Editing Fire Emblem (section)

=== Fire Emblem Engage ===
''Fire Emblem Engage'' (''ファイアーエムブレム エンゲージ''; literally ''Fire Emblem Engage'', captain obvious) is the seventeenth mainline installment in the franchise, and sadly, it's right back to being the most divisive installment in the franchise since ''Fates''. Predicting which camp you fall into this game is VERY easy; if you like ''Fire Emblem'' for the gameplay, this is easily the best installment since ''New Mystery of the Emblem'' and ''Conquest'' with all the massive changes and lion's share of cool mechanics and gameplay features... but if you play ''Fire Emblem'' for the story, this is one of the '''worst''' in the series. Hell, some people have even said by pretty large numbers that it's even ''worse'' than ''Fates's'' story, as ''Fates'' is a case of [[Dawn of War II|high potential, good characters and messy execution]], while ''Engage'' barely has anything to work off and just feels like a parody of ''Fire Emblem'' down to the extreme shallowness of the world, [[FAIL|an impressive feat given how Skub-tastic the former game was]]. To be fair, it may be by design; topping ''Three Houses'' was going to be a tough act that could've backfired hard, so they instead focused on being a gameplay-centric installment. But it sucks because the story of ''Engage'' has good ideas (such as the protagonist, Alear, actually being a Fell Dragon who was imbued with Divine Dragon blood, hence their multicolor hair; because their dad Sombron was [[The God-Emperor of Mankind|a fucking awful dad]] and his mother adopted him by virtue of being the first person to treat them like a person, this could've gone very interesting places, but alas...) but just really barely did anything with it. On the plus side, seeing many of the callbacks to the other Lords in the Emblems was very fun, and the game has several good characters (like Yunaka and Alfred), but good luck finding the right supports that expand on their characters so much. Also, Treehouse in their [[Bullshit|infinite wisdom]] overcorrected on the fact [[Loli|you can marry children in the Japanese version]] and that Alear is technically a minor by removing the ability to romance ''everyone'', which [[Skub|bringing up is liable to start several flame wars]]. By contrast, gameplay is exceptional; the Emblems feel as powerful as they should be and the Somniel is far better in general than even the Encampment in ''Three Hopes'', and while not right up to My Castle's level, it gets close. Gameplay is fun and snappy and the AI is actually very smart, even outright using [[Cheese|warp strats against you in one map]]. The game is also one of the best balanced save some weird quirks; the Jagen of this game actually falls off by the mid-point, Armors are not just good but downright critical to the early-game, and the resident Trainee is downright excellent, and the sheer customizability with the Emblems help make it very fun -- and given how hard the game can be, you'll need it. There's several issues, of course; reclassing returns in ''Awakening's'' format by lowering your stats and lowering your level to Level 1 when you reclass and forcing you to work your way up to that level again, Skirmishes for some bizarre reason doesn't scale to the chapter map you fight them on but your party level which makes training up units you've benched basically impossible, and while the majority of units are at least with some niche the Royals generally blow their retainers out of the water altogether and make justifying using them over the retainer units very difficult. Overall, just like ''Three Houses'' is as lopsided in the story department, ''Engage'' is lopsided in the gameplay department. That hasn't stopped a major contingent of fans protesting the game for not being ''Three Houses'', but it remains to be seen where this would lead the series, and in spite of such, the game ''IS'' good, so fans of the gameplay of ''Fire Emblem'' are bound to be pleased with this one.