#haven't even started gameplay with them yet and i'm already making renders

[buglaur]

fireworks show 🎆

material preview version is very cute also :)

i struggled with the lighting on this one so badly, but it turned out alright in the end.

i actually started it last year for new years 2023 but never got around to finishing it, hence no progress pictures this time sadly lol. i do have a very low-res, first draft, test gif though

stills 🥳

[saviourkingslut]

ok here's my day 1 review of engage. i just finished chapter 6 and did all the paralogues/side maps to chapter 7.

the first thing i noticed was the graphics. i don't normally care much about graphics, but in this game they are noticeable bc they are so good! like even better than xenoblade 3. i didn't think the switch was capable of such graphics.

the art style is still... Like That though. i am still not a fan of it, even after playing the game nearly all day. there are times when i am internally cringing bc the child character's eyes are the size of baseballs. speaking of child characters, there's a LOT of them. i am not a big fan of child characters so they're all getting benched in my playthrough. one also has a fake british accent.

no shade to anyone reading this who DOES like the art style! it's just a personal preference of mine, we all have our own preferences of what looks good and what doesn't.

anyway. i've gotten a few c supports by now and they are all pretty meh. very short and not much depth to them compared to previous installments of FE (i don't just mean 3h i mean fates, awakening, etc). i know i technically can't judge them by just c supports so i'm reserving some judgement until i get up to A supports.

the story is cheesy. not unpleasantly so, but at least in the first few chapters it wasn't very riveting. i'm hoping it gets more interesting soon. rn i'm more invested in meeting new characters than i am in the story. the story feels almost like a background thing to me. there's nothing inherently WRONG with the story, it's just more chill than other FE games. kind of like awakening but without the time travel stuff, and more relaxed (at least in the first 7 chapters)

now onto the game play- it's pretty good! the weapon triangle makes things interesting, as do the rings. the rings are actually pretty fun to use and can make characters more interesting to use. like one gives any character the ability to use healing spells, which is great bc otherwise all the healers are children units and i'm not a big fan of the healing brawler class so i just give the healer ring to a regular unit instead.

there are also side battles that are much akin to FEH battles. there is a tempest trials (it's literally called that) that i haven't unlocked yet but from the description it's basically just like feh. they also have a version of aether raids.

speaking of side battles, there are only occasional auxiliary battles. kind of like awakening, some of the monster dudes spawn on previous maps. which reminds me of something else i should mention - there's a map again, like awakening. you travel across it for different chapters.

oh also! class promotion is like fates/awakening again. level up to 10, then gain a master class and start at level 1 again. personally i kind of preferred the 3h way where anyone could be any class (even if they sucked at it) but whatever i think this is fine too.

that's basically my first impression of things! if you have any specific questions feel free to ask me, i'm happy to tell you anything about it so far.

woah, thanks for the extensive review! it's pretty interesting you mention the graphics, bc i didn't think the game looked good at all in the trailers - very blandly rendered overall. im not expecting botw here bc it's fire emblem, but it all felt pretty lifeless to me. maybe it's different in the game itself though?

also not the child characters... that is a bummer, i don't like them either. i guess it's going to be an exercise of choosing the few that really add something important to your gameplay and aren't too annoying, and benching everyone else lmfao.

as far as the story and supports go, i already thought they were going to be less than stellar after the first few trailers came out, and then that belief was more or less confirmed by the leak. unfortunate that it does turn out to hold true so far. it'd be great if the supports get better higher up the chain and the story picks itself up a little, but im not holding out too much hope tbh. knowing me im probably going to be irritated by their flimsiness, especially by the narrative itself if it doesn't really go anywhere interesting. a bit of cheese can be fun, but too cheesy stories often just feel too childish for me to enjoy. and idk. never great if a story doesn't really feel like the centre of the game as you're experiencing it in this case. hopefully that'll change?

good to know the gameplay is pretty fun at least! that was the one thing from the trailers that i thought looked engaging (lmfao). if im buying the game that's what ill be buying it for