The biggest thing about 3houses for me is the world building. Whether someone who plays that game likes it or not, no one can deny the amount of effort that was put into the world building to which this was extremely lacking in engage. There was a lot of love put into 3houses something that made me feel nostalgic for how games use to be made by a group of guys who had passion for what they did.
I'm glad you touched on stuff like the DLC's execution, bond rings, open reclassing, and the last few maps. DLC is a step backwards from in 3H's for arbitrary reasons, Bond Rings are gatcha shit, Open reclassing has been my least favorite reoccurring mechanic off the top of my head, and the last few maps is why I just silently dropped the game when I was almost done. If the best way to play the game is to not play the game, then I'm not playing the game.
Open reclassing is so weird, if any character can play any role that means no character has intrinsic value aside from stat growths and personal skills. Sure, characters like Anna can shine if you reclass her into something that can use her immense growth in magic, but there is nothing in the game that shows you a character's stat growth so you have to search that information elsewhere or realize she's growing only magic and not strength after she's leveled up enough for you to realize the trend. That means you won't realize you should have reclasses her upon recruitment until much later on without a guide. This problem could have been solved if Anna had just started the game in a magic based class. And to be honest, I saw little to no reason to reclass my characters. Everyone was playing their roles perfectly fine going from their starting classes al the way through the endgame (aside form Anna), and reclassing the royals only makes them lose their special privileged skills. If you could have kept the class skills and weapons after reaching a certain level (say, 15) when reclassing after that, so you could have a mage using a Brave Sword or an archer with a Lance, then things would have opened up and made reclassing a fun way to customize your team. But as it stands, it's mostly useless on anyone who isn't a redhead staple of the franchise that appeared as a loli this time around.
@@TwilightWolf032 I ran anna as a levin sword swordmaster and she was MVP, you don't have to do "most optimal" to win in any game so long as you have a tactic for your units.
@@matex2207 I agree that you don't have to do "most optimal", I prefer to have fun coming up with fun ways to play my units, but FE never gives you all the information necessary to make informed choices (they hide the growth rates in every game). You are not going to realize Anna excels in magic with her starting class until much later on, if you have been leveling her up at all given how difficult it could be due to her initial stats, at which time you could just believe you have been RNG screwed and can't be certain if changing her class to be a mage is even worth it, especially with how you are required to bond with the rings in order to even unlock the reclassing/promotion path - and Micayah's ring gets stolen for a huge chunk of the game, so unless you already had her equipped with Micayah, your chance of reclassing her as a mage doesn't come until much, much later on! Sure, you could just make her into a swordmaster to use Levin Sword... but you have to forge one in the base game to begin with, and you already have the noble you unlock BEFORE RECRUITING ANNA being the mage/sword hybrid, the option anyone would naturally gravitate towards if they wanted to use the magic sword. Unless you already know everything surrounding forging, recruitment, reclassing and the loss of the rings, many players would just not make any proper use of Anna at all on their first playthrough without a guide!
@@TwilightWolf032 Hidden growths is stupid cannot argue against that, but you could keep anna in her base class and she performs since radiant bow is tailor made for her in that case and her strength growth is enough to swap to physical against mages.
@@TwilightWolf032 I don't get your point against Swordmaster Anna. You get a free Levin Sword in Chapter 12 (the map after you lose your emblems), and both Lucina and Lyn both give Sword Proficiency (with Lucina giving it at 6 and Lyn at 8). It is not hard to set up at any point in the game. I feel like you still viewing things from an "optimal" lens. I believe Anna was designed to be a physical attack that can also attack on the magic side. You said her problems would be fixed if she was purely a mage, but she would just be another mage. (The game already handed you three in the early game... technically more if you get creative with your emblem rings.) As the other commenter pointed out, the Radiant Bow feels like it was made for her. I would like to add that she can also take better advantage of magic based emblem rings that other physical units can't (Byleth and Erika come to mind first). She isn't the unit that was designed with reclassing in mind... that would be Jean. Though I agree that open reclassing isn't very good. I think units are more unique when they can only switch to certain classes and not all of them (even if there is a slight difference between them).
The mods fix the entire game by making the Bond Rings grant special skills as equipable items, making the hub base entirely accessible via menus without needing to interact with anything, making characters wear the selected clothing in battles (everybody in swimsuit, let's go!), etc. But it's such a stupid situation that fans have to fix the game by modding instead of it being done right by the developers!
My biggest gripe is the lack of a support log! In the GBA games, there was an option to access the support log after beating the game. You did not need to access the game file to see the supports. It was its own slot on the menu. Here, you can only access the support log in the game file. To make this accessibility worse, there is no new game plus that allows you to carry over what you have earned. Deleting the game file with the supports means losing access to the supports that you have earned. Without the ability to carry over supports you have earned, you cannot continue creating news ones on different difficulties and type of play (casual/classic). I don't understand support log access on the menu was not a feature. The company paid for voice actors and voice actresses!
My biggest problems are No weapon limit. This adds an extra layer of difficulty. I would at least like a choice. Maybe make it part of Classic Mode. Or the harder the difficulty. Hard Mode and Above - Weapon Limits. The story doesn't get really good until the third act. Somniel gets pretty boring after a while.
What do you mean by weapon limit? It's been a minute since I last played Engage, but I remember there's no weapon durability, but I doubt that's what you're talking about. Are weapons not counted as inventory in Engage, so you can hold more than usual?
@@j.p.walkman9671 They probably removed durability in games like Fates and Engage because some casuals who refused to just play on the normal mode designed for them were complaining.
What 3rd act? The part where you fight each other with 6 rings each because the Heroes are too stupid to do ANYTHING to stop Zephia from brainwashing Veyle? The part where Valida-I mean, Griss tells Alear they're the child of the Fell Dragon Gr-I mean Sombron? The part where Alear dies twice, but revives again because "lol we can actually do the ritual whenever we want"? The part where when Sombron reveals his true motive, it renders the whole game pointless?
@@AkameGaKillfan777 i was trying not to spoil. Hence why i said 3rd act. But i guess it's out in the open now. When Alear died it got really interesting, but yeah it did bum me out when they revived him. I felt he should of stayed dead, become an engage unit and Veyle becomes the new hero. Though Veyle is a boring protagonist probably why they didn't go that way. But there's also potential for Alear to go from a main to a side character and for once it's about the other characters. Too long there's been this trope of you playing the hero until the end. What if the hero dies? Now you got to rely on your other units to pick up the pieces and fight the good fight and in turn they become the hero.
I agree with most of these takes. - Story: agreed, the writing can be really over dramatic and some scenes can really stretch too much in some parts. - Paralogues death characters: agreed, I would even accept extra bond fragment for no death. - Warp and bosses: half agree. I like that they made bosses with multiple bars so you can't defeat them so fast, but at the same time they gave you the multiple warp with Micaiah... like c'mon IS, make up your mind lol. (I don't like warp skippable maps) - Somniel: I don't have so much problem as I usually just go to the refine stones dogs and eat something, but I would definetely prefer a menu screen like Telius. I really don't like that getting a good food feels so random, like the chances of me getting a package is usually 50%, so that Celica's skill and Bunet skills gets even less chance to be usable. It would be great if you always get the package at least. - Open reclassing: agreed, one more class for each character would be my preference, like in fates. My main problem with open reclassing is that in discussions of what build would be better for a character, it will always end up being the same classes. - Cavalry: disagreed, I never felt they were on disadvantage over other types and they having cantor would make them too OP in my opinion. - Weapon durability: half agree, I do prefer weapons being unbreakable because it's just a chore for me to rearrange every unit's inventory each map, going to buy new weapons. My least favorite fe are the gba ones, and one of my main problems is that the weapons break too fast for my taste. My preference would be like, the weapons can break, losing few of its stats (like killing weapons would just lose their crit chance, they turn duller), but you can go and repair on a blacksmith like in fe4, and you have an option of repairing every weapon in the army in one click. - Weapon forging: I don't think you mentioned here, but there is a problem with weapon forging where most of steel weapons feels better to use than silver weapons and I mostly blame on the forging system. It just doesn't make sense to me that silver weapons get SO MUCH more expensive to refine, just so they get at the same might as steel weapon, but heavier and with less crit. - Bond ring: agreed - DLC: I didn't play it. Overall, I really like this game, maybe my top 4 fe games, but the main problem for me is the worldbuilding and story. The lack of NPCs and enemies besides the four hounds makes the world feel very small and the enemies not very threatening. Alear kinda feels the same from the start to finish imo, and I would love if they were like: in the start they didn't cry on Lumera's death because they still didn't develop enough bonding with her or know what being in a family is. And in the endgame they end up crying when she dies again because she learns throughout the game about these things.
I love newer fire emblem because having a casual mode is much more enticing to me then just resetting when someone dies, and I also tend to do bad with permadeath. I've finished echoes, awakening, fates (all 3) and three houses. I hated fates, but i still did it Engage just feels like a slog to me. My biggest issue with it is definetly that they kinda shoved all the fire emblem characters into the lore unessecarily. I want to see new characters, old ones should be a treat. Instead the game is built around you using the old ones- the characters in their own game feel like an afterthought, mostly because of how many you get I get older fire emblem games literally worked exactly like this, but there they still had their own focus and it was "their" story. Bringing tiki back is cool, but bringing every single lord into the story really just felt haphazardly done Pretty sure it was developed at the same time as three houses at least, so hopefully they do more stuff like three houses and less stuff like engaged. I susbscribed btw.
Older FE wasn't like this though. You didn't need to go through multiple loading screens and use 2 gacha currencies to obtain gacha-esque skills. Support points built on Enemy Phase too. The Battle U.I. actually displayed unit and weapon stats completely separate from each other. Weapons didn't have essay-long descriptions. There was no "donation" system that tricked you into wasting money for RNG effects to trigger slightly more.
The writing is marginally better if you go with the japanese script, localizations completely rape this series writing for a decade now. Still villain of the week story, but the characters are more entertaining.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 Reading comprehension should be mandatory to create an account. I said marginally better, nowhere did I say it's good. The supports however are noticably better.
@@matex2207 I can read just fine, all they did with Engage was change the context of some supports. NOTHING about the story was changed. Also Echoes and 3H had a different localization team and barely anyone complaints about their scripts. Fates is only 7 years old, so it hasn't been a decade yet. Awakening had a few images or something, but nothing major. Now stop projecting. This is why you're one of the bottom comments.
@@orangeslash1667 I played the japanese release and can only say, sorry to all of those who cannot read JP. Another fanfiction localization. It's a good game but I feel like it is a bit too easy, but the stylization is very charming.
Your channel is way too small to be titling things as your opinion. Not trying to be harsh but no one cares about your opinion rn. Better to be objective like "the issue with..." or something.
@@EnigmaticMrL yea me neither I think it's better to be subjective but not for youtube recommendations. Think about the difference between hearing that there's an issue with Fire Emblem and some random person doesn't like Fire Emblem. It's just more compelling to click on.
The biggest thing about 3houses for me is the world building. Whether someone who plays that game likes it or not, no one can deny the amount of effort that was put into the world building to which this was extremely lacking in engage. There was a lot of love put into 3houses something that made me feel nostalgic for how games use to be made by a group of guys who had passion for what they did.
I recommend Unicorn Overlord, its strategy RPG published by Sega.
Turns out the reward was the friends we engaged along the way
I'm glad you touched on stuff like the DLC's execution, bond rings, open reclassing, and the last few maps.
DLC is a step backwards from in 3H's for arbitrary reasons, Bond Rings are gatcha shit, Open reclassing has been my least favorite reoccurring mechanic off the top of my head, and the last few maps is why I just silently dropped the game when I was almost done.
If the best way to play the game is to not play the game, then I'm not playing the game.
Open reclassing is so weird, if any character can play any role that means no character has intrinsic value aside from stat growths and personal skills.
Sure, characters like Anna can shine if you reclass her into something that can use her immense growth in magic, but there is nothing in the game that shows you a character's stat growth so you have to search that information elsewhere or realize she's growing only magic and not strength after she's leveled up enough for you to realize the trend. That means you won't realize you should have reclasses her upon recruitment until much later on without a guide.
This problem could have been solved if Anna had just started the game in a magic based class.
And to be honest, I saw little to no reason to reclass my characters. Everyone was playing their roles perfectly fine going from their starting classes al the way through the endgame (aside form Anna), and reclassing the royals only makes them lose their special privileged skills.
If you could have kept the class skills and weapons after reaching a certain level (say, 15) when reclassing after that, so you could have a mage using a Brave Sword or an archer with a Lance, then things would have opened up and made reclassing a fun way to customize your team. But as it stands, it's mostly useless on anyone who isn't a redhead staple of the franchise that appeared as a loli this time around.
@@TwilightWolf032 I ran anna as a levin sword swordmaster and she was MVP, you don't have to do "most optimal" to win in any game so long as you have a tactic for your units.
@@matex2207 I agree that you don't have to do "most optimal", I prefer to have fun coming up with fun ways to play my units, but FE never gives you all the information necessary to make informed choices (they hide the growth rates in every game).
You are not going to realize Anna excels in magic with her starting class until much later on, if you have been leveling her up at all given how difficult it could be due to her initial stats, at which time you could just believe you have been RNG screwed and can't be certain if changing her class to be a mage is even worth it, especially with how you are required to bond with the rings in order to even unlock the reclassing/promotion path - and Micayah's ring gets stolen for a huge chunk of the game, so unless you already had her equipped with Micayah, your chance of reclassing her as a mage doesn't come until much, much later on!
Sure, you could just make her into a swordmaster to use Levin Sword... but you have to forge one in the base game to begin with, and you already have the noble you unlock BEFORE RECRUITING ANNA being the mage/sword hybrid, the option anyone would naturally gravitate towards if they wanted to use the magic sword.
Unless you already know everything surrounding forging, recruitment, reclassing and the loss of the rings, many players would just not make any proper use of Anna at all on their first playthrough without a guide!
@@TwilightWolf032 Hidden growths is stupid cannot argue against that, but you could keep anna in her base class and she performs since radiant bow is tailor made for her in that case and her strength growth is enough to swap to physical against mages.
@@TwilightWolf032 I don't get your point against Swordmaster Anna. You get a free Levin Sword in Chapter 12 (the map after you lose your emblems), and both Lucina and Lyn both give Sword Proficiency (with Lucina giving it at 6 and Lyn at 8). It is not hard to set up at any point in the game.
I feel like you still viewing things from an "optimal" lens. I believe Anna was designed to be a physical attack that can also attack on the magic side. You said her problems would be fixed if she was purely a mage, but she would just be another mage. (The game already handed you three in the early game... technically more if you get creative with your emblem rings.) As the other commenter pointed out, the Radiant Bow feels like it was made for her. I would like to add that she can also take better advantage of magic based emblem rings that other physical units can't (Byleth and Erika come to mind first). She isn't the unit that was designed with reclassing in mind... that would be Jean.
Though I agree that open reclassing isn't very good. I think units are more unique when they can only switch to certain classes and not all of them (even if there is a slight difference between them).
The mods fix the entire game by making the Bond Rings grant special skills as equipable items, making the hub base entirely accessible via menus without needing to interact with anything, making characters wear the selected clothing in battles (everybody in swimsuit, let's go!), etc.
But it's such a stupid situation that fans have to fix the game by modding instead of it being done right by the developers!
My biggest gripe is the lack of a support log! In the GBA games, there was an option to access the support log after beating the game. You did not need to access the game file to see the supports. It was its own slot on the menu. Here, you can only access the support log in the game file. To make this accessibility worse, there is no new game plus that allows you to carry over what you have earned. Deleting the game file with the supports means losing access to the supports that you have earned. Without the ability to carry over supports you have earned, you cannot continue creating news ones on different difficulties and type of play (casual/classic).
I don't understand support log access on the menu was not a feature. The company paid for voice actors and voice actresses!
I recommend Unicorn Overlord, its strategy RPG published by Sega.
for branch classing id say more like 5 or 7 options for each chara if the game wants a level of open clas
My biggest problems are
No weapon limit. This adds an extra layer of difficulty. I would at least like a choice. Maybe make it part of Classic Mode. Or the harder the difficulty. Hard Mode and Above - Weapon Limits.
The story doesn't get really good until the third act.
Somniel gets pretty boring after a while.
What do you mean by weapon limit? It's been a minute since I last played Engage, but I remember there's no weapon durability, but I doubt that's what you're talking about. Are weapons not counted as inventory in Engage, so you can hold more than usual?
@@wedding2710 i call it Weapon Limit. Cause there's a limit to the weapon before it breaks. Weapon Durability is what I mean.
@@j.p.walkman9671 They probably removed durability in games like Fates and Engage because some casuals who refused to just play on the normal mode designed for them were complaining.
What 3rd act? The part where you fight each other with 6 rings each because the Heroes are too stupid to do ANYTHING to stop Zephia from brainwashing Veyle? The part where Valida-I mean, Griss tells Alear they're the child of the Fell Dragon Gr-I mean Sombron? The part where Alear dies twice, but revives again because "lol we can actually do the ritual whenever we want"? The part where when Sombron reveals his true motive, it renders the whole game pointless?
@@AkameGaKillfan777 i was trying not to spoil. Hence why i said 3rd act. But i guess it's out in the open now.
When Alear died it got really interesting, but yeah it did bum me out when they revived him. I felt he should of stayed dead, become an engage unit and Veyle becomes the new hero. Though Veyle is a boring protagonist probably why they didn't go that way. But there's also potential for Alear to go from a main to a side character and for once it's about the other characters. Too long there's been this trope of you playing the hero until the end. What if the hero dies? Now you got to rely on your other units to pick up the pieces and fight the good fight and in turn they become the hero.
I agree with most of these takes.
- Story: agreed, the writing can be really over dramatic and some scenes can really stretch too much in some parts.
- Paralogues death characters: agreed, I would even accept extra bond fragment for no death.
- Warp and bosses: half agree. I like that they made bosses with multiple bars so you can't defeat them so fast, but at the same time they gave you the multiple warp with Micaiah... like c'mon IS, make up your mind lol. (I don't like warp skippable maps)
- Somniel: I don't have so much problem as I usually just go to the refine stones dogs and eat something, but I would definetely prefer a menu screen like Telius. I really don't like that getting a good food feels so random, like the chances of me getting a package is usually 50%, so that Celica's skill and Bunet skills gets even less chance to be usable. It would be great if you always get the package at least.
- Open reclassing: agreed, one more class for each character would be my preference, like in fates. My main problem with open reclassing is that in discussions of what build would be better for a character, it will always end up being the same classes.
- Cavalry: disagreed, I never felt they were on disadvantage over other types and they having cantor would make them too OP in my opinion.
- Weapon durability: half agree, I do prefer weapons being unbreakable because it's just a chore for me to rearrange every unit's inventory each map, going to buy new weapons. My least favorite fe are the gba ones, and one of my main problems is that the weapons break too fast for my taste. My preference would be like, the weapons can break, losing few of its stats (like killing weapons would just lose their crit chance, they turn duller), but you can go and repair on a blacksmith like in fe4, and you have an option of repairing every weapon in the army in one click.
- Weapon forging: I don't think you mentioned here, but there is a problem with weapon forging where most of steel weapons feels better to use than silver weapons and I mostly blame on the forging system. It just doesn't make sense to me that silver weapons get SO MUCH more expensive to refine, just so they get at the same might as steel weapon, but heavier and with less crit.
- Bond ring: agreed
- DLC: I didn't play it.
Overall, I really like this game, maybe my top 4 fe games, but the main problem for me is the worldbuilding and story. The lack of NPCs and enemies besides the four hounds makes the world feel very small and the enemies not very threatening. Alear kinda feels the same from the start to finish imo, and I would love if they were like: in the start they didn't cry on Lumera's death because they still didn't develop enough bonding with her or know what being in a family is. And in the endgame they end up crying when she dies again because she learns throughout the game about these things.
I love your drawings on twitter
@@JordiumZ I recommend Unicorn Overlord, its strategy RPG published by Sega.
I love newer fire emblem because having a casual mode is much more enticing to me then just resetting when someone dies, and I also tend to do bad with permadeath. I've finished echoes, awakening, fates (all 3) and three houses. I hated fates, but i still did it
Engage just feels like a slog to me. My biggest issue with it is definetly that they kinda shoved all the fire emblem characters into the lore unessecarily. I want to see new characters, old ones should be a treat. Instead the game is built around you using the old ones- the characters in their own game feel like an afterthought, mostly because of how many you get
I get older fire emblem games literally worked exactly like this, but there they still had their own focus and it was "their" story. Bringing tiki back is cool, but bringing every single lord into the story really just felt haphazardly done
Pretty sure it was developed at the same time as three houses at least, so hopefully they do more stuff like three houses and less stuff like engaged. I susbscribed btw.
It is an anniversary game hence the nostalgia fest.
Older FE wasn't like this though. You didn't need to go through multiple loading screens and use 2 gacha currencies to obtain gacha-esque skills. Support points built on Enemy Phase too. The Battle U.I. actually displayed unit and weapon stats completely separate from each other. Weapons didn't have essay-long descriptions. There was no "donation" system that tricked you into wasting money for RNG effects to trigger slightly more.
The writing is marginally better if you go with the japanese script, localizations completely rape this series writing for a decade now.
Still villain of the week story, but the characters are more entertaining.
Lay off the copium dude, Engage's writing is ass no matter what language you're playing, Japanese included. This isn't Fates.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 Reading comprehension should be mandatory to create an account.
I said marginally better, nowhere did I say it's good. The supports however are noticably better.
@@matex2207 I can read just fine, all they did with Engage was change the context of some supports. NOTHING about the story was changed.
Also Echoes and 3H had a different localization team and barely anyone complaints about their scripts. Fates is only 7 years old, so it hasn't been a decade yet. Awakening had a few images or something, but nothing major.
Now stop projecting. This is why you're one of the bottom comments.
@@matex2207 I recommend Unicorn Overlord, its strategy RPG published by Sega.
@@orangeslash1667 I played the japanese release and can only say, sorry to all of those who cannot read JP. Another fanfiction localization.
It's a good game but I feel like it is a bit too easy, but the stylization is very charming.
Your channel is way too small to be titling things as your opinion. Not trying to be harsh but no one cares about your opinion rn. Better to be objective like "the issue with..." or something.
I don't think that there are right or wrong answers here though. Some people will enjoy stuff I dislike and vice versa. I'm perfectly okay with that.
@@EnigmaticMrL yea me neither I think it's better to be subjective but not for youtube recommendations. Think about the difference between hearing that there's an issue with Fire Emblem and some random person doesn't like Fire Emblem. It's just more compelling to click on.
This is the weirdest take possible
@@EnigmaticMrL The Title is perfectly fine. An opinion is an opinion, not a fact. I think it's good.
from a getting initial click standpoint, makes sense