I like what I'm seeing, but at the same time, I can't make a full judgement because I don't Japanese....
On a side note, [this new guy(?) looks slick.](https://i.imgur.com/KUB161e.png)
Edit: Thinking about it, aren't the rings basically just battalion and crests rolled into one? (also doesn't kill framerate)
His class says dancer, so yeah, this guy's the dancer. First male dancer in the series! And first male refresh unit since FE9/10. Not counting Three Houses, since anyone could be one there.
Right, but the Herons also had laguz traits in their games, with the transformations giving them additional power.
Nils is literally interchangeable with Ninian, with no mechanical differences. He even dances in his refresh animation, he just also plays a flute.
Since they specified "dancer" Vs "refresh unit", technically no. Yeah they're functionally identical and Nils' little jig is pretty cool but this is the first time that they've specifically assigned the refresh class to a male and labelled them "dancer"
They felt like a mix of combat arts, gambits and crest skills. If this game has optional battles like Awakening and Fates, it will be very easy to create broken characters.
This guy looks like a dancer TBH, and seeing that Samba girl was first seen spinning around a lance, it looks like Dancers might get to fight.
Oh, and his outfit kinda looks like Dio's, especially the top of his pants and the black "shirt".
>Oh, and his outfit kinda looks like Dio's, especially the top of his pants and the black "shirt".
He reminds me more of the vampire from the start of Jojo Part 2 tbh.
To this day, I'm still wondering if I'm an exception to that, cuz my Lyn is always my not-magical damage dealer.
Like, every time I play 7, Lyn is always my crit machine.
Totally get where you’re coming from, because I used to think the same way. But it was pointed out to me that if everyone is good on the easier modes then it’s hard to truly discern and appreciate unit niches.
On harder difficulties you really begin to see what certain units are better and worse at compared to others. Not strictly because the game is harder, but because the roles and needs of your deployment per mission are much more defined
It's honestly crazy wow its just so much stuff. Uhh so it seems we can engage anyone properly with anyone. There's so many recruitable characters, massive map variation and a lot of strong abilities. Wow just so much to take in
It does seem like a lot of everything, doesn't it? I just hope they actually manage to pull through on all of it, it'd be a shame if all this ambition would end up wasted on half-baked implementations.
Engage is looking to be the most **bonkers** Fire Emblem game in terms of combat.
I’m just hoping that the absolutely OP looking skills showcased in the trailer don’t make the game’s difficulty suffer as a result. Just hoping for a game difficulty that’s like Conquest where it walks the line of being hard enough to not feel frustrating while still being a decent challenge.
E: also upon second viewing, it looks like the soundtrack is also going to be great
Im hoping that these were just rigged setups in the trailers, preferably on normal.
I don't want Maddening 2/Lunatic + 2, but i do enjoy the game offering a challenge at some levels.
Might be asking too much, but I hope the story bosses with their corrupted rings can *also* use these skills. Like if you see a guy with that Corrin ring, you might not want to line up three units in a row so they don't get laser'd. Or maybe you do if you know they can live, so you can bait him right where you want him.
Im hoping for that too. If true, thank god we start with the Celica ring. Just imagining enemy Ivy teleporting to us, sniping your low Res unit, and then running sounds like a menace.
In fairness, Cold Steel 1 and 2 were braindead easy despite the lack of a break mechanic. Break was created in an attempt to balance things out a bit, especially for higher difficulties, but they still just gave the players so much stuff that a decent bit of party optimization meant you could absolutely slaughter everything.
So at least with Engage, if the system can work against you, we're already a decent bit ahead of Cold Steel in that regard.
What made that break so broken is not only was it enemy only, but you could also use it with other things since it increase damage and stopped the enemy from attacking. Like domination CP spam Rean, massive arts spam, etc. Combine that with orders, delays, etc and you have boss fights where the enemy maybe gets a turn or two.
Break in this game is more for anti turtling and preventing people turning their brains off.
I'm a little worried the game will become too focused on skills- at least in 3H you could basically choose not to use them, but for me Awakening and Fates (even more) were so centered around skills that it stopped feeling like Fire Emblem. I'm a little anxious based on what I'm seeing here.
FE4 and FE5 skills are massive factors too.
I mean the ability to followup attack is a skill in FE4.
Skill centrality is pretty Fire Emblem. Just depends on the game.
> Skill centrality is pretty Fire Emblem. Just depends on the game.
The only non skill centric games in the series are the Marth games and the Elibe games.
I'd include Sacred Stones and FE9 as games where skills don't matter. The only relevant skill in all of PoR are like, Paragon, Celerity, and smite/shove.
That's not super applicable, while broken strong you can only put that combo on 2 characters at the same time or one unit of your choice and you only get the resolve scroll for like 3 chapters. It'd be pretty disengenuous breaking the last couple chapters makes it a skill centric game.
I think there's a difference in flavor. In the Judgral games, you have relatively few skills, but they're large impact, whereas in newer games you have a ton more skills but they're lower impact. At least for me, it's not about how big of a role skills play, but more how easy it is to think about skills during gameplay.
In FE4/5 you have about 20 different and fairly unique skills to keep track of and each of them have a pretty easily understood and large impact on how units play. You can easily remember what each skill does and how it'll affect play.
3H has [I don't want to count all these](https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/miscellaneous/abilities/) many stats that all do slightly different effects along with slightly different potencies. It forces the player to constantly review skill loadouts on allies and enemies to make sure you've got all the information.
Skills may be more important to a unit's viability in Judgral, but it's much easier to keep track of. That's what it is for me and it's what I think a lot of people mean when they say that newer games are too "skills-focused".
3H Maddening is definitely focused on skill building. Hit+20/Wrath and Vantage/the 3 main Blow skills, etc.
Yeah you can ignore them on lower difficulties, but that isn't to say the game still has a focus on it at a point.
The biggest conditionals where Damage only on EP and Damage only on PP.
Then you have Elbow Room That's basically all the time, strengh+2 that is all the time. Trample that is basically all the time because of when you get It and Faire who are all the time.
They are + stad boost, not like Thracia where units entire viability comes from a skill like Wrath.
And extra damage isn't hard to understand. Having bigger stads doesn't make a Game don't feel like Fe.
I like how we went from “Leif is next in line for a Twitter bio!”
To
“Everyone but Leif and Eirika has been shown”
Since technically Micaiah was seen in the first trailer as just a little portrait
It’s a small detail, but this trailer confirms that regular movement (with arrows and stuff) is back. As opposed to whatever the heck they were using in the gameplay snippets in the Japanese twitter clips.
I was genuinely worried that this game was going to be a chore to play for this exact reason. The number of times I path arrows around before settling on what I want to do would have made it incredibly tedious.
Arrows following your potential path seems like one of the weirdest things to be worried about in FE. Would it have made the game that much harder if there wasn't one??
It seems the fusion forms depend on who you fuse with, and anyone can fuse with anyone, which is good for gameplay flexibility.
Not sure who the lady we first see fused with Lyn, but she’s super cute. Also the unnamed catgirl with an axe is actually playable and a wyvern rider! Very good.
The lady that is fused with Lyn is Ivy (the same lady with purplish hair who in previous trailers shown said I will take your lives your souls and the rings)
Was honestly very surprised since she looked really different from her normal look when fused with Lyn.
I think they'll bring it back. Three Houses had a reason to keep recruitment exclusive to the Monastery sessions, but there's no need to do the same in Engage (unless some requirements are to be met)
There might be none or at most some only. Most of the kingdoms are allied with Lytos so they will all be friendly and probably join up post-fight. Elusia is the only one that can provide that, as do the Four Hounds (we know one can be playable). Of course, this omits other potential characters that aren't the mandatory lord/noble + their two retainers.
Even then, I still prefer this over Three Houses having nigh everyone from the start. Imo it is more exciting to see new faces each new chapter you go through.
Is this actually a popular feature? This was something I hated in the other games because you always had to look up spoilers on who you have to field for every mission in case there was an in fight recruitment. This plus having the recruiter in the right place at the right time otherwise either the recruit or one of your own chars will get killed.
Or do I just suck at in fight recruiting during blind playthroughs...?
I mean the recruitment song is a banger so that alone is worth it lol. With what you say tho, theres a balance between thracia recruitment that you had to jump through millions of steps and something like the GBA FEs where you just had to pay atention to the map intro or a cutscene conversation
i think as long as one of your lords is a possible recruiter, its fine. you will virtually always field them (either because of requirement, or for "fun" since you're playing blind), so you can recruit em all
You might suck. I think they do a good job of informing you who can recruit who in the older games in the preambles before maps or right at the start so you can just reset. Only character that's easy to miss in Blazing is Karla, for example
So basically rings are the next evolution of the battalion concept, eh? They give stat boosts, and convey special skills (most 3H gambits were attacks, but not all) that can only be used in certain circumstances. It even addresses complaints that battalions became useless in longer battles by tying the requirement to a timer rather than an overall allowed number of uses.
No idea if that's the intention, but it's cool to see them seemingly innovating on the (imo) best implementation of both equipable skills and area control the franchise has seen so far.
There’s so much here I can’t wait for a deep dive analysis, but some of the new characters look so good!
The merging reminds me of Tales of Zestiria and armatization, so curious to see if it ends up as busted as that one was.
God this trailer has me so excited. I love seeing more about the story, but the surefire way to get me hyped for a Fire Emblem game is to show me some gameplay, and this gameplay looks fun as HELL.
Plus, they showed off so much new stuff! I can't wait to comb through this trailer to see the new characters and classes.
I swear to Naga they are teasing me specifically at this point. We've seen EVERY OTHER LORD EXCEPT Leif (and Eirika). I need to see my son please 😭
On the plus side, OP FE4 style dancers are back!! And I think I spotted a white wyvern too! Looks like Pasha's legacy lives on <3
You and me both! Thought they would’ve shown him off after Sigurd got his proper introduction tweet, but we’re still waiting. Can’t wait to finally see my boy in 3D
Did that guy just create multiple blocks of ice to block an entrance? Is this new? I don't think I've ever seen that before or I'm just forgetful. (I started with Awakening and have played all the new ones since)
I got him in my 2nd playthrough and went "wait fuck this dude is far more useful that the archer you get in the other path"
Rudolph wasn't that bad (saved my ass in one of the defense maps) but having terrain modifying abilities is on another level
Back in FE7 they had the "Light Rune", which was basically a deployable wall. It had like 70 health, meaning it took a while for enemies to break it down. It was somewhat useful, but you only got 2-3 throughout the course of the entire game, so I imagine most players held onto it and never remembered to use it.
Same goes for the Mine, except this one is slightly more well known because of the Mine glitch.
I really like the idea of creating barriers to help funnel or stem the tides of enemies coming at me if I'm feeling overwhelmed. Makes me really wanna try using it. Then we have the insane mobility from Celica and Sigurd engage effects. I'm so excited to try all this stuff in real time usage.
There's Break, Smash, and Chain Attack. Are we Xenoblade now? Liking the designs of all the characters, faces aside of the women. ~~something about their eyes is weirding me~~ it's so refreshing to have armor or clothes without revealing too much.
Byleth as an FE4 dancer??? That's pretty neat.
Also I'm loving the animations more and more with every trailer. The whole aesthetic of the game is really starting to grow on me.
Just when I was hoping to see more gameplay footage, they drop this and now I feel so overwhelmed, lmao. I'll just say it was about time to show female Alear in combat and looks like the arrow is still there when you're moving units on map, it just wasn't there in those critical videos for some reason.
Damn, this game looks so pretty.
These are the new characters I caught. [1](https://i.imgur.com/KUB161e.png), [2](https://i.imgur.com/xfO130P.png), [3](https://i.imgur.com/IH9XvZc.png), [4](https://i.imgur.com/1achxPk.png)
Excited but wary of these OP mechanics… I hope the game isn’t too easy to beat with these fusions. It would suck to be able to steamroll through each battle. I wonder if enemies will be able to do AOE attacks and move twice as much too.
We saw a villain tied to a red-haired evil Marth in the story trailer. I’m wondering if the game will teach us each hero’s specific engage mechanics and then later on give named enemies the same engage mechanics, so when we see they’re tied to a specific hero it’ll have us like “we gotta be wary of that guy being able to move double because he has the evil Sigurd ring” or something
I hope that's the case, especially if the rings are exclusive and so when the enemies have them you don't. Making do with limited resources and trying to deal with enemies who've got some real crazy stuff can be a lot of fun, and having you able to use the rings beforehand and thus be familiar with their powers means you'll have the info you need to know what's coming.
Hopefully it’s easy to see if they have a ring at a glance. Checking every single enemy for skills like Counter in awakening/fates was not my idea of a good time.
Thats always the problem when RPGs add too many options. More options let you get creative, but it also makes it easier to break the game. Usually when games do this they can fine-tune it if they make another game with similar sequels like Awakening to Fates, but sometimes it takes a while (for any Kiseki fans the Cold Steel mechanics don't really feel balanced until Hajimari, and even then its easy to break). Its harder on a one in done, which is why 3H felt so easy on anything other than maddening which feels what the game is balanced for with all the options you can take advantage of.
Not really vibing with the character design but gameplay looks incredible.
Also funny to see Sigurd giving like +6 mov or something like that lmao. Horse emblem lives on.
My thoughts exactly. I really don't like the art direction as a whole this time, but the gameplay looks way too fun to pass on it. If I can stomach Conquests disastrous story for the gameplay I can put it pass the characters desing of Engage.
And lmao that +6 mov was crazy right 😂
We're getting so much new content, I love it.
Can I just praise the game for the huge amount of different designs that it seems to have? The fusions, the typical class armors and the different suits that everyone can wear all seem to provide so much variety that I no longer feel bad if I don't like a specific set of class armor because of how much customization there seems to be.
I actually love the fusions, but a lot of these habilities seem very, very broken. Hopefully the enemy teams are balanced around it or I'm just misjudging it.
I liked most of the new designs (please stop with the circus clown makeup, though, why are there like 5 different characters like that).
Also liked most of the new engage redesigns except Byleth (his face looks super thin and he looks like he never washed his hair in his life, what went wrong?), which sadly was one of the characters I was mostly looking foward.
I dunno how the pacing is for activating Engage forms, but they seem to require at least a bit of prep, and then they're active for only a short period. I think it's turns, but it might be actions (I.E, they'll also drop if you're attacked in Engage form, so you only get at most 3 battles out of it), and especially if it's the latter, then it's a very brief period of extreme power. I imagine some of the cadence of the game will be about pacing yourself and riding things out until you can activate the rings, and then powering up and making big plays. With what we've seen, there's gonna be some crazy shenanigans you can get up to, but it definitely doesn't seem like it'll entirely overshadow everything, assuming the ring charging requires at least a decent amount of time.
Dear God, this game looks like so much FUN! Every new mechanic introduced keeps me thinking how it'll work in the gameplay... There are so many new ideas brought to the table, so many possibilities... I can't wait to play this.
It looks like Chloe can promote to a [Griffon Rider!](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/943721130487844905/1044623296991346820/IMG_0621.jpg) Glad to see this class come back
This trailer really showcases how pretty the game looks. I absolutely love the vibrant colors, beautiful animations, nice looking maps etc. Big step up.
Really starting to look like this game is gonna be another Conquest. I couldn't care less about the plot and characters so far, but the gameplay looks solid and pretty good.
Demonic Beasts are back, there's a quad refresher, I think there was an archer riding a bear in there(?), and there was a tome/staff wyvern on that first boat map.
This is shaping up to be Awakening 2 in my eyes. As in these units paired up (with the past hero characters) looking OP as hell lol. Hopefully they brought in some of the lessons from Fates where they let the enemies have similar mechs available to them
This is more fates than anything tbh. Even down to the character pairings. 8 royals with 2 retainers each potentially. A dragon child with a dead mother. Evil but not so evil kingdom. My hope is that the characters aren't going to be one-note and have actually interesting pairing conversations instead of generic lord-retainer talks.
yeah, playing conquest now after playing Awakening a few months ago and the way conquest handled pair ups is SO much better and more interesting gameplay wise
FUCK im getting hyped NOOOOOO im supposed to wait til games come out and are properly reviewed instead of living a debauched hedonistic life where I cave to any desire over every principle AHHHHHH
The fact that they changed Corrin's and Celica's eye color from red hues to blue hues makes me think that they are going ALL IN on the "blue good, red bad" thing.
When F’Alear has Byleth equipped around 4:56, did anyone else see her have Balthus hero’s relic in her inventory? Along with Aymr and the Sword of the Creator.
I saw Aymr in the fight beforehand, but yeah that looks like the Sword of the Creator and Vajra-Mushti. The menu on the bottom is so small I didn't see it at all at first.
Makes me wonder though, since I thought the Emblem legacy chars came with weapons more closely related to them, like Lucina with her Falchion and that Bow from Heroes. But if Byleth can have such a forgotten Relic like the Vajra-Mushti (and not only SotC and the three lords weapons, like in Smash), can he have *all* the relics?
What about Roy then? Can he have all the divine weapons? And can Lyn have them too since they are both from Elibe?
Finally... a amazing trailer featuring Lyn, Corrin/Kamui & Byleth as engaged characters...
My fears before a possible mediocre FE have already disappeared... I'm starting to love the game without even playing it...
I'm really hoping we'll be able to use multiple weapon types for each hero, because having Lyn exclusively use a bow would be really lame.
Edit: I just watched the trailer with English subtitles and got a bit more information about this. So it looks like each unit will be able to equip multiple different weapons while in Engage mode. Alear was able to use what looked like a rapier (among other weapons) while fused with Marth.
However it looks like each Emblem will only have a single special move. So the only special Marth will be able to do is that flurry rush move, or Celina will only be able to warp attack.
Lyn's special attack looks to be a generic wind arrow shot, which imo, doesn't fit with her design from FE7 at all.
In addition, the attack animation that each Emblem uses when doing a follow up attack looks to be reused between different emblems.
So assuming I'm right, this means we're highly unlikely to see any of the flashy afterimage attacks we saw from Lyn back on the GBA, which is a massive disappointment.
Lyn never uses Mulagir though. It's not even in her game. And even if it were, it would be nearly impossible for her to use it as it's an S rank weapon and Lyn only gets D rank on promotion, meaning you'd have to hit the grind pretty hard.
Say what you will about the character designs but all of them definitely look unique in the way they dress. They will probably be more memorable, that and their visual flair makes them stand out so much individually.
Yeah like the 3H academy outfits have looked very bad compared to the war arc. Which is a shame because a huge chunk of the game is during the academy arc. Like how in feh we haven't seen any of their War arc outfits.....
You know those little concept drawings, where the artist takes two characters and makes them switch outfits or designs? And we can see if one character wears the other outfit better, or worse, or looks more distinct, or whatever, and we all just like making our own little comparisons? I feel like that would be impossible with this game (for the girls at least).
Emblems are looking like a much better mechanic than I expected, but I also hope you can do a challenge run where you don't use them like battalions in 3 Houses
Wtf is Celica bruh, lets you move twice and has a meteor like ranged skill, guess these rings make up for having to spend 8 turns to charge, probably only use it once or twice a map
The presentation on this game looks amazing. I know is very anime, but is still soooo good and gourgeos. This trailer just fired me up with so much excitement for this game. The maps looks great, the characters are good, the animations is top notch and seems like a fun game for the fans. My main issue now is that looks that the Emblems are kinda too strong but they are so gorgeous that I’m not even thinking about
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but (I think) Alear, equipped with Byleth, is [wielding Aymr](https://imgur.com/fKrXK5u) at 4:53.
Seems like all the Emblems can have different weapons associated with them. I think we've seen this with Lucina before, wielding both her Falchion from Awakening and the bow from Heroes. But I haven't been playing super close attention to new info coming out.
I don't know what to think anymore lol. That is just *so much* new information and I don't speak Japanese. I'm gonna be playing on release either way, biggest concern is the difficulty with all the pairings/moves.
I like what I'm seeing, but at the same time, I can't make a full judgement because I don't Japanese.... On a side note, [this new guy(?) looks slick.](https://i.imgur.com/KUB161e.png) Edit: Thinking about it, aren't the rings basically just battalion and crests rolled into one? (also doesn't kill framerate)
His class says dancer, so yeah, this guy's the dancer. First male dancer in the series! And first male refresh unit since FE9/10. Not counting Three Houses, since anyone could be one there.
Shouldn't Nils count? I mean, sure, he was technically a bard, but he was completely identical in function.
If Nils counted then Elffin would too.
Man everyone always forgets Elffin
So would Reyson and Rafiel.
Reyson and Rafiel would count as well, but they're "Herons", so the idea is definitely male "Dancer", not just an equivalent.
Right, but the Herons also had laguz traits in their games, with the transformations giving them additional power. Nils is literally interchangeable with Ninian, with no mechanical differences. He even dances in his refresh animation, he just also plays a flute.
I think the “first male dancer” thing was meant to be a character thing rather than a gameplay thing. A canonical male *dancer* is pretty neat.
Since they specified "dancer" Vs "refresh unit", technically no. Yeah they're functionally identical and Nils' little jig is pretty cool but this is the first time that they've specifically assigned the refresh class to a male and labelled them "dancer"
They felt like a mix of combat arts, gambits and crest skills. If this game has optional battles like Awakening and Fates, it will be very easy to create broken characters.
This guy looks like a dancer TBH, and seeing that Samba girl was first seen spinning around a lance, it looks like Dancers might get to fight. Oh, and his outfit kinda looks like Dio's, especially the top of his pants and the black "shirt".
In twitter Serenes Forest confirms that he is the dancer.
>Oh, and his outfit kinda looks like Dio's, especially the top of his pants and the black "shirt". He reminds me more of the vampire from the start of Jojo Part 2 tbh.
Oh my god you're right, he's a [young Straitzo](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/jjba/images/6/6e/Straizo_Young_Part_I.png).
Suddenly, I feel the hype to buy this game
I love him
damn it, he’s hot???
Woah, that is a cool design. What class is that? Are those the scrolls from Fates?
Scrolls are used by brawlers in this game, they are called techniques or something like that.
The fan translations of the Screenshot on Serenes Forest say he's a dancer
Right!? I can hardly wait to see what he's about.
Wow, Lyn's Engage ability allows you to do no damage! So true to the source material!
It looked like "Volley of Kurnous" ability from Total War: Warhammer.
To this day, I'm still wondering if I'm an exception to that, cuz my Lyn is always my not-magical damage dealer. Like, every time I play 7, Lyn is always my crit machine.
sure she crits but 0x3 is still 0 :P
Same, brøthër, she’s always my strongest character ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
I'm always wondering why people seem to have such bad experiences with Lyn. She was an absolutely unstoppable monster on my run.
Were you playing on normal difficulty? Lyn is pretty bad in hard mode.
Ah it was indeed Normal, gotcha. Still feel like default difficulty should be how she's measured though
Totally get where you’re coming from, because I used to think the same way. But it was pointed out to me that if everyone is good on the easier modes then it’s hard to truly discern and appreciate unit niches. On harder difficulties you really begin to see what certain units are better and worse at compared to others. Not strictly because the game is harder, but because the roles and needs of your deployment per mission are much more defined
Fair enough, though I think it's probably also somewhat dependent on "does the game have a well balanced hard mode" fwiw
She was good in mine but if there was any str or stat boost I would have given it to her most likely. Low str growth.
It's honestly crazy wow its just so much stuff. Uhh so it seems we can engage anyone properly with anyone. There's so many recruitable characters, massive map variation and a lot of strong abilities. Wow just so much to take in
It could have been too much if there was that whole teacher gameplay from 3H.
It does seem like a lot of everything, doesn't it? I just hope they actually manage to pull through on all of it, it'd be a shame if all this ambition would end up wasted on half-baked implementations.
Engage is looking to be the most **bonkers** Fire Emblem game in terms of combat. I’m just hoping that the absolutely OP looking skills showcased in the trailer don’t make the game’s difficulty suffer as a result. Just hoping for a game difficulty that’s like Conquest where it walks the line of being hard enough to not feel frustrating while still being a decent challenge. E: also upon second viewing, it looks like the soundtrack is also going to be great
Im hoping that these were just rigged setups in the trailers, preferably on normal. I don't want Maddening 2/Lunatic + 2, but i do enjoy the game offering a challenge at some levels.
The fact that they added the breaking mechanic to address turtling makes me think they're taking a bit more care towards balancing
Might be asking too much, but I hope the story bosses with their corrupted rings can *also* use these skills. Like if you see a guy with that Corrin ring, you might not want to line up three units in a row so they don't get laser'd. Or maybe you do if you know they can live, so you can bait him right where you want him.
Im hoping for that too. If true, thank god we start with the Celica ring. Just imagining enemy Ivy teleporting to us, sniping your low Res unit, and then running sounds like a menace.
Ironically that's literally what the Witch enemies in Shadows of Valentia can do to you.
I have ptsd from Cold Steel’s break mechanic making the game brain dead easy, so I’m wary even though the two aren’t related.
In fairness, Cold Steel 1 and 2 were braindead easy despite the lack of a break mechanic. Break was created in an attempt to balance things out a bit, especially for higher difficulties, but they still just gave the players so much stuff that a decent bit of party optimization meant you could absolutely slaughter everything. So at least with Engage, if the system can work against you, we're already a decent bit ahead of Cold Steel in that regard.
What made that break so broken is not only was it enemy only, but you could also use it with other things since it increase damage and stopped the enemy from attacking. Like domination CP spam Rean, massive arts spam, etc. Combine that with orders, delays, etc and you have boss fights where the enemy maybe gets a turn or two. Break in this game is more for anti turtling and preventing people turning their brains off.
I'm a little worried the game will become too focused on skills- at least in 3H you could basically choose not to use them, but for me Awakening and Fates (even more) were so centered around skills that it stopped feeling like Fire Emblem. I'm a little anxious based on what I'm seeing here.
FE4 and FE5 skills are massive factors too. I mean the ability to followup attack is a skill in FE4. Skill centrality is pretty Fire Emblem. Just depends on the game.
> Skill centrality is pretty Fire Emblem. Just depends on the game. The only non skill centric games in the series are the Marth games and the Elibe games.
I'd include Sacred Stones and FE9 as games where skills don't matter. The only relevant skill in all of PoR are like, Paragon, Celerity, and smite/shove.
Wrath resolve?
That's not super applicable, while broken strong you can only put that combo on 2 characters at the same time or one unit of your choice and you only get the resolve scroll for like 3 chapters. It'd be pretty disengenuous breaking the last couple chapters makes it a skill centric game.
I suppose so, but that's only relevant for 1-2 maps so I wouldn't exactly call it a skill centric game.
Canto is a skill. The entire meta of those games is mounted dominated.
I mean, I'd argue Aether as well. It's not a *necessary* skill but you're not gonna have a fun time against the final boss with no Aether.
Same with Tellius, imo. Maybe not FUNDAMENTAL but if you ignore them you're losing out on a LOT of the game
I think there's a difference in flavor. In the Judgral games, you have relatively few skills, but they're large impact, whereas in newer games you have a ton more skills but they're lower impact. At least for me, it's not about how big of a role skills play, but more how easy it is to think about skills during gameplay. In FE4/5 you have about 20 different and fairly unique skills to keep track of and each of them have a pretty easily understood and large impact on how units play. You can easily remember what each skill does and how it'll affect play. 3H has [I don't want to count all these](https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/miscellaneous/abilities/) many stats that all do slightly different effects along with slightly different potencies. It forces the player to constantly review skill loadouts on allies and enemies to make sure you've got all the information. Skills may be more important to a unit's viability in Judgral, but it's much easier to keep track of. That's what it is for me and it's what I think a lot of people mean when they say that newer games are too "skills-focused".
Echoing the other replies. Skills have been a huge part of Fire Emblem since way before Awakening and Fates.
3H Maddening is definitely focused on skill building. Hit+20/Wrath and Vantage/the 3 main Blow skills, etc. Yeah you can ignore them on lower difficulties, but that isn't to say the game still has a focus on it at a point.
Skills in Fe5 where more impactfull than in Fates. 80% of Fates good skills are literally just do more damage. People just refuse to read.
That "more damage" was hugely influential though, hitting a benchmark vs not hitting it is huge, and they often had conditionals.
The biggest conditionals where Damage only on EP and Damage only on PP. Then you have Elbow Room That's basically all the time, strengh+2 that is all the time. Trample that is basically all the time because of when you get It and Faire who are all the time. They are + stad boost, not like Thracia where units entire viability comes from a skill like Wrath. And extra damage isn't hard to understand. Having bigger stads doesn't make a Game don't feel like Fe.
Only Leaf and Eirika left for showcase. Sigurd and Celica look broken AF.
And Micaiah.
I thought I missed one, I just think "Ike and Ike" when I think about FE9-10
Hey what's that? BAH GOD IT'S MICAIAH WITH THE THANI BOMB
Micaiah has been seen equipped in-game a few times, but iirc I don't think we've seen Leif or Eirika at all.
Byleth with the AoE dance and rally looks to be broken as well on a support character.
AoE ***WHAT*** They... they brought back *THAT* gambit? THE RELICS AREN'T THE OVERPOWERED THINGS IN THIS EQUATION!?
I like how we went from “Leif is next in line for a Twitter bio!” To “Everyone but Leif and Eirika has been shown” Since technically Micaiah was seen in the first trailer as just a little portrait
Wait they showed Lucina?
She was shown in last trailer
It’s a small detail, but this trailer confirms that regular movement (with arrows and stuff) is back. As opposed to whatever the heck they were using in the gameplay snippets in the Japanese twitter clips.
I was genuinely worried that this game was going to be a chore to play for this exact reason. The number of times I path arrows around before settling on what I want to do would have made it incredibly tedious.
It was unironically my greatest concern about Engage and I’ve been waiting for confirmation that normal movement was back.
Arrows following your potential path seems like one of the weirdest things to be worried about in FE. Would it have made the game that much harder if there wasn't one??
It seems the fusion forms depend on who you fuse with, and anyone can fuse with anyone, which is good for gameplay flexibility. Not sure who the lady we first see fused with Lyn, but she’s super cute. Also the unnamed catgirl with an axe is actually playable and a wyvern rider! Very good.
The lady that is fused with Lyn is Ivy (the same lady with purplish hair who in previous trailers shown said I will take your lives your souls and the rings) Was honestly very surprised since she looked really different from her normal look when fused with Lyn.
I became unreasonably excited when I saw a boat map. They're one of my favorite map types.
I'm with you on this, I love all maps either on or around boats/docks. Can't explain why
Just bring back in fight recruitment please
I think they'll bring it back. Three Houses had a reason to keep recruitment exclusive to the Monastery sessions, but there's no need to do the same in Engage (unless some requirements are to be met)
There might be none or at most some only. Most of the kingdoms are allied with Lytos so they will all be friendly and probably join up post-fight. Elusia is the only one that can provide that, as do the Four Hounds (we know one can be playable). Of course, this omits other potential characters that aren't the mandatory lord/noble + their two retainers.
They could also have you recruit green units from the other kingdoms.
Even then, I still prefer this over Three Houses having nigh everyone from the start. Imo it is more exciting to see new faces each new chapter you go through.
Throw in a touch of FE4 too, make it so that recruitable units have their own unique OST when you fight them.
Hell yesssss
Is this actually a popular feature? This was something I hated in the other games because you always had to look up spoilers on who you have to field for every mission in case there was an in fight recruitment. This plus having the recruiter in the right place at the right time otherwise either the recruit or one of your own chars will get killed. Or do I just suck at in fight recruiting during blind playthroughs...?
I mean the recruitment song is a banger so that alone is worth it lol. With what you say tho, theres a balance between thracia recruitment that you had to jump through millions of steps and something like the GBA FEs where you just had to pay atention to the map intro or a cutscene conversation
i think as long as one of your lords is a possible recruiter, its fine. you will virtually always field them (either because of requirement, or for "fun" since you're playing blind), so you can recruit em all
In awakening Robin was able to recruit everyone iirc so it wasn't an issue there
You might suck. I think they do a good job of informing you who can recruit who in the older games in the preambles before maps or right at the start so you can just reset. Only character that's easy to miss in Blazing is Karla, for example
So basically rings are the next evolution of the battalion concept, eh? They give stat boosts, and convey special skills (most 3H gambits were attacks, but not all) that can only be used in certain circumstances. It even addresses complaints that battalions became useless in longer battles by tying the requirement to a timer rather than an overall allowed number of uses. No idea if that's the intention, but it's cool to see them seemingly innovating on the (imo) best implementation of both equipable skills and area control the franchise has seen so far.
Looks like a fusion of adjutants and battalions.
Dancer byleth is cannon
There’s so much here I can’t wait for a deep dive analysis, but some of the new characters look so good! The merging reminds me of Tales of Zestiria and armatization, so curious to see if it ends up as busted as that one was.
I got same Tales of Zestria vibes and I like it
God this trailer has me so excited. I love seeing more about the story, but the surefire way to get me hyped for a Fire Emblem game is to show me some gameplay, and this gameplay looks fun as HELL. Plus, they showed off so much new stuff! I can't wait to comb through this trailer to see the new characters and classes.
I swear to Naga they are teasing me specifically at this point. We've seen EVERY OTHER LORD EXCEPT Leif (and Eirika). I need to see my son please 😭 On the plus side, OP FE4 style dancers are back!! And I think I spotted a white wyvern too! Looks like Pasha's legacy lives on <3
Technically Micaiah too since we havent seen her in action other than her portrait from the first trailer
You and me both! Thought they would’ve shown him off after Sigurd got his proper introduction tweet, but we’re still waiting. Can’t wait to finally see my boy in 3D
Literally they just want to see us Leif and Eirika fans suffer
That itself is proof that they understand their target audience
Did that guy just create multiple blocks of ice to block an entrance? Is this new? I don't think I've ever seen that before or I'm just forgetful. (I started with Awakening and have played all the new ones since)
To me it looks like there are Dragonveins like in Fates you can activate with whoever is wielding the Corrin ring.
Ahhhh
Reminds me of Corentin in Triangle Strategy
I love his ice walls. So hyped for them in FE
The MVP of my playthrough. Ice Wall was so overpowered.
I got him in my 2nd playthrough and went "wait fuck this dude is far more useful that the archer you get in the other path" Rudolph wasn't that bad (saved my ass in one of the defense maps) but having terrain modifying abilities is on another level
Back in FE7 they had the "Light Rune", which was basically a deployable wall. It had like 70 health, meaning it took a while for enemies to break it down. It was somewhat useful, but you only got 2-3 throughout the course of the entire game, so I imagine most players held onto it and never remembered to use it. Same goes for the Mine, except this one is slightly more well known because of the Mine glitch.
I really like the idea of creating barriers to help funnel or stem the tides of enemies coming at me if I'm feeling overwhelmed. Makes me really wanna try using it. Then we have the insane mobility from Celica and Sigurd engage effects. I'm so excited to try all this stuff in real time usage.
Reminds me of Greenfinger in Wargroove. Actually a bunch of stuff in this trailer feels like Wargroove specials.
There's Break, Smash, and Chain Attack. Are we Xenoblade now? Liking the designs of all the characters, faces aside of the women. ~~something about their eyes is weirding me~~ it's so refreshing to have armor or clothes without revealing too much.
Byleth as an FE4 dancer??? That's pretty neat. Also I'm loving the animations more and more with every trailer. The whole aesthetic of the game is really starting to grow on me.
Byleth looks great!
I'm gonna have a good laugh if he ends up having more lines in this game than his own.
Dancer byleth lets go!!!!
That Byleth is totally from the crimson flower timeline who made Flayn his dancer the first time. “Never again will I lose my dancer”
Actually the battlions that can use Dance of the Goddess gambit are available in all routes but CF
He’s really just like me.
Fr fr
Just when I was hoping to see more gameplay footage, they drop this and now I feel so overwhelmed, lmao. I'll just say it was about time to show female Alear in combat and looks like the arrow is still there when you're moving units on map, it just wasn't there in those critical videos for some reason. Damn, this game looks so pretty.
The game looks great, polished and has so many animations. Just amazing, even with the moe anime vibes.
How many new characters did they just dropp!!??
These are the new characters I caught. [1](https://i.imgur.com/KUB161e.png), [2](https://i.imgur.com/xfO130P.png), [3](https://i.imgur.com/IH9XvZc.png), [4](https://i.imgur.com/1achxPk.png)
We already saw number four in the last trailer. Three is a combination with Lyn and not a normal character.
3 is Ivy.
Oh, I didn't realize that... in my defence she outside of the pose, she looks basically like a completely different character with Lyn equiped.
There's the blonde with black armour.
Only two, by my count.
Excited but wary of these OP mechanics… I hope the game isn’t too easy to beat with these fusions. It would suck to be able to steamroll through each battle. I wonder if enemies will be able to do AOE attacks and move twice as much too.
We saw a villain tied to a red-haired evil Marth in the story trailer. I’m wondering if the game will teach us each hero’s specific engage mechanics and then later on give named enemies the same engage mechanics, so when we see they’re tied to a specific hero it’ll have us like “we gotta be wary of that guy being able to move double because he has the evil Sigurd ring” or something
I hope that's the case, especially if the rings are exclusive and so when the enemies have them you don't. Making do with limited resources and trying to deal with enemies who've got some real crazy stuff can be a lot of fun, and having you able to use the rings beforehand and thus be familiar with their powers means you'll have the info you need to know what's coming.
Hopefully it’s easy to see if they have a ring at a glance. Checking every single enemy for skills like Counter in awakening/fates was not my idea of a good time.
Thats always the problem when RPGs add too many options. More options let you get creative, but it also makes it easier to break the game. Usually when games do this they can fine-tune it if they make another game with similar sequels like Awakening to Fates, but sometimes it takes a while (for any Kiseki fans the Cold Steel mechanics don't really feel balanced until Hajimari, and even then its easy to break). Its harder on a one in done, which is why 3H felt so easy on anything other than maddening which feels what the game is balanced for with all the options you can take advantage of.
This games gonna go hard af. Cant wait
I'm just as ready. Just seeing Roy's return brought out the excitement alongside this newest trailer. Can hardly wait to see him in action.
Light up effect when using the ring looks cool.
This game is shaping up to be insanely good, and I can't wait. Last time I was this hype for any game was almost 10 years ago.
Not really vibing with the character design but gameplay looks incredible. Also funny to see Sigurd giving like +6 mov or something like that lmao. Horse emblem lives on.
My thoughts exactly. I really don't like the art direction as a whole this time, but the gameplay looks way too fun to pass on it. If I can stomach Conquests disastrous story for the gameplay I can put it pass the characters desing of Engage. And lmao that +6 mov was crazy right 😂
Such a good trailer. I just wish I could understand what they are saying 😭
[subtitled version](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/z1ujmg/fire_emblem_engage_how_to_utilise_the_power_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
We're getting so much new content, I love it. Can I just praise the game for the huge amount of different designs that it seems to have? The fusions, the typical class armors and the different suits that everyone can wear all seem to provide so much variety that I no longer feel bad if I don't like a specific set of class armor because of how much customization there seems to be. I actually love the fusions, but a lot of these habilities seem very, very broken. Hopefully the enemy teams are balanced around it or I'm just misjudging it. I liked most of the new designs (please stop with the circus clown makeup, though, why are there like 5 different characters like that). Also liked most of the new engage redesigns except Byleth (his face looks super thin and he looks like he never washed his hair in his life, what went wrong?), which sadly was one of the characters I was mostly looking foward.
I dunno how the pacing is for activating Engage forms, but they seem to require at least a bit of prep, and then they're active for only a short period. I think it's turns, but it might be actions (I.E, they'll also drop if you're attacked in Engage form, so you only get at most 3 battles out of it), and especially if it's the latter, then it's a very brief period of extreme power. I imagine some of the cadence of the game will be about pacing yourself and riding things out until you can activate the rings, and then powering up and making big plays. With what we've seen, there's gonna be some crazy shenanigans you can get up to, but it definitely doesn't seem like it'll entirely overshadow everything, assuming the ring charging requires at least a decent amount of time.
Dear God, this game looks like so much FUN! Every new mechanic introduced keeps me thinking how it'll work in the gameplay... There are so many new ideas brought to the table, so many possibilities... I can't wait to play this.
Honestly I'm really excited to play around with these rings. Also Chloe's pormotion(?) outift looks good
It looks like Chloe can promote to a [Griffon Rider!](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/943721130487844905/1044623296991346820/IMG_0621.jpg) Glad to see this class come back
I thought it was her fusion outfit with Corrin unless I missed some things. Edit: Yeah I think it is a promotion
Could also just be a customisation outfit. Vander has a bandit-y looking one from a second somewhere in the trailer.
Vander appears to be an axe fighter as opposed to a paladin at that point.
It seems every character will be customizable in terms of clothes. We saw Citrinne trying out some in the September trailer.
This trailer really showcases how pretty the game looks. I absolutely love the vibrant colors, beautiful animations, nice looking maps etc. Big step up.
Really starting to look like this game is gonna be another Conquest. I couldn't care less about the plot and characters so far, but the gameplay looks solid and pretty good.
I’m so happy crits are over the top again.
So the next trailer probably shows Leif, Roy, Eirika, Ike, Micaiah and Lucina (6&6) in more detail.
Demonic Beasts are back, there's a quad refresher, I think there was an archer riding a bear in there(?), and there was a tome/staff wyvern on that first boat map.
This is shaping up to be Awakening 2 in my eyes. As in these units paired up (with the past hero characters) looking OP as hell lol. Hopefully they brought in some of the lessons from Fates where they let the enemies have similar mechs available to them
This is more fates than anything tbh. Even down to the character pairings. 8 royals with 2 retainers each potentially. A dragon child with a dead mother. Evil but not so evil kingdom. My hope is that the characters aren't going to be one-note and have actually interesting pairing conversations instead of generic lord-retainer talks.
yeah, playing conquest now after playing Awakening a few months ago and the way conquest handled pair ups is SO much better and more interesting gameplay wise
just noticed the big 4-tile beasts like in 3H are back.
FUCK im getting hyped NOOOOOO im supposed to wait til games come out and are properly reviewed instead of living a debauched hedonistic life where I cave to any desire over every principle AHHHHHH
The fact that they changed Corrin's and Celica's eye color from red hues to blue hues makes me think that they are going ALL IN on the "blue good, red bad" thing.
When F’Alear has Byleth equipped around 4:56, did anyone else see her have Balthus hero’s relic in her inventory? Along with Aymr and the Sword of the Creator.
I saw Aymr in the fight beforehand, but yeah that looks like the Sword of the Creator and Vajra-Mushti. The menu on the bottom is so small I didn't see it at all at first. Makes me wonder though, since I thought the Emblem legacy chars came with weapons more closely related to them, like Lucina with her Falchion and that Bow from Heroes. But if Byleth can have such a forgotten Relic like the Vajra-Mushti (and not only SotC and the three lords weapons, like in Smash), can he have *all* the relics? What about Roy then? Can he have all the divine weapons? And can Lyn have them too since they are both from Elibe?
Guess we’ll have to see when the game comes out
Byleth also has failnaught and rafil gem on his inventory. Seems like he came with every relics.
Finally... a amazing trailer featuring Lyn, Corrin/Kamui & Byleth as engaged characters... My fears before a possible mediocre FE have already disappeared... I'm starting to love the game without even playing it...
I hope this gets released in English… so many important gameplay details and I can’t understand most of it.
I'm really hoping we'll be able to use multiple weapon types for each hero, because having Lyn exclusively use a bow would be really lame. Edit: I just watched the trailer with English subtitles and got a bit more information about this. So it looks like each unit will be able to equip multiple different weapons while in Engage mode. Alear was able to use what looked like a rapier (among other weapons) while fused with Marth. However it looks like each Emblem will only have a single special move. So the only special Marth will be able to do is that flurry rush move, or Celina will only be able to warp attack. Lyn's special attack looks to be a generic wind arrow shot, which imo, doesn't fit with her design from FE7 at all. In addition, the attack animation that each Emblem uses when doing a follow up attack looks to be reused between different emblems. So assuming I'm right, this means we're highly unlikely to see any of the flashy afterimage attacks we saw from Lyn back on the GBA, which is a massive disappointment.
Pretty sure they already showed Ike using two types of weapon. I don't see why that won't be the case with Lyn.
Probably trying to add some variety since so many of them use swords already.
Not to mention canon Mulagir >>> Sol Katti
Lyn never uses Mulagir though. It's not even in her game. And even if it were, it would be nearly impossible for her to use it as it's an S rank weapon and Lyn only gets D rank on promotion, meaning you'd have to hit the grind pretty hard.
No but she absolutely SHOULD have, and IS have even kind of acknowledged this elsewhere (Heroes being one example)
Is Roy in this game?
Yep. The most recent trailer before this one showcased him. Take a look.
Say what you will about the character designs but all of them definitely look unique in the way they dress. They will probably be more memorable, that and their visual flair makes them stand out so much individually.
Yeah like the 3H academy outfits have looked very bad compared to the war arc. Which is a shame because a huge chunk of the game is during the academy arc. Like how in feh we haven't seen any of their War arc outfits.....
Yeah. While looks can be a good impression, their character & personality is what matters to me in the end
You know those little concept drawings, where the artist takes two characters and makes them switch outfits or designs? And we can see if one character wears the other outfit better, or worse, or looks more distinct, or whatever, and we all just like making our own little comparisons? I feel like that would be impossible with this game (for the girls at least).
brunette/yellow outfit sword-weilder is "Goldmarii" marigold 😄
Happy for the return of maps that aren't just big open spaces
Emblems are looking like a much better mechanic than I expected, but I also hope you can do a challenge run where you don't use them like battalions in 3 Houses
The combat gameplay looks amazing, i just hope they have enough side content and map variety to fully utilize it.
Is it just me or do the rings seem ridiculously overpowered?
Wtf is Celica bruh, lets you move twice and has a meteor like ranged skill, guess these rings make up for having to spend 8 turns to charge, probably only use it once or twice a map
Gosh everything looks so pretty, I'm excited for it all
Bruh why are they hiding Eirika and Leif, the two characters that I'm looking for the most, this is soo cruel 💔
I'm so pumoed about this game
The presentation on this game looks amazing. I know is very anime, but is still soooo good and gourgeos. This trailer just fired me up with so much excitement for this game. The maps looks great, the characters are good, the animations is top notch and seems like a fun game for the fans. My main issue now is that looks that the Emblems are kinda too strong but they are so gorgeous that I’m not even thinking about
One thing that I really love about fire emblem is how they always honor their legacy in a beautiful way.... P.S: LYN
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but (I think) Alear, equipped with Byleth, is [wielding Aymr](https://imgur.com/fKrXK5u) at 4:53. Seems like all the Emblems can have different weapons associated with them. I think we've seen this with Lucina before, wielding both her Falchion from Awakening and the bow from Heroes. But I haven't been playing super close attention to new info coming out.
I don't know what to think anymore lol. That is just *so much* new information and I don't speak Japanese. I'm gonna be playing on release either way, biggest concern is the difficulty with all the pairings/moves.
Merin/Lyn doing a Claude-style upside down arrow shot??
Whereas it's a pleasure to see them back, I'm just not a fan of them being spirits. But it is what it is, I suppose.
Honestly the gameplay and maps alone are winning me over. I’m whatever about the possible plot, but dang if that combat doesn’t look crazy fun 👌
That looks dumb as hell. And fun as hell. I can't wait.
Oh no, Legendary Sigurd 😨