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[Punished Miku]

Beat the game. 75 hours.

The final few cutscenes genuinely make no sense lol. Was thinking 8.5, but settling on an 8.0. Many things in here are the best in the series but there's still room for improvement.

FYI they let you continue with your save after the end if you want to keep grinding skirmishes and relay ticket challenges. Didnt even try that once. Huge game.

 

[Danjin44]

Beat the game. 75 hours.

The final few cutscenes genuinely make no sense lol. Was thinking 8.5, but settling on an 8.0. Many things in here are the best in the series but there's still room for improvement.

FYI they let you continue with your save after the end if you want to keep grinding skirmishes and relay ticket challenges. Didnt even try that once. Huge game.

I really need to pick up my pace, 80 hours + in and still in chapter 16.

 

[Punished Miku]

I really need to pick up my pace, 80 hours + in and still in chapter 16.

Yeah I could have done that. Didnt max out like half the roster. Skipped skirmishes after chapter 13 or so. Didn't even touch online. But I did all the Emblem max rank battles of course. At your pace you're easily going over 100 hours.

 

[NanaMiku]

Just finished the bond paralogue of Sigurd and Leif.

Spent several hours on Sigurd trying to finish the two mages on the bottom left. Finally gave up. I just realized that you need to use Canter (Sigurd skill that allow you to move after attacking) to defeat them after saving....

I wonder, are they gonna explain why some places are the same as places in the emblem world at the end?

 

[Punished Miku]

Just finished the bond paralogue of Sigurd and Leif.

Spent several hours on Sigurd trying to finish the two mages on the bottom left. Finally gave up. I just realized that you need to use Canter (Sigurd skill that allow you to move after attacking) to defeat them after saving....

I wonder, are they gonna explain why some places are the same as places in the emblem world at the end?

Yeah I gave up on those two as well. Is there a silence staff? I never tried that but thought of it afterwards. Otherwise they just kill you every time.

 

[NanaMiku]

Yeah I gave up on those two as well. Is there a silence staff? I never tried that but thought of it afterwards. Otherwise they just kill you every time.

There are silence staff, but it's still unavailable to buy in the item shop at chapter 17. At Leif side mission, the mage spam silence, freeze, and fracture near the ballista.

I bought freeze thinking it'll skip their turn. Turns out it just made them can't move lol.

 

[Danjin44]

I wonder, are they gonna explain why some places are the same as places in the emblem world at the end?

Maybe in story DLC?

 

[NanaMiku]

Maybe in story DLC?

Hopefully, but the teaser seems it'll focus on the Fell Dragon

 

[drganon]

Just beat the final chapter. While I miss some of the social stuff from 3 houses, I'd say engage felt better mechanically and had better performance.

 

[Chastten]

22 hours in and just reacher chapter 14. The mainquest is a cakewalk, but the skirmishes keep being around my level so even on normal they remain challenging as fuck. My usual approach in any Fire Emblem (or SRPG for that matter) is to just overlevel 3-4 tanky units that can withstand any damage so I can just stand there and counter everything while they attack me. That's not working out for me so far. Also already lost a couple of units in a skirmish due to not paying attention.

Still enjoying it so far. The story isn't important by now, I don't really care about it, but it's there, so whatever. Loving a lot of the new combat mechanics, even though I know I won't even have touched 10% of them by the time I finish the game.

 

[NightmareFarm]

Had my first game over last night on chapter 17. Still salty about it because I got screwed hard by the RNG. My Alear is an avoid tank build and two emblem users targeted him with 15ish % and 30ish% hit rates respectively and still got hit both times. I guess I can't really complain though because I wanted it to get more difficult.

 

[Fbh]

Finished Horizon so I finally started this one.
I'm only 4 or so hours in but so far I'm enjoying it, it's really brings the franchise back to the type of FE I like, I love how the segments in between battles are mostly brief. Still not a fan of the art direction but at least the visuals themselves are pretty nice, it even looks decent on the 55" TV and Colgate-chan doesn't look THAT dumb after a while. The engage mechanics and the new break system are pretty cool too.

But I'm not sure if I'll stick with hard mode, so far it has been pretty punishing. As much as I like these tactics game I kinda suck at them

 

[Punished Miku]

Finished Horizon so I finally started this one.
I'm only 4 or so hours in but so far I'm enjoying it, it's really brings the franchise back to the type of FE I like, I love how the segments in between battles are mostly brief. Still not a fan of the art direction but at least the visuals themselves are pretty nice, it even looks decent on the 55" TV and Colgate-chan doesn't look THAT dumb after a while. The engage mechanics and the new break system are pretty cool too.

But I'm not sure if I'll stick with hard mode, so far it has been pretty punishing. As much as I like these tactics game I kinda suck at them

I played normal and would not want to do hard for this particular game. Normal was too easy and Hard was a little too masochistic for me. Needed something right in the middle. Great game though, really enjoyed it.

 

[Fbh]

I played normal and would not want to do hard for this particular game. Normal was too easy and Hard was a little too masochistic for me. Needed something right in the middle. Great game though, really enjoyed it.

Yeah for now I'll stick with it but I'll see how it goes in the next couple of fights. At least you can lower the difficulty at any time (but not raise it).
Hard mode so far doesn't feel as unfair as it did in Triangle Strategy, but in that game you had the added benefit of no permadeath

 

[Punished Miku]

Yeah for now I'll stick with it but I'll see how it goes in the next couple of fights. At least you can lower the difficulty at any time (but not raise it).
Hard mode so far doesn't feel as unfair as it did in Triangle Strategy, but in that game you had the added benefit of no permadeath

I also did normal on TS and that was the exact level I wanted it. I thought it was challenging, interesting, but never painful to the point of true frustration.

 

[Mitsurux]

Completed the game last night, I spend 68 hours.
Really enjoyed it, the last few battles add some interesting twists, and the story overall was generally pretty good.
I'm going to start another play through and most likely get the DLC, I want to switch up some of the characters that I use (Classes etc.) .

 

[Fbh]

I also did normal on TS and that was the exact level I wanted it. I thought it was challenging, interesting, but never painful to the point of true frustration.

I started TS on hard but it got frustrating because enemies just did a lot more damage than my units. Like my units would take maybe a fourth of their health with an attack while the enemy could kill any of my units in 2 hits.
Or I'd have the assassins girl (Anna?) sneak behind enemies to do a double back stab only for it to take like a third of their health bar (and then she'd be fucked on the next turn). Ended up lowering it to normal which had a good balance IMO

At least here it feels like my units and the enemy ones do around equal damage

 

[NanaMiku]

I played normal and would not want to do hard for this particular game. Normal was too easy and Hard was a little too masochistic for me. Needed something right in the middle. Great game though, really enjoyed it.

I think they adopt the Nintendo philosophy for the difficulty. It's pretty easy for the main part, but the extra content (i.e. skirmish and paralogue) are challenging.

 

[Danjin44]

Normal was too easy and Hard was a little too masochistic for me.

Hard mode is tough but I wouldn’t call it masochistic and most of difficulty is in optional fights like skirmishes and trials, the main story is not really difficult.

I would say Tactics Ogre Reborn can be MUCH more masochistic, especially the new level cap and buff cards in Reborn can make some fights REALLY difficult.

 

[Punished Miku]

Hard more is tough but I wouldn’t call it masochistic and most of difficulty is in optional fights like skirmishes and trials, the main story is not really difficult.

I would say Tactics Ogre Reborn can be MUCH more masochistic, especially the new level cap and buff cards in Reborn can make some fights REALLY difficult.

I remember not being too happy with Tactics Ogre which I know is heresy. I'll try it again after multiple price cuts. TS just hit the sweet spot for me.

 

[Danjin44]

I remember not being too happy with Tactics Ogre which I know is heresy. I'll try it again after multiple price cuts. TS just hit the sweet spot for me.

I overall I enjoyed Tactics Ogre a lot but.....FUCK that last boss, I beat him but he was sooooooooooo much pain in the ass.

 

[jshackles]

Gym clothes Alear best Alear

I just made it to chapter 25, getting close to the end. This game has some ridiculously long cut scenes the closer you get to the end.

 

[The_hunter]

After 30 hours on hard, I just learned how the build and weight stats work..

Out of curiosity, does anyone with the season pass know if it also adds amiibo outfits for Alear in the gazebo?

 

[Danjin44]

Out of curiosity, does anyone with the season pass know if it also adds amiibo outfits for Alear in the gazebo?

I have the season pass but I never bothered to check amiibo outfits because frankly the extra outfits are useless in this game. During support conversation they are in their default outfits….why should I even bother?

 

[The_hunter]

I have the season pass but I never bothered to check amiibo outfits because frankly the extra outfits are useless in this game. During support conversation they are in their default outfits….why should I even bother?

Nostalgia. But it is lame that for some reason the outfits don't show in battle.

 

[NanaMiku]

I have the season pass but I never bothered to check amiibo outfits because frankly the extra outfits are useless in this game. During support conversation they are in their default outfits….why should I even bother?

Nostalgia. But it is lame that for some reason the outfits don't show in battle.

Wait, so the amiibo costume also don't appear in battle? So costume only show when exploring Somniel? What a lame decision lol

 

[Danjin44]

Wait, so the amiibo costume also don't appear in battle? So costume only show when exploring Somniel? What a lame decision lol

I love this game but I hate how they did costumes, I mean if it wont appear in battles or support conversation then why even bother put costumes in the first place.

 

[NanaMiku]

I love this game but I hate how they did costumes, I mean if it wont appear in battles or support conversation then why even bother put costumes in the first place.

That's really weird. I hope they update it

 

[TwiztidElf]

The Lady of the Plains (Lynn) paralogue - ugh. All those adds....
I think I'll come back when I have some more levels.

 

[Fbh]

So after a few Chapters I'm finding Hard pretty well balanced.
The first few missions were rather punishing but now that I have a few more units and some more weapon variety it got a lot more manageable. The skills Great Sacrifice has also been really helpful

I love this game but I hate how they did costumes, I mean if it wont appear in battles or support conversation then why even bother put costumes in the first place.

Yup that's disappointing.
There's some characters that would instantly look better with less ridiculous clothes (like Celine)

 

[Punished Miku]

So after a few Chapters I'm finding Hard pretty well balanced.
The first few missions were rather punishing but now that I have a few more units and some more weapon variety it got a lot more manageable. The skills Great Sacrifice has also been really helpful




Yup that's disappointing.
There's some characters that would instantly look better with less ridiculous clothes (like Celine)

Use Great Sacrifice every single battle as much as possible. It's almost a full level up every time. It's great.

 

[Danjin44]

Yup that's disappointing.
There's some characters that would instantly look better with less ridiculous clothes (like Celine)

The whole point of optional costumes in games is to appear in cutscenes and see it during combat, if we dont get that then why even bother?

 

[Fbh]

Use Great Sacrifice every single battle as much as possible. It's almost a full level up every time. It's great.

Yeah I noticed. It also seems to give a ton of SP.
And it's great for setting up a more reckless attack because it doesn't matter if a bunch of your units are half dead after it, you can heal them all.

 

[Astral Dog]

Just finished the last chapter and watched the credits, yep the game is awesome

lol the ending goes crazy with those power of friendship rings

 

[Chastten]

Finished it after roughly 51 hours!

Couldn't care less about the story and the Power Rangers-friendship plot stuff ending, but the gameplay and combat was top notch. If next time they combine the presentation of Three Houses with the combat options of Engage, you truly have a classic. Right now it's a 7,5/10 I guess?

 

[Astral Dog]

Finished it after roughly 51 hours!

Couldn't care less about the story and the Power Rangers-friendship plot stuff ending, but the gameplay and combat was top notch. If next time they combine the presentation of Three Houses with the combat options of Engage, you truly have a classic. Right now it's a 7,5/10 I guess?

too me it is already a classic
And with far better presentation than Three Houses as well. Cool game

I give a 9/10 for the details

 

[Chastten]

too me it is already a classic
And with far better presentation than Three Houses as well. Cool game

I give a 9/10 for the details

Just to clarify, with presentation, I don't mean graphics. I don't care about that stuff. With presentation I mean how the game presents itself, the complete package. The world, music, characters and everything else combined. I want the game to make me care about it.

My main issue was with the story and presentation. As someone who's watched a lot of anime over the past 25 years, the story, characters and the world in Engage were completely standard and forgettable to me. Less than a day after completing it, I can't remember the name of a single new character. The story, the world, they were all like a mid-tier 2004-era anime. They were there, but nothing the game does is meant to make you care about that world. I think there was a harbor town that got destroyed but who cares? The game did nothing to make me care about that town. By the time I got to the final part of the game I just clicked my way through the story cause all the power of friendship stuff just got too much for me to handle. That's not to say it's bad or anything. It's perfectly servicable as it gives a reason for the combat, which is by far the best and most importart of any game. It's just something that can be done better, and in fact, has been done better before. It's a good game to me, just not a classic. And that's perfectly fine. I enjoyed my 51 hours with it and got my money's worth.

Honestly, I think the game would be at its best to someone who has a mild interest in typical anime stuff, but doesn't have a lot of experience with it yet. A lot of the characters would probably be fun if you experienced those tropes for the first time.

I liked Three Houses because it made me care about the world and the story. I loved the little segments in between the chapters that told about the daily life of the commoners and stuff going on with the world. They weren't there for a gameplay reason. They were just there to flesh out and make the world feel alive. While the combat itself wasn't as good as Engage, I can still remember the plot, a lot of characters, the world and the twist at the end. So that's something I hoped Engage would do as well, but didn't succeed at.

Anyways, that's just my two cents. I'm happy other people enjoyed it even more

 

[Sleepwalker]

Just made it past chapter 8 on hard, so far so good. Have had to use the time crystal a couple times because I fail to consider some enemy units. Really enjoying the classic feel of old FE.

Quick question, should I bother doing stuff in the 3d maps after battles? Honestly kinda hate those sections so I just go to the world map ASAP, also haven't returned to somniel once, not sure I should?

 

[gradient]

It's been a while since a FE really gave me a kicking but a couple of the Prologues have managed to completely upset my plans and force me to restart the battles.

Ike's wasn't too bad initially. Stupidly I thought I had the map playing to my advantage with enemies being funnelled through a 1 square choke point guarded by louis who was being supported by a longbow wielder and two thunder tomb wielding mages while the rest of the team held the sides and provided support. But then Ike came and one-shotted Louis with smash effect in some dragonball-esque blow that sent his corpse flying back into the support ranks. Fair enough... I was lapse in my planning and didn't anticipate the juggernaught that was Ike.

Corrin's though... damn did I get smacked down. The two teams of units to either side of her advanced in unison with her as she fucked up the terrain and used her uber dragon attack to take out Yunaka and Louis in one damned hit. I'm still not sure how that worked. Multiple time rewinds later and I had the displeasure of watching my team get dismantled in various ways by an unexpectedly cohesive enemy force that adapted remakably well to my every counter. Fuck.

In both cases it wasn't cheesing that won it for me, it just required better thinking and more imaginative tactics. That's good gameplay. Very satisfying pulling off a win after all that.

I've also embarked upon a tradition of mine - making a character the complete opposite of what their writing suggests. For Engage the subject of this is our dear 10 year old doctor in training, Jean. Jean has been reclassed to a Warrior and has proven surprisingly good at inflicting death despite his continual moral conflict about murder. He's fast approaching being the bulkiest of my units and due to his personal skill is by all accounts becoming a doe-eyed hulk monster. There's a certain amount of absurdity to battles now as two small children go around racking up most of the kills - Jean hacking enemies to death with a bloody great big axe, while Anna, another doe-eyed monster floats around the battlefield double striking enemies from 3 squares away using thunder (Olwen S-rank ring is OP).

The writing in the game remains poor at best and I tend to skip most support conversations, but Jean's C rank bond conversation with Ike just cracked me up

 

[The_hunter]

Just made it past chapter 8 on hard, so far so good. Have had to use the time crystal a couple times because I fail to consider some enemy units. Really enjoying the classic feel of old FE.

Quick question, should I bother doing stuff in the 3d maps after battles? Honestly kinda hate those sections so I just go to the world map ASAP, also haven't returned to somniel once, not sure I should?

Collect the items at the end of the battles, you can get ores for upgrading your weapons from exploring the post battle maps.

 

[mistuhcahlos]

Quick question, should I bother doing stuff in the 3d maps after battles? Honestly kinda hate those sections so I just go to the world map ASAP, also haven't returned to somniel once, not sure I should?

You get bond points from the units you used in battle if you talk to them afterward. Adopt the dogs and you will get silver every now and then. Other than that just a few food items in the highlighted areas. In Somniel you can inherit skills from your emblem rings, increase the bond between your units and strengthen your weapons.

 

[Sleepwalker]

You get bond points from the units you used in battle if you talk to them afterward. Adopt the dogs and you will get silver every now and then. Other than that just a few food items in the highlighted areas. In Somniel you can inherit skills from your emblem rings, increase the bond between your units and strengthen your weapons.

Thanks ill make sure to pick them up, I'll also head to somniel and check out whatever is there I guess. Ive been adopting all the dogs cuz I need all the good boys

 

[Danjin44]

You get bond points from the units you used in battle if you talk to them afterward.

You actually dont need to do that, you automatically collect all the bond points when exit the map.

 

[NanaMiku]

Yup, so you just need to pickup animals and the drop items. The bond from unit automatically collected when exiting the map

 

[Danjin44]

Holly fuck! The skirmish in Shadowy Moor was something. It’s basically blind battle against enemies you can’t see coming and your units is scattered.

THANK GOD for Ike’s Great Aether ability and Lucian’s Bonded Shield so I can protect my weaker unites.

It was satisfying seeing mostly attacking My Jade while she was equipped with Ike ring, so Great Aether ability fuck them up good.

 

[Andyliini]

Just beat the game, played on normal/casual and it took me about 40 hours to beat. I was quite exhausted towards the end, as there were more chapters than I anticipated, and those endgame chapters were long as hell. The final boss was much easier than I thought, though.

As everyone has said, the story and characters were nothing, but gameplay was far improved from Three Houses, and I hope the developers fid the golden route between these two next time around. Whenever that is.

 

[Fbh]

Oh no I reclassed Zelkov into a Wolf Knight and they tuned him into a furry!
I think he like to ride wolves in every meaning of the word now

 

[Danjin44]

The final boss was much easier than I thought, though.

Maybe because I played on hard/classic, I actually find the final boss little tricky.

His first phase in nothing but his second phase is about breaking his shield before you can do proper damage but the longer the fights takes the harder the fight becomes since he keeps summoning reinforcement which they can easily overwhelm you If their number increase.

My solution was position my units in right place killing last dark Emblem, so when the shield broke I can kill him in one turn.

 

[Shifty1897]

I bought this on a whim yesterday morning. Hard/Classic, just beat Chapter 5. Absolutely brutal. I echo everyone's sentiments. Character design and story suck, graphics (for the Switch) and gameplay are incredible. Music seems good but doesn't hit as strong as Three Houses did.

 

[Fbh]

Well, Finished it.
A bit over 50 hours in hard mode.

Really enjoyed it, it's nice to finally get a fully combat focused FE on Switch and I think the gameplay was great. Both the break mechanic and specially the emblem rings do a lot to mix things up compared to previous entries while still retaining the same core. Yeah the story is generic but I think it's mostly in line with older games, it's more about giving a bit of context than truly telling an engrossing tale. And while some might complain the character interactions are too superficial, I actually liked that I could skip most of the bond conversations without feeling like I was missing out on anything important.

The presentation on a technical level was great too. This is one of the nicest looking Switch games I've played in a while, it looks fantastic in handheld mode and even looked acceptable on the 55" TV, the animations are pretty nice too and I thought the music was great (love the way it seamlessly switches style when entering combat animations). I still think the art direction is terrible though and like half of the characters look absolutely ridiculous on the battlefield.

As for units it was fun seeing the MVP recap at the end.
My early game was dominated by Colgate (main character), then towards the mid Louis and Chloe became dominant (Tank and a high mobility high crit flying unit), then from the middle to late game it was all about Ivy and her ridiculous damage output, and then in late game Kagetsu basically became a god as he'd evade most attack and do crits like 60% of the time.

Overall I'd say a solid 8 or 8.5