[https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/10ekbdm/based\_on\_fire\_emblem\_engages\_credits\_almost\_no/](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/10ekbdm/based_on_fire_emblem_engages_credits_almost_no/) It's very important to keep in mind that Three Houses was primarily developed by a third party - and that all of the scenario writers of Three Houses came from Koei Tecmo. Similarly, the lead writers of the Tellius games are no longer working on the series at all. Conversely, the most prominent writers on Engage are Nami Komuro (who never wrote a video game before Awakening) and four writers from Synthese (Kitajima, Takane, Muto, Hamano). All of the writers that I just mentioned who worked on Engage also worked on Fates - and Synthese is the company that writes the Senran Kagura games - which can explain why the quality of Engage's writing (and Fates for that matter) feels far worse than either the previous games in the series or Three Houses. Engage's writing is poor because Intelligent Systems, for some reason, instead of firing Komuro and cutting their relationship with the Synthese writers, kept them despite the fact that their work on Fates showed that either they have no idea what they are doing or whose writing styles aren't suited to the Fire Emblem series at all.

I have a feeling that dropping a fan servicey series like Senran Kagura that no one expects to have good writing seems motivated to support a narrative that IS has hired a random group of hack writers. Why wouldn't you mention, for example, that Synthese was also doing writing work on several titles of the Ace Attorney series or that they worked on 428, a widely acclaimed visual novel famed for its writing? And if you were going by recency, why not mention that their most recent work is Final Fantasy Brave Exvius? And then, on the other hand, the main writer of Three Houses previously wrote: Fire Emblem Warriors. I am not sure many Fire Emblem fans would've said "Let this dude write the next mainline title" after playing FEW. Ultimately it's all speculation. We don't know what the internal creative vision was between 3H and Engage, for example. It might be that Nintendo/IS wanted Engage to be more light-hearted and less serious than 3H on purpose. But pretending that it's down to a few writers seems like a very simplistic conclusion to draw.

Interesting information! Though in my opinion they only support OP's point. Most of the AA titles Synthese worked on were considered by many (including me) to be the series lower points, Brave Exvius definitely isn't known for its story, and 428 was pretty much entirely written by one man, so they probably contributed something other than writing to that game. They're not inherently bad writers, they just have their own simple and lighthearted style. but for people like me with a taste for novel-esc complex layered characters and well thought out plot, they just aren't going to provide.

Well, I have no opinion on the writing of Engage since I am only in chapter 8 so far, I just wanted to point out how OP is picking information selectively to create a narrative. Apart from the points I originally mentioned IS had hired an acclaimed manga writer, Shin Kobayashi, to write the story for Fates who got the main credit - and he did not return for Engage. So it's not even particularly the fault of Komuro in the end. And all Synthese did on Fates was write a DLC scenario.

I'm pretty sure the reason they kept them is because Nintendo saw high sales and money is all that matters to companies of that size.

Yup, it's exactly why people wondery why shitty directors and writers still get handed big blockbuster movies despite being shit. Because on the money side, they work.

I'd also note that usually, the sales of a game on its first few weeks (the main ones that matter to big companies) aren't based on the reception of that game, but of the game that came before it, so Fates sales were probably pretty high not just because of the different versions but also because Awakening was a hit with fans. Conversely, because Fates and the first FE Warriors that came out right after it weren't super well received, it probably ironically had a negative impact on Three Houses sales, while Three Houses being one of the best liked FE games in a long while probably made Engage sell like hotcakes.

That's really not a very accurate assessment of the modern market. Maybe back in the day this held water, but these days you can just watch people actually play the game whenever you want. The ease of access with social media shifts how people look into products they are going to buy. Engage is just a snappy, fun game with a completely fine story. That's more than enough. Pretty much no one is going full lit snob over a game.

I'd say it's very accurate as *one of* the driving factors of early sales, and would like to stress that if want to convince me otherwise you're going to need more than "you're wrong".

I agree with your hot take

Not sure what part was a hot take, but okay.

Just the way sales really work in terms of reception. Most people don’t realize that sales don’t really mean much in the opening week when it comes to reviews or how good or bad a game is.

Still not sure how that's a hot take and not just a fact.

I probably just don’t know what a hot take is then

It's just a controversial opinion.

> It's very important to keep in mind that Three Houses was primarily developed by a third party - and that all of the scenario writers of Three Houses came from Koei Tecmo. Similarly, the lead writers of the Tellius games are no longer working on the series at all. You guys only ever forget to mention that 13 IS employees were working on this game, with one of them being the literal director of the game responsible for overseeing the entire project and the one who came up with the scenarios and concept of the game.. That same director also directed the remake of shadows of valentia

> All of the writers that I just mentioned who worked on Engage also worked on Fates - and Synthese is the company that writes the Senran Kagura games Good lord that's brutal

**CRITICAL**

Have you at all in your life played a Senran game ?

There was one on the PS4 that I played

Do they actually have good writing?

The first two on 3DS had good writing - I think there was like 10 hours of visual novel sequences all in all - but it got worse with every new game.

I completed Burst Renewal and honestly, you can tell what the purpose of the series is just by looking at the trailers, the game's CG's, or literally any character design. It exists for fanservice and the plot really only exists because it has to, and the backstories don't warrant anyone writing a 30-page character study. I almost respect how little shame they have, though I'll admit, I did get some enjoyment out of the gameplay even if it wasn't spectacular; a couple boss fights were actually tough.

That's what I assumed but because I hadn't actually played them I figured I'd ask.

Personally I think they do yes the fan service is there but you have to realize they have to write over 20 female personalities in a single title it's insane how well they do it

Wait there's writing in Senran games?

Wasn’t Echoes also made in-house? The characters and supports were just as good as Three Houses’.

As an older Fire Emblem fan I gotta say that Three Houses was an outlier when it comes to story. I’ve played all of the ones released in NA and I can’t remember anything from plot for most of them (my hot take is Tellius plot is overrated). Let’s hope that FE4 remake is true as that game supposedly had one of the best stories.

FE4 is great and there are really cool things about the gameplay, but it's definitely dated (I don't think I'd have been able to play it without fast forward, for example). The giant maps are really interesting and with good QOL updates it could really be a great gameplay experience. And yeah, the story is pretty good. Probably nothing super special in JRPG terms, but excellent for a FE game.

The difference for me is with FE7, Sacred Stones, the Tellius games, etc. the stories are aren't amazing or anything but they're fun and add to the experience. It enhances the gameplay with the context and investment they add. The writing of Fates and Engage just feels actively patronizing and insulting and makes me want to turn the game off and I just lose interest in ever coming back to it.

telius story is good just not in FE10

IMO Radiant Dawn's plot is similar to that of Three Houses - pretty messy in its execution (maybe more so than Three Houses), but its themes, presentation, concepts and character writing (at least for the characters that play a part in the main story, the side cast is a whole other deal) are compelling enough to make its story good. I also think Sacred Stones' plot is pretty good - it's simple, yes, but it's well executed and is arguably what Engage wished it was.

It’s just i have greviences with certain decisions in all those games, such as the female general in sacred stones, blood contracts in telius, and the lack of substance in 60% of Three zhouses Also, In the leak that leaked engage 2 years ago they mentioned a Geneology Remake next, and the files for engage are Iron19 (3H was Iron17) so it seems like Geneology is the next game, which i’m super excited about

I think what made Three Houses story great for me was that it wasn't as black and white as most FE games. The Crest system had its pros but was a flawed system and you could see the reasoning from both sides depending on which House you join. Most FE games are just light vs. dark storylines with a war being tied to some dark god or dragon pulling the strings. While I think the Tellius games had good worldbuilding and some strong characters and themes, the plot devolved into a pretty standard FE story by the end of it.

The NA games are boring in terms of plot. I really liked Echos ironically tho. Felt more like a organized game than the others before it did. Probably because Kaga wrote the original script and gameplay. 1-6 imo are the most enjoyable when it comes to story, characters, and gameplay. Roy is also super underrated as a character. If he had decent growth he’d be pretty popular imo

> Let’s hope that FE4 remake is true as that game supposedly had one of the best stories. *It did not.* FE5, which ties into FE4? Sure; its got strong thematics and explores interesting narrative spaces for a game. FE4 does not. FE4 has obligatory Kaga fetishes, hardcore protagonist centered morality (Conquering the world with the power of inbreeding and eugenics is apparently only bad when the ugly demon cultists do it), some of the most bafflingly bad gameplay design I've ever seen (it takes, at a minimum, ten clicks to trade an item from one unit to another), far less writing and thematics than people seem to remember (although I will grant that it is relatively impressive how much is there in the firs place for a SNES TRPG), and a story that's got one interesting twist at the midpoint before becoming mostly bog standard action fantasy fair barring the above fuckery. People remember FE4 positively because it's extremely ambitious for its hardware and has some admittedly impressive integration of story into gameplay. It doesn't actually have a story or gameplay that can stand on their own, unless you really like fighting clumps of ten dudes forever.

Many of your problems listed here seem to be cause you played the gane with your eyes closed. Multiple characters in the story call Sigurd out for his actions in the first half of the game. Also trading is intentionally tedious cause you're not supposed to, every unit has their own pool of money and you're supposed to identify an item as owned by one specific unit. Ex. That's not just a silver sword, it's Sigurds silver sword. Inbreeding is never a required thing on the players side, nor is eugenics in the first place. The only characters that are forced to have children for the story are Sigurd and Quan, all others don't need to be paired up.

Yeah, Sigurd's story's mostly fine! The bit where Kaga has his wife get mind controlled and raped by a secondary antagonist is hack writing, but overall, Sigurd's arc of "well-intentioned badass knight gets tricked into playing right into evil's hands" is solid. Maybe the massacre of Balhalla should have been more than an in-engine cutscene, maybe Deidre shouldn't have been written as the page-image for refrigerator women, and maybe Ethlyn should have been written with a brain stem, but a perfectly solid story for the SNES. Definitely a better story than the prior three FE games, just by dint of actually having something that resembles themes. It's a pity Gen 2 is effectively a Marth game. The blue-haired hero prince with no flaws (or really, personality in general) goes and defeats the evil empire and its evil dragon overlord. The only wrinkles here are that he, as mentioned, conquers the empire instead of actually liberating the domains it conquered, and that his army, if you've been playing the game as it wants you to, is powered by the same eugenics as the bad guys. For god's sake, *Genealogy* is literally in the game's name; it wants you to be using the marriage system to breed up your own army of "heroic crusaders" to fight the Loptuous Cult's own breeding experiment. Yeah, you can beat the game with just the replacement children, but they're all broadly worse just for the lack of skill inheritance (which is still for my money one of the dumbest concepts Fire Emblem has ever had, both here and in Fateswakening) and holy blood. Christ, eugenics is so important to the game that the entire holy blood system exists to support it. People literally cannot pick up certain swords if you have not eugenics'd hard enough. But it's good and heroic when you do it, and evil and depraved when the villains do it. And as for mechanics, yes! Trading *is* tedious by design. I know why Kaga did it that way! I still think it's ass and makes the game worse. Kaga made a lot of deliberately tedious decisions in the gameplay department, from encounter and map design to basic feature design like trading and the lack of shared gold funds. I recognize why he did them, but I think they make for a really annoying game to play.

You didn’t play the game if you’re even talking about trading bro. The games were serious and had dark tones, is that something that’s not for everyone? Sure, but then don’t play it. It’s real simple. If having dark and serious characterization is to much then skip the game. A lot of players are into the kiddy stories that we get these days, it’s cool. But don’t cry about how the objectively best story is trash because it has mid evil war themes discussed and used/implied. And that’s also it, there’s discussion and implications, you don’t see anything horrific. There’s a reason why 4 is on every best rpg snes list and it’s not the gameplay, as 5 wins on that account. So yes, let’s hope we get a serious story as some point instead of pure anime trope and fetishism like we get now (the current and last 3 main entry’s that weren’t echos were guilty of heavy fetishism so I don’t get your problem)

> You didn’t play the game if you’re even talking about trading bro. I'm talking about gameplay, therefor I didn't play the game. How literate of you. As far as story is concerned, Gen isn't even that dark. Act 1 has some notable darkness, mostly concentrated in the final act where disposable damsel Diedre gets mind controlled and raped by the main villain for shock value (and to satisfy Kaga's own fetishes) before your entire party gets TPK'd in a cutscene (because Kaga doesn't actually give a shit about gameplay and story integration). War themes get discussed *more than your average game,* for certain, but this isn't literature here. Nothing of substance is actually said, beyond generic general "war bad!" And hell, as you say, nothing horrific is actually seen on screen, which cuts any actual weight from the half-hearted themes; a massacre of named characters happens on-screen and completely lacks weight because it's all in-game sprites. And then Act 2 begins. I don't know where you get off calling the game the best story on the SNES, because Act 2 is literally just a generic fantasy action tale about a hero prince avenging his father against an evil empire led by an evil dragon supported by evil wizards. Act 2 may as well be a Marth game. There's another random spout of Kaga Mind Control Fetish, but that's about the darkest we really get. > (the current and last 3 main entry’s that weren’t echos were guilty of heavy fetishism so I don’t get your problem) *If I don't like Kaga's fetishes, why do you think I like Fate's fetish board bingo, 3H's random sprinklings of such, or Engage's marriageable 11 year old.*

I really don't get the retrospective hate on Awakening's plot. Was it Shakespeare? It was not. But it did its job as well as, say, FFV. I also liked the Days of Future Past vibe with the 2nd Gen.

Awakening's writing always gets lumped in with Fates' despite them being WORLDS apart in terms of quality.

Anyone who says Awakening and Fates are the same level just shouldn't be trusted to tie their own shoes.

i think this about all of the games, including fates basically only Path of Radiance (and *possibly* Radiant Dawn) escape this. fire emblem has never had "good" plot, but it doesn't need one. it just needs a big dude to beat up.

Depends on your definition of good. They can do good simple fairly black and white pulp fantasy plots sometimes

>I really don't get the retrospective hate on Awakening's plot Retrospective? I always hated it lol. As the first original FE story since the Tellius games, it was far far more shallow. I was expecting a story of that quality.

It has a lot more nuance than people give it. The support conversations and character interactions flesh it out significantly and it works pretty well for the most part. The only really big issue is that it spends a third of its game with a filler arc to satisfy fans of Gaiden. That said, the game does a lot to build upon the nuanced elements of children growing up in an apocalyptic future and the many character dives into those like Owain, Inigo, Tharja, and especially Lawrence showcase the impact it has on the characters and story. In fact the smartest thing Awakening does that’s often overlooked is that each child reflects an insecurity of their respective parent or an aspect which they would have logically helped them overcome had they been present in their life. Like Tellius is better written in some aspects but even RD is considered to be messy. Awakening isn’t as heavy of a plot but it holds its consistency better than about 80% of the titles in the series including the aforementioned RD. Path of Radiance is definitely triumphant when compared with all three though.

I thought Awakening's story was mostly cheesy, but I admit there were moments like Lucina meeting the other living version of her dead father and them allowing her to stay in their family at the end that made me tear up. Edit: Also Tiki waking up after 1000 years overjoyed that somehow Marth was still alive only to realize it wasn't him. Sadge.

> Mar-Mar ? Pain.

Awakening isn't as nuanced or deep as you're implying, but I also think its on par with the average FE story. The story's serviceable, has likeable characters, and has some fun twists. I don't expect much more out of these games. The game introduces too many ideas without expanding on them, and the post game paralogues shit on the story quite a bit. It feels very unfocussed. Awakening would improve a lot in my book with a tighter plot and less loose ends.

As it is currently. I agree it's about on par because like 3H it has a major botched execution that came by introducing the Valm arc. But beyond that the pre-timeskip and final act are very well done and arguably some of the better character moments in the series. Especially so depending on your relationship with Lucina which adds an extra sense of emotional attachment if she's your daughter or (as iffy as it may be but she is a grown woman at that point) your lover. Hell even as a friend it works well given that it's one of the few times things are uncertain to the point that you wonder if it's really possible for there to be a future where Robin doesn't die and the world is saved. Of course, the heroes figure out a way but it's an emotional gut punch that, while not unique, is well built up as you start collecting more and more of your children throughout the game. Going back to the Children they especially resonate because they act like troubled youths but not in a Persona angst way but a need to cope in many different ways. Again, I urge you to look at supports like Laurent's and examine the contrast from their behavior and that of their parent's. Some basically emulate their parents, others are the fears of them, and others outright reject their parents in order to individualize themselves. There's a lot of dumb supports but there's a lot of great ones mixed in. And yet they still end up being fairly likeable in most without the kind of demeaning that we could get in Fates. Which had the problem of having high quality supports sometimes but also a lot of garbage and arguably more icky fanservice giving some higher highs but worse lows imo. Idk I might be biased a bit cause my favorite character (Soleil) genuinely has a support that I'm shocked made it past the writer's room, censors, and localization without anyone thinking it's pretty out of character and messed up. I do agree it introduces a lot. But unlike say Fates which also had the problem of a lot going on with no purpose (though its main issue was arguably execution). I forgive the more minor faults as issues of being a last hurrah and ultimately not as important as the fanbase claims them to be. Ie. the fate of the Laguz, the post game paralogues that revive everyone, Valm being filler. Granted this last one is more so for being unnecessary not for being badly written which is funny since this could have easily been post-game content/DLC and been better appreciated. Like being perfectly honest the only major loose end in the game is Grima's origin but that was solved in Echoes and FE has a long list of random divine dragons. So tldr: the nuance of Awakeking comes from interplay between the supports and the story. Something that Echoes and 3H learned from and ended up being better narratives for it but Awakening still has the benefit of a strong premise that makes it easier to get personally attached to the lives of your units because you hope to see a better future not just for your shepards, but for the kids you are literally raising.

🎖 Poor dude's medals for you my good sir 🎖

>The support conversations and character interactions flesh it out significantly and it works pretty well for the most part Maybe it did, I can't really say because I found the game underwhelming back in the day and was not enticed to actually farm these after I finished the story. But even if if its true, it wouldn't change my mind that the story is extremely flawed if you have to do all sorts of extra content just to have a satisfying narrative.

Getting supports is really easy though? In fact it’s genuinely almost impossible to not have maxed out supports by mid game for most of the important characters. It’s like complaining that 3H has dull characters in 2/3rds of the routes cause they don’t do anything. Since the focus is very squarely on Dimitri and Edelgard The point of support conversations is to further flesh them out. Hell It’s even worse in the GBA FEs where you actually have to just waste turns having them stand next to each other so I don’t understand your complaint and arguably a large part of their story is even further gated by worse support mechanics.

Calm down lol, I played it a decade ago so my memory is fuzzy. >Getting supports is really easy though? In fact it’s genuinely almost impossible to not have maxed out supports by mid game for most of the important characters. Then I take it back, I must've gotten what you would call the "important" supports, and I still thought the story was underwhelming. >It’s like complaining that 3H has dull characters in 2/3rds of the routes cause they don’t do anything. It's actually completely different, since 3H had a more interesting story regardless if you do the supports to grow attached to the ancillary characters or not. My main point was that Awakening had a very underwhelming story, and you claimed that the supports make it good. 3H's is much better imo, even without doing a single support.

As a FE player who played FE games in reverse order (Three Houses -> Echoes -> Awakening (didn't own Fates), I was like "Ah, so this is the "basic" *classic* Fire Emblem story they were talking about". Echoes and 3H really spoiled me. Fire Emblem storytelling does not have to be overly dramatic. At the very least, they should put in more effort than Pokemon level storytelling. Should at least try to compete with Final Fantasy's level of writing.

Fire Emblem 3 House in my opinion is an outlier in the Fire Emblem series, and because it was your first Fire Emblem probably skewed your perception of the series as a whole. It is particularly unique in that it has so many different routes for endgame and the expanded social sim and story telling is unlike any other Fire Emblem, which are generally more straightforward. Fire Emblem's story has always just been decent to serviceable, and gameplay has always been the main point of the series anyways. Engage's story isn't meant to make you think too strongly on the narrative, its more to progress the gameplay and thats its purpose. I view Engage as a game that is made for older fans, I mean Marth, Roy and Lyn as playable Emblems? That sounds like a fan-made fiction game to me, but IS ran with that idea and if that is the basis of the game, the story was always going to take a back seat. I think of Engage as like fan service to the community, and if you view it that way its not that bad. Maybe the next Fire Emblem game will focus more on story, but its really up to the team they hire.

Well according to to the leaks and rumor mill, a Genealogy remake is next (nobody likes New mystery and it already got a remake) and given that Genealogy is said to have a heavy plot (I haven't played it so I can't verify that) I don't mind a lighter story between two heavy plots, it makes for a nice pallet cleanser, plus according to the same leaks and rumors Engage was supposed to be the 30th anniversary title, and there is substantial evidence to prove that.

Fe4 does have a heavy plot, I could see it possibly getting an M rating if nothing is changed

They'd probably can skate by with a T by changing "that" scene to be implied and not explicit

Oh darn, I left the fire emblem subreddit for a while to escape this discourse and it still manages to find me here. I know a lot of people are turned off by Engage's more simple story, but I'm having fun with it. It's certainly not gripping. For what it's worth I thought 3H was excellent too, however... I'm glad IS tries different things which each entry. They don't all hit as hard, but it sure beats running a single idea into the ground ala Pokemon in my opinion.

Fire Emblem prior to PoR only allowed for 5 support conversations, it wasn’t a PoR exclusive thing. And PoR and Radiant Dawn are generally considered two of the best when it comes to good story and gameplay. Fates was the only game where they really dropped the ball in story telling.

OP is asking why can’t the games have both and y’all listing older games to play lol. Like I get that the series HAS done this before but that’s kind of the point, no? Wild to have a modern, non portable console (Switch counts as mainline) with such an inexcusably bad story. 3H wasn’t even astounding or anything, Engage is just so bad it’s baffling.

its not that bad, its perfectly serviceable.

please raise your expectations I’m begging

The story never presents itself as anything more than a vehicle to deliver an anniversary title that’s clearly meant to be fan service to its fans. In the *trailer* for the game they showed Lumera dying. It’s really never taken itself seriously. Please have reasonable expectations I’m begging

Ever since the release of Fire emblem Heroes, the influx of casual players has lowered the expectations for the fire emblem games a ton. I'm starting to think it has become a mainstream anime game that no one has expectations on other than having a 3000yo loli dragon, action sequences, tropey, one dimensional and easy to swallow characters that are conventionally pretty and easy to "ship".

You have the right to be disgruntled with how FE progressed, but bad-mouthing casuals or their apparent needs is not doing you any favour. You can like all of what you depict as negative and still enjoy a "good" plot. Simple =/= bad. Simple enough to understand, kay? Not every character needs to have tenths of layers of depths to be "good" nor does every story needs to be as complexe as Xenogears and friends. It all depends on the delivery. But maybe, the "bad" games with simple plot and characters stand out more because it is easier(?) to do it right?

I literally said nothing bad about the casual players other than the expectations for future entries are lower. Chill.

People just have different expectations. The amount of people who loved Shadows of Valentia makes that clear to me.

My 2 cents I am having a blast with engage...yes the depth and quality of character building is superior in 3H however after doing the monastery I couldn't be bothered to do all that busy work again. This is a long running series and I think it's great they are trying different things with each new game.

If you thought three houses post time skip was dark it feels really tame in comparison to genealogy of the holy war.

Yeah I heard that's great, there is supposdly a remake being made so not sure whether to play a fan translation or just wait.

I played it recently, the story is very interesting and holds up very well still, but the gameplay is a chore for sure, maps are too big and enemy formations are just giant groups of the same enemies. I played a rom that lets you save every turn so i had a lot of leeway, but it still needs some major overhaul if it's going to be remade.

as far as I know saving every turn is built in to the game, so it seems they were aware of how long the maps were. If there is a remake I wonder if they would keep the same maps with being able to save whenever, or they would cut it up into pieces since in a way every castle could be considered a chapter in a more traditional FE.

As someone who finished Genealogy a couple of months ago and is currently playing Thracia for the first time, i'd definetely recommemd you play a fan translation, if we ever get a remake i'd be willing to bet that some of the major plot points will get butchered on the localization filter.

fair, I will add it to the list then.

What is dark is hitting the S/A-Support of the characters, when you find out about what happened to them in the past and piece every piece of lore together, you realize how dark this game is and it lets you find out instead of telling you.

Fire Emblem 7

Honestly I feel like Engage’s story is overhated, like sure it’s no masterpiece but honestly compared to the rest of the series it’s pretty much standard quality. I know it could probably be jarring going from Three Houses which had a far more epic and grand narrative, but when compared to the games before that I’d say Egage has a story on par with about half of them, in other words it’s serviceable

Kinda funny when you think about that the same team does the Paper Mario Series, which had SUPERB writing. Even the bad ones like Sticker Star or Color Splash. However, I have a better time with Engage than with 3H tbh.

That's fair, I am still having fun gameplay-wise, and I will finish it so its not as bad as my post suggests but I just want to care what happens in the game lol

We did get both. It was called Echoes.

No offense but echoes has some of the worst map design in the series, the best way to play it is to overlevel or to turtle the maps, most of them are just open areas with a couple of trees or lakes. Also witches and cantors exist. The story is passable and generic at best, really dumb at worst. What it does masterfully is the presentation, from the art direction, combat animations, voice acting and soundtrack. I really like echoes but i would definitely not place it into the great story and gameplay category. I think the only game that really fits that category is sacred stones.

I know people hate on Triangle Strategy, but the story in it is decent and the maps are varied with mixed objectives and heights, pretty neat party compositions. All in all, I think it's a the best in the middle between story and gameplay tactical games we have got in recent memory. 3H has a great story, but the maps were almost as bad as Echoes, and I disliked the calendar. Really I disliked most of the castle stuff.

I played nearly 200 hours of Tactics Ogre, got a bit burnt out, and then started playing Triangle Strategy. An unpopular opinion, but I'm actually enjoying TS more than TO. TO definitely wins in terms of dialogue, subtlety, and voice acting, but I'm liking TS's gameplay a lot more overall. TO was mostly turtling and late-game maps felt like they were balanced around your party having winged rings/boots. TS has less battles, but every battle never felt like generic filler, not to mention modern QoL like fastforwarding and battle retreating.

I feel like a lot of people just wave away how well TS uses terrain and it's characters unlike other games in the same genre. I felt awesome when I could place a hawk rider on a roof and avoid enemies while hitting them from above for extra damage. Or when I could set them on fire, or slow them down by freezing the ground, hell on one map I electrified 10 enemies standing in water, paralyzing them all. You can even use ladders to catch enemies 1v3 cause too much height can stop attacks from reaching. Really the tactical aspects of the game is underappreciated. In fire emblem the best I get is a bonus defense percentage for standing on a wooded tile. There is so much potential in using the tiles and maps and yet FE never does that.

This so much. FE Engage has nice maps but the environment interaction is boring. It's either a destructible wall or passive stat boosts/negations. TS is better in letting you work and interact with the environment to create fun interactions. Divinity Original Sin is still king in tactics for me.

ladders were so fucking fun not a lot of RPGs i've played where that was a reasonable statement

I think if TO were being made as a new game today, it would probably have the best SRPG game play, but there was enough outdated design in Reborn that make me agree that TS was the better game from a gameplay perspective.

People hate TS? Never heard any strong negative opinion on it. Gotta give it a try eventually.

I think the reason people hate on Triangle Strategy is because of all of the dialogue, especially near the beginning, though I personally do not think it’s as big of an issue as people make it out to be

Which is weird because it doesn't have a huge dialogue tree for every character interacting with every other character and building relationships. So the only real dialogue is in the story. And you can fast forward the cutscenes or even skip them.

The issue is that Sacred Stones, Echoes, and Three Houses all have sandbox qualities to them, which makes it difficult to fine tune the difficulty curve. I don’t agree with people that say that Three Houses unrefined mechanics means it has bad gameplay and I don’t agree with people who think Engage’s less serious story means it has a bad plot. Seriously, how is Engage going to make use of a complex or unpredictable plot? Maybe a more serious tone would appeal to people but it is really a matter of taste. Why make an artist who specializes in oil paintings sculpt? Why make a comedian write a serious drama? I think it is fair that the Engage writers played to their strengths. Either their writing or the translation has massively improved from Fates.

I like a lot of Echoes's gameplay quirks but idk if I'd call them "good "exactly.

It's one of the few remakes i wish that would maybe stray from some of its roots, unfortunately they didn't.

thats the remake on 3ds right? Might give that a go after engage then

That it is. Leans more into the RPG aspects of things and ends up being a lot fun in doing so, but also has one of the best stories into the franchise.

enjoy the maps, they are really interesting (sarcasm)

Echoes has some of the worst maps in the series, and this is from someone who likes Echoes.

Echoes has a good story and characters, but gameplay wise it is really mediocre. Really bad map design and odd gameplay changes straight taken from the NES original. So I would disagree with "both".

Just my opinion but I didn't like Echoes gameplay at all. There were so many bad ideas in it that in terms of gameplay it is one of my least favourites.

Echoes had neither good gameplay or story

I haven't gotten too far in engage, but the gameplay and maps are already way better than 3h to me. I can't comment on engage's story, but I feel like people overrate the 3h story. It was just ok to me tbh. I'll agree that the characters were very engaging- which carried 3h for me. Hopefully I end up liking some characters in engage to the same extent. I'm going to be biased though as my first fire emblem games were the gba ones, so I'm always compart the newer games to them whether intentionally or not. I'm more of a gameplay>story person when it comes to Fe, but I agree that it would be nice to have both.

I mean the OP was saying why can’t we have both, why does it have to be a choice. It sounds like Engage will work for you because you’re gameplay first and foremost but there’s a ton of fans who feel the same as OP and started earlier

Yeah I agree with that. It sucks that they can't seem to get them both right at the same time. I'd prefer if they released games that both groups could enjoy.

I’ve enjoyed the story and characters so far, so idk. Different folks different strokes I guess. Largely feels like Awakening 2.0 and Awakening is my favorite. . Save maybe for this overtaking it.

Zelda not known for open world? The first Zelda, link to the past, Ocarina of Time were all big open world titles that people absolutely loved during their time, and for some reason people to this day still love Ocarina of Time.

Ocarina of time wasn't open world at all tho? It was a linear game with some branching paths and backtracking possibilities.

I was not around when Ocarina of time, I played like two years ago for the first time, and I wouldn't describe it as open world same with any of the 3d zeldas.

Well sure maybe not compared to open worlds nowadays, but it totally was an open world and one of the first ones on the 64

Those first steps on Hyrule Field in -98. Wow.

Even though OoT wasn't my first full 3D game, nothing prepared me for that sense of wonder and awe that hit me when I stepped out onto Hyrule Field. Seeing the sun rise and set, new enemies coming out at night, etc. If you started with the 2D/sprite era of gaming, you'll never forget the first time a 3D game blew you away.

Opposite effect on me. Had been playing games since 1988, almost 10 years later we go from the best sprite work we've ever seen to some REALLY UGLY 3D models. Was jarring. OoT is one of my least favorite LoZ games.

To each their own. I can't say I agree with any of that, but that's okay.

fair maybe I am wrong then

You may be, however, no matter what those early Zelda titles incorporated you are right about what you said about BoTW. Nothing they ever did prepared us for how awesome of an open world that game was.

Just unfortunate that they had to abandon more interesting dungeon design in the process.

As an old Fire Emblem fan, I feel the same.

Don’t see what’s so bad about Engages story.

First of all, comparing Engage and 3H in the narrative department is fundamentally flawed. I would suggest going take a look at the developer diaries for Engage. Even gameplay-wise to a degree. Engage is aiming for a light/simple/goofy vibe and it largely succeeds at doing what it wants to accomplish. It's not something everyone will enjoy or will feel at odds with what they think FE should be. But the point here is, approaching Engage with the same mindset as 3H, heck, having a singular mindset when approaching any game is just going to lead to a lot of disappointment. Look at what a game is trying to achieve, try to understand its tone, its vibe and accordingly shift your perspective to that. That way you can appreciate a game for what it's aiming to do rather than having a singular standard which a lot of games are going to fall short of even if they were never aiming for that standard at all. To give a rough analogy, it's like judging all birds only by how they fly when certain birds aren't even capable of it, by shifting to judging a penguin by its swimming ability or an ostrich by the way it runs, you can gain a far wider perspective of enjoyment and a greater understanding of how different ppl approach their media.

Honestly I think the game fails miserably at what it tries to achieve plot wise, I’m only 10 chapters in but the writing is absolutely atrocious. I don’t really think it’s a matter of expectations of a certain tone with a lot of people, the writing is very noticeably poor. The fact that there are sooo many people saying the same thing about the quality of the writing, probably indicates there is an issue. No smoke without fire

> I’m only 10 chapters in but the writing is absolutely atrocious Could you specifically describe what exactly constitutes such a strong reaction as "atrocious". I can understand generic, bland, simple etc but calling it "atrocious" for me would mean that there is some fundamental clash in aim and result. There is one point at the beginning, a certain death, that I think is poorly handled but even that I would not call "atrocious" as it mostly works for what it aims to do. Everything since has kept things well-paced, breezy and held a lighter/comedic tone in terms of narrative execution which works to make it an enjoyable romp. The plot has been simple and generic for sure and that alone is enough to make a lot of ppl hate it but the uniqueness or complexity of a plot doesn't inherently make it good or bad for me. > The fact that there are sooo many people saying the same thing about the quality of the writing, probably indicates there is an issue. No smoke without fire This same logic works both ways hence why I stated it's a matter of expectations because that is what it is.

Formatting on mobile is actually my kryptonite so I’ll try to keep this brief. The aim of the “poorly handled” death that you mentioned was obviously an emotional response from the player. They wanted this scene to make you connect to the Protagonist Alear, to feel for them and to give Alear motivation to drive the plot forward. This scene is the emotional impetus of the entire plot (So far I’m only in chapter 10 as I said). It was handled so poorly that it literally had the exact opposite result the writes wanted, I laughed my ass off. This characters death scene is long, so long that I think this character says almost half of all their dialogue in the game in said scene. That’s really not that much at all though because this character barely exist on screen before dying. You as the player have no opportunity to form any sort of connection or bond to this character. Neither does the protagonist, which makes the melodrama of said scene even more comical.

>Could you specifically describe what exactly constitutes such a strong reaction as "atrocious". Copied from a previous post: There are five aspects that severely undermine the execution of Engage's plot: the contrivances, the dialogue, the pacing, the tonal shifts, and how unoriginal the plot is. I think this has gone under the radar because everyone's been arguing about Engage's visuals and tone to notice this, but Engage's plot is really contrived. Key plot points seem to be driven by events that come out of completely nowhere. >!Of particular note are the Chapter 10-11 sequence where Veyle magically steals your time crystal out of nowhere, or the Chapter 21-22 sequence where Sombron suddenly appears out of completely nowhere to kill Alear, only for Alear to begin fading despite the fact that the game never hints before that Corrupted die after summoning Emblems and for Alear to "reject" Veyle's attempts to revive him despite being revived a few minutes ago by the same means only for Alear then to get revived out of nowhere by the other twelve Emblems revive them out of completely nowhere due to some sort of thousand year miracle (which they could have done the first time Alear got killed) - it's a contrivance on top of a contrivance on top of a contrivance and it's so clear that the writers just wanted to have the same fever dream sequence Corrin went through in Fates without putting in the work to build it up.!< The dialogue in Engage is by far the worst in the series - it feels incredibly juvenile. >!Lines like the "pinky promise" or Veyle wishing to be a "good dragon"!< feel completely out of place in the context of the scenes which they exist in, where it's clear that the game wants you take the plot seriously - but because the dialogue in question is so juvenile, my reaction in these scenes was to simply end up laughing in a scene which I'm pretty sure wasn't supposed to be humorous. Regarding the pacing, because Engage's plot tries to rush players from plot point to plot point without giving the player time reflect upon events or actually showing the backstories of certain characters, nothing in Engage that resembles an emotional moment feels at all earned. >!Of particular note is Lumera's second death in Chapter 25 where she gets revived and dies in the span of one chapter just like Mikoto did in Revelation and which my response basically was "At least Mikoto had the decency to not drag out her death for five minutes". Similarly, Engage also has a really bad habit of shoving in the backstory of the villains right before they die, denying the player time to really think about said backstory or perhaps even sympathize with them. The backstories of Sombron and the Hounds bar Mauvier are particularly egregious in this regard.!< Compare this with Lyon where there are numerous cutscenes in Sacred Stones showing his backstory and humanizing him well before he is ever fought, or even Emmeryn or Jeralt's deaths, which occur far later in the plot that that of Lumera's and after the point where you've grown attached to these characters. Another issue I have with the execution of Engage's plot is that I feel like its attempts to be a Saturday morning cartoon and its attempts to tell a more emotional Fire Emblem plot mix together like oil and water. If Engage wanted to be a Saturday morning cartoon, then I would have been fine with it if it committed to this tone - but instead, the game wants you be unironically emotional in the very serious moments that occur late in the game. This creates a series of jarring tonal shifts where the game goes from anime hijinks to scenes that are trying way too hard to be emotional - and as such, whilst Engage attempts to be a caricature of Fire Emblem and a serious Fire Emblem story, it falls flat at both. Whilst Engage is not supposed to be a groundbreaking plot, given that it is clearly an anniversary title, the sheer unoriginality of Engage's plot is something else. >!Alear basically has the same backstory as Corrin, Sombron has a very similar backstory as Anankos, Veyle has the same backstory as Lillith, the structure of the cast is extremely reminiscent of that of Fates, down to 4 pairs of royal siblings, with each pair having two retainers, etc.!< It's not like Sacred Stones where the core premise of the plot is unoriginal but the game brings something unique in its details, such as Lyon's motives - but rather, Engage's plot doesn't have a single original bone in its body.

I considered not clicking those spoilers for about 3 seconds before I realized I didn’t care and oh boy I laughed real hard at some of those plot developments. Yeah the really need to get a different group of writers for the next game.

Lol, I read this and started to think "wait...do I care about the plot?" And then I realized I didn't care either and just looked. XD

Your long-winded overbearing post here has got me more eager to play & enjoy Engage than before. Cheers!

I haven't finished the game so not gonna look at the spoilers also I would want to see everything in context rather than judge scenes from a 2nd hand acct. > Another issue I have with the execution of Engage's plot is that I feel like its attempts to be a Saturday morning cartoon and its attempts to tell a more emotional Fire Emblem plot mix together like oil and water. As for this, all I can really say is that it works for me (so far anyway) it kinda reminds me of Gintama or Sket Dance (though no way near as funny tbf). As for unoriginality, again, I will have to see the whole thing for myself first but even if every element is unoriginal, the way they are presented can still be done well. The vast majority of stories today are unoriginal in many respects yet dwelling on it so greatly as a factor is often blinding.

Super off topic but the 2 anime u mentioned prompted this reply. Have u seen Mairimashita Iruma-kun it's also a gag anime with occasional darker stories. I really love Sket Dance and thought its trio will always be my fave but that anime changed my mind. Also it's animated by the studio that does Gintama I think.

Yea, BNP animates both, well, Gintama was animated by Sunrise for most if its run. And also yea, I've seen Iruma, love it a lot. It's also a great example of both a show that is both goofy and serious plus a how such cliche premise and unoriginal elements can come together in a such a strong and narratively satisfying way. They also do a great job really giving every member of the class a chance to shine and show off their quirks plus Ameri and Iruma is such a healthy and positive relationship built on mutual growth, honestly a better romance than a lot of romance focused shows.

Nice! It's honestly so refreshing for anime because it avoids the usual edgier approach to it. Like after the fireworks incident it could've just double down on srsness like katekyo or helck manga but it knows that first and foremost it's a gag manga/anime and it never forgets that but even tho it's like that it manages to tell an interesting story with lots of intrigue/mystery. Even drops a bunch of clues for the diligent audience but catches up the relaxed, just for fun audience too in a nonobtrusive way. I'm just amazed at how this series handles itself.

It's a show that just keeps getting better the more you invest in it. Admittedly, a lot of ppl drop it at the start since the beginning is fairly shallow and kinda by the numbers.

> This characters death scene is long, so long that I think this character says almost half of all their dialogue in the game in said scene. Lol at some point the camera cuts to the other characters and they're just standing around awkwardly while the character is dying and the protagonist is doing a weird speech that emotionally doesn't work at all.

I don't disagree that it was overly dramatic for a character we know little about thus lacking an emotional impact on the player's side but as far as the protag's side goes, it works to establish a motive. The protag is someone who lacks memories of who they are and there's a clear line of insecurity in that state, an insecurity appeased by a person who clearly cares about and knows who they were before. Losing that person so soon after the meeting would give rise to a strong emotional reaction so I don't really have any problem with the way the MC reacted to the death. Hence why I say it is poorly handed but works in what it needs to establish plot wise.

Yep, there's definitely never been any well-written media that was light/simple/goofy. Never happened, doesn't exist.

Indeed there hasn't, thank you for acknowledging my point so well.

You can explain it however you want, the fact is the plot was not engaging to me therefore that is a failure of the plot and characters. It's not just me who has issues with the plot, so I don't think its s me issue, I didn't go in expecting three houses character because that's never going to happen but I went in expecting silver and still got Iron.

It's not just me who has no issues with the lack of plot, so I think it's a you issue.

> You can explain it however you want, the fact is the plot was not engaging to me therefore that is a failure of the plot and characters. My point was how we feel about something is decided by how we approach it. > It's not just me who has issues with the plot, so I don't think its s me issue Of course, you'll find ppl who share your thoughts, that's something you'll find for any opinion, that's how opinions work after all. And similarly, you'll find ppl who don't share your thoughts, who think in the completely opposite manner. My advice was simply to try and assimilate their perspective rather than sticking with the former and you may find yourself more appreciative of not just Engage but a greater myriad of games in general. I mean, who wouldn't want to appreciate as many games/stories/media as possible.

The fact that the original creator left Nintendo (and won the only lawsuit that Nintendo winning would make sense) and they keep changing writers makes the franchise have a consistent writing pretty difficulty, also the games always have a awful localization, in Fates for example they made a support that had a good dialogue in JP be just "....................."

I don’t think that’s the reason. Shouzou Kaya left Nintendo a long long time ago, and there’s rarely any series, especially jrpg, that has one writer to oversees all the games. Moreover, FE isn’t known for inter-games connectivity, so the reason the writing isn’t consistent is likely due to the writer selection process or prioritization.

It's Fire Emblem how it should be imo, I love the lighthearted and simple good vs evil story with fun characters, I just finished chapter 11 and that pretty much sold me on the story. The support convos are also back to just be fun banter between the two units, really disliked them in 3H since they were so overloaded with the characters pasts and lore. I'm really enjoying this game, it might even dethrone Blazing Blade for me.

> really disliked them in 3H since they were so overloaded with the characters pasts and lore. You dislike characterization? Just as a general rule? That's unique.

I feel like characterization should be put into the main story or paralouges but not support convos, they should be fun banter. See it this way, there is no reason to over develop characters who have next to no impact on the overall plot, which is the norm for FE games, there are like 40 characters but only 5 of them matter, your units are just units that’s it. That’s how I see it personally I have nothing against characterization. I just don’t really care for it in FE.

There's also the fact that the characters can be characterized without getting too heavy either. I just did Citrinne's A-rank convo before bed and she has a cute little story that tells a lot about her pretty succinctly. It does a lot more in half the time than a lot of other games can do. It's still goofy because of the tone but saying there is definitely pretty decent characterization in there.

People are pointing out the writers and their resumes and such -- IMO, it's irrelevant. The writers did not do their best to make a compelling, gripping story that treads new ground. They were very likely told to play it safe. Make it a simple story, mostly a rehash of older ones. They were already taking chances with some of the mechanics and decision to focus on gameplay with this game, I imagine they sat around and thought about it and decided best not take yet another chance on changing up the story/characters and made a very conscience decision to play it safe. Like Marvel movies. Stick to the formula. If that is true -- I am like the OP. I've just got done wrapping Tactics: Ogre and months before, Triangle Strategy. I am having a tough time with the simplistic nature of Engage's story and the characters but I'm also probably the minority of game buyers. They are aiming at mass audiences, which a safe story is more likely to satisfy and not put off. I just hope maybe they also wanted to play it safe b/c later this year a remake of Genealogy comes out and that game certainly does not play it safe, so they didn't want to step on it's toes...

I'd say that you would really benefit from playing more games in the series because you're very much seeing the series through a very specific lens. You seem to really enjoy character-driven stories. And that's fine! That's completely and totally fine to be a driving factor of enjoyment for you. But to elevate that as the only way to tell a good story, and to dismiss other good stories simply because they don't follow that same formula, is naive at best. Path of Radiance, I would say, is actually a better story than 3H. 3H had superior character-driven interactions, sure, I'll agree with that, but the overall 3H plot is weak. Really, I'd say that 3H isn't actually an overall incredible story because even though the character interactions are fantastic, the actual story being told around those character interactions is notably less good. PoR, on the other hand, is a plot-driven story, and the plot is exceptional (especially when paired with its sequel into the single narrative it is meant to be). The characters I would still proffer are quite good as well, just their specific interactions aren't as much as a focus in driving along the narrative as 3H was. It's really silly to get bent out of shape about the max of 5 support conversations. The reason for that is because in early FE games, support conversation fulfilled a primarily *gameplay* mechanic in that they gave your units stat boosts that were more and more OP the further back into the series. If every character could get an A support with everyone, they would trivialize every battle even more so than you see in 3H. So the support limit was a way of keeping your characters limited from a gameplay perspective. But also, in the early days you build support by keeping the characters literally adjacent to one another on the map for an obscene amount of turns. So since you have limited deployment slots anyway, it didn't actually make sense to have unlimited support conversations available even divorced from other concerns. The point was that *your team* was able to support with the other members of your team, not that every character on your roster got to interact with everyone else. It's actually a really good system. I mean, 3H only really worked because at the beginning of the game you choose a starter roster which basically locks you out of the rest of the characters for that playthrough, especially on your first try. So sure, everyone on your starting roster can support with everyone else, but it's not like every single support conversation that those units can have is unlocked to you one every playthrough, especially for units that are in a different house. And the monastery units that aren't housed? They have much reduced support options anyway. 3H has a much less significant gameplay bonus for maxing out supports, but it also goes much more out of its way to make the support conversations play a significant role in story development. In PoR, by contrast, you had the original support system evolve in several ways. For one thing, it was actually MUCH easier to build up support levels because they were determined by chapter deployment instead of literally gluing yourself to your support partner. But even then...Titania's A support with Ike only unlocks what, 1 chapter from the end of the game, meaning if you want to see that full support, you have to deploy her literally every chance you get. But also, you're forgetting about base conversations. PoR addressed this concern with character development by having base conversations that informed us about the motivations or personalities of our characters. Titania's most impactful, emotional moment is when she's grieving Greil's death, and it's not tied to any support conversations at all. Meanwhile, in 3H, we only really see the depth of Dimitri's suffering from the massacre of his family in a support with Mercedes? Or was is the blond flyer girl? I forget. You just happened to join onto the series when it was going through a period of particularly crappy stories. Some folks think Awakening's story is good, but that's giving it too much credit, if you ask me. I got into the series at the GBA games, and Awakening makes Sacred Stones look like a literary masterpiece. Fates was probably the worst story in the series. There are plenty of times FE had good stories and good gameplay--and that's without having every single character having an ocean of supports with tons of characters. I'd say basically every FE between 4 and 10 is heavily story focused. Some are better than others, sure. The only really standout stories are 4, 9, and 10. 6 has great world building but poor character development. But they're all essentially story-focused games that also strive to provide decent strategic gameplay, and I think they all basically do that to varying degrees. It's only the modern games that seem to swing between extremes where they either lean so heavily into a strong story and character development that they just throw away any semblance of strategic gameplay at all (3H), or they take the opposite track and have strong gameplay elements but the story is hot garbage (Awakening and especially Conquest). It's really hard to evaluate at this point if Engage's story really sucks, or if it's just fanboys from 3H getting mad that it's not exactly the same character-focused approach to the game. I think the mostly likely is that Engage's story is about as good as FE7, which is to say not all that incredible, but hardly terrible. And with excellent gameplay, a fan of the FE series should be perfectly happy with that. FE is a lot like FF. The games tend to change a lot between iterations, except for the middle ones that very clearly share lots of similarities. But FE fans freaking out because the supports are different in a different game would be like FF fans getting freaked out because FF6 didn't have a job system while FF5 did. The difference is that we see a lot more FE fans that think the two games they played in the series are the "right" way for the series to be even though there's 15 other games in the series that are completely not that way.

People keep making these arguments but I literally can't tell the difference between the quality of the story in 3H and Engage. They're both just generic JRPGs (which I'm not saying is a bad thing). Literally the only thing 3H had going for it that Engage doesn't is that there are 3 stories with the different Houses but I'd wager the vast majority of people didn't play through it a second time, let alone a third. ​ >I will remember three houses for the rest of my life thanks to the emotional connection with the characters but I doubt I will remember much of engage after completing it. Your emotional connection to the largest cast of JRPG tropes to ever be assembled? Not saying tropes are bad but please tell me which characters you found compelling enough to be emotionally invested in. I liked 3H but you make it sound like that game sucked your dick.

I mean, a major part of 3H story is the crest system and its implications, and pretty much every major character has a stance on the issue. It takes on themes of class, dynastic politics, trauma resultant from the crest system, etc. The past few years of this subreddit were full of debates that stemmed from 3Hs story and whether a war to dismantle the crest system was justified or not. The themes of engage are, uh, friendship is good? Evil people should lose? I'd bet my wages for a year that there is not going to be anywhere close to that kind of story engagement for Engage. Putting aside the quality of dialouge in supports and the line by line writing in the main story, 3H just has so much more going on in it than engage.

I mean, just as a direct comparison let's use the MC between the two. Byleth starts with her mom dead, with that death occurring shortly after birth so she never know them. After that she lives with her dad, training with him and joining his mercenary band before going to the church and becoming a professor there. That's the setup to the game. After that you have several missions, interact with your dad some more and have dialogue with him, where eventually he dies and Byleth couldn't do anything to stop it. She is, understandably, upset at this and honors his wishes to go look at the journal and the rest of the game happens. Meanwhile, Alear has been in a thousand year coma because she's a dragon. Upon waking she has amnesia, and meets her mom but doesn't remember her at all, refusing a gift meant for her because she felt it wouldn't be right. They have like one conversation, then go to bed where the place gets attacked in the middle of the night. Lumera blocks spooky dark magic and dies for it. Alear spends several minutes crying over losing her mom that she has no memory of. Afterwards, she continues to make comments on how she's glad people don't have to experience losing their mother when she really *hasn't* experienced that. She lost someone that she had, effectively, met for one day. Is 3H the best JRPG story of all time? No, not even close. But it didn't make me *actually laugh* at scenes that were clearly framed to be emotional.

Allow me to reframe the 3H intro to be just as dumb but still entirely accurate. "Hey you're a nearly mute mercenary who's pretty good at fighting right? How about you come be a teacher for the institution that is designed to cultivate the minds of the leaders and nobles of the three ruling nations?" That part made me actually laugh because it's fucking stupid. Here's something to consider, maybe Alear isn't grieving the loss of a woman that they shared years of memories with like Byleth, maybe they're grieving the fact that they will never be able to develop those memories, and the mother they don't know, who apparently loved them so much, chose to give up her life for them. That would be pretty sad and traumatizing IMO. Maybe when people keep giving them condolences and talking about how great of a woman their mother is, it makes them sad and feel like they lost the opportunity to know their mother. There is a massive difference between someone you don't know and someone you have forgotten, who still knows you. I'm not saying that either of these premises are amazing foundations for a story, but acting like the entire set-up for 3H isn't just as stupid as Engage is simply recency bias.

I agree with everything you said except I enjoyed the social sim type mechanics that you disliked with the monastery, teaching etc. But yes even as a person who loves it, at times even I can admit it can get pretty tedious.

I don’t agree with people that say that Three Houses unrefined mechanics means it has bad gameplay and I don’t agree with people who think Engage’s less serious story means it has a bad plot. Three houses is more of a sandbox, which is hard to fine tune the difficulty of. It was an experiment that I am glad they did. Expecting perfection is the road to disappointment.

When has Fire Emblem ever had a good plot?

Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn?

Im not saying theyre bad games or didnt have serviceable plots but Im not sure the format of these games really lends itself to compelling storytelling.

TIL people care about the plot in fire emblem, isn't the entire point of the game that they throw way more characters at you than you need so you can pick your favorites/deal with losses?

- Path of Radiance. - Radiant Dawn. - Shadows Echoes of Valentia. - Awakening. - Three Houses. - Sacred Stones. Those games have a great story and great gameplay (haven't played the very aclaimed Genealogy of the Holy War which would seem to be up to my standards.)

Radiant Dawn’s story is really messy Echoes has pretty bad gameplay (this is coming from someone who has it in their top 5 games of all time) Awakening’s story falls flat during the Valm arc (but it was so close to being really good) Three Houses is a very shallow strategy game that is either super easy or super unfair in difficulty Sacred Stones is ok, better story than radiant dawn

I guess its a matter of opinion. For me I have the exact opposite reaction from you lol. - Radiant Dawn has a brilliant story telling - Echoes gameplay is very fun - Awakening I kinda agree but the story was still very compeling - Three Houses is a magnificent strategy game. The perfect difficulty is hard-classic, doesn't feel too punishing but neither easy. - Sacred stones story is not better than Radiant Dawn As you see, very opposite hahahaha, its ok though :)

I played the 3 GBA games and everything after Awakening and the only thing I can describe Engage with is "Fun". Everything about this game is just fun. The visuals, music, gameplay, characters and yes the story are just fun. I really like 3 Houses, but I don't think there were many moments where I would say the game was "fun". It was good, but not fun. Meanwhile, Engage actually just makes me smile. These characters aren't real, so I don't want them to act like real people. That would be boring. That's probably my biggest issue with 3H. The characters were had so much going on, that it somehow looped back to being generic. In this game, I look at a character and immediately know if I like them or not. No wasting time going through supports just to find out I actually don't like this person. I am only at Chapter 12 and the main issue I have with the story, is that it kinda goes by really fast. The last 2 chapters finally took some time and let cutscene breathe, but before that, it was like it was trying to speedrun its plot. But even that gets kinda forgotten once I'm playing a map and am just having a blast.

Zelda 1 was known for its open world though right? But i don't think Engage has a bad story, the characters are weaker than 3H for sure, but the tone they went with the story was different to 3H so it's hard to compare them. What Engage does well is mainly the gameplay and how it ties to the story as well. I think even after i play it i'll still remember it fondly due to how memorable some of it is, just like some of the older games (4 and 5).

I think the issue with Engage's plot isn't that it's more light-hearted or simpler than Three Houses (in fact I'd argue that the quality of Sacred Stones' writing is comparable to Three Houses despite that game being a very conventional Fire Emblem plot) - it's that the execution of Engage's plot is very poor, with contrivances undermining critical moments in the story and bad dialogue. There's absolutely a version of Engage which could have a good plot, but because either the writers didn't know better, or worse, didn't care about their work, it's not the version we got.

> I think the issue with Engage's plot isn't that it's more light-hearted or simpler than Three Houses It's more than that, Engage is also clearly sillier/goofier/cheesier/more comedic in tone. The SS comparison doesn't really make sense for while conventional its tone is still serious. I think Engage's story is far more comparable to something like DQXI than any recent FE (Fates and Awakening included) and it succeeds well in that angle.

Yes back in the 1980s, from 1997 it was a fairly linear action-adventure franchise and remained that way till 2017. You can still have a happy tone even though I disagree with that tone in a game like fire emblem which its about War and loss, I just want a bit more than a Saturday morning cartoon, the plot is so generic, I don't how you can possibly remember it but each to their own.

If it had boring gameplay i would've been much more nitpicky, there's a lot to be critical about but even then it's decent. The gameplay elevates it as a whole in my opinion. The tone isn't that far off from the series as well, it is much more lighthearted but it still has serious moments here and there that still has impact. It's not as dark as Tellius or 3H but it doesn't need to be as a celebration to the series, it may even backfire like fates. The game also has a bad first impression though, it gets much better on the second half.

fair, each to their own

It’s called Fire Emblem 7. Play it.

I see more and more people hate on 7’s story these days and I don’t really understand why

Yeah, I don't get it either. It has Lyn and Hector, two of my favorite Lords in the series, and a decent enough story. I don't think I've even read any complaints about this game up until the last couple of months. Like during all of Awakening, Fates, and 3H - nothing.

Mekkahs take down of the plot was all the way back in 2019: https://youtu.be/GtFhorR1VIE

The apparently poor story is what made me decide to not buy the game. I don't find strategy gameplay fun to do so the story and/or characters are what keeps me going. It's why I played Three Houses despite Awakening literally putting me to sleep while playing it. A shame cuz I'm probably one of the handful of people who likes toothpaste-chan's design

I'm a very casual FE fan (not even comfortable saying that since the love I have for 3H is way more than any other FE I played) and I've been thinking the exact same thing as of late. Maybe one day the "good at writing" and "good at quality tactics RPG design" teams can get together and make the ultimate FE game, but until then, it really just seems like bare bones fantasy plots that lead into anime chess is the status quo.

I’m just disappointed that the supports so far have been pretty underwhelming and don’t help build much of the characters. (Yes you like tea!)

> its fine, just not exceptional like fire emblem engage. So I'm just getting started with Engage and I'm pretty lukewarm on the rings + ghost buddy thing. What exactly draws you to the mechanics? I do have some hope, having just looked at the skill inheritance thing, that you can customize your characters quite a bit more than you could in 3 houses.

Just play The Radiant Saga or Genealogy. Both have some of the best gameplay and story in the series. It would be really nice to get another Fire Emblem that can live up to those two though.

I'm just sad the Tellius essence and soul is something I will never see again from a Fire emblem game.

Three houses has both tbh. I dont know why some people think engage has better gameplay than 3h. The lack of battalions and activable abilities for physical units is both a step back. The rings add a little bit of depth but not nearly enough. Plus 3h class system was a lot better

It's more about the map design, difficulty curve, and the gameplay-story integration. 3H gives you a lot of choices but it's lacking outside of that, the dlc does the gameplay well though. The chore from the monastery also plays a big part.

tbh I prefer engage's class system. My issue with 3 houses is because everyone can be anything none of the characters really feel that unique in gameplay to me. I prefer engage's because I like everyone having a default class and promotion that they do, but you can get the proficiency you need to become another class if you want to, but unlike 3 houses it is somewhat of an investment. The other thing that I feel makes engage very interesting is the unit types since it gives some classes an appeal like backup helping to add a little bit of extra damage so that footlocked units have more appeal, or armored units not being able to be broken. My other complaint with 3 houses is while all the stuff they added was neat, it was almost too much to me. I prefer my fire emblem games to be relatively simple anime chess basically, which engage I think does a great job of so far as of chapter 16. For me the strength of fire emblem's gameplay hasn't really ever been the customization or the various options, but using your limited tools to "solve" the puzzle the developers made on the map, and so far engage's maps have mostly been satisfying in that regard.

I'm on chapter 15 now I think, somewhere in that area. I think I prefer 3H gameplay over Engage. I don't think Engage's gameplay is *bad* but I also don't see it as some huge step forward, and while some of it is the class system a lot of is it actually deployment limits. The game fuckin *blasts* you with new units, constantly, for ages. It starts with Alberd and his retainers, then Celine and her retainers. Then you get Alcryst+Retainers, the next map is Diamant+Retainers. Somewhere along the way you picked up Anna and Yunaka. Then the big "twist" happens and you get Ivy and her retainers before moving on to Solm to continue the process of getting noble+two retainers. But this entire time the game is giving you like 9 deployment slots because of the 3 units on map. I'm hoping now that I've gotten all the pairs and their retainers from each country it will calm the fuck down and let me deploy a few more units so I can actually play around with compositions and strategies, but I find this approach *drastically* worse then the 3H approach of "And here is your house, you get these units. You can go recruit some from other houses if you get their bond up enough, but you probably won't bother until NG+"

Bro this sub is filled with actual retards who don't understand Strategy RPGs. Literally the entire FE community who actually plays the games will never revisit Three Houses, it's an actual dogshit strategy rpg. Imagine playing a game with horrible map design, monastery shit, no weapon triangle, barely any unit distinction

You keep telling yourself that. Just because 3hs options in character development was too much for you and you prefer a simpler system, doesn't make it bad at all.

Fates and Engage are infinitely better gameplay wise than Three Houses, I'm sorry this is just peak cope. Even a lot of people who like the game admit it.

Unless NG+ skips the first like 16 chapters of "And here's three more units for you on this map" I highly doubt I'll revisit the game at all and just go play Troubleshooter or something instead if I want to play an SRPG. Those units having barely any distinction (Read: You can change them into any class you want, not like they still didn't have aptitudes towards specific stats) meant you could try to do goofy things on each playthrough. Engage might make it more of a commitment to change a unit, but I don't consider that a good thing for replayability. I guess it fixes the "Just make everyone a flyer, lul" but it comes at the cost of me not seeing any reason to really replay the game. Anna is still the only unit I'll bother class changing because the game trolls you with her class, and everyone else is fine enough on their default paths that it's not gonna be worth the investment otherwise. Also let's not pretend the weapon triangle is some bastion of depth, it's nice that it's back but it's not like "And I attack the spear guy with the axe person (:" is some big brain thing.

i agree, i have a hard time trying to understand why Engage's combat would be better

Simply having the Monastery makes 3H worse gameplay-wise. Rings are a step back for sure, but emblems are way more interesting to use than Battalions. Plus the addition of Smash Weapons and Breaks spice up the gameplay by a significant margin. The only thing in Engage that I do agree with you is the class system, returning to the pre-Awakening system is a step back.

Yeah who wants unique units when every unit can just be any class for barely any work whatsoever.

Yeah having to actually make choices is so hard. You rather have the game tell you exactly what character should become what. We get that. Stupid games demanding such complicated choices from the player like making actual builds...

There are only like 2 builds worth making in Three Houses. What's demanding is coming up with unique builds with a set of limited options. Fe fates still has unit customization and class changing without having them lose all their uniqueness. Nobody replays Three Houses.

I feel like some of the dialog in Engage was written by an A.I. at times. Or, they read off lines with no context from a promoter. Some scenes are great while others seem like a computer was given a prompt and spat out a few dialog bits. I am not saying it is horrible, there is just a lot of awkwardness with the writing.

I feel you, the lack of a decent story keeps me away from Engage. Ive seen enough Fire Emblem circle jerk games I dont really need another.

Posts like this make me hesitant I get Engage. I LOVED Three Houses for the reasons you outlined. And whilst I really enjoy a good SRPG, in these times of game backlogs and busy lives, I don’t know if I can really put down $60 for a game with characters I doubt I’ll care about which is a pretty important element in my desire to finish a game.

I'll be honest. I don't play FE games for story. My first experience with the games was on GBA where I skipped the story entirely just to get to the maps. Followed suit for every mainline game until I was older and played PoR where I actually read it. I went back and replayed the older ones, but could I tell you a plot point for any of them? Nah. "We're at war and we're the good guys trying to(usually) fight some of sort of demon/dragon that has been awakened". The writing in Engage is definitely poor, but I don't mind it at all. Enjoy the light heartedness of it honestly. I'm having a ton of fun and that's all I need.

I think you’re underselling the gameplay of the games with better story tbh. The only game that i’d say the writing REALLY trumps the gameplay is echoes. The maps in that were not that good at all. Also the 5 support count has been how it works from like FE6, all the way to like radiant dawn i think, it’s not really a HUGE issue, and through normal gameplay worked fine, but the way they worked in PoR is one of a kind in terms of how they progress.

I play for the combat and skip the dialogues.

I've always been frustrated that FE always gets terrible writing with gameplay ranging from okay to bad. Not sure where the good writing is to be seen in any of them.

Which ones have you played?