#fire emblem rules

[elvenchevalier]

Fire Emblem: Engage

This was...probably a long time coming.

Fire Emblem Engage was certainly an experience. It had some of the best maps in the series, the characters were quirky and loveable (if not particularly deep), the art was appealing, and the story was what it promised it would be.

That isn’t to say it’s a perfect game, though. Especially right at the beginning, the characters chew the scenery something fierce. In particular, they tend to overemote, which lessens the dialogue’s impact as it sort of takes you out of it. Eventually the characters settle into their roles and the writing starts feeling more like Fire Emblem, but you do gotta get past those first few hurdles.

Speaking of the writing, I felt it was enjoyable, if somewhat predictable at some points. The characters often feel a little flat at first as well, with one notable trait overshadowing what else the characters may have. Chloe is obsessed with fairy tales. Louis likes to watch people and drink tea. Yunaka is definitely NOT hiding anything. Alfred is heroic, Celine is kind. You get the picture.

This is most noticeable in Alcryst, an archer who joins you early on, who, despite being probably one of the best archers in the series, CANNOT seem to stop being self-deprecating. Nearly every interaction the boy had was colored with his self-loathing. After about the third time he explicitly rejected praise, I wrote him off. He was insufferable.

It is exasperating.

It can be argued that this has been an issue with the series over the last few titles, and I think I would agree with that assessment. While I do recognize that the characters are deeper than their introductions might suggest, it is still clear that they were based on their one major defining trait.

That being said, it was quite funny to see that Alear was in fact the only sane person in the army, reacting with confusion and concern to everyone else's shenanigans.

Characters aside, the story wasn’t anything particularly special. It gave Alear an objective and the story is about completing that objective. It’s not complex, but it isn’t trying to be, either. It delivers on what it promises. The various nations weren’t anything to write home about, either. You have the peaceful Green Greens nation in Firene; the warlike Brodia; the mountainous and chill Elusia; and the desert-laden land of Solm. You really do just get what you see. But again, that’s fine; Engage is more about Alear than about its worldbuilding, and so Alear gets most of the focus.

There were some funny choices, though. The first paralogue has you rescuing some medics on an island just off of Firene, and even though the Firenese characters all have a pretty standard American Midwest accent, the people of that island—which is JUST BARELY off of Firene—are painfully British.

(I played in dub, as you can tell. I don’t know what the choices were in the Japanese voiceover.)

But enough about the writing. Let’s talk about mechanics. My favorite thing that Engage did was to completely remove weapon durability without the weird caveats Fates’ weapons had. Some of the weapons have been nerfed over the course of the series—Brave weapons are just a shadow of their former glory—but that allowed for removal of weapon durability without creating a situation where you just give everyone a Brave weapon and call it a day.

I’m on record as believing weapon durability never really added much to the series. It’s just an excuse to spend the gold you get, and while managing funds is just as much of a trait of a strategy game as any other, I feel like there are better uses for it, and Engage gives us exactly that. You can still buy and refine weapons, buy items, all that good stuff.

But on that note, this game came out in Anno Domini the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty Three.

WHY on God’s terrible blue and green marble do the shopkeepers have EXACTLY ONE VOICE LINE for each type of transaction? And why do they repeat it with EVERY. SINGLE. TRANSACTION? It got bad enough that I had to mute my game whenever I needed to do shopping. It gets incredibly grating to hear “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” ad nauseum when you’re stocking up on, say, Vulneraries. It is now 2025. Shopkeepers with voice lines should ALWAYS have at MINIMUM 3 lines per transaction type, AND they should only actually trigger every 4-5 transactions, and if I find myself in a position to add voices to my own game I’m going to do exactly that.

The Somniel is the best iteration of the home base yet. My Castle in Fates was rudimentary, but served its purpose; the Monastery in Three Houses was just far too big. The Somniel is smaller and easier to find your way around, which I and my lack of sense of direction deeply appreciated.

Another feature Engage introduces that I find incredibly neat and hope the series continues with is the post-battle segments where you run around in the map you had just cleared, talking to people, picking up stuff on the ground, and adopting pets. Exploring the areas outside of battle gives them a brand new perspective and makes me appreciate the map design all the more.

I have noticed the last two games in this series also having abilities that work similarly to how skills function in Fire Emblem Heroes, where characters get stat bonuses based on who they’re standing nearby (as distinct from supports). At first I was apprehensive about it—I didn’t want the series to start being like Heroes, as much as I did enjoy the gacha—but it seems to have found a middle ground that’s comfortable and adds another layer to player positioning.

This is only helped by the incredible map design. Engage has some of the best, most interesting maps I’ve seen in quite some time, and I’m taking notes from them for my own map design.

Despite being the primary mechanic, and in fact literally part of the game’s name, I didn’t actually...engage with Engage all that much. I did mostly for particularly dire situations and usually to theatrically finish off a boss, but through most maps I didn’t see much need for it. That will likely change when I come back to play the game on a harder difficulty, though—I played on Normal, as I always do for a first run.

As a character gains skill points and bond levels with the different Emblems, they can inherit skills from those Emblems to keep permanently, even when switched to a different Emblem. This is a fantastic feature, but it’s overwhelming for people like me who get intense choice paralysis. In the end I just forewent the skill inheritance entirely just to make it easier on the brain juice.

The Emblems also offering weapon proficiencies, unlocking class changes for the unit they’re bonded with, is probably my favorite thing about the emblems.

The last thing I want to say before I dive into spoilers is that I continue to be of the belief that Fire Emblem should not have ever engaged with shipping. I understand it saved the series in Awakening, but I prefer dedicated romantic subplots over “oh man those two are cute”, even if I DO enjoy shipping. That being said, ONLY Alear gets an S-rank in this game, severely limiting the shipping opportunities and outright denying paired endings outside of Alear’s S support, which I feel is a genuine shame. There are SEVERAL pairs of characters whose romances might make for really nice romantic subplots, and Engage just isn’t interested in exploring those over the Alear self-insert shipping.

I wanted to see Yunaka and Louis together, man.

Spoilers to follow! This isn’t like Mystic Quest where the story is so simple and barebones as not to HAVE any spoilers, so this is your warning!

Where to begin, though.

I think the first thing I want to say is a criticism of the events of Chapters 10 and 11, when your Emblem Rings get taken from you by Veyle.

While narratively that part of the story is fine and dandy, the problem arises when you realize Micaiah and Celica are your *only* two options for providing Tome and Staff proficiency to units, and they are among the rings taken from you. You don’t get Micaiah back until Chapter 19 and Celica until 22. Out of 26.

So if there was a unit you wanted to make a mage or healer—like, say, Anna, who makes an incredibly strong Sage—and you didn’t provide her with Tome proficiency before Chapter 10, you’re struck until you get Micaiah back. (Or buy the DLC, as Veronica also provides tome and staff proficiency, though I don’t believe the choice was made with making the player buy the DLC in mind.)

The Fell Xenologue was an interesting what-if kind of story that effectively makes the other gender Alear canon in an alternate world, which I thought was neat. It also doesn’t let you just bring your overpowered monstrosities in; your characters’ levels, classes, and inventories are set per chapter, and scale with your progress in the main story. (Emblems synced and bond levels are not set, however, and can be brought in.)

It introduces a few new characters, including alternate forms of the Four Hounds and two unique characters, Nel and Nil, who the Xenologue center around. It explores a scenario where Alear actually died during the war with Sombron, sacrificing her life to defeat him. The people in the Xenologue are effectively mirror versions of the characters we already know; Celine is ruthless, Alcryst is abusive toward Diamant, you get the picture. In turn, the Four Hounds are on your side. At the end, of course, they all come back with you to let you play with them in the main game, which doesn’t mean a whole lot if you do the Xenologue when you only have five chapters left in the main game like SOME people.

Toward the end, it’s revealed that Emblems can’t really leave their world, that they’ll vanish if they do. Naturally we get a scene where that happens, and Alear gives us a Power of Friendship speech to bring them back, and it was a pretty neat moment! (It also isn't mentioned in the Xenologue, likely because it's a lategame revelation and you can access the Xenologue as early as chapter 6.)

Sombron was a fine villain. Proper evil dark dragon stuff. His backstory is only even touched on right at the end, during the final confrontation. It brings up something called the Zero Emblem, Sombron’s only friend from his own world (oh, by the way, he is also from an alternate world) who vanished many years ago (by virtue of the aforementioned inability to leave their world), prompting him to commit hilarious amounts of murder to reunite with his friend by returning to his own world.

How that works, exactly, isn’t really explained. The game never even tells us who the Zero Emblem is, just that it’s also known as the Emblem of Foundations. It felt like it was just a desperate last-minute attempt to give Sombron some level of sympathy so he didn’t come across as a Pure Evil villain, but you know what? He would have been better that way. There’s nothing wrong with a Pure Evil villain; they don’t ALWAYS need to have some level of sympathetic backstory. He’s the hero of his own story by virtue of being the Big Bad Evil Guy and that’s fine.

All in all, Fire Emblem Engage was a SOLID 8/10. I’m a pretty big Fire Emblem fan, and Engage felt like a beautiful celebration, even a love letter, to the franchise. I have heard the opinion that the game would be a fine place to end the franchise, and while I know that won’t be the case as it’s making far too much money to just stop, I think I might even agree. Engage would be a great sendoff.

But as a fan, I continue to look forward to the next title.

ね、ゲームあそぶ？

[blurbery]

🆙🆙

[creepymutelilbugger]

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

Re: the person who is going to regale white boy with Three Houses lore on a date:

I had a first date a couple months ago where we started talking FE and it turned out we were on opposite ends of the Dimitri-Edelgard spectrum. I have a sense of humor about The Discourse and enjoy it in a kind of tongue-in-cheek way. But this grown-ass man was DEAD SERIOUS. At first I thought he was joking but he started in on a monologue about all the reasons I was wrong in the middle of this hipster brewery. When I gave a slight push back to his takes he walked out on the date. He left without closing the tab so I paid for his beer. He blocked me on everything. We’re both in our 30s btw.

Anyway when people ask why I’m single I tell them about this incident.

what the actual fuck

[remosss]

my piece for @hubertlovezine! leftovers are open now c:

[chaosisinsane]

Yuri commission for my friend @sevarix-blogs !!!! thank you so so so much for commissioning me <3

it was really fun drawing yuri.... man of all time....

[slanky-here]

That one Steven Universe meme ft. the worst brothers known to all of Faerghus

[arcthunderrz]

Butch lesbian Dimitri

[spicyboi-sketches]

[moe-broey]

GOT. INSPIRED. AND PUT WAY TOO MUCH EFFORT INTO THIS. But someone made an immaculate comic based off my bullying/gossiping about Lif poll and. And. I never intended to draw anything about it myself, but. I could not Resist. I was Compelled.

And so, we ask our Heroes. IS Dating and/or Having Relations of a Promiscuous Manner with Lif Necrophilia? Here's what they had to say 🎤:

Okay okay OKAY IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO ME. I NEED TO DRIVE THIS HOME. I mixed some of the answers here, but there are two VERY specific stances Sharena and Moe are working from at their core, here. The idealogical and emotional framework each one is building their argument on.

Sharena's,

"I am going to deny ALL logic and reason, I will DEFY reality ITSELF and reshape it through sheer willpower alone, to Love You EXACTLY as you are."

Versus, Moe's.

"I will take this line of thought to its most Logical (... illogical?) extreme for THE EXPLICIT PURPOSE of Loving You EXACTLY as you are."

Like. Like. They both just completely adore him. Is what I'm getting at. And the way each of them does it... each, dedicated and DETERMINED to find the love, here.

Face of a guy who's gonna rend an entire world asunder if he ever loses either of these two.

Also. Very much channeling this energy:

I do think he'd take the most literal stance. But here he's just. Maybe embarrassed 😳🫣

Some other close up shots!!!

And, finally. What we have all been waiting for. Man of the hour. The money shot. The reason I committed So Fucking Hard to coloring this in the first place. I leave you with this.

[xenonsdoodles]

byleth and marianne's c support is truly one of the interactions in the entire game

[dummy-dot-exe]

バニーアイクさん by 野城まさる@yazirou

[amebelladonna]

This feels like Leicester, Faerghus, Church, and Adrestia GL, in that respective order. Explanations on the tags, if you want.

[flowering-darkness]

I read a post on a different site and now the phrase “Ashen Wolves girls’ night” will not leave my head

There are five of us, and at least three are girls of at least some description. By that reckoning, no matter how many boys you bring in, it still always counts as girls’ night.

Other house members can also get brought in, but it’s up to them to make sure they don’t get caught on a night out with us when they were meant to be going out with their actual house.

Please consider the possibilities

[dgcakes]

Series: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing(s): Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra

Rating: G

Chapter: 1/1

Important Tags: Hanahaki Disease, Non-Traditional form of Hanahaki Disease, PoV Switching

Ferdibert Week 2024 - Day 4 - Hanahaki

Summary:

Ferdinand has a chronic condition he has been keeping to himself for some time, but after he begins studying certain topics at the academy, it begins to worsen. Hubert accidentally discovers a certain noble's secret flower problem as it increases in severity. Against the backdrop of the brewing and building war, there is only so much either can do about it.

[fefuckability]

RACE FOR THIRD PLACE: Twink death battle

Feel free to reblog and comment with your reasons!