Fighting on maps inspired by the Sacaen Plains from “The Blazing Blades” or the Black Temple from “The Sacred Stones” made me feel like I was back on my Game Boy Advance, staying up past my bedtime to spend endless hours trying to level up my units. If you’re a longtime fan of the series, prepare to get weepy-eyed with nostalgia (or at least, I did). The Paralogue side quests were some of my favorites there’s one themed to each Emblem Ring that resembles a level from past Fire Emblem games. Figuring out a solution to each chapter - where to push, when to retreat, which combination of Emblems and units has the most potential to devastate enemy lines - is a thrilling challenge. Confrontations play out across sandy coastlines with ships carrying hordes of enemies, sprawling castle courtyards outfitted with ballistas and other ranged weaponry, fortresses with miasma choking its narrow hallways, and mountainous fields flowing with lava, among others. Where “Engage” shines most is in its level design. Now that I’ve completed the main campaign (around 40-50 hours) and spent plenty of time playing around with “Engage’s” other modes and completing side quests, it all feels second nature, but getting to that point involved one hell of a learning curve - and that’s saying something for a series with gameplay as dense as Fire Emblem’s. It felt like an unnecessary roadblock being billed as a shiny new feature. Similarly jarring was how some Emblems are the sole wielders of weapons that, in previous games, were rare but otherwise available to all units, such as rapiers or the Nosferatu tome. Or I’d try to use Corrin’s Dragon Vein, which adds special effects to the terrain surrounding a unit, to set up a blockade of ice, but discover that this particular class can only use her ability to create a healing circle. I’d confidently send my knight forward with Lyn’s Emblem Ring only to realize his bond level was too low to access her Mani Katti, a sword strong against cavalry and armored foes, which put a serious dent in my plan to carve through the mounted units in my path. Keeping track of it all proved difficult during the game’s first few hours, compounded by the fact that certain plot points during the main campaign add and subtract from your supply of Emblem Rings. Both sides seek to collect all 12 Emblem Rings, but the Fell Dragon’s top brass seems to be given carte blanche to take them into battle whenever the mood strikes (losing them just as quickly). The Emblem Rings are hyped up to be these highly sought-after treasures, only one or two of which have been entrusted to each nation, guarded for millennia, but throughout the story, they’re treated more like office staplers than priceless heirlooms. In another, a foreign nation’s queen is held hostage after she lets one of the Fell Dragon’s generals walk right into her castle due to a misunderstanding. In one of the first chapters, the Divine Dragon’s head guard boasts about the security of the holy land of Lythos just moments before the Fell Dragon’s peons break in and murder your mother. As in past games, you assemble a ragtag group of nobles, mercenaries and fighters to build an army strong enough to topple the big baddie, but the plot unfolds more like a series of sitcom mishaps than a tale of war.
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