English
Gamereactor
reviews
Fire Emblem Engage

Fire Emblem Engage

The perfect fusion for series veterans and newcomers. Engage is the ideal "first" Fire Emblem to explore the series with.

Subscribe to our newsletter here!

* Required field
HQ
HQ

The tactical JRPG genre has always had a great name associated with it, and that is Fire Emblem. For more than 30 years, the series has not only subsisted, but has evolved with each new iteration (and that's 17 instalments, if we take into account those that never left Japan), creating a rich universe in which it has almost always been governed by a game system tree that fits together perfectly to make the game run as smooth as a Swiss watch.

I admit that I thought my experience with Fire Emblem Engage was going to be much more dramatic, precisely because I jumped on the Intelligent Systems series bandwagon with it. Perhaps that's why I may perhaps overlook some nuances that veterans are sure to find, but I'm also hoping to expose its strengths and weaknesses to those, like me, who are delving into the saga for the first time with this instalment.

Fire Emblem EngageFire Emblem Engage
This is an ad:

The title begins with a spectacular opening sequence, which is nothing more and nothing less than the final battle involving our character (either boy or girl, because we can choose it) Alear, the Divine Scion. Thanks to a group of heroes and the support of their Emblems (which are the heroes of previous Fire Emblem titles) they manage to defeat Sombron, the Fallen Dragon. But after the battle, Alear falls into a thousand-year sleep and awakens only to discover that they have lost all of their memories, and that the threat to Elyos has returned. They will have to recover the twelve Emblem Rings and restore peace to the continent, travelling through the four regions and defeating the army of aberrations Sombron leads. A task that Alear will not have to face alone, because the adventure will be joined by a good number of allies, experts in different disciplines of combat and magic, whom they will have to know in depth to take advantage of their skills in the imminent battle.

I'm going to stop here again, because I think that the differential fact for this game to have penetrated me so deeply is because I chose to play it with permanent death of the characters. At the beginning of the game, the options menu allows us to choose between activating the permanent death of the heroes (or definitive defeat, if they are relevant to the narrative, even if they do not fight again), or that after each victory the fallen return to the squad of selectable allies. This decision goes far beyond being easy mode. The fact that these allies (each one with their own background, relationship with Alear and abilities in battle) can disappear, or even die, affects all the systems behind the game. The first time I lost an ally (a mage with fire spells in Chapter 5) I felt a punch in the chest. From that moment on, my play style changed completely.

Fire Emblem EngageFire Emblem Engage

After each battle I spent a long time (hours, even) touring the base of Somniel, talking to each of its inhabitants and going step-by-step through each store, bit of equipment, training and affinity of my team. It's not just that I was well prepared against whatever showed up in the next mission, it's that some of those characters have been indispensable to my strategy, even though the main battle condition is that Alear isn't defeated.

This is an ad:

While I haven't tried Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I do know enough about the series to recognise that Engage is a return to the classic experience of the series. The Sword-Spear-Axe system is back, and the whole narrative around merging with the Emblems (heroes), who are the protagonists of other Fire Emblem games, screams fan service from all four sides. And that's not bad, but it's also a weight that has weighed down the main story of the game, reducing it to a fairly simple hero's journey, and except for two or three plot twists, I did not find anything special.

Fire Emblem EngageFire Emblem Engage

But the core of Engage is the turn-based battles, and the new ability to fuse characters with Emblem Rings, which contain the spirit of heroes from the past. Each of them (I instantly recognised those that appeared in Super Smash Bros., but there are others that come from Echoes, Awakening and more) give the ring-bearing character additional abilities, and when fused they increase their stats for a set number of turns. In addition, knowing the advantage of each class over enemies leads us to take advantage of another of Engage's new features: the breakpoint. If we take an enemy to this point, they will not only take critical damage in the attack, but they will also not make a counterattack in retaliation. A skirmish can be defined by a quick resolution if we know how to handle this function, which is one of many that, woven together, make each battle unique. And if not, you can always use the Draconic Time Crystal to go back a few turns (if we see that our decisions could have been better) and change the fate of the characters and the battle.

As we roam the continent of Elyos there will be side quests in which to get better equipment or new allies, but even within each battle there may be special situations that will also influence our decisions. Is it better to stick to the main objective and finish quickly, or is it better to divert for those chests with top equipment, which will surely facilitate the next mission, even at the risk of losing someone along the way? Decisions that are not easy, but that I think manage to create that feeling that we really are the hero of a story and the captain of a group of warriors with whom we would all like to adventure with.

Fire Emblem EngageFire Emblem Engage

The difficulty of Fire Emblem Engage does not always lie in the challenge of advancing mission after mission, but in doing so with as few casualties as possible, with the right team and a team strategy that involves knowing each of the units in detail. It sounds more complicated than it really was, and that's why I think Engage is the perfect gateway to the series, and a festival of good memories for those who already lived adventures with Marth, Celica, Sigurd and the rest. A game that perfectly intersperses periods of action with quiet and enjoyable interludes in which to chat with the characters, play mini-games and try new weapons. And if this is Fire Emblem, a new fan of the series is born here.

Fire Emblem Engage
08 Gamereactor UK
8 / 10
+
Deep, varied and story-driven systems. The new features add another layer of depth to the combat. The most accessible Fire Emblem.
-
A rather weak story.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

Related texts

0
Fire Emblem EngageScore

Fire Emblem Engage

REVIEW. Written by Alberto Garrido

The perfect fusion for series veterans and newcomers. Engage is the ideal "first" Fire Emblem to explore the series with.



Loading next content