In just 10 short years, the fire sign franchise has risen from the brink of ruin to overwhelming success. It’s a series with a rich and storied history, and Engage Fire Emblem is all about celebrating that legacy while looking to the future. It gets to the heart of what makes fire sign‘s gameplay so addicting after all this time.
Engage Fire Emblem takes place on the continent of Elyos, which is split into a handful of different countries. You play as Alear, a deity also known as the Divine Dragon. A thousand years ago you sealed the Fell Dragon, Sombron, but after sleeping a millennium you wake up with no memories and are thrown into the midst of war.
It’s a nice arrangement of good versus evil, but that feels like intentional Insert tries to use the storytelling style of older people fire sign games.
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be clear Insert does not have any of the social simulation elements that were made Three houses so unique; The “support” system between your units is much more streamlined this time. Besides that, Insert still manages to shine the spotlight on a diverse cast of weird and wonderful characters.
Just looking at Alear’s trident toothpaste hair shows that character comes into play Insert are wildly colorful, but many characters have personality to match. From the thief Yunaka, who greets people with “Hiya Papaya,” to a priest named Pandreo, who howls like a wolf at almost every conversation, there’s plenty of charm to discover.
Support talks also add flair to the cast of characters and generally focus more on humor than drama. Delightfully over-the-top voice acting only makes things more surreal and entertaining.
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The big new gimmick for both of them engage Story and gameplay come in the form of Emblem Rings. These rings are relics inhabited by the spirits of ancient warriors from previous games like Marth and Ike, and while they play a part in the story, they’re also the main new game mechanic.
engage The gameplay uses the same proven style of past entries, with turn-based combat played out on a tactical grid. Each unit falls into a specific class, and the Weapon triangle of past games returns (Axes are weak to swords, swords are weak to lances, and lances are weak to axes.)
Emblem rings come into the mix as unique items that you can Equip every character. During combat, you can “connect” with the ring to transform into a powerful new form that merges your character with that in the ring. This not only strengthens your character, but also gives you access to unique skills and abilities.
For example, Engaging with Celica grants this character the ability to teleport across the battlefield to launch a magical surprise attack against a single enemy. However, Engage cannot be readily used as it only lasts for three turns and must be charged after each use.
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The Engage feature brings an intriguing new level fire sign‘s strategy as you suddenly have dozens of new build options at your fingertips. Timely use of an Engage ability can also turn the tide of battle, although the scales never feel to tipped in your favor. engage Cards do a great job of creating unique challenges or giving the enemy army something to counter with, and sometimes it’s their own emblem rings.
There are a lot of other small changes that are making engage More dynamic combat, like the ability to “break” an enemy when you exploit the weapon triangle, prevent them from counterattacking, or remove degrading weapons. This is by far the most dynamic combat system the series has seen, and it’s backed up by phenomenal presentation.
Fire Emblem Engages The anime art style is absolutely gorgeous and the game makes excellent use of color and contrast. At the same time, combat animations are incredibly smooth and change in interesting ways over time. For example, as your units get stronger, their dodge animations will change. A unit can initially dodge an arrow but power up and knock it out of the air with a sword.
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Aside from the core combat system, there are an almost overwhelming number of ways to customize your units. Between battles, you can visit a home base called Somniel. There are shops where you can buy weapons and items, a forge where you can upgrade weapons, a cafe where you can prepare meals to bond with characters, and much more. There are even stat-boosting mini-games to play.
It’s clear that the somniel is intended to function a bit like Three houses Garreg Mach Monastery, but despite all of these things, it ultimately feels more like a decked out, static environment that’s mostly a static menu at its core. The activities you’ll find in the Somniel are okay, but the foundation itself doesn’t do much to expand or change as the game progresses.
In terms of actually powering up your units, there’s the standard level-up mechanic, and you can Switch classes with Master Seals. But a whole new system that allows you to inherit abilities from Emblem Rings with SP adds a nice twist. From there you can also label weapons with rings to increase their stats, and you can upgrade the rings themselves to make them more useful and powerful.
It’s clearly a lot to keep track of and can take a while to get used to, something a bit of extra streamlining would fix.
Fire Emblem Engage Review – The Verdict
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Advantages:
- The best combat system the series has ever seen, with significant changes like the Engage system.
- Lively characters full of personality backed by fun voice acting.
- Beautiful presentation that makes Insert feel alive and unique.
Disadvantages:
- Uninteresting main story that doesn’t do anything unique.
- Reworked customization systems that could be tweaked.
- The Somniel ultimately feels like a glorified menu and doesn’t grow or change meaningfully.
Engage Fire Emblem is a bit of a weird beast; It doesn’t feel like a real evolution of the franchise formula as a whole, but it does have some great elements that feel like meaningful changes. Combat and gameplay are highlights, along with some fun optional character interactions.
After Three houses Gripping tale of political intrigue, it’s certainly a little disappointing to see the series take a step back narratively, though Engage Fire Emblem does enough good that it’s not a major disadvantage. Forward if the franchise can combine the ideas of Three houses And Insertit could turn into something very special.
[Note: Nintendo provided the copy of Fire Emblem Enage used for this review.]
