Fire Emblem Engage started extremely hot, hotter than Three Houses. But sales basically peaked early and have been in massive cool-down ever since. This video as a result will discuss the effects of replayability and word of mouth and how both games are affected by it while also speaking about my personal experience with Engage both as a content creator and enthusiast about the series.
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0:00 Market and Release Context Preamble
7:00 Replayability
19:10 Story and Characters
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Footage
Awakening cutscenes: @Pheonixmaster1
My Castle gameplay: @lucky_crit
Fates Gameplay: • [FE if 暗夜王国] Fire Embl...
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Script Contributors
Moltz23
@MythrilZenith
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In a war against the Fell Dragon, four kingdoms worked together with heroes from other worlds to seal away this great evil. One-thousand years later, this seal has weakened and the Fell Dragon is about to reawaken. As a Divine Dragon, use rich strategies and robust customization to meet your destiny-to collect Emblem Rings and bring peace back to the Continent of Elyos.
Team up with iconic heroes from past Fire Emblem games
Summon valiant heroes like Marth and Celica with the power of Emblem Rings and add their power to yours in this brand-new Fire Emblem story. Aside from merging appearances, Engaging lets you inherit weapons, skills, and more from these battle-tested legends. The turn-based, tactical battle system returns with a fresh cast of characters you can customize and Engage to carefully craft your strategy.
Hey gang. Its been a long time since uploading (real life stuff happened) and this video had several revisions on top of that. I'm glad its out and feels good to get back on the board. Please show some love to this video by leaving a like and commenting down below your thoughts on this video and/or Engage's staying power. And if you haven't subscribed yet please consider it! Finally if you want to support the channel even more, please JOIN! The channel is 500 subscribers away from 108K! Thank you once again!
Hey man when something happens to you in real life and you can’t post that makes sense and I don’t mind that as you need to do something important and I agree that engage is too difficult to replay unlike the blazing blade( witch I just played and love it) where you have three choices and is always different
I idea next fire emblem game and avatar back
@@DarthAres08 its good to hear everyone's thoughts on this game and it's massive gaping flaws. While my opinion in not better than anyone's, I just could not deal with the poor designs, story, personalities and I hope the next game will be much better
Wow... I hope you're doing okay.. ☹️ and I hope whatever real life situation going on can be resolved.. God bless 🙏
I think you have significantly discounted the fact that 3H popularity LEAD to bigger sales numbers for the next title.
Turns out when the last game succeeded largely on the appeal of the narrative, that having no narrative in the next one was a bad idea.
Every reviewer was like: Yes! Back to Basics! Turns out people didn't want the basics. Three Houses brought in people that wouldn't pick up an FE game. Here's to hoping they go back.
@@kva7922046"The basics" of no weapon durability. "The basics" of characters that are non-existent during the story. "The basics" of only building support points on player phase. "The basics" of only being able to grind at random intervals. "The basics" of having to start every playthrough from scratch. "The basics" of custom outfits not being visible during battle. "The basics" of the majority of the cast look like vtubers or someone's deviantart oc. Those basics?
@@AkameGaKillfan777Could be worse
@@RavenGamingOverLord What does that justify?
@@AkameGaKillfan777😢 you’re making me regret my recent purchase of engage. i haven’t even finished Three Houses yet 😅 i do admit that i prefer the character interaction/depth of Three Houses, but Engage nails the combat gameplay and map design. So I guess I’ll play both for their own strengths. I can say that the story in Engage is pretty cliche lol, The opening chapter is such a drag and not intriguing at all. “Bad Dragon is returning! Gather all 12 rings and gain allie’s to defeat him once and for all!” Basically 😮💨
Three houses pulled me into the world and I cared about the characters. I didn’t want to loose anyone in battle. I felt connected to everyone. I felt like engage didn’t connect me to the characters
Yess! This!
Spot on. There's only of handful of characters I actually cared about. 3H made made me care about 80% of the cast
Ngl, I didn't recruit any of the other house students during my first run playing Black Eagles. The moment I killed Lorentz during the War arc was the moment I realized just exactly why the OST is called "Paths that will Never Cross".
Yeah me too I'm even replaying again through Golden Deer.
@@lanyinghuang3731wait. You don't fight Lorentz on the BE route even if not recruited
I'm new to Fire Emblem, but as an artist, the character designs are a major factor of why I got into the series. Three Houses, Shadows of Valentia, and Path of Radiance all have really compelling designs and art styles, but unfortunately Engage lacked the type of art direction I'm interested in. The character designer is clearly very skilled, but their skill is in VTuber design, where every character stands out as their own person in their own world. VTubers are rarely meant to look like they all exist in the same place, which doesn't work when you're trying to create a cast of characters who live in a set of countries and have to interact. Like, Céline's colours are gorgeous and the dress is fun.... until she's moving and suddenly the animators and audience have to grapple with the fact she's fighting in a ridiculously spherical dress
I concur. I can't count how many times I've gone to Echoes and Awakening artbooks for design inspirations simply because of how well unified and grounded they are - even when Awakening is clearly pushing the line. The designs are still believable to be worn, the characters still look like people that are just a bit stylized, and there's a clear coherence to who they all are and where they are from. Factions have a certain design language to them, it's very solid. Engage is... unengaging. The characters look like they're each from separate universes, and it REALLY isn't helped by the multiverse summon aspect either, only further adding to the clash of designs. Fire Emblem Heroes looks far more unified in its art design, and it has EVERY SINGLE FE character that's ever been at this point, and the styles at display are all wildly different. Yet despite this, the game still has a unified look and feel to it that fits in most characters that appear in it.
A thing I very disliked about engage is how the units that aren't important to the story, REALLY aren't important to the story. Characters like Boucheron or Etie never showed up in any cutscenes after their introduction. Losing them in battle would not have any effect on the world.
Yeah, the whole thing is just kinda “Every chapter you recruit two units who do nothing” I get that’s how fire emblem used to be, but after three houses and fates kinda fixed it, it’s really bizarre to go back
to be fair that's how most fire emblem games are, majority of the characters are unimportant to the story at large. but I can see why that would be a problem for modern fire emblem, the last couple games all had side characters keep showing up in story scenes (three houses obviously being the big one, but echoes did this really well too with characters like gray, tobin, mae, boey, etc.)
Even in that case, they could have at least done a better job with the support convos if they aren't going to be too relevant to the story. The gba fe games in general have some truly great ones even though not many of the characters are that important narrative wise.
@@Saltyovensame I can’t even remember the names of th characters. They are so one dimensional and they honestly feel like tv tropes then actual characters
@@himeistryingheck even in awakening fates they got an opportunity to at least get to know them before not being part of the main story. Engage retainers unfortunately don’t get that opportunity since they usually just are yes man to the main royal.
A major turnoff for me was the character designs. They were kinda all over the place and were too colorful/neon. (Alfred’s eyebrows) None of them felt iconic or memorable like the 3Hs lords. The story didn’t have that much depth to it. It was really surface level good dragon vs bad dragon. My biggest gripe is the long monologues during death scenes. Like how are you still able to talk😭
I don't get it, 3H also all had different colored hair characters or is it other aspects of their character design?
@@islandboy9381 Aside from Constance, everyone just had one hair color. For Engage it's the overall aesthetics of making everything so brightly colored, and how their clothes often look ridiculous. I've seen 2 people now identify them as they're putting on a play about medieval war than actually being in a medieval war. Then there's complete and utter sewage designs like Hortensia. What was the artist smoking while designing them? Oh yeah, EVERYTHING
All they did was copy and paste characters from other Fire Emblem games and call it a new game with some originality.
@Iamnobody and it doesn't helps that the main Artist of this game is a fucking Vtuber designer
Hello Which fire emblem you recommend for beginners
Crazy how Fire Emblem Engage failed to engage with its audience
Bdum tss
We can just hope that the next fire emblem game is better than this outright failure
True
The virgin fire emblem engage Vs *The Chad Advance Wars Reboot Camp*
@@eternaldarklight8204 it better be a goddamn FE4 remake. I want another Echoes game.
I followed a bunch of artists making amazing Three Houses fanart during the height of FE3H. I still follow most of them. A lot of them have moved on to drawing stuff from other series, with some occasional 3H stuff still thrown in. None of them drew any art for Engage. I saw maybe a handful of retweets of art the first week it came out, and then nothing. I think that is really, really telling.
A lot of over designed and convoluted designs can make that happen. 3H was brillant in it's simplicity that appealled to both anime and regular fantasy fans.
@@Alex-tm4dw unlike Dragon Quest and persona where the artists are consistent. Fire emblem artist and writers are not consistent.
The art looked like it was stolen from a cancelled pokemon or Fate game rather than fitting in with Fire Emblem so... And this is a series that's been around long enough to have a fair bit of art changes over the years. Which says a lot about how jarring the change was from the old stuff to vtuber art.
@@Aerinndiswhat stupid is they didn’t tell the designer what the characthers were gonna be used for. She literally designed it with no information if she knew it was fire emblem she probably would’ve changed ot
@@Yoshixandir If that's been confirmed then that is an incredibly worrying sign that the management is unfit for their job.
“Fire Emblem Engage was written for young fans” FEE : here's a bunch of ludicrously sexualized female units
Not having New Game+ seems to have been a huge surprise to most people, and I think that is partially because of Three Houses, but mostly because the game seems to be built for it. SP costs, donating to each nation, and especially augmenting emblems by doing Tempest Trials just seem to be things that are tailor made to be continued over multiple play throughs, but for some reason it's not in there. I really get the feeling that New Game+ was planned at one point but ultimately was scrapped for some reason. It's sad, because there's so much potential there for replayability that was just thrown out.
The SP stopped being an issue when they added the Well functionality in the Somniel. I was mid playthrough at that point and thanks to that well I could easily get my units to the latest tiers of skills (the ones that cost like 5000 SP) in that first playthrough without grinding. The Tempest trials on the other hand do need quite the balance. I only did it once, got like 3 orbs od different colors and never looked at it again since the first upgrade costs like 10 orbs of the same color.
This game had potential but missed so many things. Outfits being Somniel locked and not useable in battle is dumb, the UI & QoL functions are a downgrade from 3H, the dlc story gameplay is so unbalanced, and the No NG+ stuff you said too.
I mean I don't think even a NG+ was really needed though. Like just tge Fates version where you can save 5 units to spend less resources to shortcut to
@@nahte123456 That's just New Game+ in a different game
@@AndresLionheart i know the well exists but id rather than ng+ in addition to the postgame that engage has. it's a slog to actually play through engage's postgame with the convoluted rinsing between buying random trash to throw into the well and arena/paralogue resetting.
Engage is what happens when you try to make something for the sake of a celebration, instead of making it for real depth and meaning. They focused so much on making this an homage, that it became a cake made of nothing but frosting
And said frosting just looks like spoiled milk, which you didn't even know was frosting until you were explicitly told it was.
At first, I honestly thought this was a side game as opposed to a main entry.
as soon as they revealed that the old lords were in the game, it was a "oh no" moment, nothing good ever happens when a franchise crosses the self-crossover line, old players are angry, new players are confused, the story is forced, nothing makes sense and the new cast is undercooked. it takes a really good creative team to actually make that work and Fire Emblem was never that strong in the story department to begin with.
It only really ever works with gacha and still the FeH is not top notch at integrating them
Braindead discourse is the only reason Three Houses was kept alive for as long as it was, so that's nonsense
This is going to sound dumb, but as a Fire Emblem fan of over 20 years, this game really put me off with the very vibrant and colorful character designs. They looked ridiculous, TO ME, for a war-themed medieval-fantasy setting. For this primary reason, this is the first FE game in the series that I have not bothered picking up. I just couldn't take it seriously. I noticed a lot of people talking about the poor writing being a major contributing factor to the poor sales but I disagree with that because most don't know the writing is poor/simplistic until they've actualy purchased and played the game. That's why I think that with somewhat more grounded character designs that don't make them look like they're part of a traveling circus troupe, it could really have done a lot better.
I agree. Sales problems are likely because of poor first impressions. I would also cite its poor naming. "Fire Emblem: Engage" doesn't sound... well, engaging. When I see "The Sacred Stones", "Three Houses", "Path of Radiance", "Radiant Dawn", "Awakening", etc., I think, "Oh, what's this about?". When I see "Engage", I think nothing. It doesn't pull me in. Then I see the toothpaste-haired characters and I'm already gone. The characters look out-of-place in their own game. That's just poor art direction.
It doesn’t sound dumb, you’re right. I was already put off by the non-practical designs of Awakening and Fates (Charlotte wearing heels… Camilla riding on a saddle in her underwear… seriously, doesn’t that hurt?) but Engage threw it out of the window. Many of my friends introduced to FE through FE3H thought the game looked childish and stupid, and I can see their point. Hortensia and Alear are literal VTuber models, and many characters look incredibly out of place. Bunet is just crazy because that’s a CHEF on a battlefield, Citrinne looks like she just escaped a ballroom which seems to be her entire character, CELINE HAS A TEACUP DRESS IN A BATTLEFIELD. and Merrin is a literal furry. (despite how much I enjoyed using her) The only characters I seemed to like with this design philosophy were Panette, Amber, and Pandreo. No offense to Mika Pikazo, because her character designs look nice overall but the older designs (Elibe/Jugdral/Tellius) stood out with color yet they still made sense. I just can’t take the “sad scenes” seriously because most of the characters look like they just left a Halloween costume party.
I love your icon so much
I really disagree with writing not mattering for sales because of people not knowing. To me, someone who hasn't played it, it's obvious just from the visuals alone that the game isn't really a serious one (and I also hear people saying that the story isn't), which is why I'm not that interested in the game.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who saw the designs of the characters and was put off. I felt that each character (bar obvious ones) were just ALL kids and I couldn’t take it seriously. I appreciate the childish character input such as Lysithea in 3houses or Lissa in awakening, but this was too much :(
I feel like the voice actors in 3H put out a lot of content related to the game as well that contributed to marketing. When the VAs themselves love and enjoy the characters and the game they're playing it is contagious
Still remember Joe Zieja yelling: "STOP IT!" when a bunch of his units got killed by Quake, and doing a Claude cosplay for the final map.
Remember the "Seteth Says" Memes? He's still trapped in the McDonalds playpen with his daughter, ehm I mean "sister", Flayn.
@@somederp8915Yeah he got in trouble with nintendo for that which is probably why it was never done again lol
@@-lord1754Honestly, I’m just surprised that Engage’s cast were not as involved with the audience compared to Three houses where many of the cast actors shared and created their own memes.
@@-lord1754Nintendo needs to calm down. They're getting free advertising that way
I'll also that the parental death scene is way overdone at this point Like when Greil died, you actually got to know him in the story and you saw the impact with it And i don't even remember what'shername, she died in the first 20 minutes, and our character who doesn't even remember her looses it over someone she basically never knew
and then she dies again later
Illuminate? Lunar Eclipse? Luna? Larry?
Its not just the death scene itself that makes it impactful and memorable. Take Jeralt from 3 Houses for example. His death scene is not anything special but the way it is handled afterwards with the music changes and the reactions of all the other characters in the Monastery are what makes it impactful. I still feel sad just listening to the post-death monastery music.
@@annanz0118 it also helps that Jeralt’s was a pretty fun character. It’s a real shame he never got to be the Jagen of 3H.
@@samueltitone5683 Three hopes gave him and Rodrigue some justice on that end.
My issue with Engage is kinda just... everything. It doesn't feel like a Fire Emblem game. It feels like a Fire Emblem parody on LSD. There's a huge disconnect between what Engage does and what Fire Emblem is. You can have goofy moments sprinkled around the place, but Fire Emblem is a game about war. Engage is so balls-to-the-wall insane that you forget this is Fire Emblem, then someone dies and you can't even take it seriously because of how Engage presents itself
This is really saying something because Three Houses is considered more of a Persona-y game than Fire Emblem one
It's funny cause I didn't even get that far. You can often judge a book by its cover and the art style this game was obviously not for me. The little elements of the story didn't hook me in either. We went from game of thrones season one to my little pony. Shame too since I was really hoping 3H was a soft reboot of the franchise. It was so in depth with it's lore I wanted to explore more of that world and see beyond the borders.
@@Stiksta For better and for worse it’s not common to get two fire emblems that are alike unless it’s a direct sequel like the Tellius games. Three Houses was a miraculous outlier for the entire series. A lot of the lore and characters are largely thanks to Koei-Tecmo’s writers than Intelligent Systems. So it’s unlikely for us to get another game of that tone or anything to do with Fodlan unless they collaborate again and go for that idea.
@@Stiksta That is fine, not every game is perfect but Engage heavily relied on shallow characters and poor story telling to make it feel cheesy when it was just dull and boring. Some other games like the Gba games, tellius and three houses add lore to the story as you play the game and connect the player to the well written characters
@@CollegeBallYouknow 1- wait, Koei-Tecmo worked on Three Houses? I was unaware of that; 2- There are definitely other games in the franchise that come close to 3H. Binding and Blazing Blade lore was pretty good; so was the Tellius games. And then there's FE4 too, which is probably gonna get remade soon - perhaps it's the next game in the franchise, even
When that lolita Hound started chatting away about her tragic backstory™, I about lost it and started laughing when she hammed up her death scene literally next chapter. The tone in any given chapter is so wildly strapped to a metronome the size of the empire state building that I didn't have any time to care about twists beyond a mild "...Yay?"
This. Marnie is the biggest condemnation of this game's plot. If your dramatic, villain side swap into death has people laughing and cheering for their death, you have dun goofed. Marnie is such a compact microcosm of everything awful about this game. She's, truly, the perfect character and representative of this game. That godawful title song, played over Marnie saying she was sad once, so she killed your family, be sad for her, then getting stabbed in the gut, while Marth turns to you and says "You are the Fire Emblem" for 80 hours, before Kagetsu crits something 4 times in a row and then the credits roll is the core Engage experience.
I feel like the claim that Engage has a simple story that appeal to younger audiences is especially flawed considering that teenagers are often considered to be very opinionated and argumentative politically and otherwise, which is what drew so many teenagers like myself to Three Houses. Removing that appeal in Engage if anything would alienate many young audiences
Kids don't like to be looked down on after all
@@AkameGaKillfan777 Thank you, some people need to understand that games can be for both kids and adult no matter the rating due to how it treats its cast and story.
@@eternaldarklight8204 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door certainly doesn't, and now a lot more people are going to have a chance to play it
@@AkameGaKillfan777Too bad its fans consist of pure elitist manchildren that act like it's the Second Coming of Christ and that everything after it is trash and never grew up from their childhood
@@PeruvianPotato Wait are you critiquing Engage fans or Three Houses fans, because there is some merit to both sides being stubborn
I still can't believe that there are TWO "dragon mom that you barely know dies" scenes. That right there is the epitome of IS's complete lack of talent when it comes to writing. I wish they would actually give a damn instead of retreading the same plot points and avatar worship every game.
It's not intellengce systems fault.. well.. partially it is for hiring dates writer for engage
The first death reminded me a lot of Mikoto from fates which was the same whatever death. They don't give the character enough time to be relevant and make you care about them. I think one solution would be to have the unit appear on the map as an ally a few times or potentially even as a unit you use. The former would be like Jeralt where you actually connect to the unit some before he is killed off. The latter could be problematic since nobody wants to give exp to a unit who is just gonna die no matter what but could help disguise the character death in the first run. After a couple maps of seeing Jeralt as an ally and not one of your units, I knew he was gonna be killed off at some point
I think people underestimate the massive help word of mouth was to 3 houses. My friends who had never played fire emblem were coming to me asking for help with how to make ignatz good. At least as an American, people really liked how much more seriously 3 houses took itself and it's lore. The bright colorful look of engage and Alear's design turned those same people off. I love Alear's designs tho
The silly designs and bad story reminded me too much of fates so i never got the game lol
i think ive gotten used to allear but most of the other charcters are still too overdesigned for me
It also helps Three Houses plays much more like a regular JRPG than "traditional" Fire Emblem. Don't get me wrong, I really liked Three Houses, but "traditional" Fire Emblem gameplay is/was niche for a reason. Sticking with one small party that you get to learn about and raise is much more appealing than mixed short term and long term tactical planning and getting 1-2+ units almost every chapter. Also, you can break the game in a similar way to a JRPG by feeding characters nigh infinite stat boosters and grinding, again much like a JRPG. Not to say other FE games can't be broken they very very much can, but basically the point is Three Houses is much easier to get into which is why it had such a massive appeal for better and worse.
Yeah Three Houses was my 1st FE game. After that I played the Gameboy Advanced games and all of the Radiant games. Loved each one for different reasons. Engage just looked soooo goofy. And hearing how bad the story was I wasn't interested even if the gameplay is some of the best in the series.
Most people want rpgs to have good stories as the gameplay of most rpgs are not...engaging enough.
To echo what basically everyone else has said: I got so deeply invested in 3H because the characters were excellently written and most had complex motivations and backstories. Interacting with the characters in Engage is an absolute chore. They are all so one-dimensional and feel like they were written by first graders. If I have to hear one more line about a weighted teacup I'm going to lose my mind.
Not sure if that's the localization or not. A lot of the game however, was just made up by the localizers.
Disney and Nintendo both botching their anniversary content, but unlike Disney, I actually hoped this one would be great.
@@smugdarkly No, character personalities are the same regardless of the language you're using, this isn't Fates
You are underselling one crucial aspect of the hubworlds. Between every chapter, EVERY(living) CHARACTER had something unique to tell about the country's current situation adding interesting context and viewpoints to the overall world-building and plot of Three Houses, and even when they don't add to the political and military discussion, they (usually) still had something of interest to comment, which made you seek them out. That is not time wasted. This changed for every new playthrough after the academy stage of the game. It also helps that Garreg Mach was was integrated in the story so the narrative made you care. Even minor NPC's (gatekeeper) had something to add. In the Somniel, there was nothing of value to find in ANY conversation with your party, coupled with absolutely baffling UX decisions going back there was literally a chore.
The most ironic part about Engage so far is that according to Nintendo Dream, the game was meant to be an "Awakening 2" sort of deal that would bring out newer fans into the series. Judging it's sales and poor word of mouth, it shouldn't be controversial to say that did not end up happening. At all.
I understand why they have to do it, but I still can't get behind always trying to bring new fans into a series instead of continuing to nurture the fans they actually have. It's been proven time and time again in various franchises that when things get forcibly made simpler, a lot of people get alienated and end up leaving the series. I just want franchises to stop inventing for a few years, maybe a few games, and instead just focus on honing and improving what makes their series great.
@@spookats1856 I mean in terms of gameplay it's definitely a good step forward, but the story it's just so bland and predictable, to the point i easily figured out what will happen during the first 10 chapters, just not the rings being taken away. Honestly the game is too much for kids, they should just actually put effort into it, cause there needs to be balance not only either good gameplay or story
@@cursedshinobi7504 For sure. I even pre-ordered Engage before it came out, a mistake I regret to this day. The story of Engage is one of the worst in the series in my opinion. As someone who's played most of the main series games by this point, Engage was so goddamn cliched that I dropped the game and uninstalled it after finishing Chapter 15. I'm so sick of the "power of friendship" and "you have everything, but it gets taken from you" tropes in media and games that seeing it put on center stage in Engage was the final straw for me. In regards to it being for kids....this is a franchise about medieval war. I've never understood why it's been marketed towards kids in the first place. Just make it T rated and give it some of the "edge" that a wartime game would normally have. This game's entire existence just frustrates the crap outta me. Wasted potential
@@spookats1856 that notion is part of why I am supporting the M-rated Final Fantasy XVI as the success of a game grounded in a brutal war is a huge breath of fresh air among the sophomoric takes found in 90% of RPG's.
@@cursedshinobi7504 It was pretty obvious, that the rings are going to be taken, in my opinion. We got the way op rings right at the beginning, so it was clear, that they wo't be around forever. But yes, gameplay was really nice, the hardmode actually challenging to a decent degree as well. (not like 3h, where we had piss easy, easy and venezuela level of inflationed stats) The maps were fun and especially the later ones gimicky enough to keep them interesting. The pacing onn them (in hard mode) was very well done, always ushering you forward one way or another. But the characters... are kinda... dreadful in design. It looks like they went to an anime convention and grabbed a random bunch of cosplayers to me. I strongly appreciated the more toned down designs of three houses. I did not feel like i wanted to know more about the cast of Engage at all, which was very different from the characters in Awakening and 3 Houses, where i enjoyed most of the characters to a good degree. (Or the older games for that matter) For me, it's pretty much a not quite as bad fates. Gameplay very enjoyable, maps usually very enjoyable, story is bs (at least Alear has a spine unlike Corrin and learned from her big mistake), characters are mostly bs. I think the worst part about the story is, every single fucking person takes like 5 minutes to finally die and somehow gets some kinda pity-story shoehorned in. (especially the hounds) The mother was pretty much Mikoto 2.0. You barely knew her, she gets killed off and has the most annoyingly long death scene i've ever seen in a fire emblem game. Like lady.. just friggin die, so we can get on with the plot? I think the only thing i didn't really foresee was Alear dying like 2 times in the story. And Sombron.. well.. Let's just say, if you have Grima to compete with on being the fell dragon.. i definitely won't bet on the derpy cobra with legs. He seemed to be kinda... not very intelligent.
3 houses felt like a war torn story. Not the best but it still had that feel. Engage feels like a bunch of colorful teens playing war. Nothing really has any weight or loss to it story wise.
I'm hoping that between Three Houses and Engage, IS will see the value in writing in-depth characters and world building, with meaningful interactions and an engaged cast that is connected to the story and world around them. On another note, having multiple routes with their own unique casts really did wonders in getting me to go back to both Fates and Three Houses repeatedly. But after Three Houses, I wouldn't want another game with 3+ routes if content was going to be re-used as much it was there. Just two unique routes should be perfectly doable, and would add a lot of replayability.
I think having evolving paths would be nice. I'd love a Fire Emblem game where you had more choices, and there were sincere consequences to them. Perhaps an ally dies, or you gain an ally. Or you are actually able to side with the bad guys. Giving an evolving story can make replay value skyrocket. Three Houses did this wonderfully with 4 storylines. Just imagine if you had one "linear" story but you can mold it and change the events by certain decisions and actions?
I just hope they don't take the wrong lessons and crap on the gameplay.
They won't. IS can't write a good story anymore. People forget that the story and characters of 3 Houses were overwhelmingly the work of Koei Tecmo. Engage isn't suddenly worse, it's exactly on brand for the people that wrote Awakening, and vandalized an actually good author's work in Fates. IS can't write their way out of a paper bag. They can only make lowest common denominator, pithy garbage, and Engage is just them declaring they aren't planning on doing anything about it.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Exactly. Modern IS writers are garbage. The exact same writers for Fates wrote Engage and it shows. The fact that they even ripped off Revelation, the WORST story in the franchise, shows they learned nothing and don't listen to actual criticism.
Oh its ABSOLUTELY about memorability. I still think about three houses constantly. I have not thought about Engage since finishing my last playthrough.
I, unfortunately, cannot forget about that time Marth from Smash Bros turns to the screen, and says "You are the Fire Emblem". I especially can't forget that time a small girl wanders on screen, you immediately stare at her feet, then later, a small girl wanders on screen, you again stare at her feet, then recognize those feet. I want to forget. But I can't
Just personally, I can say that I didnt get Engage despite loving 3H and a lot of other older FEs mostly cause of its weird and overly cutesy aesthetic. Didnt exactly fill me with confidence that there would be an interesting story and world behind the game.
100%. A lot of characters look like Vtubers :s
@@juanhurtado7244 The art designer work on V tube.
Agree
I like anime art styles most of the time, but Engage's art style is so generic anime. It looks like a Genshin Impact ripoff game, or an anime that's mostly forgotten about within six months of releasing. The older games all had more unique art styles that still fit into an anime look.
@@deen7530 The Disgaea games is pretty much what Engage wants to be but fails.
I'd say fhe most damning thing about Engage is specifically the character writing, mostly towards the end of the game. I think the exclusion of Paired endings in general really hurt this game. Not even from a shipping persepctive, but mostly how some of these characters have really nice goals and interactions with each other, but it feels like it goes nowhere in the end. It's really strange for an anniversary game to leave out something that's been apart of the series for a very long time. I know they wanted to focus on gameplay, but there was no reason for the writing to take a hit like that. They can clearly do both but it just felt like they chose to drop the ball at the end. I mean, part of the Fire Emblem appeal is being able to change a character's ending but you can barely do that with Engage, minus the one exception.
I appreciate your optimism, but I have no reason to believe they can write any good characters lol. Ever since Awakening every FE character has been one or two anime tropes plus some weird romantic kink, that's not quality characterization lol, that's fanfic level mediocrity.
@@xravenx24fe That wasn't an Awakening thing. Ilyana exists and nobody remembers Guy's simple one to two trait character, etc. etc.
Every game has well written and poorly written characters but Engage decide to half ass all the well written characters and focus on appealing to poorly written characters that full a trope without every growing out of it
@@eternaldarklight8204 agree many of them feel too much of trope. They don’t seem to grow past that
@@Yoshixandir yes. Some people like the fool over me just can't see all the bad features in Engage and tries to defend this bad game. I mean nuibaba
I laughed at the death of the mom it was just so horribly done I didn’t feel bad but I couldn’t take it seriously when both characters r screaming and crying at eachother forever 😭 3H hurt me more on the death bcuz we got to know our father and know about byleth and knowing that byleth is a character that has less emotion beginning to cry for the first time was very strong Then I look at engage and I feel like a bystander jusr watching them both scream
for reeall. like he's only known that lady for like half a day and starts crying in anime
@@bruyeretv ironically I feel like if they just had that scene play out where alear didn’t cry but felt bad and alears mother cried would be more impacting cause alear doesn’t know her enough but that’s her child so she feels awful and it’s just a painful wall between them Either that or just exclude her and her death entirely like did she really impact the story… 🤨
The only other deaths in the whole game are the villains. Like the masochist dude, he spent the whole game being a freak trying to get me to hurt him and then when he dies it tries to make me feel bad for him? If I wasn't such a FE loyalist I would have skipped almost every cutscene. As soon as the mom died and Alear started bawling about a chick who he'd essentially never met, I knew I was in for a rough time.
@@Will_Parkeryou know nothing about how feeling work she may not know get long but feeling steel cone troll
bro i just started playing Engage and as soon as I saw the mom save the main character I was like “oh here we go I bet she’s gonna die now and there’s gonna be a sad scene” and then the scene played 😂😂 I was laughing at how terrible the whole thing was. Engage nails the gameplay, map design, graphics, but three houses has better story and character interactions even tho the maps were bland and the monastery activities could get a bit tedious sometimes. I liked the emphasis on building relationships tho.
3H set the bar high for the series with its dark, complex story with a large cast of characters that I truly care about. Sadly, I couldn't find it in Engage
Same. Plus, Colgate-chan (main character) was a big turn-off for me. I really DO NOT dig the red & blue hairdo.
There was sadly nothing TO find in Engage. it's story is painfully surface-level deep. With it's cast of characters in the same boat with predictable events and stereotypical problems we've seen in the past of Fire Emblem games.
@@Polomance862 I think fire emblem wants to be like pokemon and persona in that intelligence systems is trying to find a way to make fire emblem more popular by any means necessary.
@@Factboy12Lmfao fr ☠️☠️☠️
I have 200 hours in 3H and still have not finished my 2nd playtrough. I bought switch JUST for 3H. I didn even pirate Engage. Even for free I would never play this game
Engage proves how important story and writing are to rpgs. Strategy or not, an rpg is all about immersing yourself in the world that you play in. That includes gameplay, yes, but also story and characters. The main argument for Engage is that "the story is just simple." Yeah it's simple, but it doesn't mean its good. Simple stories like Shadows of Valentia are fantastic cause the writing and dialogue are done so well that I want to keep seeing more. With Engage, it isn't the same. After your first play through you feel like skipping every cutscene which shouldn't ever happen to a good rpg.
Note that while story is still *an* important thing, it isn't everything. Something that upsets me about modern gaming discourse is people don't want their games to be games anymore. They'll forgive something with bare-bones gameplay as long as its functional and has a great story. If that's the case, just watch a movie, or a TV series, or play a VN. I agree that a great story can enhance an rpg, but it also needs to justify actually being a videogame.
Sov' story is not fantastic at all. The themes of nobility are under cut by Alm's lineage, there are deus ex makina moments like the pendant killing all the zombie hands with no set up.
@@kaffka9221 Games can be whatever people want them to be. Not every game has to prioritize gameplay over everything else. I for one want more story focused games, especially for fire emblem. The core gameplay of the fire emblem series has never appealed *that* strongly to me (other than the rpg mechanics), instead it was the overall experience. Engage also certainly could've had both the strategy and good story, better music, better art style, etc...
I agree with you OP, Echoes story was AWESOME!! I loved learning about all the different characters, having fully voice acted dialog. The game was just plain fun as well.
A simple story done right is Sonic Heroes. If you want to keep it for Intelligent Systems, I nominate the first Paper Mario.
Another thing I don't like about FE:E is how little the Emblems actually interact with each other. There's a couple of cutscenes in the game where they are seen communicating but overall they only interact with the new characters. In my opinion this is a massive shame because you have all these classic characters together in 1 place that actually is canon to the series but you barely do anything with it? If it was me, I'd have taken advantage of that to the extreme.
There's a lot they didn't do lol. Sombron seems like a powerful villain. Have him get a hold of characters like grima and we fight other villains from the series but I guess they didn't wanna overwhelm newcomers. This game really wasn't entirely for long time fans. Trying to satisfy everyone and didn't achieve that imo.
@@sirkoopa2412 I was completely confused in that fight against sombron. My expectations werre kinda as follow: get rid of the first wave (i was already confused that the dark emblem bearers did not have relevant skills to match) get rid of first gage of Sombrins health Cutscene rince and repeat for the rest (meaning 3 rounds in total, making it nicely paced and everybody gets some last bit of screentime) What really happened was: i curbstomped the first wave with whoever was nearest, then completely ran Sombron over before he got to do really much besides throw a feeble laser at some point. (I played on hard btw) I did not feel like doing the fight again to check out the conversations, considering how lukewarm everything was written.
Ike and Micaiah don't even interact once.
@@icelerate8141 They don't really interact much in Radiant Dawn either.
@@Guy-cb1oh They interact more than Seliph and Leif at least.
Even if the character designs hadn't been so off-putting, the main reason for me being put off of Engage was that, instead of telling me anything about the game having a plot, all the advertisement focused on how you could recruit the important characters from previous Fire Emblem games. This made me strongly feel like this would be a game where only lords were important, powerful, and relevant, and all the other supporting cast would just be generic battle units who weren't important to the story or to the gameplay. I don't play Fire Emblem for the idea that only the rich, powerful, noble leaders are worth my attention, and this game felt like it was telling me that all the meaningful interactions would be between the new noble characters and, like, Marth, Ike, Celica, Lucina, etc. I already played Lucina's story when I played Awakening. If I wanted to play a ridiculous sandbox story where the best teams involved just picking the strongest characters from all the old games, I'd just open up Fire Emblem Heroes. A game in which you conveniently have to summon all these pandering, cash-grab characters from previous games felt calculated, and like I was not being asked to take it seriously. As a result, I didn't take it seriously, and I resented the corporate manipulation.
I just realized something else that hinders Engage's staying power on both fronts: The lack of paired endings (beyond Alear's). The lack of paired endings means that there is no fun resolutions to any character pairing (besides those involving Alear), making their stories less memorable. This also strips away another incentive to replay that was present in previous entries, which would be to get different paired endings for your favorite characters.
yes, this exactly. Part of why I keep replaying 3 houses is to unlock all of the character endings (i know i could just read the wiki but that's not as satisfying)
even alear's paired endings are incredibly uninspired. "and thus they lived happily ever after. if it's not weird they got married. all was happy and it was a utopia. the end" for every single one. in three houses, i have a couple of different characters i'll pair byleth with, depending on the route, just because i like the s support and the paired ending so much. in engage they're all the same boring blob; why would i care to play again trying for another?
I'm just sad I can't make everyone have a happy ending, and then get the "And then there's Hortensia, she's dead" punctuation mark
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 "And then there's everyone that isn't Yunaka, Alear, and Vander. They all died."
This. I mean..say what one wants about Fate and the Children... but it was sooo fun to pair up the different Charakters so make interessting children... be it either..optimally or just let the intrusive thought's win and crackship the hell out of them 😂
Among some of the questionable decisions of the story is the fact that we NEVER see Alear's dragon form, if he/she even has one. Honestly, if they really didn't want to give Alear a dragon form, then they should've made the twist that Alear *ISN'T* a dragon at all.
Yeah,giving "divine" dragon...another dragon form would be better twist then the one in the game.
@@alecseusalec3418 I know, right?
Yeah! I was convinced that was gonna happen when Lumera died. Then again when they lost all the rings. After the third "OOH?" I realised they weren't gonna do it 🤣
@@snorp_lord6141 This game has so many dragons that never take dragon forms. Only TWO Non-Emblem dragons have dragon forms.
I saw the game leaning on previous lords, the character designs, heard the music, and instantly knew I wasn’t buying it.
One of the biggest letdowns in Engage for me was the support conversations. They just seemed really bland and boring. They didn’t really give the impression of two characters growing closer as friends and understanding each other better.
Considering the localization, they're also mostly made up.
@@smugdarkly How do you know? Have you actually read their properly translated dialogue?
@@smugdarkly The translation patch is a waste of time for me. Changing the dialogue to be accurate to the whopping 3 or 4 supports that were changed does not fix the other 99% of the game's dialogue problems. It doesn't fix how painfully dragged out Lumera dying is, it doesn't fix how ridiculously comical Morion dying is, or that they want you to take it seriously, it doesn't fix Veyle stealing your rings just by waving her hand, only to never do it again, it doesn't fix how everyone just stands and watches her getting brainwashed, it doesn't fix how we're supposed to care when Zephia and Griss finally die, and it doesn't fix them coming up with a motive for Sombron in the last 10 minutes of the game.
I think FE Engage characters not even cracking near the top 20 during this years CYL polls shows that Engage hasn't left that much of an impact in the fandom Even fates is still being talked about more so than Engage Engage story and character hasn't left that big of an impact like the other fire emblem games
That's what happens when you don't even try
Yunaka is popular and well-praised enough that I think she'll win CYL, and I reckon both Alears will crack top 10 simply because of recognition and because people think they're a good character (they're a good character if you're a child)
@@RLCguyhonestly very few supporting characters are even talked about. Sure alear will eventually reach the top but even then many people prefer more of the older characters then the engage cast. The fact that people will go for Camilla rather then any of the other females is a problem and not cause Camilla fan appeal. Heck she was in the dlc due to how popular she is
First off they weren't even available to vote for in last year's CYL. So of course they never made it into the 2023 CYL top 20. They were however available in this year's. And while they didn't win they still managed to get a ton of members in the top 20 in both the men and women's divisions for 2024.
@@Yoshixandir I thought Camilla's inclusion as an emblem without also including a Hoshido emblem was very odd especially since she wasn't the head of her family. Personally I think Azura would've made the most sense as another fates emblem since she was very plot relevant to all three routes and pairs well with corrin regardless of which route you played in fates. If you only know fates from the birthrite story then camilla is an enemy most of the game
honestly one of my favorite things of the Garreg Mach hub was talking to everyone. Everyone had something intresting and relevant to say each month. And it really made you care for characters you never even played with. Which also motivated you to try the route of their house. And because allot of it was also route exclusive i wanted to recruited people just to see their reaction. Felix realising he is just like the "boar" in the non AM route's was amazing to see for example. With engage I don't even bother looking up my favorite characters anymore in the hub because they will say nothing of value. Add that support is allot harder to grind in Engage, it leaves the cast one dimensional. There are allot of good characaterisation and story hidden in the supports (Like Celine's ruthless streak, or Alfred's illness) But it takes ages to unlock them, so most people will never see it.
100%. I thought Garreg Mach was a much superior hub world compared to the Sommiel. A huge part of that was like you mentioned the characters actually had interesting things to say that changed based on where you were in the story. The general lore/little things you could find were also interesting. Compared to Engage, where some of the supports get decent, but all the bond convos, after map, in somniel interactions were just... boring, slow, and repetitive. I also felt like I could do 90% of the things I wanted in Garreg Mach without hitting a loading screen vs. Engage requiring you to go through a loading screen to inherit or grind skills (so damn near after every map), and how slow that major gameplay loop is ugh. Not to mention how bad Engages UI is, so many times I have to back all the way out of a system to check a basic stat. The Somiel started boring for me and never really improved. Garreg Mach started fun and got a little tedious eventually but I was never in the mindset of "Ugh I HAVE to sit through 20 minutes of tedious things" if I didn't want to, you could just take the 50% on instruction motivation or whatever, nbd.
I agree. The cast honestly was a huge disappointment. Heck I don’t remember many of the cast since they don’t grow past their one trait. Which kinda sucks since you would think they have some more information about them but no it’s them being a trope
While Three Houses also had characters that didn't have the best writing, having them talk/react about events in game and discuss political/ethical topics in three houses made the blandest 3H character more in depth than the majority of engage...
that goes back to the fundamental problem of the world being window dressing in Engage, in 3H Fodlan WAS a character and what happened in one moment affected everyone but in Engage it works like the classic FE where after like 2 lines of dialog from a character's introductory chapter they vanish from the story (sans the lords) and you are left with nothing, It's interesting how just having the class show up in cutscenses and having them react to what was happening helps a lot Engage tries to do this but only for 4 characters, of which Ivy and Diamant are just so much better than Alfred (as much as I like him anyways) and Timerra (who I constantly forget exists and Fogado was waaayyyy better than her) that it makes it a moot point if you're not gonna treat them equally
I've heard they changed that and characters after the battle will now comment on what happened in the story instead of bragging about their KDs all the time. A change that came waaaaay too late into the game's lifetime, but it's there now. Somniel dialogue still sucks tho. I think something of note is that Koei Tecmo apparently went ballistic with Three Houses. Specifically the voice acting. Not only does every character have voiced lines and unique lines for each route in hub world and supports, they've added background voice acting whenever you run by random NPCs and most importantly, they've voiced every no-name NPC that you could interact with. The voice acting alone makes Garreg Mach feel like an actually alive location. But it's important to acknowledge that KT was drinking insanity juice to even go to all that length. Nowhere is the length that KT went for this game more apparent than in Three Hopes and Engage lacking voice acting in its hub world.
i'd say the character designs probably also turned people off from the get-go, particularly alear. i remember FE fans lampooning the engage leaks ('colgate-chan'), and then when the game was actually announced officially alear went viral on social media because of everyone's reactions towards them. the crazy designs not only took you out of the game, but they signalled right away the saturday-morning cartoon tone that engage would have, which is a drastic turn from 3H and also not exactly the right fit for a franchise about surviving in war-time. personally, the only reason i, a seasoned FE fan, even bought engage in the first place was because of soren in the DLC - i knew that engage wouldn't be right for me and sadly i ended up being correct. i don't blame the character designer at all, mika pikazo is extremely skilled and you can see in the recent art she did of the 3H lords that had engage's designs been more grounded, engage might've had a better first impression. they should've spent more time working with her in order to merge the world of fire emblem with her signature colourful style - fates and awakening had their fair share of wacky designs, but they don't stick out from the rest of the FE lineup, unlike engage. ultimately, i believe this approach with character design is emblematic of the team's handling of the game as a whole: everything apart from the gameplay, from the tone to the world to the story to the characters, feel shallow, disconnected and unconsidered - made to appear flashy with very little substance underneath. it's why no one comments on the plot in the somniel, why most characters have one trait that they repeat incessantly in place of a personality, why the game feels like it was written by a high-schooler, why there's basically no lore whatsoever. i actually think the DLC fell xenologue handled a lot of these points more successfully: the story doesn't blow your mind but it actually feels urgent and oppressive even though both are set in desperate war-time, and the characters generally act in believable ways. the designs of nil and nel also are a lot more appealing imo, but in-turn the gameplay feels broken, as if it wasn't tested at all. engage was not a financial failure, but it definitely was a disappointment. intsys need to pay more attention to story and characters next time round if they want to reach the same heights as 3H, which is still getting more fanworks on twitter and AO3 than engage even though it's 4 years old.
side note - and spoiler for the end of engage i guess: i was not vibing with the game while i was playing it but alear saying 'i am the 13th emblem? the fire emblem?' might genuinely be the worst line of dialogue i have ever heard in a game.
@@ZeLink128 Oh. I didn't bother to see the endgame of Engage. But it seems like the writers tried to mash the concept of Byleth's inner Crest of Flames spirit + Corrin's "the Yato can only be wielded by the true owner" trope and.... it didn't seem to go that well by your description.
@@ZeLink128 Nah, whenever they mention the Fire Emblem in any of the games, I either laugh or think "now this is gaming"
@@ZeLink128 It also didn't help that every character dying someho NEEDED to have an at least 5 minutes long discussion while laying backfirst in the muck and for the hounds even got a saddish little backstory shoehorned into them. Like.. (SPOILER) i don't care that Marnie was a mistreated orphan, she was a psycho and it felt good to finally get her off the damn screen. (I did laugh a little when Mauvier told her to go back to the hounds, fully knowing we were there to murder them.)
@@Aurirang I thought it was so awkward that Lumera was in the ground dying for 5 business days giving her I have a dream speech while the voice actor for Alear had to fake cry the entire time
FE3H is my first FE game, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I recommended it to others and everyone loved it. Let’s come to Engage. I eagerly waited for the game, preordered it and ended up kinda disappointed in the end. FE Engage lost the best parts of FE3H. The story and the characters. I loved every character in FE3H and cared for them. They felt like real characters and not just overplayed stereotypes. There was absolutely no way I’m going to suggest this game to my friends. It wasn’t the bad hub world, or the lack of branching routes, or lack of replayability that disappointed me. It was bad characters and writing. I have a pretty high bar of standard for writing and characters in video games, and FE engage put 0 effort into it. It is something which a middle school child would write. Atlas did a big miss there. It pandered to nostalgia and ignored the artistic traits of a game. No wonder the general audience wasn’t interested in Engage.
I only just got into Fire Emblem earlier this year, but I can relate to the struggle people are having with this game. I was a HUGE American Idol fan back when it was on FOX (I haven't watched it at all since it's been on ABC), and since Season 15 was going to be their last season and they didn't know if they'd be able to start again on another network, they made the season a huge celebration of the show's history, from the season premiere all the way to the series finale. However, they focused so heavily on the show's past stars that the Season 15 contestants were totally overshadowed. They didn't get to go on tour after the show was over, and only the Top 5 got to record any of the songs they covered for iTunes. Engage seems to have made the same mistake; the whole selling point was the return of the series' myriad of past protagonists, and the new characters and their world were underdeveloped as a result. You hate to see it.
Do yourself a favour and play FE6/7/8 on a game boy emulator if you haven’t already. That’s how us old fogies in the west got started, with 7 on GBA. That’s what the series once was.
It's interesting that Engage felt so unfocused on their target audience. Yes, this was a celebratory referential incredibly gameplay-focused Fire Emblem with many QOL Updates for its core fanbase while having the goofiest design and very trope-y characters supposedly aimed at a younger/newer audience. They tried doing both but I think it just made both audiences lose interest in the process.
So many times I've watched game footage, and said to myself: "who asked for this?"
This exactly!
Speak for yourself. As an old school player, starting with FE 7 and having also played all before that later, FE Engage nailed the gameplay for the most part. I was also happy with the greatly toned down dating Sim crap that has plagued the last 3 entries (that is excluding Echoes) before it. It could have done better story wise, but to me their target audience was the pre Awakening crowd and I think they did pretty good, not great, but good.
@@raymondfeatherston8415 I will never understand how you people are so repulsed by one of the most microscopic and insignificant parts of the game that you entirely have to go out of your way to do.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 I highly agree, Three houses had some flaws with the graphics and gameplay but it truly shined with the character interactions and story later down the line as the characters dropped their quirks and showed their past or goals. Engage never does this because it’s to focused on being marketable and has the social sim aspects that the commenter was against. Engage is not a “true fe game” and it never will
While I 100% agree with all the shortcomings of the hub-worlds, especially in comparison to the convenience of My Castle, I can't bring myself to hate the Monastery. What the monastery lacks in convenience, it makes up for in immersion. It places you in a specific part of the world and grounds you to it, whereas My Castle and the Somniel both feel really disconnected from their respective worlds. I also just really love being able to talk to my units and other characters. I love hearing what their thoughts are on the current going-ons of the world. It makes them feel like they're an actual participant in what's happening in the story, even when they're not a major player. It also just helps put you in the mindset of the role of a Professor, checking in on your students, participating in activities, etc. It makes me feel more connected to the world and its characters. It's all just very comfy. But yeah, all that said, gameplay wise, it's kinda dooky. I think a good compromise would be to have a more consolidated hob-world like Three Hopes, while also allowing for a traditional menu, like PoR and RD.
No
@@CreutzfeldtTV Yes.
@@juanhurtado7244 ok
The writing is on the wall. FE games will be 3H retreads with home bases like the monastery going forward.
that's one of the things that annoyed me most about the Somniel. at Garreg Mach, all the characters, even the ones you haven't recruited, have new dialog every chapter so you know how they feel about events. It gets you attached to them even if you never use them. In Engage, your companions just have the same dialog every time
It's a really weird combo that the game wanted to be a simple story as an introduction for new players, but also have so many call backs to previous games. Those two things don't mix at all
I bought engage knowing it was going to be corny and have a simple story. I still gave it a chance since the gameplay looked fun. But I didn't expect the game to be such a souless cash grab overall.
I need a good story to push these games forward. With 3H I was always eager to get to the next mission to see what happens next, but in Engage I often found myself distracted with other games and things just because there was nothing interesting to look forward to. Also without needing to inherit skills from other classes there was little reason to customize anything.
Sure, but I could barely stomach playing multiple routes of 3H. The maps in that game are SO boring, and they're all recycled in every route. If I want a good story, I'd read a book or watch a movie/show
@@ygr6484 exactly this lol
@@ygr6484 They are not recycled if you only play it once =P. I once thought of doing another run and going with Edelgard because I thought that was the only one other story that could have been different enough.
@@AndresLionheart then you only played 1/4 of the game. Why spend full price on it at that point?
@YGR64 why maps wouldn't be recycled on multiple playthroughs, seems strange to expect completely different content from a game.
I hate simplifying for a younger audience. They alienate the players of the old games. And kids aren't dumb, if they feel talked down to, they'll reject it fast. In my opinion, just write a story you love and are proud of and your audience will find you. Weather new to the series or established players.
This mindset that you need to dumb down your story to appeal to kids needs to die. It's part of why nearly every single Illumination film is so shallow, and why Sonic Forces didn't bring in any new fans. Stop. Treating. People. Like. They're. Stupid.
@@AkameGaKillfan777Sonic Forces has the opposite problem of trying too hard in being mature/dark that it falls flat
@@islandboy9381 It has bad comedy moments of its own, like: "It's been Generations since I've seen you!" and Sonic's dumb conversation before the first Infinite battle. Just like how Engage gives you infinite Time Crystal uses on Normal, Sonic Forces on the lowest difficulty has more checkpoints, even though most levels aren't even 2 minutes long, and the actual design doesn't change on "Hard" difficulty. The only differences are it saves your scores and rankings, and you can hold 999 rings instead of just 100. In Colors Ultimate they went even further with this and force-implemented the Tails save function and removed lives, even though it was really easy to grind them in the original by replaying a 1 minute long stage and getting an S-rank. Devs have stated in interviews these were solely done to "bring in a new audience." Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe has the Magolor save function that works the same way, even though you have infinite flying, but at least you can turn it off. I could give many more examples, but modern devs, or at least the people that are taking part in these interviews, do in fact believe players are stupid.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 I wanted to ask, what are your thoughts on Engage. For me, I despise Engage due to its failure to connect the player to the story and characters which can leave the satisfaction of finishing the game feel shallow
@@eternaldarklight8204 I haven't bought the game yet, for obvious reasons, but the directions they took this game in and the reasons why they did I find to be downright insulting.
The character design completely put me off. Most comments note on the vibrant and ridiculous colors, but I also despise the fact that all the « women » (or most I’ve seen) look like they’re twelve. Please, no more lolis…
Don't know how it's always two steps forward one step back with Fire Emblem. After 3 Houses, this should have been a slam dunk imo. A more lighthearted take on the series with returning cast, voice acting, and supposed similar gameplay elements to 3H. How Engage failed its audience, characters, story-telling (and the list goes on and on) is so completely beyond me it's truly baffling. Was really rooting for this game, but this video really nails it. Feels like what happened after Awakening during the 3DS era.
We have to be realists. The pandemic arrived, Nintendo does not always improve itself, Three Houses was not 100% developed by Intelligent Systems and it seemed that they simply wanted a cheap game (whose art is very anthological to another trending game, Genshin Impact) to take advantage of the fame of 3H and from the Switch catalogue.
@@frikibase8911 The Pandemic made Nintendo more successful than ever if you check their yearly profits, even more than the Wii and DS era.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 true but they got it by the formula I listed before
@@frikibase8911 The Pandemic had nothing to do with the game's mediocre sales. Your second point is correct.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 you missunderstood what I said.
Frankly, after having put the same bad writer in charge 3 times in a row with Awakening, Fates & Engage, (ignoring Echoes, bc it's a remake and 3H which was not written by IS), I have 0 faith in their ability to write a good story. I hope Engage finally makes them realize that they need to seriously look for new, much better writers. Or them just not being tasked with the story anymore.
I wonder if the writers of FEH (Heroes) are the same ones that wrote Engage... because the wild yet generic story points almost play out beat by beat similar to each other.
@@_Just_Another_Guy it's just the basic skeleton of the story, it feels familiar because it hits the necessary beats to make the story make sense but not much else, it's like having the hull of a ship but once you open it you notice it's empty; it's gonna float sure but not much else.
@@Sigismund697 Feh's story always felt incredibly jarring to me. I love the fire emblem franchise, the many unique and loveable characters it brought forth. Feh does a huge dissatifaction to all of them somehow. I played Fgo side by side to feh (yes, judge me, if you want. But i played both of the f2p) and besides the obvious rocky starting story of fgo, even the first chapter (singularity) already got more story content than at least 3 of the books on feh. While fgo definitely has the more predatory drawing rates on Servants versus fehs rather generous ones, fgo felt way more.. balanced and less punishing for not having gotten the new meta-unit. I remember when Surtr got launched and almost no unit could scratch him. Or Lyn or Reinhard who devastated the field for no reason. Or Hegemon edelguard which was still a menace a good while later and sometimes simply unbeatable, no matter what you did. Fgo has a much more lenient difficulty on this. You can go out of your way, and scratch your way through with units everybody gets without pulling from any banner besides the free low tier one. It also lets you use a friends servant in a fight, so even unlucky people get to use top tier ones nearly every battle. But i suppose it helps, that fgo is not a competitive game, while feh definitely is, considering it has an arena and the flying island stuff i quickly decided is stupid. Also, and i think this is very difficult for me to admit, at least from last year, i think feh has become more predatory than fgo as well. It eventually launched the feh-pass and locked features behind it (scummy af move). It started to introduce more and more stuff to buy until i eventually quit last year. Fgo doesn't do that. You can buy your summon currency as usual and that''sm pretty much it. It's not holding the advertisement to actually buy stuff in your face every time you enter the game either. Sorry for the long rant here. :D
@@Aurirang I still play Feh and I actually think they are getting more lenient, they added rearmed heroes which make skill inheritance and free unit using much more simple and the new roguelike mode is amazing but you're right rewind should be open to f2p players but I've been playing for 5 years so at this point it's like a subscription to me for a game I play almost daily plus the story in books five onwards has been pretty good sans the dripfeed style which is simply a symptom of the gacha style I even wish we got proper console releases of the plots of book vi and vii since with proper set up and further development they make for great stories
Awakening wasn't a bad story, really, not in comparison to Fates and Engage. Awakening was a bit bland, certainly, but it was at least serviceable enough. Fates was trying to be really ambitious with its multiple stories, but it ended up half-assing each story an clearly made one side evil despite trying to claim moral ambiguity. Engage... Engage is just REALLY bad in terms of story. I mean, they give you a mother figure you've never met, try and force some emotional bonding between you and her within one chapter, and then kill her off and expect the player to care. I'm watching Alear break down over a character we've spent ten minutes with and I feel nothing. The fact that every other character, that actually spent time with Lumera, acts rather detached to her death is just plain fucking weird. It was bad when Fates tried pulling the 'death of the mother' card within three chapters, but Engage is just plain ridiculous. Still, I agree with your main point. When the best thing you can say about IS in terms of story writing is 'serviceable', you've got a problem.
I think my main issues with it were story and no NG+. I hope the lesson they learn from this isn't 'Let's ditch all the different new things classes can do' though. I liked how they actually changed things up for the first time in awhile.
The school in 3H kinda works for me honestly. Doing stuff there doesn't just get you +2 to a stat, it can get you entire characters that can add new interactions both in game and in the story. It is something that gets more rewarding as you learn about them too. That alone made turned it from pointless fetch quests to something worth doing for me. Not to say I want them to stop trying to improve that though, just that it is at least at the point of not being a negative for me.
The biggest problem with Engage compared to other Fire Emblem games (not just Three Houses) is that it doesn't make people want, ironically enough, to engage with it. It's art style is off-putting, and made me fervently hope that it was a mobile spin off when it was first revealed in the direct. In fact I completely disregarded the leaks that originally showed off Alear as fraudulent specifically for that reason. The art making all the characters look like VTubers means that they clash with both their surroundings and each other. VTubers are by nature supposed to stick out like a sore thumb in order to stand out on the internet landscape, but for people who are supposed to be inhabitants of a world it just comes across as bizarre and tacky. Of course we should not judge a book by its cover (though doubtless many people did, and as such didn't end up buying it) but rather by its contents. Unfortunately that doesn't help out Engage much either. The story is quite possibly the worst in the entire series, and that is an impressive feat seeing as both NES games and Fire Emblem Fates are its competitors. The overly simplistic plot, one note characters, overly drawn out dramatics involving characters the player hasn't had a chance to connect with all tie together to actively harm the experience. Instead of being encouraged to continue playing in order to connect with the plot, the player is in fact discouraged from doing so by the idea that more cringeworthy cut scenes and failed attempts at pathos lie ahead of them. Even the gameplay, the thing that is said by apologists of Engage to be it's saving grace, isn't enough to save it. To make it clear where biases lie, I actually legitimately enjoyed Three Houses gameplay. Sure the map design was a bit basic (and recycled to high heaven), and the nigh completely open class system made it easy to just turn your entire class into Wyvern Lords and break the difficulty in half, but I still found it fundamentally enjoyable nevertheless. Even if you find Engage's gameplay to be an inherent improvement on Three Houses on every level (which I certainly don't, but that's a discussion for another time) it isn't a big enough difference to make up for the fact that in terms of plot, presentation, replayability, and characters Engage is outshone by the rest of the series for most people. Most people don't want just good gameplay, they want good writing, visuals, soundtrack, and for that content to last through their whole playthrough if possible. Engage put all its eggs in the Strategy portion of Strategy-RP, but didn't do it well enough to compete with games that distributed their time and effort more evenly.
Another thing that 3H did very well imo is that they had a very good ratio of characters:routes. There were around 40 characters and 4 routes and you almost always had at least 10 deployment slots. Because of that you had enough room to main-army every character once. That made it easier to try out all characters and get all supports more evenly spread out. Meanwhile in 1 route games like Engage or Awakening, with less natural replayability but a similar amount of characters, you just end up either not using alot of characters and never getting to know them or having to grind alot more.
True and not to mention the supports were pretty basic this time around.
It's a bit funny, this kinda of stuff exists with permadeath in mind, like, having a ton of characters to choose from that can be taken as replacements if you lose some units, in Three Houses you don't really have replacement units as soon as Chapter 12 ends (well, except one little exception, but he's exclusive to one route), if you lose somebody, you're essentially losing a deployment slot. Making the army feel more like a RPG group instead of how it usually feels in FE (where only the characters inmune to permadeath and some NPCs get to talk) had some interesting repercussions in both gameplay and story.
Thing about Three Houses is you basically only used those 10 or so characters for that route. Sure a ton of people recruited other house members. However, for a time at least, you're forced to use the main house members to get to know them better, and they're given focus regardless. This is more akin to a typical JRPG than "traditional" Fire Emblem. Where you get one party and stick with them throughout the game. It's not bad mind you, but it's a factor a lot of people glance over. Part of FE's appeal is its large cast, which Three Houses balanced over 3/4 routes, as you said. Past games had large casts due to the idea of permadeath in mind. Suffice to say FE is kinda suffering an identity crisis with many new and old fans viewing it as a JRPG series thanks to the way Three Houses plays. I enjoyed Three Houses, don't get me wrong, but it'd be a shame to see aspects of traditional FE, what makes the series unique, get sidelined for a JRPG series. It'd still be good, again don't get me wrong I'd still buy Three Houses style FE, but I don't come to FE for a JRPG on a grid.
I totally agree. I'm finished Three Houses last week, and I just barely started Engage. I was pretty disappointed the experience wasn't even close to similar. And I think it's funny you mention characters that don't get played at all because I definitely have characters I still haven't even deployed once.
@@auroninja It's fine to dislike Engage and prefer one style of gameplay over the other, but that's the thing. They play completely differently...
Big shout-out to the death scene so long that my switch started going to sleep
I think what holds engage back is it’s art style. Art style is important for first impressions and seeing the new FE basically looks like Genshin I think may have turned off some people (including myself). I plan to buy engage eventually, but I have held back because I have such a large backlog as-is and engage did not look appealing enough to make its way to the top of my backlog. (Like FE3H did)
It is funny because I hear that a lot for Engage but for me I think 3 houses hands down has had the worst art style for the series and it isn't even close. They looks almost like CGI and for characters like Edelgard they look like plastic.
Pretty much as expected. With 3H people figured out its story was good and it took off after the initial wave of sales. With Engage it looks to be the opposite and despite an initially stronger wave it seems to be drying up hard. How did I assess this? Well I used the way back machine and took a look at the number of user ratings at metacritic at certain points after release as a surrogate measure for sales. What I saw is that 3H and Engage started out with a similarly large wave of initial reviews, but a bit after that 3H exploded, while Engage slowed down rapidly.
A good story can draw in people who aren't diehard FE fans. Engage is just ... Not even appealing to more than half the hardcore fans
Heck I still hear people talk about 3H. You still people have discussions of the characters. Fro engage you don’t really hear to much about the story or characters just the gameplay
@@Yoshixandir Think it doesn’t help that many characters don’t really have any thing to do with the story. Like we usually have a cast of characters here it’s really just main character.
@@Yoshixandir the sad part is that having a bad story can’t carry a game. I mean just look at three hopes or fates that have some positives but many flaws that ruined both games for me in the same way that Engage did. I would rather remove Engage and Hopes if it mean the devs would finish and fix three houses flaws so that it would be even better than before.
@@eternaldarklight8204 Engage isn't made by the people that made 3 Houses.
Agreed. Engage showed me that I care more about Lore/Story/Characters in Fire emblem than I thought I did.
(Almost) Every FE story is "lord must defeat fell dragon."
@@ygr6484 or evil tyrant or god, but the path to said end and the characters are the flavor of the story.
@@valdeus4923 Exactly, at this point the final boss in any of the games can be super predictable, even the beginning is the same in some cases, what tells them apart is the meat between those 2 points Though I think I just stated the obvious
@@ygr6484 *when people say Fire emblem has never had good stories and characters* Jugdral, Tellius, Elibe, Magvel, Echoes, Awakening, Three Houses: 🤨
@@dinar8749 I never said that, I just said that most of its games have simple stories and characters
It didn't help that Engage's Skirmish battles were so woefully imbalanced to where trying to "catch up" on characters who fell behind would actually harm you instead. The levels of the battles would keep going up based on your overall level-up's rather than the node location like with Awakening. This makes SP grinding even more of a nuisance when everything seems geared for such replayability but punishes you for it. The power gap between your characters and the enemies just gets more and more absurd.
Despite it being my first fire emblem game I still forgot about it after 3 houses
Unironically stopped playing the game right before the last couple chapters The stories just so genuinely unengaging I couldn’t make myself care for it. The game is literally a Power Rangers episode😭 like why are these guys just casually rambling in front of their enemies
Welcome to JRPGs and anime in 2023 lol, 90% of all these products, shows, and content are cookie cutter trash that's would be considered plagiaristic of old ideas if they weren't so generically thrown together. I'm still not over Fateslandia not having a proper name lol.
@@xravenx24fe they just don’t hit the same no more😞😞😞
Unengaging lol
I agree. I also did not play past the final few chapters because of the story, and characters being very unlikeable in my opinion. Especially Amber, Hortensia, and Alear. Not only are Hortensia and Alear's designs super obnoxious which I hate, but they r also painfully annoying and boring. Alcryst and Diamant r the only truly great 1s in my opinion, for me, they r basically hard carrying what otherwise is a boring or annoying experience.
The story honestly felt like it was written by ChatGPT. Even with as much fun as I was having, I didn't even finish the game because I just couldn't care less about what was going to happen next and I have a ton of games I could play instead. I think anyone who tries to say the story doesn't matter in this single player game completely undersell the value of getting players emotionally invested. I remember thinking at one point while playing that there's no way an Engage character gets into a future Smash title, or is added to the list of legacy characters on a future FE game that has them.
You're just plain wrong to think an Engage character won't get on a legacy character list. It's a successful mainline game either way and will be apart of FE history regardless if you care for it or not.
@@nuibaba280 no all the legacy charas are fan favorites or historically important (like marth). there's nothing memorable about FE engage's characters, the only memorable ones are emblems, which are ripped from previous games. if it does happen it won't be because alear is a fandom favorite or bc of sales
i really agree that story matters with single story rpg's. i see a lot of elitism on game forums for fire emblem that gameplay >>>>>>> story but that's because they're so used to games having a trash story that they've never tasted the goodness that is devil survivor overclocked lol. seriously the perfect balance of story and gameplay. i'm tired of writers getting rushed to hell and back by their boss to push out underdeveloped stories that feed into this elitism. fire emblem as a franchise is so infamous for fates, three houses, and now engage for feeling rushed as hell.
Who knows, FEH seems slow to add more characters unlike past games. You'd sooner see Jurgdal over Engage in FEH
@@solar6284 i don’t necessarily disagree with everything you’re saying, but you’re not in a position to say none of engage’s cast is memorable. remember, you’re just one person. you don’t get to decide what is memorable or important to anyone besides yourself. trying to do that for others is no different, if not the same, as the elitism that has plagued our community for years. and to iterate, i’m not trying to argue or call you out. but instead just point out that the way your comment was worded is misrepresentative of reality. people DO like engage’s characters and they WILL be remembered - it’s just that right now conversation about engage is completely eclipsed by 3H, discourse from which was unlike and will probably always be unlike what this community has ever seen.
I loved Engage and I loved 3H. The problem is I love completely different aspects of both. 3H is so character heavy and has an intriguing world with tons of lore and Engage has the most fluid and _meaty_ gameplay in the whole franchise. Why is it so hard to have both Intelligent Systems?
I would speculate that in Three Houses's case, the amount of time spent on fleshing out the story and creating unique maps for all of the different War Phase paths subtracted from the time they had to fine-tune the gameplay. Honestly, I hope they revisit it on whatever Nintendo's next console is with some sort of enhanced re-release, because it really deserves it.
@@OneTrueNobodyif they do it’d have to be from the ground up the engine they used wasn’t one of their own (not saying this as fact my speculation for it is because outside of warriors they haven’t made a proper fe console game) not giving it to them as a excuse but I’m sure you understand the staff and equipment changes needed for such tasks . My point is when they do remake it they start giving these games the love they gave to awakening and fates . (Honestly hard to top awakening when they went into that game expecting it to be the last in the series)
@@OneTrueNobody I highly disagree with that. There are countless game franchises that have existed for decades that can pull off both, Engage just didn't even want to bother.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 Great, lovely, wonderful. What does Engage "not even wanting to bother" have to do with the dev cycle of THREE HOUSES?
@@OneTrueNobody 3 Houses tried, Engage didn't. People want games with effort put into ALL aspects of them, especially with how technology has advanced for decades.
I showed my brother (an FE fan) the main character's design, and it was an immediate VISCERAL negative reaction, to the point that he said the design makes him not want to buy the game. And he hasn't. It's completely unacceptable to let something as easily fixable as a character design impact the sales of your game.
You know I never considered some of the real life context stuff that affected things. It also doesn't help that the game was just genuinely delayed by 2 years. I feel it would've tracked a lot better if it had genuinely been released as a 30th anniversary title since it's very clearly meant to celebrate the series as a whole
I mean I didn't buy the game even if it was the anniversary I still wouldn't have because of the story.
@@saintlugiai get people like story based games, but classic fire emblems were always based more on gameplay. I know its all personal preference though
@@anthonycortes868 while I respect that when a lot of people get onto fe with a story based game a follow-up game like engage going in hhe opposite direction will fall flat.
The only reason I even remember this is even an "anniversary" game is because people keep stating it. There is so much about this game that is just NOT Fire Emblem, obviously the art style and character design, but even the music is heavily uninspired most of the time. After crap like Super Mario 3D All-stars, FE1 digital, Sonic Colors Ultimate, Sonic Origins, and a couple more I can't think of, the word "anniversary" no longer holds any weight for me.
This is exactly what I've been saying/thinking. If this game came out on the 30th anniversary people would probably understand and excuse it better. However, because it didn't people think it's a "lazy nostalgia cash grab" or what have you. Which peeves me because even with the existence of FEH, people are still unfamiliar with games before Awakening, and thanks to Three Houses so this perceived "nostalgia" doesn't actually exist, imo. We have COVID to thank for that. I could rant about other stuff, but that's a big one.
I genuinely think that Engage's story and presentation hurt it way more than people realise. I want to preface this by saying that the actual gameplay is really enjoyable and Mika Pizako's ability as an artist should go without saying, but having Engages character designs turned off so so many people. Mika herself has gone on record saying she wasn't told where the characters were meant to fit in the world which explains why they're so out there and lacking in any kind of coherency. They didn't look like real characters, they looked like actors and pop stars, totally incongruous in their medieval setting. To make matters worse, Mikas art style is busy and relies on vibrant colours and shading, which simply don't carry over well to 3D models. The end result is that the game LOOKS all over the place with a very jarring art style that doesn't fit the world ending plot of the game. To make matters worse, the writing in Engage is so bad that the characters sound and act as weird as they look. Despite many peoples cope that the story was intentional satire it does just come across as BAD and everything about the characters is so one note that there's NOTHING to latch onto. The story is simple, but unlike Sacred Stones say, it's in a bad way. Things just HAPPEN and villains are allowed to just walked away, and the dialogue is so trite. Long story short, if we ARE comparing Engage to 3H, 3H is a game with broad appeal that Engage simply lacked and I was able to convince loads of friends to play it. The gameplay, though not AS good as Engages, was still enjoyable for those who were gameplay focused, while the plot held intrigue for more story focused friends. More friends still got into it because the characters looked and sounded endearing and showed clear development over the story. By comparison, those same friends wouldn't touch Engage with a 10ft pole. The characters looked and acted like morons, the plot was trite and paper thin, and as a result even those who begrudgingly gave it a try for the gameplay stopped by about Ch 20 - they just didn't care enough to finish it.
Engage's character designs were just fine. Mika Pizako did an excellent job. And They couldn't be incongruous in their medieval setting because Engage does not take place in a medieval based setting. It's clearly a unique setting. And the characters were generally more endearing than most 3H characters.
@@Guy-cb1oh A lot of people forget that Engage isn't really a medieval based setting lmao.
Was she told at ANY point that she was going overboard?
@@AkameGaKillfan777 No because Intelligent Systems specifically asked for those designs and gave her no direction.
@@nuibaba280 It may be a strict 'medieval fantasy' but it has all the trappings of one - a feudal system with kings and lords and peasants, old fashioned weaponry that apparently isn't of an age to have crossbowmen, unless you count the clearly magical Mage Canoneer, animals such as horses and wyverns are the primary war mounts and method of transportation, most commoners are smiths and farmers... All of this translates fairly well into a roughly medieval setting EXCEPT for the character designs, where we have Ivy the burlesque dancer, Clanne and Framme in their stylish plaid snoods looking like they just ordered a frappe at Starbucks, Hortensia the loli v-tuber clown and Yunaka, the thief who remains incongruous by... Painting her cheeks and putting pretty star stickers in her hair. I'm well aware that Fire Emblem isn't strictly a medieval setting, but when ALL ASPECTS OF THE WORLD map onto that era of history fairly well except for the character designs people aren't wrong to comment that it seems incongruous.
For me it’ll always be encapsulated in the character design. The Engage cast looks like characters out of a gacha game where they try to be as flashy as possible with no depth in order to make anime fans pay money to own them. There’s no aesthetic cohesion, no sense that they fit in their own world, and no sense that there’s any depth beyond the extremely loud designs. If you told me someone at nintendo/is said to make the cast of Engage for the express purpose of putting them in FEH i would believe them
I found the game's lack of staying power very obvious when for a majority of the time since its release instead of things like story or how great the characters are, or even how fun the gameplay is, the only thing I ever consistently saw was people pointing out how utterly censored the game was. And a very obtuse amount of very obvious and not particularly clever censorship at that.
Just a bunch of politically driven incels who have no place in gaming.
@@alecseusalec3418 Not my problem if fictional characters are better with relationships than you
Coming back to this, the game isn't censored nearly as much as people are acting like it is. The fact that it was censored at all is enough to dislike it, but it's still small potatoes compared to what Fates did. And before some clown comes at me and harasses me with: "Wtf you're defending a child groomer." 1) I know what the original dialogue is, and still think it's a stretch to say it's more than just platonic there either 2) The characters are either wearing the ring on their middle finger, or not at all 3) That says more about you than me if you're so quick to jump to that conclusion
I personally think that the story is main reason why Engage fell out of the loop so quickly. Ultimately, a story is one of the reasons of why a game has staying power in a community, and Engage just doesn't have it. Even though I didn't mind the story and still enjoyed it, that's not what the general community wants. I know that they were going for a simple story, but aside from a few moments, has me skipping them on a second playthrough. IS has to acknowledge that they cannot slack in the writing department, they have to get serious about it. Even though the gameplay is really good, gameplay discussions can only carry a game so far before it fizzles out. I really hated the fact that there is no NG+ either, it really hurt the replayability of Engage and not being able to craft high-end level builds unless you poor hours into it just isnt worth it for an average player. Honestly, the characters I really did enjoy, the supports are great as well, not much to complain about. But I think the reason why a lot of people dismiss the characters in Engage is primarily the story, the boring story unfortunately drags the characters down with it, along with the patience of players to learn about them, leaving players to generalise them with their surface-level traits.
and yet they either have good stories but bad gameplay or good gameplay but bad stories... honestly they need to focus on both or otherwise fire emblem wont last long...
@@ladyriethegoldendelmo5441 It's like IS can't juggle them both at the same time, it's annoying because we know that they can do it, Path of Radiance is probably the best one in the entire series. Even though the focus was to make Engage a simple story, I really hope they listen to the feedback on the story and make it really good again. Just imagine a FE game with Engage's gameplay, Tellius' story and Fódlan's world building. Now that's a recipe of a golden FE game
@@ladyriethegoldendelmo5441 yeah and funny enough the recent dlc had the same issue. The story was interesting but the gameplay suffered and it didn’t help that the progression doesn’t carry over
@@kueyteow6288 in my opinion no fire emblem game is perfect but Engage has so many flaws with the cliche characters that rarely grow, boring predictable story, unengaging writing and foolish nostalgia that make it one of the worst games in my opinion. I love path of radiance, three houses, Blazing blade and other games despite their flaws due to the interesting presentation and characters that kept me in the game
@@eternaldarklight8204 I don't agree. Let's agree to disagree. The gameplay and animations is probably the series' best, but I don't think it deserves being labelled as one of the worst Fire Emblem games. It's probably one of the best Fire Emblem games to start out with as a new fan. The characters, I find more endearing than one-note and the supports do help them out as well. And calling the game nostalgia bait or foolish nostalgia, just isnt completely true, it's meant to be a celebration of how far Fire Emblem has come as a franchise and is there to celebrate it.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the lack of S-Supports. Whenever I talked with people about their (lack of) excitement of the game, this was one of the most frequent topics.
This too. The shipping community is a big part of the FE fanbase, so giving everyone just 2 endings (one with and without Alear) just asked to alienate those fans hard.
I do feel like it's generally gonna be hard to keep up with the whole thing of Avatar can S Support anyone forever though. If nothing else, people are rightfully becoming more vocal about not wanting romantic pairings between adult avatars and child units, and if they want to keep including child units in the game (Framme, Clanne, Engage Anna, Lysithea, Cyril, etc) then they're not going to be able to keep up having the avatar s support whoever they want. It also comes into play with Engage's approach of having Alear able to pact ring with everyone regardless of gender. And this is coming from a gay guy who was extactic to see you able to do that in Engage. I will admit that doing that can make it hard for every option to feel like it makes sense because undeniably some characters feel straight and others don't so that makes romance not work with certain characters, not to mention it unfortunately will push away the "anti-woke" crowd. And even beyond that not every character feels like a good match for each other regardless. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think getting rid of S Supports entirely is the right idea. But I don't know if they can keep up with the avatar having all of them available forever because of a variety of reasons
the game does have s supports. i think your referring to no paired endings or maybe you just referring to the awakening and fates support system if so than apologies for misunderstanding.
@@loganmiller7827 I personally would appreciate the next game to not have an Avatar character at all. Even if there is only one or a handful of love interests for each character.
@DarkSmashball oh yeah I'd prefer that as well but I find it unlikely to happen
I feel like the great characters and story is what made so many people stay attached to 3H. The 3H is still really active, people love to explore all different possibilities and variations of each story and it's characters. Engage doesn't seem to have that, it feels like it only has it's gameplay going for it, and to me at least that isn't really compelling. I don't feel the need to learn more about the world and the characters, to replay the game several times, it all seems so uninteresting, especially when compared to 3H Edit: typo
If there's one thing Engage's hub proved, it's that the Three Houses approach to hub locations needs a strong narrative and character foundation for it to be worth spending time on. The Somniel is pretty... for a bit... but it really just has no soul.
On that topic, I am definitely not going to dispute that the Monastery took a lot of time and that the drag on replays was very real. That said, there was a definite trade-off there, and depending on the player's priorities in what they look for in a game, it could end up being a positive trade. Fodlan really does stand strong as a setting even with just the Monastery to explore, "Fodlan in a nutshell," as Claude describes it. There's a lot of personality and narrative value there, and every time I go back to the game after some time away, returning to the Monastery feels a bit like coming home-which helps put the player on the same page as the characters in the story, as long as they're receptive to that aspect of the experience. The fact that I cut my teeth on the Shining Force games undoubtedly helps as far as my own tolerance for the time-drag goes, though, since Shining Force is essentially just Fire Emblem with standard JRPG exploration in-between the battles.
@@OneTrueNobody Yeah, the monastery gameplay wise had flaws, but for the first.... 5 playthroughs, i still went through all of it, cause i loved interacting with the characters, being in their world.
The Somniel made me uncomfortable to travel through
Monastery part was the best part of 3H.@@OneTrueNobody
I’m not sure using Smash as a marketing argument is valid, as Smash has historically not helped franchises featured within it all that much. Even within the context of Fire Emblem, the series struggled for years (despite Smash getting FE’s foot in the door internationally) prior to Awakening. Likewise, ARMS & Dragon Quest saw little to no boost in sales as a result of their characters being included. Even Xenoblade 2’s supposed boost didn’t amount to much in the end. Within the context of the two games in question for this video, Three Houses made most of its sales long before Byleth was announced for Smash. And like with the other examples given, Smash ultimately didn’t boost Three Houses much in sales.
If anything, FE’s stigma in smash could have potentially hurt sales for the picky and downright pathetic. Byleth’s introduction meant another FE sword fighter, something people stated they were VERY fed up with.
Literally a lot of people was mad bc *Another FE character*. Yeah no boost sales for 3H just bc smash.
Xenoblade 2 is still the highest selling game in the franchise, despite Xenoblade 3 being out for almost a year so I think the boost did help. For reference the Kotobukiya figures for Pyra and Mytha had 3-4 re-releases and sold out every time. Them being in Smash, especially as top tier characters did help a lot to improve Xenoblade 2's reception to a general audience.
@@24hr-Gaming One xenoblade character vs 10 FE characters already in the game. Is not the same.
@@juanhurtado7244 At the end of 2020 3 houses sales were just at 3m. After Byleth released in Smash another 400k units sold. That's not a small amount. Just because memers are loud on the internet, that doesn't really measure to much in reality. The boost for Xenoblade 2 was actually similar. It was a little over 2m before Pyra and Mythra came to Smash and I think it boosted it by 5-600k units not including Torna which also sold out again after re-release. It completely sold out in Japan.
Three Houses was amazing. It joins Morrowind as my favorite game ever. It's just a magical experience.
well well when the only selling point of your main character is looking like freshly squeezed colgate no one really gets engaged
Story of Three Houses: So many have died, yet the war goes on. Every day we discover new disturbing facts about our country leader's pasts. So many genocides, regicides, and incetious experiments have happened. All in the name of power. What has this world come to? And do we truly wish to inherit it? Story of Engage: OMG!!! The divine dragon is back!!!!! Let's go on an adventure and save the world!!!!!!
Worldbuilding of Three Houses: These are crests. They're very powerful and only certain bloodlines have them. Nevertheless, they've shaped the politics and structure of the world to their core. Everyone, from the poorest peasant to the wealthiest noble, has been affected by their existence in some way or another Worldbuilding of Engage: These are the engage rings! They're neat!
@@whiteraven562 The world is a circle!!!!! Here's where the flower people live! Their defining traits are: likes flowers, likes tea. Just wait till you meet their princess, she LOVES tea and literally nothing else.
The supports of 3H: We have gone through traumatic experiences together, and sometimes that brings us closer together, and other times that causes us to hurt the ones we love. But we can strive for resolution and to grow strong together. The supports of Engage: “Wow! You’re quirky! How did you get so [muscular/hungry/fairy tales/tea/cool youth pastor]?
@@uberculexoh boy ! I can’t wait to learn absolutely nothing more 😀
@@Lexplosivesgod engage support we’re so boring. At least in the other games they felt like they were in danger in this it feels like the war is non existent. Even fates infamous support … …. Was more engaging then a lot of these
Heads up, this is a LONG comment. The three things that hurt Engage the most imo are the lack of New Game+, the reclassing system, and the story/characters. I won't go into the NG+ stuff, since you covered it perfectly. But the way the unit classes and switching them works sucks. In Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses, you can customize so much because the skills carry over. For example, you could make both Felix and Dorothea Mortal Savants, but Felix could get there from the physical side, using skills from Mercenary, Assassin, maybe detour to Warrior for Wrath, while Dorothea usually goes the magic route. And that's nothing to say about how different the second generation units in Awakening and Fates can be just by making new pairings. But you can't transfer any of the super cool skills that the advanced classes get. Imagine how awesome it would be to use the Merciless skill with a class that has lower Strength, like Swordmaster, or to use Run Through with an armored class for easier movement. The story was cool in the beginning, but it honestly fell off for me after you start recollecting the rings you lose. And none of the characters were very interesting on a base level. I just found myself using all the royals and Veyle, who by default have the most character given to them. I also used Mauvier and Yunaka because they stood out to me as well, and I honestly only used Louis and Bunet because I'm a fan of both of their voice actors. That's another thing I consider a step backwards for Engage: the voice acting, at least in English. It's not bad by any means, and I've heard several good performances from so many of the actors, but it's underwhelming compared to how great the performances were in the previous games (sans Tellius, as much as it pains me to say); even the cutscenes in Awakening and Fates were extremely well done, and they just make me wish we had gotten the fully voiced treatment earlier. So many of my favorite characters in Shadows of Valentia and especially Three Houses caught my interest with help from their voice actors: Alm and Celica, Gray and Tobin, Mae, Berkut, all three Fodlan lords, Ferdinand von Aegir (Rest in Peace), Dorothea, Felix, the freaking Gatekeeper! And even the characters I don't really like still have great performances, like Leonie and Lorenz. A great performance can elevate a character's likability and depth. So many of Mae's lines make me laugh because of Cherami Leigh's delivery. Ian Sinclair's performance changes Berkut from a typical angry, always-losing side villain to someone who can honestly be pitied. At the end of the "Nothing but lies" line, it honestly sounds like he's about to burst into tears. A lot of people would probably consider Ferdinand and Clair stuffy nobles if it wasn't for the charm delivered by Billy Kametz and Alexis Tipton, respectively. And would we have voted Gatekeeper into FEH if Kyle McCarley hadn't given so much energy to the role, or if the character had no voiced lines to begin with? And again, the acting in Engage isn't bad. I just found a lot of it underwhelming, which is unfortunate because they got some really talented people for several characters.
Yeah the voice acting this time wasn’t that good although I blame more on the writing. Many of the lines the actors had to say were just meh. This is also sucks since these actors can act but the characters that they had to portray felt bland. Heck I can’t even tell you who voices who because the characters were not engaging for me to get to know
The reclassing system was a MASSIVE annoyance for me, being unable to keep advanced class skills seems like an incredibly dumb choice Like, Luna and Sol are great. But if I want them, Alcryst and Diamont *have* to stay as their unique classes, meaning I never tried them in other classes As a result if class gave a good skill (like Hero) I kept units in that class, and reclassed anyone who got a class skill I didn't like. That was it And it makes so little sense to me when the game already has this huge focus on getting a variety of skills from the Emblems
It's definitely the voice direction that's an issue. I've liked Boucheron's VA in several past roles(Kazuichi in Danganronpa 2, Kirishima in My Hero Academia, Kakyoin from Jojo's Bizzare Adventure Part 3, Gohan, etc.) and David Matranga(Wave from Akame Ga Kill and Todoroki also from MHA) but they don't sound right for some reason that's hard to describe. Justin Briner is okay though.
The characters left more of a void than an impression. Bya papaya.
Engage feels way too focused on the lords. Three Houses makes every character feel part of the story. I started with Golden Deers and didn't really catch on to most the enemies you fight in part 1 are family members from the playable characters. Everyone has connections and purpose. While I did love Engage, specially its gameplay. I hated that they forget about its secondary characters. Which sucks because Engage has got some very unique characters.
As a fan who got in to FE with awakening and went back to the older titles aswell, FE engage felt like what I imagine outsiders and detractors thought fire emblem was all this time. Which is pretty biting criticism if you’re familiar with some of those perspectives To me Fire emblem has always been about how well progression and understanding of the characters intertwined with progression in the gameplay. You wanted to learn more about a character and were rewarded for with info/bonds for using them in combat. Conversely learning/engaging with them in “the barracks, my castle, etc” led to them being better IN combat. Creating a really nice feedback loop on both fronts. Engage utterly fails with the characters i experienced in the 12 hours I put into it and I could not get that feedback loop going, amazing combat be damned. Not ashamed to say I dropped it, think I only got to chapter 8/9. Great video
FE Engage is a quintessential FE game. If the Detractors hate it than FE is not for them.
@@Guy-cb1oh FE engage is a trashfire of a fire emblem game. It fails at everything core to the identity of the series. Except that gameplay, the gameplay is pretty amazing.
@@Guy-cb1oh Name one person who saw the original leak of Alear and genuinely believed: "Yeah, that's Fire Emblem."
People can be as annoyed about it as they want, but the whole community ethical debate over Edelgard vs Dimitri (with claude in the background) really drove the visibility and staying power of three houses lol
I just wish all the high school dropouts who think starting a war=war crimes would shut up and educate themselves.
Lol it did make fun discussions. And honestly it was kinda of fun to see fans talk about why they picked a certain side. I wish we could do that with engage but alas the story and characters are kinda of basic
Honestly the one nice thing about Engage is that the FE community is so much less toxic now. I'll take "we all agree this game sucks, right?" over the endless idiotic discourse 3H spawned.
@@Risuna Except certain people ARE going: "No, but the story is actually good, dude." I'll personally take "Edelgard vs Dimitri, Claude is just there lol" over "FE has always had bad stories and ridiculous characters in the majority of its cast."
@Iamnobody good.
I'd say the name is also important. I've said it since it was announced. "Fire Emblem: Engage" sounds like a spin-off game, not a mainline FE game. If that's the first impression from the name alone, don't expect people to take a second look.
"And the premise that the story is made simpler for a younger audience is fine I guess" - Popular phrase dumbasses keep propagating to seem inoffensive I hate this argument. Xenogears, Chronotrigger, Dragon Quest, Golden Sun, FFVI, VII, VIII, IX and X and most JRPG classics from the 90's or early 2000's all throw it in the dumpster. "Younger Audiences" are smarter than you give them credit for and you don't need to diminish your writing to baby them along. All you do is hurt your own game long-term. Writing IS important in games. While games can make do without them, they become all the more memorable with them and it can only help your game if done decently, hell sometimes even if it's done badly because at least people memorize it. The worst thing you can do, is be bland, like Engage, which is ironic considering it completely fails to engage you in the plot and characters. Ergo; NO it's not fine to deliberately dumb down your story for a younger audience because you are just doing them (and everyone else) a disservice. Stop it.
The take away is that the Three Houses discourse, which some people were starting to get tired of, will persist until we get the rumoured remake of Genealogy, because Engage was not engaging enough to make fans move over to Engage discourse.
tbh the only discourse i've seen around engage is about the designs and Anna's S-support localisation. 3H discourse, for better or for worse, is still going strong
Three Houses discourse will persist over Engage largely because there is no Edelgard to carry it on its back. A large portion of the discussion of Three Houses that still persists nowadays is based on that alone.
@@yowieyahoo Going strong, but not for good reasons. In fact, it's going strong for reasons that may convince others to not buy the game.
@@CometX-ing And Yunaka, the only character who seems to have had any impact on the fandom, is certainly no Edelgard.
@@yowieyahoo There's a LOT more Engage discource than that, mostly with how much people say story matters and how well past games have done it. Anyone saying it doesn't matter or that Engage is no different is arguing in bad faith, but doing an exceptional job at telling people to avoid this franchise, and maybe strategy RPGs as a whole, something actual Engage critics could only dream of doing.
While it's a shame the game dropped off so quickly, it's also not entirely unexpected given how little meat the game has for the fanbase to chew on. I noticed something was up when the fanart Engage was getting couldn't even match the *current numbers* Three Houses still gets, and that has to be for a reason. On the plus side, Intelligent Systems choosing to keep downplaying the importance of the writing after the results of Engage's sales could be potentially suicidal from their part, so the next non-remake FE should improve on that regard (and if not, their loss tbh).
IS will kill the series if they go the Paper Mario or even better Mario and Luigi route of not caring about the story.
@@TheMaestroMizerous What? There are a lot of reasons why Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi fell off, but it _definatelly_ wasn't the story.
@@funninoriginal6054 You sure? People hated Sticker Star's plot a lot.
@@funninoriginal6054 Paper mario, despite not being rpgs anymore and not caring about what fans of the first three games like, still sells well simply because of the brand. If it was instead an original IP unrelated to anything popular, it would've died out by now. Fire emblem is far more niche compared to the likes of mario. If IS keeps ignoring what the majority of fe fans want (as evidenced by engage's lower sales than three houses) then the series will likely go back to be extremely niche and on the verge of dying again like before awakening.
@@dinar8749 Oh yeah i agree that FE needs to step up with its plots, im just confused with the notion that the stories are what made modern Paper Mario games and the 3ds Mario & Luigi games die off.
Thank you SO MUCH for defending Fate's My Castle. Ever since Three Houses released and again now with Engage, I just miss how simple and fast My Castle was to work with. It took at max a couple of minutes to do any side activities if you really wanted to take your time, leaving only important things like shopping or character conversations as the bigger moments. Plus you could run at the speed of sound to whatever background music you'd set. It was basically perfect. I get that the same top-down structure "looks worse" from a glance when being implemented into a 3D game. It opens the door to criticism of "being lazy" and not putting effort to have the main character's perspective when walking around for immersion. But I would gladly take Fates' approach from an actual gameplay perspective. It just respected the player's time so much better.
It's incredibly easy to just do a couple of things like check the Armory, Item Shop, and cook meals for stat boosts, and you won't feel like there's something you missed either.
Yea I feel like they didn't learn enough from the negative feedback on the monastery. Engage castle is better than the monastery but still tedious and rewards almost seem more convoluted. mycastle stays as the best version of a player base. I've played a lot of fates and mycastle never got annoying like 3h or engage did by just the end of the game.
Fates to me still has some things going for then engage. While the gameplay is not the best as engage it’s still fun. The characters are more entertaining and the world is interesting between hoshido and nohr.
Oh god "My Castle" I remember spending HOURS walking through other Peoples Castles and finding stuff I need, and get fun Skills from the "Ez Seize" ones. Still kinda want to play Engage.. at least to experience it.. And might be an unpopular opinion, but I like the Hub from 3 Houses. But maybe they could give you option wether or not you want to run around or have it convenient.
As someone who plays for the story, it felt familiar and rehashed--not to mention inconsistencies or confusing moments (ie reviving Alear twice, time travel for 1 chapter, Sombron's goals, etc.) made the storyline difficult to enjoy.
Overall it's a good measure for how important story is. General consensus seems to be that Engage has better gameplay, but a far worse story. Hopefully they learn the right lessons from this, which is to never neglect story anymore. As a reminder, they intentionally aimed for a "simple story" to begin with in that developer interview ghast covered. I remember calling it "setting failure as the goal" or something like that at the time. And the whole "appealing to a wider audience" is another one of those corporate fantasy goals that always fails and just alienates the original audience.
Yeah. I think the biggest problem actually was the characters. Because a simple story can work, it has before. But FE at it's core is a character based strategy game. If your characters are bland "oh i have 1 unique trait be interested!", you may get a few fans... but overall many people will stop engaging.
This. Simple stories can work well. Look at Dragon Quest XI for example. It is literally a Mcguffin hunt with a Dark Lord story just like Engage. But the characters, the world, and the presentation were so charming and enthralling in DQXI that I thouroyghly enjoyed the story anyway. I can't say that Engage tried to do anything nearly as good with its story.
Note that while story is still *an* important thing, it isn't everything. Something that frustrates me about modern gaming discourse is people don't want their games to be games anymore. They'll forgive something with bare-bones gameplay as long as its functional and has a great story. If that's the case, just watch a movie, or a TV series, or read a book. A great story can *enhance* a game, yes, but it also needs to justify actually being a videogame.
@@kaffka9221 yeah, I partly agree with that. I feel like, for a video game, would you rather have a game with excellent gameplay, but a poor story, or a game with an amazing story, but with a terrible gameplay. I much rather have a game with excellent gameplay rather than the story, because I'm here for the gameplay, not the story. Heck, Engage does both at the same time somehow. The main game is the latter, and the Fell Xenologue is the former. The Fell Xenologue, even though has a more interesting premise, genuinely made me wanna give up and just search the cutscenes online just so I can continue the story rather than stomach the painful gameplay.
@@lv4715 For real. Engage does have some good characters. Heck, I don't think there's one I actively dislike, but it Engage's (heh...) with them so minimally I struggle to remember most of them after the fact. Worth noting that most of the main story paralogues deal with the RINGS (i.e. well-established returning characters) didn't help.
So wait, they made a game with so many references to previous games in the series WHILE simplifying its characters and writting for a younger audience?! This almost makes the decisions behind Dead Rising 4 sound not so stupid in comparisson. Like, i'm sure the game can be enjoyable but as someone who loved 3H, Awakening and Fates, i understand why i never bothered with Engage. I had an inside feeling when i read the news about the game that something was weird and i learn they took such decisions, i'm truly blown away by the utter stupidity of them. It's like they didn't even try to learn why 3H sold so well and just threw everything that worked. Heck, Fates was already for a younger audience and it didn't really need to strip elements : they built mostly on what worked in Awakening and added things to differenciate it.
Back in 2019 I didn’t even have a switch. Everyone on my Twitter timeline was posting about 3 houses. It looked so fun, and they were portraying it as some big love story between Dimitri and Byleth. I got so interested I bought a switch just to play it and now I have over 800 hours on the game. It’s funny because I honestly forgot Engage even came out. I never saw not one thing being said about it.
honestly, as someone who has only played 3h and engage, it's the density of the characters and world-building in 3H that still has a hold on me years later. to this day i still find out new things about characters and the world from supports i might have missed. the lore is so rich and 500 hours later in the game im still not even close to knowing everything. Not to mention I think 3H has such a large roster that i just think it's impossible to play the game and not have a single character you were absolutely obsessed with for a time. That and the multiple routes and playthroughs one will do which is already increasing the longevity of the game. engage was great but i view it more of a celebration of the series than it's own game half the time. Editing this to add that the morally greyness of certain characters and conflicting opinions/controversies in the plot will make for conversation and discourse years later. Engage is too one note to hold that same power
I 110% agree on the hubworld being the WORST “Modern FE Trend” It just felt like there was so much busywork and absolutely disconnected me from the stakes/what was going on with how long everything takes. 3H made the monastery a big thing & seeing how each class reacted differently and preparing for the chapter at the month’s end was part of it. You could ignore it and just rest, or chip away at the game slowly. Awakening/Tellius/GBA had an overworld and menus you could explore, and that was enough. But it’s done in such a hack, timewaster way in Engage & Warriors 3Hopes… it’s so exhausting I haven’t replayed either 😕
As a latecomer, I like the hub worlds in that they can make me feel part of the world, more than if the game is entirely battle maps and a post battle menu. But it is a balancing act. I liked the monistery well enough in 3 Houses, but it does overstay its welcome. I think they missed a trick by having the ruined monistery after the time skip still have all the activities, minus the lost items only. With the place in shambles and being in a more serious, wartorn time with older characters, it would have been a good opportunity to wipe the slate of busywork clean. It could be build up again as you restore the monistery, preferably with fresh new activities, but even the same ones would be more tolerable with a bit of a break. And Somniel is a dud for me. It seems their response to 3H criticism of the hub was to put in little effort to improve it, but just make more stuff ignorable. I think that, with a little extra effort and content in the post battle map exploration, they could have scrapped Somniel altogether and be better for it.
Speak for yourself, I like the monastery
Monastery good Somniel bad
@@dirtydan5181 based
What are you smoking? You can completely ignore Engage except picking up ingots from dogs, and training in the arena for skills (max of 10min total) and beat the game with an optimal team. If you ignored the monastery in 3H you would miss out on recruitments, and a ton class/skill optimization, your team would only be sub-par. If you only did everything that was relevant in 3H you would still spend spend about 15-20 minutes every monastery visit.
I've always felt engage's issues were relatively obvious. Every one of three house's characters have an army of stans because they're written in a way that you can love them or relate to them. And that comes because they're all treated seriously, even in some cases were the mood is comedic. Bernadetta, Ignatz, Lorenz, and Caspar all have underlying serious development even when many times people who don't invest time might only see them as comedic or annoying. This, of course, has some issues with the support system (going through Bernie's C supports all at the same time as a requirement to see her A supports is rough) but it's *there*. If you like a character's design, you will be given the chance to fall in love with their personality, many times over, in a serious depiction of their archetype. People will always take issues to certain parts of the story they can nitpick or w/e (why wasn't said option explored instead?) but you can't deny how the characters were treated within it, giving them the right to be morally ambiguous, or committed to their cause, or leaving it up to the player to who was right. And the voice acting to go with it leaned into everyone taking every part of the story seriously, meaning we could take the characters seriously. 3H will stand as a testament to how a game can be made almost entirely off wonderful characters and great voice acting, and Engage will be remembered that there are expansions on the gameplay formula but we could also just play other engaging strategy RPGs if you're not giving us good characters to go along with it.
Bernadetta and the stone prince in Engage (I legit forget his name) have massive inferiority complexes and on the surface are very similar characters. But you find out Bernadetta has an overbearing and abusive father who happens to be one of the most powerful men in Adrestia. The prince meanwhile has a loving older brother, a loving father and loving friends and vassals, there's absolutely no reason for him to see himself as inferior when the person he compares himself to is such a great brother. Just shows they put actual work into the characters in 3H while every character just feels like they made a list of their character traits and then called it a day.
@@Will_Parker Alcryst
- No serious memorable writing - No NG+,no incentive to play again -4 hours 17 minutes wake up events, but one-liners from emblem bonds. (we could get to know emblems better since we, western peasants, didn't get the older games here at first) The ring niche made classes and abilities pointless - Too much grind for too many currencies - Too many kid characters. Makes you wonder how did they make this next to 3 houses. What was thr thought process? Why do they ignore the current trends and trh western audience ?
Three Houses better story/lore/characters is what kept me more invested in this series than Engage. Fan content us still chugging for FE3H, despite the game being almost 4 years old. While I dont think fan content significantly helps sales, having an active community does.
Are we not going to mention how super fanservicey Engage is not to mention how strange the characters are in the game compared to other games?
I don’t really see the game being more fan-servicey than other games in the series. I mean, yeah old Lords are in the game but its not any worse than New Mystery onwards. Definitely not worse than Fates. As for the characters being strange… I don’t know why they would be more strange than any characters from the other titles? Maybe because they take themselves too seriously? Thats about the only reason I can think of.
@@Palasid11 I think you can objectively say it's fanservicey, but that's not a bad thing! Just an explanation for sales declining. It was advertised on characters returning and trope-heavy designs that alienated some new fans who hadn't yet played the other games or had come into FE for a different tone. It also made it more of a fun rather than deep run for veteran players. The design isn't objectively bad. It's just not as *sustainable* for a larger audience or larger timeframe.
@@pippastrelle Of course it won't be sustainable, why would the franchise base itself off an anniversary one-off?
The characters look beyond ridiculous. Some of the hair/clothes styles are so off-putting. Also, so many women are scantily clad. It's, frankly, disturbing. I don't need that in my life.
@@nuibaba280 Yeah, exactly the point. I'm not critiquing FE Engage at all. I'm saying why sales dropped off.
Engage lacks personality. It has the worst art direction and art design of any fire emblem game I’ve ever played. I can’t recall one single song from the game and can’t name more than one or two characters. It also lacked more classes for leveling up, it felt more restrictive and each main stronger character had pretty much their classes set up for them. I understand the weapon triangle and even enjoy it but it felt too broken in engage and easy to explore. I enjoyed the game overall but I hope for the next fire emblem game we get a real story and no more of these tropes we’ve been getting for the past few Fire emblems now. Also a sense of personality depicted in the art direction like we saw in fates for example. Architecture clothing weapons and themes based on something unique. Also so tired of fighting the evil dragon awakened, and dead parents, and forgotten pasts etc.
It's really wierd how you brought up support conversations of engage as a redeaming part, because for me they were the biggest reason I didn't finish the game. In previous games support conversations were used to add some depth to otherwise mostly flat and one-dimentional characters. In engage characters in supports remain flat as a pancake, which makes their conversations almost painfull to read. Maybe a wasn't patient enough to get to the "good stuff", but it's not like I didn't try to. Also the limited amount of time for activities in three houses really helped to make the time waste bearable, because in the end you needed to do only three of them at a time. In engage you eather do all of them every time or make yourself a disservice by ignoring something that could potentiately make a difference later. And the amount of time it takes to complete some of them (like wyvern riding) certainly doesn't help.
Also don’t forget that 3H was the first console FE game since Radiant Dawn. That was huge.
@@wasifahsan2718 it's not just three houses that are better than Engage but previous games like the Gba games, tellius games and the Kaga games were great games because they used the characters with hidden depth and world building to add to most simple stories while tackling themes like class systems, racism, ego, and more that Engage just heavily lacks
@@wasifahsan2718 Understandable, I just wish that people would stop excusing all the flaws in Engage. There are so many excuses for it like "the game is corny" or " the game has good gameplay" that just grinds my gears because people trashtalk fates(for good reason) while giving Engage a pass is bullshit
@@wasifahsan2718 Engage’s plot is overall worse than RD’s yes, but no individual thing is Engage’s story is worse than “Blood Pacts.”
@@cancerstinks1 I dunno, "I stole your rings because you looked behind," seems pretty absurd to me.