Fire Emblem: Engage is the newest entry in the Fire Emblem franchise, and fans can’t help but compare it to its successful predecessor, Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The games have two very different stories, as one is more of an adventure, while another focuses on a rebellion.
However, Three Houses and Engage share similar activities, such as interacting with animals, cooking, and fishing, as well as the various ways the protagonists bond with their allies. Fire Emblem: Engage has learned a lot from the previous installment, improving the activities and fixing many of the problems that fans had with Fire: Emblem: Three Houses.
10 The Player Can Explore More Than Just The Church
Many of the people who played Fire Emblem: Three Houses complained about having to run around the Garreg Mach Monastery all the time in all the routes. There weren’t many opportunities to explore, making this world feel more restricted to a single area when the player wasn’t in combat.
In Fire Emblem Engage, players can explore the battlefield after they defeat the enemy. During this time, they can talk to allies, pick things up, or adopt an animal. Even the Somniel, the player’s home base, is prettier to look at and doesn’t feel like a slog to run through.
9 Alear Isn’t A Silent Protagonist
A silent protagonist can be tricky to pull off, and it was one of Fire Emblem: Three Houses‘ major flaws. Byleth was meant to be a character who would allow the player to insert themselves into the game, and the player would sometimes have to pick between multiple actions or responses during conversations or story events.
Most of the time, these options mattered little when the story beats were concrete. It takes players out of a game when the characters and story redirect them away from what they choose to do. This issue isn’t present in Fire Emblem: Engage because Alear isn’t a silent protagonist, eliminating the need for players to pick between multiple dialogue options.
8 Engage Has Only One Canon Route
Although Fire Emblem: Three Houses has four different routes, getting through them all requires over a hundred hours of dedication. This wouldn’t be a problem, if not for the time the player has to spend doing small tasks around the Monastery and the fact that two of their routes, Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, are almost exactly the same experience.
Fire Emblem Engage only has to tell one story, but it still manages to keep the players invested. While Fire Emblem: Three Houses was ambitious, the existence of Silver Snow hurt the overall quality of the game.
7 The Character Models And Portraits Have More Life To Them
Fire Emblem Engage‘s character portraits use the character models when they speak, which works in the game’s favor. Giving the character models 3 dimensions and allowing them to move more than just their mouth and eyes when they speak makes them feel more lifelike.
These models aren’t used too frequently, but they don’t need to be. They are used primarily when the player can’t see the main character model. Fire Emblem: Three Houses uses their 2-D character portraits even when the main character model is emoting and clearly visible.
6 Fire Emblem Engage’s The Graphics Are Better
Although Fire Emblem Engage released a mere 4 years after Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the difference in graphics is noticeable. Although many of Fire Emblem: Three Houses‘ graphics still look great today, players found the blurry JPEGs of Garreg Mach’s oranges hilariously terrible.
Some of the character models were prone to glitching, even mid-conversation. The maps don’t hold up very well either, with many of them giving players little to appreciate other than some rocky terrain. Fire Emblem Engage has areas worth exploring, and even the character models have received significant improvements.
5 Engage’s Weapon Triangle Is Much More Important
In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the weapon triangle was tossed aside, and replaced with learnable skills that gave units specific advantages. In Fire Emblem: Engage, the weapon triangle matters much more. Certain weapons are effective against specific types of foes, allowing the player to inflict bonus damage to enemies with the right units.
Units with a weapon advantage can inflict the break status on an enemy, and broken units cannot counterattack until their next turn. The weapon triangle is an important mechanic in the Fire Emblem franchise, and removing it from Fire Emblem: Three Houses felt jarring to a lot of players.
4 Jeralt’s Death In Three Houses Was Extremely Frustrating
Many fans were dissatisfied by the death of Byleth’s father, Jeralt. Although Jeralt’s death was tragic, it was also frustrating since Jeralt hadn’t told Byleth many things and Byleth seemed capable of only using a single Divine Pulse. Sothis even claimed that it was an unavoidable death, which is proved wrong in Fire Emblem: Three Hopes.
Lumera’s death in Fire Emblem Engage made much more sense. Players could understand Alear’s pain because they lost the only connection they had with their past, as well as the mother they barely knew. Framme tried to heal her, but Lumera was already weakened because she gave Alear some of her power in order to help them wake up.
3 There Is A Cool Crossover Mechanic
Fire Emblem: Engage‘s gimmick involves summoning well-known heroes from previous Fire Emblem games. Not only can characters summon heroes using their rings, but they can merge with the Emblems to access their weapons and skills. It even alters the characters’ appearance depending on who they merge with.
This crossover allows previous fans of the franchise to interact with and fight alongside some of their favorite heroes. Fire Emblem: Three Houses didn’t have anything like this, other than the Amiibo Plaza that just unlocked some items and music from previous games.
2 The Mystery Exists For A Reason
Byleth never got many answers about their background and the Church’s secrets because Jeralt never told them. Byleth had to discover things after he died through reading his journal and by learning things from the House Leaders.
Alear woke up after a thousand years without their memory, and couldn’t get many answers out of their mother because Lumera died soon afterwards. Alear had so many questions, which couldn’t easily be answered since they didn’t know any other people who had been alive that long. Byleth’s answers felt more in-reach for a large chunk of Three Houses, but Byleth never seemed to take an active role in seeking them out.
1 Alear Can Romance Any Of The Dateable Options
One of the best things about Fire Emblem: Engage is that Alear can romance any of the eligible characters, no matter what version of Alear the players choose. After getting the chosen character to the maximum support rank through multiple conversations, Alear can present the character with a Pact Ring toward the end of the game.
Byleth didn’t have this freedom, as certain options were made unavailable depending on the version of Byleth the player chose. This made some players upset, as they didn’t want to have to pick a different gender for Byleth to be able to romance a specific character.
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