Fire Emblem Engage review: Less talk, more fighting in Switch\u2019s best tactical RPG yet Fire Emblem Engage is a departure from Three Houses, but an incredible degree of polish and a genuinely affecting story make it an easy recommendation. It\u2019s not often a game has a breakthrough moment where it hits a whole new audience and then eschews much of what worked for the next in the series. Final Fantasy 7 was a cultural moment, sure, but Final Fantasy 8 still moved away from those characters. The Legend of Zelda\u2019s sequel, The Adventure of Link, moved to a platformer. Ok, so Fire Emblem: Three Houses might not have been on the level of those seminal works in terms of impact, but as an introduction to the franchise on the Switch, it took over the zeitgeist like no other Fire Emblem game before it. A big part of that was down to its trio of narratives, spawning \u201cbest character\u201d votes across the internet. While Fire Emblem: Three Hopes certainly added an extra layer to that particular universe, Fire Emblem Engage moves in an alternative direction. It\u2019s not just a new set of characters and a new setting, though \u2014 it completely sidesteps much of what made Three Houses so memorable. And yet, it\u2019s become my favorite entry of the two. Fire Emblem: Engage Key details Developer: Intelligent Systems – Price: $59.99 USD \/ \u00a349.99 GBP \/ $89.95 AUD – Release date: January 20, 2023 – Platforms: Nintendo Switch – Fire Emblem: Engage Trailer Heartstrings, engage! Fire Emblem Engage is set in Elyos, a continent ruled by four kingdoms that have long since buried the hatchet, kicking off a thousand years of peace. That\u2019s thanks to the central region of Lythos, a holy land of sorts, where the Divine Dragon, Lumera, resides. Lumera fought alongside a series of characters from Fire Emblem\u2019s past, and this roster find themselves attached to Emblem Rings spread throughout the kingdoms to be called upon if the big bad, the Fell Dragon, ever returns. Players step into the shoes of Lumera\u2019s child, Alear, who has remained dormant for generations. Naturally, the new Divine Dragon\u2019s awakening comes just in time for the Fell Dragon\u2019s own re-emergence. It\u2019s significantly more setup than offered by Three Houses, and the early hours feel all the better for it as Fire Emblem: Engage moves at a brisk pace. Some early moments feel a little full of exposition, and one early game moment hits harder than it has any right to in the first act. As much as I love a good JRPG, all too often their narratives tend to wash over me without a second thought. With Fire Emblem Engage, however, I was more invested in my party than I found in Three Houses. That\u2019s particularly surprising because you won\u2019t be spending quite as much time with the cast here \u2014 in the game\u2019s social space, the Somniel, you can attempt some minigames, and hand out gifts (I\u2019m still yet to find what the horse manure is for). Instead, the characters\u2019 charm comes from the fact that they\u2019re all well-written and acted, and while there are naturally plenty of tropes (just look at the armor designs) and some are naturally more one-note than others, the time I spent with Fire Emblem Engage was some of my favorite storytelling on the Switch so far, and I didn\u2019t really want it to end. There are plenty of twists and turns throughout, but Fire Emblem\u2019s animated cutscenes easily stand alongside the likes of Persona 5\u2019s (although there aren\u2019t quite as many of them), and while some themes are left undercooked, To battle While the game has moved away from the more social-sim style of its predecessor, much of the on-field action will be familiar to Three Houses players and series veterans. Combat follows the same basic format as it usually has \u2014 you\u2019ll pick and set up your units, put them on the battlefield, and move and engage with the enemy (no pun intended) in a turn-based affair. It\u2019s nothing new for the genre, but it\u2019s polished to a mirror-like shine here \u2014 character personalities are conveyed through animations, flashy attacks feel suitably weighty, and the removal of the act of moving characters square-by-square (they can no roam freely within their movement range) makes things feel a little more modern. The Sword\/Axe\/Lance version of \u201cRock Paper Scissors\u201d returns, but Fire Emblem Engage\u2019s new mechanic, Emblem Rings, is a game-changer in many skirmishes. As we noted in our preview, being able to merge a member of your party with an iconic Fire Emblem character like Marth or Ike can clear much of the battlefield in the early hours, but in the later hours the limited turn count for using the ability makes it a last-ditch move rather than your first thought. It helps that Engage puts more of an emphasis on situational awareness, with Emblem Energy, items, and even additional experience from where other players have been slain available to be picked up if you end your turn in the right spot. There are even occasional destructible sections where I was able to crash through a wall to surprise an enemy. While there are still moments where you\u2019ll get the enemy forces down to a single unit and have to chase them around the map somewhat, for the most part, battles feel perfectly pitched and the difficulty curve is ideal on the standard difficulty \u2013 although things do start a little tame. Crank things up, though, and a single wrong move can spell doom and permadeath for party members. Veterans will certainly love the challenge, but you may lock yourself out of additional quests and dialog by doing so. Thankfully, every map, both in the main story and in the plentiful side quests, is gorgeous. Much has been said of the Switch\u2019s lack of power, but Fire Emblem Engage is a great showcase both docked and played portable. Whether it\u2019s riverside towns, castles in the holy lands, or laying siege to a fort, there\u2019s always something interesting on each battlefield. Once you do claim victory, you\u2019re able to roam the big, beautiful maps in a third-person perspective, and while the opportunity to speak to party members is welcome, finding items scattered seemingly at random feels a little like busywork. We\u2019re still friends, right? As mentioned earlier, Fire Emblem Engage feels a little bit more focused on the nuts and bolts of the tactics, rather than any real focus on the social side of things. Sure, you can speak to your party members, and I\u2019d definitely recommend doing so, but much of your interactions play out in short vignettes that buff your links on the battlefield with a nebulous letter-grade. That means your relationship with Clamme may offer buffs, but Engage isn\u2019t always upfront about explaining what they are, and how powerful they can be. And yet, I find myself leaning toward Engage\u2019s more straightforward systems than the lengthy, often tedious, time spent at Garreg Mach back in 2019. The Verdict \u2013 5\/5 Fire Emblem Engage feels like a step backward in ways that this writer appreciates. Gone are the lessons, and in their place is a genuinely affecting story with plenty of whimsy and epic tactical conquests. It\u2019s a great way to kick off the year for the Switch, and also happens to be one of the best-looking games on the platform, too. Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fire Emblem Engage review: Less talk, more fighting in Switch\u2019s best tactical RPG yet Fire Emblem Engage is a departure from Three Houses, but an incredible degree of polish and a genuinely affecting story make it an easy recommendation. It\u2019s not often a game has a breakthrough moment where it hits a whole new audience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}