“Engage” has the unenviable position of following up the best Fire Emblem game in the series. “Three Houses” was renowned for its deep storyline, memorable characters and replayability. “Engage” in the meanwhile, is a return to basics, celebrating the history of the franchise and sporting a cute Anime aesthetic. The strategy layer is excellent, introducing a twist on the Weapon Triangle as well as the engage mechanic that allows players to transform their units into super-soldiers. But the rest of “Engage” is a mess of lazy writing and time-wasting activities.

The protagonist is Alear, a female or male Divine Dragon, this world’s version of a god, who wakes up after 1000 years of slumber. The awakening coincides with the Fell Dragon’s return, whose goal is to destroy the world. Alear has to collect the 12 Emblem Rings which with their combined power can be used to defeat the Fell Dragon. There are a few twists such as the Fell Dragon having his own Emblem Rings at his disposal and some morally conflicted villains. But the gist is that the pretty Anime characters are the good guys and the characters with spiky clothes, surrounded in purple aura are the bad guys

Alear starts in possession of Emblem Marth who is the hero of the first Fire Emblem game with each subsequent emblem ring representing a hero from other past Fire Emblem games. Unless you are a super-fan, most of these heroes are unrecognizable. Half of the Fire Emblem games have either never received an official western release or sold in such limited quantities that the only practical way of playing the games is via emulation with fan translations. The developers completely missed a golden opportunity to share the backstories of past Fire Emblem heroes. Other than an optional paralogue chapter that references a memorable battle for that emblem, they are completely forgettable characters.

Speaking of characters, “Engage” has a quantity over quality issue. The game frontloads players with so many characters that by Chapter 8, players will have to start benching units. Each new character gets their time in the spotlight for one chapter and then gets promptly forgotten. Past Fire Emblem games would alleviate this issue with the use of bonding events, but “Engage” has too many of them. Instead of carefully crafted dialogues to learn more about the ancillary characters, they are all paper-thin conversations. Céline enjoys tea, so all of her events are about drinking tea. Etie likes working out, so all her conversations are about lifting heavy things and so on and so forth. Yes I’m aware that in Classic mode there is permadeath, so there needs to be a way to get fresh recruits, but the pace of recruits in “Engage” is so rapid that it only makes sense if you are losing a character every one to two chapters.

Players won’t be losing many characters in Classic mode especially since the Time Rewinding mechanic from “Three Houses” makes a return. “Engage” also includes the Weapon Triangle mechanic from other Fire Emblem games, where swords beat axes, axes beat lances and lances beat swords, but includes a twist. Initiating an attack on an enemy with an advantage breaks their guard, so the attacker doesn’t receive a counter-attack and enables the next attack to land without receiving a counter-attack. This tweak in the Weapon Triangle rewards aggressive plays. The last notable mechanic is the Engage system. Characters that are bonded with an Emblem ring, can engage at any time once the gauge is charged, transforming them into super soldiers and enabling them to use that Emblem’s signature abilities and weapons. Engage attacks are extremely gratifying to use and seem downright broken, such as Celica’s Warp Ragnarok attack that allows the player to warp to a distance space and nuke an enemy to oblivion or Sigurd’s Override attack that can vanquish multiple foes in a row. Unlike previous Fire Emblem games, the most challenging difficulty, Maddening, is quite balanced and fair due to these aforementioned mechanics.

After every battle, players have the opportunity to return to their homebase, the Somniel, a floating island in the sky. While past Fire Emblem games like “Three Houses” also included a homebase, the Somniel feels especially egregious because it conflicts with the overarching narrative and is a complete timesink. In the Somniel, Alear can bond with teammates and buy equipment to prepare for the next fight. But… Alear can also raise pets, do an exercise mini-game, go fishing and even polish the Emblem rings. These activities are not “just” for fun as the rewards however small are meaningful over the long term. Players who want to optimize their run are incentivized to do all of the activities. In the late game, there is almost a laundry list of things to do and to complete all of the Somniel activities would take around twenty minutes. “Three Houses” smartly limits the number of activities the player can do per battle, but “Engage” does not. The only thing limiting you in “Engage” is how much you value your own personal time.

The presentation of “Engage” is the most striking feature. On one hand, this is the most visually polished Fire Emblem game ever produced. The game runs at a silky smooth framerate with highly detailed characters and a clean neat art-style. On the other hand, this is the most colorful and Anime-like, Fire Emblem has ever been. The juxtaposition of cute Anime characters fighting in war-like scenarios is very jarring. The character design of Alear has been laughed at enough by the community, but other character designs are also quite bizarre such as Céline’s ballroom gown or Ivy’s fascinator (headpiece). The characters also skew young… like disturbingly young where only two characters have facial hair and only three characters appear to be older than twenty. To be fair this setting and art-style is not unique to “Engage” and numerous Anime games also have pulled off this same shtick, but Fire Emblem has traditionally featured more mature designs and militaristic outfits.

Fire Emblem Engage is a disappointing follow-up to “Three Houses”. On the bright side, the strategic gameplay is the best in the series with an amazing amount of depth in character customization ensuring numerous viable team compositions. But this amazing gameplay is paired with a bland story, lazy filler writing, and a contentious artistic design. In addition, the Somniel is a time-sink filled with simple mini-games. Outside of battles, I recommend skipping the cutscenes, because the game doesn’t value the player’s time and neither should you.