LogFAQs > #971370991

My review:

Hoo boy does this make a lot of mistakes. The bond scenes we get with the Emblems are mostly trite wastes of time (though some are fun), since they can't really develop characters from past games. The Somniel, Engage's replacement for 3H's monastery, is a lot smaller and more optional, but for what it is it's too big and most of the activities there feel like wastes of time too - add all that stuff to a menu and make the Somniel half as big and it'll be greatly improved. The cast and story are not strong, weaker than most FEs I've played (especially the cast). The game has a lot more "cinematic" scenes than previous FEs, but this mostly just makes them slower, and there are way too many shots that just zoom in on Alear's face. The art's kinda ugly for a lot of characters, particularly Alear and Corrin (she's so round!). They could've fixed this since you can customize your characters' appearance, but that doesn't let you change hair color and it's only active in very limited areas. Grinding supports takes way longer than any other recent FE for some bizarre reason.

But I'll be damned if the game isn't fun as hell. Almost every single map in the game is interesting. There was never a time I was annoyed by a bad gameplay gimmick, and a lot of them made me think. The rewind mechanic from 3H is back but heavily expanded with a full 10 uses, so if you play it smart you'll never suffer from being blindsided. Most of the Paralogues in this game are with the Emblems, and while they're basically nothing storywise, they bring back a notable map from each of their games. It's a cool way to do it, and all those maps are interesting, since it's not just the exact same map, there are some modifications, and of course the maps play extremely differently here (I would say Micaiah's map is too easy though, considering the air of despair the original had). Being able to abuse new gameplay gimmicks to destroy the maps is a blast, but most of them don't feel too easy despite that. I've seen people say that one of the strengths of Engage is that it makes you feel like an overpowered god, then challenges you anyway.

Maybe the strongest aspect of the game are when it combines gameplay and story in some of the maps. Chapter 10/11 were absolutely amazing, and some later chapters have similarly cool gimmicks. I love when it feels like I'm desperately trying to accomplish something impossible, and the game's great at delivering that feeling. The Emblems in general are executed extremely well in this respect. Getting a new Emblem is always super hype in the story because of the great new power you get, and all of them make sense and fit the character from the original game well (or most of them do, at least). It's great when you fight bosses that have Emblem powers too, so you can get a taste of your own medicine/a preview of what a new one will be like.

The story and characters also get better as it goes along. I kinda feel like each country has a better cast than the last (to some extent - I like Etie a lot), with the earliest ones being the most bland, which extends to their supports. Though the later ones can still be lame, most of them at least try to have flavor to them. The story actually pulls off some of its emotional beats, too. There's a series of three chapters near the end that feel like they're going to be a fetch questy waste of time "you have defeated everyone but the final boss, but you must now get the three objects to reach the final boss!" type stuff. However, each of those missions has a great emotional hook to it, and there's some story gimmicks that make for very interesting gameplay. Some of the twists are still cheesy, but most of them work pretty well regardless. The game's blessedly free of performance issues (as it should be), and the music can be downright awesome (chapter 10's track was my favorite, IIRC). The music sometimes changes within maps too, which is great and dramatic.

Overall, the flaws still bother me (a better story and cast would have this as my #1 or #2 FE, rather than #4 or #5), but the great parts are SO good. IS has shown they can have better casts (tempted to say literally every post-6 game has a better cast), and better stories. A future game that keeps similar mechanics with a better cast would be great, so long as they don't make it even more "cinematic."