Fire Emblem: Engage - Done. I am noting down my thoughts because Ciato was asking me about how I felt. I'm posting a more detailed account of my thoughts in case others are interest.
Final time was about 120 hours for 1 playthrough, give or take a bit for some downtime. I should note the game isn't actually that long. Just...well, I'll go over it more below. This is a game I have real mixed feelings with. I should note, I tried starting this game like twice back in 2022 when I borrowed it from my sister. I didn't get around to seriously playing it until my Hong Kong trip in January. Partially because the beginning of this game just feels real slow (both in terms of combat and in terms of story) and the main reason I did finish it was because I had not much for digital entertainment while I was in HK. So, I actually sat down and got out of the opening slump, which then got things rolling. Finishing Engage was a bit of hill as well because it took like 2 weeks to play over 4 missions since the end game does lose quite a bit of steam. The long and short of it is, Engage is a decent enough game to playthrough and there are some great bits in there, but it struggles to match up to what I consider the best of the series (3H and RD) due to some real puzzling decisions.
Let's start with what I think is great: the Emblem Ring system. There was some concern when I first started of "oh only 2 customizable skills huh". That's because the majority of it is slapped on these babies. The best way to think about them is like WA3 mediums. Yes, they give whoever is equipped with one the same skillset but how well each person uses them is a different story. This makes for an interesting blend of customization and uniqueness that ultimately distinguishes the characters. Some characters are practically married to one particular emblem, which makes them overall weaker but those who can swap between different rings are often the creme de la crop as they can fit into many different roles as needed. Is it as good as past Fire Emblem systems? Tough to say. While I think it is overall better than Awakening and Fates since you do have to more thinking about which piece should go where instead of just Galeforcing your way for example, I am much more appreciative of RD's relative simplicity or 3H's unique individualism for every student. It feels like Engage's Ring system is trying to straddle the and it is okay in that regard. Other good bits about Engage lies in the map design and some of the characters are likable enough to move the game along to hit its stride.
Now, the downsides. As much as I like the Ring system, it does have one pretty fatal flaw: you have a limited number of them and those who aren't equipped with one feel like incomplete characters. This isn't necessarily true at all points because some characters CAN hold their own without an Emblem Ring, but man does it feel so much better to have one. Take Chloe for example. She's your first flier, has stats similar to typical Peg Knight in classic FEs (lowish strength, high speed and accuracy) and does pretty damn good even without a ring. But WITH a ring, she's pretty much like MVP. Chloe + Sigurd is very potent since it gives you a Canto flier and Chloe+Micaiah gives you a flying healer early before promo. And I understand why they can't have like 40 Emblem Rings, but the rings aren't introduced all that quickly and second, at around the exact midpoint in the game, the plot takes most of them away from you and you start from ground zero again. So for like 50% of the game, you are basically running around with multiple incomplete characters and it just *feels bad*. Non-Emblem Rings in Bond Rings also exist, but these come with their own baffling choices. Like for example - why do Bond Rings only offer 1/2 the SP gain of an Emblem Ring? Why do some Bond Rings have skills and some don't? Why don't Bond Rings scale similar to Emblem Rings? By late game, these things aren't even great as stat sticks because you only max out at +1 and +2s. Emblem Rings can scale to like +5 or something. It is a huge difference and it makes Bond Rings feel extremely sloppy and tacked on. Like they realized Non-Emblem Ring characters are going to be missing something and just attached a randomized gacha to the end to call it a day.
And I think that really sums up all of Engage's problems. Every pro that I have about the game, there's a similar con or awkward decision in the design space that just feels off. As another good example which was mentioned multiple times in chat. Let's look at the Settings. Engage's setting feels like it should be one of the strong points. You have 5 areas. You got to all 5 areas and you have clothes and food of each region. You feel like it should be chock full of lore or world building...but you don't get those. As Djinn put it, it is extremely surface level and there's a lot of missed shots here. Like, they have this thing where you can talk to allies after a fight, but all you get are generic messages or battle performance. You have paralogues that reference back to previous FE maps and that's cool! But then this does so much damage to the setting because you are giving up seeing other parts of the world that the paralogues could've explored. That one Tea village where you recruit Jean and see his father? Yeah enjoy that cause it is like one of 2 non-throwback maps. And it goes like this, back and forth across every decision in the game. I didn't even get to the plot yet, which is basically a reskin of FE8, without the good part of FE8 which is Lyon's ambiguity and inner conflict. None of the villain cast make up for this. Sombero is Xorn without being "so bad he is funny" and the 4 hounds are all varying shades of bad (Griss and Zestria are just awful. Marni is whatever. Mauvier is the least offensive but bland). So what you end up with is like a Saturday morning cartoon instead of 3H's relatable and engaging (heh) writing
End game also deserves a mention because it is so anti-climatic. You'll think that after getting all your Emblem Rings and Sombero is back that you'll get one of the great big climatic show downs...but instead what you get is 3 filler chapters and a super disappointing final battle. Also one of them has time travel for some reason? Like why doesn't Sombero move like all the OTHER bosses in this game? Is he actually a hat? Just...once again, real baffling design choices. Frankly, to me, it feels like the game's final chapter is 21 and it does come with a great big cutscene...which they then undermine like immediately. Like...why?
I don't want to sound like a Debbie downer because Engage is actually good fun (FE gameplay typically is). The mid-game surprisingly is probably where the game is at it's strongest but a word of note: I did play with the DLCs, so this circumvented an issue regarding Emblem scarceness, but it just reinforces that fact that the supply should be more plentiful. The real tragedy for it though is that as I was playing the last 4 chapters, I just kept thinking to myself how I'd rather play RD or 3H instead. 3H was so good it spoiled many of us from 7/10 games (which is where I would place Engage). Don't let good be the enemy of perfect (or almost perfect). Like others have voiced, I think Engage would have faired better if it was released after Fates but before 3H. Would it make the existing problems go away? No. But I think it would reduce that feeling of "what could have been" for some of us.
Oh yeah, Units! So I used like 20 people in the cast or something. We're back to a relatively decent sized cast and each countries' royalty having their own 2 retainers. Overall, the better a character is, the more flexible they are with different emblems. I want to put a caveat in that I did have the DLC, so this may alter somethings.
Top tier:
Chloe - Early game flier who grows decently enough and doesn't get overshadowed by a late joiner. Made also better by being very flexible with Emblem Rings (2 of which I noted above). Late game can become pretty dodgy with decent offense to boot. Not much to dislike as a result.
Alear - Can basically slot into any role. Dragon subtype let's him/her get extra bonuses and some of those can be even more degenerate and stupid. I had her paired with Byleth most of the time late game because Byleth's Goddess Dance engage action then gives a further stat boost and let's you just wreck house.
Kagetsu - Kagetsu's bases are very stupid. His main weakness? He starts in an awful class (SM is trash) so you need to pay the cost of a Second Seal to reclass him. But then you can reclass him to like Wolf Knight, which is one of the best classes in the game and he carries his stupid bases with him into an immediately terrific class of your choice. How good was Kagetsu? I played most of the mid-levels with him having no Emblem Ring and he was still pretty great, which should say a lot. He eclipses over his early joining counterpart (Lapis) and comes with a decent amount of skill points to boot.
Hortensia - Hortensia is a flying heal staff bot with decent enough offense which can then be amped up (at least in Hard) to keep up decently in end-game, when you think C-B Rank El-tomes are going to start falling off. This leaves you with a flying, mobile unit who has lots of utility and good offense. The downside? She's basically made of paper for P.dur (think Yulie-leveltastic) so you have to be careful, but yeah. She's one of the few characters who can get really stat screwed and still not give 2 Fs because the rest of her package just supports that role so well.
High Tier - I think this is a game where the high tier for me is smaller than where I think the top tiers are.
Ivy - I have Ivy slightly under Hortensia because Ivy does actually care about combat stats since she's the fighter of the 2 sisters. But overall, it is the same story. Flying + Staves and Magic is a powerful combo. She's also slightly slow for some reason (maybe due to stat screwage) and has a pretty notable Luck deficit, but a proper Emblem Ring can fix that.
Pandreo - Pretty much a direct upgrade to Framme, with a better passive, a pool of SP and sitting in a Qi Master that has Chain Guarding and staves. I think the only real knock against Pandreo is that if you want more mobility, he's at a disadvantage since he has to use a Second Seal to do it - whereas Framme can just pick Mage Knight or something on promo. I don't find this relevant enough to be a real knock against him. Maybe his join time holds him back some, but yeah.
Merrin - I already mentioned under Kagetsu that Wolf Knights kind of rule and Merrin starts as one. Add that alongside relevant passive, decent enough bases and growths and you got another unit like Kagetsu who's ready out of the gate. One thing I didn't mention yet is that knives in Engage are real scary weapons. You're either doing actual damage, or you're giving later attackers an utility effect by increasing their damage as long as you can put up 1 point of damage. Merrin's strength can be kind of iffy, but this utility is very useful.
Mid Tier - Pretty much everyone else, but hey
Louie - I'm actually not sure where to put Louie but high part of Mid-Tier feels right. He's extremely one dimensional in that he does exactly one job but man, no one else in the army can take that from him. He loses his mobility weakness on promotion since Great Knights aren't total trash anymore but the offense is somewhat lacking and he folds to magic real bad. If you do the Hector DLC though, he's basically designed for Louie since now he can double on counters and you can do some real funny wonky stuff with Hector. Like using a Silver Greataxe with Ike's Sigil engraved on it to do like 50+ damage in a hit.
Celine - She starts off kind of weird as she can use swords and magic but you'll never really want her to fight at melee range. So she's kind of actively competing against Clanne and that's okay for her. Magic is great and she has a relevant aura compared to him so even if they had roughly the same stats, she'll probably still win out. On promo, also gains staves and an offensive passive. So if your Celine turned out well, she can even rock those Bond rings that with Brave effects along sides to get a physical/magic fighter, which is pretty rare in this game. Also, staves rules in Engage. If you do the DLC, she's really scary with Chrom as an Emblem since he fixes up her mehish speed and she in turn can utilize his magic based skills wonderfully.
Diamont - He's pretty terrible early, being sword locked and competing with other sword locked units along with a passive that seems more harmful than good. But around when promotions start, he really hits his stride. Axes is a good secondary to go along with Fair Fight since it makes up for some of their accuracy woes and Sol + his growth spread means he can tank hits pretty well since he isn't slow as molasses and can make use out of multiple emblem rings for leverage.
Alcryst - Alcryst is the "Speed" archer between himself and Etie and I find myself favouring him way more often so he eventually became staple on the team. I put the quotes around speed because he isn't really super fast, but he is faster and that does let him snag some doubles for some more annoying foes. Like Louie, he's pretty much married to one particular emblem ring (Lyn) as it turns his above average speed into "high enough to double the fastest enemies" and his Class Level 5 skill on Promotion? It is Luna. So his offense becomes really scary as his high Dex let's him RNG roll his way into kills way more often than you expect. Having a dead enemy phase more often than not and needing a specific emblem ring to really pop off are some big cons though.
Lapis - I had like a super blessed Lapis and was expecting her to outshine her counterpart on stats...but then they end up having roughly similar totals (Lapis was slight faster Kagetsu; Kaggy had slightly more strength and defense). So uh yeah. She's decent enough but 1) Sword locked and 2) being obsoleted by Kagetsu kind of hurt. Realistically, you'll just run one of either Lapis or Diamant and I think I'm pretty clear on who I think works better for that here. Her personal passive is Okay and lets you work towards a Dodgetank but dodgetanks just aren't the same as they are in pre-RD.
Fogado - I didn't use the Solm characters much, but Fogado is just like...a better version of Alfred. He's notably faster and strength is much easier to fix than speed. Downside - his 1-2 range is weaker (he would kill for Spears/Axes versus Swords), and his class skill passive is kind of irrelevant given that you want him to be avoiding counters most of the time.
Goldmary - The better of the two of Hortensia's retainers IMO. You wouldn't think so since Rosado starts in Wyvern and Wyvern is one of the better classes in the game. What I found though was that Goldmary had more usable bases (being fast and able to kill things is important) and a more relevant passive. It's worse than Lapis if you're aiming for a Dodgetank, but Goldmary is often better because her defenses are also better. Like Kagetsu, given she starts at an Advanced class, you can instantly 2nd Seal her too if you want something with more Movement but it's not like Hero is a bad start anyhow.
Rosado - Tends to have more issues than Goldmary although they do roughly similar things (sturdy frontliner with decent offense). However, Rosado tended to start with bases where he had more trouble securing kills than Goldmary - whether due to hit or lack of doubling. It's a shame, because flying mobile tank would be awesome and you would think the passive would fix the slight inaccuracy, but it doesn't seem to gel as well in practice.
Spoiler Tag - Joins 3 maps away from the game finishing, which is her major problem. But the combo of Magic + Knives is pretty damn good and like Alear, she has a super relevant passive. This makes her very good for utility, even if you aren't aiming to use her for combat and puts her above the other late game joining filler units.
Framme /Clanne - They are pretty much similar in that they join super early and can end up okay, but are just outclassed by their respective peers more often than not. I think Framme has a slight lead here because Clanne has to actively compete with Celine and her passive is arguably a little better, but they are pretty interchangeable overall. One big boon for both twins is that they have a very wide support list. Probably the 2nd most extensive compared to Alear. So they tend to be a bit more powerful in practice if you are utilizing the Somiel often.
Timerra - She's very much okay. I think her balanced stat make her a bit worse than Fogado's more specialized bases but she does bring a bevy of useful things (such as a crit dampening aura) so you can only be so bad.
Citrinne - Possibly the worst out of the 3 starting mages? I found her to be quite slow unfortunately (worse of the 3 between her, Celine and Clanne) but dunno if that's due to some RNG screwage. Can replace Clanne easily if he isn't working out but her start isn't amazing like Lapis v. Kagetsu. This is a case where the early joiner (Clanne or Celine) feels better and it kind of expands more later into the game as supports start developing.
Boucheron - I dropped him pretty early because he was getting a bunch of +2s or +3 levels. However, I think he's better than Alfred and Etie. Having decent enough durability early (at a time when you need more durable units) alongside having a relevant passive and a niche in utilizing axes aside from Vander are genuinely useful tools. He'd kill to have one of more speed or defense though since that would let him niche his way into something useful, but alas.
Lindon/Saphir/Mauvier - All three are kind of in the same place. They join late, with a large pool of SP to do some customization work at the expense of having slightly weaker bases. Not a terrible trade in the least and they are all usable. I consider Mauvier the worse of the 3 in terms of stats but he makes up for it by also being able to use staves and starts mounted.
Low Tier
Alfred - I could probably write a long paragraph regarding why I think Alfred is just underwhelming but the long story short is this. He's functionally FE7 Lowen in a game where he needs way more defense to be relevant as a tank. This means he isn't great at absorbing hits, his offense is kind of jank and his speed falls often just short of things you wish he'd double. There are ways to patch up his weaknesses but you could also just use a better unit. His Class Skill is also the antithesis of what he really wants which is damage.
Amber - I think Cavs in this game just aren't very strong as a whole. For once, they are basically mono-weapon and their bases tend to be very meh. Amber falls into this category more or less. But hey, at least he's using spears.
Etie - She's supposed to be the Strength archer, but by the time Alcryst joins, I was ready to ditch her. Because it isn't like her Strength is enough to make up for the damage that Alcryst gets on doubles. And in the case where they both don't double, her damage isn't that much better. Like Alcryst though, if you slap Lyn's ring on her, she suddenly does gain enough speed to be workable...but that's true for a lot of units, and in Alcryst's case, it makes him fast enough to double the fastest enemies (like enemy Gryphon Knights or bosses) which is very relevant.
Jean - It's the project character but Jean has a couple of neat things working for him. For one, staff EXP doesn't require him to do combat and unlike GBA FEs, you get more for healing more experienced units. So it's quite possible for Jean to make up for his level deficit at a decent clip. 2nd, Qi Adepts are a decent enough starting class because Chain Guarding can let you absorb big one time hits regardless of the damage, which gives Jean some instant utility despite starting at level 1. Finally, if you have the DLC, Starsphere does stack with his passive. So put them together and watch Jean just snowball. At the end of the day though, he's still a project so there's a limit to how effective and efficient he is, but he's better than you may expect.
Vander - Jeigans it up. However, I found that he falls off quite fast. He feels more like a Gunter than a Marcus in that regard. As is super useful early and indispensable until you hit your stride.
Bottom Tier
Anna - Her join level makes her underlevel but workable if you try. Her passive isn't combat useful and money isn't a huge issue unless on Maddening or post-game, so she definitely feels more of a project and Jean but without his stat benefit. Maybe on Maddening where you can farm infinite reinforcements for gold bars or something, she becomes more useful, but yeah.
Jade - Bad start and competes in a class where you likely don't need more than one. You can still use her, but there isn't much reason to.
Bunet - Bunet is probably the only unit who is actively bad, and most of that is owing to his weak bases. He doesn't have anything that really sets him out and like Jade, he's competing in a class where you likely only need one. His main advantage is he joins late enough that he will have some SP for customization, but even then, the most useful skill he would want that synergizes with his passive isn't available until post Chapter 20.
