Since the release of Fire Emblem Engage, unpopular opinions have surfaced as fans have played through the game, and Redditors are making sure their voices are heard among the critics. The title has been both praised by players for its refreshing gameplay and criticized for its less-than-impressive story. Following the Divine Dragon Alear after waking up from a thousand-year slumber, players must collect all the Emblem Rings to defeat the Fell Dragon and reinstate peace over the continent of Elyos.
Though developers at Intelligent Systems aimed for Fire Emblem Engage to be a return to form of its classic and beloved installments, loyal fans feel the developers have neither failed nor succeeded. While the title pleased players with the new dynamic use of the 12 uniquely skilled Emblem Rings in battle, many insist that the plot is an unexciting paint-by-numbers JRPG, and Alear being the Divine Dragon is concentrated on to a fault. Coming out of the woodwork to state their unpopular opinions of the title, players including Reddit’s CosmicStarlightEX have labeled Engage as painfully generic, but are they right?
Fire Emblem Engage’s Game Mechanics Are “Bland”
While engaging Emblems that allow units to use a special move or skill keeps the gameplay from growing too repetitive, the Break system allows for a more punishing weapon triangle, that usually prevents counterattacks. Other than these two aspects, some feel Fire Emblem Engage‘s gameplay falls a bit flat. Redditor LegalFishingRods agreed, saying: “It’s just bland. You have the Emblems and the Break mechanic, but that’s about it. But it rarely comes in that useful or feels that different from just having a weapon triangle.”
Players can team units up with Emblems that cover said character’s weaknesses, like putting Sigurd with a healer to let them weave into and out of the fray of battle in one turn, which is anything but dull. The Break system is great for turning the tide of a battle and giving the player an advantage by keeping the enemy from attacking until the following turn. At the same time, Emblem Rings offer a massive number of fun battle possibilities.
Nothing New Or Exciting In Fire Emblem Engage
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It is widely agreed among fans that Engage is by no means a bad game, especially when including Emblems from the best Fire Emblem games. Yet, it tends to come across as empty compared to previous titles. Am_Shigar00 pointed this out, stating: “Is [Engage] doing anything super new or exciting or experimental to the same extent that Three Houses or Fates might have tried? Not even close.”
The Emblem Ring system is most certainly doing something that has never been done in the franchise, that Intelligent Systems deserves recognition for. Given the amazingly numerous ways the Emblems can be used for differing strategies, like putting Celica with an armored unit to build a mage-tank hybrid, the game has absolutely done something brand new to the main series.
The Dialogue Is Repetitive
Fans believe that Engage‘s roster of characters has fallen short in comparison to past titles. While the Fire Emblem franchise’s greatest protagonists play a significant role in the game, it’s true that the dialogue isn’t the most eloquently put and can sometimes seem like a broken record. Most characters get on players’ nerves, especially IHateForumNames: “The gameplay is very good, but I cannot stand the characters. At first, I was just disinterested but as the game wore on, they started to grate more and more.”
With over enough of the characters’ dialogues focused on the amazing Divine Dragon, Alear, conversations seem stiff and repetitive. Although, fans of the classic games will remember how well Marth the hero-king was worshiped by characters at the franchise’s beginning, making this a return to form concept.
Fire Emblem Engage’s Story Is “Mediocre”
In every game of the franchise, an engaging story has been the beacon that leads successful titles to great heights. With Awakening, it was the unique future-meets-present plot line, while Three Houses’ storyline depended on supports and the war that forced players to choose a side. A majority of fans insist that Engage lacks a sort of “soul” that should make fans passionate about where the story is headed. CyanYoh commented: “The story isn’t bad, it’s just not good. There’s a difference to be made… That sets this apart from [previous] Fire Emblem plots. It’s inoffensively flat.”
The game’s plot tends to move in a straight, concise line from start to finish, making it less interesting. This melodramatic story has a few unexpected turns but is otherwise largely predictable and a combination of all-too-common tropes from countless other JRPGs. Luckily, what Engage loses in its basic plot, it makes up for with motivating gameplay.
Leveling Up Supports Takes Too Long
When fans hoped for positive changes Fire Emblem Engage would to character supports, they weren’t expecting a more tedious support system. JoseJulioJim found this support level-up system a pain: “I really enjoy Etie’s and Alfred’s muscle obsession, but I feel I am still missing a lot from them because grinding support points in Engage is way harder than in [Three Houses], I haven’t got an A support yet, and I am in Chapter 17.”
Since the last recruitable characters don’t appear until Chapter 19, and even those who are met before this point take major grinding to obtain an A support with, players are left desperately trying to concentrate solely on their favorite character. This disadvantage leads to a loss of interest in interacting with other characters, which makes the game feel like a chore without reward.
Engage Is “Boring And Shallow”
From music to world-building, the game seems to have disappointed a considerable number of players. Some believe that adding more character’s Emblem Rings would preserve replay value after beating Fire Emblem Engage, but it shouldn’t be greatly relied on. LegalFishingRods shared: “All the flaws I’ve heard about it like story, characters, world-building, music, and character design have been true… They’re just so boring and shallow.”
On the surface, those who aren’t as familiar with the Fire Emblem franchise may see these elements as unimportant, but they are like the beating heart of the game to veteran players. Hearing unimpressive music looping over and over again while attempting to create a solid strategy, or concentrating on the oddly minimal world-building of the game, can be mind-numbing. Furthermore, conversations outside of battle do little to advance the relationships between characters
Map Design Declines Later In The Game
Fans are intently speculating that the map designs towards the end of the 2023 JRPG were put on the back burner and quickly rushed to finish them by the release date because there is a sharp decline that cannot be ignored. Player RamsaySw highlights this, “The game’s map design after Chapter 16 falls off a cliff to such an extent that most of the later game maps aren’t much of an improvement over games like Awakening or even Echoes.”
Indeed, creating unique maps hasn’t been a particularly strong part of the game series since Awakening and Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, but to have the rising action of the game’s climax be so unimpressive is inexcusable. However, each map later on in the game generally features a cool gimmick, like having to avoid balls of lava and avalanches on the battlefield.
Character Designs Are Outlandish
When the trailer for Engage first dropped during a Nintendo Direct, viewers didn’t shy away from commenting about Alear’s Vtuber-esque design. The vibrant art style, however, isn’t the problem. Instead, reviewers of Fire Emblem Engage have blamed its cutesy look. Sunlit_Neko concurs: “I’m fine with it as a one-off, but I don’t want future games to have it. Valentia and Three Houses have some of the best character art in the whole series and I personally want games to iterate further on those two’s art styles.”
Others criticized the style of all the characters, saying they look like they are from Genshin Impact. Missing past stylization is one thing, but the game’s character designs are far from the franchise’s worst, though they lack the depth that previous designs nailed quite well, specifically in Three Houses.
Engage’s Tropes Are Overused
The game’s strive for a return to form was partly a success, but it may have shot too far. The old days of the Fire Emblem franchise were very similar in tone and writing, but expectations have surpassed the simplicity of the old games. Though Three Houses ran on dark drama, Fire Emblem Engage isn’t much of an upgrade and presents a far less serious tone that fans might find unbefitting for a game about war.
Smiles-Edgeworth makes a good point, writing: “Engage is as much of a reconstruction of the tropes of classic campy high fantasy warfare as Three Houses was a deconstruction of those tropes. It feels like a massive whiplash…” Without imaginative tropes that can be seen as something new in the series, like if the plot had included an alleged “traitor” that must be uncovered among the roster or something of the sort, the game is indeed less memorable.
The Voice Acting
Arguably the most controversial subject is the questionable voice acting of almost every female character in Fire Emblem Engage. In the Japanese versions of the franchise’s games, it’s common to hear women that sound like children. However, even the English voice acting in Engage suffers from having its women sound many years younger than they are, a big difference from Three Houses. Redditor Eyegone_Targaryen wasn’t afraid to admit this as well: “Oh boy, this gets bad at times… The female voice acting is full of [women] trying to sound like 8-year-olds.”
The Redditor has a point, if all the women of the game sound similar, it takes away from their individualism and depth. Some players have gone as far as to stop using the characters who have fallen victim to the vocal style. Not only that, but the dialogue itself being unimpressive doesn’t aid in saving a fair amount of characters from being annoying to listen to.
Source: CosmicStarlightEX/Reddit, LegalFishingRods/Reddit, Am_Shigar00/Reddit, IHateForumNames/Reddit, CyanYoh/Reddit, JoseJulioJim/Reddit, LegalFishingRods/Reddit, RamsaySw/Reddit, Sunlit_Neko/Reddit, Smiles-Edgeworth/Reddit, Eyegone_Targaryen/Reddit
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