That’s not all. By leveling up your Bond with an Emblem to higher levels, you’ll gain access to skills you can permanently have your character learn. Leveling up this way also will gradually improve various weapon proficiencies, which is vital to changing your class. Keep in mind that to unlock the highest Bond with any Emblem, you’ll first have to defeat them in a special Paralogue on the world map. Much like in Awakening, you have a LOT of control over how you evolve your unit, and can even reclass them with Second Seals. If that wasn’t enough, you can upgrade the uber powerful weapons available to you when Engaged, though that only helps when you have that particular Emblem equipped. By the end of the game, you’ll be doing a lot of mixing and matching with Emblems to teach certain skills and buffs to the characters of your choice.
Though the basics of Fire Emblem combat remain, such as the Weapon Triangle, there’s new quirks that keep things fresh. One of my favorites are Breaking attacks. If you use a weapon with an advantage against an opponent, there’s a chance you’ll temporarily break their weapon, rendering them unable to counterattack that turn. You also have so-called Backup characters, that join in on an attack if they’re in range. Though you have unlimited uses with most weapons, that doesn’t hold true for magical staves or items like the Vulnary. Not to mention a dozen other things I don’t have room to discuss at length.
As you might imagine by this point, all of these advantages mean that Engage is certainly one of the easier Fire Emblems. At least if you do any amount of optional grinding, which I always do. There’s plenty of Paralogues you can use to level up your team. Early on, these are also opportunities to recruit new units, but later in the game pretty much all the Paralogues are for maxing out Emblem Bond levels. You can also try out random Skirmishes, which fondly reminded me of The Sacred Stones. But all that is just talking about the world map. There’s a whole other unexplored range of activities you can do from your floating base in the sky, the Somniel.
Being that Alear is a Divine Dragon and all, it stands to reason his home base is pretty spiffy. The Somniel is a floating landmass bristling with different facilities. It’s also protected from magical attack from those that want you dead, which is handy. As you play, more and more options will open up there, though you’ll have to find many yourself. While I very much appreciated how Engage introduces fast travel almost instantly, that won’t help you find new facilities. You’ll have to hoof it, and once you’re close enough, you’ll get a little introduction cinematic.
Of course you can buy new items and weapons there, as well as use the smithy to enhance your standard, non-Emblem gear. If you love dressing up your characters, you can pose them and even buy new outfits. If you want to get closer to your allies, you can grab a bite to eat, or reward them with presents. In the mood to get swole? You can try fun little minigames, doing pushups, showing your moves in a DDR inspired game, or even fly a wyvern while blasting gems. There’s even a farm where you can corral random animals you adopt after battle, gather helpful items they collect, and even a fishing game. If you want to prove your skills, you can try the Tower of Trials and survive successive battles to win amazing items. All these activities are just a condensed snapshot of what you can do in the Somniel. There’s a lot of ways to spend your time there, and unlike in Three Houses, you’re never really stressed out by any time-sensitive activities.
Visually, I found Fire Emblem Engage to be tremendous. I love the duality of red and blue represented by the heroic Alear. It’s also really cool seeing how each character changes appearance when Engaged, not to mention the beautiful and powerful attacks they’ll devastate foes with. There’s also some really great cinematic moments in the game, especially when combating the Fell Dragon. That said, I do feel Three Houses did a better job of nailing the visual style of each kingdom. Which isn’t to say the various empires of Elyos aren’t well represented. Elusia looks like a deranged Wonderland court; Firene is graceful with floral motifs; militant Brodia sports red and blacks; Solm is brightly colored to contrast with desert brown skin. Musically, Engage is well represented as well. Honestly, I have very few complaints about Fire Emblem Engage from a purely aesthetic standpoint.
I really enjoyed my time with Fire Emblem Engage, though it’s far from perfect. Though I loved the Emblem mechanics, I do feel they make the game a bit too easy. On Normal, I only lost a mere handful of times, and only when I got hasty. Being tactical and patient will pretty much save you from lasting harm, so long as you’re not trying to level up your entire team. I’d actually venture it’s not worthwhile to fully level up every character in one playthrough, unless you’re looking to spend tons of hours doing so. I’m also a little disappointed with the support conversations in the game, and how one-dimensional several of the characters proved to be. And as I stated earlier, I was frustrated how the plot lost my interest by the final battle, despite some strong moments in between.
Ultimately, as a fan of the series, I can’t help but suggest you check the game out. Fire Emblem Engage might not be the very pinnacle of the series, but it does a hell of a lot right. I spent some 40+ hours with my playthrough, and am ready to dive back in and check out the Expansion Pass on a harder difficulty. While this entry isn’t for everyone, and may understandably push away some fans with localization choices, I think it’s well worth picking up for $59.99.
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Review Copy Purchased By Author
