Fire Emblem Engage is three houses turned into 11, for better or worse – preview

previous tasks Fire Emblem Engagement is not to be envied.The Fire Emblem franchise has had a meteoric rise—a fortune-telling success first wake, which is considered the final bow of the series.Then a successful mobile game and three houses Take the collection to new heights. Can Engage raise the bar even further?

Apparently, both developer Intelligent Systems and publisher Nintendo have plans to do just that. The plan is mostly to treat Fire Emblem’s past as a blockbuster saga, mixing old and new with reckless abandon. The results are weird and may divide old fans, but are sure to please those who fell in love with the three houses.

Over the holidays, I’ve been able to play a ton of Fire Emblem Engage for a review, which you’ll be reading in a few weeks. But, right now, I can talk to you about the earliest chapters of the game.

Engage’s core power is provided in the title, and it’s taken from the game’s new combat gimmick: the Engage system. The system basically allows players to summon iconic heroes from past Fire Emblem games to assist them in battle as ghostly ghosts. When choosing to “interact” with that character, the emblem (which is all becoming quite literal) allows their bound character and emblem to temporarily fuse for a massive power-up.

Really, it’s just another mechanic; another component of a rather delicious mille-feuille in any well-crafted strategy RPG. In practice, however, it’s not only that, but the funnest thing about it: providing fan service to a bunch of games that the vast majority of Western audiences don’t actually remember. The priority is people we know (those who made their name in the West through Smash and more recently), but it’s still fun. It’s not an anniversary year—Fire Emblem turned 30 in 2020—but in a way, Fire Emblem Engage feels like one of those anniversary celebrations.

but it is not the truth. It has fan service elements, but what it’s really most interested in is doubling down on everything Three Houses has done, which means paying more attention to a side of Fire Emblem that’s only really been around for the past few years.

Fire Emblem has traditionally started as a full-blown strategy role-playing game, but with Awakening, more and more game elements (like Persona and dating sims) began to seep into the series. Many of these have always been there to some degree, but what’s starting to change is the focus of the game. Three Houses feels like almost two games rolled into one — a light-hearted dating and friendship sim RPG about a sort of anime sword-and-magic Hogwarts, and a crunchy tactical RPG with a switch to Brutal difficulty.

This has brought in a ton of new fans, but some diehards of the strategy RPG feel that this Fire Emblem characterization is diluting the series. Engage will not cure these diseases if you are one of these people. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad.In fact, if you like three houses, it’s not just A little bit More of the same: it seems to be forming so much the same.

In fact, with just one touch, it definitely feels like the scales are tipping again. While the game begins with intense combat as it offers a tutorial on the core Fire Emblem system and a host of new additions, it doesn’t take long to find yourself on Somniel, a sort of floating island base the game operates on. Here you can bond with characters, raise pets, go fishing–all sorts of things.

Sure, you’ll still go back and fight each chapter, but much of the design feels like it’s about letting the character interactions blossom. Instead of going straight back to base at the end of each mission, you can walk around and chat with characters you’ve fought alongside and NPCs from your world region – a little debriefing before heading home. In these areas, you can often find and adopt new pets, or find much-needed materials. So the combat is still there, but the downtime feels slightly extended–even if some of that downtime is spent navigating through menus, tweaking weapons, skills, and other RPG systems, and preparing for the next fight.

Badges are also fully integrated. They’re not just ghosts with no personality. You’ll actually get to know characters like Marth and Celica, and there, advancing your relationship might provide fan service about those characters and their histories, but also increase your options in combat. Meanwhile, you’ll also have to deal with real-life, non-ghost relationships with a brand new cast of Fire Emblem heroes, and all that.

Basically, there’s a lot to do. It’s a kitchen sink approach, which means it feels like an incredibly intensive experience – and I’m definitely worried it might overwhelm some people. In particular, those who take issue with the Fire Emblem direction of some elements of Three Houses will no doubt find the game’s colorful character designs, style, and tone a little jarring. For others, however, this might be the tightest and most satisfying Fire Emblem game yet.

The first few hours showcased a game capable of a wider range than its already packed-to-burste predecessors–but we’ll have to see how it evolves over the next few hours and chapters. For this, you must wait for our review.