Fire Emblem Engage was a welcome surprise for me. On one hand, it has arguably the best gameplay in the entire series, but to balance this, it probably has one of the most cliche and basic stories in the entire series.

To begin with, the story isn’t that good. It’s a bunch of tropes meshed into one and it’s just really boring. It’s not bad, just not good either. There’s really not much else to say without getting spoilery but that’s my thoughts on the story.

I enjoyed a lot of the cast. Yes, a few of them can be annoying at times like Clanne, Framme, and Alfred, but some were pleasantly enjoyable. I didn’t expect to enjoy Goldmary as much as I did, and her support conversations with various units (including Ike) just made me laugh. I also enjoyed Kagetsu, Ivy, Fogado, and Timerra. I liked how units also had support conversations with the different emblems, and you got some pretty funny lines from certain conversations, and some callbacks from others.

In contrast to the story, the gameplay is kind of peak. Emblem rings, engaging, and the break system are all welcome additions to the series (albeit some of these things are kind of busted). Having the weapon triangle back in the form of the break system is great and it honestly makes gameplay a lot more strategical to prevent enemies from being able to counterattack. Like Three Houses, the game is more lenient with class variation, but it is just more worth it to stay in their base class, or one with a similar role (unless your Anna). I find using Backup units hilarious, seeing the battle menu say that 6 allies will do 4 damage to the enemy, a really great addition imo, even though it sounds and plays really stupidly because you can just make an entire army of backup units. Emblem abilities are kinda bonkers and can really turn the tide of battle into your favour, and I love how enemy units can also use these emblem abilities, and you need to find the correct strategy to neutralise them as quickly as possible, with as little damage as possible. One great thing about emblem rings was that you’re able to pass down special abilities to any unit. You can essentially have your entire army, including your mages and your dancer, have Canter, allowing them to retreat after initiating combat. Overall, I had a lot of fun with the gameplay in this game, and probably one of my most enjoyable fire emblem experiences.

However, I am kind of tired of a main hub. The Somniel is as tedious as the Monastery (I probably enjoyed the Monastery more because I liked it conceptually). The Somniel just seemed out of place and was only made because Three Houses did so well? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both Three Houses and Engage, and I don’t mind either the Somniel or the Monastery, but having to go through so much after each chapter, especially on a replay is sort of tiring. At least this game has dogs that you can get silver ingots from.

Being able to explore each map after a battle and pick up items and adopt pets was something I also enjoyed. Though it did start to get boring when some characters started having the same dialogue in different maps.

I played the game on Hard difficulty until the very end of the game, where I switched it to normal because of never-ending reinforcements (definitely a skill issue and me turtling too much). The maps in general were really enjoyable (Chapter 13 and 17 made me want to cry though because of how many resets I did, I think Chapter 13 took an entire day because I was making so many stupid mistakes). Albeit, this was my first FE game on a higher difficulty than the lowest. Chapters 17 (despite how painful), and 11 were probably my favourite maps because of the retreat condition and the amount of bosses present that just felt really really epic. I also really enjoyed the Paralogues being a callback to the emblem rings original games. You get maps like Arena Ferox and the Plains of Hoshido that are iconic to their respective games (they did Lyn dirty giving her a map that wasn’t even from her original game). These were a lot of fun of challenge, especially the Sigurd one with all of the units that appear in the end.

The music in this game slapped, especially the Solm music, it just slapped harder on a different level compared to the rest of the game. The art style is also great, but I will say some character designs are extremely questionable. Why did we need Colgate-kun as the protagonist, or for Celine to have a macaron for a dress. But other characters had some pretty killer designs like Ivy and Timerra.

Overall, a great game that you should only play for the gameplay and not the story.

Also, please save me from all of the marriage and divorce puns, I’m so done with them.