Fire Emblem series

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Been a little occupied but I just got done with chapter 15 and felt like dumping some of my impressions here since I'm having way more fun with the game than expected
-By now I like more characters than I thought I would when so many designs put me off- pre-release. There are several duds but still enough solid designs IMO
-Seth and Titania must've given the devs PTSD, they really wanted Vander to fall off and I think they even overdid it with him.
-I'm not done with the game but so far the map design blows 3ds Emblem (excluding Conquest) and Three Houses out of the water. I hope they'll use a bit more different objectives but so far its good stuff.
-Chloe is the best peg knight I've had since PoR Marcia, she levels like a monster. Meanwhile I'm desperately trying to keep Lapis usable. Swordmasters seem pretty underwhelming here, excluding Kagetsu who has ridiculous stats for some reason.
-The avatar circljerk gets grating but Alear is significantly more tolerable than Corrin.
-Supports are okay, a few forced quirks on some characters but nothing too bad IMO.
-I've heard the story being described as "bad" or a "cringefest" but so far I think its just really dull. Far down there among FE stories though.
-Marth showing up or being put on a pedestal always feels like such a "please clap" moment. I get he's the first lord but its also so obviously the only reason he gets this treatment.
-I'm blown away by how good knights are in this game. They're also obnoxious as enemies, I've never been this cautious about having mages or armor effective weaponry around.
-Thieves are really fun too and I despised using them in the GBA entries.
-Recruitments made a good first impression with Jean but the devs quickly gave up it seems. I wasn't expecting Stefan or Xavier level bullshit but too many of them just auto join. I think Jean and Jade are the only ones you actually have to talk to unless I'm forgetting someone.
I agree with most of this, except the story. I don't think its simply dull, there are some glaringly stupid plot contrivances that really try my patience
Like the fact that major castles seem to be penetrated with the ease of walking into a 7-11. It would be one thing if they would've done this asspull once, but they've done it 3 fucking times already.
Besides those issues, the story still isn't nearly as bad as Fates.
 
I agree with most of this, except the story. I don't think its simply dull, there are some glaringly stupid plot contrivances that really try my patience
Like the fact that major castles seem to be penetrated with the ease of walking into a 7-11. It would be one thing if they would've done this asspull once, but they've done it 3 fucking times already.
Besides those issues, the story still isn't nearly as bad as Fates.
At least with Firene, it's kind of justifiable; but I was kind of expecting some stiff resistance in the cathedral level, although that was actually an 5d chess move by the villains.
 
Y’know what - I’ve been liking Engage far more than I thought I would. Sure, the story’s kinda shit, and the English VA’s range from “Alright” to “Please God gouge out my ears”, but at least one of those I can blame on the retarded localizers.

Also Christ fuck the Tiki Emblem is a slog to obtain, but it giving whoever it’s equipped to bonuses to stat growth on level up seems hilariously overtuned. Granted, this is the same game that thinks “Eh, having an Equip Item that grants up to +7 Movement available basically from the start is fine”, so I’m assuming Game Balance wasn’t a concern with most of the Emblems…
 
Y’know what - I’ve been liking Engage far more than I thought I would. Sure, the story’s kinda shit, and the English VA’s range from “Alright” to “Please God gouge out my ears”, but at least one of those I can blame on the retarded localizers.

Also Christ fuck the Tiki Emblem is a slog to obtain, but it giving whoever it’s equipped to bonuses to stat growth on level up seems hilariously overtuned. Granted, this is the same game that thinks “Eh, having an Equip Item that grants up to +7 Movement available basically from the start is fine”, so I’m assuming Game Balance wasn’t a concern with most of the Emblems…
It is kind of hard to just blitz forward one mega unit after awhile and Engage only lasts a few turns. So unless you're a giga LTC autist you need to be very careful with using your Engage timing as if you use it too much you might run into a situation where you'd wish you had it earlier such as if you want to nuke the boss down. I think the game is more balanced then it looks, at least on hard difficulties.

Tiki Emblem is broken though from what I've seen and 3H one is also pretty strong. DLC is not very balanced, but it is technically optional if you're wanting the "authentic" difficulty.
 
A few tips and tricks for the early game

-The Mc's personal skill is a pure +3 in damage for units adjacent to him.
It's not (X+3) but (X)+3 so you can go from 0 damage per hit to 3 damage per hits.

-There's no drawbacks to promoting early. If you want to reclass an unit, it might be better to promote it and then reclass it to not be stucked in basic classes for a while. Like for anna you're better of going

fighter level 5-fighter level 10- promote- advanced magic class
than
fighter level 5-mage level 1- mage level 10- advanced magic class

-The auto staff heal from Celica is great for monks so they can use chain protect more so get that skill asap on them even if you don't plan on using them long term.

-Canter from Sigurd is great, getting 1000 sp should be a priority on most units




Also I tried to use Clanne and he's not that bad. He's like a filler physical unit you get in chapter 10 for a bit of investment.
He needs a second seal, some bond fragments,arena training and a decent amount of kills in chapter 9.

Does the Ai change in lunatic?
Some pattern seem exploitable.

Like in chapter 10 Ivy will not move when you engage her.

She will attack someone if she has someone in range or use freeze.

The main bad guy with the Lyn emblem also summoned the clones again just after I killed them rather than attacking.
 
Also I tried to use Clanne and he's not that bad. He's like a filler physical unit you get in chapter 10 for a bit of investment.
He needs a second seal, some bond fragments,arena training and a decent amount of kills in chapter 9.
Clanne if you're going to bother using him I think works best on mage knight in terms of investment. His magic isn't impressive sure, but I don't think his physical growths are impressive enough to make buying a second seal for him worth it. I decided to punch in some numbers and this is what happens if you promote Clanne to Hero (via second sealing) or Mage Knight at level 10.

Clanne 1.PNG
Clanne 2.PNG
So Clanne's offense is pretty much the same, but he hits res which is much better vs most things and tomes are almost always 1-2 range or 1-3 range with thunder. Sword Master is easier to get then Hero, but Sword Master Clanne has 9 strength at base which sucks ass for level 10. Everything else like Wyvern Knight just plays out the same as Hero just you trade backup for Flight, but I don't think Clanne can leverage flight well enough due to his just okay stats. Warrior gives him more strength, but his bulk is even worse and he's stuck on axes for 1 range which gimps his speed.

Level 10's differences for Hero are very marginal at 1 str/spd vs Mage Knight's mag/spd but that I don't believe is enough to off set hitting def or using heavier 1-2 range options then tomes and losing access to Thunder (especially if you want to save scum for an S rank Olwen ring for Dire Thunder). Def/res wise it is 13/10 vs 12/17 favoring Mage Knight for overall bulk. I also think you can find so many better physical units then him without any investment, and he fits nicely with Levin Swords without any investment to break axes while still doing damage. He is a perfectly serviceable early-early midgame cav mage who can use levin swords well and he hits res in the early chapters. You can also make him Sage and let him use staves in a game where staves are quite powerful.

tl;dr: I think you should just keep Clanne a mage with maybe a sword on him to hit through mages, he doesn't gain enough via second sealing him and short term wise he's worse because most enemies have far less res then def. I think it's only worth changing him if you level him a lot to try and widen the gap between his strength and magic growths.
 
Started Engage tonight, holy fuck its rough. Animations are stiff and the dialogue is bland. So far the only redeeming quality is that maddening is fun. Can't believe people on the FE sub think this game is better than 3H, its not even close.

Oh also, the character designs suck and make me miss GBA emblem designs.
I personally think right now Engage is better than 3H, 3H burnt me out trying to see the entire story and the gameplay just isn't good enough to make it worth it when you have to repeat so many of the same trash maps.

3 houses is an above average-ish story that is 3-4 playthroughs (depending on how valuable you think Silver Snow is) long in a very bleh game with trash ass maps and far too much time wasting bullshit. The game is either frustrating or boring depending on what difficulty to play. The monastery is fine one time, not four times.

Engage is a pretty good game with not total dogshit maps with a story that takes one playthrough to see to completion and I can just skip it when I don't want to deal with it unlike the game itself in 3 houses. The floating island in Engage isn't quite as annoying or time wasting unless you really want to min max grab every single bit of food on the floor and do all the silly mini games for very marginal rewards, and even then I'd say it takes less time then the majority of the monastery. Fishing in 3 houses took forever and you could use it to get stat boosters which made it more relevant then anything I've seen in Engage's minigames

As a pure video game I would say Engage is better then 3 houses and it isn't even close. Engage is pretty much Conquest Fates, you play the story once to laugh at it and then you just play the video game from then on.
 
If you reclass him at level 1, he's slightly better because you can use the class bases(it works like 3H) and growths

He's pretty much worse than most of the cast but I feel like he's usable unlike Vander who might be unusable mid/late game.
Mine is pretty blessed and I think I used a dragoshield and energy ring on him. (promoted him at level 11/12 if I remember correctly)
07-53-42-2023013007493200-C71F2BA23713B0380A896115D1AD4717.jpg
 
If you reclass him at level 1, he's slightly better because you can use the class bases(it works like 3H) and growths

He's pretty much worse than most of the cast but I feel like he's usable unlike Vander who might be unusable mid/late game.
Mine is pretty blessed and I think I used a dragoshield and energy ring on him. (promoted him at level 11/12 if I remember correctly)
View attachment 4369196
I think if you wait that long to use him he'll just far too far behind SP wise to do anything very impactful when the prepromotes come in unless you coddle him super hard, and that's the biggest strength he and most the early cast has is they can have cantor earlier then those later units among other things like build 3/4 or avoid if you want dodge tank memes.

I think he's contributes more then a handful of characters in the first 6 or so chapters as hitting res is useful in the early chapters. I'd say he has the third or fourth best offense after Louis, Chloe, and maybe Vander in those early chapters just because he hits res and has 1-2 range unlike Etie.

That looks pretty blessed strength wise unless you used the energy drop as by my calculator he should be more around 12-13 str at that level range if you second sealed him into a physical class early. If I were to spend stat boosters for a physical unit I'd use them on Chloe personally or maybe Alear. My Clanne only used a spirit dust and has okay magic offense with just a master seal at 11/19 at level 7 (promoted at level 10) and he's mag screwed. Mine's speed is misleading on player phase because Chaos Style from Mage Knight adds +3 speed if you hit a physical unit with magic or vice versa, so he has 22 speed on player phase vs most enemies he wants to fight so he tends to double most things on hard in my run.
Clanne's just fine really, he's pretty middle of the pack for the early roster. He doesn't have Jean's awful bases, Boucheron's shitty strength, or Etie's gimped speed. Compared to Celine, Clanne will likely get better speed and bulk, while Celine has higher strength and exclusive access to Ignis if you want to deal with damage procs. He has a useful niche and he gets cantor if you want him to have it while having Cav movement.

I've seen far worse early mages (RD Ilyana is actually useless for example besides being a bank for a Greil Mercs). His personal is also kind of okay in the early game as early misses tend to mess you up and he gives it to himself and Alear.
 
I actually enjoyed the monastery in 3H. The downtime between battles was enjoyable for me. I never found the maps unenjoyable, and I liked that there were a few that I personally hadn't seen anything like. My example being the canyon where you fight the giant beasts for the first time. Engage cutting all of that out in favor of trash characters and so far a lame plot really lowers its value in my eyes. If I had paid for this Id feel ripped off because this is a subpar product. Also comparing Engage to Fates is actually hilariously fitting. I didn't have much fun with Fates as a whole, and I likely won't ever go back to 3DS emblem outside of SoV.
 
I'd be curious to hear who you guy's MVPs right now are? For me its Yunaka, Merrin and Panette bar none:

Yunaka is S-Tier for the Pass skill alone + her absurd dodge tanking ability
Merrin is also an excellent dodge tank, but can actually put out some significant damage. She's an absolute monster paired with Alacrity and Speedtaker. Wolf Knight might easily be my favorite new class.
As for Panette, her raw damage is so goddamn high she can kill most things with a baby axe. Plus her high HP pool paired with all those skills that give her crit chance for every point of lost health makes her an absolute wrecking ball. I never thought in a million years IS would make an Axe user that's not absolute shit.
Louis was an easy MVP in early game, but his role has significantly diminished Mid/Late game due to his lack of mobility, terrible speed and chain happy enemies.
 
my example being the canyon where you fight the giant beasts for the first time.
That chapter is pretty mediocre imo.

Byleth is stuck and isolated but can just move a few turns to join the party and not face any monster.
And then the monsters are pretty weak and uninteresting.


Imo peak 3H maps are the reunion ones (if you're ultra agressive and use gambits cleverly) and the pre timeskip monastery defense/attack.
But overall the map quality is lower than engage and fates (conquest)
 
I actually enjoyed the monastery in 3H. The downtime between battles was enjoyable for me. I never found the maps unenjoyable, and I liked that there were a few that I personally hadn't seen anything like. My example being the canyon where you fight the giant beasts for the first time. Engage cutting all of that out in favor of trash characters and so far a lame plot really lowers its value in my eyes. If I had paid for this Id feel ripped off because this is a subpar product. Also comparing Engage to Fates is actually hilariously fitting. I didn't have much fun with Fates as a whole, and I likely won't ever go back to 3DS emblem outside of SoV.
I found the Monastery got tiring after my second playthrough and it just wasn't fun (especially once I started to check out of the story so the dialogue meant progressively less to me), and you have to mess with it a lot especially early on which made repeated playthroughs a chore.

The biggest problem for me with 3H's maps is that the very easy access to warp and stride make it easy for even casual players to storm the maps and rush the boss in a game with a lot of kill boss objectives and kill boss is a really abusable objective when most bosses aren't threatening and can get destroyed with ease. Save for the monster enemies blitzing down the bosses is pretty easy to do. This isn't even talking about the dancer battalions. I'm by no means an LTC'er and I stormed most the maps really fast with mount spam + utility mages for warp/physic.

Hard was a total joke too, like even easier then HHM from FE7 easy imo so if I wanted a challenge I had to deal with the sloggy Maddening early game that I just didn't find fun to deal with pass bandits, poison strike spam archers, ambush spawns from Sylvain's brother's chapter, and sketchy hit rates for the first handful of hours unless you spam combat arts. Conquest or even Radiant Dawn didn't make me hate the early game this much because they had early prepromotes to make it more bearable (especially if you went female Corrin for Paladin Jakob).

I haven't gotten that with Engage so far, but we'll see how it holds up as I already want to try a different playthrough with better foresight of how the game develops and what all the Emblems bring to the table. I think my biggest complaint right now is the bond rings are kind of a scam if you don't do the save exploit to make the whole mechanic feel like it is worth it.

I'd be curious to hear who you guy's MVPs right now are? For me its Yunaka, Merrin and Panette bar none:

Yunaka is S-Tier for the Pass skill alone + her absurd dodge tanking ability
Merrin is also an excellent dodge tank, but can actually put out some significant damage. She's an absolute monster paired with Alacrity and Speedtaker. Wolf Knight might easily be my favorite new class.
As for Panette, her raw damage is so goddamn high she can kill most things with a baby axe. Plus her high HP pool paired with all those skills that give her crit chance for every point of lost health makes her an absolute wrecking ball. I never thought in a million years IS would make an Axe user that's not absolute shit.
Louis was an easy MVP in early game, but his role has significantly diminished Mid/Late game due to his lack of mobility, terrible speed and chain happy enemies.
I chose not to lean into Yunaka super hard because she doesn't work as well on Maddening due to inflated stats making her tink and the AI avoids 0% hit rates so her dodge tank memeing isn't that consistent. She was okay but nothing fantastic, knifes are neat but I don't think any of the base knife users have the strength stats to make them worth it long term. +3 iron is cheap though and a worthwhile investment to make the early game easier and faster, but +5 silver feels too expensive for what you'll get.

She helped with bosses due to poison and she was a nice replacement with reasonable 1-2 range. Zelkov also kind of does her same job when he shows up unless you really abuse the first 9 chapters to make Yunaka stand out and Zelkov is free. Tiddy Zelkov/10

Merrin is fine, she's filler and free pretty much. Nothing amazing, but she'll do stuff when you first get her. Wolf Knight feels like a class you need to experiment with other higher strength characters to stand out as the base users don't quite have the stuff for it. Woof/5

Panette I'm trying to actually use because I can see the potential she has, but I'm not very happy with her low BLD and okay SPD when she uses axes, she feels like she needs Ike's bulk enabling to be truly amazing because otherwise she just single hits someone for a good bunch of damage unless she crits as opposed to killing them and she doesn't quite have the bulk to make me feel safe throwing her to crit a bunch of people. Her join chapter also had a good handful of swords so I couldn't use her as freely as I'd like. She is still a free unit and is probably better then someone I was using earlier so I'm fine with her. Needs Ike/10

For me it is Chloe and Diamant as my biggest play makers. Chloe is Florina with better starting bulk, you slam all your stat boosters on her and she snowballs while Louis backs her up and becomes your first real Wyvern. Early fliers always have potential in Fire Emblem. Diamant is a fucking beast who does just about everything, great bases when he joins, good class skill, throws hand axe good. Louis I had a feeling would fall off without Sigurd and I was right so I've pretty much benched him now but obviously he was good for the early game.
 
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