5/5 ★ – DrFabs's review of Fire Emblem: Engage.

Fire Emblem Engage seems to have been designed as a direct response to Three Houses, and I mean that in the best way possible. Gone are the open sandbox maps and unit design, you can’t brute force your way through this game with 10 wyvern riders and some warp shenanigans in this game. Maps are meticulously designed, clever reinforcements and enemies that keep up with the party make turtling impossible on harder difficulties. Unit types are balanced, gone are the days where an optimal army comp was all mounted units, you actively benefit from having multiple types of units. Resurrection stones make bosses threatening. Skill emblem is still present but much more manageable as you can only ever permanently inherit 2 skills, this forces you to be very particular with the skills you choose (a fact amplified by the admittedly terrible SP growth). My favorite fact is that they are finally designing around the turn wheel, the chapter 20 entrap staff bishop was an incredible and surprising moment. The story is definitely this games weakpoint, especially coming from 3 houses. But a focused non branching narrative is refreshing and gave the devs more leeway to focus on map design, which was three houses weak-point. Plus as a franchise fire emblem hasn’t consistently told incredible stories so long time fans shouldn’t be too bothered by this games weaker story especially with how incredible the gameplay is All in all engage has the series’ best gameplay bar none. You have so many tools to approach the challenges of the game. People who were introduced to the franchise by three houses might have a difficult time adjusting to this games shift away from emphasis on character interaction and weaker story. But if they push through that they’ll find a deeply rewarding gameplay experience that puts a capstone on the franchises 33 year history.