3.5/5 ★ – RoyMaster4's review of Fire Emblem: Engage.

I've been a fan of the Fire Emblem series for a while now, but more recent titles have leaned a bit too far into the marriage/life sim aspect. Awakening and Fates have child characters that forced you to plan out pairings far in advance, and Three Houses has a whole school aspect to manage. Fates and Three Houses also had an issue in that there were multiple paths, encouraging you to play through the whole game multiple times to get the full experience. To me, this is too much to ask, and I ended up quitting both games after only one playthrough. Engage feels like a step on the path to returning to form, but at a cost. There is still a home base where you can talk to units, but it's more of a way to manage your loadout, with the social aspects tacked on. Without Three Houses' recruitment requirements, building supports with the cast seems like a wasted effort (until a late game reveal suddenly makes them important, but by that point it's too late to start working on them). In favor of providing nostalgia, the narrative takes a massive hit. Full of classic Fire Emblem tropes and featuring a protagonist who, by birthright, is basically a god to everyone he/she meets, Engage starts off not very engaging and pushes through based on blind nostalgia for the classic characters it features. Thankfully the story does turn around a bit by the end when the villains actually get some backstory, but probably too late for most people. So, with all of these issues, why is Engage a step in the right direction, and why is the score so high? Because this is probably the best Fire Emblem has played in a long time. Level design encourages creative thinking, making it more difficult to hold choke points and forces mobility when engaging with the level gimmicks. The new mechanics are also a breath of fresh air - Break makes the weapon triangle actually relevant, and the Rings make the bosses of each map actually threatening and enjoyable to take on. Overall, I enjoyed my time with Engage, despite its narrative flaws. While I don't see a future title happening without the social aspects at all, I am glad they play a diminished role and there was a greater emphasis on gameplay.