Fire Emblem Engage review

Fire Emblem Engage is the guest of our Nintendo Switch consoles as the new game of Fire Emblem, one of Nintendo’s most established JRPG series. Although Fire Emblem Engage is a completely new Switch exclusive game, it allows us to encounter a lot of characters from the old games of the series.

Fire Emblem Engage review / Switch

Fire Emblem is a series that had great success in Japan, but was not well known in the west. The series, which saw very low sales figures especially against its competitors such as Final Fantasy, gained a remarkable fan base outside Japan with Fire Emblem: Awakening, which was released exclusively for Nintendo 3DS for the first time. The series, which managed to attract more players thanks to Fire Emblem: Three Houses, released in 2019 and released exclusively for Nintendo Switch, seems to want to make new players love old characters with Fire Emblem Engage.

We have included Fire Emblem Engage preview content before, my opinions were generally very positive. Now that we have a chance to play and comment on the entire game, let’s move on to our review.

Divine Dragon’s Awakening

Fire Emblem Engage lets us experience the story of the Divine Dragon and his friends as they fight against the ancient danger unleashed in the land called Elyos. The dangerous entity called Fell Dragon is sealed 1000 years ago with the help of heroes found in rings of power called “Emblem”. We see this struggle in the opening video. Divine Dragon Alear, our main character, who was seriously injured for an unknown reason and fell asleep for 1000 years, awakens from his sleep with the release of Fell Dragon.

Throughout the story, our goal is to collect the rings of power, unleash their inner heroes and stop the Fell Dragon threat. I already have two rings, if you think that the job is done when you collect the rings entrusted to other kingdoms, I wish you good luck with your first JRPG game already.

You will encounter many different characters throughout the story, and most of them will accompany you on your adventure. Indeed, the number of units of the game is enormous. While playing Three Houses, you were determining the characters that you can take to your team according to your choices, where everyone joins the team directly. Initially empty, Somnieli soon fills up with “Emblem” heroes, various types of people, and their items. One is sculpting, the other is flying dragons, chatting with tea and books, fishing, opening a second-hand shop, etc.

Almost every character has a logical reason, some come to save their country, some follow the voice from the ring, some are there purely for the sake of duty and in their “let’s go fishing even if it’s over” mind. I liked most of the characters, but their obsession with specific things bothered me a bit. For example, there is one who is sick of training. He says, “As if the dramatic events in the previous episode bothered him, let’s go 100 laps and enjoy yourself.” For example, there is a tea addicted team, they say “Divine Dragon extract works wonders in tea” and they cut Alear, that level is an obsession. There’s also Chloe, I keep her separate, an always hungry knight willing to try new dishes at every opportunity. He is one of us!

Its story is at the level I expect from JRPG games, there is ancient evil, there are heroes gathered to stop evil, there is excitement and adventure, there are surprises, too. If you’re waiting for a brand new story full of unpredictable events that will open your mind, it’s not there.

I really liked the idea and implementation of bringing back the characters of the old games as heroes in the rings. The short conversations that the emblem heroes have as their relationship with our team members grows stronger is also pretty cool.

Let’s Fish After Drinking Our Tea

Fire Emblem Engage is a game focused on war, leaving social relations at Three Houses. In this respect, it will definitely make the old players of the series happy. You don’t have the option to spend a long time with the characters and learn their stories by strengthening your relationship. You increase your relationships as a result of activities such as giving gifts such as shiny stones, special gifts or horse dung (they don’t quite welcome the last one) and fighting side by side. As a reward you get more effective support in the field and short 10-second cutscenes, but often pleasant.

The social side of the game is not very developed, you don’t talk to the characters for minutes and try to learn their problems and establish a dialogue. There are various activities you can get involved in in Somniel, by doing activities such as fishing, doing sports, preparing food, you gain things that will be useful in the next fight, but the time you spend here is very short. I’m keeping Tower of Trials separate, I’ll talk about that later.

After completing the battles in various parts of Elyos, you get the chance to tour the battlefield from a third-person perspective. In this way, you can see the area you intervene from above (which is a very nice feature), interact with the surrounding NPC characters, and get collectibles. Apart from collecting objects such as mines and items, you also have the chance to adopt region-specific animals. It is possible to take different animals such as cats, dogs, birds, donkeys and camels to your castle as much as your influence in the region allows. If you ask what features it has other than a short animation, you will find various items every time you come. The cat brings fish, the donkey leaves rare fruits, the sheep gives milk.

Somniel is filled with mini-activities such as dining with teammates to increase the bond a little bit, sleeping in bed to watch short cutscenes (not that way) wholly fan service, fishing for supplies, dressing and feeding the little “dog” that is chasing you. Most of them offer very small bonuses, almost all of them feature enhancements that will come in handy in the next battle. Apart from the shops, the most important places are Arena, Ring Chamber and Tower of Trials.

Arena is a prepared area for you to develop your characters. Here, team members can compete against each other or Emblem heroes and gain experience and Emblem levels. The Ring Chamber is where we do the work related to rings of power. Here we develop the rings, tweak the weapons, and dust the rings as a form of fan service that I don’t understand. They are happy when their dust is removed. Yes…

Tower of Trials is the online mode of the game. The game has an online mode! I didn’t know about it, it was a nice surprise. When we say online, if you think of PvP battles and fighting teams, let me warn you, this place is a little different.

I haven’t had a chance to try too much, but there are different modes we can play. You can fight to see which player can finish the same map faster, you can make your own map and try other players’ maps. There’s also the “Continue” mode, which is my favourite. You take the struggle started by another player in the middle and continue it. You add characters from your own team and fight for 2 rounds, then you hand over the flag to the next player. It’s a good opportunity to see and get to know different characters.

Stone – Paper – Ax

The game, which lags behind Three Houses in terms of social interaction, makes up for this gap with its combat system. We’re entering the 30th year of the Fire Emblem franchise, and Fire Emblem Engage looks like a celebration game from this perspective. The nostalgia factor is huge, even the stories of the heroes in the rings of power often precede the new characters of the game. But this game is not just about nostalgia.

Battles use the game’s traditional “square-based” turn-based system. We mentioned briefly before, in this game there is a “rock – paper – scissors” system where weapons are superior and weak against each other. You need to consider variables such as the weapons your team members use according to their class, the weapons the opponent has, and where the character stands. Moreover, factors such as heights, barriers, siege weapons and darkness on the battlefield also change the course of the war.

The rings called Emblem come into play here and are not only a nostalgic show, but an effective system that changes the course of the war. When you wear one of the power rings, you also get some of the hero’s attributes. A character who can’t normally use a bow can have attacks and an arrow-bow weapon that can take down even far away enemies with the right ring.

During the preview, I mentioned that some rings also give additional bonuses such as mobility. As I progressed through the game, I realized that I could change the choices I made at the beginning and build strong teams that could beat even the opponents higher than me in level. Thanks to the “Engage” feature of the rings, we can successfully overcome even very difficult battles with the ability to unite with the hero and use special weapons.

If we add the turn-based battle system we are used to from previous games, professions, tactics and the Engage system added with the new game, the battle parts of the game are very enjoyable. The fight is really enjoyable with the factors such as the fact that the weapons are not damaged over time, but you can remain unarmed according to the attack of the opponent, the staffs with limited use, the use of the map against you. The “all battles were too easy” situation that I experienced after a while in Three Houses never happened to me in this game. I can’t wait to play it again with the “perma-death” feature turned on after I’ve finished the review.

One good thing about the social aspect of the game being not so detailed is that you don’t have to go through a lot of stuff to play the game differently. Great for those who want to quickly bond with the characters and focus their attention on the battlefield. I love both genres, but in this game, it was nice to enter the game and complete a challenge quickly by saying “I’ll enter the war while I’m waiting here so that the characters will develop”. I didn’t have to mess with my game plan just because I got into that battle.

Nintendo Switch Performance

Although the Nintendo Switch is a great console, it is now known that hardware power is starting to show its age and causing problems in games. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was still being played, but with Pokemon Violet/Scarlet it became a non-negligible situation. Fire Emblem Engage, on the other hand, works great, completely without problems. Of course, this game does not have an open world, it has an advantage.

The game looks very good, I loved the cutscenes, the attack animations and especially the attacks that we do critical damage make people gassed. My only problem in terms of graphics in the game is that when the air units fight, the camera does not know where to go and rolls around itself. Well, once or twice, but it always happens to me when flying units go into battle when there is an elevation around. It’s annoying but not an overly important problem.

The Japanese voiceovers are very good, I liked the music very much, the dynamically changing music during the war, during the tactical and attack moments, was a very nice feature. The game gets full points in terms of sound – music in my eyes.

Conclusion

Fire Emblem Engage has managed to be a game that is nostalgic enough to please fans of a 30-year-old series, and good enough to hook new players. They are more than just a nostalgic game where old heroes return. Thanks to the characters that you can customize according to your wishes and the gameplay that gives importance to the war part rather than the social activities, it managed to win my appreciation. It could have been a little better in terms of story, but if I had to choose between Three Houses right now, Engage would be my first choice, albeit by a small margin.

Fire Emblem Engage, released exclusively for the Nintendo Switch console, $ 60 with price tag. Taking into account the high replayability, side activities and online challenges, this game gives its full price (I’m not confusing the exchange rate) to the fullest.