Nintendo
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I’m a few hours into Fire Emblem Engage and I’m a little disappointed that the story/dialogue is such hot garbage. (For the life of me I don’t know what they were thinking with the wooden NPC dialogue between chapters.) Especially when I actually like some of the character designs.
So far I’d say the reviews were pretty accurate when they said the gameplay is good but what’s around it is a bit of a …regression. I wish they’d just made this a linear Fire Emblem akin to the older games and decided to separate the types of Fire Emblem games, kind of like how Pokémon has both the main games and Arceus-type ones now. I’d be fine with a straightforward game like Engage seems to want to be and then keeping the Persona-lite gameplay for the next release.
So far I’d say the reviews were pretty accurate when they said the gameplay is good but what’s around it is a bit of a …regression. I wish they’d just made this a linear Fire Emblem akin to the older games and decided to separate the types of Fire Emblem games, kind of like how Pokémon has both the main games and Arceus-type ones now. I’d be fine with a straightforward game like Engage seems to want to be and then keeping the Persona-lite gameplay for the next release.
Fire Emblem Engage might have the best gameplay of the series while the story is one of the worst (yep, even the one in Fates was more interesting than this). I know this is meant to be a celebration of the series at large and has a ton of fan service but they could have found a way to integrate it in better ways. Also, I've heard that the game does not have a New Game+ and that is a huge no-no so I hope an update fixes that or that the DLC is good and meaty enough to solve that.
Serious question, do any of the Fire Emblem games really have a good story? I always enjoyed the gameplay, but the endless dialogue in between always feels like such a slog. Tired anime-tropes galore.
I might be misremembering because I was much younger when I played them, but Path of Radiance and the Gameboy Advance games all had stories that were decent or at least didn’t feel so over-the-top. I thought Awakening’s story was fine, too.
Even Three Houses at least had an interesting concept going on with the ability to choose a narrative. (And then the time change later on.)
Even Three Houses at least had an interesting concept going on with the ability to choose a narrative. (And then the time change later on.)
Fire Emblem has largely thrived by making the large scale war a vehicle for the character interactions through supports, which is where the writing really thrives. The GBA supports, particularly in the first Americanized entry, really flesh out the characters in unexpected ways, and I appreciate being able to decide who I learn more about based on who I find initially interesting.
In terms of the overarching story I'd say Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn have the strongest story but the latter is undermined by localization, some of the dialogue is wooden as hell but the weaponization of religion and His Dark Materials esque ending was quite inspired in my opinion.
I've heard Genealogy has an excellent story but it's yet to be localized. The reddit girlies are thinking the Three Houses team may be handling that remake/localization as basically none of the Three Houses team worked on Engage.
On a brighter note, the graphics in Engage look like a step up from Three Houses. It looks quite vibrant on the OLED screen. I can't help but wonder how much more detailed it could look with stronger hardware, but at least they got the character models and the basics of the environment looking pretty sharp.
Had a craving to play Rhythm Heaven so I dug out my 3DS to download Rhythm Heaven Megamix from the eshop. I find the game on the shop, turns out you can't add funds with a credit card. Ok, fine. There's an option to add funds with an eshop card. So I go over to Amazon and buy the cards. When I enter the redemption code I get an error that says "funds can no longer be added for the 3DS family of systems". ??????? Why the fuck did you give me the option to add funds then? Then I try to link my 3DS with my Nintendo account to redeem the funds online, but the system's character limit doesn't allow me to enter my full password even though it's a valid password I've used to login countless times.
I hate Nintendo.
I hate Nintendo.
They stopped allowing funds to be added directly via the 3DS last year.
They can only be purchased (until March) by linking the 3DS account with the Nintendo accounts.
They can only be purchased (until March) by linking the 3DS account with the Nintendo accounts.
I'm just before chapter 18 in Engage and I'm really enjoying it now. I settled into it once I progressed past the first 'act', where you learn the mechanics and systems and are then pushed to exploit them. I can see the game having a lot of replayability - the flow of it is a lot smoother than 3H without the tedious monastery sections - and they throw an absolute boatload of characters at you. The ring system is also really interesting once you get to grips with it and offers a ton of experimentation. I did cave on the DLC and both of them are really fun to play with; my Anna snagged the Tiki ring and has snowballed into a monster, surprisingly.
I'm playing Hard/Classic and I'd say the difficulty is a little under where I'd like, where Engaging with the Emblem Rings is superfluous for actually clearing through main chapters, though the paralogues have offered a good challenge. I'm really looking forward to going back through on Maddening and eating my words!
I'm playing Hard/Classic and I'd say the difficulty is a little under where I'd like, where Engaging with the Emblem Rings is superfluous for actually clearing through main chapters, though the paralogues have offered a good challenge. I'm really looking forward to going back through on Maddening and eating my words!
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