Bond fragments are a resource that can be used to create Bond rings, engrave weapons, and increase the bond between you and the Emblems. They’ll also gain new attacks, defensive skills, and passive abilities that are all vaguely Marth-themed.In Fire Emblem Engage, you gain bond fragments by completing a variety of activities. Increasing the bond between a character and Marth, for example, will unlock proficiency with swords, allowing that character to move into sword-centric classes. By “bonding” with different Emblem Rings (whether by wearing them in battle or through a useful activity in the Somniel), characters can inherit the skills of the ring’s associated character, each of whom is a character from the franchise’s past. The cycle of vulnerabilities adds yet another consideration to each move you make.Įngage’s biggest departure from previous games may be in how these characters actually master new weapons, classes, and skills. That same swordsman can break any of my soldiers using axes. Pre- Three Houses, Fire Emblem games used a rock, paper, scissors system for weapons, and it returns here: Alfred, a crown prince who begins the game with strong spear skills, can prevent enemy sword wielders from counterattacking, for instance.

It’s an absolute joy to send a strong armored unit (in this case Louis, a royal bodyguard) into a group of bandits before covering him at a distance with a lightning bolt from a mage (Clanne, a powerful sorcerer who began as a lowly peon), and finishing off the remainders with cavalry, archers, and skilled sword masters. Maps in the first eight chapters are varied, with rivers, castle ramparts, siege equipment, and fog of war creating compelling obstacles for you to solve and exploit.

( I’m also reminded of last year’s Cult of the Lamb.)Īs lacking as Engage is on the social side, it soars in its turn-based battles. The overall loop actually feels more like Fire Emblem games used to, before Three Houses shook things up. If Three Houses drew inspiration from Persona’s calendar-focused and character-oriented gameplay loop, Engage feels more like a management sim in which you’re returning to base to perform menial chores and maintenance before the action kicks in again. So, no, you won’t spend your time at the Somniel getting to know a small cast of characters intimately - instead, you’ll be micromanaging your fighters’ skills, gathering cooking ingredients, doing pushups to gain buffs during the next skirmish, and adopting a veritable zoo of barnyard animals to grant you supplies. By the time Chapter 8 ended, I was already defaulting to the same dozen characters for most fights, consistently leaving the redundant eight or so in reserve.Įngage’s social elements are less Persona and more Cult of the Lamb Three Houses gave you a concrete group of students to instruct, train, and fall in love with throughout your campaign, while Engage returns to the traditional formula of recruiting new soldiers as you traverse the world map. Occasionally, the “support rank” between two characters has improved from a “C” rating to a “B,” promising proximity buffs in subsequent missions.Įngage’s intermittent social elements are cursory, less concerned with character development than in how these interactions will manifest in the next fight. I’ve dined with some teammates, exercised with others, and gifted my allies a variety of items I’ve found lying around our HQ. Throughout the first eight chapters (the chunk I’m allowed to talk about here), I’ve spent a great deal of time at the Somniel, this game’s base of operations.

That’s not to say there aren’t any social elements in Engage. Whereas the 2019 epic dove headfirst into relationship simulation between turn-based battles, the upcoming Engage is almost entirely focused on the militaristic side of things. If Fire Emblem: Three Houses was a zig, Fire Emblem Engage is the resulting zag.

Fire emblem engage reddit