Current Events > Fire Emblem Engage: 4th Edition

(+) Yeah! (+)

daftpunk_mk5 posted...

I picked up three houses after not playing in a couple years. On chapter 12 now. Is it worth a second through or should I just move on to engage when I finish?

I could only stomach a single playthrough of Three Houses before the social stuff between chapters drove me crazy and I abandoned my second playthrough before even reaching the halfway mark. The game felt like an absolute chore to play and I couldn't take it anymore. If you enjoy that part of the game and are fine with doing that stuff, then sure, go for it. But I personally never want to touch Three Houses again as long as I live.

Three Houses is legit one of those games you're all set to replay then you remember THAT part and decide not to put yourself through that pain again .

3H has a bit more replayability due to the whole 4 paths thing, but I have to agree with Cal on how much of a chore it is to play. I did all 4 playthrough's consecutively and the whole ordeal took me like 200 hours so I was SO tired of the Monastery crap and the game itself. Personally I think you should at least do Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, and Crimson Flower for the sake of variety.

FWIW I still think 3H beats Engage in everything but gameplay and music(hot take on my part I know).

Gameplay is a pretty big leap. 3H was great because of Gambits and Combat Arts, latter being utterly superior to % procs. It also has the long weapon advantage chain, which is better than the classic weapon triangle that was always unbalanced as fuck, but Engage might've convinced me that having the triangle without any stat advantage is actually the way to go.

But gameplay-wise, Engage has... pretty much better everything else. Interesting jack of all trades type MC, rings that almost seem broken but end up being superior to Gambits in terms of just sheer funness and even strategy, better classes, better balanced weapons, better balanced enemies, less reliance on juggernauts, better maps, massively better narratives via gameplay (3H had... like one? In the battle of Eagle and Lion), better boss design, better stat design, better recruitment system, better out of ch systems.

Skills might be pretty similar between the two games though. I liked 3H skills in their own way, and I like Engage's very few skills system.

Engage even actually does a Jagen. 3H really highlights the problem with making your lord the Seth, rather than having a separate Jagen. All it results in is one character who can nearly solo the game.

Imo Engage has better supports, though when the supports are bad, they're really bad, compared to 3H which never got that bad I think. One thing 3H did better was that supports actually acknowledged the passage of time, though they were somewhat forced to. I also like how much easier it is to grow supports, but I don't mind it being like the old games where it's very difficult to get supports while the payoffs for them stat-wise was incredible.

Just mix the two teams. Let 3H team handle the entirety of story-telling, share the work on the supports, let the main team design the actual game but use Combat Arts instead of skill procs. How many games do we need to finally figure out Combat Arts is the only real way to do damaging skills?

Huh. So that's why she wears those chains

I honestly always forget to use gambits. And find most combat arts not worth the durability.

In Maddening, if you don't use them, some stuff is almost impossible. If you play on any other difficulty, you can go vanilla and not struggle much

Combat Arts aren't all good, but helm splitter or curve shots or any of the relic combat arts is literally straight up better than normally attacking in 90% of situations

Which 3DS Fire Emblem games are worth buying? I just bought a new 32GB SD Card for my 3DS and bought Awakening + the DLC. I've always wanted to play it. I was thinking of getting the rest before the eShop shuts down but are they worth it?

Conquest is great.
Birthright is okay.
Revelation is...playable. (Just skip the story in all three of these)
Shadows of Valentia is good but has pretty whatever maps.
Awakening is a trainwreck.

CQ is definitely the biggest one to grab, and I like SoV a lot despite its really mediocre map design.

Thanks. I'll get Conquest and Shadows as well and then I should be good.

Update on my girls-only second playthrough of Engage: I've beaten all of the prologues (including the newest DLC ones and the one for the pact ring) and I just beat Chapter 23. I'm still deciding on who to give the pact ring to. Also, since posting my character lineup back in post #7, I changed Lapis from a Great Knight to a Wyvern Knight (still using Swords and Axes) to deal with the annoying fliers in Chapter 23.

Calwings posted...

. I'm still deciding on who to give the pact ring to.

Do what I did and just give it to who in character Alear would give it to their kawaii imouto that extra dodge and crit rate will help her alot

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/11m0sld/maddening_fixed_growths/
Seems to be a bug where if you haven't beaten the game yet a new Maddening file will be on Random growths like Normal/Hard is but if you have beaten it before, including on Normal/Hard you can select the mode but it'll only be fixed for maddening until you beat that once.

I finished the game and now Im sad.

Time to play it a second time with a different team of characters. I started my second playthrough and have my team planned, but I haven't gone back since I started another game.

MJOLNRVII posted...

Time to play it a second time with a different team of characters. I started my second playthrough and have my team planned, but I haven't gone back since I started another game.

I want to but Im either going to replay Three Houses or start Awakening. Most likely Three Houses first. Im the kind of person who plans on changing my team up during replays but ends up using the exact same team again so I dont think that will work for me. Im also going to see if we end up getting NG+ when the final DLC drops. If not Ill end up starting over.

Engage should be played on Maddening. I've watched a few Hard mode playthroughs now and honestly, it's just juggernaut into the center for game. In Maddening, only dodge tanks get to be attacked by more than 4 units and survive. Or Armor units that aren't being attacked by magic units I suppose

https://twitter.com/TheBakaretsu/status/1624847634237120514
https://twitter.com/TheBakaretsu/status/1634630128343871496

This army is legit full of weirdos

I'm done with Chapter 25 now, only the final battle remains and I'm done with my second playthrough. I also thought for a while about who I wanted to give the pact ring to. I thought about giving it to Etie (she's been my strongest physical attacker), Anna (she's been my best mage), or Veyle (because she's the cutest and also yuri incest is hot as hell, don't judge me) but in the end I decided to give it to the cute country girl who carried my team for most of the way.

https://i.imgur.com/YkudI9z.jpg

Lapis became the surprising MVP of this run. As a Great Knight, she was my 3rd-strongest physical attacker (behind Etie and Panette) and my 2nd-strongest physical tank (behind Jade) while also having surprisingly decent resistance to deal with mages and decent enough speed to not get doubled by a lot of stuff. Plus, I had her using the 3H ring for the whole run, so Failnaught giving her a 3-range attacking option (which was Etie's niche early on) and that bow also being effective against dragons (so she could deal with those annoying corrupted wyrms) made her a godsend in the late-game chapters. Even after changing her to a Wyvern Knight for the last few chapters to help deal with fliers on that volcano level, she's still pretty bulky and now she's fast enough to sometimes double enemies too. Plus, she's really cute, and I enjoyed her supports with the other girls a lot, especially her and Etie.

After I finish this playthrough, I'll start on unlocking all of the supports in the game while we wait for the last DLC. I eventually want to do a third guys-only playthrough to balance out this girls-only one, but that won't be for a while.

Just bought all the DLC for Awakening, Fates and Shadows of Valentina. In order to buy the DLC for Valentina you need to pass the first chapter which only takes 45 minutes of game time. For Awakening I had to get to chapter 5 so because of that I'll be playing Awakening first since I'm already a few hours into the game. I've also decided to start playing Three Houses again as well. I was only going to play one game at a time but I'll be rotating between them both. Since these topics aren't as active as they used to I'll be chronicling my adventures here.

Calwings posted...

Lapis became the surprising MVP of this run.

That's how I felt about Lapis during my play through. I had a tough time deciding to give the ring to either Yunaka or Lapis but ultimately chose Yunaka because she was my true MVP of the game. But Lapis more than anyone else I could rely on to take on a group of enemies and not die. I don't know if it was because of Ike or her Killer Axe but she did a lot of crits in every battle. After I changed Anna to a Hero I started to like her but she was too one-dimensional. All she talked about was being a merchant. I felt she needed more depth. Speaking of Anna, are you able to answer me a question about her? How is she in this game and Birthright? I loaded up Birthright to check if I bought the DLC and Anna is there. Any thoughts yet for your all male run? Zelkov is one character I wanted to play but never got around to. If I did an all male run I would include him as one of my mains.

I feel like a dude only run might be tricky at first, but then chapter 11 will hit and you'll get Kagetsu, Zelkov, and then Pandero and it's smooth sailing after that.

Kagetsu is far and away the best physical unit in the game, especially once you get him out of Swordmaster. Pandero is the best magic unit in the game once you get him in Mage Knight. Zelkov's got really solid physical stats and growths kinda hidden behind the Thief class.

But real talk, it feels like they gave Kagetsu and Pandero their stats based on the fact that they were stuck in pretty low-tier classes and forgot that they could just be reclassed.

SomeLikeItHoth posted...

Speaking of Anna, are you able to answer me a question about her? How is she in this game and Birthright? I loaded up Birthright to check if I bought the DLC and Anna is there.

It's been a long time since I played Birthright and I barely remember most of the characters besides the royals, so I can't really help you there.

As for Engage, Anna in this game is kind of in a weird position. She starts out as an axe fighter, but her weak 15% natural strength growth (before adding the class growths) actually makes pure physical attacking classes a bad choice for her. On the other hand, she has a massive 50% natural magic growth, so changing her to a magic-using class like Sage, a mixed class like Mage Knight or Griffon Knight, or just giving her magic weapons like the Levin Sword and Radiant Bow is a better use of her stats than going purely physical. I benched her in my first playthrough, but in my second playthrough I made her a Sage (then changed to High Priest later on) and gave her Byleth's Emblem Ring, and she was basically the best magic attacker in my whole squad. Also, her personal skill is great for grinding money in the post-game, to the point where people turn her into a one-girl army that can sweep entire skirmishes by herself to abuse it.

To sum it up: She's a high investment but high payoff character. You have to baby her a bit in the beginning and class-change her to reach her full potential, but that full potential is really good.

SomeLikeItHoth posted...

Any thoughts yet for your all male run? Zelkov is one character I wanted to play but never got around to. If I did an all male run I would include him as one of my mains.

I know there are 19 recruitable male characters (including male Alear) for 14 endgame team slots, so that means 5 of them will be permanently benched. 3 of the early-game male characters (Clanne, Vander, and Jean) are characters who need babying or high investment to make them good, and I don't think I can handle dealing with more than one of them at a time, so 2 of those 3 will be among the 5 benchwarmers. I'll probably use Jean since he's the only healer the male side has to work with (outside of reclassing and the Micaiah ring) for a while. Aside from that, I haven't really given much thought on what other 3 I'll end up not using or what classes I'll put everyone in.

Compsognathus posted...

I feel like a dude only run might be tricky at first, but then chapter 11 will hit and you'll get Kagetsu, Zelkov, and then Pandero and it's smooth sailing after that.

I don't think the early-game will be as tough as in the girls-only run. The guys get Louis in chapter 4, plus Alfred, Diamant, and even Boucheron are pretty bulky too, so there's plenty of survivability. The girls don't get anyone notably bulky until Jade in chapter 9, so their best "tank" in the early game is either Yunaka dodge-tanking or using one of your 3 early-game Master/Second Seals to put Lapis in a bulkier class like Great Knight.

What I mentioned about the guys having fewer healers does kind of suck, but vulneraries and the Micaiah ring can remedy that until Pandreo comes along or you can start promoting/reclassing more characters.

tremain07 posted...

This army is legit full of weirdos

Facts. Most "woke" FE army so far and most if not all previous FE armies are pretty accepting and empathetic despite being jingoistic kill squads.

After many discussions and several people posting their experiments, the conclusion (for Maddening) is something like this:

Anna is maybe around the 4th or 5th best mage in the game. It takes too much lvl and resource to get her to a good place. If you start over from a mage, then you need to expend 600 bond fragments, a second seal, a much worse base, and 9 level ups on a base class. While she can pay off, ultimately it's not on such a lvl that she's just that much better than Pandreo or Citrinne or Ivy, the 3 mages that don't require all that (Pandreo wants second seal) and pretty much have similar killing power to Anna. She is maybe eventually the best Bolganone user in the lands, but she takes a long time to get there. She is one of the best Mage knights, but functionally a Citrinne wielding Dire Thunder or Mae Thoron on a sage is equivalent or many times flat out better than a Mage Knight (think 6 mov 2 range unit who can get counterattacked vs a 5 mov 3 range unit who can't). Mage Knight can Break with Levin Sword, but breaking is not exactly a huge edge over similar units

Zelkov is a weird case where he's a vaguely sideward upgrade over Yunaka in a class that you only realistically need 1 of per team. The problem is, he has a worse personal skill, worse speed even accounting for build, and most importantly, no Canter til like Ch 18. Yunaka has like 6-7 chs of use over Zelkov and can get Canter early. She also has the magic to potentially go Wolf Knight into a Levin Sword user that is an overlap with Merrin, who has slightly better stats and a personal that helps dodge tank very slightly better, if even.

Zelkov is tankier by a bit, but you're still not tanking more than like 3 hits with him if he's able to be hit. He IS however, a very good axe user. Most hit based personal units are tbh. But you most likely wouldn't use him over Yunaka on the role of a thief. Yunaka has the crits that come up often, the daggers having good forge efficiency, and Canter alone giving her so much more potential for nearly 1/4 of the game.

Jean is also mid. You can reclass him early during a time a lot of characters could use that, and his bases are so bad that people would rather leave him as a healer, which means he's gonna be mostly redundant. Either way, he still doesn't have enough growth to outstat the mid-game recruits

https://old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/11rpjvc/anyone_know_what_exactly_sets_off_the_chromrobin/

About to start the final chapter on my 2nd playthrough. In the meantime, have a meme:

https://i.imgur.com/S2WlUhv.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/c0lkG56.png

How to make a royal knight veronica alfred
https://old.reddit.com/r/shitpostemblem/comments/11ubijs/when_you_try_out_some_more_unconventional_builds/

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/4/1/AAPa_qAAESsV.jpg
Waiting for the DLC wave 4 how's everyone? I can't believe without online I can't download wave 3!

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/11x13yg/can_we_appreciate_how_op_dogs_are/

I haven't messed with the wave 3 dlc besides getting the emblems and using the well to get the joke weapons. I know how op the gacha game one is though, she's way overtuned and I love it.

I played Three Houses for five hours today. Going to bed in four hours but hoping to get another hour of play time in before that.

Ngl... Like 95% of FE meta discussions on Reddit are literally just false info. Also DLC really ruins a lot of the discussions' integrity.

Places like Serene's Forest have been doing meta debates on FE for decades. They've seen the same song and dance so many times. But Reddit meta discussions fall into the same trap almost deliberately. Every single pitfall available, they'll fall into it

If I have to hear "just give this character Wrath and Vantage and +5 Killer weapon and late game engrave, and they'll solo the entire game" one more fucking time I'm gonna flip. Like bitch, that's 3000 SP, Ch 18+ for Leif, and you gotta do Ike's Paralogue. You basically beat every hard ch already.

legendarylemur posted...

Ngl... Like 95% of FE meta discussions on Reddit are literally just false info. Also DLC really ruins a lot of the discussions' integrity.

That's why I don't follow much discussion that I read. I was looking up character paths for Three Houses because I forgot the path to turn Petra into an assassin and almost everyone was saying to turn everyone into a Wyvern Lord so you can roflstomp everyone in the game. That isn't even fun.

https://youtu.be/RBW4QS1d468

Alternate reality where your friends are assholes and the 4 hounds are nice. Should be fun. Playable Zephia and new classes oh yeah!

I probably wouldn't look at this unless you're at chapter 21 or so. It kinda touches on one of the big twists

Surprised all the dlc has been released so fast.

SomeLikeItHoth posted...

That's why I don't follow much discussion that I read. I was looking up character paths for Three Houses because I forgot the path to turn Petra into an assassin and almost everyone was saying to turn everyone into a Wyvern Lord so you can roflstomp everyone in the game. That isn't even fun.

Well to be fair to that particular point, Wyvern Knight/Lord was by a leap the best class in that game almost to the point where it felt like they gave the wrong statline to that class. But turning everybody into one wasn't quite right. Most physical units though would probably appreciate being able to fly and also have good stats. I think the only exception is all the special melee classes are pretty good, and a fist specialty class have their use, though it's reserved for units with comically high str over everything. 3H wasn't very well balanced is what I'm saying

Thankfully for Engage, it's viable to be almost anything and find a role on the field except like 5-6 of the classes which have no use. People still think Wyvern is the best, but I think it's mostly reserved for speedy units that want str supplements. But turning Alear into a Wyvern is probably one of the worst advices out there. They have so much advantage of being in their exclusive class. Also Wyverns can't get avo bonus from terrain, meaning they cannot be your best dodge tank.

I beat the final battle in my second playthrough, then I spent the past few days creating this absolute killing machine on that save file:

https://i.imgur.com/I8e8nE4.jpg

With this setup, Anna can sweep entire skirmishes by herself using Soren's Rexcalibur and Flare skill while also generating a bunch of free money with her personal skill. With a repeating loop of sweeping a skirmish with Anna and then going back to the Somniel and using the recreation feature to increase a pair's support levels, I can eventually unlock every support conversation in the game without having to drag underleveled characters to a skirmish. If I speed through the battles and skip the support conversations to watch them later, one loop of this takes like 10 minutes. So any time I have like 20-30 minutes to spare and don't know what to do with it, I'll grab my Switch, have Anna slaughter some Corrupted, and grind some supports.

And of course, there's the last DLC to look forward to as well.

Anna's cute as a griffin knight

legendarylemur posted...

Well to be fair to that particular point, Wyvern Knight/Lord was by a leap the best class in that game almost to the point where it felt like they gave the wrong statline to that class. But turning everybody into one wasn't quite right. Most physical units though would probably appreciate being able to fly and also have good stats. I think the only exception is all the special melee classes are pretty good, and a fist specialty class have their use, though it's reserved for units with comically high str over everything. 3H wasn't very well balanced is what I'm saying

Thankfully for Engage, it's viable to be almost anything and find a role on the field except like 5-6 of the classes which have no use. People still think Wyvern is the best, but I think it's mostly reserved for speedy units that want str supplements. But turning Alear into a Wyvern is probably one of the worst advices out there. They have so much advantage of being in their exclusive class. Also Wyverns can't get avo bonus from terrain, meaning they cannot be your best dodge tank.

Yeah everyone should be Wyvern Lord is a bit of a trap. It's absolutely the best class in the game, but making any and everyone a Wyvern Lord really isn't optimal because you lose a lot of battalion utility. But in most cases it is the best option for your best physical combat units. It's absolutely Petra's best option though. Assassin kinda sucks.

Well that's certainly a surprise DLC spoilers
Hope some of you were saving that pact ring because Nel and the Wings are marriable, guess we're keeping them and burning their world down or something.

https://i.imgur.com/YTVUkC1.jpg

Celine is basically the same character. She just says the quiet part outloud now.

I had no idea the DLC was going to be out so soon. What classes are being added?

SomeLikeItHoth posted...

I had no idea the DLC was going to be out so soon. What classes are being added?

Mage Canoneer: Armored unit that uses a giant ass cannon to shoot magic damage long distance. Has really funky hit and possibly damage formulas.

Enchanter: Knives and Punches. Has convoy access like Alear does.

And I doubt they'll be particularly available to other characters but technically the classes for Nel, Nils, and Zelestria would be new playable classes.

https://youtu.be/-1ft1H7lTj0

This game has some good music tbh

Blue_Inigo posted...

https://youtu.be/-1ft1H7lTj0

This game has some good music tbh

The trial remixes are all excellent.

I do wish they did a remix of the all time GOAT FE track, Twilight of the Gods, but Mila's Divine Protection is probably the more iconic Gaiden/SoV track, so I get it.

Man... ngl the later chapters are... pretty rough. It really does kinda feel like the last great chapter is 17. 25 comes close, and 18 isn't bad, but 17 is sorta where it's all around great. There are multiple objectives, the narrative stakes are at their peak, and they don't rely on jank ass effectively endless reinforcements. You also don't have to even complete the chapter in a specific order. Like you're not just going through a corridor or even having to split up your army.

But like 6 out of the 11 early chapters are basically pushover tutorials, 10~15 are where I think the game is most fun, 16 is fucking ass cuz fuck the water, 17 is one of the best levels in FE in general, then... like a corridor level that's meh, a miasma spam map with hard to predict warp bs, a bunch of enemy ultra barf paralogues, and then what are we even left with? 21 just forces you to bumrush the boss while you have a very plain and boring open field with 0 gimmick and avo zones. 22 is... unique but ultimately boring as an SRPG. 23 has random cannons and fucking 9 whole freeze staves... It also has infinite spawns, which really slow down the map.

I think the avg design level is still pretty high, but it's gonna suffer the same fate as Conquest. People play it like once or twice, not remembering the worst of the worst, and it'll be remembered for having great design because insane maps like 11 or 17 exist. Just like how in Conquest, ppl remember the harbor map and the pretty good early maps, not realizing the game has like 12 really bad chapters in a row and ends really badly

legendarylemur posted...

Man... ngl the later chapters are... pretty rough. It really does kinda feel like the last great chapter is 17. 25 comes close, and 18 isn't bad, but 17 is sorta where it's all around great. There are multiple objectives, the narrative stakes are at their peak, and they don't rely on jank ass effectively endless reinforcements. You also don't have to even complete the chapter in a specific order. Like you're not just going through a corridor or even having to split up your army.

But like 6 out of the 11 early chapters are basically pushover tutorials, 10~15 are where I think the game is most fun, 16 is fucking ass cuz fuck the water, 17 is one of the best levels in FE in general, then... like a corridor level that's meh, a miasma spam map with hard to predict warp bs, a bunch of enemy ultra barf paralogues, and then what are we even left with? 21 just forces you to bumrush the boss while you have a very plain and boring open field with 0 gimmick and avo zones. 22 is... unique but ultimately boring as an SRPG. 23 has random cannons and fucking 9 whole freeze staves... It also has infinite spawns, which really slow down the map.

I think the avg design level is still pretty high, but it's gonna suffer the same fate as Conquest. People play it like once or twice, not remembering the worst of the worst, and it'll be remembered for having great design because insane maps like 11 or 17 exist. Just like how in Conquest, ppl remember the harbor map and the pretty good early maps, not realizing the game has like 12 really bad chapters in a row and ends really badly

I hope those 12 really bad chapters in a row for Conquest does not include Fugas Wild Ride

It does. Fuga's chapter is honestly funny and cool in Hard mode and horrendously balanced and designed in Lunatic. I understand how the wind works via sheer trial and error. Maybe with a turnwheel, it could be a bit more bearable, but the issue is that often there will be a situation where the enemies just surround some unit that had no chance of running away from a situation cuz they have like 10 fliers and your on ground unit didn't get fudged away by the wind by dumb luck.

I know the patterns are fixed. I think unless it's expected a person just plan like 5 turns ahead, which cool if you're capable of it, but generally when you play that ch in Lunatic and don't have a juggernaut vantage type build that can solo clumps of enemies, you can fix your movement for the first 3 turns and then get screwed by some RNG that makes things more ambiguous.

Also it's stupid that you can get blown away by the wind and somehow don't fall off its extremely high heights. Pretty bs