Why Fire Emblem Engage Is My Game of the Year!

Before We Begin

Emblem Marth.

This has been quite a year in the gaming sphere! is hard not to be overwhelm by the sheer volume of quality titles out this year and with every year us gamers decided on just one game to be our game of the year!

This year has been awfully packed making the choice even harder but one game reigned supreme regardless of that: Fire Emblem Engage!

Ever since the game released last January and I got my hands on it that fateful midnight, I knew deep down in my heart that this game will be my game of the year and I wasn’t wrong!

Now that I have sinked in more three-hundred or so hours into it and completed most of the supports, I wanted to complete them before writing this but supports in Engage are notorisly hard to unlock!

So now feeling well-versed on it,I feel is the perfect time to talk about my favorite game of the year!

The (Not) Anticipated Release

A Bad End?

Back last year, in June, we got the first mention of a new Fire Emblem game, which happened to be Engage! According to a leak from a Reddit user, screenshots from an earlier build of the game surfaced, and the overall community reaction was mixed.

Most of them thought it was fake, including me! When I first saw the screenshots, I disregarded them as being from a Chinese FE-like mobile game and went about my day. I didn’t give it much thought otherwise. Back then, for me, it clearly looked fake, but I was so wrong!

Then, late that year, we got our first official announcement along with a trailer in a direct. There were no doubts about it; Fire Emblem Engage was real! Now, before this point, I was still skeptical of the authenticity of the leak, like most people. I don’t particularly care for leaks in this day and age when video game companies leak and spoil their audience by themselves.

But nonetheless, some of the community was worried about this leak, and rightfully so! Since it was in a wildly different direction than that last game, Three Houses, the artwork was one of the points that intrigued me, with its vivid colors and quite out there designs. We haven’t seen a FE quite like this!

But since I have disregarded the leak, I wasn’t worried or against any of these changes; I’ll see it when I see it, and did I ever see it? The announcement of Fire Emblem Engage for me was a bit shocking, but not unwelcome! I was so sure it was a fake that I never gave it the slightest chance of being real! But after watching the trailer again, I couldn’t stop myself from liking what I was seeing!

The visuals look striking! So colorful and vibrant, it is fair to say we have never seen a Fire Emblem game like this before! The animated cutscenes look great! They are so clean, and they may just be the best-looking cutscenes in all of Fire Emblem! The little gameplay we saw looks great; it seems to run much faster than Three Houses, and the battle animations look fantastic!

All in all, I really like the trailer, and in my opinion, it was 180 to my first impression from the leak. I was actually fairly excited for it! The community was trying to warm up to it as well; not everyone liked what they saw, but it was turning out to be more positive overall.

Some started bashing the game before it even got released, saying it was “too different and too anime!” The first one has merit; it is quite a departure, but I can’t fathom the second. Are we to believe Fire Emblem wasn’t ever anime?! Is one thing to not like the artwork, the other is being ignorant. But regardless, people seem to be warming up to it, and genuine anticipation was garnered as well, but just like with any Fire Emblem release, there were always haters! Although these seem to be more vocal this time around, regardless, in a few months the game will be released, and we will soon know what it entails!

Engaging Gameplay

Battle Overview.

I guess I’ll start with the first thing I noticed while playing Engage, and that is refreshing and engaging gameplay! (Sorry, not sorry!)

After playing Three Houses, Engage is quite refreshing in how it gets right to the point. Houses has quite a lot of things to unpack before you hit your first battle, saving the students from bandits, but in Engage, you get your first taste of battle right after a short cutscene in premonition.

Giving you time to get acclimated to the new combat and engagement system! The first thing you’ll notice right away is that you don’t have a cursor or arrow showing you where you can move around your unit; instead, selecting a unit shows the moving area, and the unit automatically moves alongside your cursor.

This is called Direct in the game settings and will take some getting used to, but not to fret! You could always set it back to cursor and return to the traditional cursor and arrow, but I wouldn’t disregard it right away once you get used to it. It is quite an efficient and smoother experience.

Next, you’ll notice the Emblem Rings. Marth has a list of passive and active skills you get access to thanks to Emblem Sync, allowing your unit to have these skills as long as they’re wearing an Emblem Ring. They can acquire some of them by inheriting them, but we’ll talk about this when we get there.

For example, Marth’s skill Perceptive, when activated, gives your unit Avoid +15 per fight. Some skills offer passive boosts that are activated as long as your unit wears the ring. But they all applied some kind of buff or ability, like Corrin’s Dragon Vein, allowing your unit, depending on type, to use certain terrain effects. Some skills have additional effects when used on different types of units, like Sigurd’s Gallop. If a calvary-type unit initiates this skill, they will get two more additional movements while engaged.

Now to the more interesting part, Engages! You can engage with an Emblem Ring as long as it is the first time per battle or after it has recovered energy. You can do this by waiting on an energy spot on the map or continuing fighting with that unit until the recovery bar is full.

Engaging provides huge buffs and boosts, but only for three turns! So you have to balance your strategy around them; when or where to use them is something you need to figure out as you play, but you’ll have plenty of time to master these mechanics!

Now, while engaged, your unit gets access to Engage Skills, a more powerful version of the regular skills like Sigurd’s Gallop or Marth’s Divine Speed, allowing your unit to use an additional attack dealing 50% damage!

It is important to manage these skills for the best effect, but more importantly, engaging gives your unit access to new and stronger weapons regardless of their unit type or weapon proficiency. There is an even more important buff that engaging provides: Engage Attacks! These powerful attacks can only be used once per engage and can be outright devastating! They can turn the tide of battle and ensure victory for your unit.

Lodestar Rush is the first one you’ll be able to use, normally a 7-hit attack with 30% damage per hit, and using the main character, Alear, you’ll get a bonus of 2 attacks thanks to their Dragon typing.

Engage attacks aren’t strictly offensive; there’s Micaiah’s Great Sacrifice, a healing move that heals the whole party at the cost of the unit casting it losing 99% of their HP, unless they’re a dragon-type unit only losing 30%. There’s also Ike’s Great Aether! Like the name implies, this is a defensive move targeting your unit, and once unleashed, it does massive damage to the foes around them and heals your unit afterwards.

Just like mastering Engage Skills, mastering Engage Attacks will take time but will be worth it later on in the game and on harder difficulties!

Now that we have the Engage basics patted down, there are more intricacies as well as new mechanics introduced in Engage that we will need to understand the gameplay. Like unit types! Understanding unit types is crucial for strategizing and maximizing effectiveness in battles.

Now, that doesn’t sound too different to any experienced Fire Emblem player, but I’m not talking about unit classes, but their typing! In Engage, units are categorized into different typings as well as their class. For example, Alear starts off with the Dragon Child class, but they are also classified as a dragon!

In Battle!

Now there are six types all together: Dragon, Calvary, Backup, Mystical, Qi Adept, and Covert! These have all their unique abilities offered by their typing; for example, Dragon-type units have additional effects while engaged with Emblems, Calvary has more movement, and Backup can do chain attacks if they are aligned with the adjacent unit initiating an attack.

But more importantly, each has different additional effects when engaged with Emblem Rings! Like we saw with Marth’s Lodestar Rush on units like Alear! And just like classes, you can change your unit into a new unit type as well! Want more backup units so you can use more chain attacks? Go for it! These systems increased the amount of customization for your units.

Reclassing, like I mentioned before, is back! Engage goes back to more of a traditional classing system; instead of deciding what classes to be certified into, like in Houses, Engage units have their starting/canonical classes and have the option to move into any non-special classes! Yep, I said any class, unlike Awakening or Fates, when you have a variety of classes you can choose from. Engage, on the other hand, opens up the floodgates as they were, allowing you to make some wacky builds if you like!

Unlike Houses, Engage uses a traditional two-tier classing system, so you have your base classes and advanced classes, and like the games before Houses, units reset to level one when they change classes. It is recommended that you promote your units ASAP! The exception is Ivy, Hortensia, Timmera, and Fogado, as they can wait as they are in high tens when you recruit them.

What else? Oh yeah, of course! Can’t forget about the new mechanics in Engage: The Break and Smash mechanic!

These new mechanics are, to me, the heart of Engage’s captivating gameplay! To start, the weapon triangle is back along with a new triangle consisting of arts, knives, and tomes. The break mechanic adds on top of that when you or your enemy, (Yeah you heard right, it can be both ways! ) attack with an effective weapon type like a lance versus a sword; not only do you get bonus damage, but you also break them, which means they can’t attack for the following two turns!

This is so simple, but it adds so much needed depth to the combat! Now you are actively penalized for turtling, a technique used when you wait for the enemy to come to you and let your units counterattack them to finish them off. You now have to be proactive in avoiding being broken, or else you may be ambushed without recourse.

Like I said, a simple change, but a great one! I hope that the next entry keeps this mechanic; it feels just as universal as the weapon triangle!

So what about the Smash mechanic? Well, while not as impactful as the break mechanic, it adds an additional flair if you’re willing to use it! Unlike his sibling, Smash is quite optional, though you have to worry about enemies doing this, which is not very common. Smash breaks your unit and moves them one space back. Now it doesn’t seem useful at first, but if you use it right, you can give your units more openness to attack or have a weaker unit attack and gain experience since they’re also broken and can’t retaliate, making it useful to train low-level units.

But if is not your cup of tea, It is completely optional and can only be used with certain special, great, and blade weapons.

Overall, these two mechanics add so much to the depth of the gameplay that, along with Emblems Rings, Engage has its own unique charm unlike other titles.

But before we wrap up, let’s talk about maps. Just like any Fire Emblem game, the gameplay can be great, but it doesn’t matter much if the maps you’re playing aren’t fun.

Maps here seem a bit smaller; for example, movement across the board has been cut down! Starting with four for infantry and five or six for cavalry. It takes a while to get used to it, but after awhile, I actually prefer it overall to the other games; battles feel much more dynamic and faster. Maybe smoother is the word? I’m not sure, but it feels different, but in a good way!

Against a Fell Dragon.

Now the actual maps vary quite a bit; some are better than others, but overall they are good enough. Some of my favorites are:

• Lythos Tutorial with Lumera
  • I found this one quite fun since you are just starting out, and as soon as Lumera engages, it can get quite difficult if you don’t know what you are doing, which at this point you probably don’t!
• Firene Castle
  • This one, oh this one! I gave it several tries before beating it the first time. Not only do you have the choice of going head-on inside or splitting your forces, but you also have enemies surrounding you from all sides, and if you are not quick enough, consider not getting any treasure as a thief moves from the far left towards the chests. You also get the first taste of the revival stones. Units with these stones have two health bars instead of just one.
• Mountain Pass
  • This map has avalanches occurring regularly on three different paths; you have to carefully avoid them, or your units will get dragged all the way back! However, you have a strong foe ahead with Past Alear! It was a fun but hectic time. There were many close calls, but we managed to defeat them in the end.

In conclusion, the maps are pretty good, with good variety all around; not every map is a winner, and that’s okay; all of them are fun enough to romp through, at least for me!

Wrapping up Engage’s gameplay is the funnest time I had playing a Fire Emblem game. There are just so many layers to a fantastic experience like no other. The whole thing feels smooth! It feels like the team spends the most time here than in any other area! To their detriment, maybe? But that’s not relevant, but I will get to it. Since I have much to say on that matter.

So yeah, of all the games in the series I’ve played, I have to say that Engage is my favorite when it comes to the gameplay; nothing can top it! Fates comes close with their map design, but while its gameplay is fun, it lacks the intricacies of Engage, which why I say is a close second. If what you care about in a Fire Emblem game is the gameplay, then Engage has you covered and you don’t need to read on, but if thats just a part of it, like it is for me, then the rest of the game has other enjoyable aspects, some of which may be disappointing to others, but if you want to know more, you just have to keep on reading!

A Feast for The Eyes and Ears

The Divine Dragon Lumera Appears!

Of course, gameplay isn’t the only thing Engage has going for it! The same could be said about its visuals and sound!

Firstly, I must say that this is the best-looking Fire Emblem game by a mile! Fan of Mika Pikazo’s artstyle or not, you can’t argue with me that visuals don’t look striking! It is so much cleaner than Three Houses muddy look, and some scenes are right down mesmerizing!

I wonder if the reason they allow you to explore the maps after battle is to showcase the beautiful scenery. At times, I feel like I am in an open-world game when exploring because everything looks so detailed! It really invites you to take a break and take it all in.

So the visuals overall are clean, smooth, and polished—something you can say about a lot of aspects of the game, but I have no better words for describing them, so please take a look at some screenshots to get a better idea!

Mika Pikazo, one from v-tuber design fame, was chosen as the lead artist for this game, and while I wasn’t in love with her art at first sight, I slowly warm up to her designs! Her art is colorful and quite a departure from the series norm, but in a good way! The colors were as said, but the developers called back to Shadow Dragon and The Blade of Light sprites and styles. Is the clever nod seemingly since this is an anniversary game?

Now she’s up there with my favorite Fire Emblem artists, like Kozaki and Hidari from Awakeing, Fates, and Echoes, respectively. Her character design is quite striking, and I will be talking more about that when we get there, but in general, her art is a breath of fresh air!

The Brodian Prince and Elusian Princess, Diamant and Ivy!

But it’s not only the visuals where Engage shines; it also has a great-sounding soundtrack that I’m coming to warm up to and honestly think is up there with my favorite OSTs of the series!

The music is filled with a variety of musical styles and new remixes of old favorites! There’s something for everyone on this soundtrack! I mean, everyone, theres a chessy Saturday morning cartoon main theme for those who love those!

It’s hard to describe the soundtrack in more detail, so here are just a couple of my favorites! I took the liberty of linking to the tracks so you can listen to them while you read, and I actually did the same while writing this. ♪

• Fiery Bonds (English and Japanese)
  • What can I say? I love this song! It is bittersweet but hopeful, and every time I hear it, it makes me cry. It reminds me of what a good experience I just had with the game, and when any song does that, it is guaranteed to be one of my favorites! This one also has lyrics!
• Tear Streaked (Ice)
  • Now this one is a banger! It shows up in an important part of the game, and this unique sound to it, as well as including a quire, starts slow but really amps up. I listen to this on occasion outside of the game.
• Last Engage (Prayer-Incantation)
  • This is the final boss music, and just by that alone, it deserves to be on the list! It’s surprisingly hopeful and happy for a final boss theme; it’s like a nice, fun romp through the final boss, and having a quire as well as the good old Fire Emblem theme definitely helps!
• Mirrored Engage
  • This is one of the few tracks from the DLC and also a final boss theme, and like always, it slaps hard! It has a unique start with this almost otherworldly feeling. Is this my second favorite of the DLC tracks? Man, all of the Engage tracks slap!
• Inconstant One (Frenzy)
  • Remember when I said Mirrored Engage was my second favorite DLC track? Well, this is my first! It is an unassuming track at first, but it gets really good after awhile; it has a quire and this unique sound! Weirdly, the regular version of Inconstant One doesn’t sound at all like this, but maybe that’s for the better!
• Emblem Engage! (Full Version)
  • Now I leave you with this! This may be a cheesy Saturday morning cartoon, but this is my cheesy Saturday morning cartoon track! I wasn’t crazy about it at first, but I didn’t hate it either. It was nice to have male vocals for a change, and after awhile, I’ve grown to love this song, especially the full version from the DLC. It’s pretty good! I recommend at least giving the full version a try; you may fall in love with it like I did.

That’s just a few of my favorites, or, I will be here all day! But yeah, the soundtrack overall is great! I recommend giving it a listen, even if you are not interested in the game.

A Conflicting Story

One Last Reunion.

With Engage going back to basics, we get a more traditional and simple story, unlike that of Three Houses. Some may see this as a downgrade, but overall, I feel that it does the job quite well, and while it fondles here and there, it is still enjoyable enough.

Now we all see the same story of evil dragons and good dragons in other Fire Emblem games, but Engage is unique enough to follow the same story bits but do their own thing with them.

In my opinion, this is a character-focused story, focusing on Alear’s journey in finding himself and their rightful place in the world, finding family in unlikely places, and making their own destiny! Enjoying a story such as this requires liking the character that it is focused on. In that way, Alear is central for people to enjoy it. Alear must be an enjoyable character for the story to work, and I think they did well for the most part.

I would talk more about Alear and their character arc later on, but for now, I feel that to enjoy one means to enjoy both.

This doesn’t mean they aren’t problems, because there are! But honestly, I enjoyed it enough—with twists I honestly didn’t see coming!

There are parts that I feel were changed late in development, like some animated cutscenes not showing at all in the game but only in the intro cutscene. Things like these make me feel like the game story went through several rewrites. If these are the causes of the story’s problems, who could say? Only developers can tell, and I’m not sure if they will ever admit it or not.

But I’m in the minority that enjoys the story; most hate it or find it hilarious to some degree. I will not disprove those that have concerns because they are valid and I can see where they come from, but stories like most of anything you experience can be subjective, so I would recommend playing the game and giving it a shot or at least watching a playthrough so you can form your own opinions.

Before I move on, though, I want to add something. Being as Engage release after Three Houses, I feel it gets an unhealthy amount of bashing for not keeping up with the standards of Three Houses. Fire Emblem never was much for having fantastic worldbuilding, lore, or stories in their games; only a few titles are held as such. Making Engage hold to those standards feels unfair to me.

Instead of comparing it to similar titles like Awakening or Fates, it gets the hatred that I don’t think it rightfully deserves. This game was never advertised to be like Three Houses; in fact, they were both made around the same time, and Intelligent Systems was intending for Engage to be completely different from Three Houses.

But yeah, it is fair to say that I feel slightly jaded by this; it feels unfair to lay the blame on Engages feet just for releasing after a game like Three Houses. But nevertheless, let’s move on to one of my favorite parts of any Fire Emblem game.

The Link Between Story and Gameplay: Your Units

The cast of Engage is one of my favorites to date! The characters feel more like the Awakening cast, showing a few traits at first but growing from those when seeing their supports. As of now, I have read every C support, so I have a good gist about each unit, but it is far from complete, so bear that in mind.

Let’s start with your unit and main character, Alear. They have quite an interesting character, as they are very down-to-earth and relatable. They defy the norms of being a brave hero, being scared of the Corrupted, for example. They feel a bit like an Isekai protagonist, thanks to their amnesia, with which they eventually remember everything, unlike other amnesiacs like Robin.

At first, I was neutral on Alear; I liked the design well enough and was expecting another Corrin-like affair. But suddenly, I’ve grown to really love Alear as a character, which I didn’t see coming! I think the first time that I thought this wasn’t like the others was when Alear woke from a thousand years of sleep and was escorted into Lythos Castle by their stewards.

They suddenly get attacked by the Corrupted, In this single moment, Alear defies my expectations and says, “No, let’s run.” That was so refreshing for me! Seeing the main character as kind of a wimp really mixes it up. Intelligent Systems actually intended for Alear to be even more of a wimp, but Nintendo wasn’t too keen on that, so they compensated. But personally, I would love to see a more timid Alear! But luckily, the manga’s Alear seems to be based on Intelligent Systems original idea of them.

I was hooked after that, and seeing them develop into a unique character even more is why I believe they are the key to Engage’s story. They’re now up there with my favorite Fire Emblem characters, second only to Robin!

Here are a few other characters I quite enjoyed!

Alfred is the first lord we recruit, and he’s my favorite lord in Engage! At first, like Alear, I was quite neutral about him, thinking he was a generic Dimitri, which, in hindsight, I can’t believe I ever thought! Like most of the cast, Alfred has basic traits for his character. He’s a huge muscle head and does everything to get stronger and build muscles. He’s part of the muscle trio along with Etie and Boucheron.

But he’s much more than that! Diving on his support, he has an illness that he wants to keep secret from the others, with only Celine knowing his younger sister, which can be the reason why she drinks so much tea as a coping mechanism as her brother could die any day, as seen on their support when the illness they thought was gone was just being suppressed by him keeping his health up. It is quite depressing for such a bright game as Engage, but it is welcomed.

I could talk about the other lords, but I don’t want to drag this out, so I will talk about one character that surprised me!

Yunaka gets her own chapter to shine right after acquiring the fourth ring. Micaiah, after the battle, we get the best quote in Fire Emblem series history! “Hiya Papaya!” Such a weird but oddly fitting greeting for someone who presumably lives in Firene with their bountiful harvests!

She’s an interesting character with a tragic backstory that I won’t spoil, but she’s a huge amount of fun! She does impressions—good ones, I say! and her critical quotes bringing out her darker side are just a chef’s kiss! She has many great supports as well!

Alfred’s Confession.

Alright, so to wrap up, here’s a list of my favorite support chains!

• Alfred and Celine’s

  • As mentioned before, this support is rather sweet and sad and a must read if you want to know Alfred’s backstory.

• Celine and Alcryst’s

  • Just the two talking about how best to support their brothers and being worried if something happens to them. is quite sweet.

• Alear and Alfred’s

  • Alfred being overly caring as a friend and Alear just being mildly annoyed by it. Is a very sweet support and one of my favorite ships from this game.

• Yunaka and Seadall’s

  • Yunaka tries performing with Seadall and is, of course, a natural! You could read this romantically or platonically, Either way a great support!

Overall, while the supports can be a bit short, there are some good ones in there! The cast of Engage is full of fun and zany characters. There’s something for everyone!

Some Other Thoughts

I went around and gathered some thoughts about the game besides my own; some are positive and some are not. I wanted to gauge what the opinion of Engage is now that the game is close to being a year old. I got some interesting responses!

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The writing is my biggest issue with the game. I disagree with the common sentiment that they wanted to make a simple plot that isn’t too serious, I think they tried and failed. If I’m being more specific my biggest gripe is probably with the over reliance on emotional, dialogue-heavy death scenes in the game. I think there’s roughly 7 or 8 which is far too many. They are used to try and force emotional moments and redeem characters, both of which were done very poorly imo. I like how they wrote the sibling relationships in engage

• Matraiya

To be honest, the game look fine and has good music from what I’ve seen but I mainly avoided it due to the bad story remark I got. Like, you don’t need a good world. You could simply use basic concept and concentrate on the character. Problem is that this time is spent on the villain more than the heroes and well… they Peter Grffin themselves on the landing. I mean, you could have had the main story focusing on the conflict of the villain versus the heroes (Main Lord I mean) and have some cheesy/camp dialogue because that way, you attracted a crowd that would meme on it.

• Anonymous

Gameplay wise the most frustrating thing has to be the low deployement slot. it’s not an engage only thing, and i know part of it is that part of the cast size is meant to accomodate for deaths, however it’s still frustrating, cuz you don’t just bench objectively bad performers, you bench even fine units cuz there’s simply no space Story wise, probably that you could cut out the boat map from the story without much issues: it’s post the 6v6, it’s not against the hounds, they don’t use a particularly outstanding strategy that could make up for the lack of emblems, and it doesn’t comment much on elusian themselves aside of lindon. A good map but actual filler.A bandit chapter would have been better

• namu

Most frustrating thing about Engage (imo): -Undercooked lore. Needs more time in the oven. I’d prefer to add more nation/lords lore Having to slog FX for characters every new save. What I enjoyed about Engage: Gameplay. Smooth, fun. Maps are pretty good. Characters are fun With enough effort, you can make anything work.

• TBromine

Fun gameplay, story’s eh. The early-joining units are kinda atrociously balanced, and the game particularly fumbles the ball with regard to most female units’ build

• Raxis

I love Fire Emblem and I thought that Engage was fine… And that is the problem. I’ve replayed TH many times, same with Fates, Awakening, FE7… But I just don’t feel like playing Engage again. I thought the Gameplay was good, but I just didn’t find it as gripping as Conquest’s or even Three Houses’ (unpopular opinion, I know :P)

• Rodrieleven421

Why is it My Game Of The Year?

Phew! That was a long one, but yeah, I just had to gush about this game sometime! It is my game of the year for a reason!

And why might you be asking, Why is it my game of the year? Well, I’m a huge fan of the Fire Emblem Series, and this was one of the games I was most excited for this year, and after playing some others, none of them could compare!

I have played Star Ocean Second Story R as well as the Megaman Battle Network Legacy Collection, although I doubt that counts as it is a collection. I enjoyed both, but Star Ocean Second Story R really surprised me with his stunning graphics and fun gameplay! So even though I haven’t finished it yet, it gets my honorary mention.

Going into 2024, I’m sure even more great games will be released, so I hope to continue this in its own series. For now, I’ll see you in a few weeks! Thanks to everyone who made this project possible! I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to rest since this took quite me some time piece together…