Board 8 > Fire Emblem Engage Review Topic.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.metacritic.com/game/switch/fire-emblem-engage?ref=hp

82 through 63 reviews.

Gamespot with the hot take!

GameSpot: 70
While Fire Emblem's combat mechanics have never been better, Engage's story and structure lack the ambition of its predecessors. The result is a predictable and straightforward romp that's carried by its fantastic presentation and engaging combat. And although the Emblem Rings add a deep and satisfying wrinkle to the battles, the heroes contained within them are one-dimensional apparitions that leave a lot to be desired. If youre looking for a deep tactical RPG with some colorful characters, it will certainly scratch that itch. But beyond that, Fire Emblem Engage feels like a safe, straightforward entry in Nintendos long-running series.

I'm not sure there's any series where the reviews are as useless as they are for Fire Emblem. It could get 100s or 40s across the board and I wouldn't trust it to mean a single thing about the game's quality.

Wasn't GameSpot the one that dinged Radiant Dawn for not having Mii support?

Mewtwo59 posted...

Wasn't GameSpot the one that dinged Radiant Dawn for not having Mii support?

Yes, and we all know how important Miis ended up being.

I find it wild to see the Mii support thing coming up since it was now over fifteen years ago, an entirely different reviewer, the reviewer hasnt worked at Gamespot for years, and Mii support was just one point in a long list if features demonstrating the overall criticism that the game did not take advantage of the Wiis features in any way. You may as well complain about 8.8.

Not an especially hot take here either. That seems to be the consensus it is just a matter of how that affects things for you.

Yeah, that review is exactly what I expected from the game based on what I've seen so far.

LightningStrikes posted...

Mii support was just one point in a long list if features demonstrating the overall criticism that the game did not take advantage of the Wiis features in any way.

Sure but the other complaints were dumb too. Also IIRC the person said they barely even played the game. Weird thing to defend.

Pretty sure the Radiant Dawn review was the one where people sussed out from their comments that they didn't get past the tutorial segments, or at least did not get to base management in chapter 8 since they complained it wasn't in there.

Been a loooooong time though.

Radiant Dawn reviews are also skewed by the localization screwing up the difficulty selection.

Yeah, I think they said something like it causes a game over if anyone dies, which means the reviewer didn't get past the first few chapters.

But as far as this game goes, again I just gotta say as I always do that aggregate scores are worthless in the gaming industry. The lowest review of this game that's dragging it down a couple points basically makes the entire point of his review that he wanted Three Houses 2 instead, and is pissed that this wasn't it. And maybe that's also something you want, and will agree! But if you're someone who DOESN'T want that and you just see the 5 and don't look into it, or just see it as part of an aggregation, you've screwed yourself over.

The exact opposite is true as well. You could be someone who desperately wants Three Houses 2, sees a bunch of 9s and 10s and gets excited, and then you aren't as pleased as them!

The only value of Metacritic as a site is to give you easy access to links to the reviews themselves. That big fat number is totally worthless to anyone capable of critical thinking.

So what are the biggest changes for this one compared to the other modern FE games? I havent really heard too much about that, but sounded like some new classes at least and no shipping or something like that?

I'll let you know in a day or so!

Obviously there's lots of prerelease out there, but I don't wanna go off other people's experiences. Most obvious change from 3H though is no longer spending up to an hour doing Persona stuff between missions.

Which, to be clear, I actually really liked, but I can certainly understand why a lot of people wouldn't.

Engage seems to have exactly as much shipping as 3H did, but I could be misinterpreting some of the impressions.

You bought an Engage, didn't you?

The funny thing is my two favorite FE games were conquest and 3 houses

It feels like this is the middle ground nobody wants. I don't really want social aspects that don't matter

My point was not to defend the review but to point out that its a ridiculous thing to bring up and taken out of context anyway. And yeah, not using the Wiis features is a valid criticism when taken in the context of the game not being technically impressive, which it wasnt. Like a lot of Wii games of that era it was a jumped up Gamecube game.

However, having actually read the review before posting, the claims around it are just a load of rubbish. For reference here is the review:

https://www.gamespot.com/amp-reviews/fire-emblem-radiant-dawn-review/1900-6182826/

Kenri posted...

Sure but the other complaints were dumb too. Also IIRC the person said they barely even played the game. Weird thing to defend.

They didnt. The review clearly refers to the late game and references the entire game. All evidence is they finished it.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Pretty sure the Radiant Dawn review was the one where people sussed out from their comments that they didn't get past the tutorial segments, or at least did not get to base management in chapter 8 since they complained it wasn't in there.

Been a loooooong time though.

Radiant Dawn reviews are also skewed by the localization screwing up the difficulty selection.

There is no reference to base management at all in the review. I think this might be misunderstanding a quote about support conversations thinking its about base conversations but its not. Also while I agree with the last point generally this reviewer seems to have tried it on easy as well.

Mewtwo59 posted...

Yeah, I think they said something like it causes a game over if anyone dies, which means the reviewer didn't get past the first few chapters.

Not at all, what they said was:

unless you like the idea of starting entire battles over again upward of seven times until you can complete them without losing precious allies.

which is of course referring to the true Fire Emblem tradition of restarting when you lose someone, not implying that its a game over if anyone dies.

All claims that the reviewer had barely played the game are entirely made up. They seem to have played through the whole thing (which I believe is Gamespot policy) and from actually reading the review definitely made it to the late game. I dont agree with parts of the review but its fair overall, and I do sympathise with the reviewer. It must be very frustrating to play through a 50 hour game and write a review under crunch only to have a load of people who havent read your review or in many cases played the game yet accuse you of not doing your job.

The review is totally fine. Some fans are just toxic.

Radiant Dawn didn't deserve great reviews anyway

LightningStrikes posted...

They didnt. The review clearly refers to the late game and references the entire game. All evidence is they finished it.

The line I remember is fully not here so either they changed it, it was a different review, or I'm remembering wrong. I remember pretty clearly a line like "if even one ally dies it's an instant game over" but it's possible I'm just remembering wrong, so I apologize.

No you're right, there was definitely a different review. Couldn't tell you which one it was, though, we're talking nearly two decades here.

No worries!

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Radiant Dawn didn't deserve great reviews anyway

Yes I feel this is the actual truth of the matter. I love that they finished up the story they started in PoR as well as the epic scale of it, but Radiant Dawn was both a significant step down from that game and the fourth Fire Emblem game in four years. Add to that the difficulty mess and it was never going to review that well. It has a 78 on Metacritic and that sounds about right to me.

Hmmm where did RD fall on my list...

3. Radiant Dawn

<_<

LightningStrikes posted...

Radiant Dawn was both a significant step down from that game and the fourth Fire Emblem game in four years.

what a good time to be an FE fan holy shit. idyllic. i wish my complaints about the series today were "they release too many games and they're not quite as good as FE9"

RD a big improvement of PoR imo

Some things i really enjoyed, others i didn't. I think for a first experience RD > PoR, but PoR always felt better on replays.

I think I'm also on the RD > PoR boat, but I really wish RD put in more effort to let you use whatever units you want. Even in hard games like FE6 the terrible characters are usable, but it's practically impossible to use someone like Vika in RD.

You gotta approach FE10 like a different type of beast.

It's much more about the game setting up very intentionally limited chapters with specific units for consideration. Strategy first, RPG second, at least IMO.

But yeah boy do I wish I could use Vika lol.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

It's much more about the game setting up very intentionally limited chapters with specific units for consideration. Strategy first, RPG second, at least IMO.

I'm cool with this approach and in some senses even prefer it, but I think it would work better if characters with poor availability got a level boost when they rejoined. Some would still be pretty unusable because they're bad even when they join, but it would at least mean you can take e.g. Leonardo to the final chapters without having to put in incredible effort.

I guess a modern remake might just fix it by including a way to grind like FE8 or Awakening, though I'd prefer a solution that is... not that.

I much prefer the fe games that don't have the padding of grinding