The Fire Emblem series has been on a roll ever since the 3DS renaissance with games like Awakening and Fates. And regardless of your thoughts on those titles, the series was doing well enough that not only did Nintendo greenlight Fire Emblem for mobile devices, but it was one of the very first Nintendo franchises confirmed to make an appearance on the Nintendo Switch!
Fire Emblem was first confirmed for the console in January 2017, first with a spinoff and then followed by a new main series title in the dedicated [Fire Emblem Direct](https://youtu.be/Eq1Xzycyp2E) held shortly after. The first mainline entry hit the scene two years later as Fire Emblem Three Houses. Since I’m imagining the Switch was a lot of people’s first Nintendo console, I’m willing to bet that this was their first Fire Emblem game as well. And what a way to start, as it presented the deepest richest storyline in the series since the mid-90s. The characters and their motivations are still being discussed to this day, including whether or not Lysithea is best girl, if Claude deserved to be a bisexual romance option, or if Edelgard is a good person or not.
The next mainline Fire Emblem game to hit the Switch actually wasn’t Fire Emblem Engage; it was the Switch port of the first game. Released on the eShop for a mere $6 dollars, this was the first official localization of the first Fire Emblem game, AKA the one with Marth. It was a basic port with some welcome features like save states and the like, but not much else. It was released to commemorate the franchise’s 30th anniversary, but much like the Mario 3D collection, it would be delisted from the eShop at the end of March 2021. So unfortunately if you missed out… you missed out.
Then comes Fire Emblem Engage. After months of rumors of a new mainline game starring a toothpaste-colored hero, Fire Emblem Engage was finally announced in September of last year. And it was a completely tonal 180 from what we got in Three Houses. This was a straight up 4Kids anime plot with a bunch of goofballs coming together to slay an evil dragon, and it was exactly what I needed from the series. I didn’t want a bigger bolder Three Houses again with like a bajillion different story routes, so Engage was a breath of fresh air. I imagine with 3H being so many people’s first, that it had colored people’s perception of the series. It’s like when Final Fantasy 9 came out and FF7 bandwagoners badmouthed it back in the day.
But that’s not the end! Back in June we got another re-release, this time of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade for the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. Way back when, this was the first mainline Fire Emblem game that ever released for the West after Smash Bros Melee and the original Advance Wars made Fire Emblem more appealing to Western audiences. It introduced the world to Lyn (another popular best girl candidate), Eliwood who was the father of Roy, and Hector AKA the best dude-bro a guy can ask for. It also has some of the best sprite work on the Game Boy Advance, like holy crap they look so good. Needless to say, Fire Emblem’s job security is looking bright going forward.
by Asad_Farooqui
48 Comments
Three Houses was my first and last FE game.
I have never played such a game that felt overly complicated and yet overly simplistic at the same time except maybe Rune Factory 5.
I love them. Engage was my first introduction to the series and it felt like a breeze getting into it. I guess I missed out on the nostalgia factor seeing all the older characters but I’m now working my way through the older games so it’s fun to see them there! I’m currently on Echoes which is a blast so far. I can’t wait to see what’s next for the franchise on the Switch.
EVERY Fire Emblem I play is not waterproof! Wtf Nintendo?
Only one I’ve played is Three Houses and ended up sinking like 80 hours into it. Everyone says the other games aren’t the same as Three Houses so I haven’t bothered.
Three Houses is a great game even if I find the visuals and gameplay weaker than most FE games but does have the most extensive lore since Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn
Engage is a great game even if the lore is weaker but I think more than made up for the gameplay which I found to be some of the strongest in the series.
I like both for different reasons.
Three Houses is my favorite RPG of all time. Amazing characters, story, gameplay, and pretty replayable.
Still need to get Engage.
Every? There’s only 2 lol. (I’m not counting ports)
Haven’t enjoyed engage much so far. The gameplay is very fun but the story is really not up my alley.
Three houses was pretty good for the one run, but neither of them were better than the 3ds games for me tbh.
Still very invested in the series so far tho.
I’m a huge FE fan, Three Houses is in a league of its own
Three Houses and Engage feel like polar opposites.
**Three Houses:** Amazing story with tons of greys in terms of morality that has fans still discussing its themes. Character design is slick and very good, as well as the development of the cast. Monastery is fun the first time around but later on it becomes a chore, they didn’t quite nail it like the Persona Social Links. Map design, gameplay and strategy? What are those? The gameplay felt so dumbed down that the “strategy” part of this SRPG was sorely missing.
**Engage:** Amazing gameplay, Engage rings give you so much versatility, and you need it because map design is actually very clever and terrain is relevant!! The story though…. it’s so forgettable and a nothing burger without anything relevant to say. The characters are basically caricatures and their designs are horrible, one of the worst character designs I’ve ever seen (And I’ve seen the female Blades in XC2).
**Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE** is a very overlooked Megami Tensei game. Sure, it wasn’t what everyone expected but it’s an enjoyable journey. I feel it’s better and with more personality than games like Soul Hackers 2.
Three Houses is a good FE as a whole even if the side activities get boring after a while and it’s gameplay isn’t as good as other FEs but it’s story and characters hard carry it(there’s a reason that even to this day you’ll still see discussion about it).
Engage on the other is a mixed bag, while it’s gameplay is top tier, it’s world, characters and story are among the worst in the series and has left a lot with a bad taste in their mouths(especially after the world and characters of 3 Houses) and gameplay alone can only do so much(look at SMTV, 1st SMT to break 1m sales yet it would have most likely sold more if it didn’t have such a mess of a story).
I started the series with Awakening and have played Fates, Shadows of Valentia, Three Houses, and Engage on release (plus about half of 7 on Wii U). I’ve loved every one of them.
Personally my favorites are Fates and Engage. I love the tactics-focused gameplay and fun anime bullshit aesthetics. Even tho they aren’t the type that are closest to my heart, Echoes and Three Houses are each their own distinct style that I hope to see more if in the future. Three Houses is a cool new direction for the series that I think could be amazing in a future iteration. Despite some notable flaws imo, it was still a very strong first showing for a larger-scale FE experience.
I think the fact that Fire Emblem isn’t afraid to go in a pretty dramatically different direction from one entry to another helps keep the series consistently interesting and feeling fresh.
I was pretty familiar with fire emblem before the switch games (played every portable game since the GBA one)
When I first got Three houses in 2019 I have to be honest, I really didn’t like it. For some context it was a time of my life where I was studying + working two jobs (one being full time) so the amount of storytime+ monastery time vs gameplay was something that I couldn’t appreciate at the time. I was wanting something more like FE7 or awakening so I kinda only played the Golden Deer route and just stopped playing
Then I saw at the beginning of the year the trailer of Fire Emblem Engage I felt like I needed to give fire emblem another chance. And it was actually fun. The story wasn’t anything amazing but I liked some characters quite a lot and the gameplay, oh where do I start, is amazing. I spent all my gaming time between launch day up to March playing the game, either the story maps or online. Playing it in maddening was actually funny, some supports were the right amount of wholesome and funny that I needed those months (I was working at an emergency vet clinic). But after some months I wanted more fire emblem… And I started playing Three Houses again.
And let me tell you… Three Houses is amazing. The characters are amazing, the story is amazing. This time I started playing with the black eagles and I loved the story and the characters way more than my first time, and I started appreciating the gameplay loop a lot more. I’m now trying to get the Church route as my last route but I’m honestly replaying this game for a long time. I feel bad for not appreciating it the first time but I’m glad I kept the game and that I gave it a second chance. I’m also considering getting three hopes since I like the op warrior games I played.
So tl:dr: I love both games, just for different things
3 houses is one of my favorite games ever and Edlegard is a top tier character and low-key should’ve been the smash representation over byleth but both byleths are cool also.
As a fan of the series since it first came to the West, I’m just thrilled with the fact we’ve had 2 new mainline games come to Switch. My opinion on the games is mixed though.
Three Houses is an outlier in the series with FE4 and FE9/10 in that it’s actually a well written story. Yet I still think it’s the weakest of the well written games, and the monastery just drags on for far too long. Especially after you play it once. It took me 80-90 hours just to do one route, and there’s (technically) 4? I wish they made a way to skip the monastery section after a first play-through, but I also understand that it’s one of the biggest reasons so many new fans loved the game. The gameplay though is just so so lacking. It’s legitimately the easiest game to come out of the series. I played on Hard mode for my first run when the game released and boy was I disappointed with the lack of any challenge. Maddening helped, but it still felt more like an actual hard mode and not maddening in that it never drove me mad, just mildly frustrated.
Engage on the other hand was fantastic game play wise. Playing that on Hard mode for my first run, I felt challenged and like I would actually lose units, even after using the 10 “rewinds” I was given. But the story. Oof was that a downer. Now again, as a fan of the series since it came to the West, I was used to “eh” storytelling from these games. But FE 9/10 is my favorite in the franchise and after Three Houses, I expected more. Considering Engage was more the norm than the exception, like Three Houses was, I was more okay with it as the gameplay was really was top tier from what I want in a mainline FE game.
It feels like we got the best of both worlds with the 2 games, and I’m just thrilled the series will live on for at least a little longer after what looked like the death of the series after Shadow Dragon/New Mystery of the Emblem. Seeing the original Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light come out officially in English for the first time was amazing, and I do hope that FE4 remake comes west too, as it’s a game I feel western fans would enjoy. Personally I’ve always been gameplay over story for Fire Emblem so Engage beat out Three Houses for me. But I do think both are worthwhile additions to “Anime Chess”, and I’m just glad to see new folks actually try out the games and enjoy them, instead of just being pissed with the series for filling up the Smash Bros. roster.
This will probably be an unpopular opinion around these parts: but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself losing interest in anime tropes. I’m not even sure what that means exactly. It’s not necessarily the technicolor art style. It might be the shonen stories with self-insert teenage boy protagonists who are all so young. And the fan service – okay, that actually is something that turns me off. I’m not a kid anymore, I don’t need to see animated girls with humongous boobs in swimsuits. The entire concept of a ‘waifu’ grosses me out.
(To be fair, that’s not just an anime thing. I raise an eyebrow at Western superhero comics and their skintight outfits for the same reasons.)
All this to say that I was a big fan of the in-depth characters and multiple perspectives of Three Houses and got whiplash from how different Engage turned out to be. It feels like a step in the wrong direction. I’m still nostalgic for the classic Fire Emblem games on GBA. I loved those! But that was a simpler time. Maybe I’m just not in the target demographic anymore.
Three Houses had a phenomenal story, compelling characters, and great world building. It was also the most unenjoyable game I’ve ever taken the time to finish. The combat was fine, if a bit boring. I would consider it a step down, but nothing I would say was bad. The monastery on the other hand, I actively hated. I play FE cause I like strategy games, not cause I want to play Anime High School Teacher Simulator 1618. But, because of how the class system works with motivation and teaching, you had to do it.
I thought Engage was much better. The story was definitely not as good as 3H, but I wouldn’t call it bad. It was serviceable, and had some good characters. The gameplay was phenomenal. It was the perfect level of challenge, the engage mechanic executed really well imo, and the maps designed around it very well. Also it made all the social sim crap optional. I cannot stress enough how much of an improvement this is.
Never had a chance to play Shadow Dragon cause I didn’t get my switch until the summer after it was available. Still kinda salty about that.
Three Houses is good, Engage is average.
I know I’m an outlier here, but even though I truly love Three Houses (and Three Hopes), I honestly think Engage is the best of the Switch games. Story is cheesy, but the voice acting and characters sell it to me and I enjoyed it. Helps that I really ended up liking Alear, and that I love mega anime corniness that takes itself seriously even when its goofy. Gameplay, visuals, and music were all a lot better in Engage than Three Houses or Hopes, too.
FE7 was my first ever Fire Emblem as a kid way back, and I’ve been having a great time playing through it again. But I don’t know that I could fairly decide between it and the actual, new Switch games. I’m actually having even more fun now with it haha.
I’m eagerly awaiting Sacred Stones being added to NSO. FE7 was my first, but FE8 was the one that made me a big fan of the series and is still my favorite.
Three Houses was my introduction to the series and the only one I finished to this date. I tried many others later (like Awakening and Echoes), but I missed the balance between the tactical combat and the monastery exploration.
After that, I played Persona 5 for the first time and got that silly realisation that all the monastery stuff was “heavily inspired” by this series gameplay. To their credit, it fitted like a glove on the already existent *supports* mechanic from previous games.
So it was a surprise for me when Engage came out and ditched most of that stuff in favour of a more traditional approach. Also, I not a huge fan of the game overall artstyle. I ended up not buying it.
In conclusion, I just wish a new Fire Emblem where they push forward the gameplay concept from Three Houses.
I beat three houses like 5 times.
I got to chapter 22ish of engage and just…. stopped.
I played the crap out of 3H. Have been a longtime fan of the franchise.
I bought Engage and just could not get into it. The story wasn’t doing anything for me, and the anime tropes just seem really obnoxious this time around. And that’s coming from someone that likes anime.
Fire emblem three houses gave us edelgard and I’m greatful for that
I loved 3H but even though I wanted to see the other routes from a story perspective all the downtime activities really warded me off repeat playthroughs
Engage was a breath of fresh air after the shittiness that was 3H
Too much romance, needs more hidden dialogue characters in the story
Three houses way better than engage, lots of cool story
Overall gba ones still best
I absolutely love fire emblem three houses. The story, the music, the characters, most of the gameplay (not a fan of the maps), and the banging dlc. It felt like a proper evolution of fire emblem that needed some improvements for it to be the best in the franchise for me.
I was super excited for engage, however after maybe 5 hours of into it the game annoyed the shit out me to no end. The characters weren’t very interesting (diamanté and yunaka were my favorites tho) and the story was so god awful that I actually cringed for the first time in my life. Although the gameplay and the animations were fantastic, the music was probably the worst I have heard from modern day fire emblem. I also found the use of old maps from older games to initially be a cool idea, until I realize it was mostly nostalgia bait and half baked idea as it was only in the paralogues. ALSO WHY DO YOU KEEP REUSING THE SAME BOSSES OVER AND OVER AGAIN. It felt like engage was 1 step forward and 1 step and 2 mini step backwards with the game.
I couldn’t finish Three Houses. I picked up a turn-based strategy game for the turn-based strategy, but it felt like over half my gameplay was instead spent running around its unchanging monastery. I was probably about a third of the way through when I gave it up, questioning how they expect to keep my interest for another 2 playthroughs. Now, people may continue to bash Engage’s campiness for years to come, but at least it focused much more on the series’ own core gameplay, rather than try to imitate another popular game.
Tokyo Mirage Session is an underrated game that doesn’t deserve the hate it keeps on getting. It’s pretty much Persona 5 on training wheels.
3H is great but the monastery is such a drag. While it’s not Trails level in worldbuilding, it did good enough for a single game. I still believe the game would be better for me if it was split into two games.
Engage is about to become my most replayed FE game ever. The gameplay is just so addicting and while the story is pretty much standard FE, it’s the gameplay that keeps me coming back.
Three houses and engage are both bangers and what’s great is that they’re bangers for different reasons meaning they’re both very different experiences yet still feel like fire emblem(but engage is more traditional than multiple mortgages).
The art style of Three Houses really turned me off, never played it, but I LOVE Engage. It’s a 10/10 for me, and conversely, I adore its art style.
I love Three Houses. Has hundreds of hours until I lost my original switch.
Wanted to like engage more than I did. Loved the animations but the story was super cringe to me. Didn’t like the trials at all and no new game plus is just super bad to me.
Cool way to save money on a focus group man…
My perspective of the series is that I’ve played every single game from Genealogy onwards – I initially got into the series with Sacred Stones all the way back in 2004. I really did not like the 3DS era of Fire Emblem – I think Awakening was okay and Echoes was good, but I really didn’t like Fates at all for having a very weak story and characters to the point where even Conquest’s gameplay couldn’t salvage the experience.
Three Houses is my second favorite game in the series and at the time of release left me optimistic that Intelligent Systems had learned from their mistakes with Awakening and Fates (in practice, Koei Tecmo was primarily responsible for the writing and we didn’t realize this until Engage released). The character writing of that game is some of the best I’ve seen in the entire SRPG genre – almost every character in this game feels human, is fleshed-out and has some purpose in Three Houses’ overall storytelling. The supports are filled with interesting and varied character interactions and almost all of the characters get a internal or interpersonal conflict that makes them compelling. If you asked me to make a list of my top 20 Fire Emblem characters half of that top 20 would come from Three Houses.
The story itself despite some issues with its execution manages to be one of the best in the series, perhaps third only to Genealogy and Path of Radiance – it’s grey morality and use of multiple paths with their own point of view makes it exceedingly effective at making the player think, its emotional beats hit very hard because the character writing is so good and said emotional beats are properly set up (this is going to be important later on), and both Edelgard and Dimitri are arguably the best protagonists we have gotten in the series.
That being said, the map design in Three Houses is mediocre and the Monastery gets tedious on replays – if these elements of the game were fixed Three Houses would probably be my favorite game in the entire series.
I think Blazing Blade is a great game – out of all the Fire Emblem games on the Switch, I think it’s probably the best introduction to the series. The map design in Blazing Blade is pretty good and a considerable step up from Three Houses and whilst the character writing in this game has been surpassed with future games, I think Blazing Blade was the first game in the series to have genuinely good character writing. The story is a bit of a mixed bag (and if you analyze it critically it falls apart a bit) but I think it’s at the very least serviceable – the relationship between the lords as the game’s emotional core works well and it does have its moments, even if there are quite a few plotholes.
It’s a very well-rounded Fire Emblem game and it’s probably the game I’d suggest to newcomers wanting to get into the series.
Engage somehow managed to surpass Fates as my least favorite game in the entire series. I think its map design is pretty good, but it’s nowhere near as good as that of Conquest or New Mystery overall – despite starting out very strong, I think Engage’s maps really deteriorate towards the end with an overreliance on bosses and absurd reinforcement spam which just encourages warpskipping because fighting through the lategame maps normally is painful. Even discounting the lategame map design, there are a bunch of minor issues with Engage’s gameplay that really add up. The UI is terrible. The game expects you to make far more gold with stuff like the donations than you are actually given. Skirmishes are completely broken and make grinding units insufferably tedious *even on lower difficulties*. The Somniel has nothing of value and Engage would be a better game if it was removed entirely – at least the Monastery in Three Houses provided some great character moments which are completely absent in the Somniel.
Engage is the only Fire Emblem game where I don’t care about any of the characters at all – barely any of the characters in Engage have any sort of depth and the ones that do pretty much only get a backstory to explain their quirks. Because of this, it feels like 80-90% of the supports in Engage are just meaningless filler where the characters just throw the gimmicks at each other, and they end up being outright insufferable. The best character in Engage is probably Yunaka, and even then, she’d be a below average character if she was in Three Houses.
I found Engage’s story to be a complete disgrace. It’s not even like a Mario game or Breath of the Wild where the story is barebones but at least tolerable – Engage’s plot instead screws up spectacularly in every possible regard. It is ludicrously contrived (Alear lets the villains go for no reason eight times in the entire plot, both sides have super ninjas that can steal everything if Chapter 10 and 11 are any indication, and this is just the tip of the iceberg), the dialogue is awful, and the pacing is so messed up that none of the emotional scenes managed to land because they haven’t been set up at all. [Alear is one of the worst protagonists in the series and I’ve written at length about just how corrosive they are to Engage’s storytelling before.](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/14znxpy/comment/js13u7a/?context=3) Because the emotional core of Engage is so weak and its themes are handled in a contradictory manner (having the deuteragonist be mind controlled and unable to make their own choices isn’t exactly the best idea in a story ostensibly about free will), there is nothing to counteract the myriad of flaws in Engage. I think the storytelling is so bad that no amount of good gameplay can redeem the experience as a whole – it didn’t work with Conquest and that’s a game with considerably better gameplay than Engage.
If you want a deeper look into the issues with Engage’s writing, there is an amazing video essay by Camelin that details them far better than I could: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbV5xfrrEVQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbV5xfrrEVQ)
It’s not even like Fates where that game had some good ideas and where you could chalk that game’s issues up to overambition and incompetence – the nostalgia pandering and general lack of effort in Engage’s writing instead makes the game feel cynically designed. It feels as if Intelligent Systems weren’t inspired at all and were only developing this game because Nintendo demanded a Fire Emblem game from them. Worse yet, Engage was the first game that Intelligent Systems predominantly developed since Fates (Three Houses was largely written by Koei Tecmo) – it was IS’ opportunity to prove that they had learned from Fates’ mistakes. Instead, Engage merely proves that Intelligent Systems has learned absolutely nothing, and because of this, Engage has left me very cynical of the series’ future.
Going forward from the Switch era, I want Intelligent Systems to slow down a bit and re-examine their approach to storytelling and character writing because their current approach just isn’t working at all. Whilst I’d prefer for the next game’s tone to be similar to Three Houses, I don’t care about it that much – for me, it is far more important for Intelligent Systems to prove that they’ve learned from the writing mistakes they made in Fates and Engage, regardless of its tone.
Released to Own:
Three Houses is a brilliant return to form in terms of story, but the gameplay has so much branching complexity that a lot of it doesn’t fit together nicely. Also, 2 out of four routes are clearly rushed (Claude’s and especially Edelgard’s).
Cindered Shadows is a good challenge, but wildly unbalanced. It feels like nobody playtested the higher difficulty
FE Warriors is fun to turn your brain off to.
Mirage Sessions is a good game if you have no idea what Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei are. I’m a fan of both and I was constantly puking the entire time despite the gameplay being kind of ok.
FE Warriors Three Hopes is kind of insulting in the way Persona 5 Scramble is. It promises to be a Fire Emblem game, but ultimately it is just a button mashing game with a coat of paint trying to look like Fire Emblem. At least the first FE Warriors had the courage to not pretend to be a Fire Emblem game.
Engage is to Fire Emblem as Porn is to Cinema. Such a great dopamine rush, but that post-stage-clear clarity… Not much else I can say except that a game with the story like Three Houses with the attention to detail in terms of game mechanics like Engage would produce one of if not the greatest Fire Emblem game (so, basically Genealogy of the Holy War).
Fell Xenologue. It’s technically a bunch of Heroes maps stuck together since there are no consequences for failing. They’re good on hard mode, but like Cindered Shadows, it doesn’t feel like anyone playtested maddening mode when the base game has such a well-paced maddening mode.
Released to Rent:
Shadow Dragon and Mystery of the Emblem are Fire Emblem distilled at its purest qualities. They’re not amazing by modern standards, but they’re well balanced experiences. They forgot to translate Mystery and they took Shadow Dragon out by the lake all alone with a bag over its head after telling it it could see its family again.
Genealogy is the best Fire Emblem. They forgot to translate it.
Binding Blade has unpredictable RNG, so deaths do hit a lot harder. I guess the ability to use savestates diminished the impact a bit, but oh well. For the first Fire Emblem made without Kaga, it’s brilliant even if the story is a bit weak. They forgot to translate it.
Blazing Blade is well balanced and caters to three types of players: newbies with Lyn, familiar players with Eliwood, and veterans with Hector. A great experience, although it’s not particularly mind-blowing with the story.
I got so bored by the “social” aspects of Three Houses, just like how I got so bored by it with Persona 5. Because the characters are all gorgeously drawn but I give 0 shits about their stereotypical anime plots or dialogues.
So I really appreciated that being toned down in Engage, from what I hear anyway. I was so annoyed by that mechanic in 3H that I didn’t even bother with Engage!
Edit: thanks to this thread I decided to buy Engage finally.
I have some pretty opposing sentiments of the two main titles. Three Houses had a lot going for it with replayability. The stories branched, your choices affected things like recruitment availability, and it was an OK strategy game, though it could have been more compelling on that front.
Engage is kind of the opposite. The characters are just terrible. I can’t think of a character in the game I actually LIKE. Some are OK, while some are annoying or downright insufferable. The mechanics are good and decently challenging. The story’s not even terrible. It’s mostly the art and personality of the characters that’s the issue.
Three Houses is fantastic, but the monastary segments got really tiresome… especially for a game designed to be played through multiple times. Despite that, it’s a great game, and it’s excellent for newcomers to FE and SRPGs. One of the best casts in FE history.
Engage is, mechanically, such a brilliant fucking game. Maybe the best gameplay in the series, full stop. But the story was just so mediocre and doofy that I had a really tough time being invested. I have absolutely no urge to replay it – which makes it the first FE game that I straight up haven’t run back immediately after beating it.
Fire Emblem (GBA) is a stone-cold classic and holds up surprisingly well. Having rewind/save states available makes this, IMO, the definitive way to (legally) play the game.
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & The Blade of Light is a neat novelty game, and speed/save state options do their absolute best to improve playability. Having a canon English translation is cool for people that have only ever experienced shitty fan translations. Still, it’s **dated** dated, and playing it isn’t much fun at all.
Could do with less
Three houses is undeniably an excellent game. There are a few flaws, but nothing holding it back from being excellent. It overall felt like a great and natural development of fire emblem given the increasing social aspects we’ve been seeing in previous titles.
I didn’t play three hopes, can’t comment.
Engage feels like a spin off. The story is awful. Gameplay is great. It actually fixed a few issues with three houses gameplay, particularly the one turn reinforcements that plagued TH.
I’d also comment that with engage feeling very like a spinoff and Sigurd having a very prominent role it strongly feels like we’re missing something in the middle. Likely a fe4 remake.
The very quick pace that engage and it’s dlc was released is also suspicious. It was obviously sitting ready for a while. Something behind the scenes has moved release dates about.
It wouldn’t surprise me too much if Nintendo were sitting on another fire emblem title for an opportune release time. My guess would be either a swan song for switch or an early release for switch 2.
Don’t like Three Houses at all, Three Hopes and Engage are my favourite Switch games in general, Warriors sure exists and Tokyo Mirage Sessions is hard to get into as someone who loves idols and jpop.
three houses was my biggest disapointment in switch over all. I refrained from getting any spoilers from it for years, and a few months back, when I finally had it, the school simulator was a slap on my face. having the battles be a schedule on a school board makes no sense to me, I gave up the game for now. Yet have to play engage but Im really not in the mood to get it.
Engage had great gameplay but the story and characters sucked balls . Main protagonist was especially annoying. Three houses was cool
I couldn’t not get into all of the “social” stuff within Engage. Just let me walk the map and battle. It was too childish in that regard and not enjoyable. The battle maps were good but everything after that up until the next battle was not fun. I couldn’t keep it going and had to stop.
If they got rid of all that stuff, it would be enjoyable.
I loved three houses but hated engage. Didnt like most of the characters design and personalities, hated the story, found the gimmick too much over the top.
Gameplay and tactical depth goes to engage over 3H and it’s not close. That’s what I play FE games for, so I strongly prefer engage of 3H. I do not pretend 3H is a bad game. All that social stuff in this type of game is just not my taste.
Favorite FE games are Blazing Blade, Fates, and Engage.
I love Engage and even enjoy the silly story and characters. Alcryst, Yunaka, Fogado, Diamante. I love’em. It’s the game I boot up when I want to play a Fire Emblem. But It certainly wasn’t the entrancing experience I had with 3H, even with the inferior gameplay
I don’t know If many share this sentiment but I think the Monastery and how important it is for the game makes for a better gameplay loop of battling -> preparing -> battling. I felt the preparing phase was a important aspect of it and It was very satisfactory getting buffs, increasing units support, giving classes to shape units, etc. The battles are usually very intense and can be tiring. Having a breather in between makes you play longer and get more hooked IMO. That got kind of lost on Engage by how optional the Somniel is and by how mostly boring and irrelevant the activities there are. Not having that breather in between battles means I get tired more easily with Engage, even though that’s mostly merit of how good and intense the tactical battles are here. I get the same feeling on Advance Wars. I use so much thinking energy on one or two battles that, by the end, I’m exausted lol
That said, Engage is still probably my favorite FE on the Switch. I just wish it incorporated downtime better instead of kind of ditching it
EDIT: Adding to this, I don’t think 3H did the downtime perfectly as well. It took way too long, support conversations were long as hell (sometimes I would sit to play before bed and only could afford to see some support conversations before I really needed to sleep). I appreciate a lot being able to just jump on a skirmish on Engage and play a battle before I have do to something else
My experience with the FEH franchise only started after the release of FEH, and I believe that’s the case for a lot of the new players introduced to this franchise through that mobile game. So I only got the chance to play the FE titles developed for Switch
3 houses made me spend 800 on the game, along with three hopes. The story and character design were just that good. It also motivated me to continue playing the mobile version of the franchise, FEH for a few more years after finishing the switch game.
Especially after I play games with outstanding stories persona 5 royal, Red dead 2 or FF IX/X and a lot more, the bar for the quality of the game story to me is extremely high.
With that being said, Engage is one of the worst game experience with all the half baked nostalgia-based fan service factors I’ve got and made me drop it even after pre purchasing all DLCs while not playing even half of the game or any DLC. I played FEH for 5 years due to that nostalgia-based fan service but I never got that dissatisfaction with the game like how I do with Engage. I’ve also considered stopping my support for the franchise altogether if this is the future direction of the game.
Honestly I just need them to put Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn as a bundle on the E-Shop so I can willingly go into debt to play those games again