fun until it wasn't.
“It is written: ‘Arlo shall not live on gameplay alone, but on every word of good dialogue that comes from the mouth of a character.’”
- Book of Arlo 4:4
Which is quite weird, given him like pikmin with almost no dialogue, and the story being gather materials to escape world. Arlo review is also very disappointing.
@@Kronos777Lusos Pikmin games may not have story as a strength but they're very atmospheric, immersive games. That's probably why Arlo likes pikmin and three houses - he can get immersed in the game's world.
@@dinar8749 FE Engage can also be very atmospheric when chilling out in Somniel, a village in a floating island up there in the sky. And regarding dialogue and story, it gets better after chapter 10. Nitpicking the game (to outright stop playing the game) because of the hair colour or characters choices of boutique, or how animesque the game presents itself is just borderline stupid in my book. From my side I played 3h, engage and older FEs (including my personal best: Genealogy of the Holy War) and I enjoyed all of them equally.
@@Kronos777Lusos There may not be much story but the writing in Pikmin 1 was genuinely great. It communicates the spirit of an overworked Japanese businessman with deftness and humour.
@@Kronos777Lusos What's a "nitpick" for you with the game's story and tone, is a deal breaker for us.
I want good dark fantasy games in general, and I was hoping fire emblem would deliver with its next game. Clearly it didn't, so I've gone with Elden Ring and it's a lot better. At least Fromsoft has the balls to make a dark fantasy game these days when nintendo doesn't.
I think it'll be the next FE game that sees the consequences of 3H's success. 3H and Engage were developed in tandem by two separate divisions and they were meant to release roughly around the same time for the FE anniversary.
Due to Covid though, Engage was pushed back and polished, making it feel more like a sequel than a parallel, celebratory anniversary game. I could be wrong, but I suspect the next non-remake FE game will be the one where IS recognises that people play FE for gameplay AND story and not one or the other.
Also, this game was actually designed for kids. That's not a slight, it's the devs honest opinions. In an interview they said they chose Mika Pikazo to lead art direction because her art style appeals to a younger audience and EVERYTHING from the silly characters to the Saturday morning cartoon plot to the' Emblem ENGAGE!' Power Rangers call supports that. Its why so many fans have issue with the presentation of the game - we're literally not the target audience.
I can understand why they went the rout they did, trying to attract new younger fans isn't a bad thing, but you can have a game that appeals to kids and still has an interesting deep story/characters/world for the older fans. Having a simplistic story with hidden depths is actually more interesting in my opinion.
yeah, its just tonally completely different. EVEN to the gba games or fates, which are the ones they are most compared to - and you can see that as soon as the intro comes on.
i like toketsu so i don’t really mind it, that stuff does appeal to kids but that doesn’t have to be a negative or mean adults cant enjoy it. also this story isn’t really that kid friendly, its not even particularly light hearted.
@@demifolk8940 No no no, you don’t understand. If something feels like it’s appealing to kids, then I, as an adult, am physically incapable of enjoying it! /s
@@windbrush yea honestly the same mentality that people use to hate on nintendo games like pokemon, zelda, mario, etc. like all ages ≠ kid stuff. All ages just means something everyone can enjoy, “kid stuff” is like cocomelon and dora and shit lmao
I personally think for what was originally the Anniversary Game that was suppose to release back in 2020 but Covid happened thus why we have a more laid back yet traditional FE story of good vs evil (hero vs dragon) esque story, which honestly I'm completely fine with, its celebrating the roots of the games origins.
The leak that originally showed Engage will likely point us to a Genealogy of the Holy War remake, so if you want a more story driven FE, that one will likely be what you want. Personally I'm enjoying this a lot, I like both story driven or gameplay focused FE games
If that was the issue, I don’t see the issue with it simply being a late anniversary thing with the teaser being put in place of an anniversary release
I want a remake of that game so bad, but as a remake. I wonder if they would actually go through with "certain story elements" in that game or change it to be a happier ending. Fire emblem already has a major problem with killing off characters on screen. I just wonder if the team will have the balls to show it. You know...without the censorship of course...
Geneology is a huge undertaking for a remake. I imagine we won't see a trailer til autumn or early winter
@@ThisIslandDoesNotExist They mention how Sigurd dies in Engage. He is absolutely not making it out of a FE4 remake alive
@Vanja Galović omg I noticed that too! Like actually wtf??? If it's rumored that they are making a remake of holy war. They just ruined the BIGGEST plot point for everyone. Great job, intelligent systems. Great job.
If Mario had this grand of a story, you'd think it would be the coolest thing since the mini fridge. But reminder that tropes aren't inherently bad, it's all on execution and the concept as a whole.
Anyone notice how Louis almost always has his eyes closed, but he always says stuff like "that was eye opening" and "I love looking at people"
Arlo would have loved the Fire Emblem Path of Radiance + Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn combo. One of the best gaming experiences in my entire life. But then again, who wouldn't? NOPE, DON'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION.
I would :D
I really loved Path of Radiance, but I just couldn't get into Radiant Dawn. I hated the Dawn Brigade, and not being able to play Ike until part 3(?) soured me on it even more. I never finished it.
Radiant Dawn is really not that good.
Radiant Dawn is outstanding. Music is godly, story is full of twists, the characters are fantastic. Really hope we get a duo pack of those games someday.
@@Jaekization frankly, i really didn't like the Tellius setting or story. Ike and Micaiah arent all that engaging as characters and the setting itself has so many blind spots that its insane.
Finally someone else says it. This game is alright, but the awful writing hurts it so badly and so many characters are bland or one note
To be fair, Fire Emblem has always had pretty mid writing. Like literally every game is about a big bad dragon. It's like expecting a Pokemon game to be any different than the last nowadays
The character depth not being very good is unfortunate though, usually the characters do shine through the most
@@Novatius The Tellius games exist. Comment disregarded
@@Novatius there have been some pretty great stories like FE4 and Path of Radiance and Three Houses
@@TerrorNova777 LMAO alright that's big true. Path of Radiance was the only FE game I actually played more than once
@@Novatius FE8 had a giant demon.
I also started with 3 houses in the franchise and I’ve enjoyed what I played of Engage, but I far prefer nearly everything about 3 houses over Engage.
I’d making a joke about Arlo not finding the gameplay “engaging”, but that would be too easy
After all, bad puns are best when they’re hard to gage.
My guy, you win best Internet comment for today lol.
You're having your internet privileges revoked
the duality of man
Honestly kind of feel like I'm alone in my enjoyment for the game. Initial I went in with no expectations because of reviews, but so far it's been a fun experience.
I really like the characters.
I'll just say that I think I'll be replaying this game a lot more than Three houses because the flow of gameplay is just better.
If you've never played an old school Fire Emblem game this is very much traditional in every way except for the Bond/Engage systems
I agree! I know exactly how you feel. I’ve been replaying the 3DS games recently instead of 3H because it feels so hard get through, but I think this game might change that.
You aren't alone. I am loving it. Gameplay was kinda bland in Three Houses so it's nice to have the tighter system in place. Engages characters are also good imo.
You're not alone. Been having a blast playing it!
I honestly like the characters more than the ones in 3H, because the game knows how to reign in the dialogue. A lot of the 3H character just talk way too much, and it got annoying for me.
Fun fact : in the game's imternal data this game is coded as "iron 19" ( every FE game is intrrnally coded as iron ) while 3 Houses was coded as "iron 17" meaning that a game was supposed to release before this one , and judging by the constant rumors and Sigurd being the 2nd most important emblem story wise , it probably was the FE4 remake fans been begging for for ages
Does the Warriors Spinoff have an Iron Number?
@@Cleruian nope , 3 hopes internally is internally clasified as "Seasons"
Sorry for bringing up this question on your comment 4 months later, since FE3H is considered FE16 in public but iron17 internally, was there a missing entry somewhere? Or was Fates split up into two internal version numbers?
@@ClaySmileSoil it was due to a scrapped game before Awakening
@@AlexT7916 Ahh interesting, I might look up more about it now that I have a starting point, thanks for the info
Honestly, I was worried about this the first time I saw the trailers for the game. The main selling point they pushed was how you can relive your nostalgia with all these old Fire Emblem heroes from previous games. "Team up with Marth, Roy, Lyn, Ike, Lucina, etc." I thought if their biggest draw to their new game was how you can use all their old characters, it didn't bode well for the new characters if they didn't warrant a mention in the trailers. And your video seems to confirm it. If I want to play with the old characters, I could play Awakening. Or, you know, the older games that these characters came from. If I'm getting a new Fire Emblem game, I want to meet and enjoy a bunch of new characters. Not gonna lie, hearing this disappoints me, especially after how awesomely the Three Houses characters were written and realized. Hell, even the writing in Three Hopes, a Dynasty Warriors/Fire Emblem spin-off game based on Three Houses, is pretty damn well written! Anyway, thanks for the video man, I think I'm gonna hold off on getting this one for a while. If you do manage to beat it, I would love to see a review video, but if you can't bring yourself to finish it, I totally understand.
As a side note, breaking the opponent's stance with a weapon attack that has advantage is new to this game. In the past, advantage in the weapon triangle simply increased your chance to hit as well as granted bonus damage.
It's a massive shame the writing and dark fantasy stuff has dropped hard from three houses and hopes.
I disagree that the somniel is less of a time consumer than the monastery. The somniel gives me series fomo about getting the hundreds to thousand band crystals available after every skirmish, most tied up behind minigames, while the monastery I had a little round to make at the first of each month, and any following trips that month was just focused on a specific goal of either fish, meals, or trainings that went quick.
You got me dead on. I remember multiple times having a tough time in some battles or feeling a little fatigue while playing FE3H. Every time without fail I didn’t push through because the game play was great. It was because I was invested with my students. I wanted to see every one of them succeed . I’m only on chapter 8 of engage and can’t bring myself to play. I have no connection w a single character and it feels so bad 😢
this is probably the worst game to go from after three houses I see those two games as polar opposites, all of three houses weak points are engages strong points and all of engage's weak points are three houses strong points
The problem is that Three Houses kind of half-screwed the newcomers who started with it. That game is so God-forsaken different from the whole series that it probably makes going to ANY game in the series hard due to the false expectations it unintentionally gave.
@@ramenbomberdeluxe4958 yeah as soon as arlo said he only played 3 houses i was like, well that explains it
@@ramenbomberdeluxe4958 I started with 3H and ended up preferring the 3DS games. The monastery is too much of a slog.
@@duskblooms Honestly, the gameplay transition isnt the issue, the style of it was, so im glad you ended up finding your love of the 3ds games, which themselves admittedly have differences too but not as severe.
If you want a Fire Emblem experience that plays accesibly to modern fans, while also having a top tier story, Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn got you covered. Now getting your hands on them legally would be quite the ordeal xD
Also, the TWO storylines you missed in Three Houses? How presumptive ;)
Yeah; Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are easily two of the best FE games; Path of Radiance, to this day, is still my favourite video game of all time.
Well, Silver Snow and Verdant Wind are basically the same story (right down to Verdant Wind having cutscenes and dialogue that only make sense in the context of Silver Snow), so 'two stories that Arlo missed' is kind-of correct.
@@matthewmuir8884 The good news is that Fire Emblem 7 is available on Nintendo Online, which has a good story and pretty good level design.
Arlo videos always make my day. :)
Glad to hear Arlo finished 3 Houses too. I love 3 Houses so much.
While I disagree on the Academy vs. Somniel, I 100% agree on pretty much everything else you said. I loved Three Houses, Awakening, and Sacred Stones for their stories and characters, but in Engage they're just... ugh. I did multiple playthroughs of the other games because I wanted to learn more about the characters and the worlds they lived in. In Engage I talk to the characters because the game says I have to. I'll probably treat Engage like Fates, one playthrough and then never touch the game again.
Three Houses is like hanging out with your best friend, you never want it to end and keep coming back for more. Engage is like spending time with your weird cousin because your parents said so.
Leading up to this game I was despising it, but having gotten to play it I actually find a lot of enjoyment out of it, despite being a more classic fan.
It's not at all the game I would point people to in order to show them why I love Fire Emblem, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying the game
The one thing I hate is the focus on past characters for nostalgia bait. It's a lack of any creativity or thought in making a decent story and cast. IS could do it in the past with Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance. I am on the fence of getting this game simply because of the bait with the ring emblem mechanic. Also I hear the characters are worse than Fates' characters. Makes the ones from awakening look like Tolkien's work.
Really good video! One thing I thought I would mention as you said you were a Three Houses fan, (but said the visuals weren't that great and maybe that was a budget thing), is that a lot of the game's budget I believe went into a feature many players don't even realize is there. If you press + while in combat on any map, it zooms in very close, and you can navigate the map in third person POV with your characters. The maps are incredibly detailed and the visuals on those maps, at least on the newer switch, are really high quality! They didn't include this in Engage thankfully though. While I thought it was amazing, it also felt unnecessary, and it was harder to play the game in 3rd person POV. It was more immersive, and I tried to play a playthrough completely in this zoomed in POV, but I got a headache fast as there was so much to look at on a colorful fantasy battlefield. Anyways, you may have known about the POV and still thought the game's visuals weren't that great, and that is totally fine! I thought the visuals weren't great in the monastery, but when you were in the actual zoomed in battles the game got unexpectedly polished, and it is a shame that many players missed that feature. I may not have battled much in the zoomed POV, but I always loved flying around the maps in this POV looking at the incredible detail of the maps.
They basically turned the ground level POV into the explore sections!
They made the maps super detailed just like in Three Houses, and used them a whole lot better this time!
It seems like there was a deliberate decision not to include the POV since the maps were already made for that kinda thing. I'm glad they didn't add it personally, it was pretty pointless, and iirc the zoom in button instead became the really useful engage shortcut button so that's great
It's so true that even just a few interesting characters or ideas would've made a huge difference. I don't think Fire Emblem Awakening's story will rock anyone's world, and some of the paint-by-numbers plot elements from Engage are straight up lifted from Awakening. But its Big Idea was the time travel, and Lucina's story was the hook that made me a hundred times more motivated to play it despite the fact that its map design and gameplay are (imo) worse than Engage. It also managed to make some of the same basic plot elements more interesting by injecting a bit more flavour and depth - e.g. Robin as the amnesiac protagonist with a forgotten dark past had a more grounded and distinct personality than Alear, and their bond with Chrom gave me something to invest in. It's funny to look back at how some people used to complain about Awakening being 'too anime' or its characters too one dimensional when Engage's cast makes them look very deep by comparison.
Modern FE fans are being criticized the most
Robin is the best avatar by far and Awakening's story is very underrated these days.
Alear is a much better protagonist than Robin.
@@dinar8749 their study is never that good
@@ausgod538 🧢
I loved 3H for the sort of “life sim” aspects and being able to choose your loyalties and im assuming it isnt quite the same in this game
The "life sim" aspects are mostly the same, but no more constant changes to dialogue, full voice acting and no more teaching. There are also no more route splits, like in 3 Houses
The life sim aspects are greatly toned down in Engage. This game is much more gameplay focused.
This plays more like a traditional Fire Emblem game and is more of a celebratory anniversary title.
Ignore the second and especially third replies. Past FEs are NOT like this
This game does a great job at making me want to go through another run of 3h with a separate house. Something I said I'd never do because it takes too much time. Now that run will be my replacement for engage. 10/10 combat. Story and characters? 2/10. 3 if I'm being generous
I picked my favorite characters(ones that seemed normal and didn’t worship the Divine Dragon) and I’ve been loving it ever since! It only took 10 hours to get enough for a full team, but it’s worth it.
I mean... They all revere the Divine Dragon for the most part. Though I do like that Alfred just wants to be friends and stuff.
@@cragl3yman343 reverence is VERY different from worship.
Yeah ya def have to pick the characters that dont worship and respect you or in merrin's case worships how rare of a creature your character is. Those thst dont worship them seem to also often be 2 dimensional rather than 1 dimensional
i much prefer the brodia characters over lythos and firene for this reason
@@jeremygardner3183 the character is literally a demigod, do you want them to not act like this? lmao it makes sense in the story
Honestly, starting with Three Houses must be the most difficult starting point for any fan I've seen. There's starting with Awakening and Fates or even Echoes, which themselves are very much the modern games they were built to be, and then theres how different Three Houses is. Its like starting players with Gaiden before Echoes ever came out, its just super experimental and not representative of the franchise proper.
I worry how many fans wont like the series proper due to the whiplash there is. I dont hate 3H, I love the game, but goodness...what a game to start on for people. Hopefully I'm just overthinking things lol
EDIT: To be clear, my main concern is *style and gameplay* more than actual difficulty. Three Houses has its own flair, its own flavor, I'm sure fans can understand the mostly simpler gameplay fo other games, its just the style that worries me.
Yeah we're definitely seeing a divide amongst fans kinda like how when persona 3 came out.
honestly if they cleared 3 Houses as their first game i think they'll be able to adapt somewhat, although only *if.*
I watched my sister play 3 Houses and the amount of times she was confused on the menus or what something did, let alone the insane amount of stuff the game throws at you (especially at the start) would definitely make it a hard starting point, because it was.
For me it always helped that I recognized FE writing and gameplay can be so malleable. Want a basic story? Play the Archanean games. Play Birthright and Valentia.
Want a deep and rich story? Play 3H and FE4 (or wait for the remake that I know is next) or the Radiant games.
Wanna play a game with great gameplay? Well that's most FE games, but the really good stuff is Conquest and FE3 and 12.
Idk. For me as long as the characters are fantastic and the story is coherent enough, I'm good. I think I know what I'm getting into with Engage and I like it so far...I'm still really mad at the absolutely absurd changes to most of the S Supports. I cant romance Rosaldo but I can in the JPN version. One job localizers. You had one job.
@@chickennugget6684 Honestly, its not like going from three houses to traditional fire emblem is a difficult thing in terms of, well, difficulty. I'll add an edit here for clarity, but my main concern is *style and gameplay* more than actual difficulty. Three Houses has its own flair, its own flavor, I'm sure fans can understand the mostly simpler gameplay fo other games, its just the style that worries me.
3 houses Really isn't that unique it is actually pretty similar to FE 4 but that never was released in the West.
Sacred Stones was my introduction to Fire Emblem. Some of the best sprite art i had ever seen, but permadeath was just brutal. I loved it but in the same way you learned to love Crash Bandicoot after accepting defeat. If you want to try some of the more modern titles, try the 3ds titles, especially awakening and echoes. A lot of people swear by the ones on switch and gamecube as well.
I think you would like Awakening, it almost feels like a halfway in between Three Houses and Engage.
Ironically I really liked this entry over three houses. The battles feel more fun and interesting, with the customization of the exact units being super fun to tinker around and try out new combinations with.
It’s interesting to see the divide between the people who really like the life-sim/interaction aspects of this modern fire emblem design and those who play it for the tactics gameplay.
(I should say, I still really enjoyed Three Houses, only gripe with it was the 2 hours of conversation and monastery management after each battle got a bit exhausting)
I love three houses allows you to Get more into the characters. but my god, there is so much conversation that you have to do in order to get everything out of the game.
In engaged, You get right to the combat but the fact that the main character just openly trusts and not questioning everyone that walks up to her (or him) is annoying like "oh this random girl that was a missing sister and has now showed up in 2 different places where I am and has SHACKLES ON HER FEET. She seems really nice, no reason to question this or investigate"
People who like Three Houses don't always like it for the "social/ life sim" element. I like it because it has good characters, lore, worldbuilding and music. Plus it's fun gameplay wise.
You don't need social stuff to have good characters. That's just how Three Houses chose to do it.
im honestly having a much better time in engage then i did 3 houses. the lore and world building in 3 houses was amazing and had me invested in all the characters, but the monastary takes way too long and had me not wanting to return (still have yet to actually finish it.) where it commonly took me 2-3 hours of running around talking to people before i felt like i could procced in the game.
engage tho, i constantly have the urge to play it. it feels like the difficulty of the old fire emblems while keeping the QOL of the new ones.(i am playing on madding. so while id say my own mistakes are just as punishing as i would expect, i can admit it feels extremely annoying to consistently have to restart a stage due to multiple 3% crits.) aswell as im not spending long periods of time in the somiel meaning that i can get right back to the story or the combat.
MY one major complaint (outside of the earlier crit mention, fates suffered from the same low % crit issue, so its not fair to think its just this game.) is that the time turner does not actually tell you how many uses it has left in this. i know that in normal its infinite use, but i kinda wish that for madding it would show how many charges are left incase i lose count. (wich is a lot with how long some of these stages can go for...... looking at you tiki!) 3 houses and echoes kept track of this, so maybe its just a minor nickpick.
Did you Watch the video? The likes the tone down in life sim stuff. But like most People he doesn't enjoy the story and the character
@@megasora4 There actually is a usage amount tracker for the time crystal in the bottom left hand corner. It's hard to see and they never point it out so I don't blame you if you missed it.
Chain attack is gamechanger for me. My top 3 favorite mechanics in order, 1.chain atk 2.break 3. Returning weapon triangle. Bonus, the 3 turn engage(because im a sucker for transforming mechanics)
I'm almost half through the game and the two brightest spot so far is the music (haven't heard all the tracks but liking what I heard so far but it aint as good as 3 houses yet) and the dog Sommie. It's asleep animation is adorable
it's interesting because i felt like engages music is pretty average and sommie is really not cute lmao. but i respect your opinion
What track are you talkin about that was good cause none of them have sounded great yet
This may sound kind of weird, but I quickly learned that I could only play this game after I came home from the gym. I had to play it like that because my adrenaline is still pumping. If I don't I literally find myself falling asleep during the game. That is not a good sign. That never happened for me with Three Houses. I put in over 300 hours into Three Houses and the only time I would get sleepy was about after 200 hours during the battle phases. Three Houses kept me going because I wanted to get all 3 endings. But Engage has me working overtime in the real world just to help me stay awake both for the story and gameplay.
I feel like the quality of the writing is very weirdly paced. Having finished the game recently, spent a whole bunch of hours with the writing living down to my worst fears of the game (When I saw the art style and character crossover aspect, was pretty much immediately pessimistic), but then it suddenly gets way better after a while. Supports start opening up to reveal more interesting relationships and nuances with quite a lot of the characters, and the plot beats and character interactions in the story suddenly have a noticeable uptick in quality and impact. The conclusion is very predictable, but, there's some genuinely good stuff that happens on the way to get there.
But, that said, being extremely disappointed with the writing during early impressions of the game is 100% valid, and I would've said pretty much exactly all of the same things that our good blue fuzzy fellow was saying here early on as well.
I agree that some elements of the story and character interactions get kinda interesting, but every potential decent moment is just murdered by the dialog. Any interesting interaction is ruined by the characters talking like they were children roleplaying.
He probably just shouldn’t have made a first impressions after 10 hours bc the characters and story really do grow on you. It was cringe at first for me but then at about 15 hours it all started to gel.
@@jdee0 10 hours is more than enough time for someone to decide if a story is worth getting through
@@AkameGaKillfan777 you a 3H fan? maybe a persona fan? I am. Anyways, imagine an actual critic judging those games after 10 hours for 100k+ thousand to see. Now, does that sound like a disservice to you?
@@jdee0 Depends on how they got to their conclusion
Everyone online and the one person I know irl has all said this is closer to FE Awakening which I can see myself enjoying. I’ve been playing since the gba days so it’d be nice if every game was differing levels of seriousness.
This game is very much a classic FE experience
This game is like the GBA Fire Emblems. The story takes awhile to pick up but its good. Don't listen to the Three Houses babies
@@-lord1754 or the media
@@therealjaystone2344 Exactly bro. This game is fire.
@@-lord1754 I guess it's a matter of taste, but as a long-time fan who started with GBA and has fond memories of it, nothing I've seen about Engage appeals to me.
Arlo: I still have to finish playing through the three houses
Me, shoveling popcorn in my mouth: four. *crunch Then the hidden fifth house.
Only 5?
"Is this how you honor the Sixth House and the tribe unmourned?"
One of my favorite FE games is Awakening. It was the first to introduce some of the quality of life changes present in modern games and there are a lot of interesting characters, good 3D, and a world map.
It was a bit on the easy side compared to later games though, a lot of broken mechanics that got balanced later, but I honestly liked that too.
Sacred Stones had a world map tho
@@thew00dsman79 yeah. A world map was not the "quality of life changes" I was talking about. Casual mode, rewind turns, an explorable home base, reclassing into completely different classes, customising skills, stuff like that. (I know awakening didn't have all those, but it started some of them).
The "interesting characters, good 3D, and a world map" comment was things it had in addition to modern features.
I do really like sacred stones though, and its world map is a big part of the reason why.
@@thew00dsman79 If you really want to go further back, Gaiden had the first world map introduced to the series.
@@sowianskiwojownik5973 touché
@@sowianskiwojownik5973 The good news is that Fire Emblem 7 is available on Nintendo Online, which has a good story and pretty good level design.
Plot really started to pick up for me around chapter 8, got pretty solid in chapter 10
But I definitely, DEFINITELY understand where you're coming from, haha. OH and Awakening or Echoes: Shadows of Valentia for 3DS are the games I recommend playing, if you're looking for still having that quality of life alongside good gameplay alongside a solid story, etc
But that's just me
I rather enjoyed the middle of the game, but the plot and the map design really started to fall off hard in the last arc. The plot got so bad, it was like total whiplash from one new arbitrary plot point to another with no rhyme or reason. The maps, also got a bit boring, where you had to flight the same bosses over and over again. There were a couple of decent levels tossed in there but overall the story was such garbage it's a real chore to get through at the end. The gaiden chapters will amazing though.
The dialogue definitely improves as you move forward. It’s still not ~good.~ but it’s a major improvement from the beginning of the game. Path of radiance for the game cube and radiant dawn- it’s direct sequel for the wii, might be more up your ally. Or maybe you’d like awakening for the 3DS. Go with those games if you want to back track.
Man, I don't comment that often, but the brick dropping at the end freaking sent me. Bravo, Arlo.
As a big fire emblem fan, I was really worried about the characters, I just couldn't enjoy any of them. With the sheer amount of characters they give you throughout the story I found a cast I really liked by about chapter 8. They're not the most original but just fun enough to get me to look over it and focus on the top notch gameplay
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“Do you need some scissors?”
Me: well yes actually I could use so-
“Well too bad these are mine”
:(
I think exactly as you OMG. Not able to finish the game because character and story suck. I have been thinking to go back and finish it but I just can't. Then I hear there's censorship in localization and I know it's time to quit.
Many say Engage is much better than 3H but for me 3H is miles ahead. The characters themselves make me finish multiple playthroughs in 3H while Engage can't even motivate me to touch it.
The ONLY thing I’ll give engage doing better is gameplay it’s really fun. However it’s uninteresting because you don’t care about anything like the story and characters since they are so boring and way to tropeish (characters falling into tropes is normal but engage does it in a annoying way where it’s like their definitive trait and don’t do anything with it. Not to mention they crank it up to 11 when it comes with the tropes)
@@Yoshixandir I recommend Unicorn Overlord, its strategy RPG published by Sega.
A lot of people speculated that this game was made to be commemorative game for the 30th anniversary, but ended up getting delayed as a result of the last few years. With that being the case I can see why the writing takes a hit, unfortunately, because it's trying to just be tongue and cheek and means of getting the gang together.
I also started FE with 3H and feel the same way as you about this game. I'm hopeful that the story/characters in the next mainline game will be at the same caliber as 3H was. 🤞🏻
Honestly I felt the exact same way about 3H, I loved it and was ready to dive into a 2nd playthrough, but it was a slog to keep doing all of the schools stuff again. I really feel like there should have been an option to just start at the time skip.
thats one thing 3 hopes fixed by having the split path start early. too bad thats a spinoff
I wouldn't want to start at the time skip. But just some way to make exploring the monastery less tedious. Maybe just add a button to grab all the items.
@@niconoodles6989 I recommend Unicorn Overlord, its strategy RPG published by Sega.
What really sucks is that the terrible dialog and cutscenes have to be individually skipped. I literally spam the start button and jump from one black screen to the next because there are just so many cut scenes and moments of dialog.
I recommend Unicorn Overlord, its strategy RPG published by Sega.
Fire Emblem Engage had this issue.
How am I supposed to be hyped about Sigurd if I can't even play the game in English?
How am I supposed to be hyped about Ike if I can't play the game without a scalper milking it?
How am I supposed to be hyped about Lucina and Celica if you literally just shut down the 3ds shop?
I can't be hyped about a big love letter to the fire emblem games across t he series when I have no way of knowing who the freak any of them are.
@Meku I regularly sail the high seas, but for a company that despises it so much, Nintendo doesn't seem to be interested in preventing it via accessibility.
Reminds me of how at one of the end of Excelblem's videos he mocked each of the Emblems disappearing by saying they're telling you to buy their games, all of which except for 3 Houses aren't officially for sale.
Great job advertising there, Nintendo. Happy fucking anniversary 🙄
@@helarki4309 I recommend Unicorn Overlord, its strategy RPG published by Sega.
@@orangeslash1667that doesnt have sigurd, ike, celica, or anyone of note in it though?
@@wheatbread2944 But the topic is strategy games have a good story, something that Fire Emblem is struggling with right now.
I’m loving the game so far. Very reminiscent of Awakening, fantastic gameplay. I put about 500 hours into Awakening and 280 into three houses so I like both types of Fire Emblems and I think I’ll put quite a few hours into this one as well.
The game is no where near as good as awakening tho let’s be real
I think Engage has a better gameplay overall, both are similar, but Maddening is much better than Lunatic+, and while I like Pair Up, I think Fates did it much better, so Awakening's Pair Up is ehhhhh. Engage is a really cool mechanic too.
@@TheBrownLamb it’s far more fun than Awakening at the very least. Awakening had some terrible maps, unbalanced mechanics, and got real stale really quick. Gameplay-wise, Engage is up there with Conquest imo
@@TheBrownLamb nah, argue on the story and characters being subjective, fine
the gameplay is better, the maps are better, and maddening feels balanced unlike lunatic awakening's "chrobin emblem"
@@TheBrownLambEngage runs circles around Awakening. Their storylines have comparable quality but Engage’s gameplay is a million times better
I was personally hoping that Three Houses would be the template for FE games going forward.
i was hopping a good FE but i didn't touch it because the art direction triggered big trash anime alert in my brain
Definitely dig up some old fire emblem games. Fire emblem awakening on the 3ds is one of my favorite games. Absolutely lovable characters and a really engaging story (pun intended). Also it's not hundreds of hours like three houses.
Definitely a solid entry.
How many hours is awakening?
@@panuru9175 not long
@@panuru9175 I don't really know exactly how long my own playthrough was but if I had to guess probably around 30
shadow dragon and new mystery on ds are also incredible if you find a translated rom for the ladder
I think it's very commendable that FE can go from over the top designs to more down to earth design than back to the over the top design. Truthfully, I love both types of designs. And hey, if you don't like the design of the new one. You can always go back to the last one or wait for the next one. That will have a style change again.
Exactly. That can really be said about the game in general. If you don't like it... wait for the next one. It's not like a Zelda where youre gonna be waiting 7 years.
@@WhyYouWahYoo well to be fair this one took 4. So it's not gonna be a short wait.
Yeah, I think an FE4 remake is coming soon, so we’ll be heading back to more grounded designs + story choices again
"Don't like it, don't buy it."
What a non-defense
I tried so hard to like it, I really do. However the story and character is so boring it makes my brain rots. People keep gushing about gameplay, bruh its a fire emblem game, you move your character in a map, I've done it hundred times before, I'll do it hundred times more. At least 3H tries to be different in some way. I want more to my game than just gameplay.
So far I love it! Back to basics for Fire Emblem. I was never a big fan of the dating sim aspects of Fire Emblem, but I can see why people who have only played Three House may have challenges getting into Engage.
Yeah it's all about perspective if you go in expecting deep characters and complex politics like FE4 or FE3H then I'd look elsewhere but if want a goofy by-the-books fantasy with some of the best gameplay in the series then engage for sure.
@@dig1taltoaster yeah, engage is more faithful to the series. 3H went off the rails.
@@Guy-cb1oh developed by Koei Tecno in addition to Intelligent Systems, maybe that's why it was different.
I get why some people, especially those who really enjoyed Three Houses, might not like engage. But to someone like me who really values gameplay, this return to tradition is exactly what I wanted, I love it.
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Really interested in your take on some other games in that case. Awakening, Binding Blade, Path of Radiance. All having such different balances on story/characters and gameplay. Fire Emblem is a very 'fluid' series, almost no games really feel alike outside of maybe the GBA trio. Even Path of Radiance and it's sequel don't really feel alike.
I would say start with path of radiance, but that would require buying the cd and the GameCube which would be worth hundreds of dollars.
If he really wanted to. Emulate it. Since the 3ds shop is down. You know, forever. Getting his hands on awakening or fates might become difficult now since there is no way to emulate 3ds games (I think) at the moment.
@@ThisIslandDoesNotExist 3DS emulation has been a thing for a while, Awakening and Fates even have a decent modding scene.
@joao neto oh that's good. I didn't know that. I'm unsure what can be emulated now and what can't. I know that dolphin is a super new thing for emulating GameCube games, but that's as far as my understanding goes with that. With motion controls. I'm assuming emulating wii games is either extremely hard, tricky to program, or is just impossible haha.
@@ThisIslandDoesNotExist Dolphin is actually a double one for Gamecube and Wii.
3DS has Citra and some pretty fun mods for the games aside from Echoes (which i don´t know if it ever managed to run well). Some stuff like personal weapons for the other princesses in Fates, game overhauls (Project Thabes and Silent waves, i haven´t tested Silent waves.), a Re localization for Fates, Voice mods that have characters speak when selected like in Echoes onwards. Some fun stuff.
@@ThisIslandDoesNotExist The good news is that Fire Emblem 7 is available on Nintendo Online, which has a good story and pretty good level design.
"it's making me dream of a bigger, more consistent connected fire emblem world" i have good news arlo, the alear design leak also mentioned that a remake of genealogy of holy war is in the works and genealogy had humonguous maps with most of the continent being mapped out just by chapter maps!
Checked out some art from the character designer, and it honestly looks amazing. The over-the-top colorful style works for splash art and vtubers but man they really toned it down for Fire Emblem and it leaves it in this awkward spot where it isn't committing to the crazy colors of her style but it looks way too colorful and overdesigned for a medieval fantasy setting.
Kudos to the editor for putting in the Picard clip whenever Arlo says engage XD